Benny Jay: Ass Whooping

It’s opening night of bowling – we’ve been off for three months – and I’m  geeked up and ready to go.

“You wanna practice?” asks Jay Dub.

“Nope,” I say. “I’m so good – I don’t need practice….”

Sure enough, I open with a spare and follow with a strike. Hit those pins so hard they’re almost crying in pain: “Ouch, Benny Jay, ouch….”

I’m having the time of my life, swapping jokes with Cap. He’s telling me about how much he enjoys taking a crap when there’s no one in the house to knock on the door and say what are you doing in there?

“What the fuck you think I’m doin’ in here?” he bellows.

“I know what you’re talking about,” I tell him. “My daughter will be knocking on the door, saying –` are you taking a pooh?’ Like I’m doing something wrong.”

We’re laughing so hard, we’re almost spitting up. Ah, the good times.

Unfortunately, it’s all down hill after that. Can’t hit a strike, can’t pick up a spare. As the night wears on it only gets worse. It’s like a sauna in the bowling alley. I’m sweating like a dog, and with all the humidity the ball’s gaining weight. Feels like a lump of lead. I can barely lift it, much less hurl it down the lane.

I throw a ball that meanders its way toward the pins like an old lady walking up the street.

“That’s weak, Benny,” Norm tells me.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I say.

We’re up against the High Rollers. If this league has a team of intellectuals – and I’m using that word loosely – they’re it. I think I think they’re smart cause 1.) they know a lot about computers, and anyone who knows anything about computers is a genius, as far as I’m concerned; and 2.) they smoke lots of weed (hence, the name) and talk really fast so  it’s hard to know what they’re talking about, unless you’ve smoked some weed yourself.  In this respect, they’re like the Dennis Hopper dude in “Apocalypse Now.” You know, the hopped-up Hippie freak who’s either a lunatic or a prophet, or maybe a little of both.

Anyway, they’re giving us a big-time ass-whooping. It’s not that they’re bowling so well, it’s that we really, truly suck.

They win the first two games and they’re up big in the final game, when Dougie, their lead-off bowler, steps up to roll.

“Who’s winning?” he asks me and Norm, as we sit at the scorer’s table.

“You don’t know?” asks Norm, with a look of disbelief.

“No,” says Dougie, with an innocent smile. “I haven’t been paying attention.”

Ouch — like they don’t even care and they’re still whooping our ass.

“You are,” I say.

“Who?”

I look at Norm and Norm looks at me. We know what’s what. Obviously, my man Dougie has mastered the art of passive-aggressive trash talking – where you pretend you’re not talking trash even when you are.

“I’m sorry,” he says, like he’s really, really sorry. “I just can’t hear.”

“You’re winning,” I say.

“No way,” he says. “As bad as we’ve been bowling?”

He walks to the scorer’s table, leans over my shoulder and scans the score sheet.

“I’ll be damn,” he says. “We are winning.”

He walks back to bowl and turns to look at us. “I don’t mean to be throwing salt in your wounds,” he says. Then he makes like he throwing some salt.

“Here – let me squeeze some lemon in the wound, too.”

And he makes like he’s squeezing a lemon.

By my crude count he’s thrown at least six jabs – all while pretending he’s not throwing any jabs at all. With all the bad bowling, it might be the best performance of the night.

Anyway, the third games ends like the other two – they crush us.

Afterward, V-Train, their captain, launches into a lecture about free markets and economics. True to form, I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. But he’s earned the right to prattle on, having whooped our asses and everything. I suppose if I was Serena Williams I’d throw a major league hissy-fit right now. Put my bowling ball in the face of Bob, the owner, and say: “You see this fuckin’ ball? I’ll stick it up your mother fuckin’ ass if you don’t turn the air conditioner up.” But, I’m too old to be so stupid. Truth is, an ass whooping is nobody’s fault but your own. Besides, my arm’s so tired, I can barely lift the bowling ball, let alone stick it up Bob’s ass.

Oh, well, all is not lost — it’s only the first night of an eight-month season.  In bowling, as in life, the good part of a bad start is that it can’t get much worse.

I hope….

Big Mike: Bargaining My Way To Bloomington

The farewell tour hit a snag last week. The Loved One and I had put an offer down on a gorgeous home in a secluded wooded neighborhood just north of the Indiana University campus, not far from the dizzying hills of the Griffy Lake area. We were already imagining sitting around the backyard firepit, setting up our telescopes and watching the dark night skies.

Then the home inspector walked through the home and told us, essentially, that it was just about ready to collapse into a pile of debris. We told the seller no thanks.

I’m sick to death of opening closet doors and checking under kitchen sinks for leaks in strange people’s homes. No matter, we had to get back to finding a new joint. I was to grab a rental car at Standiford Airport and drive up to Bloomington Wednesday.

After the two and a half hour bus ride to the airport, I learned that car rental companies don’t accept ATM cards as payment. The Loved One had reserved a car for me with our major credit card. We figured the company would charge the car to that card and away I’d go.

I suppose I ought to explain. The Loved One holds our credit card while I make do with the ATM card. It’s an arrangement that saves us from debtors prison. If I had the major credit card, our home would be filled with top hats, spats, thick cigars and enough books to stock a municipal library. I’m no good with credit cards (nor checks, for that matter) but as long as I can grasp that there’s a finite amount of dough in our ATM account, I can be trusted not to splurge.

The car rental companies don’t care if I spurge or not, they only want to see some big daddy plastic.

Me: “C’mon, man. There’s plenty of money in the account.”

The guy behind the counter: “Sorry. No.”

Me: “Alright, then why can’t you charge it to the credit card?”

The guy: “We have to see it.”

Me: “But it’s in Bloomington. That’s where I’m going.”

The guy: “Sorry.”

Me: “I’ll be stuck here.”

The guy: “Sorry.”

I went on to visit every car rental counter at Standiford, about eight in all. All the counter clerks were pleasant and helpful. And they all told me they were sorry. So, I flopped out to the cab waiting area and jumped into the first available ride.

The cab driver (in a thick Middle Eastern accent): “Gude morneeng, sair. How ahre you today?”

Normally, I’d respond perfunctorily. But, what with the so-far six-month ordeal of living apart from The Loved One, not knowing when and where I was to live in another city, and the frustration of the collapsed housing market, I needed a friend.

Me: “Well, I’ll tell you the truth….” And I proceeded to fill him in. The driver, a fireplug of a man with close-cropped hair, a five-o’clock shadow that would have required an axe blade to remove and deep dark brown eyes, nodded in the rear view mirror as I prattled on. I spared no detail from the past half year. I figured, hell, I’ll never see this guy again. He’ll probably think I’m the world’s biggest pain in the ass, but I’ll feel better for having gotten it all off my chest.

As we neared my house, I finally paused to take a breath. The driver jumped in immediately. “I wass wahndering,” he began, “how mahch eet wude cost for me to drive you to Bloomington, Eendeeahnna.” With that, we began to negotiate. We went back and forth like a couple of old pros in the bazaars of Ankara or Tehran. We settled at last on $150. “Deal!” I shouted and we shook hands.

I dashed inside to grab my overnight bag and shake hands with the mayor. I also wrapped up some oatmeal cookies I’d made the day before and some fresh pizza I’d made that morning. I brought the packages out to him. As he gratefully accepted the food, he said, “Seet in the front, please.” Off we went.

The driver, I Iearned, was was named Mohammad and called himself Hamma. He grew up in a big city in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq. He told me how vile the Saddam regime had been and how thankful he was that the US had overthrown him. He’d gone to college to become an engineer and surveyor, all on the public dime (“D’at wass one gude t’ing about d’e old regime.”) He talked of the mountains and the harsh winters of northern Iraq. He seemed to enjoy having company. He also seemed hesitant to tell me which big city he came from or why he came to America. I wondered: Is he a fugitive? A secret agent?

Once we hit the 70-mile-per-hour zone outside Clark County, Indiana, Hamma sipped his coffee, flicked on the cruise control and we settled into silence. Soon, my eyelids became heavy. Outside Seymour I heard an enormous snort like that of the Kentucky State Fair prize-winning boar and sat bolt upright.

Me: “Are you okay?”

Hamma (laughing): “I’m okay. You fell asleep.”

Me (embarrassed): “Oh.” We fell back into silence until I was awakened by the same snort twenty five miles down the road. We finally pulled into Bloomington after two and a half hours. The meter read $269.

Hamma: “Well sair, it looks like d’e trip wass a leetle longer d’en we t’ought.”

I pulled out my wallet as he spoke. I thought: Now, how am I gonna cut off this line of reasoning off without starting a fight?

Hamma: “So I t’ink I may have to charge you a leetle bit more….” He stopped suddenly as he saw me pull out my ATM card. “Uh oh, you don’t have cash? I can’t accept d’e card.” Only then did I notice he didn’t have a credit card processor. So we spent the next fifteen minutes looking for an ATM, Hamma shaking his head all the while and expressing his hope that I wasn’t trying to screw him. Finally we found a machine and I handed him eight twenties.

Me: “Jeez, I never thought my ATM card would cause me so much trouble.”

Hamma: “Yes. Usually d’ey are gud t’ings.” He didn’t say another word about charging me more money. As he drove off, I thought: Yep, occasionally they are.

Benny Jay: My Michael Jordan Years

They inducted Michael Jordan into the Basketball Hall of Fame over the weekend, and the reporters kept asking themselves: What was his greatest moment?

So many great ones to choose from — the 69 points against Cleveland; the 55 against New York; the 63 against Boston — it’s hard to know where to start.

I feel the same away about my own remarkable exploits during the amazing Jordan run. The best I can do is take it year by year….

1989 — After Jordan hits the jumper at the buzzer to win the playoff series against the Cavs, I jump up and down like a pogo stick, yelling: “Yay! Whee! Wow!”  Or something like that. My older daughter — not quite one — sits on the floor and watches me in wonder, thinking: “Who is this strange man I call daddy?”

1990 — I watch the Bulls lose the crucial game five in their Eastern Conference series against Detroit with my friend, Ralph, in his apartment. As the game slips away, I bang and kick his living-room foot rest so hard that Ralph says: “Hey, stop it. I like that foot rest.”

1991 — Friends gather in my house to watch the Bulls play Los Angeles in the final game of the championship series. After the Bulls win their first championship, I drag my old high-school diary out of storage and read aloud sections about Norm Van Lier, the great Bulls guard of the `70s, where I go: “I love the great Norm Van Lier.” Or something like that. My friends smile at me and sneak looks at each other as if to say, “I didn’t realize he was this weird.”  Conveniently, I skip the parts of my high-school diary where I go on and on about Carly Simon‘s breasts.

1992 — I watch the decisive game seven of the rock-`em-sock-`em series against the Knicks at my mother-in-law’s house in suburban New York City (no choice, long story) with my brother-in-law, a Knicks fan. The Bulls kill them. I tell my brother-in-law: “Congratulations, your guys really played well.” I think: “Knicks suck, you lose — ha, ha, ha, ha, ha….”

1993 — I’m at the house of my parents when the Bulls beat Phoenix to win their third straight championship. On the drive home, I entertain my wife and children by honking my horn and yelling out the window: “Yay! Whee! Wow!” Or something like that. Later that night my wife and I join the Rush Street rioters, smashing windows and overturning cars. Just kidding….

1994 — After Jordan retires to play baseball, the Bulls lose a playoff heart-breaker to the Knicks on an unbelievably, unfair last-second foul called on Scottie Pippen by a referee named Hue Hollins. I fall to my knees and make strange sobbing sounds. Ten years pass before I forgive Hollins and get over his cause. Well, actually, I’m still not over it…..

1995 — Hearing that Jordan’s back from retirement, I call every Bull fan I know and exclaim: “Yay! Whee! Wow!” Or something like that. On the week it opens, Milo and I drag our kids to see Space Jam. The kids are bored. Milo and I love it….

1996 — After I miss the opening game on this year’s playoff run because my wife committed me to going to some show, I inform her that heretofore, until further notice, she is never, never, never — under any circumstances whatsoever — to make plans or obligations for me from mid-April through June. Or until the Bulls playoff run is over.  Understand? During the show’s intermission, I call Big Jon Randolph from a payphone in the lobby to ask for the score….

1997 — At a Bulls party at my house, I refrain from yelling at Big Mike when he knocks three cartons of pizza onto the floor, where they land upside down. I peel the cheese off of the top of the boxes and then dump the cheese in a clump on top of the pizza. Then I eat the pizza as the Bulls beat Utah to win their second championship in this run. Nobody else eats the pizza cause the cheese tastes like cardboard. The wimps….

1998 — After the Bulls win their sixth championship in eight years, I call Milo and proclaim the following vow: If the Bulls don’t do whatever they can to keep Jordan from retiring, I’m through with them! You hear me? Through with them. As in, I will never, never, never watch another Bulls game. And you can quote me! The Bulls do just the opposite — doing just about everything they can to drive Jordan out of town. The team falls apart, ushering in a decade of doom.

1999 — I break my vow, making sure to watch just about every single Bulls game I can. My wife tells me: “You really need help.” I say: “Not now, honey, I’m on the phone with Milo, talking about the Bulls….”

Letter From Milo: The Readers Have Their Say

The piece I posted about my upcoming heart surgery elicited more responses than anything else I have written. Letters and emails poured in to The Third City blog site, and I’d say more than 60% of them were supportive. People wrote to ask if I was okay. They worried about my health. They worried about my state of mind. They worried in general. Most of my readers, apparently, are worriers.

I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to have all of these wonderful people write to express their sympathy and offer best wishes. Marjorie Synakiewicz and Mary Beth Sundstad sent lovely notes. Meryl Streep sent me some used panties. Monica Lewinsky offered to drop by for a few minutes and cheer me up. My good friend, Bruce Diksas, sent me a Hallmark Card with a joint and a ten dollar bill enclosed.

Even Big Mike, the Barn Boss of this shabby outfit, sent me an endearing note, telling me to cut the bullshit and get my next blog ready or else he’d come over and perform the surgery himself.

Anyway, I thought I’d share a few of the letters from well wishers and concerned readers. Here are a few of the heartfelt notes along with my snappy replies.

Letter #1:

Motherfucker, where’s my money!

Snappy reply:

Oops. I’m sorry. That was a letter from a previous piece.

Letter #2:

Great scam, dude! You cam make a lot of money from that heart surgery thing. I made about six grand last year, collecting money for my liver transplant. The funny thing is, I was planning a benefit for myself later this year to collect some bread for a quadruple bypass. I was thinking that maybe we should get together and hold a super benefit. We can make some real money, man. There’s a lot of chumps out there. How about it?

Snappy reply:

Count me in.

Letter #3:

Hello to you. I am presently being Ibeku Nayana, President of the Third National Bank in Lagos, Nigeria. The situation in concern of your heart was pointed to my attention. I am wishing to inform of you the Greater Nigerian Charitable Association has made many funds available for you in this time of your trouble. The sum is $190,000 in USA dollar money to help paying to the doctor who will proceed to operating for you. If you will please and kindly send to me a money order for $300 to cover the necessary paperworking and the international taxing business, I will personally sending to you the $190,000 immediately or sooner, whichever preference you may be wishing.

Snappy reply:

Oh, man! That’s great. I can really use the dough. I’ll send the money order this afternoon.

Letter#4:

I am Doctor Wallace Hafner, the surgeon who will be performing your heart procedure. I was going over my schedule this morning and ran across your name. Are you by any chance the same low-life rotten bastard who was screwing my wife a couple of years ago?

Snappy reply:

Heh, heh. No sir. You must have me confused with another Milo Samardzija

Letter #5:

This is your friend Sven from the Fabulous Swedish Dick Extender Company. I am truly sorry to hear of your recent troubles. You have been a valued customer over the years and we wish you the best of luck in the future. I am sure that after your surgery you will be like a new man, invigorated and ready for, ah, new challenges. That is why I want to inform you of the new model FSDE, which will be available in November. We are calling it the Turbo Extra Large Jumbo Sizer and it comes in two versions: the Louisville Slugger and the Wilt Chamberlain. If you wish, we will save you the version of your choice. The usual terms apply.

Snappy reply:

Always great to hear from you, Sven. I’ll take the Wilt Chamberlain. By the way, can you send clearer instructions this time? Last year’s model, the Seattle Slew, came with a confusing instruction manual. I ended up walking with a limp for about a week and a half. Thanks for thinking of me.

Big Mike: The Secret Of A Happy Marriage – Sharing

The farewell tour continues. As I’ve indicated in previous posts, there are a few things I’ll miss about Luigiville. But there is one thing I’ll be thrilled to put in the rear view window.

For the longest time my fair, adopted River City has been recognized as the allergy and asthma capital of the United States. Sitting in the Ohio River Valley, Louisville is smack-dab in the middle of a collecting trough for all the mold, pollen and ragweed produced in a six-state area. In spring and fall allergy seasons, 90 percent of the populace appears to be mourning their old pet dogs, what with the number of folks dabbing at their eyes or holding their kerchiefs to their effluent noses.

I don’t know if it is psychosomatic or just the cumulative effect of the organic grit in the air suffered over two and a half years, but this current allergy season is kicking the living shit out of me.

About a week and a half ago, my head and face started aching and my throat became sore. After a couple of days, it felt as though there was an open wound in my upper esophagus every time I swallowed a bite of food. I grabbed the flashlight and studied the back of my throat in the bathroom mirror for long minutes. It looked red and raw, but no more so than during any other bout of cold, flu or allergy. This time, though, I could have sworn there were razor blades mashed in with my pastas.

It got so bad I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to eat anymore – which would have been a first in my life.

Then the headache decided it was time to take over. I woke up Monday morning with the sensation that someone had poured concrete into my nasal passages and sinuses. My head weighed 143 pounds. I feared that if I fell over and my head hit the hardwood flooring, we’d have to pay for the repairs before the new owners take possession. This unpleasantness continued unabated until yesterday.

Then it got worse. As I lay down to try to get to sleep last night, I felt like Shemp with his head caught in a letterpress. So I rolled over. Only the substances massed within the cavities of my cranium shifted like the tidal waters of the Atlantic Ocean. I’d drift off to sleep for precious minutes until the tide sploshed, agonizingly and slowly, against the lowermost edges of said cavities. So I rolled over again, only to have the process repeat itself. Then I tried to sleep in every other room of the house, rather like a dog. I would even sniff out an area and walk in a circle around it before I lay down with a sigh. This continued until 3:30am, at which time I’d come to my senses in time to discover I’d thrown a noose over a rafter and was positioning a chair underneath it.

I came alert with a shudder. I tiptoed gently back into the bedroom, not so much because I was loath to disturb The Loved One but because every normal step I took jarred my aching coconut.

I stood next to the bed and gazed upon the face of a sleeping beauty. Those precious closed eyelids! The tresses draped over her lovely face! That delicate nose! The snoring that reminded me of the female elk!

I shifted from foot to foot but The Loved One was fast asleep. I moaned – softly, quietly – conveying both my desire not to overly alarm her but to let her know that my skull was about to burst. She didn’t move a muscle. I coughed once, then again, louder. Soon, I was hacking like Milo the morning after a poker game. Finally, The Loved One stirred.

“What is it?” she muttered.

“Oh, did I wake you?”

“Yes. What is it?”

I explained to her my battle thus far with the headache. By the time I got to the analogy of me and the dog, I heard the elk sounds again. I shook the bed.

“Wha’? Wha’?” she exclaimed, sitting bolt upright.

“My head is exploding!”

“Here, I’ll rub your forehead.”

“No! Don’t touch my head! It’ll make it worse!”

“Okay, how about if I massage the back of your neck?”

“Are you crazy? How’ll that make my headache go away?”

“Well, take some ibuprofen.”

“I did, hours ago. It didn’t help.”

“Then take some Excedrin.”

“I don’t wanna mix drugs.”

“Well, what do you want me to do?”

“Make it go away.”

She looked at me through narrowed eyes. “Now you’re giving me a headache,” she said. “Happy?”

I can’t honestly say that I was happy. I still had the headache. I still couldn’t sleep. But at least I wasn’t alone.

Randolph Street: Highway 61 — Travelin’ America

Balcony Entrance – Osceola, Arkansas

Hot Dog – Grand Marais, Minnesota

Sky — Thunder Bay, Ontario

Barstool – Hovland, Minnesota

The Astoria – Percy, Mississippi

Crossroads – -South of Duluth Minnesota

This is a personal look at mid-America that I shot between 1976 and 1985.  These were taken along the approximately 1700 miles of US Highway 61 that roughly follows the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Minneapolis, then juts northeast to Duluth and along the western edge of Lake Superior to Thunder Bay, Ontario.  All photographs © Jon Randolph.

Benny Jay: Right On Red

I’m on the phone with Big Mike talking about the Cubs, when the letter  from the city comes in the mail.

It’s a ticket informing me that I owe one hundred bucks for running a red light at the intersection of Ashland and Irving.

Now, I’m not the sort of guy who likes to swear. Quite the contrary, I usually see swearing as a sign of an uncreative mind. But, in this case, I can’t help myself.  So….

“FUCK!!!!”

Do I feel better? Not really. So I try it again.

“FUCK!!!!!”

“What?” asks my wife.

“You got a ticket,” I say, showing her the letter from the city.

“What do you mean I got a ticket? How do you know you didn’t get the ticket?”

“Cause – it’s not me. It’s you….”

“But you don’t know that….”

I hate to say it but she’s right. There’s a picture of our car at the intersection. But you can’t tell who’s driving. It could be anyone.

So I scan the ticket for the time of the infraction, which is Friday morning at 6:37. A-ha!

“See,” I say, “it was you. You were driving that morning….”

She says nothing cause there’s nothing she can say. And I feel a brief taste of exultation as if I won that battle. But it really doesn’t matter cause we still have to pay one-hundred dollars.  So one last time….

“Fuck!!!”

Big Mike thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world….

“Those rotten Mother Fu…..”

Big Mike is wheezing, he’s laughing so hard…..

“The picture clearly shows my car stopped at the intersection. I’m clearly turning right on red! How is that illegal – huh? Last I looked a man can turn right on Red in this country – those filthy Nazi bastards!!!!”

“Oh, now they’re Nazis,” says Big Mike between convulsions….

“No way I’m paying this,” I say.

Big Mike, stops wheezing long enough to offer me a little advice: Pay the ticket.

As a lifelong Chicagoan he assumes that 1.) I’m guilty and 2.) even if I’m innocent I can’t possibly win cause the system’s fixed.

“So just pay the ticket,” he repeats.

“Bullshit, man. I’m fighting this. They won’t get one dime outta me!”

At the bottom of the ticket is a link to computer site where I can watch a film version of the incident. I’m getting all lathered up. I see myself as Johnnie Cochran using the city’s own evidence against it.

“It’s a racket,” I tell Big Mike. “They stick those cameras on light poles and randomly take pictures and send you tickets, knowing that the typical Chicagoan is too stupid to fight. They’re probably bringing in billions. Well, they won’t get my money! Those deceitful mother fu….”

Hours pass. Night comes. My wife returns from work. Together we sit at the computer and watch the tape. And guess what?

We’re guilty all right. Or as Big Mike once put it in a different matter many years ago: Guilty, guilty, guilty. As the footage clearly shows, she sailed right through that red light. Didn’t even pretend to slow down. Just looked to her left, saw no coming traffic and finished the turn.

“We gotta pay,” I say.

“But I was turning right on red,” says my wife. “I can turn right on red at that hour of the day.”

“Yeah, but you have to come to a stop before you turn right. It’s like a stop sign….”

“Oh….”

“You didn’t know that?”

“No….”

“Where you’ve been for the last thirty years?”

Silently, she uses our credit card to send the city one hundred dollars over the Internet.

What I say is: “Let this be a valuable lesson….”

What I think is: “Thank God, it wasn’t me….”