Big Mike: Maybe I Should Turn Republican

The Loved One and I took a trip back to Louisville yesterday afternoon to pick up our plants. Since we had to stay in a hotel room for our first few weeks here in Bloomington, Indiana, we had to leave our plants with a sitter, an old work chum of TLO.

It’s funny how attached I’ve become to the plants. We’re not green-thumbers by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, all we have are a single fern and two small potted trees that I think may be ficuses, although I couldn’t testify to it in court.

Nevertheless, I really, really like our plants, ergo the arrangements for their care. At one time we had a grand total of two plants — the fern and a ficus — but then I decided to play Gregor Mendel. I cut a sprig from the ficus, put it in a glass of water until it sprouted roots and then potted it. Voila — two ficuses! I felt like the daddy of a newborn. Only this was much better — I didn’t have to change diapers and, later, endure all that teenaged bullshit. All I had to do was water it and give it sun. Under those criteria, I make an excellent father.

Anyway, The Loved One dropped me off at my old familiar Barnes & Noble while she dashed off to meet her chum for lunch. I was greeted by the B&N cafe staff like a returning general; they wanted to know all about Bloomington and how I’m dealing with the radically different culture there. You’d think Bloomington is as alien as Angkor Wat.

Come to think of it, it is.

While I sat in the cafe, doing the New York Times crossword, sipping a coffee the size of a 55-gallon drum and nibbling on a stuffed pizza pretzel (I am addicted to them), who strolled up but good old Trivia-meister Andy. I invited him to sit and we talked about old times at Dick’s Pizza (if events that occurred longer than only six weeks ago can be considered old times.)

We remembered and laughed about Captain Billy, Printer Bob and All-American Allen, all of whom espouse philosophies that would bring smiles to the faces of Father Coughlin or Rush Limbaugh. I’d gone around and around with the three of them every time an issue of current events was raised. To them I represented a chilling future for this great land of ours. Guys like me want to take their guns away, tax them into the poorhouse, force their daughters to marry black men and euthanize them when they get too old.

We’d fight tooth and nail over Barack Obama’s plan to phony up his birth announcement in Hawaii, get his schooling in a terrorist madrasah, come to America, run for president and win, and then turn the keys of the country over to Osama bin Laden — whose name is so similar to his that only an idiot could fail to see the connection between them.

One night Printer Bob and I argued our points so loudly that Jason the bartender had to come around the bar and warn us to knock it off.

The funny thing is, Captain Billy, Printer Bob and All-American Allen would be viewed as  softies in the hills of Kentucky only 25 miles to the south and east of us. It’s a scientifically proven fact that more Kentucky men prefer sleeping with their Savage Model 110 bolt-action rifles than their spouses. Then again, I’ve seen some of those spouses and I don’t blame them.

Don’t ask me why, but Captain Billy, Printer Bob, All-American Allen and I all really liked each other. Privately, I’d describe them all as candidates for the lunatic asylum — and, no doubt, they’d describe me similarly — yet we always sought out each other’s company. And, as Benny Jay told me recently over the phone, my recounting in this space of the exchanges between us were often uproarious.

But now, no more. There are no Captain Billys here in Bloomington. Nor are there Printer Bobs or All-American Allens. If there are, they’re doing their best to remain under cover. The crowd that hunkers down at Soma coffeehouse is right on all the issues. In other words, they think exactly as I do. What a bore!

For instance, a fellow sat next to me at Soma last Sunday afternoon. We struck up a conversation during which he revealed to me his views that George W. Bush was the worst president we’ve ever had, the Iraq war is an atrocity, everybody in America has a right to health care coverage, and the Republicans are increasingly catering to a close-minded, crypto-racist, xenophobic, anti-intellectual crowd.

My responses to these opinions? Yup. Uh huh. Sure. I getcha. Boy, you said it.

I’ll bet you didn’t even titter as you read that. Besides the lack of entertainment value in such an exchange, there’s really nothing to be learned from bobbing one’s head at a fellow conversationalist who thinks exactly as I do.

Take the time All-American Allen and I squared off over guns. He reveres guns the way I do books. Without them, his life would be empty. At first I thought his feelings were a sure sign he’s nuts. But as I probed to find out why he thought this way, I learned his fondest memories of childhood were golden sunlit autumn afternoons trudging through fields and woods with his father as they hunted deer. His father taught him how to handle a gun safely, how to aim, how to avoid snakes in the grass, how to keep his hands warm and so on. Those outings brought him close to his father, a sharing that I’d never experienced and have longed for all my life. The gun he held as a boy was bridge between him and his dad. The memories keep him warm to this day. And here, I wanted to take that away from him.

I considered myself a tad smarter after that argument. I felt no such enrichment after my conversation with the man at Soma. Who knows? Maybe I should start quoting Rush Limbaugh. Nah. Benny Jay wouldn’t approve. And I’d feel awfully stupid.

Benny Jay: Crossword Guru

A few days after he’s home from the hospital, my wife and I visit Milo, bearing a vat of her delicious homemade chicken soup.

He greets us at the door and ushers into the room off the kitchen, where the sunlight’s streaming through the window. His wife and my wife go off, wandering around the house doing whatever it is that wives do with each other when their husbands aren’t around. Probably bitching about their husbands.

Milo and I sit in the room with the sun pouring in. “So,” I tell him, “you’re looking pretty good.”

He nods. It occurs to me he must be dopey from the painkillers. Probably wondering when we’re going home so he can lay down and get some rest – not that I blame him. The man just had open-heart surgery, for goodness sakes.

I look at the table and see a book of crossword puzzles.

“Dang, Milo,” I say. ” Sunday New York Times — this is the real shit….”

“Yeah,” he says with a shrug.

The thing is I’ve got a love-hate relationship with crossword puzzles. I love them, but they hate me. At least, I suck at them. I can stare at a crossword puzzle for hours — waste my whole damn day — and still not figure out any answers.  And it bothers me cause just about everybody I know – Big Mike, Jon Randolph, my cousin Bobby G, who knows everything about everything – is really good at them. They’ll be whipping through the crossword puzzle in no time and I’ll be staring at the clues, hoping, begging, preying that the answer magically appears.

Just about the only other person who’s as bad as me at crossword puzzles is my sister. Sometimes we do them together, though that’s not a good idea cause it usually leads to a fight. I insist on using a pencil and she insists on using a pen. I say, if you use a pen you can erase your mistakes. She says, if you use a pencil you can’t read what you write cause the pencil is too light. I say, if you can’t read what you write cause you have to scratch out your mistakes, what’s the point? She says, shut up, I’ll do what I want. I say, what if what you want to do is stupid? And so on and so forth…

Anyway, I pick up Milo’s crossword puzzle book and I can’t believe what I see: Puzzle after puzzle filled in with a pen. That’s right, just like my sister, Milo uses a pen. Only unlike my sister there’s no crossing out.

“Hey, Milo,” I say. “Did you do these puzzles?”

He shrugs.

“You might be as good as my cousin and he’s a freakin’ genius at this stuff….”

“Ah,” he says with a little wave of his arm.

I put the book down cause I figure it’s rude to do a crossword puzzle when we’re supposed to be talking. But I can’t resist, so I pick it back up, open to a puzzle that’s about three-quarters filled, and look at the first clue.

“Okay, Milo,” I say. “What’s a five-letter word for `ditto’?”

“Ditto?” he asks.

“Ditto,” I say.

“What you got so far?”

“Well, ugh, blank, blank, a-m-i….”

“Blank, blank?”

“Yeah, you know – as in an open box that we have to fill with a letter….”

“Oh….”

He shifts in his seat and falls silent. I figure the drugs must be kicking in so he’ll be no help. I stare at those two blank spaces in front of the a-m-i. The only sound is the dog, scratching at the screen door to be let in.…

Milo mumbles something.

I look up. To tell you the truth, I’d forgotten he was there.

“Huh?” I ask.

“As am I,” he says.

“As am I?” I say, thinking he’s lost his mind from the painkillers.

“Yeah,” he says. “You know – like ditto….”

I look at the two blank spaces and it hits me. “Holy shit, Milo, you’re right!”

He shrugs.

After I fill in those spaces, the puzzle sort of finishes itself. When I’m done, I sit back all satisfied, like I’ve climbed a mountain.

On the way home, I’m still feeling pretty good about my crossword achievement. Plus, Herb Kent’s on the radio and he’s playing, “All About Love” – one of the greatest Earth Wind & Fire songs of all time.

I’m singing along when it occurs to me: Milo filled in the crucial missing piece. Not me — Milo. Wasted on pain killers, recuperating from having his chest opened like a lobster, and he’s still better than me.  Damn, I suck!

Reminds me of the time I got out-rebounded in a basketball game by a pregnant woman. No lie. Happened in 1990. Her name’s Jennifer and she was in, I believe, her sixth month of pregnancy. We were playing at a health club. To this day, I contend she fouled me, coming over my back. But that’s a story for another day….

Randolph Street: Highway 61–American Road

Gent–Missouri

Motel–Minnesota

Bus Stop–New Orleans, Louisiana

Bus Stop–Minneapolis, Minnesota

Water Tower–East Dubuque, Illinois

Pickup Truck–Davenport, Iowa

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.

Big Mike: Save Me From Those Who Want To Save Me!

Lately, I’ve received a few Facebook messages from friends and relatives subtly suggesting I forgo my atheistic ways. As if Facebook isn’t stultifying enough — what with teenagers announcing to the world that they have a taste for ice cream and adults trumpeting that they’re achy from exercise class — now I have to endure Christian claptrap. Jesus!

So now I feel compelled to holler to the world via this blog my firmly held belief that either there is no god or — if there is — man, what an asshole.

One of the hallmarks of religions throughout history has been the idea that we occupy a special place in the Universe. Human beings on Earth, say the priests, the imams and the shamans are unique. We’re the apple of god’s eye, as Mark Twain so aptly put it in “Letters from the Earth.”

In fact, most Holy Men will suggest the raison d’etre of the Universe is to serve as a spacious home for Homo Sapiens. That’s you, me, all our relatives and friends, Benny Jay, Milo, The Loved One, Barack Obama, Meryl Streep, Tony Bennett — everybody! Of course, that also includes Balloon Boy’s parents, Kathy Griffin and Glenn Beck — as if that alone wasn’t proof there is no god.

Anyway, not so fast, Padre. Our pricey big telescopes and darting space probes have shed light on the almost certain notion that life exists elsewhere in this big, old Cosmos. And where there’s life, there must be the potential for intelligence (or, failing that, Glenn Beck.)

Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope announced in 2008 that they’ve detected organic molecules on a huge planet some 63 light-years away. The planet, poetically dubbed HD 189733b, orbits a star in the constellation Vulpecula.

HD 189733b has traces of water and methane — two of the four substances that indicate a planet can support life as we know it. (The other two are carbon dioxide and oxygen.)

Head of the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab’s team responsible for the discovery, Mark Swain (now don’t go confusing him with Mark Twain), called it “a dress rehearsal for future searches for life on more hospitable planets.” HD 189733b is too close to its host star – and therefore too hot – to support life as we know it.

Closer to home, the Cassini spacecraft, which studied Saturn’s neighborhood, “tasted” an organic soup emanating from the gas giant’s moon Enceladus. (By the way, don’t you just love the term “gas giant”? It signifies the massive outer planets of our Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. It can also refer to me after I’ve gorged on a frozen Home Run Inn pizza.)

Anyway, Enceladus’s “soup” contains more of the ingredients of life. According to Dennis Matson, Cassini project scientist at the JPL in Pasadena, “Enceladus has got warmth, water, and organic chemicals, some of the essential building blocks needed for life.”

Give us a few more decades and scientists will find living, breathing creatures roaming some distant planet. Just as the spectacular photograph of the earthrise taken by the Apollo 8 astronauts changed the way we view our world (well, some of us,) the realization that beasts and intellectuals may populate other planets ought to put us even more in our places.

Who, then, will be the apple of god’s eye?

Benny Jay: Badminton Betrayal

I’m sitting in a Starbucks, nursing my second cup of coffee and nibbling on a hazel nut scone, when Kimberly walks in.

She’s here for help writing her college-entrance essay, and like so many other high school seniors, she doesn’t know where to start.

Well, I ask, what’s the topic they want you to write about?

A setback in my life….

Okay, what setbacks have you suffered?

Hmm, I don’t know….

Relax. Think about it. We’ve got time….

I sip my coffee. I eat my scone. I eye the sports section of the paper — it’s a story about the Knicks….

Well, I got cut from the badminton team my sophomore year….

Okay, tell me about it….

And so she does. Only, like a lot of first-time story tellers, she starts slow. Like she’s too shy to burden me with all the details. But as I press her for the information, she picks up and it becomes less an interview than a monologue….

I was never very good at sports. I thought I’d give badminton a try. I made the freshman team — well, everybody makes the freshman team. There are no cuts. I liked it better than I ever imagined. I liked the girls on the team, the camaraderie, the spirit, the games, the uniforms. I liked having something to do after school. I even went to badminton camp over the summer. I tried out for the sophomore team….

And how did you do?

Good. They had us play each other. I won more than I lost. I’m no Olympian, but I was definitely good enough to make the team….

So?

On the day of the cuts, they sat us in the big gym and called us in one by one to a second gym where the three coaches sat in a semi circle to break the news. I was one of the last girls called. The head sophomore coach — call her Coach Jannie — starts in about how much I’ve improved and how well I’ve done and I’m thinking I’m in. Then she says, but….

She cut you?

I was in tears.  My friends tried to console me. I went home, put my badminton racket away and I haven’t taken it out since….

And?

Nothing, really. Except….

Except what?

Well, I’d see this girl — call her Frannie — going to practice.  I never  understood how she made the team. She hadn’t played as a freshman. Badminton wasn’t even her best sport — field hockey was. She’s a good field hockey player….

Okay….

So one day I’m talking to a friend who was on the badminton team and I say, `I can’t understand how Frannie made the team.’ And my friend says, `you don’t know?’ And I say, `know what?’ And she tells me that Frannie had been busted for drinking and as a punishment the school makes athletes lose — I don’t know — a few weeks of eligibility….

You mean, they have to sit out?

Yes, sit out. So, like I said, Coach Jannie is the sophomore badminton coach. But she’s also the varsity field hockey coach. And Frannie is one of her best players. And so….

Oh, my God. It’s starting to dawn on me…..

To save Frannie a full season of eligibility in field hockey, Coach Jannie put her on the badminton team….

And that meant kicking you off?

She nodded.

Normally, I try not to swear in front of teenagers, cause I don’t know, I figure I should at least try to set a good example. But, in this case, I can’t help myself.

Aw, fuck….

She smiles….

That conniving, duplicitous, two timing little….

She laughs….

I lean closer and lower my voice like — I don’t know — the coach can hear us: Are you sure? Do you know for certain?

No, I don’t know for certain. But having sat out her drinking suspension during badminton, Frannie got to play a full season of field hockey. And she never went out for badminton again, so you draw your conclusion….

I think about the story all the way home.  That coach was willing to screw up some kid’s life just to win a game or two of field hockey.  Wow! I mean, okay, I can see basketball, but field hockey? (Just joking about the basketball, I think.)

Anyway, it turns out okay. Kimberly writes a great essay about not personalizing rejection — how in retrospect she realizes she should have tried out for the team again. As I see it, she turned a setback into a triumph and left a lesson for us all.

As for old Coach Jannie. What a loser — sold her soul for a few games of field hockey. I can’t imagine there are many who gave up more for less….

Big Mike: The Break Of My Life

Pulling up to Soma coffeehouse last night made me think of the single luckiest moment I’ve ever experienced.

Beautiful fall night. The sky crystal clear. Leaves on the sidewalks. Indiana U students shambling here and there, either giggling or speaking of weighty matters as college students do. Soma’s my new favorite place in the world. A perfect coffeehouse, run by alt-chicks who have none of that big city barista contempt oozing out of their pores. The music caters to both the young (hip-hop, for instance, during which time I put on my headphones) and old bastards like me when they play, say, Bjork, Lush or Gang of Four.

I was in a hurry to park and get in because I was bubbling over with a rebuttal I wanted to post on my and Peter Ajemian’s new blog, Cub Fan, Hub Fan. Saw a space up ahead and speeded up to grab it. Flipped on the turn signal, pulled alongside the parked car ahead of the space, just as high school drivers ed teachers prescribe, and shifted into reverse. Doing everything by the book.

Suddenly, I was hit with a flash, the horrifying memory of a time I didn’t do everything so right.

I drifted back to the late summer of 1972. I was the proud possessor of a crisp new drivers license. I couldn’t have had it more than three months. My most valuable thing in existence. Had a discordant deity offered me the choice of losing my new DL or never seeing my family again, I would have had to think for a moment.

My best pal at the time, a motorhead named Marc (who, before falling in love with Lakes pipes and fuzzy dice, had been a chubby righthanded pitcher who threw heat — no batter in Little League or high school could touch him,) had bought an old beater Ford Galaxie for $40. The thing was a wreck, the engine seemingly about to explode every time he turned on the ignition, the body crumpled and folded as if it had been driven off a cliff. Marc spent countless hours working on the car. He dropped a new engine in it. He replaced three of the four quarter-panels. He rechromed the bumpers. After a few months, the car sparkled like new. Refurbishing that Galaxie had been the accomplishment of his young life.

We were hanging out in his garage that August Saturday afternoon. Marc was buffing the car even though it already shone like the mirror in the Hale Telescope on Mt. Palomar.

Marc: “Whaddya wanna do tonight?”

Me: “I dunno.”

Marc: “Wanna get somethin’?” [Code for: “Do you want to find an adult sap who’ll buy a bottle of Boone’s Farm Apple Wine for us?”]

Me: “Yeah.”

Marc: “Too bad I’m broke. I had to buy new floor mats yesterday.”

Me: “My sister owes me for babysitting. You wanna drive me to her house?”

Marc: “Nah. I’m tired. You wanna take the car?”

Me: [Aghast.] “This car?!”

Marc: “Yeah.” [Code for: “My heart is filled with platonic love for you, dear friend, and I’d trust you with my mother’s life.”]

Jumping into the driver’s seat of that Galaxie was almost as thrilling to me as the time, two years later, I squeezed my first breast on the floor of my girlfriend’s dorm room in Carbondale. I flipped the radio on, loud, as I drove slowly down the alley. Marc watched me all the way down, like a father bidding adieu to his little girl going off to college. Only after I turned right on Bloomingdale Avenue along Amundsen Park and was out of his sight did I floor it. Man, I made those wheels spin. I must have left a quarter inch of rubber on the city’s streets before I got to Franny’s house a mile away.

I drove slowly down Marmora Avenue, hoping Franny’s neighbors might see me and think Now there’s a noteworthy young man — he’s driving a car! I pulled up in front of Franny’s bungalow, Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-a-ling” blaring on the radio. My four-year-old nephew Dougie was playing in front of the wide oak tree next to the curb.

I shifted into reverse. I thought perhaps Franny and her neighbors ought to know I — the noteworthy young man — had arrived. So I punched that gas pedal, hoping to squeal into the space like Steve McQueen as Bullitt in his dark green Mustang. Oh, how impressed they’d all be with my driving skill! None of this sissy caution. I was bold and loud — just watch me!

Naturally, a sixteen-year-old with a three-month-old license is no more capable of squealing into a tight parking space than he is of planning for his retirement. The car bolted like a Saturn V booster. Before I could react, I heard a huge crash and was jerked to a stop by that wide oak tree. Leaves poured down on the car as if it were Fall.

By dear god in heaven — Dougie! I’d killed him! Jesus fucking Christ! I’d crushed him between the rechromed rear bumper and the tree! Oh no, oh god no, no! I leaped out of the Galaxie, screaming hysterically. I forced myself to look for Doug’s flattened body but I couldn’t find it. That’s how efficiently I’d crushed him. I sank to my knees and wailed.

Then, the break of my life. “Uncle Mike! Uncle Mike!” — it was Dougie’s voice. Why? How? For some reason he’d moved away from the curb, away from the tree, as I pulled up. The crash scared the poo out of him — literally. But he was alive.

I grabbed him and, ironically, almost crushed him with a hug. I only let him go when the smell of his loaded drawers overpowered me. Then I experienced the first of several nervous breakdowns I would have in my life. This one was worth it.

All these things were on my mind as I backed ever so slowly, ever so cautiously, into the parking spot near Soma.

Benny Jay: A Couple Of Miracles

It’s Sunday night, and the bowling boys get together at J-Dub’s apartment to watch the Bears play the Falcons.

We were going to watch the game at my house. As a matter of fact, at the first bowling game of the season — just about four or five Monday nights ago — I insisted that I play host. Just to repay them for all the times they have hosted me.

“That’s a beautiful thing, dawg,” said Norm, who had me over to watch a Bulls game.

“Yeah, man,” said Cap, who had me over to watch the NBA all-star game.

“You got high-def?” asked Norm.

“Well, no, but….”

“Fuck that, man,” says Cap.

“Yeah, let’s go to J-Dub’s,” says Norm.

So much for sentimentality….

But I’m not complaining. J-Dub’s does have the best high-def TV. Plus,  my wife and younger daughter are happy cause they get to watch their stupid show, “Desperate Housewives.” And I bring in the broasted chicken and potatoes from Annette’s, this place by my house — man, I just love their broasted chicken — so it’s sort of like the best of two worlds.

Norm walks in a little late. Says it’s been a rough weekend cause one of his best friends — Sean Mac — had a heart attack.

Just the other day. Happened at work. Started feeling lousy. At first he wrote it off as a bad case of gas. But it wouldn’t go away. The boss sent him home. His wife took him to the hospital. They gave him an EKG and raced him into emergency surgery.

“He was lucky,” says Norm. “They said he had `the widow maker’ — 98 percent blockage….”

“The widow maker?” I ask.

“The widow maker,” says Norm.

“Damn,” says J-Dub.

We take a moment of silence to let it sink in.

Then I tell them about Milo. How he went in for a heart valve replacement and they found an artery that was about to burst. He wound up spending eight hours in surgery.

“My man, Milo?” asks Norm.

“You know Milo?” I ask.

“C’mon, dawg — you brought him to my house for the Bulls game, remember?”

“Oh, yeah….”

“How’s he doing?” asks J-Dub.

Well, as a matter of fact, I saw him just this afternoon. He’s in pain, but he’s better today than he was yesterday and he’ll be better tomorrow than he was today. Thing is, if he hadn’t gone in for that valve surgery….”

“He’s a lucky mutha fucka,” says Norm.

“Word,” says J-Dub.

We take another moment of silence….

It must be getting too mellow, cause J-Dub brings out the heavy artillery — a bottle of Jagermeister.

“C’mon, Benny,” he says.

They all tease me cause I’m not much of a drinker. And usually I’d say no. But — aw, what the hell.

“All right,” I say.

J-Dub pours the shots and we hoist our glasses into the air.

“To the Bears,” says J-Dub.

“To Sean Mac,” says Norm.

“To Milo,” I say.

We clink glasses and knock `em back. I sit back, feeling no pain, and watch the Bears, down by seven, take the ball at their 12-yard line with about three minutes left and march it up the field.

I’d like to say that our little toast inspired a miracle Bears come-from-behind victory. But, no, they make it all the way to the four-yard line before their last pass goes astray. Game over — Falcons win.

“Fuck!” says Norm.

“This is bullshit,” says J Dub.

“Yeah, man,” I say.

We stare at the TV.

But the disappointment doesn’t last too long because 1.) Jen, J-Dub’s girlfriend, brings out some delicious home-made Boston Cream Pie. And let me tell you, eating that stuff makes you just too happy to stay sad. And, 2.) let’s face it, it’s just not worth getting upset over a football game. Now the Bulls? That’s something else.

Besides, it would have taken a lucky miracle for the Bears to win that game. And we already had our fair share of miracles for the week….