Sam Adams: The Man Who Cried Woo

I was walking down Clark Street, a half block north of Addison, the bright sunny day instinctively prompting my horrible, winter-hangover habit of yearning for the coming baseball season even though I know it means I will spend another 162 days (165, if lucky) following a bunch of overpaid bums I mindlessly worship….

When who should I run into but Ronnie Woo Woo.

It’s mid-February. Thirty-eight degrees. The Cubs haven’t even played a single spring training game yet. But to Ronnie, you’d think we were in the heart of the pennant race.

He’s decked out in his trademark full regalia: Cubs home jersey (“Woo Woo” on the back), matching white pinstripe pants, blue-fitted Cub hat and white sneakers.  There’s something troublesome about this scene, but I don’t linger on it.

Instead, I return to the burning question I’ve been asking each winter since I was five:

“Yo, Ronnie — how are the Cubs gonna do this year?”

“World Series,” he says, as he cordially extends a firm handshake.

“What’s that?” I ask, not so much out of surprise (because, hey, it’s so damned pleasantly sunny that maybe Next Year has finally arrived) but because a guy whose primary vocabulary consists of the word “Woo” isn’t always the easiest to understand.

“World Series,” he says. “Back to back….”

Now that’s a hopeful prognosis if ever I’ve heard one. Perhaps the perpetual mascot has had a few too many Cubweisers – he is after all walking out of a bar at two-thirty in the afternoon. But, no, he’s sober – or at least as sober as a rabid Cub fan can be. Maybe Ronnie has a purer, more persistent strain of the virus that seeps into our Cubbie-blue blood streams causing us to have fantastical dreams around this time of year.

Immediately, I text Arturo, my longtime die-hard Cub comrade.

“Just bumped into Woo Woo,” I wrote. “He predicts back to back World Series – my nipples are hard!”

Immediately, Arturo – who clearly has nothing better to do because he’s as unemployed as I am — responds:

“He’ll die before that win and that might be one of the saddest things I have ever thought of. What kind of life is this for us?”

Good question. But today I have no answers. Even if Ronnie’s World Series prophecy is as hopeless as Benny Jay’s ability to handle a computer, I choose to believe it. After all, Opening Day is only thirty-five days away.

See you in the bleachers, Ronnie….

by Sam Adams

Benny Jay: X-Ray Man

The call from the eye glasses doctor comes in the early afternoon: Your new glasses are ready.

I walk to the store. I try them on. Oh, my God!

“Do you like them?” the sales clerk asks.

“Do I like them?” I say. “I, I….”

I don’t quite know what to say. My view of the world’s changed. It had been fuzzy, dim, distorted. Now it’s sharp and clear — I see details I’ve never seen before….

It makes me feel oddly empowered, almost intoxicated with joy, like Maria in West Side Story.

I rise from my chair and sweep across the showroom of the eye-glasses store, singing as I dance:

“I feel pretty, oh, so pretty, I feel pretty and witty and bright….”

And all the clerks join in, rising from their chairs to sing chorus:

“See that pretty guy in that mirror there — what mirror, where? — who can that attractive guy be?”

Okay, none of that singing/dancing stuff really happens. But that’s how I feel. And the song really comes to my mind, stays there too. I hear it now, as a matter of fact.

“I feel stunning, and entrancing — feel like running and dancing for joy….”

Cause I see things — everything….

I go to the rap concert featuring SB. Great rapper. Love his band. It’s a benefit. The room’s filled with gloriously handsome, fabulously dressed young men and women. I see a man meet a woman. They shake hands. He buys her a drink. He goes to the bathroom, she pulls her pocket mirror out of her purse, and slathers her lips with lipstick. Puckers them. Checks herself out. Looking good. The man returns. She puts her hand on his back. Leans forward so her face brushes his. Whispers in his ear.

It’s a hustle — all a hustle. I see it all….

I come home, turn on the TV and watch the Olympic figuring-skating finals. Joannie Rochette is about to skate. The announcers keep saying she’s the skater’s whose mother just died. They say it over and over, like she has no other name. Like they’re afraid we might forget if they don’t remind us. Cause they know we need a reason to watch this stuff we don’t really like watching. It’s all about selling a product. They can’t sell it if you’re not watching it being sold and the way to get you to watch is to make you think you care about the skater whose mother just died.

The commentators are so catty and cruel, like girls in the high-school cafeteria. They gush about the skaters as they whirl round the ice. But every chance they get they stick the needle where it hurts.

As they play and replay the replays, they say: The jumps look flawless, but if you look close — I mean, really, really close — you’ll see, she didn’t quite make it. Oh, too, bad.

Yeah, like they really care….

Oh, yes, I see everything — hear it, too….

Kim Yu-Na (from South Korea) wins the gold — Mao Asada (from Japan) the silver. As Mao Asada steps to the medal stand, the commentators point out that she’s from Japan and Kim’s from South Korean and the two countries have a long history of hatred. Then then they say — I hope Asada’s not too upset with her second-place finish.

Ha, ha, ha, ha — right. Like you’re not happy that’s she’s unhappy.

Yes, now I understand why so many people — not just the announcers — love watching this shit. They get to hate while pretending to like.

It’s the glasses. They’re so strong — they turn me into X-Ray Man. I see into the souls of my fellow men and women and I don’t like what I see: Depravity, deceit, delusion, selfishness, spite, envy, blind ambition, naked greed — hate!

I take off my glasses. The focus blurs, details disappear. Ah, better — more reassuring.

I go to bed. Sleep for hours. Wake feeling rested. Waddle downstairs in my pajamas and slippers. Open the door. Retrieve the daily papers.

The front page of the Sun-Times says it all: “Skater Whose Mother Died Wins Bronze….”

Ahhhh! I see too much — I see it all….

Big Mike: Can A Barn Boss Be A Friend?

One of the ongoing motifs of this site is Benny Jay’s amazing inability to grasp many of the simplest precepts of computers and the Internet.

For a couple of weeks last year, he and I spoke day after day on the telephone, me trying to get him to understand how to open a new window on his screen. He had no idea what I was talking about. That’s like your doctor saying, You have a fever? Hmm, I don’t know anything about that. If I understand Benny correctly these days, he doesn’t yet know how to create a folder. That’s like a native English speaker admitting he doesn’t know the definition of the word the.

You and I know Benny is a supremely gifted thinker. Time and again I’ve said Benny Jay is one of the three smartest guys I’ve ever known. The other two, by the way, are Aaron Freeman, the comedian, commentator and professional contrarian, and Damien Reynolds, a one-time Jeopardy! champion and the world’s most curmudgeonly options trader/cabdriver.

Damien Reynolds (With Guitar) At Woodstock

So it’s not that Benny Jay lacks the neurons and axons to comprehend the gobbledygook that is computerese. It’s got to be something else. But what?

Before I attempt to diagnose the poor sucker I must add he’s like a dope addict, surrounding himself with shady characters also carrying monkeys on their backs. For instance, he spends a great deal of time with Milo, Gary, Indiana’s Greatest Writer. Milo, although a fine wordsmith and accomplished self-abuser, is nearly as baffled by the computer as Benny is. The other day, in my role as Barn Boss of this communications colossus, I issued a fiat demanding that all contributors categorize their posts.

That’s Me, On The Right

I figured most of us were getting just a little lazy. I know I was. Occasionally I’d slap up a post and dash off, promising myself I’ll categorize it later, knowing full well I wouldn’t keep it. Several minutes later, an email came back from Milo:

I am a dumbass. I don’t know how to categorize.

That ranks right up there with My name is Bill and I’m an alcoholic as a startling yet hopeful admission of frailty. I quickly dashed off a step-by-step tutorial on categorizing. I sent it out to all the principals of this entrepreneurial juggernaut — Benny, Milo and Jumpin’ Jonny Randolph, Chicago’s finest photojournalist. Benny Jay emailed me back moments later, writing:

This is so well done even I understand it.

I’ve yet to hear a peep from Milo. He’s probably lying in some uncategorized gutter somewhere.

Ned Ludd would be proud of the both of them.

Now and again I become peevish when talking to Benny Jay about things we have to do to maintain this national treasure of a site. A good half dozen times I’ve hung up wanting to scream, Stop being such a blockhead!

I know he senses my impatience churning beneath the surface. I feel bad about it. Benny Jay and I, friends and colleagues for more than 25 years, have never exchanged a harsh word. One of the reasons I’m drawn to him is the fact that his serenity seems to temper my rashness. Had I thrown my lot in with Milo, say, the two of us would be carousing, ingesting too many substances, breaking too many sacred vows, and otherwise pushing each other into early graves. Even though I consider Milo a prince, I have to hold him at arm’s length for my own well-being.

What Would Happen If Milo And I Were Best Friends?

Once in a while, I entertain silly thoughts. Benny Jay considers working with computers and our website beneath him. His life’s work — uncovering the petty tyranny that is the Richie Daley empire — is far too important for him to be distracted by trivialities like windows and folders. Let Big Mike, that schlub, do the dirty work. But naw, Benny Jay’s never been a jerk like that.

Then I wonder if he and Milo might be conspiring against me. Let’s act dumb all the time in front of Big Mike, they whisper to each other. Then maybe he’ll quit in frustration and we won’t have to cut him in on the big payoff when this thing goes global. No, couldn’t be. Milo might be a cut-throat but he couldn’t be delusional enough to think there’ll be a big payoff on The Third City. And as far as global ambition goes, Benny Jay’s quite satisfied that The Third City is the talk of his bowling alley.

The other day, in the midst of another of one of these paranoiac jags, I rang up Benny Jay. We chitchatted for a few minutes. Finally he blurted, You’ve been mad at me about all this computer stuff, haven’t you? It felt as though he’d knocked down the brick wall between us. Yes, yes, I cried. It was catharsis.

Calmly, patiently, Benny Jay explained his aversion to cyber-awareness. “You know how you had that trouble with bridges and trains?” he asked. (From 1985 through 1996 I suffered from melange of phobias that prevented me from leaving the house for weeks at a time, riding the el, driving on an expressway, et cetera — I was a wreck.) “What if I told you ‘Just don’t worry about that bridge’? Would that have made things any better?”

“Yabbut I was agoraphic, acrophobic, claustrophobic, suffering from panic disorder, insomniac, you name it. I’ve got the papers to prove it. My shrink wanted to nominate me for the Neurotics Hall of Fame.”

“Well, did it ever occur to you that I might be as crazy as you are?” Benny asked, his voice still even.

“Yabbut….”

“‘Yabbut’ nothing,” Benny replied. “I’m a freak.” He went on to explain how working with computers and this Third City racket have been jabbing him in all his psychological weak points — his dread of making mistakes, his unreasonable fear that he’ll wreck the whole operation with the inadvertent click of a key, his panic at confronting the new, his terror of technology. He even told me he was years behind all the other kids in learning how to tie his shoes.

It was a revelation. I’d never thought of Benny Jay as a loon. But here it was. I realized he could benefit from a cocktail of skull jockey drugs that’d make my daily dosages look like St. Joseph’s Aspirin for Children.

I feel much kindlier toward Benny Jay now that I know he’s not plotting with Milo behind my back. In my role as caring and loving friend, I hope to provide him help and support as he attempts to overcome these psychological impediments.

In my role as Barn Boss of The Third City, though, I must say, Goddamn it! Just don’t worry about that bridge!

Randolph Street: Six Portraits

Studs Terkel

Mason

Trapeze Artist

Aaron Copeland

Ghost Hunter

Paris Couple

All photos © Jon Randolph

Benny Jay: Computer Genius

So here’s the deal…

No Blaise writes a bit that I want to post on Sights and Sounds.

By the way, No Blaise is one of the brightest young writers around. So remember that name. Well, actually, it’s a pen name. So it won’t do you any good to remember it if she’s writing under another name — like her real one — when she becomes an international superstar.

But, anyway, No Blaise does this bit about a picture she took with Joakim Noah.  And now my challenge is to post the picture into the bit.

Which everyone in the universe can do.

Except me.

It’s like I have a mental break down when it comes to posting pictures. With computers, as in life, to get from A to C you need to pass through B. And I have no freaking idea how to get to B. I know you have to put your picture in a folder and then take your picture out of the folder, but where’s the fucking folder?

Sorry, `bout that language. But this is serious. I got issues. By the way, I’m not alone.  One time I was in a bar watching a Bulls game with this kid named Sam Adams – real name, I swear — and I ask: Are you good with computers? He says pretty good, why? I say: Do you know how to make one of those little folder things where you put pictures? And he looks at me like I’m an idiot and says: “You sound like my mother….”

So, you see, maybe it’s a generational thing.

Anyway, I figure I’ll post the picture the old-fashioned way. I cut and paste it into No’s bit.  Did it. Done. Looks great. I’m the man — just call me Billy Gates. I call No Blaise and tell her — you’re post is up, girl — picture and all!

I get on the phone to talk to someone about the Bulls when I get this text message from No Blaise, who’s sitting in an English class far away at the University, telling me: “Hey people are saying they cant see the picture?”

What!

I call J Dub and say: “Do me a favor, man — go to Third City and click on Sights and Sounds….”

“I did it,” he says.

“Do you see a picture of Joakim Noah?”

“No….”

“No?”

“No….”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure….”

“Fuck!”

“There’s just a blank space and when I click on that space it’s trying to get to AOL….”

“It’s going to my email — what’s that all about?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll see you at bowling….”

I hang up and think about everyone I know who knows something — anything — about  computers.

I call Randolph, the world’s greatest photographer. Not in. Call Big Mike, aka The Barn Boss. Call Mickey D, the writer.  Bob, the track coach. Monroe, the blogger. Dave G, the radio man. Nope — no luck.

Call Sam Adams.  Call No Blaise.  Call one daughter. Call another daughter. No one’s in. Damn! What’s the deal with people not being in! I hate computers. Hate `em, hate `em, hate `em. I hate the weasels who make them and hate the weasels who know how to use them. It’s a conspiracy. The whole world knows how to use these mother fuckers except for me!

By the way, I’m really enjoying this new swearing phase I’m going through.

The phone rings. I leap. It’s my mom. Perhaps the one human being in the universe who knows less about computers than I do.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Losing my mind — I’ll call you back after I find it….”

I hang up. I look out the window. Look at the wall. Look at the computer. The phone rings. I pounce. It’s Randolph! I almost weep.

I lead him through the process. Go to Sights and Sounds. Do you see a picture?

“No — it says `objects not found’….”

“Yeah, well, they can kiss my ass. I need to get a picture posted!”

“I can do this,” he says.

I hearing him muttering to himself as he goes from step A to B to C.  “Done,” he says.

I look. It’s up — the picture’s up! I almost weep with gratitude.

“Stop groveling,” says Randolph. “It’s beneath you….”

I hang up. I check my email. Got a message from Randolph. It shows a picture of Bob Dylan greeting President Obama at a White House reception for Black History month. What Dylan has to do with Black History I don’t know — other than inspiring Sam Cooke to write A Change is Gonna Come — but it’s a great picture.

I want to post it on the blog. Who can I call?

I pick up the phone and dial a familiar number.

“Yo, Randolph, old buddy, old pal — guess what….”

Two-Headed Boy: Tunes From Transit Vol. I

From my house to The Clothing Store, it’s about a twenty-five minute drive — a mundane commute on a road I’ve driven my entire life.

On clear days, I see Chicago’s skyline, a gleaming taunt from the skyscrapers to remind me that I’m stuck toiling in a suburban mall. The streets are lined with strip malls, hosting just about any chain you can think of: Panda Express, Verizon, Domino’s Pizza, and McDonald’s — on every corner.  I even drive by a Babies R’ Us, for goodness sakes.

My trip isn’t all bad thanks to my IPod, which I play through my minivan’s tape adapter. People lament about the death of the album, noting how the IPod and other mp3 players have created a “channel-surfing” effect — we don’t have the attention span to listen to an album in its entirety anymore.

At times I think this is true, as all the great songs stored in my IPod make me hyperactive in wanting to hear something else. 22 Two’s by Jay-Z can lead to Two States by Pavement, and then State Trooper by Springsteen, and then Getchoo by Weezer and so on….

The cure to album-abuse can be solved by a drive-time commute. I’m not the best driver in the world, but my car isn’t helping much either. The ol’ ’94 Nissan Quest handles about as well as a skateboard with babies for wheels.  I can’t afford to get into an accident while driving through thick traffic, trying to find a song.

I hear see the paramedics now, examining the wreckage and finding the IPod.

“Poor guy,” they’ll say. “All he wanted to do was listen to Jizz in my Pants.”

That’s why my drive is perfect for putting on an album and listening to it all the way through. Thus begins Two-Headed Boy’s Album-of-the-Month Club. February!

TITUS ANDRONICUS – THE MONITOR

It’s been a year since my band first opened for Titus Andronicus at a venue in the wonderful Midwestern college town where I went to school. The dudes from Glen Rock, NJ needed a place to stay after the show so my roommates/bandmates happily obliged. Two things struck me from the evening.

1.)   TA brings home the bacon live. (I’ve always liked the term “bring home the bacon” because I like bacon and I like clichés.) They are a stellar live band.

2.)   TA is a hungry band. Effort-wise and literally. When I boarded their van to navigate them to our house after the show, their always-engaging/always-bearded singer/guitarist Patrick Stickles was going to town on a bag of Kraft Jet-Puffed brand marshmallows.  It was like manna. As a marshmallow and rock and/or roll enthusiast, I excitedly thought to myself, “This is what life on tour must be like!”

The Titus guys couldn’t be nicer, leaving the next morning to drive to a show in Indiana, gracious for our hospitality. Marshmallows and tunes in consideration, I purchased their first release, 2008’s The Airing of Grievances and was captivated. It’s the sound of The Boss teabagging Win Butler, sprawling punk jams that could fill arenas if they weren’t gleefully self-sabotaged in a swirl of drones and shoe-gaze aesthetics.

Naturally, my friends and I have been eagerly awaiting their follow-up, The Monitor, to the point where once it got leaked we jumped on it. Officially, it surfaces March 9^th.

First off, it’s good. The first day I got it, I snuck back to my car on my break from The Clothing Store to re-and-re-listen to the song Theme from Cheers. Second, it’s epic. Epic is a nice way of saying long. Not considering the short, searing paranoia-blues of the live staple Titus Andronicus Forever and its saxophone-saturated bookend …And Ever, the remaining eight songs average out at around seven minutes long, concluding with The Battle of Hampton Roads, which clocks in at 14:02.

It’s almost like Titus don’t want the songs to be over, scared of what’ll happen if they put down their dukes. I was thinking of other instances of weaving together long, aspiring punk with winding, huge guitar work and thought of Marquee Moon by Television. Not so much musically, but similar in terms of such building, marathon song craft. Definitely not thematically, as The Monitor’s lyrical content references such subjects as Jefferson Davis, The Dark Knight and Keystone Light. Tom Verlaine was never up on that Civil War shit…or maybe I’m not listening close enough.

The interesting part of Titus is their constant line-up fluctuation. Members come and go from tour to tour. We got to play with them again in September, and I personally thought they were hurt by the absence of a real cool Americana-lookin’ fellow named Ian, previously their rhythm guitarist.

The show must go on, and the songs remain the same, so needless to say, I’m very excited to hang/see them when they play a free show at Reckless Records in Chicago in March in support of The Monitor.

That is if The Clothing Store bites on my “family event” excuse for taking the day off. I told them I was going to “the theater” — I mean, I’m seeing Titus Andronicus.

by Two-Headed Boy

Big Mike: A Silence That Speaks Loudly

It just occurred to me that The Loved One and I haven’t had a real conversation for about two weeks.

True. It’s not that we’re fighting or anything. Matter of fact, it seems we’ve moved past the fighting phase of our relationship. We had a major league blow up last November that was so alarming I actually was on the phone to my oldest friend in the world, in tears, asking if she and her husband had room to put me up for a while because, well…, you know.

I wouldn’t say The Loved One and I had ever been street fighters. Not like The Honeymooners or anything like that. More like head-shrinkers locked in a room for a weekend. More like George and Martha from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Lots of psycho-play. Tests of wills. Cleverly disguised broadsides. Stealth attacks designed to reach into the opponent’s amygdala, putting said opponent into a state of paralyzing fear. Oh hell, we didn’t even know we were doing it, consciously at least, so we’re weren’t psychopaths terrorizing each other for sport. We’d learned our tactics from the best (worst?) possible source — our birth families.

Not Us.

So no, the neighbors didn’t have to call the cops every other weekend for all the racket of shattering serving plates or shrieks of pain. But, make no mistake, we did as much damage — spiritual and psychological — that any other smart, quick, loving couple would do to each other.

That November tete-a-tete seems to have been the last act of our fighting years. One or both of us had pushed the games envelope a millimeter too far. We both saw our shared breaking point and decided Hey, we like each other too much to put ourselves through this.

That’s a relief. We’re both reasonably happy here in Bloomington, Indiana. She loves her job. I’m crazy about what I’m doing here — peddling books with the crew of proud lunatics at The Book Case, writing the news for the community radio station and pretending that one day Benny Jay and I will make a living off The Third City.

So our silence is neither tactical nor the omen of an impending storm. We’ve just been sick as dogs. I, of course, had the crap kicked out of me by the 2009-10 seasonal flu. The Loved One has been merely grazed by it. For my part, when it feels as though all my insides suddenly want to be on the outside, idle chitchat ranks way down on the list. And even if the topic were pressing, I hardly had the strength to follow it.

Funny how I feel warmest toward my lovely bride in the middle of the night, when I can’t sleep and I can hear the occasional dainty snore emanating from the bedroom. I have the urge to wrap her in my arms and tell her how much she means to me and how ravishingly gorgeous she is, a move that works well in the movies but in real life would only earn me a stern scolding, the hour being late.

It’s now 4:07am, eastern standard time. I just put down one of my PG Wodehouse compilations, my equivalent of a warm glass of milk. I still don’t know if I’ll be able to close my eyes before the 6:00 o’clock alarm rings. Probably not. An American in Paris, one of my ten fave movies of all time, has just ended on TCM. There’s a little bit of Leslie Caron in The Loved One. The two of them are spritely, China doll-like. I’ll have to tell her that.

Not now, of course. I don’t want to be scolded for waking her up in the middle of the night.

Still Not Us — But Closer!