Shades of Blue

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Pic? Sure!

Test post of an image. I took this on my recent visit to California, the land of weird seed things.


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California Dreamin'

California, here I come!

(I probably should start packing.)

My physical appearance is above reproach. I have strong, healthy bones, including a skull that would make a witch doctor jealous. My vertebrae are aligned like marines on graduation day. My femurs are long and robust. They'll make great clubs someday when the only weapons left with which to kill each other are the thighs of dead tall people.

I've been told my fingernails are very wide. This was told to me by a person whose fingernails were very narrow. I do not remember if it was a man or a woman. He or she was completely wrong; my fingernails are the definition of.

Hair does not grow on the backs of my hands. The skin between my knuckles and my wrist is as smooth and barren as a sand dune. There are a few persistent follicles on my fingers but these are only visible under certain lighting conditions, none of which I care to divulge. The moles on my forearms are exact replicas of ancient constellations, celestial bodies used by those seeking God or spices. My elbows are moist. My shoulders are wide and muscular. When I stand up straight and am relaxed there is a pocket of air between my shoulder blades. This is the calmest pillow of air in the world. Calmer than a dying balloon.

Beartrap designers have studied my back and ass for the same reasons I model for the vase industry. Words like form and function are bandied about but I do not pay attention. Cameras flash. Lasers measure. The ruler freaks and plaster casters flit about like hummingbirds while I munch on grapes and pumpkin seeds and cherry tomatoes. Whole pineapples are often made available. Does no one realize that even I prefer my pineapples carved?

Benevolence restrains me.

Fine suits were invented for lines like mine. My eyes are as precise as scissors and bluer than memories of the ocean. My chin is an atmospheric carving knife, shedding plasma like the underside of the Shuttle.

My tears, when they do, flow with the sadness of a melting glacier.

I have small feet, to confuse my enemies.

When I run I am a leaf in the wind, a ghost on reflective shoes passing brick walls and doorways and parking meters. Mailboxes salute. When I dance I am the pen of Mozart. When I swing I am Ruth. When I yawn indoors the fire dies, just for a moment. I nap like a full lion. When I enter a room people stare. When I leave a room people mutter.

Reality is my canvas. Living is my art. Don't ask for a price. You can't afford me.

Women of taste and value want me. They want me for the joys I am happy to share and the secrets they will never learn.

I have a mind I cannot turn off.

It is full of truths and lies.

It is never calm, except when it is.

Brains! Brains!

My ongoing obsession with post-apocalyptic disaster movies continues unabated. This past weekend a friend and I watched 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to one of my favorite movies, 28 Days Later. The premise of both films is that the entire island of Great Britain has been infected by a virus known as rage. Wait, it reads better if you call it RAGE, and it even helps to say it out loud in a devil voice, or at least a bronchitis voice. That makes RAGE sound scary, which it is.

Symptoms of RAGE include reddening of the eyes, loss of coherent speech, severe mood shifts, aversion to daylight, uncontrollable twitching, neglect of proper hygiene, spontaneous ejection of blood from the mouth, an overwhelming urge to savagely murder any person not infected with RAGE, and mild heartburn. Those infected should refrain from operating heavy machinery or using motor vehicles.

It's kind of like restless leg syndrome but with more killing.

Anyone unlucky enough to contract RAGE will exhibit symptoms in under five seconds. It doesn't take long for the virus to turn its victim into a homicidal zombie maniac. Though I lack the biomedical training to accurately comment on this it seems to me that this is a little fast. Don't viruses usually have to reproduce a zillion times in your body before they start to mess with you? I don't know. Sounds like a question for my scientist brother. He knows all sorts of shit like that.

One of the great things about the films is that these aren't your grandpa's homicidal zombie maniacs. These are zombies of a different breed than their lackluster, stiff-jointed, brain-eating cousins of lore. They are fast, sporty, aggressive and driven by a bloodlust that is unrivaled in the world of zombiedom. Truly, they are zombies of the Gatorade Generation for the Gatorade Generation.

Anyway, after the virus is released accidentally by an unnamed animal rights group (they were liberating the chimpanzees on which the virus was developed*) it rapidly spreads throughout the population of London and quickly to the rest of the Great Britain. The first film tells the story of a bike messenger who wakes up in a hospital after twenty-eight days in a coma to find the city of London completely abandoned. He soon discovers that things aren't so simple and bands together with other survivors to make do in a world gone to restless leg syndrome hell. It's scary in the good way and was shot on digital handheld cameras, giving it a more realistic, almost low-budget documentary feel, which adds to the intimacy you develop with the characters throughout the film.

The sequel, 28 Weeks Later, is about a botched attempt to repopulate the island after all the infected have supposedly starved to death. A child with two different colored eyes may hold the key to solving the RAGE problem, as he is the son of a woman who appears to be infected but is not exhibiting symptoms. She is a carrier. Unfortunately she gets offed by her husband after he accidentally gets infected and goes on a fairly predictable zombie rampage, infecting and killing others along the way. There's lots of running and screaming and some explosions and military dudes and dark hallways. No intelligent robots, however, but I wouldn't expect such a thing in a zombie movie, although it would have been nice...(hint hint producers of 28 Months Later!)

Whatever. It was a pretty bland sequel, all in all, suffering from many of the things that make sequels the under-performing siblings they tend to be: predictable, slightly corny, more of the same. It was the TV dinner version of the first movie and was entertaining in a similarly vacuous way. I give it a C+, which sounds a lot scarier if you say it in a devil voice, or at least a bronchitis voice.

Damn, wrote too much. I was going to make this entry about my obsession with post-apocalyptic movies and other cultural consumables. Cormac McCarthy's The Road comes to mind. An exciting subject, I know. I'll get around to it sooner rather than later. After all, none of us can be sure how long this pre-apocalyptic world is going to last.





*Lesson for you burgeoning extremists animal rights groups: always check the apes for zombie viruses before letting them out of their cages.

I am not a prick! I said I was sorry I ruined your night!

I overheard a couple of the neighbors arguing today. Their voices penetrated like wind into the back stairwell as I made my way down to the laundry room, a large ball of clothes held against my chest. Naturally, I paused for a few moments and listened until I realized both that their dispute was none of my business and that if one of them happened to open their back door they would find me standing there outside their apartment in the dark... in the silence... in the cold. I do not have many fears, but one of them is awkwardness.

For a brief moment I absurdly contemplated turning around and going back upstairs.

Drawing on great bravery as well as a need for clean pants I proceeded lightly on the steps, partially to avoid twisting an ankle in the dark, but mostly to stifle the usual rumble I produce when descending the stairs. In so doing I wondered why I felt compelled to be silent. It wasn't a fear that I would get caught attempting to do laundry. In an odd way I felt that if my presence were detected they might feel I was imposing, or that someone was getting access to a part of their life that they did not intend. Arguing is a private sport. Spectators are for debates.

I don't know them well but we've hung out a few times over the past year. Played cornhole a couple of times with the guy. Helped with some furniture. They once had a party with an inflatable kiddie pool in the backyard, around which people lounged, soaking their feet and drinking beer, myself included. The water was cool and had pieces of grass and red plastic cups floating in it. The girl promised to get me stoned when her sister came to visit, whom she described as 'granola'. They're good people. They seem to care for each other. They recycle.

When I got to the laundry room their voices were even louder and clearer. Seems floors are thinner than walls in 100-year-old four-flats. Though I had pledged to tune them out, doing so is like promising to ignore the murderous clown staring at you from behind your closet door. Mostly it was him yelling, defensively and reluctantly apologizing for some weekend crime that involved him falling asleep... and him not knowing how not to disappoint her. She shouted back, matching his tone and volume. I should remember more detail than I do, but the one gem I do remember was him shouting, "I am not a prick! I said I was sorry I ruined your night!" I couldn't quite get the narrative down... and for that I'll have to earn my eavesdropping merit badge some other time.

It was pretty vanilla relationship stuff, but it was the stuff of relationships. People have misunderstandings, they ruin each others' night sometimes, they fight about it and then they makeup and have above-average sex.

When I got back upstairs, my apartment seemed a little emptier, a little quieter.

Ground cover

Chicago has been named the most caffeinated city in the country, which doesn't surprise me. I can think of four Starbucks within walking distance of me, not counting the ones in the grocery stores or the ones in the grade schools, or the many other coffee shops that are not named Starbucks. According to the article we eat a lot of chocolate and we also drink a lot of pop, or as the rest of you call it, soda. Not to mention there's no shortage of Red Bull and its clones to keep the hands shaking. Plus, the ink in our newspapers is laced with caffeine so that anyone leafing through their daily rag gets a boost just for having thumbs.

Last year we were named the fattest city in America, which did surprise me. I look around and see a city of mostly fit, mostly young and frequently symmetrical people. Of course we will never make the short list for thinnest city but when I'm out and about I rarely observe the undulating jars of jelly that populate the suburbs and surrounding environs. You can always tell you're near one of the tourist traps by the expanding waistlines of the people waddling about on the sidewalks. Navy pier is not only a sea of fanny packs; it's a sea of fannies. And sometimes Asians.

Not that people who live here don't know how to eat. This city never met a chicken wing it didn't fry, a mozzarella stick it didn't dip, a chili it didn't slurp, a rib it didn't gnaw, a pad of butter it didn't spread, a gram of saturated fat it didn't store. Ours is a city that knows its way around a wet wipe and its way into a bottle of Tums.

(Uch.... these photos are taking FOREVER to copy... maybe if I were a better photographer I wouldn't need to take 163 pictures in a day... damn old slow computer...)

Here there are too many restaurants to explore in a lifetime, although attempting to do so is going to be fun, I suspect. The selection is as diverse as a student UN meeting. Just in my little hood I can walk to four Mexican, one Thai, two Chinese, one Hungarian, two Italian, one Guatemalan, three American, two Irish, one Gyros, three Sushi, Two Dunkin', one goofy Vegan breakfast place, ten or twelve bars, and four sandwich places. That's all within a four to five block radius, and I live in one of the "quiet" neighborhoods. Give me a cab or a train and I'm eating on any continent I choose. (Tip for the Antarctican restaurant: Bring a sweater.)

I've always considered Chicago a city of good-lookin', hard-workin', g-droppin' people. We eat, we drink, we wipe, we repeat. And we're a bunch of caffeine addicts, although I'd have to count myself out of the long lines of coffee drinking foam-sippers. I do fancy the pop and the occasional red bull and vodka, but I couldn't tell you the difference between an espresso and a cappuccino if you paid me in chocolate-covered coffee beans.

Pay me in chocolate-covered raisins and we might have something to talk about.

Random acts of textness

Johnny, 2:55pm: Bowling starts in a couple of weeks

Me, 3:21 pm: Are we signed up?

Johnny, 3:21 pm: Yes

Me, 3:23 pm: sweet, man. That's the greatest thing I've ever heard!

Johnny, 3:24 pm: Yes it is, yes it is

Me, 3:27 pm: I feel so alive right now!

the filth and the beauty

It's cold out there these days. Not as cold as it's going to be but cold compared to the previous months. I've been experimenting with my cap, trying to find that balance between how much to fold it up without sacrificing fashion or heat. I don't want to show too much ear, lest the ladies get overly excited, and we all know how dangerous that can be....

Caught a glimpse of the skyline the other day. Nighttime. Unblemished. So beautiful. Once I was on a date with a girl who grew up here. We were driving across some bridge and we caught a similar glance and I asked her if she ever gets bored of it. "No, I never do," she said. I saw her a couple more times but it never went anywhere. She was too tall, anyway, almost like one of those skyscrapers.

I see it all the time, the skyline, from every angle-- up close, within the caverns of stone and steel, from the non-slip surface of the sailboat I crewed on, from the softball fields and the smelt-fishing docks, from the various condos of clients at various heights, from the distance of a haze-tinted suburb... and it never gets old. It's forever a presence, demanding nothing but occasional bouts of respect. Too often people ignore it, take it for granted, or are simply too busy and distracted to pay attention.

Do ants know they live on a hill? Do we?

There are times when the skyline catches me off guard. I'm surprised by the geometric poetry of the buildings, their collective majesty, their sense of purpose and permanence. I'm impressed and humbled, and grateful. The density of people, the productivity of capitalism, the filth and the beauty, armies of I-beams, miles of wire, each building a big bad fuck you to the pessimists and the non-dreamers out there.

They used to land blimps on top of the Empire State Building. It takes gall to ride the sky, kiss a cloud and then mount a skyscraper.

In other news

In other news, if I'm a match, I might have to give my mom half my liver.

*sigh*

Spreading the Joy

I starred in my own little episode of Sex and the City this afternoon. No, I didn't sit around a posh restaurant discussing the intricacies of my vagina with my bestest gir'friends. No, I didn't put my hair up in a ponytail and type frivolously away on my laptop about my latest bed buddy for my column about sex. No, I didn't divine the Zen of Life from a typo on a box of birth control pills. Was there an episode about that? No? Well, there should have been.

I did, however, go coat and shoe shopping!

My trusty old fleece just ain't cuttin' it no mo'. Actually it's the wind that cuts it, right through it, and that makes for one cold honky in the mornings, especially here in the City of Wind. After considerable mirror-gazing in different colors and styles I just couldn't pull the trigger. I came close on one particular coat. It was robust and not too tight around the shoulders but it was a bit short. If I can find it in a tall on the net I might go ahead and get it.

Then the shoe section beckoned and I wound up selecting a pair of New Balance sneakers. That's right, I call them "sneakers" and I'm not going to change no matter how much you assholes laugh at me on our way to paintball.

At the checkout counter awaited two checkout counter girls. As I walked up I heard the one say to the other, laughingly, "Thanks a lot. You just ruined my dreams."

"You don't need dreams," I told her. They laughed. "Dreams are overrated."

More laughter. "Boy, you just spread sunshine and joy wherever you go, don't ya?" said the one whose dreams had been ruined.

Joking ensued about how she would still be working there when she is seventy years old. All three of us chimed in on the subject with humorous chimings. Somewhere during all that I spent eighty bucks. It was a rather pleasant transaction, compared to most. I mean, what more pleasantness could strangers find than light-hearted banter about giving up hope and failing to find fulfillment?

I left the store feeling good about my little shopping spree. The early November air went straight through my inadequate coat but I didn't notice. That girl was right on. Her sarcasm was both warranted and accurate. Nobody wants to hear a guy say dreams are overrated, even if he's kidding.

Well, off to work on my sex column. This week's subject: The Zen of Life from a typo on a box of condoms.

These sneakers sure are comfy. They make me feel new and balanced.