I propose that the monkey be used for the base unit of humor. My meat-friends, of course, have been listening to me say this for years. But I think it makes sense and should become an international standard.

Monkeys are inherently funny. However, they're not bust-a-gut, laugh-till-you-cry funny, unless they do something funny. Just sitting there, looking like they're people, doing nothing but stinking, they're one (1) monkey funny. Actions performed by a monkey can rate more than one monkey in funny, such as this one monkey at the zoo that kept motioning for my sister to come closer, and closer, and when she got within range he pissed on her. Except from the victim's standpoint, that was about 10 monkeys funny- as funny as 10 monkeys sitting there doing nothing. An episode of poo-flinging can rate into the hundreds of monkeys funny.

Note that when there are multiple monkeys are in sight, the potential for humor is exponential, yet inactive monkeys will rate no more than the sum total of monkeys. Plus there's the fact that you can only look at so many monkeys at once. So the unit of one monkey funny is consistent regardless of how many there are.

I'd say someone lifting something heavy and then having their pants fall down is about eight monkeys funny. Schadenfreude always rates pretty high. A movie character getting kicked in the crotch is one monkey funny, that is, as unfunny as something can get and still be considered humor.

It goes without saying that as the base unit of humor, a monkey is indivisible. Half of a monkey is not funny at all.

I watched Easy Rider the other day... jeez what a scary movie. Especially the scenes where they go to the hippie communes and everybody's dancing and singing and they start grabbing Dennis Hopper and trying to make him dance and cavort... the stuff of nightmares. Good thing it has a happy ending.

I almost got fuckin' mugged

I'm a pretty fortunate fellow. I've been blessed with a sane family, a comfortable economic situation, a healthy body. While I don't believe in fate or predestination, it seems that chaos has dealt me a good hand. My luck is impeded only by my stupidity.

I was digging through my pockets on the way home from work today. It was about 6:30 PM, it was light out, and I was riding the red line. Stupidly, I pulled my direct deposit stub out of my pocket. It looks just like a paycheck. Shit! I looked around, the car was packed, anybody could have seen.

I get off at the Belmont stop and stand waiting for the brown line. I'm just doin' my usual doot-de-doo, standing there, brain in wander mode. I'm lookin' south for the train, and then my gaze travels northward.

Two seconds more and I woulda been in some serious shit. A huge, beefy, white guy is bearing down on me, about four feet away. I'm not looking right at him, since at this point I have no clue what's going on. But I see him coming in my peripheral vision. As I look in his general direction, he comes to a stop and nods at me to another guy on my left. This guy is circling in from the left, and he's about six feet away. He looks at his buddy, and they both change course quickly and head down the stairs and out of the station. And this place is crowded! It's daylight! Framing the stairway they went down are two hispanic guys, who were standing next to me in the car when I took out my papers.

I moved way down to the end of the platform. When I got on the train, though, the two new guys had moved down to the car next to mine. I peeked through the door to the next car and one of them grinned at me.

When I go to my stop, I took off running. I don't care how much of an idiot I looked like, I fuckin' laid rubber to my apartment building and made sure they didn't see me go in. Even if the second two guys were just coincidentally on my train (and had to walk three cars towards the end to find a seat they liked), the first two were most definitely discouraged from kicking my ass and taking my wallet by my turning around with about two seconds to spare. Since there were so many people around, they had probably just planned to grab me and go for my pockets and then take off. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been discouraged when they lost the element of surprise. I was lucky, too, that I didn't look right at them and trigger some sort of staring offense we-must-fight thingie that straight guys seem to have hardwired in. So once again stupidity gets me into a dangerous situation, and dumb luck gets me out. I'm surprised I've made it to 25.

You won't hear me complaining about my job.

I work for a $100 million-dollar staffing services company that employs about 500 people. I support the sales department, though I myself am not in sales. I just don't have the hair for it. ;) Every quarter, we have a national sales meeting, where all the reps from around the country fly in and we get a state of the union sort of thing, along with training for the reps. My role is usually to put on a dog-n-pony demonstrating whatever technical tools I've made available to them. So I get to go to these two-day meetings, where I officially just sit there and wait for my turn but unofficially I learn a shitload about our business and business in general. I'm glad to go, I look at it as free training.

It's my first time working for an entrepreneurial company but it won't be my last. What I really like is the meritocracy- there are none of those incumbent incompetents who have worked there since the great ice receeded and don't do a damn thing or are complete professional loobies. The company can't afford any fat, so anybody who's a bungler or full of shit is rapidly weeded out. This, of course, puts pressure on me to do a good job so I can keep it, but that's a good thing. Everybody in upper management is on the ball, sharp as a tack, and some of them I would say are genius. It's a lot easier to be motivated about your job when you admire and respect your boss.

This quarter, the meeting was in Michigan City, Indiana. Both the President and the owner have summer homes there, it's a real quant-n-rustic every-house-is-a-B&B type of small town. The first day was held at the President's summer cottage, about 75 miles from Chicago. Now, the sales director was announcing a contest, and the prize is a BMW Z3 convertible. (Second prize, of course, is a set of steak knives- LOL!). Somebody had to take that Z3 over there to unveil, so my boss and I were stuck with the task. :) We drove a buck-and-a-quarter the whole way there, top down of course. It was quite a ride. I must admit we blasted ABBA and Madonna the whole way there, because hey, what do you expect from a company that has The Advocate in its waiting room?

The Prez's summer cottage was quite nice. I'd never even thought about owning a second home, it's so far removed from my world. Little three-bedroom cottage, surrounded by trees, rustic-crusty. We held our meeting in the pool. It's hard to be bored and fidgety when you're floating on water-worms up to your neck in water. Only problem was, we didn't think to laminate the handouts. It was a long meeting, too, boy was I pruny! Of course, the Mike's Hard Lemonade helped. I made sure not to have too many, that would definitely be a "CLM" (Career Limiting Move).

Meanwhile the other team played golf for their meeting. I was damn glad not to have to, five hours in the hot sun playing a sport I've never played doesn't sound fun to me. The owner paid a buck a stroke for anyone who could beat him, and came in third. Gotta love a company where you can beat the boss at golf and not get fired. ;) So he dropped about $30, but he also dropped $700 in the pro shop/clubhouse buying equipment and beer for his teammates.

Then off to dinner at your typical heads-on-the-wall lodge. I asked for a Red Bull N Vodka, and as it turned out, a sales rep had dropped one can off earlier that day. I got the only can in the county! Good thing I was only gonna be there two days.

Then, after dinner, we headed for the Blue Chip casino. I was pumped, as I had never been gambling or to a casino before. At each plate at dinner there was a goodie bag with a Blue Chip Casino keychain, a VIP pass, a drilled and marked deck of cards, and a $25 chip. Not bad considering there were 30 or so people there. Some of my coworkers had the nerve to bitch, later, that they had provided us with beer all day long, all we can drink and eat at dinner, but didn't pay our liquor tab at the casino. Goddammit, spend your $25 on drinks if it's that important.

I, of course, had to dress up. I put on my white-woven tuxedo, with huge black velvet lapels, black velvet trim on the ruffles down the front, and a gigantic bowtie. Add some PVC tux shoes and I looked just like a high roller out of the movie "Casino". Of course, that took place in the 1970's. :D The rest of the gang busted up when I walked in, and I swear the owner was about to piss his pants. He greased my palm with a $1 handshake. Then there were lots of jokes about fetching their car and ordering the crab cakes.

The casino itself, well, it was definitely not Vegas. The members of our group were the only people in there having fun. Everybody else was either a serious, scowling gambler or a bleary-eyed zombie shuffling from the tables to the ATMs and back. The ATMs, of course, only distributed in $100 amounts. Then you had the old biddies endlessly punching the slot machine buttons. They have those comp cards that plug into your machine and then clip to your collar, I swear, it looked like something out of The Matrix. Row upon row of blue-hairs collared to their slot machines, pushing buttons like monkeys trying to write Shakespeare, as their dull, blank eyes reflected the tumblers. It was very, very depressing.

Is Vegas any more spirited? Our group was gathered around the craps tables, a-hootin' and a-hollerin. The money wasn't ours so we had nothing to lose, and those who spent their own had too much of it anyway. I myself sat down with some friends at the roulette table, ignoring the angry stares from 90% of the gamblers and dealers and posing cheesily for those with the sense of humor to appreciate my tux.

Now, the Souther Liar (the Hooterhumper) has a theory that the roulette tables can be controlled, to make sure that the house wins the majority of the bets on the board. I believe it, too, after my damn luck. One of the sales ladies gave me her chip and went back to the hotel, so I had $50 to gamble with. I got $5 in slot machine tokens and put $5 in my pocket. That left me with eight chances on a table with a $5 minimum bet. I bet on red and black, and lost 8 times in a row. Fifteen minutes at 50-50 odds (almost) and my money's gone, wasn't that a shitload of fun. I swear that whoever controlled the table was pissed at me for mocking them with my ridiculous getup. Either that or I just had the worst luck in the house, I figure the odds of my losing streak at about 0.19%. At least I learned straight off that I didn't want to spend any of my own money there.

Meanwhile the Souther Liar was up $140 but blew it all. Brooklyn Mick cooly left the table with a crisp c-note and didn't gamble again. Cliche Coworker just cashed his chip and walked out with $25. At least I came out ahead because of the Lincoln in my pocket. Meanwhile, the damn rich folks in our group had all the luck, with one guy hitting his number at roulette on a $25 bet. The owner, however, lost about $500. My boss whined that there was no place to sit without spending money, sat down on a slot stool and put in a coin to justify it, and won $250. I put my $1 from my greased handshake into a slot machine, hoping I'd win a bundle and have a great story to tell. But they don't keep the lights on in that place by giving out money. :(

The next day was spent at the owner's million-dollar summer cottage. It was a van der Rohe style summer home, with the central cottage and three outbuildings connected by breezeways. Very shwanky. Slate floors, stainless steel kitchen, 24-foot ceilings. Surely the type of summer home I'll own when I'm 35. ;)

Aside from my horrible luck at the casino, it was a fun coupla days away from work. The folks there were all pretty cool and there was lots of joking around. I got to drive faster than I've ever gone on the ground. I got to spend some non-work time with my coworkers. And I wowed them all with my fabulous fashion sense. Surely they could tell I was a rainmaker in the making, for as they always say, the rainmaker is always dressed better than everyone else in the room, and his shoes are always shined. Of course, they were PVC, but nobody had to know that ;)

Emeritus22: Anyhoo, got drug up to the Runs last saturday
Emeritus22: And I see Frosty in there surrounded by about the 6 skankiest girls in the place
Emeritus22: And he's got this huge shit-eating grin pasted across his mug.
Emeritus22: I come up and say hi to him, and he introduces me around
Emeritus22: . . .this is crystal, destiny, ho-eeesha, etc
Emeritus22: when I meet slut-name number 7 the chick is like "Kasey? I have a daughter named Kasey!"
Emeritus22: so I figgures he's been cruisin the hamilton trailer parks
Emeritus22: when he pulls me aside, and hardly containing himself says "Theiiiir Strrrrrippers!!!"
Emeritus22: I can't possibly conjecture how they ended up at the Runs with him, without bringing any unpleasant pictures to mind.
Emeritus22: But they were all over him like he was a walking-talking crumpled one-dollar bill.

Sometime around Monday, July 2nd, I realized that Tuesday the 3rd would be like a Friday. Some people bitch when a holiday falls on Wednesday, but I like having a week comprised of two Mondays and two Fridays. Every day of the week is either horrible or wonderful! This must be what it's like to be a movie star!

Well, it would be downright unamerican of me to not go out and party hearty on the Fourth. For extra patriotism, I knew I had to involve liquor and explosives. She was feeling a bit sick Tuesday night, so I went over to my friend Monkey Man and Three-Kidney Armogida's place, where they were grillin' out. Kasey was there too. He doesn't get a nickname, because, well, he's Kasey.

They had just moved to town. Ol' Three-Kidney Armogida was going to the Art Institute, and Monkey Man was just kinda taggin' along, them bein' sweethearts and all. They're both from my hometown, and were lucky enough to reach escape velocity. My home town has a tendency to suck people in (to the local college) and never let them out. Took me 14 years. Great place to grow up, sucky place to be young and free.

My hosts live in Marina City I could write an entire post about the twin towers, so I'll save it for later. Bertram Goldberg, the designer, says

'Our time.., has made us aware that forces and strains flow in patterns which have little relationship to the rectilinear concepts of the Victorian engineers. We have become aware of the almost live quality which our structures achieve, and we seek the forms which give the most life to our structures.'

I say, they look like the 1960's vision of a future in which corn is idealized as the perfect form.

I was tickled pink to get to visit. They're neat buildings. The valets ride up and down 20 stories on a conveyor belt with handles. There were numerous and scandalous fire code violations. And each apartment is shaped like a petal of the flower that is the floor plan, in this case a 38th-floor balcony view facing south, looking at the State Street stretching all the way to Indiana. I ran into a kid I hadn't seen since he was in diapers, and he hadn't turned out too bad. Everybody kept daring each other to drop wads of paper or pour beer over the balcony. Thankfully nobody was stupid enough to try and kill anyone. The building seemed full of 40 to 50-somethings who liked to party like mad, and we got our fill of old naked flesh in the other tower. During the day, the two rooftop decks are like nudist colonies, there are so many nude sunbathers.

We went up on the roof (61st floor) to watch the fireworks. They were launched from a barge on the lake, and each time one went off you could see thousands upon thousands of leisure craft out for the show. When it was dark, red and green lights filled the lake like an eerie sea of glowing plankton. When the show was over, somebody started pitching quarter-sticks off the other tower, making booms that would echo off of all the other buildings and thump you in your chest. Scared the living shit out of me every time, and I could see the fuse as they lit it so I knew when it was coming. I gotta get me a hookup for those things, they really make some noise. We also saw an SUV limo progress down State street, stopping to proposition every unaccompanied woman the occupant saw. They all turned him down, of course. Can you say abduction and rape, kiddies? Besides, who's supposed to be impressed by an SUV limo? That just screams "rich yuppie with something to prove."

As hundreds of boats headed back up the river after the show, we went down to the marina. Underneath the towers are boat slips, bubbled to keep them from freezing in the winter. Monkey Man has had at least four boats in the five years I've known him, but the waiting list for a slip down there was at least a year long. However, they have a catwalk that hangs over the river, so we sat out there and watched the boat parade. Lots of party barges, and even more old fat guys with bikini babes. I even saw some mullets in a Baha! In Chicago! "Bahas are becoming the redneck boat of choice," observed Kasey, "you practically have to show your mullet to buy one."

With the explosive entertainment over with, we headed out to some bars. Nothing notable about our drinking, except that Kasey, being from small-town Ohio, was shocked when three drinks came to $28. "Welcome to the big city!" I told him.

Now, my friend E-D had invited me to this party that started at 11 PM. I was eager to party with E-D since she's a coworker and I was eager to see her cut loose. It was 12:30 when I left my hometown homies, and I figured the party would still be in effect by the time I got out there. It took me a half an hour, though, to find a cab, because they were on strike that day. When I finally got one, he bitched about where I made him take me. "You're too far west!" he said, "Too far west! How you get home!" It was 4600 west, that's about six miles west of town zero. He dropped me off in BFE at about 1:30 AM.

I stroll into the party, and thank Santa Guadalupe, there's about 30 people still there. I ask for E-D, and I'm told that she left 5 minutes ago. Shit the bed! I don't know a damn person at this party! Fortunately, I had something in my blue-leopard-print cigarette case that made me some instant friends.

The party was held in an auto-body shop. Actually, the host's uncle ran a handyman business and used the place as his business address. However, a bunch of kids my age lived there. They had painted up the walls in fancy patterns and built a loft. They had a pool table and a drop-in cooler for the beer. One whole wall was covered in a huge, 30-ft mural of Aztec gods with stuff coming out of their brains, very trippy-like. It was painted from multiple perspectives and really fucked with your mind if you looked at it too long. There was also a big bison float from some parade in there. The women's restroom had been converted to a shower, so the place was actually a pretty phat party pad. Plus, no neighbors to complain about the noise from the party, not to mention the metal band that the residents were in.

The kids there were from mixed social groups, you had yer Gap kids, yer punks, and yer nerdy goth-types. Now, I'm perfectly comfortable being the only white person in any environment. I grew up in Georgia, and my mom took me to the public pool where no white folks would dare swim because it was integrated. Skin color is a non-issue. Plus, these folks could tell I was a little uncomfortable not knowing anyone, so they would just come up and introduce themselves. However, when there ain't no English being spoken, it creates a bit of a barrier. Not for long, though, as I made a ton of new friends and had a blast.

They thought I was weird because I wasn't dancing the whole time. They made me dance. I tried to explain that I'm a whiteboy, but they wouldn't hear it. What really struck me about these folks is that unlike the same social groups at a white party, there wasn't this air of snobbery, this cooler-than-thou attitude. These kids were genuinely there to have fun, and they were determined to make me have fun too. There was a spirit of humor in the air about it being America's independence day and noone there giving a shit.

My host's name was, believe it or not, "El Piloto". They said, "They call heem Peeloto because he's always flying reely high!" Actually, his real name is Alfonso, and so Piloto is a play on Poncho Piloto/Pontius Pilate. Most everybody there, if not all of them, were from Jalisco. It seemed like the thing to do was to move to Chicago once you were old enough to move out of your parent's house.

Well, we danced and drank and talked about music until the sun came up. I was lucky to get a ride from Piloto's sister, who took me east to the train station. I stumbled home about 7:30 AM on the Fourth. The next day at work, I made sure E-D would tell me when the next party is. Brooklyn Mick wants to go, too. Next time I'll know folks and have an even better time!

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