A scene from Hyde Park

It's Valentine’s day in the cold, cold world. Yep. Having a sad day. I am underrating massively, of course. My Sad like having a black train rolling though my spine and crushing all goodness and hope. Im a bit of a depressive, but I’m fighting it and I win most of the time.

After two cups coffee, the first line of defense against depression, I went outside to go to work and immediately felt better. I had expected to be bitch-slapped by the cold, but the seeming mildness of the 30 degrees made me feel pretty manly and butch! I was acclimating! ?Quien es mas macho?

Walking to work and past my neighbors I scored no points. One point is when they look at me when I pass. Two points is a nod or a smile. Three points is an actual word or two. From 47th to 55th, I ran in Love. The tennis kind of love. The zero points kind of love. I have been getting a little bitter about my frequent low scoring , which admittedly, is easy for a man burdened by the black dog of depression. And I can understand why folks would be suspicious about the only white face in the neighborhood. My people have had a shitty past, after all. And if our
places were reversed, if I saw a person walking about looking all singular. . .well shit, actually I couldn’t say.

Where I come from, most of the city is pretty mixed. Even in the most polarized of ‘hoods, there is not the absolute white-out like you find in Chicago, so the concept of one face in a sea of it’s opposites is completely alien. If it did happen to me, I would go out of my way to include that ‘other’. Which is partly motivated by white guilt and also by being an experienced outsider and the child of one. After being walked by and left, it’s hard to just walk by. I can’t stand to see a person be ostracized, until absolutely necessary.

I guess that’s true of all who have felt the ostrakon’s stony sting upon our face and bodies. Playing my own devil’s advocate brings me back to my reality, which is not the reality for any of my neighbors. Of course these folks are suspicious. They should be. I picture the conversation between black women on the bus, after I leave the bus smiling and saying hi to them.

BETTY
Who the hell is that white guy to be walking all around and shit.
BERNICE
Has to be a mistake.
BETTY
That gotts be true. And if he’s here on purpose that’s worse.Why is he here? What’s he wanting from us? Prolly some offay egghead doing some kind of sociological experiment. Well this ain’t no Tuskegee. I ain’t going to give up my DNA or any other letters I can tell you that right now. Just look at him, walking around and smiling all the damn time. Like that’s gonna make me say Oh! Hi! Welcome to the neighborhood! Come into my house and breathe my air and eat my damn food. I work too hard the put bread on my table to just give it all away to some white dude.
BERNICE
MMm Hm. A smile will let the devil in.
BETTY
That’s so true it ought to be tattoo’d on Barack Obama’s face.
BERNICE
Man, he fine.
BETTY
I don’t know what you see in him
BERNICE
If you don’t know I can’t tell you
BETTY
‘side, he’s practically white himself.
BERNICE
Practically still ain’t.
BETTY
Mm hhmm.
BERNICE
I know he is black enough to be sad about Whitney.
BETTY
Oh, girl, don’t, I barely got to stop crying about that this morning.
BERNICE
Well you know white folks don’t get it. I don’t get it how they don’t get it, but they don’t.
BETTY
Oh, girl, Whitney!
BERNICE
How can a person be so damn different like that?
BETTY
She sang like she was just breathing, like it was just leaking out. So beautiful.
BERNICE
I mean I understand not liking Michael Jackson. . .
BETTY
Oh, Michael made it hard to like him.
BERNICE
He did. . .but Whitney? Ain’t no comparison? Makes me mad.
BETTY
Mad?
BERNICE
Yeah, Betty,I said mad. I’m having trouble forgiving white folk about it too.
BETTY
What!?
BERNICE
What?
BETTY
Girl, you work with Buddhists.
BERNICE
Yeah.
BETTY
You work with republicans.
BERNICE
Yeah.
BETTY
You work with lawyers.
BERNICE
Yeah.
BETTY
Girl, you even work with that pale bitch that calls herself a witch.
BERNICE
Oh, Rhiannon just playin’ , she don’t mean it.
BETTY
But I’m sayin’ that all that you got no problems with. Those people got different morals, different politics, different Gods and one of them even got a different color sky I don’t care what you
say about Rhia-whatever, and it’s Whitney that gets your goat?
BERNICE
Yeah. I guess that’ s what I saying.
BETTY
That’s kinda messed up. And I agree with you completely. What up with that.
BERNICE
She real.
BETTY
Mhm?
BERNICE
Whitney was real. All that other shit people like or don’t, politics and what-all, that shit just window dressing; curtains to make the messed up world look a little less messed up.
BETTY
That’s some deep shit.
BERNICE
Is it? Didn’t mean it to be.
BETTY
That’s prolly why it came out right. Whenever people try to be deep it comes out like buullshit.
BERNICE
Well, I don’t know about that, I just don’t mind disagreeing about the little stuff. But Whitney, girl, don’t nobody better dis-remember her.
BETTY
Makes sense to me.
BERNICE
I know it does.
BETTY
I bet that white boy don’t get it.
BERNICE
Girl, I know he don’t.
BETTY
And it would be weird if it did.

The dialogue in my head faded away after that. I hope it’s close to real. That’s all a combo of what I saw with my head and heart, and then squeezed through the funnel of my pen. Let me know how this all plays in the theater of your mind. I did actually hear the phrase ‘a smile lets the devil in’ in a conversation between two so-called African American women on a bus.
I’m gonna keep smiling though, and hope they don’t see my devil in it.

Lighten up Poole!!!

Damn!

That last blog was a massive downer! Let’s liven things up with a blast from the recent past! Here is the transcript of the guy who had the bottom bunk of which I was the top the third night I was in Chicago. The gentleman, peaceful and polite when awake, was a sleeptalker, sleep singer , sleep moaner and sleep groaner. His sleep diction was perfect, in fact he spoke clearer when asleep! The following is an accurate script form several hours one late February night in a Hostel in Chicago. When reading his lines unless directed, always read them with a bright loud tone.


One last note: though impossible to sleep through, it was all still pretty damn funny, especially as I had come back late into the room, but had figured out a way to change in the closet and thereby not wake up my companions! And with the adroitness of a Boy Scout I changed to my night-togs, lept soundlessly into the top bunk and laid back dreaming of Lady Russian academics
with mysterious smiles. Two second later:

BOTTOM: Well Mr.Martin? Were those curbs big enough?

TOP(Me):Oh! Dude, sorry I thought I was being quiet. . .

BOTTOM:Certainly we’ll find the coat rack. Keep those curbs drifting Mr. Martin!

TOP: (eyes suddenly wide).. . Uh. . .

(silence falls for twenty seconds)

BOTTOM: ( there are notes, but the actual song is indiscernible) mmmmmmmmmnnuh. Mmmmmmmmmnuh nuh nuh nuh nuh mmmmmMMMMMMMMMMMMm YEAH! Num num num num YEAH ahahahahahaha ahah ha!

TOP: (eyes extremely wide, all sleepiness is gone, I am wide awake)

(Silence for 45 seconds. I am lulled into thinking it’s over)

BOTTOM: Oooh yes we can! Yep! Yes! Find it the way you left it! Johnson, you and Fairly get the rutabaga. Get it! Yes I said get it! If you don’t then it go wrong. Very wrong. Mattresses?
Yep!

BOTTOM: (violently tosses in bed, kicking at the mattress) If you don’t take care of it someone else will! I know where the frying pan is, Margaret! Ha! Yeah?
What? Sure? Where? Yes. Yes. Yes. NO! If you think best.

(SIlencefalls for about three minutes, again lulled into a false sense of peace)

BOTTOM: (softly at first) nnnnnn . . . . . .hhhnnnn. . . . .hnnnnnn. . . . . .hnnnnn . . .
.(volume picks up) NNNNNNN HUHN huuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnnnh MAAAAAHHHH!
MAAAH! (hard kick on bunk) mah mah!!

TOP: You gotta be shittin’ me.

BOTTOM:Yeah?! Yeah! Yeah! I’m gonna get some. A lot? You know it! Let’s all get some
of that sweet honey bear! Heh, heh. Heheheheheheh. MMMMMmmmmn nnnnnnlal lala. lalalloo laaaoooooo

(Silence falls, I am not fooled.)

BOTTOM: Hitler HitlerHitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler HitlerHitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler
Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler!

TOP: (eyes could not be more wide)

BOTTOM:WHoooooooooo. Tummy mummm uumm hum hum mmmananna.




This all continued for the entire night.


He’s a nice guy. He just says Hitler a lot when he sleeps.

The Big City Day

There’s been a bunch of stuff going on. In fact about three different blog-worthy days have happened, and they all have been memes that could be entitled, “My First Big City Day.” The first two days are cute and snappy tales of Chicago trains, streets and people.

The last one is sad as shit for me.

And it’s the one that wins the prize, the heavy award of being my first Big City Day.
The first couple days get all tangled up between living the good life here in Chicago and struggling not to live the bad life I did back in San Antonio. I’m not sure how much confession this requires. Telling people about my pain seems trite, pretentious and boring. If it can’t top Auschwitz then it’s usually best to shut the hell up and just cope. But the ‘plot’ of all this Bloggery must be served. And so-

In San Antonio I was a theater person, who opened a theater and ran it badly. I also got divorced. Details of which are not within my responsibility to reveal. Ended up in 2009 with nothing, and no one to blame but myself. Got into a relationship I shouldn’t have, which I’m sure the young lady involved would cheerfully agree. Details of that, I am responsible to reveal, just not yet. I threw away respect and opportunity, and the Universe doesn’t like that. Karma’s a bitch, man.

I’ve been paying the toll to the Karma Turnpike for a while. 2011 was for me the Year of the Suck, no matter what the Chinese say. Events steamrolled which I self-
destructively assisted until the bottom of the barrel left it’s splinters in my
feet and back. A friend pulled me out and got me here. Barely. I had a lot of misplaced anger about past friends and situations. It’s hard to accept that you just blew it; that when all rationalizations and context are swept aside, you just dropped the ball.


But I didn’t want to be that guy anymore. And I’m a little clueless as to how fix my head. In the last two years I have questioned and re-questioned every aspect of my personality, to ensure they were true feelings and not delusions of my pain
designed to keep me in Samsara, the wheel of suffering. In Chicago terms Samsara is a frigging Hamster wheel of Satan. Being a student of History, the Buddha and my own foolish crap, I can confirm that the strongest enemy every man is himself. It’s clearly proven that all personal greatness has come from conquering one’s own ‘badness’ r ‘wrongness’, for lack of a handier mundane term. It’s all easy after you conquer that. The Universe cannot do anything wrong, only people can.


My Omni-questioning continues, but the need to be in Chicago was one of my truthful
answers and confirmed by a visit and close inspection of the Theater scene.


So once here, I want to get it right. Live truthfully and well. A real life. A city life. And here are the first two candidates for my city day.


My list for the first day included the bank, a Zen meditation meeting, a photo shoot, and then an Improv show To do it all, I would have to make full use of the CTA, including the dreaded bus.


Now, y’all have very nice buses and drivers. But I will take two trains to avoid one bus ride. I don’t care. I dig them trains! There’s something about the light on busses that makes them feel like Limbo on wheels. The Hellish Limbo, not the Belafonte.


The bank I tried to find down Howard street wasn’t there. I looked once , twice and three times. I checked my little map book. Nope. I was where it should be. But I had to be wrong somehow. As much I would like to believe that the entire city of Chicago is conspiring to keep my bank from me, it’s probably not true. But in the
looming necessity of my next appointment I gave up the ghost. Walking back to the bus stop, I was a Rand McNally-Napoleon-retreating-from-Moscow.


Then I noticed that the address numbers across the street were a
different series of numbers than the ones on my side; 700 over there 2395 over
here. I looked once, I looked twice and I looked again and indeed
there were different. What the hell? A cabbie filled me in later. One
side of the street is Evanston and the other is Chicago. And the two towns just can’t agree on which numbers to use. It’s so weird it’s forgivable. I rushed to the Zen meeting, jockeying two trains and a bus, and getting close to late. Got there, figured out the buzzer and embarrassed myself in front of some Yoga people by being two hours early.


I retreated again.


Everything nearby seemed to be industrial warehouse type stuff. So I girded my loins and prepared to walk about and gaze in wonder like an urban Sacajawea. But two blocks down was a tiny little shack of a place that said it served roasted chicken. Inside it was comfy, warm, glowing with the smells of good cookin’ and filled with people and the walls were covered with pictures of chickens! Of course I sat
down. I had the pulled pork hash made with sweet and regular potatoes and it kicked ass. Fat and happy, I strolled two more blocks and found a coffee shop that, miracle of miracles, actually understood coffee and were cool about sharing that knowledge. Expertise and comapssion are rarelt twinned.


Full of flavor and caffeine I went back to the dojo and had a meditation
session that could not be beat. It ran a little long, and I was pressed for one last leg of my journey which was a show at The Second City. My friend at
the show sent me a text with advice for the bus, and I hopped one and got close
to the club, but then had to run a few blocks. I will no longer forget that City Blocks on a map in Chicago are HUGE by the foot step. I was late! But I made it!


I thought that was my “first real day in the city” story.


The next day I walked the campus of the University of Chicago. It’s beauty was stunning and familiar. My Dad told me he liked to walk around there, in his jacket with patches on the elbows which he still has, pipe in the pocket, ready to smolder. The walk was odd, in that when I play with Lego’s I build buildings and structures just like these! Yeah, I play with Legos. Kiss my butt.
They are the best toys ever. Then I found used bookstores nearby that have history sections that you would not believe! Oh wait, you live here. So you would believe it! Then I get my first Chicago style pizza from this place who apparently hire people with Don’t Give A Shit Syndrome. Usually I applaud the hiring of the handicapped,but they should wear signs to warn us.


Big buildings, old books and bad service with good food seemed like
another “First real day in the city” story, but more personal and
intimate. Other stuff happened, but after a dawn and a midnight there came along the real story of Chicago, at least my story of it in this cold, cold night that everyone else calls warm.


Chi University had a special lecture by one of my favorite writers, Joe Sacco. He’s a graphic novelist and a personal hero to me for the genre-crossing nature of his work. I went, and there I sat at a table with a man I never thought I would
meet, much less be able to ask him questions. It was a total rush! And it
filled me with ambition and confidence, which I was going to need for the open
mic Improv night I was going to. I used to do comedy Improv on a regular basis, but I had not been on a stage in two years. Before the divorce I rarely went
a day without a rehearsal, if not a show.


I had a lot of my ego stored in my Improv, and had let it all go. But I want it back, and it was time re- pop my performance cherry. The place was
dark, and the beer was cheap. The improv shows that preceded the open mic was good,
but nothing I couldn’t match. I was getting puffed up and arrogant, ready to show this town no mercy! When the show finally started, I jumped on stage and was the first guy to get a suggestion.


And then, I got my ass handed to me. I was Eminem before the end of his movie.


I got a couple laughs in eventually, but it was a far cry from I had been used to. Kinda like the Casey At Bat of comedy, except they take your testicles from you when you strike out. I was shit-hearted. I slunk out, feeling that same cold shoulder from audience and other performers that I used to give those who sucked. I bundled up, and hoped the trains were still running. Once on board, we were was entertained
by a crazy homeless guy.


“The stars are fallin’!” he screamed. “ Falling out of the sky like rain!” He had good volume and put a lot of energy into it. Then another homeless guy, a younger one started the work the car. Two seats up and guy turned around with a
preview for us. “I’ve seen this guy before, he always says exactly the same thing.” The guy said, delighted to deliver this rationalization to us so we would feel okay to not give him any money. I won’t bust the guy’s chops by telling you his Shill, but it was very practiced and deft at the pulling of the heartstrings.


Both these guys were performing, and there was more reality and meaning to their performance than any Improv my cocky ass delivered that night. For extra salt in the gaping bullet hole where my ego used to be, a girl from the south started chatting with a guy from the south. At first the discussion included
me, as a former Texan, but soon the other two branched off. They got along
great! Chatting about careers and other wonderful wealth provided things, none
of which I had. I listened and shrunk into invisibility. Then the train got
delayed. Trapping me in this train car. Trapping me inside with this proof
of my inadequacy as a man and as an artist. We all just sat there, the CTA forcing me to silently stew in my juices of failure. Finally, we got moving. It was after midnight when I got off at the 47th street station on the Green Line. I walked a mile down 47th towards home, enjoying my misery in such a fitting setting, wondering if I would be mugged or killed or something, half expecting it as an appropriate ending to the night. But fate did not perform that coup de grace on me. She let me get back, alone and finally at home, sitting in my furniture-less room. A mugging would have been kinder.

I’m gonna go back. I have to. And I will be disliked the moment they see me. And I will have to win them over. Unfortunately, I can only do that by being myself, and I have no idea what that means. The guy who leads my Zen group posted this on
Facebook the next day:

“Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in.”

don Miguel Ruiz

It’s a good Zen precept, but it's also against everything that makes Improv, Improv.
So between these two ideas, Zen and Improv, I will wander, my hands shoved deep in my coat, hat pulled down over my ears. It’s all me, man. It’s all me. Chicago knows that. It’s the lesson of her winter, of her industry and even of the huge fire that once laid her low.

It’s never the city, it’s the man.

The Green Line

My roommate would be surprised that it does not bother me to be the only white face on the bus. He is a tall black man, a good Christian and a business minded entrepreneur. I need to tell you he is black, because I am white, and I am living in a black Chicago neighborhood.

Is that racist?

It’s the Northern part of Hyde Park, which makes me a Sox fan and a Green Line rider. It has been interesting telling white Chicagoans I ride the green line and watching the eyebrows rise and face sprout the “Oh so do you know. . .”. Yeah, I know. I figured it out. As the Green Line train thundered south, the people on board slowly, stop by stop, grew more and more black. It became clear I was going to a. . . not a ghetto. . .not a hood. . .a black neighborhood. Was I afraid? Yes and no. I am from San Antonio Texas, whose population is heavily Latino. Often, on the bus, in a store, on the street I have been the only white guy. So I ain’t got that automatic drop-kick testicle shrinking fear from being around a lot of Melanin. But, This is a new city for me, and I might be going into a neighborhood . . .where. . . strangers aren’t welcome.

Is that racist?

I walked the whole way from the train stop to the address given. It’s a place of brownstones; lovely three to four story houses like I’ve seen in my dreams. There are some empty fields, some abandoned buildings and a lot of rebuilt and refurbished brownstones gleaming with the freshness of the recent stone work. And the farther I walked, the more frequent the shiny homes became. When I got to the address , it was the best looking apartment I had seen so far and close to several little chop suey shops and a grocery store. I knocked at the appointed hour, and a smiling man answered the door, with whom I felt comfortable with instantly. I wondered how he felt about me being white or if he had guessed. We had met obliquely on Craig’s list, so it could be either way.

I’m not going to ask, of course.

That would be racist.

We got along really well, and seemed to be at similar stages in our lives. Once confirmed we were both heterosexuals, the deal was pretty much set. The place is great, and when Mark showed me the view from the roof and I saw the skyline shrouded in winter’s hands, I would have paid him any amount to live there.

I moved in, and settled in the empty white room, and immediately had to go and get a head shot done. And this began the daily test of the Green Line. There’s a lot of black people at the Green Line. It has been casually hinted that there’s a few less at the Red line. The bus I take to get to the train goes to both, but the Green comes first. It’s a little more convenient, but a lot more black. I think about hanging on to the Red Line. Just about every time.

But. . .racist?

Something happened last night to make it all clear. I went to a Second City Show with a dear friend. A dear friend is a southern term which means it’s a member of another sex whom I have not had sex with nor do I intend to. The show was superb, and I will discuss that in the future, but I noticed and checked frequently that there was only one non-white face in the entire 150 person crowd. I had never seen that before. Ever. Back in San Antonio, ever crowd has at least
a few latino’s. I asked my friend and she confirmed that Comedy Improv seems to be a white thing.

I started to feel bad about it. I didn’t want the art of my love to be segregated. It bothered me the whole night and next day. I fought it, I didn’t want to accept that such a beautiful thing couldn’t appeal to black people. Then it hit me. Black music has a long tradition of improv in hip-hop and rap music. White folks have seen Eminem do it in Eight Mile. That’s big time Improv! Oh! I felt better immediately. It wasn’t that Comedic Improv was inherintly anti-black, it was that dramatic Improv was already a highly cultivated art form within the hip-hop music scene. They already had it covered!

So it’s not racist.

But everyday I’m gonna take the Green line test.

A Hostel is a Hostel is a hostel. . . .

To begin with, I found a place to live with a really cool dude in a fabulous apartment in a black neighborhood. I am beginning to become a WB sitcom.

But let us start with Hostel-ity.

There are two basic kind of hostels. The Serious Traveler and the Serious Partier.

That is also a lie, for there are never just ‘two basic’ anythings.

Not even gender.

But, it comes close sometimes.

The first Chicago hostel I patronized was a Serious Traveler. No drinking, guests are kicked out in the middle of the day, and the commons rooms are more like study halls. My current hostel is of the other type. Booze is allowed and drinking tours of the neighborhood bars are conducted regularly. The crowd at the Party Hostels are generally younger. Or is that too obvious?

Whatever kind of hostel it is there are some things they all have in common. And the international clientele sets the tone for every decision. Despite this, you must resist the urge to compare them to the United Nations or even The European Union. Practicality reigns at the hostel, and the gilded and carpeted halls where Earth’s diplomats eat gold and screw interns are on the other side of the mind entirely.

Picture it, bathrooms, showers, beds, toilets and kitchens must be accessible to Vietnamese, Austrians, Venezuelans, Japanese, Russians, Greenlanders and even Texans. And when you walk into a hostel at dinner high tide there is a euphony of dinner smells pouring forth from dozens of cooks from all other the planet. Especially in Chicago, as these guys can get a hold of their native cuisine with one train ride. And no, this ain’t just Ramen from around the world. A group of students from Viet Nam had come prepared, and every evening
we witnessed family style dinner with a line of bowls filled with beautiful food.

An odd thing about the smell. I have always been repulsed the odor if the combined KFC Taco Bell places. And once, when I went into a place that served both Mexican and Chinese food, I almost threw up from the violent riot of scents in my nose. These hostels doesn’t have that. Somehow the smells all work, they get along in a way that multiple foreign objects rarely do. Which takes us back the UN and all that is ‘other’ to it.

People here HAVE to get along. There are too busy, too poor and too alone to do otherwise. There are exceptions, but exceptions are exceptional ( Yes, the redundancy is important
here) and they are quickly ostracized or ignored. I don’t think I need to speak on this subject anymore to Chicago people. Here, elegant plumes of common sense in the shape of buildings, roads, trains and people fill the eye and mind.

So what is the difference between the UN and the hostel? Why are these two places so different? The UN exists to celebrate and defend the differences between people, the hostel forces you to find the commonality.

The last night I was in the hostel, I was up until 4am talking with a Chinese national, a Taiwanese and VietNamese and the occasional Brazilian about nothing BUT important topics. Can you imagine that? No small talk whatsoever, for even the most casual observances where lessons of English for them, and discoveries of knowledge for me. It was the kind of talk that makes you stronger, full of hope and less tolerant of the mean side of yourself.

Now it has to be said, communal living can suck due to sleep talkers, excessive drinkers and the strange smells that can come from the orifices of some folk of which good taste prevents description. However, I always feel like a better man every time I leave a hostel. And today, in a world of retail jobs and Republican debates, that’s a feeling more precious that Lady Gaga’s next hairdo.

NEXT WEEK:
ADVENTURE ON THE GREEN LINE! OR I HAVE MY FIRST REAL CITY DAY.

Chicago Prodigal

CHICAGO PRODIGAL

I am returned to Chicago, this City. A place I don’t want to gush about, like the better men and writers before me. I don’t want to sequalize either, sucking on the necks and hearts of the stories and legends of my culture. It is a shallow brew, a thin mixture to sip. We should be creating culture. Not squeezing its remains into a glass held by the shaking hand of man whose only identity is that tremor.


We are our own disease. We have been infested by the bacteria that once only polluted our veins. It is now all we are, how we refer and separate ourselves. It’s all about the support group. The cache of suffering. The celebrity of pain.


This is the land I tread, trod and jog on.

But this is not the city of Chicago.

I don’t know much about her yet. Hell, I just now saw here as a “ her”.

And you may disagree.



I came back to Chicago on Jan 31st. I left when I was a baby, so you can give me some credit for leaving against my will. I found it strange to discover that within a couple years of my birth, all of my family had moved from Chicago. And after about twenty years it is safe to say that any friends or acquaintences would be faded, dead or too different to deal with. As I sit here, I have not a single friend or family in the City of my birth. The hospital I was born in moved. I even looked up my parent’s old address, 922 West Montana. It no longer exists. There’s a newish looking building there now, and it bares the addresses of 920 and 924. 922 is gone.


So, as it is just lying around, I ‘ll go ahead and use it for a title.
Chicago had always been like OZ, I told myself when I was a kid. But I tended to make up most of the stuff I claimed to believe about myself. And no, that is not
healthy. It led to an Identity Crisis, a lot of wasted time and I wound hurting a lot of people who didn’t deserve it and almost destroyed myself.
It is accurate to say that i scaped myself down to one friend away from the grave or to the corner with a cup in my hand.


And look, I’m not going to lie here. I’ll tell the truth as it comes and takes the hits when y’all prove me wrong. All this stuff happened, and I really think this way. I’ll tell you what I think about this City, as I figure it out and try to resurrect my own life with it’s noble pulse.

My lie to myself about Chicago as Oz blistered up in my head when I walked past
the Oz Park tonight. And entire park dedicated to a movie. Not a General ,a
president or a benevolent rich bastard from the past, but a piece of entertainment. I stared at the statues of Dorothy and The Tinman, they were gravely captured, stentorian, jealous of those Generals they weren’t. But the point was valid. What if the park was dedicated to A Midsummer’s Night Dream by Shakespeare? I wouldn’t even have a glimmer of a snotty thought about it. I would be all gushy and how wonderful and how appropriate. But which work has
pleased people more? Has made more happiness?

Then in the middle of the playground I saw some teen boys filming themselves in
various death defying leaps. Jumping, bouncing and throwing themselves about and then rushing around the tiny little screen to see what it looked like. . . .for real.
Right next to them there was a basketball game going on in the dim light. Being from a small town,a big city basketball game has quite the cinematic flavor to it, it’s an icon, a sure sign of CITY. They were playing hard, swearing and boasting like I’ve read about in other guy’s stories about cities. That’s been a lot of my feelings lately. I am constantly turning the corner and seeing something beautiful, like in the movies, like on TV, but different as I am
choosing to be here, to live here. I seek to claim this city as mine, as it was when I came screaming into this world.

I won’t take the right to claim this place as my Hometown for granted. I am a writer, playwright and Improvisor, hence all these weird squiggles you are reading, and I want to show y’all. . .youse guys. . .what I can do. I feel childish, despite my 41 years, and enthusiastic beyond what my salt and pepper hair tells me to feel. And despite the lie my life was, I do like Mike Royko, red hots, having four seasons in a year. Not sure about the Cubs or White Sox issue yet, but the Blackhawks are my new team.


Can’t wait to meet you.

NEXT WEEK: ADVENTURES IN A CHICAGO HOSTEL!