Monday grab-bag

My desktop thermometer says 6 degrees outside this morning. The wind-chill made it feel a lot colder an hour ago as I made my way west down Armitage toward Kimball. There was a cutting breeze, and my eyes started to water as I neared the Mexican bakery. I felt like I didn't want to go on. But I went on. Metaphors r Us.

We're approaching the holidays, as well as the baby-advice-giving days. The reality of the situation is sinking in for everyone, and the old mothers and grandmothers are starting to polish their admonishments and out-dated advice. The Internet has done wonders for parental nagging. I'm going to keep a smile on my face. I promise.

I'm proud that the Iraqi shoe-throwing journalist is of my generation. That might be the most significant public thing our generation has done so far. (We've got a lot of years to go.) It's certainly one of the ballsiest moves of all time, as our president commands the strongest, most technologically advanced army in human history, as well as a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons. I wondered aloud to Erika a few weeks ago whether or not we'll all start to feel nostalgia for ol' Bush as the years go on, as we might associate him with a certain time in our lives, and our view of him will soften. But this incident reminds me that thousands of people on both sides have needlessly died because of the events he set in motion. I must never forget that.

Coming and going

Oh, baby. I own all of this stuff in individual editions, but man does it look good all in one place. Who would buy this? Me. I'm sure there are others out there. Erika, please don't get me this for Xmas. I just want to ogle it a little. It's also fucking expensive. Where does that money go — gravestone polish? I have a picture of the gravestone. He's in the same cemetery as JP Sartre and Baudelaire. I should post it some day.

My Kinda Town continuum

Well, the new president today said he and his aides did not discuss his empty Senate seat with our governor, though the NYT story mentioned that his campaign manager said in late November that he had done just that. The Trib also noted that new chief of staff and long-time Dem apparatchik Rahm Emanuel was not at the "We didn't do anything" press conference today. He's had past ties to Rod Blagojevich.

If I'm being snide, forgive me, but it would be a huge disappointment if this went any deeper with the new administration. My guess is Barack Obama will pull away with maybe just a few specks of mud and perhaps light a couple of aides, who would be forced to resign for shenanigans in a worst-case scenario. I don't think they'll touch the man himself.

It's just a shame that the local merry-go-round of corruption pseud-news (does the excessive coverage ever really solve the problem?) has now become what the rest of the country is following. The NYT and Trib main sites are nearly identical at the moment. Obama and his campaign did a good job of tamping down his connections to the Chicago political machine (Blago is just a machine creation in Springfield) — though that's also due to the McCain campaign. Perhaps they thought the Rezko link was too weak or too small potatoes ("Chicago Corruption" is kind of like a carnival ride now, which no one takes seriously) or perhaps they just didn't take the time to understand it. But a situation like this begs the question of just how deep and complex the ties are.

Blago is the X-factor: what he knows and what he will reveal. If he's gone mad, as some people are suggesting, he might spill the beans as an act of revenge. Wouldn't he have done it by now? Maybe. Would he take down others with him? Who knows. Would it hurt Obama greatly if there was in fact some kind of back-room deal between the two camps? Well, Bill Clinton survived a lot worse.

Nutso Town

This has been one of the craziest years I've lived through, between the economy, politics, culture and sports. And it seems Chicago more and more is taking the crown as the capital of insanity as 2008 closes. First the Trib goes bankrupt (perhaps using the recession as a cover to come clean about older debts) and now our governor gets arrested for essentially trying to sell Barack Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat and wheeling and dealing for the Chicago Cubs (a Trib property). Despite existing intense scrutiny from the U.S. Attorney's office, Gov. Blagojevich thought it would be a good idea to continue acting illegally. (I honestly don't know how he could even walk straight with Patrick Fitzgerald so far up his ass.)

Does this mean Pat Quinn will be our governor tomorrow? Pat Quinn of the signature Pat Quinn Photo Op (c)? That would be the icing on the cake this year for our city and state.

Goodbye to all that 2.0

Tomorrow one of the last baseball links to my boyhood will move on. Greg Maddux is going to retire after 22 years in the game. I was 10 years old when he began his career with my team, the Chicago Cubs, and I will always associate him with the improbable playoff run of '89. It was perhaps the team's most boneheaded move (even more so than the Lou Brock trade) to let him go after the '92 season when he won his first Cy Young award. He would go on to win three more and serve as a pillar of the Atlanta Braves powerhouse of the '90s, which reached its peak with a World Series victory in '95. Following Maddux's departure, the Cubs floundered through the decade, with only a flash-in-the-pan boost from Sammy Sosa and Kerry Wood in '98.

I don't agonize over what could have been had my team kept one of the greatest control pitchers of all time, but rather I only feel the sweet sting of time's passing, as the oldest of the old guard resign themselves to their final places in the big tome of baseball's history. Yes, they are now gone, and perhaps with it the living remnants of my youngest days, but at least I'll be able to remember what they did for the game and its fans. (I'm am comforted by the fact that another old Cub, Jamie Moyer, is still playing and just helped the Phillies win a title.)

As the Cubs were losing Game 1 of this year's National League Divisional Series against the Dodgers, Joe Torre called Greg Maddux, a 355-game winner, out of the bullpen to face his old team. Great irony, certainly, but also a wonderfully strange and poetic returning that I would hope everyone in their own lives could enjoy. I don't know what Maddux will do next, but in my mind he already has joined the eternals — a Cub, always our guy.

The insider

I didn't lose my job yesterday, thankfully, but I do seem to have picked up some kind of bug — my other fear from two days ago. I'm not sure if it's flu or a cold, but I'm feeling crappy. Rats. Well, I'm not missing much outside. Right now it looks like a textbook example of winter. Instead, I'm sitting in comfort in my house shoes, with central heat and the Alabama/Florida game. I'm thankful for all of these things.

I think Erika's sleeping right now. She had to do some grueling extracurricular work that involved carting kids yesterday from the South Side to Evanston, coming home around 1 this morning, getting up at 7 and doing it all over again today.

Does it get much more interesting than this? Wait, I almost forgot to say that I'm going to reorganize our filing cabinet system. This is why I don't usually write weekend dispatches. … Well, pleasant evening to you.

TGIF

I don't mean to get melodramatic, but the boss is in the office after being out all week. Friday is the day you're most likely to get fired/laid off, perhaps because then you just go home for the weekend, and, well, at least you have the weekend to collect yourself (and not come back to the office). I would think our boss would give us some warning about upcoming cuts. One person was laid off about two months ago, and the higher-ups stressed it was a redundant position long for the chopping block. They then said they foresaw no more cuts ahead.

Today's grim unemployment news makes me wonder how much cuts on the part of companies are the result of real financial needs and how much have been because of hysteria — and whether it will affect our company/group. I recently read a columnist I trust who believes the 24/7 news cycle is overcooking the financial crisis, creating more fear and paranoia. But this job news is hard to ignore, and with a baby on the way in about two months, I'm feeling a bit nervous. Thankfully, my wife has a recession-proof job that pays her more than me and provides health insurance. (She's kept hers as an emergency backup.) I would like to think my skills and training are very marketable, but I worry what the actual market will be for them. Are there electronic tumbleweeds currently blowing through the editing/writing section of Craigslist?

Well, all I can do right now is sit tight and count off the rest of these 6.5 hours till I can go home (hopefully still employed). Then I won't have to worry again — till next Friday.

Whirling hall of knives

Seems I'm now surrounded by sick people at the Cracker Factory. Not sure what I should do — perhaps close my door. Let me do that. Okay. I need to formulate a plan: how to get out. Feeling a little off. Christ, I'm getting sick, too. I have to get out of here. I don't think these floors are very thick. I have a spoon in my bottom drawer — maybe I'll dig down to 22. Yes, I'm definitely getting sick. If I stay here another hour, I'm done for. Wait … I have a 2009 plastic, erasable wall calendar still in the box. I can wrap this around myself to fend of the germs and make a run for the door. … But I can't touch the handle because everyone's touched the handle today, including the infected people. I'm going to have to cover my hands in 20 sheets of kleenex each — that way I can open the front office doors and press the — Fuck. The down elevator button. The worst disease-harborer of them all. What am I … I know. I'm going to tape these five pencils together, so I can stand as far away as possible from the down elevator button and safely press it without using any part of my body. Then, I'll step into the elevator … But what if I breathe in germs through the air? I'll have to wrap my head in toilet paper. Yes. Then I can run through the office, my head wrapped in toilet paper, covered in a 2009 plastic wall calendar, holding five taped-together pencils, press the down elevator button, jump inside and go down to the lobby.

You'll see someone fitting this description running across the Wabash Ave. bridge in about five minutes. I'm heading straight to Maxim's Oxygen Bar on Hubbard. He has a mitochondrial reabsorbtion chamber there that you can pay for by the hour. God knows I'm going to need it.

The taped dollar

Sunday night while coming back from the hair place, I stopped at Foodsmart on Armitage, between California and Sacramento. Rain mixed with sleet had been falling all day, so I hoped to get a bag of sidewalk salt before it turned to snow (which it did later in the evening). Sure enough there was a stack of heavy, yellow salt bags right next to the newspapers up front. Lacking cash, I took $40 out of the ATM. I then brought the bag to the counter and set it down.

There was a middle-aged woman behind the register, and she was very slowly and methodically taping together a one-dollar bill down the middle with clear scotch tape. She did not look up and did not hurry herself to finish this job. If we had been in a small town, the woman most likely would've apologized, put the dollar down and rung me up. Not so in the City of Big Shoulders. I really took no offense; I was in no hurry. I paid for my bag of salt (five dollars and change) with one of the twenties from the ATM. She broke it and gave me back the difference.

This morning I looked in my wallet for a dollar to feed into the Coke machine, and I found the scotch-taped bill. Apparently I was in more of a hurry on Sunday night than I thought because I failed to notice that the woman gave it to me as part of my change. I don't know if any Coke machine will accept this dollar, and I'm even wary a convenient store like Foodsmart would refuse it. I guess you could say I got screwed twice: having to wait and getting back damaged currency. For a retail transaction, that's a impressive feat.

I console myself by saying that it's all a big give and take. … Though maybe there is no system. Or maybe you're always on the receiving end. Or maybe it's just Chicago. … Or maybe I should just forget it. … Yes, that's probably the way to go.

Living memory

I, perhaps like many readers of Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback column today, was saddened by news that legendary Sports Illustrated football writer Paul "Dr. Z" Zimmerman was recuperating from two strokes suffered two weeks ago. King did a great job in his column of letting us younger readers know about Dr. Z's long-form print writing. Most of us under 35 only know him as the man who does SI's preseason picks of playoff and Super Bowl teams, as well as power rankings and other smaller stories on the magazine's Web site.

Dr. Z, who has covered the game since the '60s and has experiences of it from well before then, is a link to pro football's gutsier, less glamorous, less commodified past, when the game was really just a game, not an entertainment experience — and to those of us who started watching the NFL in the '80s, that past always seems like it was a lot more fun and heroic. I hope we can continue to read Dr. Z's wranglings over the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame nominees. He has strong opinions about players most of us never heard of or have forgotten. And I don't know what I'll do if he doesn't issue his annual grades of TV football announcers at season's end. Late winter will certainly be grayer and colder if it goes missing.

I, somewhat selfishly and like many others, hope Dr. Z can return to writing for SI as soon as possible. But more importantly, I just hope he can recover. I'd hate for that powerful link to the past to be extinguished.

The sorrow and the pity

What is this steaming bowl of vomit before my eyes? The Bears game, of course. I have crossed the threshold of mere anger — as my body at this point cannot handle a full-throated expression of my agony — into a kind of blackhole of fan pain, the outward signs being deep sighs, long breaths and hollow whispers. I feel like crawling into a cold hole. If they lose this one, the season is done, and we get six months of Bulls rebuilding and Cubs uncertainty. A wretched menu, for sure.

NBC has shown Adrian Peterson come off the field every single time tonight, with further shots of him staring back at his teammates while a disembodied hand squirts Gatorade into his mouth. I can't remember any player getting covered this closely. … Now there's a shot of him coming back in. Madden is twitching and salivating. … Touchdown. I hate the Vikings. I've hated them my whole life. I think I'm going to kill myself now.

Men of Buffalo, heed the call

Today, my brother Matt is wending his way through the Rust Belt — probably somewhere around Toledo by now — to pay us an extended Thanksgiving visit. We're looking at upward of 20 people from both sides of the family for this year's feast at our house. Erika, naturally, will be the star of the show with her pregnant stomach. (By the way, we're calling the baby Olivia Jane this week, or O.J.)

It's always great to see Matt. I only wish we lived in the same city — he in Chicago or we in Buffalo. Well, we'll just have to make the most of the celebratory itinerary we've been handed. Yea and there will be much song and feasting — and microbrew and import beer consumption! (And cursing of the NFL Network, though I love it so.)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Thoughts from the holding pen

The entire power structure that was in place when I was hired at the New Cracker Factory is gone, including the two people who interviewed me back in December 2006. I've tried to figure out why, but I don't have enough real information to come up with a satisfying answer: Either the people, who were long-time colleagues, felt it was some kind of end of an era and inspired one another to leave or all of them sensed the company was in trouble and decided to jump ship. I have a feeling it might have been a combination of both.

Our company, like many others, is facing economic uncertainty, particularly in our specific group. It's not the most reassuring thing with a baby on the way in two months, but I'm confident the brass will hang tough for us. I told myself in January 2007 that I'd start looking for a new gig in two years. That time is almost here, and I think I will stay true to my promise, more out of curiosity than necessity. (I pray it stays that way.) This job is good, but we're all kind of frozen in place. It would be nice to work somewhere with a chance to make more bread, if I may be honest. It's something I now have to think about.

Erika and I both have left jobs in the last two years that were our first real gigs out of college. We had/have an attachment to them, for better or worse, that I don't think we'll ever find in our current or future gigs. Well, I shouldn't speak for her, but I know with myself that I've begun to feel more mercenary as time has gone on. It's a liberating feeling, and it's also an empty feeling — one of temporariness and not caring. I'd like some job down the road to prove me wrong that this feeling is now permanent.

Arch Stanton

Something's definitely up in my sinuses and nasal passages today. Irritation from central heat dryness? Impending sickness? I have been blowing my nose a lot. I also feel a little fatigued, but that could be from hunger just prior to lunch. Who said the hypochondriac's life isn't exciting?

I think the computer really promotes a wandering attention span, as I'm writing this while jumping back and forth from some work work and the affairs of a tiny electronic village I'm presiding over as part of an online video game. It's time to focus. Like we used to back in the late '80s. Remember?

All signs point to sickness and its attendant dementia. It's time we made watching "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" a new Thanksgiving tradition along with drinking Bitburger beer. Case closed.

Another nordnik proclaims his love for radio

In an effort to not bow to the power of TV — though last night we notched another full hour of "Frasier" on our tube-watching axe handle … Let me start over: Erika and I don't have cable. And I don't think we're going to get it, even in anticipation of the DTV switch-over in February. (Our child will never know the joy of analog television.) It would just suck us in. Well, really it would suck me in.

Precedence exits: While Erika was taking her class near Morristown, N.J., in August, I was back at the hotel allowing toxic levels of ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN News to seep into my eyes. I shudder thinking about what could happen here at home when ESPN Classic is thrown into the mix as an obligatory part of a cable package. ("Bills-Oilers '92 playoff game? I've got nothing better to do.")

So … in light of this, I've had to feed my sports fix with radio during those hours when football contests are usually shown on pay TV. I like to think I'm the only one following the game this way outside of truck drivers, pizza delivery people, people who work in downtown parking lot shacks and shut-ins. I know that's not true, but it's a fiction that enhances the romance — that old romance of the radio.

Really, I only wrote this post to proclaim my love for Westwood One's football coverage. If you're like me and are in the same fix, you have undoubtedly become familiar with Westwood One, the nationally syndicated radio network (which I believe is an arm of CBS) that carries the Thursday/Monday night games. My week doesn't seem right now without at least a 15-minute visit with Boomer Esiason and Marv Albert on Monday night or gravelly voiced Dennis Green on Thursday.

I've been listening to Westwood One for more than five years now — over four residences and countless nights. Its existence reinforces the warming idea that somewhere, everywhere a game is on the radio for you to listen to while you unwind and forget your problems, if just for a few moments. Sometimes when you're alone, that's all you really need.

Man, an imperfect animal

Christ, I'm bored today. The last issue of the year went out last week. I have some Web site duties, but between that and my commute (detailed yesterday), there's little to pass the time. I've amused myself with Internet games, sent out some more submissions and even written in a journal to my unborn child.

At least I'm not anxious. Wait, who said that bit about anxiety and boredom? The two states of humankind. I think it was Pascal, but I'm not going to rely on the Internet to provide the answer. Well, man also is a bit of an asshole. Erika was nice enough to take me to work this morning, and I criticized her driving. This situation, I've found, moves me to criticize her driving skills more readily than any other, and I always forget this fact before going into it again. Now I'm thrashing about with guilt.

I did finish up another draft of my new play yesterday, and I've sent it to the Feedback Processing Factory. I'm confident I can wrap this whole thing up by March, April at the latest. My goal is to do it in fewer drafts than the last two, which I hope spells an improvement in my skills (and a break for my sanity).

But none of this is helping my boredom. I can't even listen to the song "Boredom" because my Sprial Scratch 7" is in Detroit. I think it's time to sleep under my desk.

At least he was doing what he liked

I was especially careful this morning crossing the corner of Homan and Grand. I was nearly hit by a pickup truck there yesterday while trying to catch the 65 bus. This is perhaps the most pedestrian-unfriendly intersection in Chicago, with vehicles making blind turns under a Metra bridge right into the designated crosswalk. I don't think it's really meant for foot traffic, being in a kind of no-man's warehouse land between Humboldt Park and the West Side.

Whatever. I was too reckless, running out on Grand like that. I don't want to die before my child is born — particularly in such a stupid fashion. Getting killed as part of a CTA commute might make a kind of poetic sense (the system always wins), but you'll probably be viewed as an idiot as the years pass, until you become a joke in your great-grandson's stand-up routine …

"I can't say I come from a lucky family. My great-grandfather was hit by a bus."

(Now appearing Thursday at the Comedy Hovel.)

Wigs, come and gone

Flexing some fantasy muscle today. Our league is starting to shake out, and it's looking like my youngest brother and I are going to be gunning for the coveted Culpable Cup. (That's what I call it, at least.) There might be a couple other dudes in the mix, but I truly feel a hermano y hermano championship match-up is imminent.

Cold day and a cold evening. Eagles/Giants on TV. I'm in the right place. We saw old friend (and old Woundup fan) Vanessa this morning. Always good to see her. She lives in a really sweet apartment now, too. That reminds me that we were roommates six years ago when I first moved into this wonderful city of ours. I just talked to Ted, and I halted in saying I moved to NYC just prior to the great 2000 election flap to spare an old friend a reminder of the passage of time. But now I've said it anyway. Sorry, Ted.

What to close on. ... Last night Erika and I cracked open HBO's "John Adams," and I am still confused about 18th century men's wig protocol. Sometimes they wore powdered wigs, but they also seem to have worn their hair long and braided it like the powdered wigs, but then Adams was bald and wore a natural-colored wig in this style because he was bald(?), but then he also wore the long white wig of a lawyer in the English court system. Someone really needs to help me out with this, and I don't want a Wikipedia answer. I want someone who actually knows this from a history class or a fashion class or something. Please.

Day after day after day

Two hangovers in one week's time. Seeming a little more like the old days around here lately. We, like many of our ilk, were out at a bar last night watching the election returns. Erika also watched me put away four beers — which is a lot for me. I didn't get the ideal amount of sleep, either, but now I've had orange juice, Powerade, Coca Cola, orange juice again, McDonald's breakfast and water, and it seems more likely I'll be able to limp through the rest of the day. I can see my bed at the finish line.

If you were expecting more profound thoughts on the election, I can only say that my positive vibes are tempered by questions about what's going to happen next. Just how much change are we going to see? I've vacillated between feeling hopeful for true restructuring, with the progressive organization of the Democratic campaign as one early indicator, and feeling wary of a possible watering down of campaign messages when the new administration is confronted with the realities out there now. Time will tell, I guess, as it always does.

Weequeend Wrappup

November's upon us. Today is my brother Matt's birthday. I suppose it's officially time to put on one's holiday running shoes. We're going to be hosting Thanksgiving at our place, as we did in 2006, for both families. We're still not sure what will happen at Christmas.

We had fun at the beer bar watching one of Chris's bands and the two that came after. I had a little too much Robert the Bruce Scottish-style ale and paid for it on Sunday, but I don't regret a thing. Erika said the baby was moving around a bit, which could indicate a musical tendency — though what person doesn't enjoy music?

I went to a playwriting class yesterday. I don't know what to make of these things anymore. It was nice to hear a playwrights-first viewpoint on writing stage directions, working with actors, etc. So often I have heard the other side of the equation, which can be a bit of a bummer (i.e., less freedom for writers). It was supposed to be a big feel-good session, which I guess is good, but it left me feeling depressed and alone as a writer. In some strange way, I was reminded that my work is really nothing more than programming, that no one knows/remembers my name (save a few) and that my work is often interpreted as crazy by others. And after I've been reminded of this, I have to go home and continue working alone for months. What exactly am I supposed to feel good about?

Well, today is the proverbial new day. It's warm and sunny outside. I have my tea here. I'm going to eat lunch soon. And after that, I will get back to work. Last week I made some significant headway in my latest draft, and I was proud of myself for coming back to it each day and not relenting. That makes me feel good. That, I suppose, is all that should matter.