Benny Jay: The Winter Olympics
My wife and I are sitting by the fireplace at the Bistro restaurant, eating the barbecued chicken wings when I notice something strange.
I’m doing all the talking and she’s watching the TV.
Usually, it’s the other way around – as long ago I mastered the art of watching a game while carrying on a conversation.
But now she’s the one with her eyes diverted, half listening to what I’ve got to say.
I look up to see what she’s watching. Of course. I should have known. The Winter Olympics. What else?
I don’t know what it is about Olympics and women, but they can’t watch enough.
Oh, yeah, I know. It’s all those men in their full-body aerodynamic skin-tight suits.
“Did you ever notice the butts on skaters?” my wife asks, as we watch a bunch of skaters going around and around on the ice.
“Not really….”
“They’re nice….”
“Yeah?”
“Skating must be good for their butts….”
“Okay, I never thought about it that way….”
“Well, look at them….”
I look at the skaters, then I look around the room. Must be half a dozen TVs in the restaurant. Not a one of them set to a basketball game. All tuned to the Olympics. Everywhere I look I see women staring up at a screen.
The TV coverage cuts back to the studio where Bob Costas and Cris Collinsworth are sitting at a table talking. We watch them talk, even though we can’t hear a word they’re saying cause the sound’s turned down.
“Does he dye his hair?” I ask my wife.
“Who?”
“Costas – the guy on the left….”
“Definitely – that’s not a color I’ve ever seen….”
“Thought so….”
I scoop up the last chicken wing.
“He’s cute,” says my wife.
I look back at the TV. Costas is having one of those hokey fireside chats with Apolo Ohno.
“Who – Costas?” I say.
“No, the other guy….”
“Apolo Ohno?”
“You know who he is?”
“Well, yeah….”
“I didn’t know you followed skating….”
I’ve never seen her so impressed with my mastery of sports. I’m not sure how to play this. On the one hand, I kind of like being the big expert. On the other hand, I’m coming close to exhausting everything I know about skating.
“Cherie Davis taught me about him.”
“Who?”
“Cherie Davis – Shani Davis’s mother….”
“Who?”
“Shani Davis. The skater from Chicago….”
Blank stare.
“The guy who won a gold medal four years ago….”
More blank stare….
“You know – the black guy….”
She shrugs.
So I launch into my Shani Davis story: “Years ago, I get a call from Cherie Davis who wants me to write about her son the ice skater. We meet at a restaurant — you know the one, on Clark near Touhy. Me and Cherie and a couple of her friends. I remember I had a cup of soup and we sat in the corner booth at the front. But I can’t remember the name of that restaurant. She taught me everything I know about ice skating….”
“Yeah….”
“Well, they have long races and short races. Apolo does one kind or the other. And so does Shani…..”
Pause.
“That’s it,” says my wife. “That’s all you know….”
“Oh, look who’s talking — you didn’t even know Shani Davis.”
She’s got nothing to say, cause, well, what can she say?
“I liked talking to Cheri Davis,” I continue. “She was really smart. She taught me about the little news thing on Google, where you Google someone’s name and then you click on news and you get all the news articles written about them. She couldn’t believe I didn’t know about that news thing. I think she thought I was dumb. But what the hell’s the name of that restaurant?”
My wife’s barely listening. Got her eyes glued to the screen. Watching those skaters in their full-body aerodynamic skin-tight suits.
Come to think of it – most of them do have nice looking butts….
Big Mike: My Foulweather Friend In The Sky
I confess I became, at certain junctures during this so-far six-day ordeal, a believer.
You read right. If you happened to catch my last post, you know that I’ve been laid low by illness. At first I thought it was merely the worst head cold in the history of the known universe but based on careful study of further symptoms, I’ve concluded it is the flu. I won’t go into detail about my symptoms because, well, two or three of you may be so turned off you’ll quit reading. A loss of two or three readers could be catastrophic to this communications colossus.
Yuck.
I’ll say this: Yesterday, my scalp hurt. True. At about three in the afternoon I heaved my self out of my recliner, waded through the surrounding piles of wadded up Kleenex and went into to bathroom to take stock of myself. I gazed in the mirror and saw a stooped-over, grizzly, miserable old bastard. Then, running my palm over my shiny dome, it felt as though my hair follicles were as achy as my joints, muscles and other icky parts of my body. “God,” I moaned, “Am I sick.”
Did you catch that certain three-letter word? God. Yup. I’ve used that word some 23,000 times since this ordeal began last Thursday. You’ve heard the old saw, There are no atheists in foxholes.
Well, in the virus-laden foxhole known as Chez Big Mike, there hasn’t been an atheist (or, more accurately, a non-theist) to be found.
Big Daddy.
Things got so bad that I went a full 36 hours without eating. Me. Not eating. Sorta reminds me of the old Lenny Bruce bit about how he couldn’t stop himself from hitting on chicks no matter how inappropriate the circumstances. He could have had his foot cut off in an accident and he’d still ask the nurse in the ambulance what she’s doing after work. The nurse’d say, Whaddya nuts, your foot is cut off, meshuggah, and you’re still looking for action? And he’d say, I know, I can’t help myself. I’m that way with grub.
Anyway, god. I made more promises to god since Thursday than I’ve made to creditors in the last 25 years. They’ll probably be worth as much, too.
Under normal circumstances, I have nothing to do with god. I’m not going to argue the reasons why here. People have been tussling over the existence of some powerful big daddy in the sky since the dawn of civilization. If that’s what gets you through this crazy, mixed up world, I salute you. I prefer other diversions and peccadillos. Yet, when it seemed as though a watermelon were growing inside my head and the mere suggestion by The Loved One that I should try a little cottage cheese made me dash to embrace the porcelain princess, good old big daddy was my best pal.
“Please, god, make this headache go away.”
“Please, god, let me sleep for more than fifteen minutes.”
“Please, god, let me have just one little open nostril.”
Every time I uttered these appeals, I felt like a weakling. Come on, I’d chide myself, why would some omnipotent being pay attention to my misery when there are Haiti and the Holocaust, et cetera.
Still, I pleaded.
I feel a lot better today. Had some toast and a banana this morning. My stomach still feels as though firecrackers are exploding in it but at least the toast and the banana are moving in the right direction. True believers might say, See, your pleas were answered.
I had one last communique to send to the big daddy: What the hell took you so long, meshuggah?
Almost There!
Letter From Milo: A Shameful Episode in the Life of a Pussy Magnet
The high school I attended was blessed with an abundance of beautiful girls. Everywhere you looked there were long-legged teenage beauties, with angelic faces, fine butts and perky young tits. It was a paradise for an aspiring pussy magnet (see appropriately titled post). I spent most of my high school years walking around with half a hard-on.
The best looking girls in the school were the Anderson sisters. They were every young man’s fantasy, beautiful, poised and shapely. I’m sure they were responsible for the vast majority of soiled sheets in my school district. I know that my laundry bills skyrocketed.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t have hesitated to approach one of the Anderson sisters, maybe invite one of them to see a movie or go to a school dance, then, afterward, hope to get extremely lucky. But, to my eternal regret, I never did ask one of them for a date. In essence, I chickened out.
You see, there was a problem with the Anderson sisters. They were African-American and I was not. And in Gary, Indiana, the racial divide was a wide one.
I was a freshman in 1964, when my high school was integrated. To say the least, it did not go smoothly at first. There were fist fights nearly every day, tough blue collar black kids and tough blue collar white kids beating the shit out of each other to prove, well, who knows what they were trying to prove? There were police cars parked by the school every day to keep the violence from getting out of hand. Not that it mattered. When young men want to fight, they generally find a way.
In time, however, things settled down. After school brawls became rare as the black kids and white kids began to accept each other. Tentative friendships were formed that often turned into genuine friendships. Black and white jocks began hanging out together. Black and white misfits began drinking cheap beer and smoking Lucky Strikes together. And black and white nerds probably got together to practice their slide rule chops.
But the one gap that was never bridged was interracial dating. It was too much to ask in the mid 1960s. I don’t recall ever seeing a black and white couple walking the halls of my school and holding hands. I don’t remember ever seeing a teenaged black and white couple out on a date. It just wasn’t done.
Now, you’d think that a legendary pussy magnet like me would be the one to break the interracial dating taboo, especially with a prize like the Anderson sisters at stake. I mean, let’s face facts, beauty is beauty, no matter what kind of package it comes in.
But no, the great Milo, in his teenage years, didn’t have the balls to do the right thing — the right thing being taking my best shot at the best looking girls in town. I had let down pussy magnets everywhere.
Would Errol Flynn have hesitated? Would the immortal Porfirio Rubirosa have given it a second thought? Would a beautiful woman’s skin color have mattered to Warren Beatty? No! But young Milo couldn’t come up with the goods when the occasion called for greatness.
It is a failure that haunts me to this very day.
Times have changed. We have all moved on, even the Anderson sisters. One of them, with a slight name change, became a well known entertainer. I don’t know what happened to the other sister, but I assume she did well in life, too.
As for me, I became a famous and highly paid blogger here at The Third City. I spend my days thinking deep thoughts and my nights wandering the streets of Chicago. And whenever I see an interracial couple, and I’m glad to say I see them often, I curse myself for being the worst sort of idiot, a disgrace to pussy magnets all over the world.
How did I ever let the Anderson sisters slip through my hands?
Pussy magnet, my ass.
Benny Jay: Super Bowl Showdown
For the Super Bowl, the bowling team goes to the South Side — a party at B & B’s place not far from 95th Street.
I’m driving J Dub, which means I pick the music. Got the radio tuned to Herb Kent‘s Sunday’s Dusties show.
We’re heading south on the Dan Ryan when Herb puts on You’re Still a Young Man by Tower of Power.
I’m over joyed — cause as everybody knows, this is one of my all-time, all times.
“Can you believe our luck!” I exclaim.
J Dub moans….
Now one thing you’ve got to understand about me and J Dub. I love him like a brother, but it’s definitely a much younger brother. When it comes to music we’ve got what they used to call a generation gap. He’s thirty-something — I’m well past fifty. His songs are rooted in the `80s and `90s. For me, it’s like they stopped making music in about, oh, 1979.
I turn up the volume and sing along with the chorus: “You’re still a young man, baby, don’t waste you’re time….”
J Dub groans.
Poor guy. He lived twenty-odd years and never heard this song, Then he joins a bowling team with two old timers (me and Cap), and now he hears it on the juke box pretty much all the time….
“Can you believe this?” I say. “They almost never play this song….”
“Wow,” he says. “Lucky us….”
We roll up to B & B’s just after kick off.
Norm’s in rare form. He’s cheering for the Saints. But mostly he’s giving everyone grief for being for the Colts, even if they’re not for the Colts.
I sort of feel sorry for this one dude, Chris. He likes the Colts so much he’s wearing Indianapolis blue and and white. Norm’s all over him, saying: “Peyton Manning ain’t shit.” You know, that sort of thing.
The Colts take an early lead. But in the second half the Saints come roaring back and Norm kicks into a higher gear.
“How come you’re so quiet?” he bellows at Chris. “You were talkin’ your shit before. But now you got nothing to say….”
Which is sort of funny. Cause Chris has got to be one of the quietest guys I’ve ever watched a game with. If he said something — and Norm swears he did — he must have said it so quietly that the sound of his voice could barely be detected.
Anyway, great party. Endless amounts of food and drink. I tell J Dub — “don’t you worry, I’m the designated driver. Drink as much as you want.”
By the end of the night, he’s wobbling as he walks.
On the car ride home, I got it tuned to Dusties. Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack are singing “Where is the Love?”
“Great song,” I say.
“Aw, c’mon, man,” he says. “This is too much….”
He turns the dial to some other station. They’re playing DMX, who’s rapping about all the bitches in his life. I’d like to tell you more about what he says, except so much of the lyrics are bleeped out all I can hear is his list of ladies: Brenda, Latisha, Linda, Felicia. I swear to god, he must run down twenty names….
“Damn, this guy’s got a lot of bitches — huh, J Dub?”
He doesn’t respond.
“Hey, man,” I continue. “You think they’re gonna let him sing this song at next year’s Super Bowl halftime?”
I look to my left. J Dub’s half asleep. I swear I heard him snoring.
I go back to Dusties. On comes The Originals — Baby I’m for Real.
I turn it up.
“Now, this is music,” I tell J Dub.
He’s got his mouth open and his head leaning against the windows. I could put on Johnny Mathis and he wouldn’t know the difference.
I drop him off at his apartment.
“Thanks, Benny,” he says, as he stumbles out of the car. “Great night….”
“And the best part about it was hearing Tower of Power….”
That stirs him from his stupor.
“Fuck that shit,” he says.
Oh, well, like the song says. He’s still a young man — don’t waste your time….
Big Mike: Cold And Gray
Just to top off what has been the worst winter in Bloomington, Indiana in more than 30 years, I’m now fighting off a miserable cold. Check that — I’m no longer fighting. The rhinovirus has won.
There was a strange yellow-orange ball in the sky a couple of days this week. It was bright and warm and it cast shadows, even though we’re in the midst of yet another frigid snap — the temp dipped into the single digits Thursday night. A couple of people told me the ball is called the Sun. I told them I’ve never heard of it.
Bloomington, February 2010
All this has put me in a rather ugly mood. Ergo, I offer for your consideration a few things that are irking the crap out of me.
The Olympics. I loathe the Olympics. I hate all the emotional pornography the mainstream media attaches to it. I don’t care about any gymnast’s brother who has a rare kidney disease and isn’t she courageous and plucky for pushing on even though she’s worried sick about him? NBC‘s wet dream would be to have another Dan Jansen storyline. You remember Dan Jansen, no? The speedskater from West Allis, Wisconsin was a big favorite to win the gold medal in the 1988 Olympics but the morning of the big race he learned his sister had died of leukemia. He raced anyway and but fell down halfway through. He raced again a couple of nights later and was ahead, on a pace for a world record, and — he fell again. NBC practically dubbed violin music over its coverage of the races. Jansen came back four years later and did indeed win a gold medal — overcoming all the odds and so on. The whole thing was so hyperglycemic that the conspiracy theorist in me wondered if it hadn’t been conjured up by a hack screenwriter. It seemed too improbable even for the Lifetime Movie Network. Since Jansen, network bosses pray for another athlete’s sister to die of leukemia the day of the big race.
The Poor Guy Fell — Much To The Delight Of Network Executives.
(A late addendum: a guy got killed yesterday in a luge crash in Vancouver. Luge. The only reason the luge exists is for the Winter Olympics. Have you ever seen a luge anywhere else on this planet? And now one of them has killed somebody. I rest my case.)
Facebook. I despise it. The next interesting thing I see on it will be the first. (That is, besides anything I write on it.) People actually talk about how many Facebook friends they have. I listened to a woman the other night complaining that her total of 600 or so friends seems paltry compared to some others she knows who have more than a thousand. I resisted the urge to take her by the shoulders and shout, well, anything. Maybe I should have just barked at her. Here’s my idea of a friend — someone who’ll come over and help me tear down the ratty old basketball hoop the old owner of my house left in the driveway. A person’s desperation to show the world pictures of his new cat is not among my top 500 reasons for becoming friends with him.
Swear To God — I Found This Picture Posted On Facebook.
Cat Urine. Boutros, the old calico who patrols Chez Big Mike, peed on my bathroom rug early this morning. I found out about it in the usual way — when I took a bleary-eyed, squishy step on it. I picked up the offending rug and, holding it between two fingers while I walked on my right heel so as not to make pee tracks, marched right up to Boutros and demanded, What’s the big idea? Boutros, naturally, stared at me for a moment and then turned away. The Loved One said it wasn’t his fault; he just doesn’t like his litter right now. I looked at her through narrowed eyes. I still don’t how the hell to respond to that.
What’s The Big Idea, Boutros?
Disease Celebration & Identity. Barbara Ehrenreich beat me to the punch on this one with her most recent book, Bright-Sided. In it, she bemoans the rage for seeing things like cancer and autism as positives. America, she says, has fallen in love with a weird new kind of positive thinking — to the point that we’re losing touch with reality. I believe her. I notice that the American Psychiatric Association is getting its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 5th edition, ready for publication in 2013. The APA is considering grouping Asperger’s Syndrome in with autism spectrum disorders. Now a bunch of parents of kids with Asperger’s are up in arms. The new diagnostic grouping, they claim, will somehow make their kids less special. “This is their identity, which is really being taken away,” one person was quoted as saying on CNN.com today. “If everybody’s sort of lumped together, we’re going to lose that.” Another told CNN, “[P]eople with Ansperger’s see themselves as having an advantage in life.” This follows on the heels of the relentlessly untalented Jenny McCarthy becoming the spokesperson for the anti-vaccination movement. They believe vaccines to prevent measles and diptheria actually cause autism. She sticks to this line despite the fact that scientists the world over — you know, people who actually know things — say it’s false. Her kid has autism which she says makes him very special and wonderful. Isn’t disease fabulous? Before she became a spokesdope, she claimed her son was an Indigo Child. Go to the link — trust me.
Well, that’s all…, wait! I forgot — it’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Goddamned Valentine’s Day. I hate Valentine’s Day more than all other evils (except Jenny McCarthy, cat urine, and commodified pathos.) This year’s television commercials for the desperation fest reflect a greedy meanness that would do Lloyd Blankfein proud. One commercial features a couple of sexless office drones sniping cruelly at each other over their respective beaux’ puny offerings. Women left and right are driven to orgasmic frenzy by their lunkheaded boyfriends’ cut rate floral bouquets. Housewives finally unlock their rusty chastity belts when their old men at last unbelt and pop for some gaudy bracelet. The only positive about Valentine’s Day is that The Loved One abhors it as much as I do.
Jeez, I really am a bastard! Maybe when this goddamned cold goes away, I’ll feel more charitable toward my fellow humans.
Two-Headed Boy: Romance In The Retail World
I have to work on Valentine’s Day at The Clothing Store, but it’s just as well.
If anyone’s wondering, there’s no Two-Headed Girl out there. I haven’t had a girlfriend since high school. Ever since it’s been a series of dead-ends, constantly slipping on the cruel banana peel of botched romance.
What’s a single guy to do?
I’ll tell you what — flirt, flirt, flirt with customers.
When I first started the job, I was trapped in the fitting room, buttoning and folding away my days. But recently I’ve been let out of the cage. I was register trained, and I also scoot around the floor handing out invaluable customer service. Well, kind of. More like: “The bathroom is in the back left!”
These new-found responsibilities leave me with the chance to interact with the fairer sex, which flock to our store in troves.
The Clothing Store has plenty of styles that appeal to everyone from high school girls to soccer-yet-still-stylish-moms. I’m not the best flirt in the world, but I’m certainly not the worst. Talking to beautiful customers is a good way to preoccupy time. I mean, I’m supposed to be helping them anyway.
I think my boredom at work has spawned a strange fantasy that somehow, through my impeccable service and friendly demeanor, some girl will think: “Who was that sales associate? Maybe I should go back and ask him to the food court on his break? He looked hungry.”
True, I am hungry (probably for pizza). False, the love connection hasn’t happened — alas.
One time a freckle-faced fashionista walked in sipping a chai latte. Well, that happens a lot actually, but this one was extra cute. Usually I help customers at my own leisure, but I approached her so fast I got an invite to the NFL combine. I helped her find a couple of pairs of jeans and a skirt, and decided to try starting a conversation.
“I see you have, um — tea there,” I stumbled. “Did you get it from the new place downstairs?”
Not the smoothest line, but definitely keeping it mall-centric. Turns out she got the tea from the town where I live. She teaches cheer leading there. She’s also best friends with a girl I’m friends with from high school. We were legitimately talking! What do you know? The ol’ where’d-you-get-the-tea- from?-trick works!
Later, I asked our mutual friend about this girl. Unfortunately, she has a boyfriend. I felt stupid for asking. I don’t know what I expected my friend to say. Perhaps something along the lines of: “Oh, yeah, she mentioned you! You were the one who processed her monetary transaction!”
I started to realize that my fleeting retail romances might just be shams. The smiles aren’t for me — they’re for the plaid blouses I’m folding and sizing. The glances aren’t at me, but our fabulous sale prices. I might as well be a mannequin. Working in a clothing store is like being a rock in a river of bustling humanity. Every connection made — guy or girl — is fleeting. Soon to move on to the next store.
Sorry, that’s getting a little morose. I’m far from miserable — it’s just an interesting thought.
My pebble-in-the-river status also allows me a unique perspective on romance in the retail world: Couple customers.
You can tell a lot about a couple by the way they shop together. Their body language. Their attitude. Sometimes it is almost painful to watch, seeing a couple argue over something as simple as a cardigan. I work in the fitting room on the floor with men’s clothing, so I get a lot of dudes getting annoyed with the clothes their girlfriends pick out for them. The lack of patience that can be shown from one shopping trip is unbelievable. The most natural couple I’ve seen in the store coincidentally is my two best friends; their body language speaks volumes of why they’re still together.
Everyone on The Clothing Store staff seems to be in good shape, romantically speaking. Some are married, some are dating. One girl is dating a guitarist from a crummy local band. My favorite manager claims she loves her boyfriend, but she relentlessly flirts with the former employee who showed up drunk to the company party.
Sunday won’t be that bad though. I have a date with a 10 percent discount at the mall’s pizza joint. John Lennon once sang: “Happiness is a warm ‘za.”
Or something like that — the store’s soundtrack is really getting to me.
by Two-Headed Boy
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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