If the clothes make the man

I just walked by a large mirror in my apartment, and made the mistake of looking into it, at what I am wearing:

• my old, large black lounging-around-not-leaving-the apartment glasses
• a spring/summer black robe covered in cat hair (thank you, Lilly)
• Guinness string sleepwear pants (again, with the cat hair)
• no socks
• blue slippers that are falling apart
• and a white t-shirt with a hole in the collar, with picture of a green iguana crawling across a print of a pocket (bought over a decade ago in some Salvation Army Store)

Apparently, I have given up all hope.

Finally! I already knew of which they speak!

Most times, while mentally plodding stumbling skimming through articles in The New Yorker, I have only a vague idea what the author is describing or talking about. Politics bore or annoy me; music reviews rarely interest me or are "so last week"; and ballet and plays are really meant to be seen then read about in depth, I think. Generally, I get through most of the magazine with collar flipped up and head down against the rain of information and the wind of confusion coming down on me from on high (mid-town?), hoping something resembling something close to knowledge or inspiration seeps up threw my brain shoes and absorbs into my grey blanket of a brain to be squeezed out at another time (be it in conversation or in virtual conversation here at My Cube HA!).

And with the people I'm surrounded by at The Bank, these moments are few and far between, if ever, like finding a four leaf clover in your pocket or getting complete satisfaction from a posh wank* in front of pr0n.

But today!
Ah, today. A bright, shiny Memorial Day Monday, I've metaphorically found that four leaf clover in my pajama bottom's pocket (after an unsatisfying non-posh wank; alas, we can't have it all, can we?).

For I read this article today.
And, from personal experience and personal experimentation, I could have nearly wrote the blessed thing myself!

Ah, The Hangover.
The Devil who shows its red-eyed skull after a Night of Dancing with Amber Angels. This hideous Demon of dehydration and enzymes and toxins and embattled livers has locked its claws onto my head, clubbed its tail into my stomach, and shat smoky-sulphur fire and litter box smell into my mouth many times. Our battles are neither political nor religious; or, maybe both at once!

Weapons and shields listed and offered for battle in the article range from the Ritualistic to the Scientific. Some range from the most familiar to the most foreign of items and relics. My hands have grasp a few in Loyal Belief while my mind reels in horror from some suggested and offered.

Like all Human Battles through the Ages, the siege and defense against the Gorgon Hangover is an Individual War. As an Army of Drinkers, Quaffers, and Chuggers, we begin the evening together. We toast one another, we challenge each other to contests of shots, we go rounds and rounds in the Spirit of Camaraderie; but in The End, we fight the (De)Hydra Hangover alone on the battlefield.

We, alone, scream into the streaming dagger sunlight, "Corpsman! Corpsman! Corpsman!"

Drink deep from the stream, eat full from the wheat golden grain fields, ingest concentrated spheres of vitamins, flush thy wounded bladder, and sleep the sleep of Rip Van Winkle that night, my Liquid Legions. That is my only humble advice. That is all I can give you now, even after two lifetimes of Spiriting Slaughter and Nigh-Death Tippling.

Go forth and live!
You walk alone, you walk with me.




*I'd link credit to Artificial Industries author, A., for his coining the term "posh wank"; however, A.I. site doesn't want to load for me.

Sing...

or teach me.

The Dresden Dolls - "Sing" Music Video


Sometimes I feel nostalgia for love from both the past and the future.
Sometimes I feel if everyone heard this song, they's get it, whatever "it" is.
Sometimes I feel like everyone is laughably rushing about, grabbing this or grabbing that; and it all turns to sand in thier grasp.
Falls to Earth and fades away.
Gone.
Sometimes I think, "if I could just cut the top of my head off, tip it over like a teapot, dump the wet grey blanket out, plop the moldy brain out onto a large blank white canvas, spread it around with my shoe, it would look beautiful; this way, I could express everything I needed to show tell whisper and shout. Then I could sleep silently, and dream of something to come."
But skull remains intact, and the secret suffocates under a wet grey blanket. Moistly breathing, coughing spit, choking for a full inhalation of life.
Sometimes I want to sing.
Sometimes I want to hide under the couch.
Sometimes I feel totally indifferent apathetic bored, inescapably so.
Sometimes, but rarely, I don't think at all; and, really, this is probably when I am Singing and don't even realize it.
Sing.

The Waiting Game

Ho-hum.
I'm bored, and my eyes are bugging out.
"What," you may ask, "the hell are you doing? Drunk and insomnia?"

No, I've decided to stay up all night.

"Know thyself" it is written, and I do.
I know if I fell asleep at my normal time I would pull a total coma through the blaring alarms (yes, alarms, there are 3 set for every morning), and miss my cab, miss my flight and put my travel plans into complete disarray!

The last few hours trickle by filled with:

• Padding through the apartment (tsch tsch should have cleaned more)
• Petting Little Lilly (who is already breaking my heart at the thought of not being around her *sob*)
• Drinking a pot of coffee
• Worrying over the fact I only have one Camel Light remaining; considering walking to the twenty-four hour gas station up the street, but changing mind as I not in the mood to deal with the Cabbie/ Crack ho clientel there at this hour.
• Staring, walking away, coming back and staring longer at my suitcase. Do I have everything?
• Listening to classical music on the radio because I've learned over the past years classical music seems to stimulate something in my mind that keeps me awake (awake, not necessarily coherent).
• Fiddling with and putting away or rearranging various knick-knacks and papers laying around the apartment.
• Considering taking the rest of the garbage out (pfft, that's not going to happen).
• Wasting time making lame comments here and, of course, here.
• F.W.B? No, too late.
• Blowing my nose, it's so dry in here.
• Staring out the kitchen window at the empty street, slush, and fog.
• Plucking dead leaves from my straggly, scrawny tomato plant. It did flower once. Um, one tiny yellow flower. I want a baby tomato, dammnit!
• Zone-out on the various clocks throughout the apartment.
• Let the Blogger "New Post" screen burn itself into my retinas, flaring my rods and cones, for minutes at a time without typing. My Cube somehow turned into My Blank Shit. Guest bloggers may be needed. HA!
• Scroll through this.
• Pour another coffee.
• Look at last, lonely cigarette on microwave, "Resist, resist, man!"
• Try to think of a paid online job to do during my full-time Bank job since I have such the large amount of down time there. And really, doesn't I Have 3 Jobs ring well with My Cube Has 3 Sides?
• *sigh*
• I want chocolate.

Okay, I'm boring myself.

See you all later!

Mai Tai(me)s in five hours

Yep, the count down is in the single digits.

Around Four a.m. or so, I should be lugging a suitcase through the snow and into a cab which will then swishhhhh me to O'Hare. At that point, in the wind and sleet and shouts of, "you can't park here..move along!" on some curb outside Terminal Two, I will smoke my final cigarette before I find myself trapped in the airport, airplane, Houston "Fuck you" GWB International, and another plane.

But then...then... I'll step out into the bright morning light. The whisper of salt air and waves of palm trees will great me as I strike a Camel Light (to avid protests of parents) in the land of this The Island of this Man!


That's right, after about twenty years, I will have returned to Hawaii (Doubtful, though, I'll sing and dance, especially with the eleven hour Nicotine Fit ravaging me at this point)

I remember seeing The Don in that exact setting you may have watched above.

I remember meeting a hard Rock Cafe waitress my Grandpa S. and I completely thought was a native Polynesian, and then we all laughed hard when she confessed to being from Wisconsin.

I remember my Uncle M. sneaking me my first Mai Tai at a loua (sp) at the Hilton.

I remember my dad and I taking a drive alone on Maui; we stopped at a smoking volcano and felt the heat from the red glow; we looked out at long plains which ended in mountains; we arrived at our destination, a gallery showing John Lennon's paintings and stood less than 6 feet away from Yoko Ono herself (the gallery owner told us she doesn't like to be approached).

I remember playing on a beach of black stone, running under a small white waterfall.

I remember the one hour van tour that ended up taking a winding, edge of cliff death 6 hours; and the driver taught my two cousins and I that "cuz" is Hawaiian for "dude" because in the end we are all really cousins in some way.

I remember finding the coolest cassette/t-shirt punk store around the corner from the Hard Rock Cafe, and buying a white Dead Kennedys T-shirt (with the Holidays in Cambodia Man icon) I still have it.

I remember standing near a bus stop and watching a leathery tanned man picking up a handful of cast-aside cigerette butts from the ground, then rolling his own out of the left over tobacco.

I remember Moo-moos made me and my cousins giggle (hee hee dresses for FAT people).

So who knows what memories I'll compile this year. Hopefully, loads of photos will follow soon. Some laughs and a tan would be nice. My parents got tickets for the Pro Bowl, so that'll be cool!

Until then, friends, Aloha and Mahalo!

Free show, cheap beer: Tonight!

Apologies for the silence hanging in The Cube lately; there just hasn't been much going on.

True, I went to Court (fucking twice) against that scumbag (K. Hester: trannie, cracked up hooker, robber, and check forger) who mugged me a couple of months ago. Each time the piece of shit got a continuance (unemployed, no lawyer). At least I don't have to show up a third time, I've been excused.

Other than that, just endless nights going out alone. To the point where it's not even fun, but dammit, you sit for 40 hours in The Gopher Hole with a boring coworker, you get a little edge for some sort of conversation or, at the very least, Eye-Candy. Just a rut full of hangovers and drunkenness, smoke-filled lungs and small talk with strangers and bartenders. This past Saturday night, while sinking into a Beer Blotto, I realized I couldn't remember the last time I say some of my friends.

Not a happy realization, but reality.

Luckily, they are playing a free show tonight at The Empty Bottle!



Free
9:30 Speck Mountain
10:30 Morning Recordings
11:30 Zelienople

So, like, maybe I'll see you there.

And I quote Lauren Hynde:

"...because she (and I) always knew it was going to be like that, and it was...."

It's Thursday after work, I go home, pay some bills, watch a little TV, planning on staying home and reading, listening to classical music.
But then I drank the last of the Jameson, and felt better, and then my mind clicked, just like Brick (Paul Newman) says in his speech in the bedroom. That little lever flicks in my mind, and I'm urged to go out, against all better judgement.

I walk to My Place (#272) No one in there, really, just Uncle John and some Mexicans playing pool. But that's okay because they have ESPN on and I watch them talk about sports; highlights are fun to watch and Uncle John is sweet and talks to me, always says I'm a nice/good guy. He buys me a shot of Jack Daniels, then another of Jameson, apologizing for the Jack "I forget, you like the Jameson." I smile and say, "it's cool, thank you Uncle John, I really shouldn't even be out tonight." The Mexicans leave, but one. Danny stays behind to drink a Heineken and we chat about baseball and the Lamp Post. Then he leaves, and I say good night to Uncle John.

Touhy is quiet, but the alcoholics in my head are whispering for more, so I find myself sitting in the Lamp Post (#255), sipping a Heineken and looking at the big chested Blond bartender. The crowd is just Big Jim and some sport/jock yahooos, so there is no reason to stay.

I cut down Lunt to Clark Street. The houses are big and beautiful, even in streetlight/darken moonlight under the trees with their grass lots and eaves and lattice work. I feel buzzed and envious and alone. And poor.

Gallagher's (#271) is slow. Only a few of the bar girls, but Tanya and Bianney are working, so I pass the beers chatting and teasing them, acting the fool for a laugh. The manager, Raul, stops by my bar stool and says hello, shaking my hand. The regular bouncer, Dave, isn't working tonight, in fact quit this week. Rasta Drunk Don is working tonight as Security, but I wonder if the bar is actually paying him, since really all he does is walk around and bum cigarettes and beer off of me. But we talk and he's always hugging my shoulders and telling me about his construction work. He wants to give me another shirt, this time a Boy Scout dress shirt, but I tell him, "no, that's cool, but thanks." I end up talking to some Mexican guy named Cesar. He just moved to the area, and is trying to make friends to go out with. I sort of feel for the guy since I only go out alone nowadays. I give him my number, knowing he'll probably never call, and knowing I'll probably not call him back if he does, but why not, eh? We're all looking for some kind of connection. He dances with one of the bar girls, then finishes his drink, says good night to me, and leaves.

It is nearing closing, and I have to work tomorrow (later today?), so I get up to leave. Wave to Tanya and Bienney, and step outside.

The air is cool, a nip of coolness fall in the air. I breathe deep and turn to Clark Street. Maybe I'll get a couple of tacos on the way home. I shove my hands in my pockets to brace myself for the walk and against the chill in the air, and take a few steps away from the door.

A black girl in a pink T-shirt passes me, a half-block behind her is a guy in white jumper with blue stripes. He is yelling at her, something, I can't remember, but it sounds like they are arguing. I look back. She keeps walking away, almost to the metra tracks.

I turn back, and the guy stops and says, "hey, you want her to give you a blow job?"

"No, no thanks."

"Yeah, she's going to give you a blow job here in the alley."

"No, that's cool."

He grabs my by the front of my sweatshirt, twisting it in his hand, pushes me in the alley. I'm thrown against the wall.

"Let me go, let go!" I shout at him.

I'm thrown against the wall again, and my hand is being twisted around, "calm down, man!" I feel pain shoot threw my left ring finger, it's bending all over the place. "you want me to break it?"

I trip, or he pushes me onto the alley floor, I squirm and yell, "get off me, let me go!"

"Shut up!" and there is a calloused hand over my mouth, the woman in pink is there, grabbing for my wallet; I clamp my hand on it, shove it further into my back pocket while he twists my neck around, pushing my head into the concrete.

Suddenly, there are three other women, all hands in all my pockets, my glasses are gone, one hand on my chest, another on my face, as I yell four or five times:

"Raul! Help! Raaauuuuul!"

It's the only name I can think of to shout. I am embarrassed, only two store doors away from the bar's door. I am being overtaken by women, beat up, one of them is standing on my crotch--grinding my middle pelvic bone with her shoe. Fuck, it's like I'm a little kid again, always the victim of stronger bullies. She holds up my ID, "We got your ID fucker!"

I lose my grip on the wallet; it's gone, as well as my cigarettes.

He slams me against the ground again, and then they are gone, running toward Clark Street.

I lay in the alley for a moment. Helpless, bruised and in pain. My glasses! I crawl around the alley, searching for them in the dim light. Two Mexican guys walk by, "I just got jumped, can you help me find my glasses?"

They keep walking. They probably don't know English.

I find my glasses and put them on, steadying myself, and a cop pulls up, "are you okay?" she asks.

Someone had called 911-- four Black people are beating up a white guy.

I blurt out fast what happened and the best description I can. They tell me to get in the back of the car. I'm strangely calm as I give my report and information.

They shoot the car forward fast to the end of the block. "You recognize either of those two?"

Standing by another cop car parked diagonal in the street is a guy in a white tank top with a tiny Mohawk and a black girl in a pink T-shirt. I don't recognize his face, I say. The cops tell me he cruises the area, usually dressed as a woman. I can't make a positive ID, so they let him go. He walks away from the cop car and yells something, and something in the way he moves, I recognize him as maybe being one of the whores I've walked by denied business on Clark Street a few weeks ago. I don't know his/her name.

The police take me home where I call The Bank, leave a message: "I can't come into work on Friday."

I cancel all the cards ("did you use your Discover Card at an ATM in the last hour?" "No" Man, they moved fast.) and try to remember what else I'm missing. The phone rings.

I am being picked up by the cops again. They caught the guy, the Mohawk dude, they found all my cards on him. They take me to the station.

I sit in the break room, talking to some Rasta guy (his friend is asleep on the table, snoring loud). They are there to report a drive-by shooting in The Jungle. No one got hit, but four cars now have bullet holes. We talk about how bad the neighborhood's gotten, and his love for pot (rasta, mon!). We agree: people need to leave people the fuck alone.

I see the female cop through the window coming toward us, holding a white and blue jumper. I start pointing and nodding my head, "yes, that's the jacket."

They give me my Court Date, sign for the cards they recovered ("he claims to have 'found' them on the street"), no wallet/ID/etc. I sign some other forms, a police report of the incident. To much time took place between event and capture, so he is up for a misdemeanor of battery instead of a felony charge...I think Strong Arm Battery--no weapon.

They drive me home. I call work again, to let them know I got The Bank's business card back, so it may be alright. I pick up Lilly, and head to bed, fully clothed. My whole right side hurts, throbs with some inner bruise. My neck feels twisted. I have a headache. The next day, I see I have a shiner, a reminder: if you think you should go home earlier in the night, go home.

Hanging with Crackhos

It's been a strange and pathetic few weeks.

I've been getting to know the drug-addled street-wise blurry-vision racing-heart underbelly of my neighborhood a little. Four o'clock in the morning conversations are crazy.

The Mark II Lounge, should be renamed The Mac II Living Room.

Isabella at Gallagher's spoke to me last Friday (she speaks English, someone lied to me!). What did she say? Um, the memory is bathed in beer and Jameson, and it's a little vague.

Fucked up at work way too many times. Showed up hours late to both jobs at least twice each. And fucked up big time today at The Bank...apparently I overstepped my boundary of authority; however, I think I cleared it up fifteen minutes later. Hopefully.

I can't go into details, as some are incriminating and (like I said) pathetic, vile, depressing, and just out and out disappointing to myself...yet, an adventure.

I know have more than one Secret, I'll be keeping it to myself.

Hello to Karin, Vernon, Shaolin, and Camilla. See you all on Clark Street after hours, eh?

Good night.

Friday? Where you at, Mac?

If you're looking for me (or just someplace to drink), I am planning to Drone Out With My Bone Out at The Empty Bottle (#105) on Friday.

One of the Z-boys' side project, Good House Stuff is playing at 10:00 p.m.
Check 'em out, they're a lovely bunch of coconuts!

The rest of the line-up to watch/listen/cross-your-arms and bob-ya-head to would be:

8pm The Number None
9pm Matt Clark
10pm Good Stuff House
11pm Haptic
12am Dreamweapon

Soon, after Good House Stuff, you will more than likely find my sodden ass at The Mark II Lounge (#261) because I'm a fool with a foolish job and a sucker for Eye-Candy and post two o'clock drinking!

Buy me a round, and I'll fall in love with you ;-)

Off to the Mark II Lounge alone (again)

#261
because:
I'm bored.
I've had a (typically) lousy week.
I've got a belly-full of Jameson.
I'm horny (yes, shock to my friends...I lust!)
My booty-call is with her kid this weekend.
There's nothing on TV.
I'm Drunk.
And I've got no "boys to call" to have a B.N.O. with...my Bestest Wingman is a thousand miles away....Fucker! (just kidding).

Wish me luck, eh?

[update---well, I got drunk anyway, right?]

A pile of bar napkins from my pocket

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

It's 3:30 a.m.: What are you doing?

or:

Mac Attempts To Get Laid; Screws Self Instead

Tuesday:
Sonotheque---Z-boys
You've had a two days at work. Surfed the net, fended off whiny bankers, argued with coworkers about what your job is and is not. You need a drink by 3 in the afternoon. You leave work on time for once, but irritated at yourself and the workplace as usual. You get home and remember the Z-boys are playing tonight. You take a nap because you are normally exhausted after work, and the additional stress of being angry leaves you half dead. You take a shower, feel a little better in the warm water, a little more like the "self" you can tolerate being around. The water washes away the sweat of the day, but not all the sadness. You deal with it, smoke a cigarette in the kitchen, watching the cabs and cop drive by. That's the way it's been since you returned from that wedding in Scotland: Cabs and cops roaming the street outside your kitchen window, dropping people off and picking people up.

Everyone seems to be going somewhere except you.

You put on your coat, lock the door, and drive to Sonotheque, hoping tonight will be different fun, in hold of a kiss.

You can't find the bar and get lost somewhere amidst the Lake Street El tracks warehouses and million dollar condos. You turn around and around the blocks of closed cleaners and liquor stores hiding behind black iron cages. The streets are empty and your semi-good mood is emptying out with each exhale of now nervous cigarette smoke. You see a tiny blue neon sign peeking out from the window store fronts. You found the place and a parking spot a block away. You flick your Camel Light into the curb and walk into the bar.
After you show the bored dred-locked bouncer your ID, the first thing you see is yourself in a floor-to-ceiling mirror just inside the door to the bar. You cringe at your reflection, and turn away quickly, and walk into the main room. You avoid any mirror you come across, and there are quite a few. You can't bring yourself to look people in the eye.

It's long and dark, just the faint pulsing glow of Christmas light-like twinkles on the floor and the glow of a movie playing on two walls. The place is empty but for your friends, two bartenders, and two DJs at the bar. You swerve straight for Mike and Brian at the bar. Hellos are bandied about as you scan the overpriced drink menu, choosing Old Speckled Hen Ale just for the name and the fact it's only 5 dollars. It turns out to be a fine Ale and you drink 4-5 of them throughout the night. Cock-a-doodle-doo.
You lean against the bar, talking to one of the DJs, nice guy young, and this is his idea: having live music come on after a DJ set. The music is mixed with other bands and some of the DJs original beats. Its got a primal sad trance-like quality to it, which fits fine with your mood. The fake nostalgia of living out a Jay McInerey novel settles onto your brain, and you go with it. You lean against the bar and try and follow Mike and Neil's conversation about obscure movies by obscure foreign directors, and that crappy familiar feeling starts inching into your mood: you are the dumbest person in the room. So, you lean back from the bar and check out the women and men (boys and girls?) trickling into the bar. A rumor goes around the bar that the Z-boys aren't going to play tonight-- no one here to hear-- but that is soon quashed as the crowd surges up to like 40 people, all white hipsters except for a Nigerian ("he's fucking wacky to listen to" someone whispers to me) and a cute energetic Asian woman ("I think I met her at another of our shows" Mike whispers into my ear). You've been spending time in Gallagher's for so long, you suddenly feel out of place with all these white faces strutting around white men in leather jackets striking poses and white women standing with one leg jutted out in front of them ass pushed out just so with one hand on hip. There's a different vibe among those seeking attention, looking for a week-night hookup. You wonder what vibe you put out, shake your head and take a huge gulp of Hen: it can't be good.
The band starts playing, yet no one seems to notice. The band and the DJs have timed it worked it so the last song on the speakers was in the same key and beat as the first song by the band. It flows seamlessly into each other.
The set is mellow and good and you try to take some pictures (knowing that they won't turn out very well). There's a guy at the end of the bar who looks like a member of some Russian Mafia feeling the waist of a ample Blonde. It's strange, but you get the idea that he "owns" her. The couple next to you starts making out at the bar, you stare at the woman's jet blue-black wavy hair, and smell her sweet perfume and try to remember the last time you made out at the bar: Holly H.. 1998.
You sigh and finish your beer and scan the crowd, eyes stopping briefly on the pig-tailed girl in the 50s red dress white tights, then move on back to the Asian woman in the simple-black-dress whose name you forgot even though Mike introduced you only like 30 minutes ago. Your eyes meet, and you know there's not even a flicker of a chance, so you return to your smoke, stare at the mile long line of liquor bottles on the wall and let her go on speaking to the crazy Nigerian unmolested.
It's nearing 2 o'clock now, and you still want more beer, so you leave the Z-boys, and drive north on Ashland racking your brain for somewhere else to go. Gallagher's is closed on Tuesdays, so you try go through a list of all the 4 am bars you can think of, none of them sparking the least bit of fiery interest in your Ale-soaked brain. You turn onto Western Avenue and see an open spot next to the Mark II Lounge and think "why not." It'll be dead, but you can always mopey-gawk the hot Bulgarian waitstaff and drink in peace.

Mark II Lounge--- Edie and Robert

Friday
My Place closed until May 11th

Mullens---model---link in email?

Mark II--- Latin Swing Night


Saturday
Gallagher's----Ren and Jane

More later---Mac