Monthly Archives: May 2012

serial

My wall
The wall.
Dear Readers,

The vertical is the episode. The horizontal is the running joke. Fill the grid. That’s writing.

When I get stuck or if there’s an awkward transition I’ll just put in bold, all-caps: WRITING. Come back to it later. Say, “this is the placeholder. The placeholder for writing.” “What’s going to happen? I dunno, something I will write. In the future.”

Like those signs by housing developments, “FUTURE SITE OF WONDERLAND ESTATES” and today it’s just bulldozers and dirtpiles by the road, far from the city.

wrestle

Risky Business
Source: Warner Bros.

Dear Readers,

I am at a dark divey bar in Pilsen across the street from the Pink Line, drinking a Bud Light and eating potato chips. The bartender, the two other silent patrons, and I all watch wrestling on the TV in the corner.

Scripted TV wrestling is like The Three Stooges but painted with a darker psychic palette. They get frustrated, they laugh with venom, they make heroic last stands, they slap and slapstick each other cathartically. A lotta yelling. Probably the yelling’est show on TV.

It’s also highly structured, like a play. We’re watching Act I: Trash Talk. The trash talker shows visible anger, his target is visibly upset. They’re gearing up for an emotional smackdown. The bartender laughs. “He’s funny,” she says about the trash talker.

However, when the trash talker moves within frame, we see that he is wearing nothing but a t-shirt and tight wrestling briefs. It’s arresting and vulnerable. Yields a Tom Cruise in Risky Business effect. The trash talk now seems like a speech delivered on a Wednesday morning by a sad man, alone at home, spitting out every hateful thing he wished he’d said to his boss before he was laid off. A man whose narrative arc for the day is built around whether or not he will put on pants.

I finish my chips and note that it’s a strange person who teases the exquisite sadness out of WWE Smackdown. What of my own self-perceived exquisite have I projected onto you, Man without Pants? Milk the last sip of Bud and hop on the Pink Line for the ride to the north side, home.

hank

Anne of Cleves
Anne of Cleves. I look at her, and she looks good. Whatever, Henry VIII.
Source: Wikipedia

Dear Readers,

I sat down and learned the six wives of Henry the VIII the other day. He only executed two of them, though his rep is that he killed them all, like Bluebeard.

My favorite is Anne of Cleves, wife number four. To recap, marriage to wife number one, Catherine of Aragon, ended in divorce when she didn’t produce a son. Wife number two, Anne Boleyn, fell victim to conspiracy at court and was executed with a baseless (probably) charge of incest on her poor (beheaded) head. Wife number three, Jane Seymour, was a love match who died after giving birth to Henry’s first and only male heir, Edward VI. Some say that it was a botched, hurried Caesarean section that killed her. Others say that Jane Seymour was the only wife Henry really loved. Perhaps both are true.

Anne was only married to Henry for six short months in 1540. She was a duchess from the Holy Roman Empire which made her a savvy political marriage choice. And truly, after what happened to Anne Boleyn, Henry didn’t have so many marriage options amongst European nobility.

But try explaining “beggars” and “choosers” to Hank. “Make sure she’s hot. Really hot,” he said. “I need to see a picture. Actually, get me pictures of both sisters and I’ll marry the hotter one.” Hans Holbein painted the portrait at right, and Henry selected Anne as the lucky new Queen of England.

Once Anne arrived at court, like so many online daters and craigslist shoppers, Henry found the “item not as described.” Everyone—including Henry (especially Henry)—thought Anne was a frumpy downer.

Our girl Annie was no fool. She crafted an easy out in her annulment testimony. “This marriage was never consummated. And technically I’m still engaged to someone else,” she said. “We were 10 and 12 when it happened, so you know. Not really engaged. Childhood engaged. It’s a legal thing. We don’t need to get into it.

“So I think we’re good here! Cheerio, as you say. Heh heh.” She touched her neck. “Just touching my neck. Right here on my shoulders. Where it’s going to stay.”

A grateful Henry gave her a castle and a generous stipend. She lived a quiet, independent life in the English countryside, indulging her two pet vices of beer and gambling. She never remarried. Fuck yes, Anne of Cleves.

shill

Childrens Village
Putting the aggression in passive aggression.
Envelope reads: “Throw me away. I’m used to it.”

Dear Readers,

This hot little piece of direct mail came yesterday. Let us now read what’s on the envelope, and feel the feelings that the envelope wants us to feel.

Last December I test-drove a new personal policy to give $10 to any charitable organization that asked. It was an affordable, democratic policy during a season of giving. I felt good about it.

As charitable organizations do, they shared my contact information with concentric circles of development officers at nonprofits throughout the land, and now, every week I receive a couple solicitations like this one. Some are from the organizations that I actually gave to last year, but many (like this one from Children’s Villages) are not.

I understand why direct mail is still in effect: because it works. It works even with a 10% response rate or smaller. Many the budget of many a small nonprofit sustains on an aggressive annual ask to the board, bolstered by a direct mail campaign like this one.

I’ve worked for four nonprofits. The name “nonprofit” implies that they are divorced from the ugly tides of capitalism, but I’ve found they’re just as tuned in to their fiscal cycle and as savvy to methods to wring dollars out of every opportunity as the profits are. The major difference is that nonprofits are more likely to shortchange their generally very intelligent, well-intentioned employees.

This envelope is not written in the voice of the child pictured. It’s in the voice of every executive director and development officer I’ve known with a dangerous personality matrix of inferiority complex and narcissism. “Throw me away. I’m used to it,” she says.

I’d like to send her $10.

horizontal

Believe it.

Dear Readers,

Steve smiles and says, “we’re going to a falafel place in the back of a jewelry store.” On my look, he says, “I can’t explain it any more clearly.”

We head up Wabash from Madison, and lo, the jewelry store. Enter the jewelry store, and lo. A bustling falafel restaurant in the back. A great cheap lunch if you’re ever caught in the Loop and in need. I love this town.

Next door is the Tilted Kilt, which is a Scottish-themed Hooters. A Scottish-themed Hooters? A Scottish-themed Hooters. I can’t explain it any more clearly. So much was left unsaid by regular Hooters, they needed a Scottish-themed Hooters. Ach.

On Google Maps, the top keywords for the Tilted Kilt are “sexual harassment · fish & chips · ice cold beer.” I love this town.

Also posted to tumblr.