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NY Tries to Heist Obama

It’s not enough that Barack Obama is the nation’s first black president. It’s not enough that he’s the first president since JFK with urban roots. It’s not enough that he is the first to be from a northern state since Gerry Ford. That’s not enough for New York. Typically, the Big Apple demands more. And New York Magazine had the audacity to declare among its “Reasons to Love New York 2008” article that “Obama Is One of Us, Despite All That Business About Chicago.”

Barack Obama, on the other hand, deliberately chose New York as a young man, transferring his junior year from Occidental College to Columbia, and all one has to do is crack the binding of Dreams From My Father to appreciate the authenticity of his experience. It’s all right there in chapter one, paragraph one, sentence four. “The apartment was small,” he writes, “with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer downstairs that didn’t work, so that visitors had to call ahead from a pay phone at the corner gas station, where a black Doberman the size of a wolf paced through the night in vigilant patrol, its jaws clamped around an empty beer bottle.” Before readers have even turned the page, he’s mentioned his stoop, his fire escape, and the Knicks.

Great. Sounds like a wonderful formative “authentic” experience. The article goes on to point out all the NYers who will be in Obama’s cabinet, including Park Forest’s and Little Rock’s own Hillary Clinton.

Sorry, you mugs. Your native son Rudy ran for president, and if not for a few strategic gaffes (like not running in any crummy little states like Iowa and NH) might have brought his “authentic” style of integrity and personal magnetism to the White House.

This is just another instance of NY parochialism, which I’ve found is as strong there as it is in small town Wisconsin. NYers find it hard to believe that any worthy person would choose to live anywhere but The City So Nice They Named It Twice (In Case The First Plaque Gets Lifted). A John Updike quote I use most often comes from one of my favorite satires, Bech is Back: Being a New Yorker, “She assumed everyone who lived west of the Hudson was kind of kidding.”

Tough rugelach, NYers. Obama is ours, for better and for worse. The South Side is the new Kennebunkport, the White Sox are now the Nation’s Team, and we can all put away our Louis L’Amour books and break out the Saul Bellow.

No, wait, Bellow cut out of here at the end of his career to get stroked in Boston. Bleep him. Start reading Nelson Algren and Alexsandr Hemon.

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Here’s My Latest Radio Essay

Boy, remember a week ago when the big news was that the city was going to lease out our parking meters? Seems like a long time ago, now that Governor “Crazy Rod” Blagojevich (“I’ll sell anything! My prices are so high, I must be bleeping INSANE!!!!!”) has focused the world’s attention on us.

Well, anyway, back in those carefree days, I wrote a little essay on leasing out all the properties in the city. This morning WBEZ broadcast it on the “848” program, and you can listen to it by clicking below.

[audio:http://www.jamesfinngarner.com/audio/City that Leases.mp3]

After which, you can return to the scandal of the day.

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“Cubbie Blues” Book Release Party

A few months ago I participated in a Wrigleyville reading series called the Lovable Losers Literary Review, which attempted to wrest the mantle of literate baseball despair from the shoulders of Red Sox fans and bestow it squarely on Cubbie diehards. Did we succeed? You’ll be able to see for yourself, at the book release party for the anthology compiled from those readings, Cubbie Blues: 100 Years of Waiting Til Next Year.

(As you can see, cover artist Margie Lawrence included pictures of the contributors in the bleacher crowd scene. That’s me in the middle of the front row, with the newsie’s cap and starched collar. It’s my first time ever caricatured in a fake crowd scene, something that’s been my dream since my first glimpse of the “Sgt. Pepper” album. And Margie chose the right era for me as well. There’s always a bottle of cheap bourbon sitting on my spartan desk, and I recently had my laptop altered to look like an old Remington typewriter.)

Sunday night, Dec. 14 from 7-10, come down to Sheffield’s and meet some of the contributors, including myself, Stu Shea, Jonathan Eig, Don DeGrazia, Sara Paretsky, and many others. We’ll be signing books and reveling in holiday spirits besides. A portion of the proceeds of the book are being donated to Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities and their One Step At A Time Camp. It really is a nice anthology–literate, wonderfully written, heartfelt and fun. It’s worth the price just to read Kogan’s toast at the beginning of the book on how baseball gets into a young fan’s blood. For more on the event, check out the article in yesterday’s Sun-Times.

Aside from live events, copies are only available online, so if you can’t make it out in person, click over to Can’t Miss Press to order yours.

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The Curse(s) of Patty Blagojevich?

Could Mrs. Blago be yet another in the long line of supernatural reasons the Cubs will never win the World Series?

During the call, Rod Blagojevich’s wife can be heard in the background telling Rod Blagojevich to tell Deputy Governor A ‘to hold up that fucking Cubs shit … fuck them'”

Is this an Evil Eye? A Harridan Hex? A Wifely Whammy?

On the other hand, maybe she and Lee Elia can get together and record some party records.

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Yes, Virginia, There is a Patrick Fitzgerald

Some arresting television this morning, as Governor Blago is nabbed outside his house by the FBI. In one of those moments that will stick in my head forever, like John Lennon’s killing and the first OJ verdict, I found myself in line at the Ravenswood Post Office buying Christmas stamps–the ones with the little nutcrackers on them–when I heard the news on the radio. Since then, I’ve had to pull myself away from the TV a couple of times, just so I don’t veg out enjoying the spectacle of a complete ass being hauled off by the feds for making a complete ass of himself ON TAPE, within the past six weeks, about trying to leverage the vacant Senate seat for his own gain.

It’s a present the whole state can enjoy.

At first I thought, “It’s about time!” This “reform” governor has been about nothing but money and his own future since he unpacked his bags in Springfield. But maybe this is just about the right moment. If it had happened any earlier, his sleaze and stupid hubris would’ve reflected badly on Barack Obama and maybe cost him the election. Any later, and the douchebag would’ve already appointed our new senator (or appointed himself) and we’d be stuck with that stain for who knows how long?

Will this shitstorm in any way effect Obama? Hard to say right now. The TV talking heads were saying this morning that Blago reached out to Rahm Emmanuel for a lifeline, but was cut off. Then US Attorney Fitzgerald decided to haul Blago in before he could do anything stupider than he’s already done. Which, if his past record of bonehead brazen moves is any indication, would have been a doozy.

And all this legal action is related only to his appointment of a new senator, as well as pressuring the Tribune to quit being so mean to him in print. It has nothing to do with all the years of investigations about everyday pay-to-play corruption that Fitzgerald’s been conducting. Astounding! Evil! Audacious!

With the thickness of that head and skin, and the brassiness of his balls, there HAS to be a way to turn his “gifts” for the forces of goodness and not evil. If life were like a Marvel comic, he’d be the stupid weightlifter type who joins the Avengers, then sells out to the Masters of Evil, then back again, and again…..

But this is the real world, and this monkey’s going to Disneyland. He shore has a purty mouth.

The Fitzgerald press conference is just starting! Gotta go pop the popcorn!

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Out at the Christmas Tree Lot

Last night in Chicago it was about 15 degrees, with a bitter, brittle cold that usually looks best through a picture window. But I was outside gettin’ my “ho-ho-ho” on, selling wreaths and Christmas trees at the local parish. The parish I don’t even belong to, though Number One Son still goes to school there. And I had so much fun, I’m going to go back a couple more times this season and do it again.

Why do I enjoy it so much, standing around in the cold and slipping on black ice? Don’t know. You can read what I wrote about the occasion for the Chicago Tribune last year. I still like this essay a lot, though it might be a little pat. People I know around the school liked it immensely when it was printed. It provided a nice balm after a clutch of deaths among parents of school-age kids last December. I was flattered when it was copied and posted and distributed around school.

(Two months later, unfortunately, all the camaraderie around the place was blasted away, as a group of parents tried to get a teacher fired, pitting neighbors against neighbors and long-time friends against friends. The demonstration of the dark side of parish life doesn’t invalidate the sentiments I wrote about in the Trib piece, but it goes to show that our human relationships are fragile things, and our motivations to pitch shit at each other can be switched all the way to 11 very quickly.)

Still unanswered is the question of why I like selling the trees. For one thing, your customers are always more happy than those who are shopping for caskets or colostomy bags. For another, it’s fun to joke around with strangers and wish them a sincere Merry Christmas. I’m a big enough grump the rest of the year that my sanity and physical health benefit from it. The school dads (inevitably with much younger kids than mine) are fun to BS with, about football and travel and families. Speakers blare out a weird mix of Christmas music from WLIT-FM, the all-yule channel, and in a kitschy way I enjoy the brandy-soaked voice of the female DJ who dispenses greeting-card advice to listeners about how to stay centered on important things during the holiday and not get in a fight with your parents again for never believing in your dreams as you limp into late middle age.

And ultimately, it’s nice to have an excuse to be out in the winter evening, the expansiveness of which (even stuck along the side of traffic-choked Western Avenue) evokes more mystery than my imagination will ever be able to exhaust.

I hope you all have fun decorating your houses this weekend. And remember the guys hanging around the tree lots. Those of us who don’t do it to make a living are having a good time.

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Ryan Dempster Drinks the Kool-Aid

Ryan Dempster signed a four-year, $52 million contract with the Cubs on Tuesday, even though he probably could’ve gotten a lot more money on the free agent market. His line of thinking, according to the Tribune:

His love of Chicago — and the Cubs chances of winning a world championship [emphasis added] — factored into the decision, and Dempster didn’t want to wait and see if he could make more money elsewhere.

“Given as close as we’ve been the last two years, I thought, ‘This is where I want to be,’ ” he said.

Actually, despite his obvious mental handicap, I think the world of Ryan Dempster. How could you help but love a pitcher who bikes to work, barbecues with his neighbors a half-mile from the stadium, and practices magic tricks for fun? He couldn’t be any more authentic if he moved into the Hotel Carlos.

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Garage Sale

Some few, last, rambling observations on the Cubs and White Sox:

–It remains a mystery to me why the Cubs had a Greek Orthodox priest sprinkle the dugout with holy water before the playoff series. Was it because the Billy Goat curse was laid on the team by a Greek tavern owner, Sam Sianis? Were they chosen in a round robin, like having different clerics open council meetings with prayer? My good friend U-Boat, the West Coast’s go-to atheist, suggested that

Wouldn’t it be funny if, after years of systematically sprinkling holy something-or-others from all the world’s great religions, some really obscure religion turned it around for the Cubs?

Jainists Claim World Series for Cubs!

Or, they could just swing the bats once in a while…

U-Boat doesn’t want to entertain the idea that, if the Cubs do eventually win it, the sprinkling denomination will have bragging rights, if not complete legitimization as the one true voice of the Almighty. Great PR.

–Speaking of things spiritual, it occurred to me that this year’s White Sox team may have gotten where they are by selling their souls to the devil. However, the devil repackaged those deeds and sold them on the secondary market, where they’ve infected the balance sheets of many large lenders. The Sox, meanwhile, are left with no championship and a mighty tenuous story come judgment day.

–I loved the effect of the Sox blackout. Let’s hope the fans aren’t asked to overdo it and wear all black, say, in a Cubs midseason series. Much more effective to keep it in reserve for post-season play. Not that marketing depts. have much use for showing any reserve.

–it was good to see some young kids in attendance at both Comiskey Park and Tropicana Field, because marketers tell us that kids have lots more disposable income these days, so their spending decisions could have importance for the teams’ futures. Quite a different picture than I saw at the closing game at Yankee Stadium. Who’s going to waste their $500 ticket on a kid when they have to bring a client? The television cameras found one or two kids at the end and lingered over them as if they were the witnesses to the end of an era, when really they just wanted to go home and go to bed.

–As far-fetched as it might’ve been, I was really pulling for a Subway Series here in Chicago. The stories of carnage and mayhem, of families and marriages ripped apart, of class warfare and new lifelong hatreds, would’ve made for wonderful reading. New York has had a number of crosstown series, and the Giants and A’s played one back in 1989. Maybe one will happen during my lifetime.

–One trouble with TIVOing the games and zipping through them later is not being able to listen to the regular radio announcers call the game. They are infinitely more knowledgeable than the national broadcasters (well, three out of four are, while Santo grunts like a caveman). One friend of mine will only watch Bears games with the sound off while listening to the play-by-play announcers, which I think is a fine idea.

–One good point about the Cubs losing is that they retain their loveability. That’s one thing the Red Sox lost when they finally won the World Series, as Boston native Pat Borelli explains in today’s Tribune.

And if John Cheever really believed “All men of letters are Red Sox fans,” then it’s one more good reason to stay away from New England in the winter. They drink too much up there, apparently.

–And Alphonso Soriano (zip for bupkus in the last two post-season series) weighs in with an opinion that no one wants to hear, as it comes from him:

“We’re a very good team for [162] games, but we don’t do nothing after that,” he said. “That’s the difference. We’re not put together for [a short series].”

Boy, that must be the secret of baseball, right? Ignore most of the season and build a team that can win in a short series.

That only works for basketball, Fonzie.

Oh, BTW, you suck.

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These Die-Hards Would Make Bruce Willis Puke

So Ryan Dempster got a case of the jumps last night and couldn’t keep the ball anywhere near the strike zone, and the Cubs lost to the Dodgers. Hey, it happens. That’s why it’s called a sport. It was a lackluster showing, but the Cubs have too much talent to go quietly (knock wood). I’m looking forward to Dempster pitching again and kicking ass (don’t ask me about Ted Lilly).

But what pissed me off so much more than the loss was watching the po-faced Cub fans in the stands. My gosh, people, you were a disgrace! Watching it on TV was like watching a class in macroeconomics–I expect more catcalling at tonight’s veep debate!

In the fourth, when Dempster was getting behind the batters, you all got on your feet, but did any of you cheer your support? No, you held your breath and crossed your fingers like a bunch of third graders! Don’t you think Dempster would’ve like a little encouragement? He had Manny Ramirez down 0-2, and none of you made a peep! And don’t say it was because the network didn’t have enough mikes on the crowd. We could see you behind home plate, with worried looks on your faces, waiting for yet another smack in the face from Destiny.

Do you think the Sox fans would have been so quiet? Do you? They made a hell of a lot of noise during their do-or-die games this week, screaming and waving those black towels. They WANT the Sox to win. They don’t feel like the Sox OWE them anything except to play their best and give them a few thrills.

You Cub fans looked like a bunch of ninnies, like kids praying for Santa but worried he’s going to come home drunk again and start peeing on the Christmas tree. You were a disgrace to the city. A spineless, superstitious, crybaby disgrace.

The next time someone brings out the old cliche that fans on the South Side are more knowledgeable about baseball, and that North Siders just want a good time at the park, I’m going to point to last night’s game and agree wholeheartedly.

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What Did You Have in Your Neighborhood This Weekend?

We had a circus. Nyah nyah.

The Midnight Circus is one of Chicago’s cultural gems, a gritty little troupe with sass and skill and a very light heart. And they practice less than two blocks from me. The leaders of the troupe live around the corner. I always find myself peeking in their window to see if they’re doing anything cool, like hanging off the chandelier, but they seem mostly to be watching TV when I’m out walking the dog. Odd, yet mysterious.

Here’s a few of the pics I clicked:

Grand Spec
null
Gotta hurt!
For some reason, they call themselves The Flash.
Nihilist acrobat from Latvia
Playing
Lovely Aerialist
Contortionist

It’s hard to see, but in the last picture, the contortionist has gotten himself stuck in a stringless tennis racket, but he eventually puts his whole body through it. You can see part of the racket, the red object by his crotch.

It doesn’t get any better than a circus in your neighborhood park.

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Psalm for the Cubs

If you missed last night’s Loveable Losers Literary Revue, well, you missed it. Missed out on a lot of fun and Cub commiseration and wonderful singing and terrific artwork. I got to see some old writer friends and meet Tim Souers of the daily sketch-blog Cubby-Blue, whom I’d only met over the internet. I also got to listen to Rick Kogan in person reading from his tavern book, an experience that’s very close to an aural 30-year single malt.

Donald Evans, empressario of said salon, is planning an anthology of some of the pieces read through the summer, plus a few by ringers like Sara Paretsky. It will be published within 6 weeks, we hope, and a portion of it will go to Cubs Care Charities. My two pieces from last night, “Three Fates and Yer Out” and “The Wrigleyville Monkey Paw,” will be included in the collection, which as a result rises from “Curiosity” to “Must Have.” I also closed out the show last night with a prayer, something with which all Cubs fans of every religious pinstripe are very familiar.

Psalm for the Cubs

Sweet Lou is my shepherd, I shall not want to root for the Sox, or tune in to the Bears, just yet.

He maketh my team lie down in front of the Reds, he leadeth me along the still bats, but that’s OK.
He restoreth the franchise, yet in the meantime leadeth me down paths of anxiety, paranoia, dispepsia, agita and dread, all for the team’s sake. For this am I ever grateful, because by this point I’m certainly used to it.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 100 years of suckitude, I will fear no team, for Lou is with me, as long as he doesn’t try and drive me all the way to Cincinnati. The rods of his batters, they comfort me, his pitching staff—ehhh, not so much.

Lou prepares a postseason banquet in the presence of mine enemies, laden with Wisconsin bratwurst and fried brain sandwiches and Philly cheesesteaks and Arizona Iced Tea. He will anoint the heads of my team with champagne, may their cups runneth over (but please let them not over-runneth second base).

Surely titles and pennants and World Series rings will follow me all the days of my life, and my team will no longer dwell in the basement of the National League forever. Right.

Feel free to pass this along to any Die-hard in the coming weeks of ups and downs, after all their nails are chewed off and before they start on the bottle.

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Come Out For a Reading Tonight

Well, THAT was a fun couple of weeks! Scraping the hard drive, reinstalling backups, getting the same errors, stumping the guy at the repair shop, scraping the hard drive again, backup, backup, backup…..

I just get the sinking feeling that payback will eventually come for all the productivity computers have given us. The amount of time saved now will be wasted either in reboots and tech support stasis, or in life spans shortened by aggravation and high blood pressure. On the plus side, I filed all my utility bills and finished the Sunday crossword. Seven times over.

So here in the Mezzanine Level (my fancy word for basement office), after weeks of hanging out on the lake in Michigan, we’re trying to get back on track with the whole big city thing. This year has been tougher than others, for some reason, prompting images of retreating to the wilds, starting a winery (and selling honey by the roadside!!) and giving the Windy City a flip of the finger. One contributing factor to this mood might have been the fact that some crackhead kicked in our back door a few weeks ago and rummaged around the place a little bit. That’s always a nice homecoming, even though my brother-in-law actually discovered the break-in. (Here’s a hint for homeowners: hide your valuables in your teenage son’s room. Most crooks won’t have the stomach to venture in.)

This mood will probably pass. These transitions happen every year, getting used to the noise and the crowds and the inches that often pass between your body and a moving SUV on the sidewalk. We’ll tough it out, I suppose, and soon I’ll get all excited about nice dinners at little out-of-the-way places and all that stuff. Or have I squeezed all the enjoyment out of this city that I can? Time will tell.

So, one thing that Chicago provides that smaller towns don’t is good reading series, in bars that serve good food. Monday night’s event might be the thing to get me in the Chicago groove again. That and beer. Lovely, lovely beer.

The Loveable Losers Literary Revue has been meeting monthly since April in this, the 100th anniversary of the Cubs’ last World Series triumph. Held in the side room of El Jardin (at Clark and Buckingham) and hosted by Donald Evans, this series has hosted many great writers expounding on the Cubs’ wretched existence in these ten decades.

On Monday, May 8, the evening’s theme will be “Curses.” I’ll be reading a new story and poem, and will be joined onstage by the Tribune’s Rick Kogan, WXRT’s Lyn Brehmer, whiz kid Stu Shea, poet Sid Yiddish, and many others. There will be songs, trivia contests, giveaways, and Ouija board readings. So saddle up the goat and head on down. It’ll be a lot of fun. For more information about the series, check out their website: http://www.lovablelosersliteraryrevue.com/home-base/

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“Adventures of a Comic Book Artist”

The spring operetta at St. James School has come and gone, and if you missed it, you’re probably kicking yourself just like you did when Steppenwolf was practically begging you to come see “August: Osage County” when it first opened and you were too busy to bother. The operetta didn’t get nominated for a Tony, an Obie, a Jeff, an Off-Jeff, a Wedgie, or a Shmegege, but that’s fine because those are all about “who you know.” But this operetta will be remembered as the swansong for Liesel in her starring roles there, and for me in building the sets.

Liesel will be changing schools next year so that she’ll be able to count her classmates on more than one hand. She’s not too happy about it, since she’s been there since she was three, but she’s going into the fifth grade, and it’s a good time to make a change. One of the carrots we held out for her was that her new school does a student musical every spring, because such events are the highlight of her year. The competition for roles, of course, will be a little tougher, but she’s pretty good and is bound to get better. In “Adventures of a Comic Book Artist,” she played the hero Blossom, who has a magic flower that can put villains to sleep. Kind of a benevolent Poison Ivy. I took the picture below with the last little bit of charge on my camera. I’m very mad that I didn’t get one of her alone in front of my kinetic backdrop.

This year, I did for the sets what I do every year, mainly paint dropcloths from Home Depot to serve as backdrop curtains. One was a view of Times Square, the other was a smattering of comic book onomatopoeias, which I was pretty proud of. I also had to create the headquarters of Wonder Comics, whose slogan of course is “If it’s a GOOD comic, it’s a WONDER.” I don’t know if anyone got the joke, but that one was for the boys in the back room. I probably spent 30 hours or so on the sets, maybe more, but I just love doing them. The kids can get so excited when they show up for rehearsal and the stage has taken one more step toward the look of a real show. Last year I got to make a lot of oversized food for a “Jack and the Beanstalk” type story, which was even more fun. I kept the cheeseburger I made (picture here). It sits in our TV room, which is turning into a sort of Batcave displaying artifacts and mementos from the kids’ various stage productions from church and school.


It will be sad to leave a school into which we’ve poured so much time, energy and money, but many of the resources that first attracted us are no longer there, and we couldn’t bear the idea of Liesel staying with the same five kids all the way through eighth grade, then enrolling her in a school with 300 freshmen. Plus, overarching concerns like the lack of a school board, a domineering pastor and an ineffectual principal will not be changed anytime soon. (The place also had a recent exodus of 4 teachers, which will add to chaos next year.) This operetta will be our send-off, but it was a terrific show with lots of energy and talent. And all the best shows eventually come to an end.

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Scenes from QofA Comedy Night

My five regular readers (hey, let’s do poker soon!) may have noticed the lack of posts for the past couple weeks. Or not. Be honest, I can take it. This time of year always gets busy with end-of-school-year events and activities. It’s easy to volunteer my time to projects when asked in January, when it’s freezing outside and the four walls are closing in, but another thing to balance writing, work and play in early May. That being said, I’ll also say that I really enjoy doing the projects I’ve volunteered for, regardless of me bitching about my schedule.

Last Friday night was the sixth annual Queen of Angels Comedy Night, a benefit to help the Technology Committee buy new computer equipment so my son can try not to look at inappropriate websites when he’s in the lab. Last year I helped out with a comedy sketch, which showed how Harry Caray would’ve called a baseball game if all performance enhancers were legalized (poorly, it turns out). It was fun, but the evening went on almost four hours, as the directors (there’s your first mistake, plural “directors”) tried to cram every type of act–parishioner talent, five pro stand-ups, and the house band–into the show. This year we streamlined things, kept a tight rein on the length of acts, and had the band play at the opening and closing instead of between every act. This elementary lesson in show pacing paid off well. Everyone has said it was the best show ever.

Our host was Leo Ford, an affable man about town, actor, and former improviser (Blue Velveeta, anyone?), who delivered a monologue about growing up Catholic in Janesville, WI, and described a nun who reminded him of Harry Dean Stanton. In the first half, Will Casey and his wife Catherine performed a droll little skit I wrote called “Robo-Nun 3000,” and to pad things out, I read one of my PC Bedtime Stories.

The professional talent we scouted and booked were nothing short of sensational. Nick Paul is a very funny man who mixes magic with a deadpan that was just killer. He also showed himself to be a big professional when we asked him to do a second act after intermission when one of our standups called to say “Friday??? I thought it was Monday!” Check out his website Magic of Nick for clips and other information.

Our standup for the evening was Sean Flannery, who absolutely killed in his 20-plus minutes. He could’ve lost the room because of some of the drunks in the back who think that any performance is a free-for-all, or that standups are really looking for a conversation when they say, “Anybody here from out of town?” He had the crowd up and down with him the whole time, and had hilarious material. We found him emceeing at Chicago Underground Comedy, and booked him immediately. Check out his stuff at WorldsDumbestMan.com.

But the biggest hit was probably $$The Money Kids$$, two young ladies who will do basically anything to make themselves laugh. These two are definitely going places. Their skits included a slumber party where the girls are making out with their stuffed animals, a couple of power-walking yuppies trying to work through bouts of narcolepsy, dancing to the “Doogie Howser MD” theme song, and a “Sex in the City” blackout that broke the “dildo right up inside you” barrier in the parish. (Thankfully, they were so funny, and the line went by so fast, that the people who might’ve been upset probably missed it.) Check out their stash at MoneyKids.net.

The shining moment for the in-house parish talent was our video. I had wanted to do a “Check, Please” take-off for our currently trendy neighborhood, highlighting some of the grungier places that generally should be avoided. The first draft of the script came out so well that 95% made it into the final product. But the script is just one step in the process. The video came out so much better than we had any right for it to, because of Dominic D’Ambrosia, who shot it and edited everything. Judge for yourself by checking out the YouTube link for “Beyond the Sausage in Lincoln Square.” (The embed was disabled by request. Apparently Dom is shy. Or is afraid of getting fired.)

Seriously, go check out the video. Then realize we did maybe two takes for every shot. The ghost of Ernie Kovacs was smiling on us that day.

After the show, we had to break everything down, fix the lock on the parish center so no one could walk in, and then close out over beers at the Sunnyside Tap (a fleeting shot of the tap is in the video). I haven’t been so exhausted over a weekend in a long time. Part of it was the beer at 2 AM, but only a small part. I think I just forgot how damn exhausting it is to put on a show. If I didn’t have my buddies to help get it up, I’d’ve been even more wiped out. And the show would’ve sucked. As it was, I was glad for the chance to perform and write some fun stuff with fun people.

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Greetings from Chicago, Home of the Spit-Take

Today is the first day in 13 that I’ve been able to sit down in the morning in my office and write. If allergies don’t seal my eyes shut in the next 2 hours, I might manage to get a little writing done today. Then at noon, it’s time for more errands and getting ready to camp with the Boy Scouts in the rain. This is one of the big downsides to being self-employed, trying to manage your own time, all day every day. I’ve been doing it for 21 years. Sometimes I’m good at it, other times all the activities and obligations get thrown into a big bucket of slop that must be taken care of immediately. Of course, it takes energy to compartmentalize and prioritize, and sometimes it’s hard to find. (I think the first time I ever heard the word “compartmentalize”, it was being used by Bill Clinton to describe how he kept working when he was being impeached for a pugwash by a fat slag from Beverly Hills. While a regular person might feel mortified by what was going on, for Bubba apparently, it was just background noise.) For all you out there with 9-to-5 jobs, be aware that while a regular structure may at times feel constricting, it makes a lot of other things easier.

But it’s been a good fortnight, all in all. My brother and his family visited us from New Jersey, their first visit here in at least 12 years, and we got to show off the Windy City that we love so much. Hancock Building, Michigan Avenue, Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park, Cubs game, the museums, Millennium Park. We ran them ragged, and are paying for it now. For some reason, this was a very gastro-centric trip for my brother. He had to have a Chicago dog at just about every turn, he wanted to order in a deep-dish pizza (which is a rarity for us), and he absolutely had to hunt down an Italian Beef sandwich. He satisfied that last cholesterol-y craving at 11 in the morning on the way to the Field Museum by stopping off at Al’s #1 over in River North. I can thoroughly sympathize, because a good Italian beef is worth shaving years off your life for. (He already paid the price for it with the constant comments from us like “You’re eating again?”)

Besides showing off the city to a couple of kids from the NY suburbs, it was a good week for cousins to get together, sleep in the same room, get in fights and then forget about them–all the basics of extended family dynamics. My son and my nephew are an exceptionally well-matched pair. It’s a shame they can’t see each other more than once or twice a year. Sometimes this country is too damn big. Maybe Pennsylvania and Ohio can secede, so Chicago and NY can be a little closer.

Before the family arrived, I took a quick trip up to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, to attend a few sessions of their “Festival of Faith and Writing.” I don’t go to many writing festivals, mostly out of a stubborn conviction that I should stay chained to my desk, whether the time is productive or not, rather than spend time talking and thinking about writing. (The way I love the self-denying discipline of writing as opposed to the creative spark, I shoulda been a nun in a grade school.) I was very glad to get out there, though, if only for the chance to meet and hear from people who care passionately about writing, who love the printed word, who have something to say and want to figure out how to say it. This Bi-annual event is very worthwhile, if you ever get the chance to attend.

The main attraction for me was a speech by Michael Chabon, whose estimation in my mind skyrocketed when I read “Kavalier and Clay” and will stay high for quite some time, regardless of what he puts out. (Does that sound like faint praise? It’s not meant to. I enjoyed “Yiddish Policemen’s Union” quite a lot, too. “Summerland” and “Final Solution”? Middling.) His speech was basically the reading of a long essay, “Imaginary Homelands”, included in his new collection of essays, “Maps & Legends”. He was every bit as off-handedly charming as I thought he’d be. I even stood a long time in line for an inscription in my books, something I very rarely do. (I pressed on him a postcard for BARDBALL.COM, and he told me, “I LOVE baseball poetry.” He probably meant “good baseball poetry,” but in any case, maybe he’ll check it out sometime.)

The next morning, he had a Q&A session that was attended by a couple hundred people. His admissions about writing his sophomore novel were very enlightening, and should give hope to all writers, established or not. After the good reception of “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” he struggled to come up with something he was happy with. After 5.5 years and perhaps 20 drafts of the book, he still wasn’t happy, and was deathly afraid that the “sophomore jinx” was going to sink his career as it had so many others. He admitted that one of the worst things a writer goes through is the annual meeting with distant relatives at times like Thanksgiving and Passover, and being asked, “So, what are you working on?” and having to say the same thing you’d said the previous year, and the year before, and the year before that. Man, can I relate to that.

At the same time, his first marriage was collapsing. He finally abandoned the book and wrote “Wonder Boys” about a professor having a terrible time writing his second book. When describing his next book to relatives and friends, Chabon said he got sick, sympathetic smiles when he described two young cousins in NY writing comic books as WWII loomed in Europe. Chabon wondered if he was committing career suicide by writing about genre literature, the kind of writing he loved as a kid but that was pooh-poohed in every writing class and seminar in which he dared to bring it up. His idiosyncratic choices were validated when “Kavalier & Clay” won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He says he now has the conviction to follow every “bad idea for a book” he has. These types of confessions, from a writer with immensely more talent than me, are like a tonic with a shot of Jameson’s. All writers (at least the good ones) face the roadblocks of doubt and effort and preconceived notions of what is expected of him/her. The only weapons we have against it are conviction and honesty with ourselves. It helps to have talent, too, and a stubborn streak that keeps telling you that your ridiculous idea just might be the best book you’ve ever done.