Big Mike: Mister Of My Domain
For more than 50 years, I considered myself Mr. Chicago. (Well, not too much more than 50.) I could work out at Timo’s boxing gym on South Halsted Street at eight in the morning, breakfast at Valois on 53rd Street, dash to an interview with one or another local oddball-icon like Chet Coppock, Joe Silverberg or Larry Schreiner, run over to Bic’s Hardware Cafe for more lifegiving java and to write, drop in at Urbus Orbis for my last jolt of caffeine and to play chess, and stop at Myopic Bookstore to browse. Then I’d settle in at the Matchbox for a few refreshing glasses of Double Diamond, followed by a late night bite at Lawrence’s Fisheries at Canal and Cermak. Finally I’d turn in at about 1:00am.
The next day, I’d do it all over again.
Those, of course, were the days when I wasn’t hiding inside my house, my brain filled with all the mixed and outright erroneous signals of agoraphobia, social anxiety, panic disorder and a handful of other skull jockey treats that my shrink has recorded in her fat file on me.
So let’s say for at least one-third of the time during those 50 years, I was darting around Chicago via bicycle, CTA bus, motorcycle or rust-pitted 1984 Chevy Caprice as if I owned the place.
The thought of ever leaving the city terrified me. What would I do without Wrigley Field? Or the Field Museum of Natural History? The el? North Michigan Avenue on a spring morning? How could I bear not being able to bike down the lakefront at night, the glittering lights of the skyline reflecting off the calm lake, filling me with pure, unadulterated joy?
One brilliant Sunday afternoon in July, I pedaled south along the lakefront path. The beaches were loaded with people — volleyball players roaring with laughter, gorgeous young women in the skimpiest bikinis, kids darting here and there, families eating cold fried chicken out of styrofoam coolers. The Cubs already had won their game. All was well with the world at that moment. I had my AM/FM Walkman headphones on and as I came around the bend near the Theater on the Lake, Herb Kent, “The Cool Gent,” started playing “You’re Still A Young Man,” by Tower of Power. I felt so good that I actually began to cry.
Where could I find such an emotional high anywhere else on the planet?
Now I find myself in Bloomington. As in Indiana. Indiana. Indi-goddamned-ana. To a Chicagoan, Indiana is more a terrifying concept than a geographic location. Like hell. Nobody asks where hell is located. They only know they don’t want to go there.
Me, I always thought Indiana was little more than the polluted, depressed, gray, rusted-out, crime-ridden dystopia called Gary. Even after I’d learned that Oprah Winfrey owned a farm in Indiana, I gave the state only the most fleeting of thoughts. As in, Why would the richest, most powerful woman in America want to own a farm in the middle of all those shuttered steel mills?
Yet, here I am. There isn’t a smoke-belching factory, masked mugger, or dirty snowbank in sight. There are, though, the breathtaking hills, the black steers, the cornfields, the formidable limestone architecture of one of the nation’s great universities and a night sky so clear that I can’t even begin to count all the stars in it.
I’m in south central Indiana, below the snow belt, far from the sub-zero winters of the Great Lakes, and far from anything that can be called a real city. Oh sure, Indianapolis is about an hour to the north but, really, it may as well be in Mongolia.
Everybody knows me now at Soma coffeehouse. Constance, the boss at The Book Case where I work mornings, is introducing me to every big shot and sachem in town. I’ll be catching up on the goings-on in the town council and in Monroe County through the newsroom at WFHB radio where I’ll be working as a writer and on-air personality beginning in December.
I still miss Wrigley Field. I wish I could just spend an afternoon at the Field Museum on a whim. Nothing here has elated me to the point of tears just yet.
But I’m happy in a very quiet way now. I’m on my way to becoming Mr. Bloomington.
Benny Jay: Lunching With The Klan
The high-school cross-country season officially ends last week, but for reasons inexplicable to me, my younger daughter’s team opts to extend it another week so they can run in a race in Indiana sponsored by a behemoth shoe company who will go unnamed cause the last thing they need is more publicity.
The team needs a sucker – I mean, an adult – to “coach” them for the race cause high school rules prohibit the regular coach from coaching after the season’s over.
So the head coach and his assistants come together to ask a very basic question: Who’s dumb enough to shoulder this thankless task?
“I know,” says the head coach. “Let’s call Benny Jay!”
In short, that’s how it comes to pass that I’m sitting in the passenger seat of a van, driven by Bill, another parent, who keeps telling me that even though he’s driving he’s not, repeat, not coaching.
In the van behind us is Casey, the coach’s wife, and a bunch of girls. On and on we drive south through the bowels of Indiana, past cows, corn fields and windmills – never saw so many windmills. Until it’s nearing three and the girls are hungry and we have to feed them or they’ll freak out — and, trust me, you don’t want to be around a bunch of teenage girls when they freak out from hunger.
Bill pulls into roadside diner called the — oh, you don’t need to know the name.
Meanwhile, my sixth sense is screaming. Of the seven girls under our care, three are black, and this is central Indiana – home of the KKK. And I know, it’s 2009 and a black man got elected president and it’s wrong to maintain prejudices about people from Indiana. And you can’t judge the present by the past. But….
“I don’t know about this,” I tell Bill. “Let me scope this out….”
So I get out of the car and walk into the restaurant and there’s a couple of people sitting by the window in the back and three old goats in baseball caps sitting at a table in the front. And it’s like — bam — all talking stops and all eyes turn to me. The only sound is the Purdue football game, blaring over an unseen radio or TV in the kitchen.
I walk to the counter where the waitress is standing and I lean in close to establish a feeling of confidentially and just lay my cards on the table.
“I got a girls track team from Chicago. Is it okay to bring them in here to eat?”
“Sure,” she says.
I study her face. She doesn’t look like an in-the-closet Klansman, though I’m not really sure what Klansmen look like when they’re, you know, in the closet.
“So, it’s okay to bring in my track girls from Chicago,” I say, putting special emphasis on the word Chicago like what I’m really saying is: Will you folks act like a bunch of dumb clucks if I bring in three black girls?
“Ya’ll can sit at big table in the corner,” she says.
So out of the vans and into the restaurant file the girls. And they take their seats at the corner table, and the waitress takes our orders and for reasons I can’t explain I start talking in my crummy rendition of a southern accent, like that little boy in the old Shake `n Bake commercial. You know, the kid who goes: “`n I helped!”
Meanwhile, I’m singing Bobby Womack‘s “Across 110th Street.” Why I’m singing that of all songs I can not tell you because I do not know — sometimes the things I do baffle me even as I’m doing them. Certainly, the setting in this diner has nothing in common with the one in Womack’s song. Maybe I’m just so nervous, I’m losing my mind.
“I’ll have the grilled-cheese sandwich and a chocolate milk,” I tell the waitress. “I love chocolate milk!”
She’s looking at me like I’m a lunatic.
“And for a side, I’ll have – well, what’s better: Cole slaw or cottage cheese?”
Pause.
“That depends on what you like better,” she says.
“Good point,” I say. “I’ll take the slaw.”
She couldn’t be nicer as she brings us our food, and I start to feel guilty for the sin of having prejudged these Hoosiers.
And as I approach the door – the last in our bunch to leave – one of the three geezers at the front says to me in his crusty south-Indiana accent: “What prison did you get them from?”
He’s wearing this big dufus grin like he thinks he’s so clever. And I say, “kiss my ass,” as I smash the Ketchup bottle over his head.
Of course, I don’t do that. As you must know by now, that’s not my style.
“They’re really nice girls,” I tell him.
And then, I don’t know what gets into me sometimes, I say: “We’re somewhere between Chicago and Indianapolis – right?”
“Yup,” he says.
“Well, who do folks root for down here – Bears or Colts?”
He gets this big smile, like he was waiting all day to have this conversation. “It’s split,” he says. “You can have a helluva argument about that….”
“Well, that’s great,” I say. “But I gotta go….”
As I bolt out the door, he’s got his mouth wide open, like I cut him off in the middle of his explanation, which I’m sure was fascinating.
The next day on the way home to Chicago, we see a sign for the restaurant.
“How about we stop there for something to eat?” says Bill.
“No way,” says Daddy Dee’s daughter. “Not in this lifetime.”
Not to sound prejudiced, but – Amen to that!
Letter From Milo: TV Days, Medicated Nights
I’ve been watching a lot of TV during my recovery from surgery. Normally, I would spend more time reading than watching the tube, but my favorite reading position, sitting up with my feet on the coffee table and a glass of wine in my hand, is a bit uncomfortable right now. So, I’m spending a lot of time stretched out on the couch with the remote control in easy reach.
I don’t care for regular television programming — the sitcoms or all the dramas with initials for titles, like CSI, NCIS, SVU, etc. I find them manipulative, formulaic and boring. I don’t even watch the network news anymore. Like many people these days, I get the news from the internet, although I still enjoy reading newspapers on a regular basis.
I also refuse to watch reality programs, MTV, screeching political talking heads, talent shows like American Idol, or anything else that instantly lowers my IQ. Years of self-abuse have left me dangerously low on gray matter. I need to preserve what little sense I’ve got left.
The only television programs I watch anymore are cooking shows, the Discovery, History, Travel and Animal Planet channels, and sports, especially my beloved Bulls. I’ll admit a sneaking fondness for David Letterman, but I suspect it’s probably a matter of one curmudgeon admiring another.
Staring at a TV for days at a time while whacked out on industrial strength pain killers is an experience everyone should have. Watching hyenas pull down a zebra on the Animal Planet, enjoying Nostradamus predict the end of the world on the History Channel, or relishing a heavy-set woman prepare Southern-style pot roast on the Food Network, all while stoned on the finest meds that medical science can offer, is a wonderful way to pass the time. I highly recommend it.
The only problem with being extremely wasted while watching a stew of history, cooking, science, animal documentaries and sports, is that the mind can’t properly process all of that information. It often becomes a confusing jumble of images and sound that sometimes makes no sense.
For example, I have a distinct memory of watching an Italian cooking show hosted by Benito Mussolini. I recall an ancient sage, either Archimedes or Plato, predicting that the Bulls would win the NBA Championship in 2012, unless, of course, the Mayans are correct and the world ends in that fateful year. I also seem to remember watching Leonard Nemoy solemnly explaining that the pyramids were actually transmitting towers built by aliens so that ancient Egyptians could tune in to both AM and FM radio.
Unfortunately, not everyone in my household has the same taste in television programming as I do. For example, one of my daughters has the habit of walking into the TV room, grabbing the remote. plopping down on the couch next to me and abruptly switching the channel.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“I wanna see what’s on MTV.”
“But I was watching Hitler getting ready to invade Poland.”
“Dad, that’s like beyond boring.”
Or, my wife will walk into the room, wrench the remote from my clammy grip and change the channel.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“I wanna see who got voted off of Dancing with the Stars.”
“Damn it, Sharon, the fat lady was just about to deglaze the pan and add the root vegetables.”
Or, my other daughter will come in and, without asking permission, switch channels on me.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“I wanna see the Gossip Girls.”
“Sweetie, the Bulls are in the middle of a huge comeback.”
“Dad, they’re losing by 26 points.”
“Yeah, but there’s almost a minute left in the game.”
“Dad, you’re a pathetic loser.”
Oh, well, I guess it’s time for another pain pill.
Note:
My good friend, the artist Michael Realmuto, finally has some of his watercolors up on the Third City Site. His paintings of iconic Chicago landmarks are not to be missed. Best of all, prints of his work are available for purchase, in many different formats. I highly recommend his holiday greeting cards.
Just click on the Sights & Sounds button on the menu bar and you’ll find the link to his website.
Big Mike: What’s A Secret Or Two Between Neighbors?
I met the new neighbors last night. Oh, The Loved One and I had introduced ourselves to them a couple of weeks ago and we all stood around on the border of our adjoining front lawns, leaning on our rakes and telling each other what we did for a living.
But last night Mary Ann gave me a tour of their home in her bare feet and wearing T-shirt and sweat pants. That’s about as intimate as middle-aged neighbors’ll get without initiating an affair. She’s a former prosecutor for Monroe County who’s now in private practice. Her husband Jim runs his own glass company. They have two kids, both in high school and both competitive swimmers.
As Mary Ann led me around the house, the daughter (whose name I forget) was working on her honors biology class project, putting together charts showing the different stages of cell meiosis and mitosis. Her brother, named Ian if I recall, sat in front of a video screen, thumbing a Wii control box, playing a game involving chases, blood, death, destruction and howling agony. He appeared to be having a great deal of fun.
According to Mary Ann, the folks who live on our road aren’t exactly straight out of an episode of The Andy Griffith Show. After learning I’d grown up and spent most of my adult life in Chicago and hearing me rave about how refreshingly nice and neighborly people are around Bloomington, Indiana, she cautioned me.
“When we first moved in here, I met the man who’s the community’s unofficial leader,” she said. Our enclave, a dozen and a half homes along a hilly street carved into the woods outside the Bloomington town limits, is unincorporated. “He’s a lawyer, too,” she continued. “He said, ‘Don’t expect people to be ringing your doorbell, bringing you cakes and welcoming you to the neighborhood. People keep to themselves around here.’”
Had this been Mary Ann’s and my first encounter, I might have taken it as a warning: Don’t go ringing our doorbell unless your house is on fire. Only Jim had lent me his Indiana State Parks annual pass a couple of weeks ago so we could go traipsing around Lake Monroe for free and I was returning it last night, so I don’t suppose they’ll be pointing shotguns out the window when I press their bell.
I’ve been wondering which side of the political fence Mary Ann and Jim stand on, considering my last neighbor was the voluble Captain Billy. You remember, the fellow who longed for Lou Dobbs to run for president because he (Captain Billy) and the former CNN mouth agreed wholeheartedly on the issue of the hordes of illegal Mexicans who have overrun every corner of our holy nation.
It’s hard to tell just by appearance where a person’s political loyalties lie. If I were to hazard a guess, I would have pegged Mary Ann and Jim for upstanding Republican stock. After all, she’d spent much of her career trying to lock up bad guys and he is a business owner. Shows what I know.
After she’d told me that they weren’t planning to move any time soon I replied that that was a relief.
“Y’never know what your neighbors are gonna be like,” I said. At which point I described Captain Billy to her.
She listened intently, her eyes wide, especially after I recounted the time he told me our elected politicians will never listen to us until the true patriots of this holy nation sneak up behind them one morning as they’re locking their front doors and put bullets in their brains.
Mary Ann gulped and said, her voice a tad shaky, “Well, you don’t have to worry about us. We’re about as far from right wing as you can get.”
Whew.
Jim proceeded to put me more at ease. After I’d marveled at how dark it gets around here at night and was thankful they didn’t have glaring security floodlights all around their house, he said, “You don’t have to worry about that either. I’ll never put up lights on our property. Most of the time when I’m on the back deck and I have to take a piss, I’m too lazy to go back in the house so I’ll just piss out in the back yard. I don’t want anybody seeing me do that.”
Mary Ann turned scarlet and rolled her eyes. “Jim,” she scolded. “Don’t scare him away!”
I laughed and assured her I wasn’t scared. I mean, really, I once lived next door to Captain Billy!
Anyway, I could have told them what I do on my back porch. Then again, Mary Ann is a former prosecutor and The Loved One has laid down the law about me discussing that little pastime of mine on these pages.
Benny Jay: Bear Down, Chicago Bears
For the big Thursday night Bears game against the 49ers, the bowling team goes to J-Dub’s.
Well, Norm and me go there anyway. Young Ralph has to work, and Cap calls to say he’ll try to make it, but, he’s not sure cause of family obligations.
I take that to mean his wife’s keeping him on the ranch. So I launch into a lecture about how in my house the little lady doesn’t call the shots cause I wear the pants in the family. Man, I got the boys rolling with that one.
I bring the broasted chicken from Annette’s, and we gather round J-Dub’s huge high-def TV – I swear the screen’s as wide as a football field – and near the end of the second quarter in walks Cap, bearing a case of beer.
“You made it, dawg,” says Norm.
“Now that’s what I call wearing the pants,” I say.
“Have some chicken,” says J-Dub.
As the game goes on, we bellow and bray through some of the most excruciatingly miserable football you can imagine. Penalties, misplays, miscues — and don’t get me talking about Bears QB Jay Cutler’s four interceptions!
It comes down to this.
A little less than three minutes left. Bears ball on their 20, trailing 10-6.
If anything, we’re yelling louder.
“C’mon, mutha fucka….”
“C’mon, Dawg….”
“Jay C….”
“I got 99 problems but the Bears ain’t one….”
You get the idea.
Cutler throws a bad pass – no!
Cutler throws another bad pass – they suck!
Cutler throws another bad pass — damn it!
They go for it on fourth down. We’re on the edge of our seats. This is it — but wait. San Fran penalty. Automatic first down. Good God, it’s hard to tell which team is worse.
Cutler throws a pass for a big gain. I start to cheer, but — oh, no, penalty flag. “I’m not cheering,” I announce. “Cause I know the play’s coming back.”
But the penalty’s against San Francisco. The drive lives.
Wham! Norm gets so excited, he accidentally knocks his head against the wall behind him.
I start singing the Bears fight song – or, at least, the sliver I remember: “Bear down Chicago Bears, you’re the pride and joy of Illinois, Chicago Bears – bear down….”
“Look at you,” says J-Dub. “You weren’t even gonna cheer for them and now you’re singing their fight song.”
Cutler completes a few more passes, and the Bears move to the 49 12-yard line with thirteen seconds left. In desperation, 49er coach Mike Singletary calls time out.
“Yeah, look who’s worried,” says Norm.
“Panic,” says J-Dub.
“Yes, ya – whooo,” say I.
Time out over. Players at the line. Cutler calls out the count. We’re on our feet.
‘C’mon, mutha fuckas,” says Cap.
“C’mon, dawg,” says Norm.
“Jay C,” says J-Dub.
And me? I got my hands extended like I’m the quarterback preparing to take the snap from center as I bark out the call: “Ready, set – hut one, hut two, hut three….”
Cutler gets the snap….
Drops back….
No one’s open….
Here comes the 49er rush….
Cutler moves right….
Cutler scrambles up the middle — he’s got daylight!
“Run, mutha fucka, run!” bellows Cap.
Cutler throws the ball….
A 49er catches it….
Cutler’s fifth interception of the game….
Game over….
Bears lose….
We sit….
Silence.
“That mutha fucka,” says Cap.
“Why didn’t Cutler run?” I ask. “Why did he pass?”
“Cause he’s a dumb mutha-fucka,” says Norm.
Hmm, after watching the man throw five interceptions, I really can’t argue the point. Oh, well, so it goes. If it was the Bulls, I’d be devastated. But the Bears? To tell you the truth, the game’s really only an excuse to get together with my bowling buddies.
Besides, it’s not our fault they lost. We did our thing – yelled, cursed, ate chicken, drank beers and banged our heads against the walls.
It was the Bears who screwed up….
Randolph Street: Highway 61–Self-Portrait
The Hub–Vicksburg, Mississippi
4th of July 1981–Fairview, Iowa
Bagman–Boscobel, Wisconsin
Projects–Burlington, Iowa
Self-Portrait–New Orleans, Louisiana
Memphis Bridge–Memphis, Tennessee
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: An Empty Life That Speaks Volumes
I’m worried about Benny Jay. His life has become an endless loop of walking his dog and confronting the fact that the rest of the world has gone far, far away.
Nothing happens in the guy’s life. Sheesh, inmates doing 25-to-life at Pontiac have more going on than he does.
If you’ve been reading him, you know about the dog. And you know about the time he and his lovely bride ran like thieves to catch the opening of the film “Soul Power,” fearing there’d be lines around the block. Turned out they and some winos were the only ones in the theater.
Speaking of movies, he was so pumped over the Coen Brothers’ new flick, “A Serious Man,” that all he wanted to do was talk about it. Only he couldn’t find a single other soul on this Earth who’d seen it. In the newspaper where they list the top grossing movies of the week, when “A Serious Man” opened they just printed Ben’s name next to it. He swears it’s true.
How about the time he couldn’t watch the Bulls 2009-10 season opener because he doesn’t have cable? They’re watching cable in some scientific outpost in Antarctica and — let me say it again — he doesn’t have cable.
Get this, he figured as long as he couldn’t see his beloved Bulls, he’d call somebody on the phone and they could watch the World Series together. Only no one he knew was watching the World Series.
One night not long ago, he watched his dog chase a housefly for the better part of the evening.
Here’s how unsophisticated Benny Jay is. Once, his wife asked him to pick her up at the lakefront after her evening outdoor yoga session there. Only Benny didn’t know that the lot he parked in to wait for her is a notorious meeting place for men looking for anonymous gay sex. He thought all the guys pulling up next to him and nodding were nothing more than a bunch of friendly fellas. The only thing that surprises me is that he didn’t find himself in a fleabag motel room with one of them before he caught on.
The man breaks my heart. He doesn’t know how to do crossword puzzles but he bowls, for chrissakes.
Here’s the saddest tale of all. He goes to a swanky north-suburban high school to lecture students about his vibrant, scintillating life in journalism and only two kids show up. And they had to be ordered to go.
Remember Ziggy in the comics? Benny Jay makes him look like Prince Harry.
It’s a shame his life is so barren. I can hardly believe it myself. I think I’ll have to read a few thousand more of his posts before I’m convinced.
Guest Blogger:
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Candyman. Written by Benny Jay. Read by Joel Reitsma, Lorenzo Toia, Ray Jay 3000, Andy Orscheln and No Blaise. Produced by Jus Buckingham of King Conundrum Productions.
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