Randolph Street: Wilbur The Wonder Cat–1992/2010

August 7, 1992–March 11, 2010.

All Photos © Jon Randolph

Benny Jay: Mississippi

For the last few months, Milo’s been telling me about a friend of his — a fellow we’ll called Teddy.

Teddy’s forty-something or so. Friendly, courteous. Great storyteller.

Here’s the thing – he did twenty-some years on a Mississippi work farm.

Milo caught me off guard when he told me that. I don’t usually come across people who did hard time in Mississippi.

You’d figure a guy like that must be mean and ornery.

But Milo says Teddy’s a really great guy. He calls him – and I quote – “the sweetest guy in the world.”

Teddy went in for robbing banks.  He got away with three robberies and got nailed on the fourth. His method was fairly straightforward: He walked into a bank with a pistol and walked out with the money. One haul brought him thirty grand.

He had a partner in his crimes. Milo doesn’t know his name. Says Teddy never told him. For all I know, the partner’s Milo – the man does have a shady past. For what it’s worth, Milo swears he never spent a day in Mississippi.

When Milo first told me Teddy’s tale, I thought – damn, I could do a lot with thirty thousand dollars. Of course, it doesn’t go as far when you have to split it with someone else.

They also convicted Teddy on kidnapping charges. Apparently, he and his associate took someone — a bank employee or customer, I can’t recall — into the parking lot with them on that last robbery.

In Teddy’s mind, it’s a bogus kidnapping charge cause they weren’t kidnapping the guy so much as temporarily holding him hostage until the got away. They never intended to harm anyone and no one was harmed. You might say, he did the robbery but he didn’t do the kidnapping.

Reminds me of that line by Bob Marley: “I shot the sheriff but I did not kill the deputy.”

Actually, there’s another line that’s even more appropriate to Teddy’s fate:  “Only thing I did wrong, stayed in Mississippi a day too long.”

That’s from the song Mississippi by Bob Dylan. I can’t get enough of Mississippi. It’s on the Love and Theft CD. I listen to it all the time, especially when I go on long drives.

Thanks to Milo, I think of Teddy every time I hear the song. I’m not sure Teddy’s knows the song. But I’ll bet he’d appreciate it more than most. If he’d only got out of Mississippi one day sooner….

I can’t tell you exactly what Mississippi’s all about. (Here’s the link – figure it out for yourself.) It’s like a lot of Dylan’s songs — just when I think I know where he’s going, along comes a baffling verse that loses me.

I’ve concluded that Dylan fills a lot of his songs with gibberish. He’s either messing with our minds – cause he knows we waste far too much time poring over every word he writes — or he’s got one really great line that needs a bunch of not-so-great lines to set it up.

If so, I understand. As Milo likes to say: A good line is a terrible thing to waste. If you have to string together a bunch of gibberish just to get to one good line — well, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. As John Wayne used to say.

But back to Teddy….

Milo called the other day with a bombshell: Teddy’s back in jail. Something to do with a woman. I’m not really sure. It’s all very complicated, as these things tend to be.

It’s hard to believe a sweet guy like Teddy can get in so much trouble. Just doesn’t make any sense. It’s like he can’t get out of Mississippi no matter what.

Big Mike: Am I Blue?

Things have been going awfully swimmingly the last few months. The Loved One and I are thrilled with each other. Work’s going well for us. Our home is in fairly good shape. The car’s still running. Our doctors aren’t warning us to wrap up our financial affairs just yet. And — hoo-rah! — spring seems to be here (although Constance, the big potato over at The Book Case, keeps saying You watch, it’s gonna snow again, the scrooge.)

It’s times like these — rare though they are — that make me wonder why I still keep taking Zoloft. I’ve been on it since 2002. Before that I did imipramine and desipramine, a couple of early anti-depressants that today seem laughably primitive. I also swallowed a lot of Xanax back in the 1980s and 90s.

In fact, I wouldn’t leave the house without at least a half dozen Xanax in my pocket. Not that I was going to take all six of them. But merely having them clacking around in the plastic pill case gave me just enough spine to go out into the world and face down agoraphobia, panic attacks, and — horrors — people. So I’d take one or two on a good day, four on a bad day.

Not only that, I had my head shrunk by psychiatrists, psychologists, and licensed clinical social workers. I tried prayer, meditation, chanting, booze, and good old positive thinking. No matter what I tried, my terrors of going outdoors, high places, confined spaces, and the rest of the cornucopia of neuroses I entertained made me a shuddering wreck.

I’m thinking about all this because I just finished reading a piece in The New Yorker about depression. The author, Louis Menand, seems to think all the rage for diagnosing depression in people is a load of crap. He implies that this mania is nudged along by drug manufacturers who want to peddle more and more anti-depressants.

He’s not the only one who thinks that way. He writes of a hot new book out called Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease. Its author, Gary Greenberg, also sees a lot of business opportunism in telling people they’re pathologically blue.

Gary Greenberg

None of this is new. My old pal Danny long ago told me his daddy-o felt psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists and the like loved to tell you your head was fucked up “so they could get you hooked.” It’s unclear whether Danny’s poppa-rino meant hooked on medications or hooked on weekly visits — probably both. The latest stats seem to bear his fears out. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that 26.2 percent of Americans can be diagnosed with a mental disorder (primarily depression) in any given year.

Sheesh! That means if you’re car-pooling this morning with three other people, you’d better hope today’s driver isn’t the NIMH’s one-in-four, especially when the car nears that concrete support column up ahead.

“Please, Please, Please Don’t Be One Of The Four!”

Then again, as Menand and Greenberg argue, the driver merely might be experiencing some normal everyday sadness — the loss of a loved one, say, or a pressing financial concern. She or he feels down about it all, happens to catch an ad for Cymbalta on TV, makes an appointment and says Hey doc, lemme have some of those skull jockey pills.

Menand even cites the case of Paxil. Its manufacturer discovered in the 90s that the drug seemed to make people less shy. So it went about the business of positioning shyness as a mental disorder so that shrinks could prescribe barrels-ful of Paxil.

No doubt all of this is true. Trivializing clinical depression just to make a buck is so craven you’d think a Wall Street banker came up with the idea. The only problem is when I read this stuff I start thinking that maybe — just maybe — I’d fallen victim to all the hype back when I was that shuddering wreck.

I don’t shudder so much anymore. I have no idea why. Was it the Zoloft? Or was it a combination of meditation, therapy, and booze? Or — worse — was I just imagining it all?

Someone very close to me once scoffed at my collection of loose screws. I won’t identify him because I don’t want to embarrass him (although I should.) Let’s call him Thomas. One day Thomas had as much as he could take of my little madnesses. “You know what your problem is?” he said. “It’s all in your head.”

Uh, yeah.

Even though I’m pretty certain Thomas was full of shit, there’s still that tiny little part of me that fears he was right. Then when I read the indictments put forth by guys like Menand and Greenberg, I start obsessing: I wasn’t really depressed; There was nothing wrong with me; It must have been all in my head.

Every once in a while, though, some crystal clear memory of the existential terror I felt being trapped in an el car some forty feet above the pavement hits me. I think of my racing, pounding heart. I recall hyperventilating. I can almost feel the sweat pouring out of me again. I get twitchy thinking about how I’d struggle to resist the urge in every cell of my being to tear the doors open and jump out. And that was only one of my little madnesses.

Then I realize that Thomas was right. It was all in my head. He just didn’t know how right he was.

All In My Head

Benny Jay: Bullock Kisses Streep!

I’m watching the Oscars….

Each year I say I won’t, but each year I do. Can’t help myself. Fact is, I can’t get enough of this shit.

I got a special reason this year. The Coen Brothers‘ movie, A Serious Man, is up for Best Original Screenplay and I want them to win. I love the Coen Brothers. Matter of fact, I sort of wish I were a Coen Brother.  But don’t let that get around.

They’re also up for Best Picture. But, trust me, that’s going to The Hurt Locker cause it’s directed by a woman and the Academy wants to finally give all the big awards to a movie directed by a woman, like they’re all noble and stuff.

I’m not hating, just saying….

Sure enough, they give the script-writing Oscar to Mark Boal, who wrote The Hurt Locker. Nothing against Mark Boal, but who the hell is he? He’s no Coen Brother, that’s for sure.

“Boo!” I exclaim.

“Stop booing,” says my wife.

“If you’re not gonna give it to my boys give it to Tarantino….”

I love Quentin Tarantino almost as much as the Coen Brothers. He’s up for Inglorious Basterds, which isn’t going to win anything either, cause of that woman thing I was telling you about.

I boo louder.

From upstairs my younger daughter, who’s trying to do her homework, yells: “Stop booing!”

Boal gives a great acceptance speech, thanking our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I feel kind of guilty for booing.

They give some award for something to some black guy I never heard of. He’s in the middle of his acceptance speech when some redheaded lady shows up out of nowhere, pushes him to the side and starts talking.

“What the fu,” I say.

“Who’s she?” asks my wife.

“This is like something out of Saturday Night Live….”

It’s Robin Williams’ turn to make a presentation. He refers to the Governor’s Ball: “It’s one of many balls that will be held around town tonight….”

It takes me a second or two – okay, I’m slow – then I get it.

My wife brings in dinner: Greek chicken, oven-cooked potatoes and salad. Damn, it’s good. I’m chowing down – got a chicken bone in my hand – as James Taylor starts singing In My Life, while they show footage of the greats who died last year.

“Taylor’s killing this song,” I say.

“Shh,” says my wife.

“He’s singing it like a dirge — but it’s not a dirge….”

“I’m trying to listen….”

“This sucks….”

“Stop hating….”

For best actress, they bring a bunch of celebrities on stage to give testimonials for the nominees. This one guy’s going on and on about Meryl Streep, like she’s a saint.

“Gimme a break,” I say.

“Shh….”

“This guy’s got her walking on water….”

Oprah starts talking about Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe, who’s nominated for her role in Precious.

“This is my girl,” I say.

“Quiet….”

“I’m sick of all the skinny girls winning….”

“Shush….”

Sean Penn opens the envelope and says: “The winner is….”

I chant: “Precious, Precious….”

“Sandra Bullock….”

“Boo…..”

“Stop it,” says my wife.

“Should have gone to Precious — Boo!”

“Stop booing!” yells my daughter from upstairs.

Bullock gives this fantastically gracious acceptance speech. Total class. Makes me feel salty for booing. I feel guilty all over again. Man, rough night for me.

As she’s finishing, she refers to Streep as a great kisser and calls her “my lover.”

I look at my wife. My wife looks at me.

“They’re gay!” my wife exclaims.

“How did I miss that?”

My wife grabs her cell phone. “I’ll call Sean.”

Great idea. Sean’s a hairdresser she works with. The man knows more Hollywood gossip than anyone alive. His particular specialty is The Golden Girls.

My man Sean knows all about it. Turns out Bullock kissed Streep at another awards show. It’s all a big inside joke. Only we’re not in on it cause we’re out of it.  Good thing we got Sean. This guy knows more stuff than Google.

“Ask him about that redheaded lady,” I say.

Too late, she’s off the phone.

In the end The Hurt Locker cleans up (wins Best Picture and Best Director) just like I told you.

“This sucks,” I say. “The Coen Brothers make one of the best movies ever and get shut out. That’s it. I’m through with the Oscars!”

“Yeah, right,” says my wife.

On my way to bed, I stop by the computer just to, you know, check out the latest on that redheaded lady. Turns out she and the black guy had been partners on the documentary before they had a falling out. The Academy designated him to pick up the Oscar if the movie won. Apparently, she said forget that and went for the glory. Said the dude’s mother stuck her cane in the aisle to block her from reaching the stage. I like that detail about the cane so much I read it twice.

Told you – I can’t get enough of this shit….

Letter From Milo: Sharp Dressed Man

A few years ago I started carrying a shoulder bag. I had been considering getting a shoulder bag for a long time, but there was something keeping me from getting one. That something was stupidity.

You see, I always thought that carrying a shoulder bag was an affectation, something a real man would never do. A shoulder bag, it seemed to me, was a sure sign of effeminacy. I mean, how much shit did a person have to haul around? You had your wallet, keys, cash, cigarettes and lighter, half pint of whiskey, extra-large, industrial strength condoms, and perhaps a concealed weapon, generally a straight razor or snub-nosed pistol.

All of those things could easily fit into the four pockets that traditionally come with a pair of pants in the Western World. Anything else was just extraneous bullshit.

But as time went on and life got more complicated, I found that four pockets were no longer enough to contain the things I had to carry around on a daily basis.

For example, when I got hired by Big Mike, the Barn Boss of the scabby, hygienically challenged crew that writes for The Third City, I had to start carrying notebooks and pens to write down the great thoughts that occur to me on a regular basis. And how was I supposed to haul around my paperback books, crossword puzzle books, sunglasses, vials of uppers and downers, bags of weed and other necessities of life? There was no way all of that crap could fit in my pockets.

As much as I hated to do it, it was time to get a shoulder bag.

The first bag I got was a funky old canvas bag that I found at a thrift shop on Roscoe Avenue. It cost about three bucks and served my purposes admirably. The problem was that it was an ugly old thing, covered with stains and falling apart at the seams. When my wife, the lovely Mrs. Milo, saw it she started laughing.

“Do think you could have gotten a nastier looking bag?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s covered with spaghetti stains.”

“I’ll throw it in the washer.”

“It stinks, too. Smells like a cat peed on it.”

“That should wash out, too.”

“Honey, you can’t wash out ugly.”

A few weeks later, Mrs. Milo came home and presented me with a brand new, black leather shoulder bag.

It was beautiful. The bag was made of deep, rich cowhide that shone like patent leather. It smelled like the interior of a brand new Buick Electra 225. It had shiny snaps and buckles and it was roomy enough to carry all of my essentials. Best of all, it was a manly looking bag. There was not a hint of effeminacy about it.

I’ve never cared about fashion. To quote the great Howlin’ Wolf, “I dress for comfort, baby, I don’t dress for speed.” I always considered people who made a fetish of fashion to be shallow, frivolous individuals. With so many problems in this world, with so many evils and injustices to contend with, spending time thinking about what to wear is a huge waste of time. Spending great amounts of money on clothes strikes me as the height of irresponsibility.

That said, my new shoulder bag affected me in ways I would never have imagined. I started paying more attention to what I wore. I started paying attention to what other people wore. And if I saw someone carrying a shoulder bag, I immediately compared it to mine. I wasn’t turning into a fop, by any means, but I will admit that the potential was there. I was becoming a changed person, a Milo 2.0.

But some things never change. The other day my youngest daughter asked if I had a pen. I told her to look in my shoulder bag. After looking through the bag, she asked:

“Dad, why do you carry that ugly knife in your bag?”

“Well, honey, “I explained, “if you ever need to cut somebody up, a knife is a good thing to have.”

“I see,” she said, nodding in understanding. “By the way, Dad, can I have some money? I need to buy some new clothes.”

“Sure, sweetie. That’s money well spent. How much do you need?”