When I first moved to Bridgeport in 1986, I never thought of Bridgeport as a friendly neighborhood. In fact, as soon as I moved in, the Chicago White Sox announced that they were moving out.
Bridgeport is the home to five Chicago mayors. When I moved there, I found out why. When I went to change my address on my voter’s registration card, I found out I had been voting since my date of birth. I had been living on an empty lot.
In Bridgeport, if you didn’t vote a certain way, they did things to you. I didn’t vote the straight Democratic ticket, so they put a parking meter in front of my house. So, I had three hundred tickets. But I didn’t pay them. They put a Denver Boot on my car. It increased the value of my car. There was a bar around the corner that had an icon of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley. Richard Dah First. Every mayoral election, the icon sheds tears.
Just when I was seriously considering going back to standup comedy, I was suddenly reminded of why I quit standup comedy in the first place. I remember going to a different comedy club every night and driving all over Chicagoland. I performed at the following clubs at one time or another: Comedy Womb, The Clout Club, Sally’s Stage, Who’s On First, Comedy Cottage (Rosemont and Merrillville, Indiana), Chuckles, and a few other places whose names I no longer remember. I enjoyed performing when everything went well, but dreaded those nights when I bombed. I also enjoyed the socializing with the other comedians afterwards. However, as fun and attractive as the Bohemian lifestyle was to me when I was younger, I knew I was living an unhealthy life. I had to undergo a lot of stress for just modest success. Well, eventually I found a safer, healthier job as a Chicago police officer and left the standup comedy scene behind. Of course, I occasionally feel the urge to return to the stage and perform.
So the other day, I read about a young Chicago comedian who died: Patrick Healy Brice, 29, suddenly. He was about to have his own Internet radio program. But I can still recall him as a teenager raking leaves in Mayor Daley’s yard when he still lived in Bridgeport. Since I have lived most of my life in Chicago, I often find that I am somehow connected with a lot of other people in Chicago. Just by coincidence, I used to work with Pat’s father Bernie who was a police officer and bodyguard to the mayor. When Bernie read a Chicago Sun-Times profile of me, he started talking to me about my being a comedian. Somehow he was interested in this little tidbit of information about me.
Years later, Bernie told me proudly when his son started performing standup comedy. He told me all the clubs where his son was performing. When he went to see his son perform for the first time, his son told him, “Dad, I make a lot of jokes about my dad. But they’re not about you.” When Bernie retired from the police department, his son performed at his retirement party and he was very funny. He just kept working at comedy and kept getting better all the time. It’s a sad shame, but Good night, Pat Brice.
I have seen a lot of graffiti in public bathrooms over the years. Normally, I try to avoid public bathrooms altogether, but sometimes, nature calls at the most inopportune moments. I’ve used a lot of public restrooms over the years. Let’s just say that I’m a regular guy. Since I’m a voracious reader, I even read the graffiti while I’m sitting there. I remember a few gems more so than others.
I still remember, “Kilroy was here!” along with the drawing of Kilroy peering over the wall. I haven’t seen Kilroy in bathrooms in years and I really miss him. I always loved, “After every job, there’s always a little paperwork.” Another memorable piece of graffiti was the poem, “Here I sit / Lonely hearted / Tried to shit / But only farted!” Poetry doesn’t come any better than that! I still see this poem on bathroom walls from time to time.
However, as a purist of bathroom graffiti, I hate when someone tries to improve on this classic poem. Anyone remember this poem scrawled over the urinal? “No matter how much you shake and dance / The last few drops are for your pants.” Where are the bathroom poets of yesteryear now?
Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, Mexico
I read a lot of graffiti in the Lincoln Hall bathroom at University of Illinois at Chicago. Once, above the toilet paper, I read, “Get your UIC diploma here.” When Wayne Gretsky was really popular, beneath “Jesus Saves” someone wrote, “But Gretsky gets the rebound and scores!” Years later, in the same bathroom, I read, “The graffiti isn’t as good as it was 1978. It turned out my friend Vito had written that when he returned to college–again.
Once I had to go really, really bad. So, I was sitting down in a public restroom reading the graffiti on the wall. I heard someone enter the stall next to me. I read, “Tap foot for blowjob.” Only then did I realize that I was tapping my foot! I stopped tapping my foot immediately and hurried out of there. Phew! That was close!
When I was a police officer, I witnessed a wonderful exchange among a series of bathroom graffiti artists. Someone wrote “Bob.” Then, underneath, someone else wrote “Bill.” Then, someone else put a plus sign between Bob and Bill: “Bob + Bill,” implying that they were a romantic item. But another bathroom poet who didn’t understand the nuances of subtlety added the obvious: “Bob + Bill are lovers.” The next addition, however, was a stroke of genius! I assume either Bob or Bill penned the following masterpiece of a conclusion so that the finished text read: “Bob + Bill are lovers of all God’s creatures great and small.”
This morning, as I drove my son to work, I looked up at the clouds in the sky. They were unbelievably beautiful and comforting. Then, I realized that they looked exactly like the clouds from the opening credits to The Simpsons! Suddenly, the sky and the clouds looked so artificial. Well, I couldn’t return to my initial moment of awe and wonderment.
Sometimes I wonder if reality is real enough. Robin Williams had a comedy album titled, “Reality: What a concept!” I think he was onto something. I recalled a few other moments in my life when life just didn’t seem “real” enough.
I had a similar experience years ago in California. I was driving from 29 Palms to Los Angeles pondering the meaning of life, among other things. I was truly soul-searching. At the point where I began my descent from the Mojave Desert, I was at the same altitude as the clouds on the horizon. I could see the sun above the clouds and the sun’s rays as they flitered through the clouds underneath. The rays spread out diagonally below the clouds and onto the ground.
I’ve seen God appear this way in a few movies. Then, I realized as beautiful as this scene was, it was just too unrealistic! I doubted that I could possibly be seeing this scene unfolding before me. I can recall seeing it even now.
I’m not sure what this entire experience means. Perhaps it’s a phenomenon like déjà vu, but I just don’t know the name. Reality: what a concept!
I will never eat at a certain Mexican restaurant again. I refuse to even mention its name or location. I met my girlfriend there for lunch one beautiful Sunday afternoon. Well, we ate, and we had a couple of Margaritas. Before I knew it, the manager asked us to leave so someone else could sit there. I was so insulted by their manager who asked us to leave.
The real killer was that he was Mexican. Sometimes your own kind will treat you the worst. When we said we would order something else, he said it was too late. We insisted that he serve us. We have a right to sit in a public place like a restaurant, especially since we were paying patrons. We didn’t get up and he called the police on us. He wanted us arrested for criminal trespassing. The police showed up and my girlfriend said that she felt intimidated by them. I can honestly say the police officers did their job professionally. However, I understood that the manager wanted us arrested. I didn’t want to be arrested so we eventually left.
As I discussed this with my girlfriend later, I became more upset. How could they do this to us? I called the restaurant and asked to speak to the owner. The first time, I was told to call after 4 p.m. The next time, I was told the manager, Larry, was in a “meeting.” When I called back after the “meeting,” I was told that the manager would call me back, but I was allowed to voice my complaint to call taker.
Of course, Larry never called me back. So, I called Larry back two weeks later. He claimed he never received my message. I explained to him that I received bad service there because the manager called the police on us. Of course, he heard that my girlfriend (at first, he thought she was my wife) was making a scene and that’s why they asked us to leave. I had to correct him. The manager working that day told us we had to leave. Then my girlfriend became upset. I really didn’t blame her. I was upset, too, but I didn’t want to be arrested for something as silly as this. Who wouldn’t be upset when you plan to eat supper at a nice restaurant and then the manager calls the police threatening to arrest you for criminal trespass?
Chicago USA 