Benny Jay: March Madness

I’m flat on the couch, eating a piece of bread slathered with hummus — damn, this shit is good — and watching March Madness, when the TV gets all fuzzy.

Ah, hell….

Ever since that whole digital thing, whenever a train goes by on the El the screen gets fuzzy. Piece of crap TV….

But now there’s no train passing and the screen’s still fuzzy. Now it turns black and a message flashes on: Weak Signal.

Damn it….

I pull myself up from the couch and look for the remote.  It’s nowhere to be found — damn kids never put it where it’s supposed to go. Finally find it under the cushions on the couch.

I try the other stations — five, seven, nine and so on. All of them work. The only one that doesn’t work is the one I want to watch.

Story of my life….

I tell myself: Be calm. Be logical. Think this through.  You can fix this. You really can. What was that inspirational pep talk Monroe’s wife Joyce was giving you the other day? Oh, yeah — you’re not as stupid as you think. In fact, you’re not really stupid at all. Okay, maybe a little dumb. But definitely not stupid.

I approach the TV. I look at it. I touch it. I look at it some more. There’s this little dial at the base of the antenna. I reach for it. But I think to myself — nah, things are different since they went digital. Antenna’s don’t work anymore.

I get an idea! I’ll turn it off — like with a computer that’s frozen.

I turn it off. Count to five. Then I turn it back on.

Weak Signal….

Shit….

I whack the TV. You know, like you whack a vending machine that swallows your money without delivering the goods….

Nope — still Weak Signal….

Aw, hell — this shit’s exhausting. I need a break.

I go to the kitchen and pour myself a bowl of raisin bran cereal. Splash on some milk, throw in some bananas — damn, this is good. Start reading yesterday’s newspaper, which is still lying on the kitchen table.

My wife comes home from work.

“What’s the matter with the TV?” she asks.

“It doesn’t work,” I say.

“I know it doesn’t work — that’s why I asked you what’s the matter with it….”

I pretend I don’t hear her. By the way, this is an excellent tactic for you young husbands taking notes at home. It gets `em every time….

“What happened?” she asks.

You know, like I did something wrong….

“How the hell do I know,” I say.

I wander into the living room. She’s standing in one spot — hasn’t even taken off her coat — staring at the TV. I know not to disturb her. Genius at work. She’s in zone. The woman’s like Oral Roberts when it comes to bringing dead appliances back to life. She’s got the healing touch. One of these days I got to tell you about her special talent for fixing vacuum cleaners. Oh, wait — I already did.

I go back to the kitchen. Pour myself another bowl of cereal. Go back to reading yesterday’s newspaper. All of a sudden, I hear the sound of the announcers — crisp and clear.

“You fixed it!” I exclaim.

“It was this dial thing on the antenna,” she explains. “I flipped it.”

“I knew about that dial thing,” I say. “I really did — I swear….”

She’s halfway up the stairs to the bedroom. Couldn’t care less. Probably thinks I’m an idiot. I am an idiot. Oh, well….

I go back to the couch. I settle in — ah — and watch the game. Great game, by the way. Kansas State versus Xavier. They’re going back and forth, heading into double overtime.

It’s so good, I’ve got to talk to someone about it. Call my buddy, Ed, who lives in Tennessee and knows more about college basketball than any man alive.

“You watching this Kansas State game?” I ask him.

“Fuck, no,” he says. “They ain’t showing the good game down here in Klan country. Got this fucking Kentucky bullshit on….”

Oh, yeah, word of warning: Ed swears a lot.

“How come they’re not showing Kansas State?” I ask.

“How the fuck do I know. I’m not even gonna watch this Kentucky bullshit. I’m watching To Sir With Love….”

I don’t blame him. This March Madness stuff can get kind of frustrating if you can’t actually see it….

Big Mike: Sex & God

When I was a little kid back in St. Giles elementary school in Oak Park, I noticed that the nun who taught my third grade class wore a wedding ring. At the age of eight or so, kids start noticing details about adults. The realization begins to sink in that adults are actually a collection of individual human beings, an epiphany indeed.

St. Giles Church In Oak Park

Anyway, I decided to ask Sister Caelin (whose name, as we shall see, fully illustrates the weird, weird sexual pathology that pervades the Catholic Church — which is, in turn, the point of this post) why she wore a wedding ring. Mary Therese Mulvihill, who at the time was half-kneeling next to me in a semi-circle around the Sister, involuntarily expelled a gasp and then gave out one of those Aw-w-w-ws that Catholic schoolgirls who’ve already advertised their ambition to become nuns themselves are so good at. They mean, You are so-o-o-o in trouble — and I have elevated myself in the eyes of our lord, the creator, by acknowledging your sin aloud.

Sister Caelin was as stern and steely-eyed as any nun I ever had. Already in the schoolyear she’d hollered at me while we were supposed to be writing an essay about Why We Must Love God. My problem was I couldn’t give any good reason why we should. I mean, really, here’s this guy who purportedly knows everything, who controls everything, who has planned everything in advance, yet he still lets us get hit by cars, which was my primary terror then. I’m supposed to love this guy?

Sister Caelin never smiled and her voice was as cold as the sound of a jail cell door clanging shut. She saw me sitting there, fiddling with an eraser (I was actually trying to draw the Batman logo on it) and feeling heavy-lidded. “Michael Glab!” came that voice. “What. Are. You. Doing?” Her tone indicated a barely suppressed rage and a not-at-all suppressed contempt that would have been more appropriate had she caught me wacking off under my desk, a pastime that hadn’t even occurred to me yet.

I answered the only way an eight-year-old can. “I dunno,” I said, barely audibly. She stared at me for an eternity, than said, even more contemptuously, “Playboy!” This embarrassed me no end, given that at the time all the nuns and priests could ever talk about was how evil Playboy magazine was. Had they not mentioned it, I wouldn’t have given it the first thought for at least a few years. But, thanks to their obsessive harping, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Playboy, even though I knew doing so would have stained my immortal soul. The only conclusion I could come to was that sitting there trying to draw the Batman logo onto an eraser equated me with the slobbering old lechers who kept Playboys in their dressers under their socks. And, naturally, Mary Therese Mulvihill was staring at me as this all went on. I think she shook her head.

Playboy, March 1964

Anyway, back to the semi-circle around Sister Caelin. Rather than call out my name contemptuously, she deigned to answer my question. She held up her left hand proudly to show us her gold band. “We all wear wedding rings,” she announced, meaning, of course, she and the rest of her fellow Sisters. “It shows that we’re married to our father.”

This last sentence was so bizarre that even as an eight-year-old I felt on the verge of hyperventilation.  I had to ask, “How can you be married to god? He’s not even here!”

This was the point at which Sister Caelin again called out my name contemptuously. Then she ordered me to stand in the cloakroom and say ten Our Fathers. I confess at this late date that I never did recite those ten Our Fathers. Instead, I fantasized kicking Mary Therese Mulvihill in the face.

Happily Married Women

Now, regarding Sister Caelin’s name. In those days when nuns took their vows they adopted new names, usually those of saints to whom they’d devote their lives. I don’t recall any saint named Caelin so as I began writing this, I decided to look it up. It turns out that Caelin is an Irish girl’s name. After a little further digging I discovered that Caelin was also a big shot in the christianization of Europe back in the 8th Century. He was also a man. Sister Caelin named herself after a man. Sheesh, there must have been a bundle of sexual and gender confusion in that St. Giles convent.

Want more evidence? The principal of our school was Sister James Mary. Not Sister Mary James, a first name followed by a surname, no. Sister James Mary. Our principal was as gruff as a longshoreman and had the gait of bouncer and the voice of a Major League umpire. We could hear her walking through the hall two floors below us because she wore a pair of brogans that would have made a skinhead proud. And, the piece de resistance, she had whiskers on her chin. None of this is an exaggeration.

I bring all this up because the Church is back in the news again. Apparently, the Pope, back when he was a Cardinal with some authority over such things, elected to take no disciplinary action against a priest who was sodomizing little deaf kids by the hundreds.

This, by the way, is the church which demands its priests, nuns, and brothers take vows of chastity. This is the church that tells the faithful in overcrowded lands without adequate food or sewerage that birth control is an abomination. This is the church which tut-tuts mantra-like over sexuality in the media and homosexuals everywhere.

And this is the Pope who was known as the Vatican’s Pitbull when he was in charge of enforcing the Church’s rules.

Apparently, a grown man fucking little deaf kids in the mouth doesn’t violate Church rules. I didn’t think so.

This Guy’s Got Nothin’ On Cardinal Ratzinger

Letter From Milo: Mistress Trouble

It must be contagious. Mistresses all over the world are coming out of the woodwork and revealing their affairs with famous married men. You can’t open a magazine or newspaper, get on the internet, or watch a TV talk show without reading or hearing about yet another woman claiming to have frolicked with a well-known, wealthy and very wedded man.

The reason that all of these mistresses are coming forward is, of course, the almighty greasy dollar. Magazines and TV shows routinely write huge checks to any woman willing to dish the dirt on a married celebrity. For many mistresses of the rich and famous, this has become something of a retirement plan, sort of a mistress IRA.

Tiger Woods and Sandra Bullock’s husband, Jesse James, are two of the most recent victims to be pilloried in the pages of People, US Weekly, Star and other check-out line publications. It breaks my heart to see fine young men like Tiger and Jesse having their good names and stellar reputations being dragged through the mud. And for what? All they were doing was what any other red-blooded American male would do, given the opportunity. After all, cheating on your wife is as American as apple pie (apologies to H. Rap Brown).

Poor Tiger even had to undergo the time-honored charade of calling a press conference and blatantly lying to the world about how sorry he was for nailing all that fine pussy.

Any real man will tell you that the only regret Tiger has is that he didn’t nail more women before he got busted.

Sadly, mistress trouble isn’t restricted to movie stars and athletes. Even famous and wealthy bloggers, like those of us at The Third City, can be led astray.

In our case, the feces has, indeed, gotten into the duct work. According to Leopold & Loeb, our attorneys here at The Third City, several of my mistresses have decided to rat me out. Apparently they can’t resist the fat checks that the Chicago Reader, the Ravenswood Homeowners’ Association Newsletter, the Wicker Park Shopper & Coupon Book and WXRT are offering.

This news couldn’t have come at a worse time. My wife and I are at a delicate stage in our marriage. The other day I caught her Googling Family Therapists. I have a hunch she’s going to drag my ass off to marriage counseling again. Feeling just a touch of a panic, I called Big Mike, the Barn Boss of this scabby, flatulent and barely literate blogging crew and asked his advice.

“Hey, Big Mike, it’s me, Milo.”

“Make it quick, asshole, I’ve got a blog to run.”

When I explained the problem to the Barn Boss, he sighed deeply and said, “Shit, Milo. I’ve got the same problem, my girlfriend, Coco LeFarge, is threatening to go to the media unless I buy her a new Mercedes.”

“That sucks. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she’ll settle for a new Chevrolet.”

“That should do it.”

“Benny Jay’s girlfriend is giving him a bad time, too.”

“That’s a shame.”

“She claims Benny’s spending way too much time and money on his other girlfriend. If Benny’s wife finds out she’ll kill him.”

“Yeah, Benny’s wife has got a mean streak. But what am I supposed to do about my three mistresses?”

“Well, we’ve got to have a plan to deal with all these ungrateful women. You and Benny come down to The Third City corporate office on Michigan Avenue tomorrow morning and we’ll…”

HOLD IT! This is Mrs. Milo. I just noticed what Milo was writing and threatened to mace him if he didn’t get away from the computer immediately. He is SOOOO full of crap. Here he is, looking and smelling like a sick dog, sitting around in a ratty bathrobe, hasn’t shaved or showered in a few days, plus, he’s still half drunk from all the wine he drank last night, and he’s bragging about what a ladies’ man he is. Three mistresses! I’d laugh if it wasn’t so pathetic. Listen, any women that wants his worthless old ass can have him. I should have dumped him a long time ago. I’d trade him in for a new washer and dryer right now.

Those two idiots that Milo associates with, Big Mike and Benny Jay, are almost as bad as he is. I doubt if there are three uglier or less appealing men in the City of Chicago. They’re just three over-the-hill burnouts with nothing better to do than write those stupid blogs. They’re lucky if they get six or seven people to read their nonsense. The corporate office they talk about is actually the Sanka House, the low-rent coffee shop on the corner. Swear to God, if either of them so much as approached a woman, the poor thing would probably call 911. Jeez, what a bunch of losers.

Two-Headed Boy: Shaving Face

When we last talked, I was discussing the growth of my mustache and how I look like a cross between John Holmes and Colonel Sanders. That gives me an idea for a movie…but that’s probably best for another day —or a whole other “variety” of blog for that matter.

I have now been growing it for around three weeks, probably the longest I have ever had for a mustache. Sure, I’ve dabbled, but only in the traditional I-grew-a-beard-so-I-am-going-to-briefly-shave-it-into-silly-facial-hair type of way. This time I have purely been growing a mustache, making the growth unsightly all the way from its ‘stache infancy now to its ‘stache adolescence Also, I am incapable of growing dark facial hair so it almost is translucent, like someone taped rice to my face.

My motivation is just to weird-up The Clothing Store a little bit. Everything is so prim and proper — the idea of some sales associate with a creepy mustache lurking around brings a smile to my face. When I asked you “Do you like that t-shirt?” I might as well have been saying, “Wanna buy some Quaaludes?”

A hip section of our generation has embraced the ironic mustache for many reasons:

1)     It’s a tongue-in-cheek way to up your sleaze factor (Ron Jeremy).

2)     It’s a way to adopt a nerdy look, because you are so confident in your coolness that it doesn’t matter (Ned Flanders).

3)     You want to parody the idea of hyper-masculinity (Tom Selleck, Hulk Hogan, Mark Spitz).

A strange thing happened the other day, though. Some guy about my age came in, handsome in a founder-of-a-condescending-improv-group kind of way.

“Nice mustache, dude!” he said.

“Thanks.”

“Um,” he hesitated. “Mustache code, dude. You have to say something back.”

This guy had a sprinkling of ginger stubble around his face, topped by something that could be loosely construed as a mustache. It was almost a John Waters— a pencil thin lip lining that thanks to its redness was barely recognizable from its neighboring stubble.

“Sorry. Nice mustache.”

Homeboy felt validated and smiled at his hot girlfriend. I mean, he knows I won the battle (my Hulk Hogan-esque blonde handlebar did the talking), but maybe he won the war.

This guy’s “mustache code” left me thinking. Has the ironic mustache gone mainstream? Is there even such a thing as an ironic mustache anymore? Wouldn’t a real ironic mustache be one over your chin? One arbitrarily placed in the middle of your cheek?

I think mustaches are now in the dreaded Snuggie and Auto-Tune related-humor territory.  Everyone thinks they are treading fresh territory but, I mean, even Jimmy Fallon has a “mustache wrestling” sketch on his show where gigantic mustaches fight.

Could it be Ron Burgundy’s fault? I mean Anchorman is really, really awesome, but think of the variety of humor it has spawned that is .05% as funny. Take commercials like this.

Think that was funny? Doesn’t it just reek of Burgundy’s scotch-soaked breath though? What about this one?

That should have been laugh-out-loud funny. I mean, current Laker and former Gonzaga star Adam Morrison in any capacity is laugh-out-loud funny. Did you know he has one more ring than Sir Charles does? That idea is funnier than the commercial, which shows when delivered poorly (with Morrison’s cue card reading) mustache humor doesn’t kill it every time.

Watch me write a Super Bowl commercial.

(Two dudes are hanging out in shitty apartment)

Dude #1: “Dude, we’re out of Miller Light!”

Dude #2: “Don’t worry, I know just the thing to do”

(Dude #1 and #2 put on fake mustaches)

(Cut to dudes now inexplicably hanging out at party with P. Diddy and  models)

Dudes: “The Mustache ALWAYS does the trick!”

MILLER LIGHT: GOOD CALL!

Hear that fat cats? Two-Headed Boy can do more than fold clothes. I just wrote you a new commercial. Hey, replace beer with Old Spice deodorant or Axe body spray? Any dude product for that matter. WE’RE OUT OF CHOCO TACOS, BRO!

I love beer, deodorant, Choco Tacos and the Super Bowl — let’s not get it twisted. Mustaches still are funny but the market is over saturated — Advertisers have been raping the goldmine of Napoleon Dynamite awkwardness and Anchorman absurdity and mustaches have become a vital tool in their arsenal Maybe we can step our game up a little bit. What about the ironic goatee? I mean everybody hates goatees, so the time is ripe. The first person to look like this “guy” should be awarded a special prize.

I shaved this morning. All my hard work washing down the drain. It’s all for the best, though. I have to look presentable these next few days and a large blond mustache doesn’t exactly scream class act (or does it? I just wrote a CareerBuilder.com commercial in my head too!).

I’m not condemning mustaches. I’m sure I will have one again, and if I see yours, I will salute. Do it to make yourself laugh or maybe because you genuinely like yourself with a mustache — not because the whiskey commercial told you.

by Two-Headed Boy

Benny Jay: Sammy Davis, Jr.

Heading north on Ashland, listening to the oldies station on the car radio, when on comes The Candyman by Sammy Davis, Jr.

Right away, I turn the station. There’s no one else in the car, but it’s like I’m embarrassed to be caught listening to the song.

I move the dial to hard rock, NPR, all-sports and then, sigh, back to The Candyman.

“Who can take a rainbow, wrap it in a sigh, soak it in the sun and make a groovy rainbow pie….”

I stop at a red light at Lawrence and turn it louder. Who am I kidding?  I love  Sammy Davis, Jr.

Way, way, way long ago — when I was a wee lad — I thought he was just about the world’s coolest guy. I loved the way he wore his clothes, his cool easy patter, the graceful ease with which he moved across a stage. He could sing and dance. Check this out, if you don’t believe me. He was Michael Jackson before there was Michael Jackson.

Plus he was Jewish. Not a whole lot of black guys being Jewish back then.  It always pissed  me off that Don Rickles wouldn’t respect the fact that Sammy was every bit as Jewish as he was.  At the roasts, Rickles used to make fun of Sammy for being black — overlooking the Jewish part like it didn’t exist.

I bought his book — Yes, I Can.  (He had the phrase long before President Obama.) I read it once, then I read it again. Read about how he lost his eye in a car accident and then some mobster threatened to take out the other eye cause he was dating white women. White women loved Sammy. Black women too. All the women loved Sammy — that just made him even cooler.

It didn’t bother me that he endorsed Richard Nixon for president. Well, it did a little. But I got over it. It was a crazy time — people were doing all sorts of nutty things. Besides, Sammy Davis was never ashamed of being black.  Way back in the 1970s, he performed at the Black Expo Jesse Jackson put together in Gary, Indiana. For all I know, Milo and Monroe were there….

I used to love him in those Rat Pack movies.  Pissed me off the way they treated him. Like he was a mascot. Probably cause they were jealous cause they knew he had more talent than all of them put together — yes, Sinatra too — though they’d never admit it….

Anyway, one time I was sitting at the nerds table in the Evanston High School cafeteria, must have been around 1972. And this boy — call him Greg — was going on and on about Elvis. He loved Elvis the way I loved Sammy Davis. Matter of fact, he’d just seen Elvis at the old Chicago Stadium and he was talking about about the white suit Elvis wore and the songs he sang and how he came on the stage to the sounds of the theme song from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I said that as good as Elvis was — and I conceded that he was good — he wasn’t nearly as good as the great Sammy Davis Jr.  Greg said are you kidding me? And we went at it — right there at the nerds table in the Evanston High School cafeteria.

I don’t want to brag, but — I was whooping Greg’s butt. I might not know how to put pictures on a computer, but no one can out talk me, that’s for sure.

But then, old Greg, played the ultimate trump card. He started singing The Candyman. Only he changed the lyrics to something along the lines of — who can give a blow job….

What could I say? The song was considered lame even then. All the guys at the nerd table were was cracking up. And let me tell you, it’s a rough day when the lames are laughing at you for being lame.

And now I’m sitting here almost forty years later, at the corner of Lawrence and Ashland waiting for the light to change, and the song doesn’t sound so bad. It carries a pretty little sadness, like Sammy knows life really isn’t so sweet.

“Who can take tomorrow, dip it in a dream, separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream….”

I’m singing along, got my head bopping to the melody, when I look to my right and see a woman in the car staring at me. I get all red. Try to cover it up, pretend to yawn, like I really wasn’t singing.

Then I figure — what the hell. Turn it up even louder. Who am I kidding? I love Sammy Davis, Jr. Always have, always will….

Big Mike: My Slap In The Facebook

It’s ironic. Now that Benny Jay and Milo are circle-jerking over Facebook, I’m quitting the damned thing. Then again, considering that between the two they’re about 73 years behind the times, I’m probably doing the hip thing.

For instance, Benny Jay left a panicky message on my voicemail this morning asking how to get his hifi working. Hang on, buddy, I’ll get back to you.

Benny Jay Goes Hi-Tech

I’d heard of Friendster when it first came out, which I think was during the Protestant Reformation. At that time it was billed as the cutting edge social networking site for college kids. Since college kids and I have nothing to say to each other (and if I found that we did, I’d immediately say something else) I ignored it. Then a year later MySpace came along and it had a broader clientele which included a friend or two of mine, so I signed up. Before I knew it, years had passed and I’d never used it. Then, of course, Facebook exploded like a cross between Lady Gaga and H1N1 and I signed up for it but, again, let long months pass before I did anything on it.

When Benny Jay and I cranked up this site it occurred me that I could use Facebook to advertise it. So I started posting on Facebook. I even started accumulating “friends” which seems the equivalent of calling a glory hole trick your lover.

With terribly rare exceptions, I found nothing of value on Facebook. Yeah, I reconnected with my old high school chum Bronson. I said hello to a couple of dozen other long-lost pals and we all promised each other we’d keep in touch, which we didn’t. And, sure, I was able to keep up with my nieces and nephews. Since I now live in the wilds of southern Indiana, I haven’t been able to see them as much as I’d like. It’s amazing how they’ve grown in the three years since I left Chicago.

My nieces Clark and Chase Finkelstein love to post pix of themselves and their friends. But when Clark’s Facebook photo album hit the magic 2000 figure, I realized it was becoming a chore to keep up. (As an aside, let me state right here and now that you will hear, see, and read about either or both of the Finkelstein gals by the year 2015 — they’re that talented and that driven.)

That’s Clarkie, On The Left, With The Evanston Dance Ensemble.

But the sad truth remains, I don’t now nor did I ever care about the day-to-day activities of most people. And really, that’s what Facebook is all about. Want proof? Okay, here are some sample postings:

• Butter pecan ice cream…. mmmm!
• If this snow doesn’t go away I’m going to scream!
• I love Eric.
• I’ll never understand females.
• Jana, you are the best.
• You have been invited to join Mafia Wars.
• Got tickets for Dave Mathews…. can’t wait!

Holy Christ in heaven, I thought TV was mind-numbing!

I suppose the pedestrian anthropologist in me could use Facebook to study how quickly the human race is hurtling toward oblivion. But I really don’t care.

The thing, though, that pushed me over the line was the use of Facebook for people to show off their proudest consumer possessions — their kids. Since it’s become rather unseemly for people to flaunt their wealth these days, they’re falling back on their progeny to show the world how worthy and wonderful they are.

Men used to take pictures of themselves standing next to their shiny new Buicks to announce that they were hard-working, big-earning machers. Women would turn their heads just so when they had their photos taken at weddings, the better to display their pearl earrings. Now, of course, gas hogs and gaudy jewelry are so passe.

You’ve Made It, Baby!

So, roll out the brats! Anybody of child-bearing age who doesn’t shove his or her kid in front of the camera so the image can be downloadable to everyone up to and including the Tamil people of Sri Lanka is, well, just so out of it.

In the ’80s and ’90s it was the trophy wife. Now it’s the trophy kid.

So, I was thisclose to closing my Facebook account. Then I thought maybe I was being a tad curmudgeonly. Depending on my mood for the day, I’m either proud of or apologetic about my orneriness. Then, The Loved One sent me this link.

Glenn Beck’s Rival

Facebook, some have concluded, has shut down a guy’s page because he poked fun at Glenn Beck. I don’t know if I buy the premise. It’s all so conspiratorial. I do know that the poodle vs. Beck dust-up is the perfect symbol for what’s wrong with Facebook, though. To describe it as a tempest in a teapot is to magnify its meaning and import. If anything, it’s flat out boring.

That’s what Facebook does — it bores me. I’m out of it.

Randolph Street: Portraits In Black & White

Mike Royko

Floyd Saunders–the Mayor of Southport Avenue

Rosa of Rosa’s

Carny

Julian Schnabel

Gwendolyn Brooks

All Photos © Jon Randolph