rat babies

Christmas has come and gone, but not without leaving a terrible path of destruction behind it. Did you know, for example, that I shamed my wife by providing vastly superior and thoughtful presents? I did. While she received a handmade vase from her supposed motherland, I got a desk calendar. When she opened a festively wrapped box to reveal a jewel-encrusted hairpin, I opened a plastic bag from K-mart to reveal a tie from Kohls. I would go on, but while she opened a series of gifts made of only the most innocent and fluffy of baby seals, I opened nothing. For you see I only received those two incredibly crappy presents. But it’s cool, I’m not mad or anything. After all, I got the best Christmas present of all: A week alone working everyday and freezing every night while she gallivants around Little Rock free as some kind of not to be trusted bird.

Of course, there are upsides to her being gone. If she was here, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn all kinds of fascinating things about my horribly scary apartment. Did you know no matter how loud you turn up the t.v. you can still hear the rats running around behind the walls? (After washing the dishes last night I went to pull the stopper when a rat mom covered in rat babies crawled out from under the sink and ran up my leg, leaving a trail of squirming rat babies along the way. This is 100% true.) Or if you drink all the sherry in the house while watching Rumpole of the Baily you don’t really feel that awesome? And, perhaps most surprising of all, vampire erotica is actually really scary? Well now you know. So please trust me when I say: Don’t watch Vampyros Lesbos without someone else there. It’s cool for the first 20 minutes, but by then you’ve seen all the boobs you’re going to see and not nearly all the blood and ice picks. Ok, so, that still made the movie sound cool, but it's not, really. At best the movie is just a nonstop lesbian sexromp with a surprise ending when you discover the only way to kill a lesbian vampire is to have a chaste, 18-year-old redhead who’s into experimenting seductively kiss each and every one of the lesbian vampires. But that's not till like the last half of the movie so...

Oh yes, one more thing. Does anyone know how to get rat babies out of your bed without them biting you or crawling inside your ears?

Chi-town at Christmas

I try to avoid the Northside of Chicago as much as possible. But every once and a while you have to go up there if you want to buy, well, anything but groceries or liquor; and, being the holiday season, I needed to pick up a few products to spread holiday cheer. Now some of you may not know this but I do pretty well for myself. I’m no multi-millionaire but I’m not not a millionaire either. And with this lifestyle comes the grave responsibility to buy my poorer family and friend, that is the bartender who pretends to care about me, only the finest in unnecessary, extravagant gifts. Cashmere Kleenexes, diamond studded floss, caviar dishsoap, etc…, nothing is too disposable and unnecessary for my peeps. After years of such awesomeness, it’s become expected and I’m happy to perform these little acts of extreme extravagance. But, like I was saying, to perform such acts requires me to go to North.

For those of you out of town, one of the first differences one notices about the Northside from my parts is that the streets are named not numbered. While the streets numbers grow steadly larger as you head south of Madison, the Northside gives no such help. You just have to know if Irving Park is north or south of Armitage. So, I’m basically screwed whenever I go up there and have to call An Doof Ass in New York to get directions home. Side note: I hate to say it, but he’s starting to loose his edge. Yesterday I called asking if Ashland hit the Brown line and he said it did at Paulina, which we all know, is parallel to Ashland. I could just picture him there in New York with his black turtleneck smoking Gauloises, drinking Ethiopian coffee and rolling his eyes with the very thought of that cow town in which his greatness (i.e. drunken ramblings to all form of wall, stray animal and shadow) and urbanity (i.e. a flannel shirt with cigarette holes in it) was once stifled. The sonofabitch. So, alone and abandoned, I did what anyone in my situation would do; I went into the closest bar and waited for someone to come find me.

I should have been more aware of where I was. I should have remember I was on the Northside with all its openness and relativism. Its postmodern savoir-faire. I should have noticed the Irish flag hanging over the door had more colors than it used to, that they only advertised light beers on tap. That the swizzle stick in the neon marini glass was a phallus. But I was scared and alone and hungry and out of cigarettes.

So, yes, I did burn 40 bucks drinking appletinis with Bruce, Lance, Tommy and “The Duke” while my wife was driving all over the Northside trying to find me. So what? With the time we had I couldn’t bare to think leaving. From the erotic oil paintings to the group sing alongs to "A Billy Holiday Christmas," we were having the time of our lives. It makes me sad to think healthy male bonding is such a rariety these days. But I’m glad to know it still exists at places like Jack’s Flaming Pit of Anonymous Encounters on Webester and Damen.

Merry Christmas to all and to all I say: The wife is out of town from the 26-30th. Free vampire erotica and whiskey shots to anyone who wants to stop by.

along on the "L" II

Boy, there are few things that rule quite as much as good public transportation. In fact, I'll think I'll ride the rails for a little bit after work today just for the hell of it. Good ol' reliable CTA. And to think - Chicago is the only city in the most powerful nation in all the world that has 24 hours public transportation service. It's good to be king.

Also, if I have to hear one more New Yorker talk about 'making due,' I'll puke. Last time I checked, one makes due when they have nothing left and don’t know where to turn. Example: We'll make due now that my home is at the bottom of an ocean. Translation: I have no idea what to do now, but, lord willing, I'll figure something out.

And now 'making due’ Mannhattan-style. Example: I don't know what to do without public transportation, but we New Yorkers know how to make due. Translation: Oh no! I have to split cab fare with three other people from my 3 million dollar brownstone neighborhood instead of taking the subway.

Boogers

What a weekend! There are few things that say: Your life in Chicago doesn’t completely blow like freezing half to death in the desolate wasteland of parking lots and onramps that is suburban Roseville Minnesota. My favorite part about the Mnpls/St. Paul area is the fact that there are two Perkins on every block and no one talks. You have to love a place where you can walk into a restaurant that has 15 tables and 45 families on the wait list and be guaranteed a booth in about 10 minutes - fastest restaurant turnover ever (When I got back to Chicago I kissed the cracked and broken glass infested sidewalks and the gangbanger who beat me up and stole my wallet.) But the trip wasn’t all sitting in Superdude apartment getting high on jammers. Oh no! There were all kinds of excitement and subterfuge to be had.

Of course, there was the typical stuff: sneaking backstage at venues, creating a false identity built around the recent publication of a debut novella that scored like 10 phone numbers at a bar in Minneapolis and drinking Tennessee whiskey in a sauna while discussing hedge funds and cheesecake recipes. Yet there was also the wholly unexpected or, to coin a phrase, I saw the face of The Other; leaving me bedazzled, brought up short, beholden and whatever other probing and innovative synonyms our great European philosopherzzz think of next.

I’m talking about meeting the Face of another recently married person at The Wife’s friend’s wedding reception in Lakevillemenhanaia Grove. There are few bedazzlements so pure and alien as the one that assumes you are a kind and caring newlywed who enjoys talking about it:

NewlyWed: Let me ask you a question. Do you want Heather to shave her legs ever day? Because my lovey-boat-of-loyalty thinks I should.
Working Boy: Do I know you?
N.W. Of course! We are a brother and sister in Christ, alumnae of Bible College America and we also have partaken of the same holy vows of holy matrimony with our one and only soulmate.
W.B.: Are you hitting on me? Because you should know I’m the author of a novella entitled, The Blackout, which just came out on Sparrowhead Press. It’s all the rage outside the no smoking bars in Minneapolis with like 10 chicks.
N.W.: Are you hitting on me?
W.B: I don’t know...Am I?
N.W.: What?
Wife: What are you talking to that newly wed about?
W.B: I can’t even begin to possibly understand how the think about answering such a question.
Wife: What?
W.B: I'm a human being I have needs.
N.W. : What?
Wife: What!
W.B: What?

This went on for quite a while. I’ll spare you the sordid details but I will say by the time it was all over I wasn’t sure who I was married to and who I hated. And no amount of sparkling apple cider could help me figure it out.

TUesDay!

Life right now is pretty ordinary. It’s cold outside, and all I do is sit around building outmoded model airplanes, such as the F-4 Phantom. Sometimes I get up enough resolve to reheat a half full can of chicken soup or go get drunk at my drukening hole. But for the most part I sit at the kitchen table dabbing olive and forest green paint into their appropriate crevices.

I used to think there was more to life. That there was something out there that was bigger than me, like a lot bigger. That life was gift meant to be grabbed the horns and lived like there’s no tomorrow.

But lately I’ve been thinking that life is more like a peanut butter sandwich that has to be choked down with no milk, because the milk went bad because it was left out of the fridge the night before because you were making Mudslides with your mistress during a prostitute coke party when your wife came home and started breaking everything and saying that she was going to kill you and then kill Kimmie and Bambi and Roxi thus making milk spoilage the least of your concerns, kind of thing. I don’t know. Maybe my ambitions were just too high. My ideas too lofty. My front door not locked like I thought.

It’s like, you think you know where you're going and how much its going to cost, but when you get there you find out your wife had lied to you and locked you out in the snow with nothing but the clothes on your back and note that wasn’t from Bambi or Kimmie or Roxi.

The Shiveries

Home Sweet Home.

This explains a lot.

THe latest DISH!

As an awesome philosopher, I have very refined tastes and social graces. For example, I often find myself at the center, the epicenter really, of exceedingly witty banter. I also use an old tyme razor and enjoy evening constitutions with my bosom chums around Washington Square – swinging our canes and kicking dust and mud onto filthy little urchins. So it comes as little surprise that people think I have it all - I mean a pearl handed penknife, a monocle, bosom chums. What’s not to love? But, unforuntately, my life isn’t all appletinis and Parliaments lit by beautiful twenty year old Puerto Ricans. My life rules - don’t get me wrong; but there’s still that one thing that bothers me. A thing so intangible I can almost touch it. A question.

THE question really - you know the one I’m all talking about. The one that goes: Is Authentic Bible Worship University of Midwestern Godland the greatest university ever? And if so, how can I prove it?

I mean, those of you privileged enough to have ever set foot on its well fertilized lawns or grasped its faux Corinthian columns don’t need convincing. (I mean, fuck, faux Corinthian columns! You’d need a heart of secular humanism or, even worse, cynicism not to be moved to tears by that kind of elegance, time honored craftsmanship and painted aluminum.) And when you add to that cutting edge intellects like Sxm Storms and Mxrk Txlbot AND a thoughtful and ambitious leadership, you’ve got a pretty convincing argument. So today I was not in the least surprised to find out that the latest “news” from the ol’ girl is "Looky! Looky! We're in the news because of a children’s movie!" This apparently is not only news, but impressive, good news.

Once again, holy fucking shit, what an institution.

Dandy-ism

Probably the biggest bit of news in these parts is that Chicago rules. Unlike douchery cities such as L.A., N.Y., Boston and Toronto, Chicago has stemmed the tide of an unthinking allegiance to “health” and has given bars a three year grace period in order to comply with a “smoking ban” likely to pass today in council. Thus leaving the city plenty of time to put it off even further until all the antismoking advocates die from the cancer caused by cliff bars and protein shakes. It will happen something like this….

3 years from today..

Hyperventalating Health Jerk (whose probably hot, let’s be honest.): New York has one. Boston has one!
Voice of Reason (prematurely wrinkled and always tired): That’s not an argument.
H.H.J: Ow! My heart just stopped! But how is this possible I’ve worked so hard to maintain it? ! I eat nonfat margarine and drink bottled water. Cruel fate!
V.o.R: Ha! Ha! Ha! You fool! Didn’t you know cigarettes are awesome?
H.H.J: I repent of my lameness and will quit complaining all the time and being a freedom hater and detriment to one of our nations oldest and still predominately family owned renewable natural resources.

*Death*

9()9()9()9()9()9()

Just in time for the Holidays! Get your copy before all 16 are gone. I can vouch personally for the elegance and error-free index and consistent grammaticallizations within the body of the text. Sure, the press sucks and the University is on a shoestring budget devoted entirely to Žižek studies and barrels of cheap port, but the book, the book is um...good-ish.