Letter From Milo: Sweet Dreams, Baby

I’ve always considered myself fortunate in that, unlike many veterans, I don’t think I’ve had very many lasting effects from my tour of duty in Vietnam. There are a few health issues relating from my exposure to Agent Orange and I’m still leery of crowds and averse to loud noises. But, on the whole, I think I’ve escaped relatively unscathed from that wretched experience.

Some vets weren’t so lucky. The hard luck stories of Vietnam veterans have almost passed into the realm of urban myth. I don’t know the truth of the matter, but ‘Nam vets allegedly had higher murder, suicide and incarceration rates than the general public. They were more likely to die from auto accidents, drug overdoses, domestic disputes, alcohol related accidents and broken hearts than the average Joe or Josephine.

If there was any credence to the stories, the streets of America were littered with the bodies of Vietnam veterans.

The physical toll on veterans was bad enough, but even worse, in my opinion, was the mental damage. To hear tell, our nations mental hospitals were crammed with crazed, drooling, haunted, deranged ‘Nam vets, all stuffed to the gills with every medication known to man. The ones that weren’t institutionalized were living in caves in Idaho, wandering the streets with all of their possessions in shopping carts, or begging for spare change at busy intersections.

As I mentioned earlier, I consider myself extremely fortunate that I wasn’t permanently physically or mentally damaged in that war. I wasn’t shot or blown up, bitten by a step-and-half snake (if bitten, you can take about a step and a half before dying) or hurt in any of the dozens of ways it was possible to be maimed. Contrary to many opinions, my mental capabilities seem to have survived without major damage, too. In short, I don’t exhibit any of the after-effects that plague so many veterans.

Except one.

You see, every few months I have this horrifying dream about Vietnam. It’s not a violent dream. It’s not about combat or violence of any sort. The dreams works on a deeper level, but it still terrifies me.

In this dream I get drafted again. I’m not the 19-year-old kid I was when I first got drafted in 1968. I am what I am, an aging man, balding, burned-out, gaseous, funky and dealing with health issues. There is no way on earth I should be draft material. Plus, I had been drafted into the Army 40 years earlier. How could I possibly be drafted again? It’s like double jeopardy. But, hey, this is a dream. It’s not supposed to make sense.

Anyway, in this dream I’m standing on a street among a large group of young men, moving slowly toward a line of yellow school buses. We are being herded onto the buses by a bunch of tough looking drill sergeants, all wearing Smokey the Bear hats and mirrored sunglasses and smacking riding crops into the palms of their hands.

“Keep it moving,” they bark at us, “Come on, shitheads, we haven’t got all day. Keep it moving.”

Now, the last thing I want to do is get on one of those buses. I know that if I get on a bus I am totally and completely fucked, as doomed as a man can be. The next stop would be Vietnam or some place exactly like it. I also know that this time I won’t get out alive.

I decide to reason woth the drill sergeants. I’ve got paperwork with me, discharge papers, birth certificate, etc.

“Look here, fellas,” I say, trying to get them to look at my papers. “There’s been some sort of mistake. I’ve already been drafted once, 40 years ago. Plus, I’m too old for this shit. This can’t be right. It’s probably illegal to draft somebody twice. I mean, there’s got to be an age limit…”

Nothing I say makes a bit of difference. The drill sergeants have a job to do and that’s to fill up the buses with cannon fodder. They’ve got their orders.

“Keep it moving. Let’s go. Single file. There’s a war going on and we don’t want you boys to miss it. Keep it moving.”

As I get closer to the buses I begin to panic. I know that once I get on a bus I won’t get off again until I’m in a war zone. I think about running, but I look around and see that there are soldiers everywhere, all carrying automatic weapons, just waiting to shoot anybody who tries to run away. There’s nothing I can do. I am truly screwed.

Soon there is just one other poor bastard between me and the door of a bus. I start to hyperventilate. I’m close to tears. I’m falling apart. There’s no hope for me. It’s all over. There’s no doubt in my mind that I am facing certain doom. The Fat Lady is practicing her scales.

Just as I get ready to step onto the bus I wake up.

At first I don’t know where I am. I’m drenched in sweat, gasping for breath. Then, I realize where I am and begin to calm down. I’m in my bed, in my little bungalow on the north side of Chicago. My wife is sleeping peacefully next to me. My children are asleep in their rooms, blissfully unaware of their old man’s nightmare. The dog is sleeping at the foot of the bed. I don’t know and don’t care about the cat’s whereabouts.

And there is not a bus in sight.

Big Mike: We Are All Deranged

It’s Friday. I have a showing of the house scheduled for noon. I spend the whole morning dolling up the joint. I mop all the floors, scrub all the bathrooms and even spray the air with room deodorizer. You can eat off the floors and the place now smells like a floral shop.

Noon rolls around and nobody shows up. Then 12:30. Then one o’clock. Still no one. By 1:30, I figure the people have blown me off. Right around this time, I start to feel a rumbling in my belly, due no doubt to some fresh blueberries I’d jammed into my mouth in lieu of breakfast as I swept and mopped upstairs. Maybe I hadn’t washed them sufficiently. All I know is, they’ve made their way through my alimentary canal with lightning speed.

Now I’m in a quandary: What if the people are only late? Do I dare relieve myself and take the chance that they’ll come in the house just at that moment? I mean, the impending bodily function is gonna be ripe enough to make the bathroom wallpaper peel.

While I’m contemplating this Gordian Knot, my belly ache becomes even more acute. A lightbulb flashes over my head. Aha! I’ll just dash out to the backyard and let ‘er rip! That ought to give me relief. Sadly, when I reach the safety of the yard I realize this will be no simple matter of breaking wind. I have an anchor to drop; there are no two ways about it!

By this time I’m in real pain. My body wants to rid itself of material in the worst way. I clench my buttocks with all my strength. I check the clock – 1:45. Look, I say to myself, they’re not coming! Do what you have to do!

Then a competing voice pipes up. You spent all morning slaving over this place and now they’re gonna walk into a poison gas attack in progress? Forget it!

I sit down at my computer to work on some emails. Uh, uh. Nothing can distract me from the urgency of my bowels. I stand up and take a step toward the bathroom. Man, this is gonna be a barn-burner, I think. The pain becomes so severe that I can’t even walk. I can only stand there and wait for it to pass. My forehead is sweating from all the energy I’m expending keeping the insides of me from getting out.

Finally, I can’t take it anymore. I gather up three cans of room spray – Fresh Breeze, Tropical Moment and Pure Innocence, inclusive. My hand to god. I snatch a few matchbooks from my desk drawer. Fully equipped, I venture into the basement bathroom – the sparkling clean, fresh-smelling basement bathroom – and drop drawers. Opening the latest edition of The Skeptical Inquirer and turning to an article on the Cardiff Giant, I go to work.

Oh! It feels as though I’m passing another fully-grown human being out of my body. By god in heaven, I’m gonna foul up the town of Murray Hill’s sewer system. And I think I’m starting to hallucinate from the fumes.

Now I get to work cleaning up the atmosphere. First, I switch on the overheard fan. Prior to this point, I’d always figured bathroom fans to be some sort of comforting fraud. They don’t seem powerful enough to draw breath from a fly yet they run at the decibel level of a jet engine. Their only real purpose, I’d guessed, was to mask all the embarrassing noises we humans make in the lavatory. Like I said, we are all deranged.

Then I begin to spray my various deodorizers until my eyes start watering. The combined scents mingle and suddenly are being sucked up by the bathroom fan. Well, whaddya know? These fans do work! Only this fan is directly above my head so whatever chemicals aren’t being sucked into it are going straight up my nostrils. Great. Now I’m shaving years off my life.

Next, I start lighting matches. Not a great idea. The air in the bathroom is so dense with deodorizer mist that the lit matches literally crackle like Fourth of July sparklers. So, in order that my potential home-buyers won’t smell my humanity, I risk blowing up half the neighborhood.

I spend a good ten minutes trying to neutralize the bowel fog I’d created. Yet I have no idea if I’m successful because my nasal receptors have been destroyed by chemicals and flaming matches.

I open the bathroom door and am immediately hit by a wave of fresh air. My head becomes light with the inflow of actual oxygen into my lungs. For the next couple of minutes, I stroll back and forth in front of the bathroom, trying to determine if my foul aroma has dissipated. I honestly can’t tell.

At this very moment, I hear the real estate agent and her client come in the front door. Oh, sweet mercy! I utter a silent prayer to the god I don’t believe in: Please don’t let it stink in here! Please! Please! Please!

I dash upstairs to head them off. Hi, I say, I’m downstairs working. Look around a-a-a-a-l-l-l-ll you want up here! Take your time! If you need me, just holler. Ha ha ha. You can come downstairs, sure! But take all the time in the world up here!

The client is a drop-dead gorgeous blonde, smartly attired in a little black dress, believe it or not, and accompanied by the two cutest little girls this side of a Disney Channel show. Oh shit. These two little brats are gonna sniff me out, I just know it. I trundle back downstairs and wait for the reckoning.

The gang of them fly through the upstairs and then make their way downstairs. Now they decide to inspect the place like detectives. Had I been hiding drugs under the floorboards or secret documents behind the paneling, they would have found them.

All the while, I’m closing my eyes and hoping that any real incriminating evidence has vanished. I’m now the guiltiest looking man this side of Bernie Madoff.

Finally, the little black dress blonde comes into my work area and clears her throat. “I really love your house,” she says.

Now I wait for the bomb to drop. The big but. What’s she gonna hit me with? But, man, what died in the bathroom? Or, Jesus, mister, couldn’t you have waited? I’ve got two little children here.

But no! Here’s how she continues: “You’ve taken such good care of the place. And it smells so good in here! What is that scent?”

I gleefully gather up my three cans of deodorizer and thrust them forward for her to inspect. “Um, it’s sort of a mix,” I say.

“Hmm,” she says, smiling. “Thanks. I ought to try that.”

Benny Jay: Those Darn Cubs!

It’s a Saturday night and I’m gonna watch a movie I rented from Dark Star, the world’s greatest video store.

But before I put it on, I tell my wife: Let’s check out the Cubs.

Years ago I used to be a big-time Cubs fan, and though some of my passion died after their collapse in 2003 — let’s not talk about it — I still care. A little bit.

So I turn on the game. Coincidentally, they’re playing the Marlins in Florida — but I told you, no talk about 2003 — and they’re up three with two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth and they got their closer, Kevin Gregg, on the mound against some worthless bum.

“Relax,” I assure my wife, even though she clearly couldn’t care less — I mean, she’s knitting for goodness sakes. “We got it in the bag.”

And, well — Bam! The worthless bum belts a home run so high that I swear it’s still coming down. The next two guys hit singles and the third guy slaps a triple and just like that it’s tied and we’re heading for extra innings.

Aw, fu…!!!

“Forget this,” I say. “Nothing ever changes with these guys — nothing. I haven’t watched them all year and it’s like we’re right back where I left off in 2003. Well, that’s it. I’m not wasting another second on the Cubs anymore. Not one second — and you can quote me!”

Like, you know, anyone is even remotely paying attention to anything I’m saying.

So I turn off the game and put on the movie: “True Romance,” an early Quentin Tarantino flick. Actually, he didn’t direct it — but he wrote the script. And it’s a great script — off the charts. It’s got catchy banter between Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette. And Michael Rapaport is really funny — did I ever tell you how much I love Michael Rapaport in Zebrahead? And there’s a classic scene with Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken that’s about as good as they get.  And you got an appearance by a young James Gandolfini — you know, the dude from The Sopranos. He looks so young, I barely even recognize him. And Brad Pitt — how can I forget Brad Pitt! He’s hilarious as this stoner.

All in all, not quite as good as “Jackie Brown,” which is one of the five greatest flicks of all time. But way better than “Pulp Fiction,” which, I think you’ll agree, is over-rated.

Anyway, on my way to bed I pass the computer and I wonder: What happened to the Cubs.

Not that I care — just wondering….

So I got to a sports website and, lo and behold, I discover that the Cubs won it in the tenth inning on a Derrick Lee home run.

How `bout that! Hey, hey, holy mackerel, no doubt it….

As I walk up the stairs, I think — I dunno, maybe I’ll catch an inning or two tomorrow.

Randolph Street: Highway 61 – On The Road

“Farm” Minnesota

“Lawnmower” Hannibal, Missouri

“Horn” Keokuk, Iowa

“Cotton Crash” Mississippi

“Semi-Trailer” Iowa

“Bridge Construction” Dubuque, Iowa

Big Mike: The Kids Are Alright

If canines could use cellphones, then you could imagine Benny Jay and I as a couple of gray-haired schnauzers sniffing around our computer screens (again, if curs could use computers) trying to make heads or tails out of our new blogging setup. Yesterday afternoon, separated from each other by a good 350 miles and, together, from The Kid by several bazillion techno-IQ points, the two of us fiddled with WordPress until we were satisfied that the whole thing baffled us beyond belief.

Finally, in desperation, Benny walked down to the coffeehouse where The Kid works and begged him to rescue us from the quicksand of our own ignorance.

The Kid, whose name we can now disclose – he is one Andrew Ray Brady, barista, extreme bike rider, and college student just trying to make the transition out of his parents’ house – patiently, firmly and knowledgeably led us through the process like a kindergarten teacher guiding pupils toward the printing of block letters.

Benny Jay and I (we were back on the phone) oohed and aahed as if we were witnessing Houdini escape from a padlocked underwater chest. After our session with him was finished, the two of us gasped in awe at The Kid’s mental acuity.

Benny Jay: “I love this kid.”

Me: “Yeah. The little fucker sure knows what he’s doing.”

Benny Jay: “He’s brilliant! Where did he learn all this stuff? How does he do it?”

Me: “I don’t know. Better nutrition? Evolution?”

We are to The Kid in website and blogging technology what Benny Jay’s mother is to him in cell phone comprehension. Speaking of evolution, this three-generation analogy points out how much we hairless apes have descended within the last 25 years.

Pre-1984, the flow of information always went from the old to the young. A kid was born to this world and had to be hand-held by his or her seniors in the basics – riding a bike, doing homework, eating spinach, not waggling one’s penis in public for laughs and so on.

The system was comforting for both parties. The old bastards, who’d already come to the understanding that the world was wildly bewildering, could pretend they had some small grip on things by passing on their knowledge of how to swing a bat at a ball to their five-year-olds. The five-year-olds, who were just beginning to see that life on this planet was mystifying, could pretend that the old folks had things under control and knew everything.

Then along came the personal computer and the whole paradigm collapsed.

I was lucky. I started working for the New City in the summer of 1987, just when desktop publishing was taking over. We used primitive Macintoshes that didn’t even have hard drives in them. You had to put a disk in for each application you wanted to use at that moment. Some, like Aldus PageMaker, were so unwieldy that they came on three, four or even five separate disks. Just to place an article in a column, you might have been prompted to insert different discs a dozen times.

Even though the technology of the time is to today’s as the gas lamp is to the LED flashlight, I at least had a good head start on terminology and things like keyboard shortcuts. Still, the whole process of getting things done on a portable machine with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics, and operating on Mac OS X Leopard with preloaded iLife requires me to think about every minute action, like a kindergartener trying to print the letter Q.

Guys like The Kid seem to have that kind of knowledge encoded in their genome. Guys like Benny Jay and Milo make like lost kittens on the expressway whenever they come within a block of a laptop. For instance, the other day Benny Jay told me he hoped The Kid would bring his “wireless” to a strategy session at the coffeehouse. His wireless?

Me: “What the hell are you talking about? Who is this kid, Marconi?”

Benny: “No, smart guy. I’m just saying I hope he has one of those small computers that you can take anywhere. You know, the kind you don’t have to plug in.”

Me: “O-o-o-o-o-h! Lemme explain something to you….”

Poor Benny. I hope I didn’t laugh – too much.

I know this new paradigm makes us saggy-assed, wrinkled old prunes uneasy. We, the elders, no longer hold the young by the hand. Now they hold our hands, as one Andrew Ray Brady did for Benny Jay and me yesterday. We can’t even pretend to have an intellectual grip on this madness called life.

I wonder, though, how a guy like The Kid feels about this state of affairs. Is he frustrated by it? Does he think we’re letting him down because we are unable to interpret and explain the modern world to him.

I only know that if I were 21 years old and had to steer adults through life, I’d have even less respect for them than I actually did (which was scant in the first place.)

So, to The Kid, I apologize for letting you down. I apologize for my whole generation.

Now, about your generation’s fixation on Lady Gaga….

Benny Jay: We’re Back!

People have been asking: Where have you guys been?

Here’s the answer. We were abducted by aliens from outer space. They took us to this weird planet somewhere near Mars — I can’t be sure cause I got lost on the way. They made us do strange stuff.  You wouldn’t believe the things Big Mike did. Jon Randolph will be posting the pictures next week.

But now we’re back — so we can start blogging again.

Okay, that was just a joke. We weren’t really abducted by aliens. We never left Chicago — we never leave Chicago. Except for Big Mike. He’s like the cousin in the Patty Duke show who’s been all over the world. Or at least to Kentucky.

The reality is that we’ve been reconfiguring the site, as you can see. We’re working out the kinks. It’s looking up.

So keep reading and we’ll keep writing — you wouldn’t believe the stuff Milo‘s got planned….

Big Mike: Hard Guys

I have to admit I’m as much a sensitive flower as I am a he-man. I can give you a thousand examples of my excruciatingly delicate feelings. Then I’ll give you one hell of an example of my manliness. As soon as I think of one.

Maybe that’s why Benny Jay and I have been friends for so long. Neither of us is interested in watching Ultimate Fighting matches on TV or gulping shots of Irish whiskey until our eyeballs roll down the bar. Hard guys, we’re not.

It’s ironic because you have to have the skin of a pachyderm to survive in this mad business. Everybody who lays hands or eyes on one of our manuscripts tells us to change it. Everyone’s a critic – and an editor. There are always words to change, lines of thought to mangle, and brilliant mots to delete.

A pal of mine, also a writer, called the other day in a rage. He was lucky his fingers weren’t in the neighborhood of his editor’s neck otherwise he’d surely be sitting in County Jail right now, making acquaintances with some of Milo’s livelier chums. Let’s call this guy Yablonski.

Yablonski: “Ya know, I’m sick of these people at the Daily Bladder. I’m ready to walk right now.”

Me: “What happened?”

Yablonski: “I just turned in my story about the Mayor and they cut it to shreds. They totally took the heart out of it. Now it’s not even worth running.”

Me: “Well, did they give you a chance to fight for it?”

Yablonski: “Oh sure! They sent it back and said, ‘Are these changes alright?’ I said, ‘What if I say they’re not – will you change them back?’ You know what they said?”

Me: “What?”

Yablosnki: “‘No, we wouldn’t.’ So why in the hell are they asking me if it was alright?”

I spent the next 15 minutes consoling my old pal. We agreed that editors edit because, well, because they can. Every business relationship in this world is a power relationship. Those with power exercise it just to remind you and themselves that they have it.

When I was a young writer, every time an editor changed a comma of my manuscript I mourned as though my child had been kidnapped. Then I fretted that all the changes were mounting up, like demerits for a sixth grader. I felt certain that one day my editors would call and say, “Sorry, Mike. We’ve had to make a total of 500 changes in your stories this year. It’s right here on our bulletin board. We can’t work with you anymore – you’re no longer a writer.”

Man, I cried myself to sleep a time or two agonizing over that. Like I said, I’m a sensitive flower.

From the time we met, Benny Jay and I shared a respect bordering on awe for the crusty old columnist Mike Royko. When we want to give each other the supreme compliment, we say, “What you wrote was just like Royko.”

In his Tribune years, Royko became awfully cranky. Once, he wrote a column complaining about all these crybaby Hispanics demanding bilingual education in the Chicago Public Schools. I wrote him a letter saying it was a shame he felt that way especially after he’d gone to Catholic schools in the old Polish neighborhood where, natch, the nuns taught in both English and Polish. I figured I’d zinged him, although I felt a bit sheepish about zinging the master.

The next week, the good old liberal Royko reemerged with a column about Ronald Reagan’s band of tin soldiers making illegal arms deals with Iran’s Ayatollah in order to finance the Nicaraguan Contras. So, hoping to redeem myself, I wrote him a second letter saying, in essence, that’s the Royko I know and love.

A couple of days later a letter in a Tribune envelope came to my house. Oh my god! Royko’d read my letters and was bowled over by their magnificence! He wanted me to drop everything and come down to the Tower this minute so I could become his personal apprentice! My hands shook as I opened the envelope.

I found my second letter, the conciliatory one, inside. Written in huge block letter in black marker over my typing were the words: “HEY FUCK OFF!”

Gulp! My idol had forsaken me. Now I was really finished. Royko’d surely spread the word around town that this young punk writer ought to be blacklisted.

Then it hit me – jeez, Mike Royko had been dealing with hypercritical readers and editors for years, every day, every column. New editors probably hoped to make their bones by trying to emend his columns. He’d learned to fight like a mother grizzly protecting her cubs to keep his copy intact. By the time he’d hit the Trib, he’d earned a modicum of editorial license. Then some young punk wannabe writer sends him letters telling him how to write.

I realized the sentence, Hey fuck off!, were the most trenchant words I’d ever read. I decided that I would adopt that very philosophy whenever an overly zealous editor or disgruntled reader tore my stories to shreds. I decided to become hard, like Mike Royko.

See? I told you I’d think of an example of my manliness.