One day, my son Alex told me that his friends thought I was, “Cool!”
Oh, yes, the “Cool” factor! I’m often surprised when someone, anyone really, considers me cool. I don’t try to be cool. I guess I just am.
So I asked my son why they thought I was cool. His friends said I was cool because I watched professional wrestling with my sons. This may sound strange, but it’s actually my way of bonding with my sons.
What else made me cool? I loved riding on roller coasters with my sons! Well, it’s the only amusement park ride that doesn’t make me nauseous so I took them to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, where they have the most roller coasters of any amusement park in the world.
Likewise, I liked the fact that I was having fun and being cool simultaneously. Oh, yes, I also took them to Skatopia, a skateboard paradise that appears in a Tony Hawk video game. Okay, I had fun going there, too. And I have the pictures to prove it!
I was cool for buying my sons an X-Box 360 before anyone else had one. However, I lost some “Cool” points because I don’t play any video games with my sons. That’s because being cool is so demanding. I’m sorry, but I can’t be cool 24/7/366! (I’m so cool, so often, that I pack in 366 days of cool into every year, not just leap years!)
The Operation Family Secrets trial is underway, The Sopranos season ended with a lot of publicity, and Hillary Clinton successfully parodied that final Sopranos episode. Well, because of all this attention drawn to Italians lately, I recall one particular Italian man I met a long time ago in an Italian restaurant in Little Italy. I have met Italians who are American, Italian immigrants, and Italians who try to project the mob lifestyle, even though I know that some are just wannabes. We have them all in Chicago. This man I met, looked like the stereotypical Italian mobster gathered with some “associates,” but they just could have been his family. He was a middle-aged man dressed in a dark blue suit, bright red tie, and he had a gold pinky finger with an enormous diamond. Balding head with salt and pepper hair. He looked like a real mobster and was obviously the power holder at the table. One of the stories he told began, “This goomba called me the other day …” When he finished it, everyone at the table laughed. I didn’t exactly hear the whole story, so I couldn’t tell you if his story was actually funny or they merely laughed at the boss’s joke.
I was sitting at the next table with my running friends after our track workout. Every Wednesday evening, we went to the track, ran some speed work, and then went out afterwards to eat pasta, and drink a few beers. About ten of us sat there drinking and being loud. We always felt especially proud when someone would ask the management to tell us to be quiet. But not on this night!
At first, we didn’t really notice the people at the neighboring table. We told jokes and funny stories as we usually did. Our two tables got into a game of one-upmanship. I don’t like to brag, but I was usually the loudest and funniest one at the table. Finally, the Don at the next table points to me and says, “Hey, kid! You think you’re funny, don’t you?” “Well, you heard how I made everyone laugh, didn’t you?”, I said, mimicking him fearlessly, but it was just false bravado. Well, suddenly our two tables got very quiet. “How funny are you?” “Really funny!” “Come here. I want you to make me laugh!” And he smiled a really big smile, so big I could see that no food stuck was between his teeth.
As I walked over to him, I recalled a story that Bob Hope once told: “I worked in some mob-owned nightclubs. They didn’t pay you. But if you were good, they let you live!”
Well, I seemed to have gotten myself in a very similar predicament. He tells me, “Tell me your best joke. And you better make me laugh.” Of course, I didn’t tell him my best joke, but I did tell him one that always got a laugh and he laughed, along with everyone else at the table. “Tell me another one.” This time he laughed a little more. I can’t even remember what jokes I told him. I told him a few more jokes and only then did I hit him with my best joke. You have to build up to it, right?
Well, he really laughed and laughed. And he slapped me on the back. It really stung! So, he says, “You’re really funny, kid. You should be a comedian!” “I am,” I said. “Didn’t I just prove it?” He smiled at me and then said, “Okay, go sit down.” When I sat down, both our tables continued telling jokes and laughing and drinking beers. His table left way before ours. I figured he probably had to get up early to go to the office in the morning.
When we asked the waitress for our check, she told us that the gentleman who sat next to us had already paid it. “You are so funny!” I told her. But we actually ate and drank for free that night. How funny!
I had my usual morning cup of coffee and then went out for my morning run. I really work at being healthy. I admit that I still have some vices, but I try to counterbalance my bad habits with good ones.
It was a bright sunny morning in the 70s with no humidity. I felt great running in Beverly now that the cicadas have disappeared for another 17 years. I was euphoric. Some runs just feel great. Like today’s. I wondered why I was even running today in the first place. After considerable thought, I remembered the one defining moment that changed my attitude toward exercise.
For visitation, my father would often take us to the beach. We would take swimwear, bikes, and food, and spend the entire day there. I really enjoyed those trips to the beach. One day, I was about fifteen at the time, we saw an elderly man running on the bike path—not jogging, RUNNING! He was slender, but muscular; he had a full head of hair, but it was completely gray. I’m not sure how old he was, but back then, in Chicago, men that age did not RUN! I’m sure what he did next was exclusively for our amazement: he stopped near a steel-mesh wastebasket, he grabbed the rim of the wastebasket, did a handstand, and began doing handstand pushups! My brothers and I were utterly amazed. I told myself that I would someday be like this man.
Well, I have been running all these years to stay healthy. I’ve genuinely enjoyed running because the exercise keeps me healthy physically and mentally. However, I was never able to do even one handstand pushup!
Chicagoland is about to lose another cultural icon. I’m talking about the eight-car pileup in Berwyn at Cermak and Harlem, officially titled, “Spindle,” but also known as “Car-kabob.” This forty-foot spindle pierces eight cars to make its artistic statement, regardless of how kitsch many consider this sculpture. A little red Beetle Bug crowns this masterpiece like a cherry on a sundae. Immediately below the Beetle is my favorite car, but it’s only my favorite because it bears the license plate “Dave.”
I always loved driving by “Spindle” because it was so unique to Chicagoland. It is “art” and yet it isn’t. I was so happy to recognize it when I saw the movie Wayne’s World for the first time; the cigar Indian almost moves me as much, though. I once watched Wayne’s World just to see the “Spindle” again.
Hopefully, we can all gather to save the “Spindle.” Walgreens, another Chicagoland icon, plans to build a store on the site, so the “Spindle” will have to be relocated and refurbished or be lost forever. Surely, there must be plenty of “Spindle” lovers who will help save it. We must let the Berwyn municipal officials know! Save the “Spindle”!
I enjoy reading so much that I’m glad someone invented bumper stickers! Now I can also read while I drive. The other day, I saw this bumper sticker as I drove: “Bumper to Bumper / Butt to Butt / Get Off My Ass / You Crazy Nut.” Well, that was a very lame bumper sticker as far as bumper stickers go. I thought back to the glory days, the actual Renaissance of bumper stickers. I remember reading some excellent bumper stickers long ago, in the Golden Age of public expression.
Yes, like many American cultural icons, bumper stickers were born about the same time as t-shirts with messages, way back in the 1960s when everyone seemed to have something important to say. Once, long ago, t-shirts were underwear, something that men wore under their dress shirts with a collar. And there were no bumper stickers then; bumpers were still bare and naked. Their sole purpose was to protect the car and its occupants in case of a collision. In the 1950s, juvenile delinquents, JDs, began wearing white t-shirts as outerwear and car bumpers got bigger and brighter chrome, but alas, neither took advantage of all the possible attention that was showered upon them in the 1960s. Then, someone viewed the white t-shirt as a blank canvas intended for artistic expression. And, Voila! The message t-shirt was born, and riding on its shirttails, was the bumper sticker.
Some of the messages were exclusive to their medium, but most messages expressed themselves equally as well on a t-shirt or a bumper sticker: “If I told you that you had a beautiful body / would you hold it against me?” However, I prefer bumper stickers. T-shirts have long ago reached their saturation point and we’re now seeing the reemergence of plain white T-shirts. I prefer the bumper stickers because I love to read, and they allow me to read while I drive. I wax nostalgic as I recall some of my favorite bumper stickers! I can still see them, like my family and friends gathered round the holiday dinner table! Let me recall a few for you.
I remember there were political messages: “No Nukes,” “Save the Whales.” And there was a religious message: “Jesus Saves.” And then some genius, in a stroke of absolute brilliance, penned this magnificent treasure: “Nuke the Whales for Jesus”! I was amazed that this author didn’t win the Nobel Prize for literature.
When the Born-Again Christians bragged, “I Found It,” National Lampoon offered the rebuttal: “I Lost It!” For a while many station wagons and minivans boasted, “My child is an honor student at …” Suddenly, there were some bumper stickers that read, “Your Kid’s an Honor Student / But You’re a Moron” and “My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student.” To “If You Can Read This / You’re Too Close,” someone replied, “If You Can Read This / Thank a Teacher.” And for the aggressive tailgater, “Sorry for driving too close in front of you.”
Then there those bumper stickers that expressed a variety of feelings: “Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beer Holder.” “Insanity Is Hereditary / You Get It From Your Kids.” “Ex-Husband In Trunk.” “Don’t Hit Me / My Lawyer’s In Jail.” “How’s My Driving? / 1-800- EAT SHIT.” “Gas, Grass, Or Ass / No One Rides For Free.” “If This Van’s A Rocking / Don’t Come A Knocking.” I saw an old clunker sporting this bumper sticker: “My Other Car Is A Rolls Royce.” Then I once saw a Roll Royce with this one: “My Other Car Is A Lear Jet.”
As much as I love reading bumper stickers, I have only ever had one bumper sticker on all my cars: “USMC.”
Chicago USA 