Back home, the deejay on WOXY was still Pedro from my high school Spanish class. WOXY/97x is one of a dying breed non-corporate-owned (or non-Clear Channel-owned, for that matter) alternative radio stations in the U.S., which means it plays songs other than the five that have been selected to be hits this week. It's also the station from Rain Man- "BAM! The future of rock and roll"- if you recall.

My former high school drama club co-member and friend Dana, I learned, provides the voiceover for the Bally's commercial featuring Kylie Minogue. Her first paid gig other than a bit role on Early Edition. Good for her. Apparently she gets paid relating somehow to the number of times the ad is run, and the damn thing is on every commercial break during the Simpsons, so I presume it's showing alot during the rest of the day. Anybody seen this commercial outside of Chicago?

At the wedding, I sat across from none other than DJ Toad, who was gigging the wedding and sat with us because one of his frat brothers was a guest. This guy eats wedding food about three times a week.

Got a tape in the mail- Kothluwalawa. A band of schoolmates from my high school days. I suppose none of this post makes any sense unless you grew up with me.
posted by Johnny on 31.7.02 |

A return to my hometown this weekend, for the most amazing wedding I've ever been to. Two sisters were marrying on the same day, one to an Egyptian, and one to a Bahamian. So the wedding and reception was a wonderful celebration of love that transcends national boundaries and contained elements from each culture's wedding traditions. The wedding cake was a pyramid, we danced the limbo to soca music, and the toast was champagne and karkadeeh.

I don't know how in the world the parents managed to pull it off. There were two wedding ceremonies that shared a reception. They had flown members of the groom's parties into the States, many for their first visit. The buffet contained a dish I'd never seen before- a whole salmon, presumably steamed, with its skin removed and replaced with scales of cut cucumber. You took your crackers and just dipped the meat right off the fish, garnishing it with some capers and such from the platter. Amazing, and delish. Fish dip!

I drove around town and dropped in on a bunch of old friends. Saw my brother's place, which is an apartment carved out of a converted church. High ceilings! He was working on a painting at the time that absolutely stunned me. He took a big rock tile with a sort of pebbled pattern to it, and painted a fish on it as if he were looking down on the fish and the rock tile was the creekbed. Then he laquered the tile with bar topper and painted the surface of the water on top of the lacquer. It looks like a square foot of actual creek, so realistic is the illusion of depth. As my brother and his girlfriend are taking off to live in the woods for a year, I'm going to care for some of his art and some of his plants. Next weekend Singular and I will have to browse his collection (he's incredibly productive, always painting and most of it's in storage) and pick out some pieces for our new place.

One of the guests at the wedding was a freak-biker! He was the bride's friend from college and hangs out with the Hard Times Bicycle Club in the twin cities. He says the movement is quite alive up there, meeting every Monday and going on rides in crowds that stretch for blocks. That's good to hear. There aren't so many people into it in Chicago, but we are going to go on a ride on Wednesday.
posted by Johnny on 28.7.02 |

Wondering how to get the hook up?
(be sure to read the tips on raising a ruckus at the bottom)
posted by Johnny on 25.7.02 |

Let's see, what have I been up to? Well, the usual- chopping, cartooning, and grave-robbing. Drawing a bunch of stuff and only putting a little bit of it on the web. Playing the Spaceward Ho 5 beta a lot. Trying to find more hours of work somewhere. Writing mash notes to Singular. Trying to convince the Pope that I won't ruin his reputation if I try to sing along with his guitar playing (not that that performance of "Bollingbrook" by all of us wasn't the loudest drunken belting of a tune I've heard since I last watched "Rosie O'Donnell"). Helping old friends move into the city. Spending hours remedying telecom fraud. Building a "Toon" campaign.

Had a chop session where Chopper Bob built an ingenius fork design that hit him while he was lying in bed in the morning. I'll miss the ride, though, to attend another wedding. They say they're gonna take the Kennedy Expressway. If they keep pushing the envelope, eventually the state cops will intercede, Daley can't hold them back as well. Betcha there will be arrests tomorrow. I'll report in from Ohio.
posted by Johnny on 25.7.02 |

The Hooterhumper* got fired today.

For two years, this guy had scammed our company out of thousands. He was hired to set appointments for his partner the salesman, basically arranging meetings between interested parties and our high-level sales reps (the cheapest thing my employer sells costs $250k, so this ain't door-to-door stuff). Hooterhumper was in cahoots with the sales sleaze, who was of the shmooze variety, which is actually a rarity in our sales department. The Hooterhumper would claim to have set a meeting (usually somewhere with a beach), and the sales sleaze would go there, chill for a few days, and come back raving about the potential deal. After about nine months, the sales sleaze was fired for not selling anything, but no investigation was made into what he was doing all this time, so the Hooterhumper wasn't fired as well.

All this time, he was being paid a salary plus hundreds of dollars a month in bonus whenever he arranged a certain number of meetings. He would simply tell his boss- my boss- how many he had set, and that's what she would pay him on. Why didn't she verify that these meetings were taking place? Simple- she invited exaggeration of results, so that she could report good numbers to the owner/president with a clear conscience. You lie to me, so I don't have to lie to my boss- I'll simply be reporting what I was told.

After the sales sleaze was fired, he was hooked up with another type of salesperson- the go-getter. This woman would take a meeting with anybody, anywhere, on the long shot that it would lead somewhere. So in the first case the company was flying the sleaze around the country to get a tan, and in the second case, they were flying the go-getter to meet with people who couldn't possibly buy our product, but might be able to introduce us to someone who could. Arguably a valid sales tactic, but the Hooterhumper's job was to court higher-ups, not call peons with a lot of free time and act as secretary. The go-getter could do that herself.

Eventually the owners whose money was at stake started to get sick of flying people around and demanded some sort of validity from these meetings. The Hooterhumper's numbers took a plunge. However, he soon developed a new scam- he would call a higher-up at a prospect's company, claiming to be a higher-up at another company, and ask them which company he should choose as his X provider, just looking for some advice, and by the way have you heard of Y company which I have heard a lot of good things about? Then he'd call back the next week and ask for the meeting.

He told our boss about it. Brilliant, she said, keep it up and maybe you'll return to those fantastic levels of performance you had before the auditing system was put into place. Never mind that a single pissed-off V.P. could absolutely tank our company by spreading the word about our unscrupulous tactics. Megacorporations have many ways of hiding their inappropriate behavior, but if you're one of a handful of companies in a field and word gets around you're a scam, you can sink fast. It's like they say, if there's two barbers in town, go to the one with the bad haircut.

This tactic combined with the go-getter allowed him to perform moderately and avoid the axe for the rest of the two years. Meanwhile, my job was running the database where, among other things, the calls he made were logged as history against the prospect's file. Knowing that he was pulling a fast one with the go-getter, I presented evidence to my boss that he was claiming credit for meetings he had not set. If the company had plants in the same town, for example, he'd claim two meetings even though the go-getter met with only one person- the person who had jurisdiction over those two locations. In one case he'd called a company, reached the higher-up, introduced our company, and convinced the person that they needed to meet with the go-getter- all in 36 seconds! Funny, it was taking the other meeting-setters weeks or months to build a rapport, send them some case studies, the usual complex-sales stuff. My boss took the evidence and put it in his personell file- after all, he was skewing upwards the results of her department! Why should she fire him even though it's all a ruse? What's that you say, for the good of the company? This is a Marketing Manager we're talking about.

What bothered me about the Hooterhumper was not that he was scamming the company (I covered my ass by reporting the scam to my superiors, but I didn't particularly care), but rather his vast sense of entitlement. This is something The Roommate possessed that is usually only found in rich kids who've never worked a day of honest work. The Hooterhumper's position on the issue was that hey, if the company wasn't going to pay him to do nothing, they were forcing him to do as little as possible to still get paid, and he was the victim because of it. This extended into everything he did- his weekly affairs, his frequent overlooked absence, and his failure to change our process to benefit him further- if he got caught/docked/denied, it was because people were keeping him down, out to get him, treating him unfairly. One time he threw food at a coworker until the guy snapped and was ready to throw down (I broke that one up, pissing off two other guys who claimed I was violating an unwritten rule of manhood by stopping a fight). The Hooterhumper's take on the issue was that he shouldn't be forced to work with someone so annoying, it was the other guy's fault, he practically forced him to pick on the guy.

Another example: At one point I took over managing the department for a month. Attendance was at 50%, meaning these salaried people were getting paid full time to show up half-time (no doubt that average was dragged down by you-know-who). So I implemented a strict procedure to deal with attendance issues. Soon enough, I got a call from the Hooterhumper- he had to take his girlfriend to the airport. Sure, no problem, I said, I'll just mark you down as absent. HH wanted to be excused because- a classic line- "If I'd have lied and said I was sick, I would be excused. So by punishing me, you're punishing my honesty." Sigh. This is why I'm not in management.

So what finally dinged him? Well, I was surprised. I thought somebody would finally look at what we've paid this guy and what we'd got out of it and remedy a long-standing mistake. But it turns out he had another scam going. He had gotten ahold of one of our corporate parking passes and duplicated it, and had been parking with it for over a year. Obviously if this was a large company with a special lot for those who have a pass, that never would have worked. They'd notice his junker among the jaguars, so to speak. But we just have a contract with a nearby public lot, and paid $12 per day per car to park there. Someone did an audit, and whattaya know, lookie here, out goes the Hooterhumper.

He was, of course, incensed. The company was being petty to fire him over such a minor thing, he said. It wasn't costing the company anything, he said (heh- you can do the math on that one, $12 a day times 52 weeks of 5 days, not to mention any legal action the parking lot might take for duping one of their passes). He might even take legal action unless somehow he realizes that he scammed the company out of a good $80,000 over the years and he should just cut his losses and find another sucker.

But there's that sense of entitlement that fuels the litigiousness of American culture. Corporations have it- 'your product makes our product obsolete so we will sue you and if we lose the government owes us a bailout'- and rich brats have it, too. My college experience was filled to the brim with these types. What causes it? Pushover parenting? Lack of hardship? It seems to show up in greater numbers among the younger generation, but I can't tell if that's because we have less hardship in our lives or we've just had less time to experience it. Who knows?

When I was a supervisor at my old job, I told everybody the same thing. (Young) people would make all kinds of crazy requests: "Can I go home? I'm tired." or "my show is on" or "I miss my boyfriend" or "I'm sick of work." I'd tell them, "Absolutely! Go right ahead! Just drop off your employee I.D. at the front desk! The HR Manager will call you to arrange an exit interview." "No, no, I want to keep my job!" "Well, then, do your job."



posted by Johnny on 24.7.02 |

I finally found a free working poll system for The Roommate! I can't tell you how many crappy websites I signed up for, going through page after page of clicking "don't send me crap about this" boxes, only to find that they would only let me have one poll at a time, or you needed to sign in to take the poll, or the poll just wouldn't work.

So, if you're a The Roommate fan, go back and rate the issues. The ten worst roomies will appear on a page for the casual reader. Once I get my ass in gear, I'll give out a prize for having a comic published, and another sympathy prize for having a roommate in the top 10.
posted by Johnny on 22.7.02 |

What I Smelled Today

I have this incense called "Rarest Essense of the Classic Floral Blend". It smells exactly like elephant poo. More specifically, it smells like the elephant house at the zoo- that ripe combination of urine, musk, and poo that triggers in my brain memories of school field trips and of my parents complaining about how much they have to walk on vacation.

I don't know why they make elephant house incense. I suspect that somewhere in India, a village of Untouchables is standing on ladders, drawing little sticks from a basket and poking them one by one up an elephant's butt. They all snicker at the thought of gullible Westerners burning poo in their house like they sometimes do to others as a practical joke. It's their latest joke on our hemisphere since they convinced us that "Dood" was a word for "cool guy".
posted by Johnny on 22.7.02 |

Another issue of The Roommate. I'm trying to do them once a week now.
posted by Johnny on 22.7.02 |

Singular and I attended a showing at the local gigamegadupleplex (tickets: $9 if you can get them, better show up an hour or two before) of The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course. It was fantastic! Steve and Terri Irwin's lives are interesting enough, just imagine The Movie. They didn't really act, the movie's events just sort of happen to them as they film an episode of Croc Files, so the reality-hook draws you in.

The CIA who are trying to get the croc that Steve is rescuing do a background check on Steve, and point out that he's worked in many areas of political strife and war. He's like a reptile rescue commando, going into war-torn areas like East Timor and wrangling the noble beasts that are threatened there. Whatta guy. He made a buncha millions just being himself, and he just spends it all on buying conservation land. How can you not like this guy?

An added thrill of the movie was 1.5 hours of the hottest couple on TV outside of Weekend Update. Steve's got that rougish innocence, and at one point in the movie Terri unsheathes her massive 21-inch guns, as seen at right. If they come to Chicago, I'm rentin' me a croc costume! Raaaah! ;)



posted by Johnny on 20.7.02 |

A little bit before the current fad of either posting about what you ate or bitching about people who post about what they ate, I started a drug journal. I fondly remember, in 1995, pointing my Mosaic every day to Timothy Leary's cutting-edge web page where he recorded his massive drug intake while dying. It was right around the time where I got into illegal drugs (having been raised on a healthy diet of legal ones like any American- got a problem? Take a pill!) and so I thought drugs were "cool" and also felt a lot better about my own usage compared to ol' Tim's. This journal is coming at the other end of that hazy half-decade, and is intended to help me discover where I need to cut back. I already know that caffeine is my worst addiction. I would love to be substance-free, but it's tough. Psychotropic substances are everywhere. The legal ones are the most insidious. Thank goodness I'm healthy, or I'd be slave to another host of pills. What legal drug are you hooked on?

No, you can't see it. I can't imagine too many things more personal than one's medicine cabinet.
posted by Johnny on 18.7.02 |

This post is to bitch about Mark and Mr. Nosuch and JustMary posting about food in reference to HWC Sleipnir posting about how Humbaba and Moose & Wolf post about food too much. Are we bored yet? Somebody needs to post something about this post, to really make it look like there is nothing going on in our lives.
posted by Johnny on 17.7.02 |

Issue 26 of The Roommate.
posted by Johnny on 15.7.02 |

CSR: Thank you for calling AT&T customer service, my name is Ian, how can I help you?
JP: Hi Ian, I was slammed by AT&T, I paid, resolved the dispute, and now I have a credit that I would like to be issued to me in a check.
"Ian": Okay, I show you have a credit with us of $14, if you'll just verfiy your address, I'll have that check sent right away.
JP: I live at Twenty Dickity Yackity Smackity Boulevard, Apartment 2.
"Ian": You should receive the check within the next two to four weeks. Now, Mr. Payphone, I show you are not currently an AT&T customer. We're prepared to offer you some very low rates on long distance.
JP: No. I did not want to be your customer before you slammed me. You illegally charged me for service I did not want. It's taken me close to a year to resolve the situation. Why in the world would I want to be a customer?
"Ian": Sir, our records show that you chose AT&T through your local phone company.
JP: What date do your records show that I chose AT&T?
"Ian": We show that you signed up on September 11th of last year... [long pause] Uhhhh... so, I guess that'll be all then.
JP: Thank you, Ian. [click]
posted by Johnny on 12.7.02 |

There's a roller coaster in my front yard. This isn't as fun as it sounds.
posted by Johnny on 11.7.02 |

Mark me down for one more percentage point on the ol’ Internet Purity Test. I’ve encountered most of the classic situations. I’ve received a sexy IM that was meant for someone else but my IM to the sender popped up at the wrong time. I’ve met someone IRL after meeting them online and been surprised by their gender. I’ve discovered that one of my online friends is really just another one of my online friends. I’ve got friends who never send me email but send me several stupid-joke-or-heartwarming-anecdote emails a day. Why, just last week I forwarded an email to my roommate that had gone out to all employees of my company announcing the departure of an unpopular coworker, and he replied with a message congratulating me for outlasting them and calling them some vulgar names… replied to “all”, that is.

But I never thought I’d see somebody I knew on a porn site.

Gaywatch.com appears to be some sort of peep house. Note that this is a GAY PORN site, so don’t click on that link if visiting a gay porn site will threaten your career or marriage, though I can promise that you will see no cockenballs or nekkid butts on the front page. The guy on the right, “Wolf”, is a former coworker of mine and the ex of a friend. I’m sure that if I clicked further I would learn more about him than I ever wanted to know.

As it happens, I was not surfing the web for gay porn when I found this out. Lupe saw him in an ad in the sleazy section of an Indianapolis free paper. So I don’t know if this really counts.

posted by Johnny on 10.7.02 |

My parents went to France. They took enough pictures to require an extra ticket on the ride home, I'm sure, but they only sent me the ones I knew that I'd be most interested in, and saved the rest for the upcoming family reunion. My parents know me way too well:

Ohohohohohoh, those Europeans know how to get around!

Who would ever want to drive a car that got insane gas mileage, and could park anywhere? Anti-American Commies, that's who!

Awwww man! Now that's a drivin' machine!

It's touching that my parents knew I would be interested in unique means of transportation, and actually stopped to take pictures of some. I'm very jealous that they rode on the TGV, which hits 186mph on its route and is capable of doing 320. Yes, they sent pictures of bikes, trains, and graves, my three favorite things. They know me well. Oh, and also this picture of the beautiful French countryside:


posted by Johnny on 9.7.02 |

Let’s see… how to best record the Fourth in lieu of remembering it, the paradox here being that if I had come through in any condition to recall the day’s events, it would not have been worth remembering.

Many days in advance, I was informed by in-town contingent of former smalltown friends Monkey Boy and sig. other (designated as Mb) that KC, who I have been friends with since my mother was a small child, would be arriving into Chicago in the Notorious B.U.S. and looking to do some all-American grilling (KC and companions designated as K). Thus I immediately rang my Mexican cohort Kabuto (Mk for he and gang) and asked him to get crackin’ on the task of acquiring illegal but all-American busters of the block. They themselves were looking to grill and so I suggested our home base as the place for flames to be set to flesh.

I also, in preparation, called my Guy to obtain a small quantity of an all-American cash crop, and in the process, offered to do same for neighbor C, who accepted my proposition.

The night before, Mk were having a party at their parent’s restaurant and bar, and I spoke to Mb in regards to K’s ETA, which K had claimed would be sometime around 10 but that group K would be much smaller due to a failure to achieve critical mass to split not atoms but rather the cost of shlepping the 1-mpg bus across Indiana. Mb estimated that K’s arrival time would actually be midnight. I placed my money on 1AM, recalling the last time that he came into town, arriving a full 36 hours after he said he would. This time I was right on the money, as K arrived exactly when I predicted they would (too late to go to the party), and consisted of KC and sig. other along with one sibling and one former coworker of both he and Mb and their respective sig. others. I describe the group this way not to diminish the personhood of the sig. others, but to explain that this group knew each other because they had all hawked shitbox computers to rednecks back in 1996 right at the time when schools were firing teachers and buying more computers and every American family began to feel that they were somehow being left behind by the Joneses if they did not rush right to Sun TV and buy a shitbox $500 computer with an $899 P.O.M. warranty and thus feel like their children would not be Left Behind since they had spent $1400 on a paperweight that also played solitaire. It is a testament to KC’s scamming abilities that he was always their top seller, even though he worked two eight-hour shifts on weekends, while other (much more honest) middle-aged fellows arranged win-win situations with customers full time. KC made $30k in three months working weekends until a particularly attractive young lady and her father came into Sun to buy a $1400 boat anchor/doorstop, and did so, and that night KC called the number listed on the fellow’s credit application and left a message asking out the young lady, who turned out to be quite young (14) and whose father did not appreciate the use of confidential information from his credit application being applied in the pursuit of the statutory rape of the fruit of his loins. He expressed this lack of appreciation through his lawyers, who achieved a settlement with Sun that involved the firing of KC and no doubt contributed to Sun’s subsequent folding, achieving the impossible feat of making those $899 P.O.M. warranties even more worthless, so that they began to bring down the property values of houses around the ones where they were stashed in file cabinets.

Around noon on the fourth, contingents Mb and K arrived en masse, carting a variety of meats and liquor, a watermelon, and a large quantity of fireworks. We set to grilling and quickly learned that the watermelon had been purchased for the express purpose of blowing it up, regardless of how delicious it would have been to consume on this 100-degree day. It is a testament to the destructive skills of KC’s bloodline that his brother eventually, after a dozen false lights and cautions reapproaches, eventually fashioned a means of lighting off a firework that is located in the center of a watermelon. KC remained on the porch, a professional who was far above something so simple as the vaporizing of fruit.

During one of the false lights, neighbor C arrived in search of the herbal dietary supplement and I invited him to grill with us. He said that he might, but that he couldn’t possibly stay without running home and whipping up some macaroni salad. I chuckled at this and indicated towards the alley where Monkey Boy and KC’s brother were running as fast as they could away from a flaming watermelon.

I had expected the explosion to send chunks of watermelon rind hurtling in every direction. It did not. Instead, there appeared in the area surrounding ground zero a sort of watermelon mist, which blew away in the wind before we all recovered from the noise of the boomer.

C left, as that evening he was working, his job being handing out free samples of Maker’s Mark in bars. Contingent Mk arrived, having been unsuccessful in the pursuit of busters of the block, bearing instead a bag of mulch, for it was Mulch Day. (If you knew Kabuto you would find that this made perfect sense and you would accept the mulch with a nod and a smile.) His lack of success was probably a good thing, as I was hit twice by fireworks, once in the neck by a bottle rocket that K were firing off by hand, and once in the head by a thrown firework of the same type that vaporized the melon but fortunately(?) exploded a nice safe two feet from me after bouncing off my head. I would be angrier about this if being hit by bottle rockets wasn’t the least of the consequences I have suffered from KC’s friendship. I have received upwards of twenty stitches from his “fun” before (sutures free from Doctor Dad, who always worked pro bono when the wound was his son’s work) and so far this weekend I have not had to bail KC out of jail/been cuffed and stuffed for being with KC at the time of his arrest. In terms of injury to body and/or dignity and/or wallet, a little burn on the collarbone and a narrow escape from death are way low on a list extending back through our lifetime “friend”ship, which, much like a Bert and Ernie sketch, often involved me suffering the consequences of KC’s lack of responsibility. So in retrospect not having handed over construction-grade dynamite to this person probably saved my life, though the weekend is still young.

Then some coworkers and friends (Cw) arrived to pick up Brookyn, who was heading with them to a huge 4th party called the Ripper. Mk left to go grill at their house and another group of friends of Brookyn (fB) arrived to join Cw. C showed back up toting macaroni salad, as it turns out he was serious, and it was very good macaroni salad. I had to assure him that if it had tasted like poo I would have said, “It’s not really for me” or “I’m not a big fan of macaroni salad” and thus my telling him that it was really tasty was genuine.

Cw and fB left. Mb and K headed to Mb’s home to change into swimsuits for the beach, leaving Singular and I all alone. We found ourselves suddenly at peace with a number of options available to us: Go to C’s promo and drink free likker, go to the Ripper, join Mk at their grillout, or head to the beach. We decided to do the last of these. When Monkey Boy and KC arrived with Mb and K at the beach, the two fellows ran into the water like David Hasselhof, not noticing that noone else was in the water, and were immediately yelled at by a number of frantic lifeguards due to “high surf” which would make a resident of an oceanfront town scoff with disdain. Regardless, the surf was high enough to allow the coast guard speedboats that were patrolling the area for possible terrorist attacks of the two-lanterns-in-the-belfry sort to show off their horsepower and leave the water in the act of horsecockery that is expected of every mulleted trailerbait at the wheel of a speedboat.

We watched the fireworks. Fireworks are getting much more Gandalfian than I remember them as a child. There were giant smiley faces. There were those explosions that, just when you think they’re fading out, change color and zip off in different directions. There were giant stars encased in circles. My favorite were the green planets with red rings. No dirty nukes were set off.

Then we adjourned to Mb’s loop penthouse to drink more and order pizza. I don’t recall anything past the pizza’s arrival. This morning, upon awaking, I felt fine. And I’ve got some leftover meat and macaroni salad waiting in the fridge.

posted by Johnny on 5.7.02 |

On Saturday, Singular and I rode our bikes down to the Taste of Chicago. I Tasted a BBQ buffalo burger, a fried chicken wing from Harold’s, fried okra, deep fried dill pickles, and mustard-fried catfish. At the risk of sounding like Humbaba, MMMMMMM!!!!! Being from the south, even my baby food was deep-fat-fried. Singular had a slice of Lou Malnati’s, contender for best deep-dish in the mecca of deep-dish, which puts it high in the running for best deep-dish worldwide. I think it’s the crack in the crust. She also had some sweet fried platanos (not as good as my grandma Dolita’s) and some French Vanilla ice cream from the Zephyr booth.

Mmmm…. food.

Afterwards we stopped by the beach to take a quick dip and get some sun.

Sunday was a house-wide grill-out. There are ten or eleven people living in the three-flat at any given time, and this was the first floor’s annual croquet picnic, with a smattering of guests from the other two floors. The folks on the first floor are rock stars, so they invited about 30 of their rock star friends, which meant we were kinda out of place among all the heroin-skinny, sleeve-tattooed guests. I dunno, man, every time I’ve hung out with that crowd, they’ve not been the friendly type to just talk to anybody. The attitude I encounter from most young folks in Chicago is one of agendaless friendliness, like everybody already knows everybody else and just haven’t gotten their name yet. Not these rock stars. I always get asked, “So, what instrument do you play?” and not “do you play an instrument?” They seem shocked that I don’t play one. Sure, I think everybody should play an instrument, but I don’t think one’s value as a person hinges on it. I’ve got other means of creative expression. People ask me if I’m an Artist and I say, “no, I work for a living.” I’ve got a job that I love, and all these rock stars were talking about how much it sucks down in the pool department at Menard’s. It’s like Hiro realizes in Snow Crash:

Hiro is a talented drifter. This is the kind of lifestyle that sounded romantic to him as recently as five years ago. But in the bleak light of full adulthood, which is to one’s early twenties as Sunday morning is to Saturday night, he can clearly see what it really amounts to: He’s broke and unemployed.

The actual neighbors themselves, however, are quite nice fellows. One of them, Paul, has a comic that is much more developed than mine, having produced it for sixteen years now. I recommend you give it a perusal, at hamsterman.com. Once the snooty crowd left, a few genuine folks sat on the back porch, toasting “Chicago summers”, and had a good time.

Today, I told E. Victor that we would not be renewing the lease. Brooklyn is moving on, having a philosophical opposition to living in the same place for more than a year, and so is Guadalupe. So Singular and I figured that yeah, it’s a lovely place, but it’s not the only lovely place in town. So we’ll be finding an apartment of our own rather than trying to fill two empty rooms. Apartment-hunting is so exciting! Each place is ripe with possibility, and when you find that perfect flat you tremble with excitement and hope nobody else puts down a deposit first. I’ve lived with Singular longer than I’ve lived with anyone else besides my family and we seem to compliment each other well, so long as I restrain my velvet-heavy decorating style to one small corner of our home and leave the rest up to someone with “taste” and “class”, whatever those are. We each do the chores that the other hates. We save music that the other can’t stand for times when they aren’t around. We have a lot of fun.

Fun is, after all, the pudding on the pop of life. Without it, all you’ve got is a flat stick.

posted by Johnny on 1.7.02 |

JohnnyPayphone@yahoo.com