First Annual LiverMurderCon!

I'm not able to go to any of the Cons or Hers or Fests any time soon but next week because my wife is a professional and I am the guy who brings down the laundry we're going to Las Vegas because she has a conference or a convention or seminar or... well... something.

And some of you may know me well enough by now to see how Las Vegas is not a venue I'd usually be found in. I have never been inside a casino in my life and wouldn't know the first thing to do. I can't see the lure in slot machines or video poker. I'm too much of a tightwad to gamble on much. Probably I will stop by the horse race book but I'm a two dollar bettor these days. It's been years since I played the horses with serious study and intent. I'm sure all the horses I ever bet on have moved on in life. Or death, come to think of it. A couple haven't finished yet I'm thinkin'.

So the chances are pretty good that during the day (we'll be there Wednesday night to Saturday evening) while my professional wife is off cavorting with the other high-paid professionals in her professional profession I will be spending most of my time encouraging cancer on my skin and completely flooding out my liver until, when the alcohol finally drains away, there'll be something that looks like Noah's Ark in there, punctuated by a half hour or so of stopping by the sports book to see what's what inside that room. But if I can't go in in my swim trunks and flip flops and have to dress up then probably there won't be a whole lot of that. I will take a pen and notepad and a couple books but - in all honesty - doing nothing all day and going out to eat at night has a certain appeal, especially for lazy shiftless bums like me.

So I went to a site where you can make free banners - because I'm a computer graphics idiot - and made a logo for the first annual LiverMurderCon. I think the cheapness of it and the required banner maker site url along the bottom there, and the really bad, tacky border all brings it a certain lowlife gene se qua, which is in perfect keeping with the general drift. The general drift... that would be "out to sea".

In Nevada.

And so far there is one confirmation. Me. And since I forgot which hotel we're staying at I can't tell you where it'll be held yet. So that's pretty much it.

I can hardly wait for next year's already! I gotta make a lanyard or find a speaker or something. I'll be sure to take pictures of me when things get really funny.

What I Know So Far

WARNING... LONG!!!! Almost tl/dr - wait till you have the time & come back.

I'm a late-comer to "healthy eating" and there's no way you're going to stop me from going into an In n Out anytime I may be west of the Rockies. I think "militant vegans" is a punch line to a joke that starts with "A member of PETA walks into a bar...". I'm very appreciative of game that is hunted during season by real live people using real live guns in the real live forest and I will walk some distance to enjoy a meal made from what they've shot. I mean... don't get excited, what the hell do you think they had to do to the pig that supplied the bacon you had this morning, eh?? The more I look into it, though, the more I am starting to question - not the hunting of fresh game - but the nature of that bacon you just had. Though I believe in the principles of "right use," I'm in no way anywhere near a "tree-hugger." Resources are here to be managed and used. End of discussion for me.

Somewhere along the way I started to get obsessed, though, with label reading. That obsession - because in this house I'm the guy who buys the groceries and does 97% of the cooking - led me to keep an eye on pointless sodium which even Dick Cheney and his heart understand the dangers of. But I didn't stop. I kept reading labels.

Eventually I read so many labels I took note of a movie called Food Inc., which was nominated for an Oscar in the documentary field. I saw it again this past week and I'm struck by the fact that this is one area where party loyalty, affiliation or affinity has nothing to do with. The movie correctly points out that there are enough sins to go around to members of both parties - AS WELL AS enough kudos to go around to other members of both parties. It appears that Monsanto and other companies that make up "Big Agra" - like for example Tyson - have greased whatever tracks need to be greased to get their way regardless of party affiliation and (surprise, surprise) the party doesn't matter as much as the district the influence is being peddled to. And, after watching this movie, you may be surprised to find some strange bedfellows taking sides on the issue. As in... "what? I thought those guys hated each other." Yeah... sure.

My personal issues with health have everything to do with the fact that I'm a bit overweight and - if I die the same age as my father did - I only have 5 more Christmases to be with my grand daughter. And the fact that my Dad died EARLY (hey, nobody lives forever but 61? WAY too young) of a thing that could have been A. prevented or at least B. held off long enough for him to meet my kids is - I admit a driving force in my thinking. Frankly? I want to see my grand daughter's kids. Would that not be cool??

And it turns out that the food we eat - though I'm not a believer that food is out to kill you - DOES have an impact on our health, and that it isn't an issue of party line anymore and, in fact, hasn't been for some time now. Anyway, you should check out the movie. It's pretty good. Damn good.

So, here's my starting point.... God help me, but I love steak.

I love everything about steak. With a nod to my vegetarian friends - you KNOW I have respect for that kind of discipline and I don't think you're strange or weird AT ALL - I just love the taste of killed cow. But until I learned about - and what's more important TASTED - the difference between steak you buy out the freezer at the local store and steak you buy that's grass-fed and (more importantly) grass-FINISHED, I thought everytime I bit into a sirloin as it was I was already in heaven. But the fact is until I tasted steak that was grass all the way with no corn feed at all, I wasn't eating a steak; I was only eating THE IDEA of a steak. They make a big to-do about "this hyar critter is CORN FED baby an' it's YUMMEH" but nobody tells you that

A. Bovines don't eat corn in nature and corn is more like candy to them
B. Because it isn't their natural food corn feeding causes stomach ulcers and conditions that give rise to e-coli bacteria meaning the cows THEN require the injection of antibiotics - and since we eat the meat containing those antibiotics the germs that infect us are always becoming more and more resistant to antibiotics since they're so used to seeing them unintentionally already in our bodies from the fuckin' beef you ASSHOLES!!! THINK!!

But - if that isn't enough for my fellow omnivores - once I tasted grass-fed beef it was NIGHT and DAY. The corn fed shit wasn't a steak. It was an "idea" of a steak. Turns out that I ate grass-fed beef most of my childhood, because corn-fed didn't come about in full force until I was already an adolescent. There are millions of people now who have never even tasted grass-fed beef. But when I was a kid that was all there was.

Simple example to make my point... you guys that love fresh killed game (I am on your team 100% btw). Ever flip out about the richness of the flavor? Ever think it might have something to do with their natural diet? Go buy some farm-raised venison and get back to me on that. I think you already KNOW the answer. It's as easy to discern as comparing a store-bought tomato with a home-grown one. Jesus - the ENTIRE WORLD already knows store bought tomatoes are like... well... THE IDEA of a tomato instead of a real one. And why? Because the tomatoes we buy at the grocery store are picked before they're ripe and shipped thousands of miles to redden up after an ammonia bath and we eat them like a bunch of dummies. But grow one in your back yard and tell me what that tastes like. I dare you.

I get my steak, my hamburgers, and my 100% pure beef hotdogs from these guys. Those of you out west, try these folks, from whom the picture at the top of this article is supplied from.

You will eat something that tastes better (NO not "gamey" - but BEEFY), cooks up better, contains less fat, more naturally occurring Omega3, and also - by the way - votes with the dollars you spend against practices the handful of food companies that supply our food are using. Oh and...? Don't criticize the food suppliers. You will end up in jail. Ever hear of the Food Slander Laws? No... of course you haven't. But be careful. Talk too loud and they'll sue your little ass for it. See if they don't.

What Else I Know
Think Twice about the labels that tell you this product is "Natural" or even "Organic". In the first place BigAgra has changed the standards for what can be labeled as "organic" so that it doesn't take much to get the designation. Secondly... and I ask you to put on your marketing-skeptic's hat - What the hell IS a "natural" chicken??

Well it turns out the chickens you get from the grocery store are anything but natural. In fact, they're chocked full of corn too.. which isn't what they're supposed to be eating either. Chickens are birds. Birds eat seed and bugs and small forage. Corn is... uh... like candy to them. And the steroids make their breasts so big they get tumors (that red knot in the chicken breasts you buy at the store - cut it out before you eat, btw) and the birds can't walk farther than five feet without falling over exhausted. Turns out eggs from these kinds of mass produced birds are smaller, pack less nutrients, and have the "tomato idea" effect along with everything else. It's also why one year eggs are good for you and the next year they aren't. Get REAL eggs, however, and the debate is over.

I could go on. We could talk about the BOGUS label of "vegetarian-fed chickens or eggs from vegetarian-fed chickens." Folks - CHICKENS AIN'T VEGETARIANS FOR CRY EYE!!! We could talk about the increased salt content of stuff that's supposed to be "organic" you find in cans. We can talk about micro-waved popcorn or any kind of tomato product in ANY kind of a can (glass is always better). I could talk about how "cage free" chickens is STILL not it - (you need to see "pastured" on the label - and how unless the poultry is allowed to forage for itself it is still manipulated for profit OVER quality). I could tell you that there's no such a thing as "natural" salmon from the East Coast - yep, CORN FED - and that you have to look for "ALASKA WILD" on your label to get the real natural product. But I won't...

I could say ignore anything in the store marked "healthy" of "natural" or "heart" or "nature" showing scenes of pleasant farms and sunny country mornings. It's a crock of shit. The same shit they grind the pork up with when then smash the oinkers under a press to kill them without honor to the life they're giving you.

In my house we've even gone 100% grass-fed cow milk. Not RAW cowmilk - that's am acquired taste - but milk from 100% grass=fed cows. Well, my wife isn't 100% on-board with all of this... yet. But we ran out of this milk once and went to the convenience store to get a small jug until we went grocery shopping? I don't know... but the idea of "white colored water" seemed to be prevalent in the conversation. Leave it to say, the 2% tastes like Whole and the Skim tastes like 2%. Our own grand-daughter tells her Mommy "do you believe the milk at grandpa's house???!! It's great!" Lol... she's closing in on 7.

And in so far as produce, that's rougher. Again, the rolled-back standards makes me leery of any produce labeled "organic" in big grocery stores. It's pricey and questionable. The answer? Local and seasonal. "Local and seasonal" is a WHOLE separate post. Go here if you want to see what YOU can do for yourself.

It isn't easy. It takes going around to different places, maybe places that aren't convenient. If you're on the West Coast or up in New England, it's probably easier. It's rough in the mid-west and the south - BUT IT EXISTS. Is it more expensive? Yes - but we eat too much meat. 6 ounces will do... if you don't believe me, you come to my house & I'll make you dinner and feed you a 6 oz. steak and you will be satisfied. It's HABIT more than anything.

Most of us are too fat anyway.

(btw, you're RIGHT to be suspicious of soy products. 99% of the soy grown in the US is ANYthing but "natural" or "organic.")

I'm picking up my first box of local-grown or real food (pastured chicken eggs, organic Brazilian coffee - whole - and whole fryer chicken) Thursday. I'm sold. It's more a convenience thing than a money thing. Like I said, we eat too much anyway. Travelling around is a hassle. But what's your priorities? And what do you think mankind did for the thousands and thousands of years before there were supermarkets?

And if you're worried about "fun" stuff,I got a few words for you - SALSA and HOT SAUCE! Buy anybody's. Proof that God loves you for trying.

Think about it.

A New Project

I'm opening up Straw Herrings today. I don't know how it will play out, but you may see a dedicated site off Blogger at some time in the future.

Fair warning... there's enough of this for everybody. The intention is to spare no one. Thanks for reading.

A Boring Post

Looking back on it I realize I have bored people quite a bit with "writing" posts. I'm thinking this and I'm thinking that. I'm doing this now. Watch as I do THAT! ha-HA! Big deal RW. Sit down shut up and write it already yeah?

But I'd be a liar if I didn't say it seems somewhat important that the manner, method, and mechanics of it have been changing the last few weeks. I know... another "big deal." This just seems something I have to get down is all. Nobody has to say anything, really.

Have you ever read "The Old Man and The Sea"? I read it a couple of years ago when a couple of blogging friends chided me for never having read anything by Hemingway. And... OK... it was an iconic story and certainly a good one. Nice and short - 120 pages or so. I noted that it certainly was "tight" writing; meaning no bullshit.

I read it over this weekend again. You know what? Jesus Christ that was good. I mean that was really something. For a writer to get it down like that. Man. That's art.

So I was looking up what the old man who wrote the Old Man had to say about the craft and it turns out quite a bit. I like these and plan to use them...

(This is all from his letters and therefore all sic...)

"This (The Old Man and the Sea) is the prose that I have been working for all my life that should read easily and simply and seem short and yet have all the dimensions of the visible world and the world of a man's spirit. It is as good prose as I can write as of now."

"Remember to get the weather in your God damned book - weather is very important."

"If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader - if the writer is writing truly enough - will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places..."

"I can write it like Tolstoi and make the book seem larger, wiser, and all the rest of it. But then I remember that was what I always skipped in Tolstoi."

"Boiling it down always, rather than spreading it out thin."

"Then there is the other secret. There isn't any symbolysm. The sea is the sea. The old man is the old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolysm people say is shit."

Got it.

My iPod Is More Interesting Than Me Monday #2

Last Monday was such a big success there were 8 million hits and thousands of emails and the overwhelming majority of people who contacted me were in love head over HEELS for the first random songs that came up on the Holy iPod. Emboldened by this massive show of support from all over the bloggy world I do hereby present week #2 in the ongoing saga.

But really, gang, it isn't necessary to just agree with all my wondrous choices every time. You can for sure speak your mind and disagree with something somewhere along the way!

But alright, enough of that. I know that the millions of readers I have are waiting. Why torture them further with anticipation when I can torture them with 5 more songs? Hmmm?

Here's the system...
5 songs rated from A to G where

A= I'd hit it
B= Good One
C= Better than just ok
D= Meh-be
E= Yawn
F= Please no more
G= What the hell is THIS crap??

1. Kixs them
2. Smarmy eels in two minutes 59
3. From a great huge tree
4. All these years later, i still can't believe she hit that note.
5. Son and heir, not sun and air, dummy

Regrets Only

There was a small discussion the other night about regretting things. Someone mentioned that saying you have no regrets is a very brave thing to say. Plus when you say it, it makes you seem as though you have been and remain in total command of your life from the minute you were born, and people want to flow you a share of admiration for it. The state of having no regrets appears to be admirable. The condition seems to be something to strive for.

And yet some of us wondered...

Though it may be seen as a position of strength to say you can look back and find nothing you regret, there is an aspect of that that seems a bit of the old macho posturing. "Femacho", then, if you are a female. Sometimes it sounds like a self-justifying thing. Almost as if to say "I've made no mistakes in my life."

Examining our own lives, and being honest about it, we came to the conclusion that the chances were somewhat reasonable that if you have no regrets you've concurrently also had no life. Nothing to show for anything up or down. You haven't really experienced the full deal of life. This idea that you're going to strike a pose in front of people and willfully declare that there's nothing at all you would do differently... becomes not only unreal but also insupportable, in my opinion.

I have regrets. A couple are big ones. A state of "should have" is part of my history in certain areas. But it may be moderated by the degree with which it haunts you. Because, certainly, if the haunting is strong enough it is seen as a definite sign of weakness in your personality or something.

Things pop into my head in the middle of nowhere that make me feel a bit guilty over a specific thing I'd done, and once in a while I get a full bore regret session with myself about a way I treated someone or a choice I walked away from. That may be the degree people talk about when they see it as a weakness, I suppose. Don't dwell on it, they say. Move on. There's no changing the past. You can't turn back the clock. If you do a memory scan you should be concentrating on the good things, not the regrets.

I think regret is one of the things at the heart of creativity. What are the blues we sing, anyway, but something we regret? I think the bad part comes if you let it stop you, or if you allow it to ruin the positive things you have in your life now. But regret itself isn't necessarily a sickness.

If you don't have regrets you either haven't really lived, or it's just you want people to think you've got it together - which is ego. Unless you've had a blessed life in every respect, I seriously doubt you have no regrets.

And saying you have none is probably a cover up.

Candy Stood There Tapping Her Foot, Arms Crossed...

... making sure I understood that she was officially Being Patient with me and I needed to acknowledge her pretty soon. "You promised me that weight watcher's soup recipe. I've been supportive of you trying to get rid of your man boobs and backed you up 100%. You promised me you'd get it up. So where has it been? I thought you were different from all the other guys, but I see that you're..."

"Wait, I'll get it up I swear!" I put my hands out as if trying to stop a thrown water balloon from exploding on a new suit. "But you have to understand, this weight loss thing is a struggle for me."

"Oh and you're the ONLY one in the world like that I suppose?"

"No, wait. Wait. It's like this... I love pig. I love beef. Especially when the juices drip down into the fire and it steams up through the rib-eye. Chocolate! Ice cream! I could sit down and eat an entire rhubarb pie in just one sitting... well, if you give me to the end of the movie. But I'm a glutton. I admit it. You know when Anthony Bourdain takes a bite of something and says "mmm, that tastes like it died screaming in agony when they killed it... yum!" - that's me! I'm down with that."

She shook her head, convinced I was a boob. "I'm really not interested in your eating habits or the other people you admire, cupcake."

She glanced down at the table where the newspaper showed the time for tonight's Red Sox game, then looked back into my face and squinted. "I just want the damn recipe. I've got twenty five men a thousand times more interesting than you to look after tonight. I'm not looking for a great big involved novel here, OK?"

I awoke in a sweat ready to run.

A dream. It was only a dream.

Damn........

--------------------------------------------------

It isn't that I like this soup just because it has no weight watcher "points" and you can slurp down just about as much of it as you can stomach and still do no harm to your diet. It's not that I like it because it's some great vegetarian's dream, as I love eating animals because they're cute when you chew them. And I don't like this soup because it's something someone with no kitchen skills can make, or how totally inexpensive it is when you buy everything from the produce department.

No. I like this soup because it makes me feel fat and happy when I'm done and it tastes exactly like something that can't POSSIBLY be good for you. No way. Stuff that's good for your diet and your body always tastes like cardboard, right? Well... I always feel like I've filled myself up when I eat this. It's just about one of the greatest inventions around. Yet there are no dead animals in it. Who'da thunk?

Ingredients to serve 8
1 1/3 cup of sliced carrots
1 cup of diced onion (I use red ones, mwa haha)
4 cloves of garlic (smashed)
6 cups of Swanson's Vegetable Broth
3 cups of diced green cabbage
1 cup of green beans
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
1 teaspoon of dried basil
1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of diced zucchini

Put the basil, oregano and salt into a small ingredient bowl and mix it up a bit.

In a large Dutch Oven (cooking pot to you heathens) LIGHTLY spray with no-stick cooking spray, and saute the carrots, onions and garlic until the carrots soften (5-10 minutes, DO NOT burn the onions or the garlic... DOOFUS).

Pour in the broth, stirring. Then add the cabbage, beans and tomato paste and stir until paste is dissolved.

Toss in the basil, oregano and salt combo. Stir it in.

Bring this to a boil. Then lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes WITH COVER ON. Stir in zucchini and simmer for another 4 minutes.

Serve HOT. I like to toss in some habanero hot sauce once in a while, but you don't need it. Totally serious when I say - the last thing it does is taste like something that's good for you.

Now somebody please pull Candy off me yeah!!!???

Blanks

I don't care how much certain "altered states" help a person open up their mind, reduce their inhibitions and pour stuff onto the page, the canvas, the guitar or what have you... if you don't edit it, clean it, and buff it up afterwords it's more often than not just really perfect drivel.

I remember when the low light in the west made your face glow deep red amidst the dark blue trees and the air was thick with that green summer. Here's a poet's challenge; how do you describe a color to a blind man?

We've done this before, but let me go over this one more time...

When I was a kid the universe had no beginning and no end, and God was an old man in the clouds with a white beard who got pissed at people a lot. It was like a big game wherein he wouldn't give you any more clues than were in the book and if you screw up you burn forever after.

Then, when I grew up, the universe DID have a starting point and it was from one big explosion from a singular point from which we continually expand into four understood dimensions, and not only was God not an old man with a beard but people began to wonder out loud why a "God" would even have a use for a "gender" in the first place. And he... she... it? will speak to you if you would just shut the fuck up once in a while.

Now there are eleven dimensions because ten left some things unexplained, the singularity the universe popped out from wasn't an explosion, it was a collision between two or more universes which now explains why we can have both relativity and quantum physics in the same universe and why there are particles so small that just observing them is enough to change their behavior, and parallel universes may or may not have you in them but are just at a right angle there beside you except they are too far away for you to actually get into.

Aaaaand... I'll get back to you on the God part.

But in the meantime Earl turned me on to this...

Yeah sorry to bring that up again. I know it kinda sat there last time too.

If you want to lose a pound of fat a week you have to spend a little over 3000 calories more than you take in for that period of time. Looks like I'll be running again today...

It's "My iPod Is A Million Times More Interesting Than Me" Monday

In other news it has become quite obvious that without the running just changing a few eating habits means not much happens on your being overweight when you are 56 years old. I've noticed a lot of differences (duh) between working out at this age compared to working out in my thirties, the biggest of which is that it's harderdammit. So back to the track this afternoon and - as a matter of fact - no more of this every other day stuff either. 5 days a week now, no excuses. He said.

So how would you like to be a judgmental know-it-all like me? It's easy! Today, because of a conversation I had over the weekend re:music wherein I admitted that I may be the only person on earth who has actually DELETED music from his Holy iPod, I am accepting a challenge to let you decide if I'm an idiot or not.

Don't get cute.

But yes I consider my iPod to be holy, and all music must pass a stringent test in order to be included. I refuse to add marginal stuff I only "kinda" like, and if on any subsequent hearing I deem the song unworthy it shall be purged. I have purged at least a dozen and make no excuses that after almost two years there are only 130 tunes on it, and I have a remaining gift card total at the iTunes store you would be seriously jealous of. I'm just that picky. My iPod is like an archeological artifact wherein resides music that has passed a rigorous checklist and, even when added, must continue to pass muster.

But, of course, SOME people don't think my list is *all that* so I'm going to turn it over to youse to say.

Every Monday until I get tired of the same old crap or just forget and move on to something else I will put up the first five tunes that show up on the Shuffle and bare my chest so you can salve it or stab it. And since putting YouTube videos on blogs is a hit-or-miss participation thing (I, like you, walk away more times than not) I'm just putting up the music itself for you to judge. AND YOU ARE THE JUDGE.

Understand that I, just like you, have an eclectic (meaning scatterbrained) taste in music. I have been listening since the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan and have not stopped listening. Don't be surprised if you hear Delta Blues, an occasional track from a movie, Ludacris, ska, Motown, a classic nocturne from Chopin or even an occasional club dance track. Oldies, newies, stuff you wouldn't think somebody my age would know about and probably stuff you have heard a million times already. And you get to vote!

Here's the system...

5 songs rated from A to G where

A= I'd hit it
B= Good One
C= Better than just ok
D= Meh-be
E= Yawn
F= Please no more
G= What the hell is THIS crap??

Be honest. Everybody knows you're a genius when it comes to music. I can take it. Just be ready for anything. I'm going to play with the names a little just to keep you on your toes. And - if you're going to play AT LEAST wait for the hook before you click off. That's the only rule.

So... Go...

1. Vulgar
2. Mexican Voodoo...
3. Kids As Sardines
4. Special Concrete
5. Michael, Jeffrey, etc.

Limits

It isn't that I am a totally unsympathetic man. I really am not uncaring. I believe I have a healthy compassion for, and a desire to help people who, are hurting. Chronic social conditions, national or regional disasters, will always get my attention. People who need space get it, people who need help are given it happily, because I recognize exactly how very lucky I am to have what I have. I would be a complete nothing if it weren't for the benefits given to me by others. I'm generally a contented and happy guy. So I could never - would never - begrudge anyone else that same feeling. No. Not anyone on Earth.

But after the thirty-eighth breakdown after the thirty seven others that were all likewise based on the same complaint or underlying condition, maybe you're needing more than a blog.

Alls I'm saying...

Getmeeduh Grahjkee Overbydere

(Dis picture is real priddy if youse'll just click it)

So a group of bloggers from around the country have been bandying around lists of reasons why because of our collective baseball heritages our home team and our local fans are better, smarter and cooler than the others and since it's obvious that we have all agreed that Chicago wins this argument it will be required of you all to come here and kiss Duh Bean in homage to our magnitude.

So it behooves me to make a little primer here on some words and phrases that may confound you on your visit to the True Mecca of Baseball when engaging us locals with your badinage.

Let's start with the title of this piece "Getmeeduh Grahjkee Overbydere". This phrase is not used much anymore because nowadays most people get into their garage with a "clicker" and don't need a key. Grahjkee, (garage-key) therefore, is more "old usage" than most other examples that will be given. But the phrase itself is indicative of the local sound enough to be instructive by itself. "Getmeeduh" isn't that difficult. It means "get me the". So we are hearing "get me the garage key..." and that's simple enough. The last word in the phrase "Overbydere" is, however, specific to the lexicon though there is evidence of its use in New York, especially Brooklyn. The difference may be that in Chicago, as opposed to Brooklyn, it is usally accompanied by the speaker's head, chin or shoulder pointing in the direction being referred to. "Overbydere" is an amalgam of the words "over by there." So you have "get me the garage key (chin thrust towards the kitchen) over by there." The body language is important in this case. "Overbydere" is generally accompanied with a slight head nod in the direction being referred to if the location is outsydaduh house. Oh sorry "outsydaduh" is "outside of the." Sorry. Heh.

I don't understand the depiction of the famous Chicago "Da" as the explanation of the word "the" in print. To me it has always sounded more "Duh" than a strict "Da" but it may depend on how fast the person is talking, so we'll let dat slide. Sorry... that slide.

The language is known for a very hard "th" sound sometimes approaching but most times overpowering it with a straight "d". The "o" sound in words, by and large, is more of a nasal "uh" or "ah", so that the simple word today is most times pronounced (with a soft d) "tuhday" - which often lends itself to the colloquial "tuhday yeah?" which, in the strictest sense means... "hurry up, asshole."

You also may experience an inordinate and totally random insertion of an "s" suffix. The most famous example of the latter being a reference to a major grocery chain in the area known as Jewel Food. "I'm goin' tuh Jewels" would be an announcement that the speaker is going grocery shopping at Jewel.

This should give you a general grounding in what we refer to as "Chicagoese", which you can actually Google as a legitimate phenomenon.

Here is a list of further translations that may be of use, in no particular order, spelled phonetically for your perusal.

tree annuh turd: And, by usage also simply tree. Is a number and a fraction. As in, 6 - 2 2/3 = 3 1/3 or "tree annuh turd".

Youse: You. Can be singular or plural. Can precede "guys" which is not a gender-specific word. A local addressing three women who are sitting in a tavern in a completely acceptable manner... "Youse guys from Chicago?" All the normal applications apply. Youse'll = you will, etc.

Sheh-caw'-go: The correct pronunciation of "Chicago." It is not "Sheh-cah'-go." It is especially never referred to in speaking by any native as "Chitown" or "Chi" when speaking to another native though you may see "Chitown" in some advertising where it is moderately acceptable. The city and all surrounding suburbs from Indiana to almost Wisconsin is referred to as "Chicagoland" as if it were like, you know, an amusement park. It should be also noted that there is no East Side of Chicago. There is a NORTside, a SOUTside and a WESTSIDE (spelled here as pronounced). It is acceptable to call the historical location ringed by the elevated train track as "The Loop" (or DUH Loop), but more locally Michigan Avenue, State Street, and that general vicinity north of the Hilton and south of the Water Tower (give or take a little dis way an dat) is referred to as "Downtown." As in "Let's take a drive downtown, youse wunnuh come wit?"

Come wit: Spoken in more places than Chicago, generally in a belt that slightly approximates the area of the country known as the "Rust Belt." It means "come with" where "with" is the concluding word in the sentence.

Nuh uh: Basically means there is no fucking way in hell I'm going to A.Let you do that, B.Let your argument stand, or C.Allow you to take that from me without my putting a dent in your forehead you dumbass.

Frun-troom: The room you walk into when you walk through the front doorway.

Go, Goes, Sez: Chicago versions of "says", "explains", or "informs", usually preceded by a personal pronoun as in... "So I sez nuh uh and he goes 'Up Yers'!"

Jeet: Strictly, "did you eat?" Usually an invitation to a family member or guest who has just come in true duh fruntroom.

There, of course, is much more but I already been here longer den youse guys are usetuh. So dat's quite enough fer now.

See youse tuhmorrow.

Eyes With A Face

I'm not letting anyone define me. I'll keep my public front as it is to do my work in the real world but reserve my personal self for the handful of people who touch my personal life. I've already said how much I admired the people who stayed out of the public eye willfully and strictly. You don't have to be someone of the magnitude of a Traven to keep yourself rarefied, you can just be a Joe Shmoe like me and live just as quietly and untroubled. There's things that just won't be shared and that's that.

What if all the work I've done and am doing never again sees the light of print? It doesn't matter. I've had this discussion before. Yeah everybody wants to see their work in print - that's the whole idea - but there is a tradition of doing it to do it where it exists once it is made no matter where or how it exists. I'll save the manuscripts worth saving and if I die before anything works I'll delude myself that it'll be discovered twenty years after I'm gone and get to croak thinking I'll finally make something of myself somewhere down the proverbial road. I think that's kinda funny. But hell, we fool ourselves of things all the time, so no big deal.

Yesterday was our 32nd wedding anniversary and only God knows how she's put up with this for so long. I'm impossible, really. I can pick up a book or start watching a movie or a TV series at the start or whatever you may have and there's a trigger that sometimes goes off where I feel "OK I can see how this ends" and I walk away. And I mean walk away for good and never pick it up or look in on it again. OK this is trying to get my sympathy. OK this is where the black guy sacrifices himself for the hero and his white girl friend. OK it's a detective show and guess what they'll either solve the crime or it will be the one crime they never solved that haunts them for the rest of the blah blah blah. And yet... I can watch an old standard movie I've seen two dozen times - where I'm able to recite the dialog as it's going - and knowing how that ends doesn't send me away. See what she has to put up with?

But you can't give me the finger from your driver's seat and say I'm this or that brand of parentage because I know I'm not so you're just flapping your lips in the breeze. You can't cock your head and look at me condescendingly as if I am stupid because I know I'm not so you're just dramatizing your own pathology. You can't get in here. That's all there is to it.

And you can't beat me up any harder than I do, and will always continue to do, for things I have done. Like the famous line "he will regret it only once, but that will be continuously". Your criticism will pale compared to my own. Forever.

6 Reasons Why We're Cooler Than You

I have three regular readers (well, 3 of my usual 6... I think) who have their own take on baseball; Earl, Candy and Sybil.

Earl is a Yankee fan and - you know - the New York Yankees have won something like, I dunno, 687 World Series Championships and they're entitled and it's New York and DiMaggio and Ruth and blah blah BLAH blah blah. I can't imagine Candy saying "lubstuh" but there she is in New England being a Red Sox fan and, you know, except for some recent success (truth to tell, sorry) the Red Sox are actually nothing more than the Cubs of the American League; the champions of "wait till next year". And Sybil, who has a body part that's a snob, is probably too high to notice but outside of the Big Red Machine there really isn't anything in Cincinnati, you know, except maybe lol Marge lol Schott lol.

But I really really like them all. Seriously.

Earl is constant as the sun here and he knows deadball era baseball so it's hard to tease him, and both Candy and Sybil are like the latest kind of new reader I've been accumulating in larger numbers than before - meaning - really foxy looking women. God knoweth how. But I've listened to them going on and on, and read all their odes or comments to their baseball heroes and so forth but - sorry - I have to put my foot down now. I was born and raised in Chicago and am a fan of a team known as the White Sox. And, I hate to tell you, but we're just cooler than y'all, and here's 6 reasons why.

1. We're Not The Cubs. I should stop here but I won't. The Sox have always been Chicago's red-headed step child in local sports. Always. The difference between the Cubs and Sox has always been the fact that Cub fans are perceived as the "yuppie" crowd with a minimal understanding of baseball's intricacies and more of an interest in who is calling them on their cell phone. The Sox played just this side of the Union Stockyards where we killed all your beef critters and have been looked on locally as the working class team. It's supposed to be rougher at our games and we were the guys for which they coined the phrase "I went to see a fight and a ballgame broke out!" Well, those are really characterizations that don't make as much sense anymore even if they were truer at one point. But the plain fact is that the only time the two Chicago teams faced each other in the Series the White Sox, then known as the Hitless Wonders, beat the Cubs who had won 116 games that season, in 1906. The last time the Cubs won a World Series was 1908. 102 years since and the Cubs still suck. Jesus... in 102 years even the Red Sox have won more than one World Series. But this has always been a Cub town. In 2005 when the Sox won the Series I will always remember a semblance of the headline in the sports section of the Chicago Tribune in September of that year... in big bold letters across the top of the page"CUBS SNAP FOUR GAME LOSING STREAK" and at the bottom right, in letters half the size "White Sox Clinch Division." Yeah. And Cub uniforms look like pajamas. So there.

2. We're Worse Bad Asses Than You Could Even Ever Imagine. Our guys took money from gamblers and threw the world series of 1919. Fuck the national past time, just gimmee money. The legendary miscreant Arnold Rothstien shows up in the book "The Great Gatsby" and it was his money behind the deal. The conspirators had names like Chick and Hap and Swede and Lefty, and Shoeless Joe, who threw away an entire career with a meal ticket to the Hall of Fame. The kid comes up to him and says "say it ain't so, Joe. Say it ain't so." We're talking the stuff of special legend. I don't care what historical stuff your team has, you don't have this. Only we have this. And for years and years it was an embarrassment to diehard Sox fans but now, with a new take on everything, this kind of criminal behavior is beyond acceptable cool. And the fact that our guys had the balls to do it, and yours ain't, is all you need to know.

3. If You Have It, We Probably Invented It. Those names on the backs of your hero's jersey... no matter what sport you may be talking about? The fireworks that go off when your guy hits a homerun? The effort to improve the food at your local sports venue? Singing "Nana-nana Nana-nana Hey-ey-ey Good-bye" (which pre-dates "We will We will rock you" by at least a decade) when a pitcher from the other team gets pulled after getting the crap knocked out of him? All that came from here and was invented here. We did them first. Each one a product that emerged from the cold old, now torn down, Comiskey Park. The White Sox put the names on the jerseys, had an exploding scoreboard, were the first to widely vary the possibilities and quality of ballpark food, and sang the opposing pitcher off the field while you were still clapping hands in unison to the Mexican Jumping Bean Dance or whatever the hell that was. You sing Hey-ey ey Goodbye all the time now. We did it first. It came from here. We're even PISSED when we hear you do it because it's OURS. End of story.

4. We Still Think Disco Sucks. Disco Demolition Night was a promotion that saw hundreds of people bring their disco records to the park to blow them up in a great big bonfire in the middle of the field between the games of a twilight/night double header (which you don't do anymore either). It turned into basically a riot and we forfeited the second game because they couldn't bring the crowd under control. Not a good memory for a lot of the old school Sox fans but a matter of principle for the rest of us. Disco music, it's clothes, the entire era and everything it stood for SUCKED BIG ELEPHANT BALLS and we were the only ones who were willing to surrender a game in return for saving the world from a fate worse than DEATH. You should kiss us in odd places in gratitude for our ability to hold principle above a mere ballgame. You don't have this either.

5. Bill God Damn Veeck, Sucker. We'll let the folks old enough from Cleveland and St. Louis join in this one, but we had him and the rest of you didn't. See #3 (above) if you want to know who came up with a good portion of that stuff. That was this guy... Bill Veeck, one of the guys who owned the White Sox in our history. Yes that's a wooden leg that's replacing his original leg which he lost in WWII fighting in the Pacific. Yes he had an ashtray carved in his wooden leg with a sliding cover on it. Yes he was the guy who sent the midget up to the plate in St. Louis. Yes the baseball establishment hated him. Yes he's the guy who staged the 10,000 Free Eskimo Pie Night... with the catch that there was 1 winner, and he was promptly given 10,000 Eskimo pies RIGHT THEN AND THERE in the middle of the game. Bill Veeck sold the Sox to the current ownership and spent the rest of his days in the center field bleachers at Wrigley Field, where he worked as a boy and from which he took me to Murphy's after a game and plied me with beer after beer while he talked about philosophy and I can't remember what. Bill Veeck was a friend of mine. Somebody I knew face to face. But that wasn't unusual. There were 10,000 other guys just like me. Oh, there's one more thing Bill did in his life.... he's the guy who planted the famous vines in Wrigley Field. Nothing much.



And Number 6? Sox Fans. We're just more interesting is all. The White Sox have me... some guy named Barack... you know... just... fans.

Good guys wear black. It works this way.

See if it don't.

3 + 2

"I Close My Door Upon Myself"... Khnopff

Not watching what I was eating, Easter weekend, and having the grand-daughter for a week = we added a pound to our air displacement chart. Still, it could have been worse. But I don't know... eggs... good for you or bad for you? It's like it changes every year. It's healthy food, no the yolks no good, oh wait you need the yolk part too, blah blah blah.

My story, which has no title - as is usually the case, is about a splendid isolation that turns into a conspiracy of outcasts. The conspiracy is the hard part because when all is said and done a lot of people are not part of my favorite things. Everybody should just keep to themselves and then have occasional wildness. Then we go back to our caves and make stuff for the next trip out.

I am such a slob. 5 days off from work and my office here at home is a mess. How the hell did I end up with five pairs of shoes in the middle of my floor??

Every Friday I take whatever bills I have left in my wallet over the denomination of $1 and put them in an envelope in my safe where my old US stamps and insurance papers, trinkets, gold, documents, collector's items and silver are. When the total in the envelope gets to $500 I put a band around it and add it to a very slowly growing stack of such bundles I've been storing in there for I don't even remember how long. Every tax time I think I should add that cash to our other general investments so that it's actually doing something - gaining some interest - instead of just sitting there. We have a small stock portfolio and CDs and other things, we always have, and don't get the idea this is some fantastically grand amount of supreme wealth - it ain't - but it is a small cushion to fall back on should everything blow up in our faces - again. But I can't "not have" a stack of cash in there. The thought of not being able to twirl the dial, reach in, and access some immediate funding for whatever the hell emergency might come up is scary. Am I just a child of the 50's with silly ideas about money, a person who has hit enough financial rocks in the road that I'm just a scared little cat, or is it some other kind of pathology?

This Wednesday is our 32nd wedding anniversary. My father died when I was 23, which was Michael Jordan's number. 3 + 2 = 5. I have five fingers on each hand. I do not know what the numbers on the Dr Pepper can mean but they can't be made into either a 32 OR a 23. I've got the day off work because I work for a Polish company and Easter is like their big holiday deal, so I've been off for five days. 5 = 3 + 2. Something is about to happen...

Whatever I Meant To Say Was

Hemingway had one thing right; cut away the chaff. Tell the damn story. Don't frill it up. I had 12,000 words. I went back and cut what didn't advance the story. I now have a 7,000 word story and improved it by 200%.

It seems I never stop learning. I want to get to the point where I say "I know this" and then do it, but I never get there. God forbid I read what I've done from the beginning before I ever resume where I left off, because where I left off probably won't match where I end up after I do everything over again. I could be starving. Life could be worse.

The truth is I'd rather be alone than be with people. It isn't I don't like people - I have great respect for people - it's just I don't have to feel like I'm not bringing enough to the table when there's nobody else around. It's easier to be inadequate when there isn't anyone around waiting for the rest of it.

I don't know. What am I? Dead ball era baseball. Ask me a question about the Spanish-American War. The Specials. The Clash. Biographies of Hitler. I drink too much. MINIs. Quakers. Space exploration. Cooking. Football. Obscure writers. Investing. Overpriced restaurants. Pipe smoking. Cigars. Humphrey Bogart. Andre Breton. Luis Bunuel. Children's stories. Grass-fed beef. Mencken. Braudel. Marvel Comics. Stamp collecting. Model ships. Miniatures. Mumford. Silent movies. Sibelius. Folk music. Motown. Black holes. Symbolists. Anarchists. Surrealists. Libertarians. Exposes of pseudo-science. Dylan Thomas. Ty Cobb. Rube Waddell. The Arts and Crafts Movement. Roycroft...

If I ever decided to stop being a dilettante I might someday make something of myself.

Raise that next glass for me and all the confused little wayward puppies like me.

Happy equinox and remember, Jesus Saves, but George Nelson Withdraws.