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December 30, 2006

The Weekend Desk Report

Editor's Note: The Papers will return on Tuesday.

The end of December is traditionally a time for reflection on the events of the past year. We'll have none of that here at the Weekend Desk, where our focus is always down our nose and straight ahead. As we prepare for the arrival of 2007, one thing is absolutely clear: Our job has already gotten a whole lot tougher.

Swift Swing
We were really looking forward to celebrating a rare victory for Justice, but it's kind of hard when he's being such a fucking dickhead about it. Dude, seriously. You should know by now, no one likes a sore winner.

Winning the Piece
President Bush this week proudly hailed the liberation of a vast section of the planet, despite concessions within his administration that current U.S. policies might not benefit the residents of the region. The president maintained this action is vital to national security and reiterated that if we stay the course, total victory could be achieved three times faster than expected.

Update from Oz
Take heart, CTA riders! Turns out the public transit system in Oz is just as inefficient as your home-town rail lines.

The People Have Spoken
President Bush secured what he called "an iron-clad mandate" to continue as the trusted leader of the United States. Simultaneously, he secured a more convincing mandate to continue as the biggest bumbling asshat of the United States as well.

We wish a safe and happy new year to all our loyal readers. We look forward to serving you all in 2007.

For the best year-end review ever, take a look back at the Weekend Desk Reports of 2006 and try to tell us they don't capture the state of world affairs better than any of those crappy retrospectives in the newspapers.

Posted by Natasha at 03:03 AM | Permalink

December 29, 2006

The [Friday] Papers

1. Rick Kaempfer salutes his favorite newsmakers of 2006, including future president Pierce Bush.

2. Oh, that silly pardon thing? That was just something between friends.

3. Prediction for 2007: Journalists will remain alarmingly naive.

4. "Ronald Reagan wouldn't have taken us over there, Jerry Ford wouldn't have taken us over there, I don't know which Republican president would have, there's only one, with the help of [sneer] Dick Cheney . . . this is a neoconservative war by people with a strange ideology . . . "

- Patrick Buchanan, who oughta know

5. BUCHANAN: [John Edwards] blew it on the war. The biggest vote of his life. Why should he be president?

[Former Reagan political director Frank] DONATELLI: Because the Democratic base hates the Iraq war so much. I think Mr. Edwards will say two things.

Number one, that he didn't have all the information. And so the administration withheld . . .

BUCHANAN: "I didn't know."

DONATELLI: "I didn't" - well, the administration withheld things.

BUCHANAN: It's not quite "I was brainwashed," but it's getting there.

6. "Astrological Predictions for 2007: Coming Monday." In the Sun-Times. No kidding. Good thing the traditional media isn't as lazy and reckless as all those bloggers turned loose on the Internet.

7. Sneed returns in 2007. In the Sun-Times. Good thing the traditional media isn't as lazy and reckless as all those bloggers turned loose on the Internet.

8. Gerald Ford's early work on the Internet, and other revelations from the Bob Woodward interview.

9. The great thing about Danny Bonaduce is how incredibly honest and transparent he is. I know it sounds strange, but this man embodies everything that is right and true about democracy. I wonder what kind of mayor he'd make.

10. "When the Star Tribune alerted the Twins that they had been picked as our Sportsperson of the Year, the trick was getting their key decision-makers - St. Peter, Ryan and Co. - together for a photo shoot.

"The first appointment had to be canceled because of a conflict. Gardenhire had bowling that day."

11. What a cute little baseball organization.

12. The pirahnas.

13. Teddy Morgan.

14. "[Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Oregon)] said he had previously refrained from publicly criticizing the war because he had been struck by the comment of a soldier from Oregon, who told him during a 2005 visit to Iraq that if he supported the troops, he also had to support their mission," The New York Times reports.

"But Mr. Smith's attitude began to change over the past year, particularly after he visited Iraq in May. In an interview, the senator recalled two occurrences in Baghdad during his visit, one in which a massive bomb killed about 70 people and a second in which some American troops were killed on patrol.

"And a book on World War I he had been reading, by John Keegan, the British military historian, was beginning to haunt him.

"Mr. Smith said that his use of the word 'criminal' in his speech to describe the war in Iraq came from his reading of that book, which he said explained to him the 'practice of British generals, sending a whole generation of British men running into machine guns, despite memos back to London saying, in effect, machine guns work.'

"Much like the British in World War I, he added, 'I have concluded that we are employing strategies that are needlessly getting kids killed.'

"After returning to Washington from Baghdad, Mr. Smith said he listened with growing dismay to optimistic briefings given to senators by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then secretary of defense, and other administration officials. Even in closed-door briefings, he said, 'the answers always seemed to be, It's tough but we have to stay the course.

"'And so I started thinking about the British generals,' he said.

Last summer, on a flight from Portland, Ore., to Washington, Mr. Smith said he read Fiasco, a history of the Iraq war by Thomas E. Ricks, 'and by the time I landed I was heartsick.'"

15. Someone could lose an eye.

The Beachwood Tip Line: Easily amused.

Posted by Lou at 08:44 AM | Permalink

The Ford Tapes

Bob Woodward has released tapes of a 2004 interview with Gerald Ford in which the former president revealed that the invasion of Iraq was "a big mistake." Ford gave Woodward the interview on the condition that his comments not become public until after his death. Here are less-publicized excerpts from the Ford interview.

- "I wanted to call it, 'Beat Inflation into a Whimpering, Bloody Pulp and Roast Its Still-Beating Heart Over a Pile of Burning Horse Dung,' but the 'experts' had a better idea."

- "Estes Kefauver is a cocksucker, and you can quote me on that once I'm dead."

- "So we were lounging around the White House pool one afternoon and he [Kennedy] asked us if we'd ever 'taken a trip.' I thought he was asking if we wanted to check out the yacht, you know [laughs]. But I'm glad I did it. Acid opened some important doors for me, awakened me to my creative self. [inaudible] Yeah, like the single-bullet thing, very psychedelic. Arlen was the real guru on that, dude walked around for a year with pupils the size of exit wounds."

- "My first thought [on reading the transcripts] was, 'I thought Henry was Episcopalian.'"

- "Oh, I thought he [Suharto] said East Germany."

- "So I finally say to Hoover, 'Eddie, I'm not playing college football anymore. Would you kindly take your hand off my ass?"

- "I ran into Sammy Hagar once at a golf outing. I told him "You owe me, dude. 'I Can't Drive 70' would have been about as popular as the second Knack album."

- "It was our first February in the White House. I remember patting the bed, winking at Betty, undressing, and saying 'C'mon, honey. It's a President's Day mattress sale, and everything you see here is half off."

- "I invented the Internet."

- "They came to me first. But I said, if you really want someone who can't get it up, you should give Bob Dole a call. True story."

- Tim Willette, Rick Kaempfer

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For more continuing Beachwood coverage of Jerry Ford:
- James Brown vs. Jerry Ford
- Reality vs. Media Madness

Posted by Lou at 07:47 AM | Permalink

December 28, 2006

What I Watched Last Night

I'm not going to say one word about that car wreck known as My Boys. Badly-done references to Chicago aside, it's just a stupid, boring fucking show - period - that I'm pretty sure even prison inmates don't watch except when they're being punished. If I'm going to fritter away minutes of my life I'll never get back on a Wednesday night, I'm going with something that resembles entertainment. Yeah. Something like Spike TV's "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge," otherwise known as MXC.

Quite frankly, this is one of the funniest damn shows around.

Watched alone, it's wildly amusing. Shared with others who find silly, juvenile shit amusing, it becomes wildly funny. Shared with a fatty, you might even wet yourself if you can manage to scrape up some mental focus.

Originally a 1980s Japanese game show called Takeshi's Castle, MXC is a campy storm-the-castle game where an army of contestants in crash helmets play a series of physically impossible games where everyone shares the same very real possibility of losing teeth and breaking their neck.

Some of last night's games included Irritable Bowl Syndrome (ride a giant bowl down a waterslide without falling out); Log Drop (walk across a series of rolling cylinders); Boulder Dash (avoid giant boulders being rolled onto you); Rotating Surfboard of Death (jump over obstacles while riding a rotating surfboard attached to a rickety, wobbly arm over a pond of water); and Wall Bangers (charge through a series of doors - some made of paper, the rest solid board).

The games winnow out the weak and the uncoordinated until six contestants are left to lead their teams to victory. The end of the show features ten "Painful Eliminations of the Day," which highlight the most painful contestant mishaps.

Clearly, the Japanese know a thing or two about entertainment. Which is why the Japanese get soap operas with bondage and we get "comedies" like My Boys. And we wonder why even the French think we're idiots.

Anyway, the true genius of MXC is not always the challenges. Rather, it's the clever (often cleverly outrageous) and intentionally bad overdubbing of crude, sexually-explicit double-entendre running commentary by two characters known as "Vic Romano" and "Kenny Blankenship," who correspond to two hosts in the original show. (Voices are provided by four members of the improv group The Groundlings, and they remind you exactly why this country's been considerably more tight-assed without Mystery Science Theater 3000).

If you can imagine daring two rookie drag queens to costume kabuki on a budget of five bucks and a backwoods resale shop, you've got Vic and Kenny.

Rounding out the main cast of characters are "Captain Tenneal" (a name parody of the 1970s musical duo Captain and Tennille), who provides contestants with pre-game pep talk, and "Guy LeDouche," a field reporter of questionable sexual preference whose main job seems to be hitting on the contestants.

Tenneal looks like the leader of a high school marching band gone very, very bad; LeDouche seems to have lost a previous job driving the African Safari ride at Enchanted Forest.

The contestants and games have been re-named after celebrities or have made-up names with some sort of scatological or sexual reference. So you end up with games like "Sinkers and Floaters," and "Eat Shitake." Before each stunt, the contestants shout out what appear to be statements of upcoming valor, which have been overdubbed into random, addled thoughts like, "I need a kidney!"

Three of the six back-to-back episodes I watched last night featured teams Jackass vs. Stand-Up Comics, Sexual Pioneers vs. Violent Films, and Superheroes vs. MySpace. It was all great fun, I laughed my ass off without chemical assistance or wetting myself, and one contestant damn near broke her neck.

Who won didn't matter. I won. Because I wasn't watching My Boys.

Reminisce about 2006 by visiting the What I Watched Last Night archive.

Posted by Lou at 04:28 PM | Permalink

Home for the Holidays: Postscript

I arrived home late last night. Home. My home. What a relief. I had a two-hour car ride to the airport in Baltimore yesterday, with my father at the wheel. I tried just listening to my headphones, but, ineveitably, he wanted to talk.

What did I really want to do with myself?

Write.

Who were my friends? What were their names? How did I know them?

I felt about fifteen years old. It's actually a harder question to dodge as an adult, and yet my friends are very much part of my world, and not his, and I don't like them colliding.

Did I really think I could ever work in a corporate environment?

Er, has this man ever met me before?

Jesus Christ, do we have to play last-minute twenty-questions? Isn't there an adage about the road to Hell?

The flight was stressful, thinking it all through. But I got home. To my city, to my place, to my bed, to my pets. To my life.

A life I value much more than I did just a short week ago.

Claudia Hunter is the Beachwood's pseudononymous holiday affairs correspondent. She just returned from her parents' home in Central Pennsylvania, from where she filed these reports:

* Home for the Holidays: The Preamble
* Home for the Holidays: Day 1
* Home for the Holidays: Day 2
* Home for the Holidays: Day 3
* Home for the Holidays: Day 4 (Christmas Eve)
* Home for the Holidays: Day 5 (Christmas)
* Home for the Holidays: Day 6
* Home for the Holidays: Day 7

Posted by Lou at 04:05 PM | Permalink

The [Thursday] Papers

Wait a minute, I'm confused. Did Abe Lincoln die or Jerry Ford?

Jerry-Rigged
Let's review. "Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws, not men."

And then he pardoned Richard Nixon.

*

Ford was not a great president, he was a caretaker. And not even a very good one.

*

He wasn't even a very good ex-president.

*

The conventional wisdom has quickly congealed that Ford did the nation a great favor by granting Nixon a pardon. You know, he helped "heal" a nation.

Please. What the nation needed was a full accounting of the crimes committed by its president - down the last detail. Not out of vengeance, though a little vengeance isn't a bad thing, but out of our right to know and our duty to confront truth in order to prevent a tyrant president and his band of merry men from ever hijacking our government again. Even as a congressman, Ford was aghast at the expansion of presidential powers. He blew a historic chance to be a giant and re-orient the country after Nixon. We might not be in Iraq today if he had done so and we had learned our lessons.

*

How many of those now pontificating about how wise Ford was to pardon Nixon were braying about how Bill Clinton and his blowjobs weren't above the law?

*

"Jerry Ford never would have been considered for the White House had it not been for successive forced resignations of a vice president and president," Robert Novak writes. "He was not in the front line of Republican notables, and Nixon's choice of him surprised even Ford's closest House associates."

*

And contrary to pundit assertion, Ford was not an "accidental president." He was president because Nixon made him vice president for his own Machiavellian reasons.

*

Ford's approval rating fell 21 points after pardoning Nixon, according to a CNN report last night (Bob Dole said 40 points, but whatever). Silly Americans. They wanted justice, but the punditry wanted them to "heal."

*

And by the way, nobody at the time thought Ford brought "dignity" back to the White House. He was a bumbler.

But journalists aren't very good at thinking for themselves. Or dealing with facts.

*

Let's review:

* The pardon.
* Mayaguez.
* WIN buttons.
* East Timor.
* "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration. I don't believe . . . that the Yugoslavians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. I don't believe that the Romanians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. I don't believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. Each of these countries is independent, autonomous, it has its own territorial integrity, and the United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union."

War Torn
For God's sake, hasn't this man done his duty already?

Swallow your pride, America. You were wrong. Bring the troops home.

Man vs. Child
"A meeting scheduled for Wednesday between [Todd] Stroger and State's Atty. Richard Devine was canceled because Stroger was ill," the Tribune reports.

Talk about a mismatch. Can you imagine that meeting? Stroger's aides will never let him be in that room alone.

Els Bells
Jane Kaihatsu of Edgewater wants the mayor to take responsibility for the CTA. Somebody ought to. Frank Kruesi appeared on Chicago Tonight last week in an utter state of denial. I've got news for you, Frank: You shouldn't keep blaming the system's widespread problems on a couple suicide track jumpers. Not good form.

Unasked and Unanswered
Maybe I missed it, but has the local media reported just how much money is at stake for the NFL in switching the Bears-Packers game from the afternoon to New Year's Eve? I though advertising rates were already set. Or are those based on game-by-game ratings?

And did the NFL consult with the Bears? Were the Bears in favor? And did either of them consult with the city? Was Mayor Daley involved in the decision-making?

A little reporting might be nice.

S-T Stands For . . .
A naughty word slips into the Sun-Times.

Name Game
This Tribune letter-writer has more than one interesting aspect to his name. Read the letter and take a look.

"Columnist Clarence Page's "What's in a middle name?" (Commentary, Dec. 17) was a relief. Now that I know I share a middle name with a U.S. senator (albeit with an alternative spelling), maybe I don't have to worry if I am on a terrorist watch list.

"I remember cringing when Johnny Carson once joked on The Tonight Show, during the Gulf War, about forming a 'Hussein asylum.'

"I wish I could have told him that my 6th grade classmates had already thought that one up, nearly 20 years earlier.

"Incidentally, I am not African-American, Muslim or Arab. I am German-Scottish-Irish.

"Go figure.

"Obama and I can't be the only non-Arab, non-Muslim 'Husseins' out there.

"The way I see it, to remove the so-called stigma during the next two years, the rest of us must come out of the closet.

"Or asylum.

"Whatever."

- Hunter Husayn Thompson, Cabery, Ill.

Rings True
"As Google transformed itself during the past year into an online media behemoth, its chief of research began pondering a new topic of interest," the San Francisco Chronicle reports. " 'Reporters and Parrots: Can you tell the difference?' is the title of a blog entry on Peter Norvig's personal blog, Norvig.com.

"Norvig, who is co-author of a best-selling textbook on artificial intelligence, said he once aspired to be a reporter himself but has lately been "appalled" by the shoddiness of the craft.

"He identifies four problems:

"1. Reporters don't do their own research; they simply "parrot back" what is told to them.

"2. Reporters lie either to advance their own careers or to serve the interests of their corporate sponsors.

"3. Reporters repeatedly show they are not capable of simple multiplication and division.

"4. Reporters are too easily manipulated by people who are wrong about an issue."

Parrots and Pirates
The Sun-Times has been running ads from both Macy's and coin/commemmorative money dealers that look just like news stories. Then again, that's what their news stories look like anyway, so what's the dif.

Sex Machine
* The New Yorker's 2002 profile of James Brown.
* James Brown's Celebrity Hot Tub Party. (- via Rick Kaempfer)
* James Brown vs. Gerald Ford.

Christmas Columns
I do not believe you will find better Christmas columns anywhere in America than our Home for the Holidays series and Barista! The Gift Card That Saved Christmas.

The Beachwood Tip Line: Slouching toward 2007.

Posted by Lou at 08:06 AM | Permalink

Over/Under

During this calendar year, the Emery clan increased by one. This will sound biased, but my nephew J.J. is the cutest baby in the world - and I'm not saying this just because his parents dressed him in the little Roethlisberger jersey I purchased. That was just the right thing to do, because as uncle and guardian of his football development, I've declared J.J. a Steelers fan

This Christmas Eve, we spent plenty of time putting words in J.J.'s mouth. Just in case you didn't know, infants spend an awful lot of time sleeping, eating, and pooping. In between, infants serve as sure-fire entertainment to bridge awkward family silences. So while I'm saying, "Yes, JJ, you love you're uncle and the Steelers. Yeah, you're a better quarterback than Roethlisberger," he's thinking, "What's that warm feeling around my butt?"

That's the beauty of babies.

It's not much different in the NFL, where announcers spend time putting words in the mouths of players and coaches in order to fill awkward silences. When a linebacker absolutely crushes a wide receiver on a crossing route, you hear "Right here, Zach Thomas says 'Try that junk somewhere else. Not in my house!'" The truth is closer to "Good. What down is it?"

Because of J.J., I've gotten nearly as good as professional football announcers at putting words in other people's mouths. Let's give it spin.

* Tiger Woods edges LaDainlan Tomlinson for AP Male Athlete of the Year. "Right here, Tomlinson is saying, 'I lost to a golfer? What, there weren't any outstanding bowlers on the list this year?'"

* Jeff Garcia leads resurgent Eagles over Cowboys. "Right here, Garcia is saying, 'My shrink was right. It wasn't me, it was the Lions.'"

* Lions' loudmouth receiver Mike Williams drops a pass in the end zone with time running out to preserve a Bears win: "Right here, Williams is saying 'I'm just helping my team win . . . the first pick in next year's draft.'"

* MIchael Vick becomes first quarterback to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season. "Right here, Vick is saying, 'I'd be an excellent quarterback if I could line up in the backfield and never have to throw.'"

* Peyton Manning and the Colts lose to the lowly Texans. "Right here, Manning is saying, 'They're not booing, they're saying mooovers.'"

* Brett Favre plays what could be his final home game - again. "Right here, Favre is saying, 'Mick and Keef were right about this farewell thing. I'm making a mint.'"

* Ken Dorsey makes first start for the Browns. "Right here, Dorsey is saying, 'It's sad here in Cleveland. These players get paid less than when I was at the University of Miami.'"

* Tank Johnson faces home confinement. "Right here, Tank is saying, 'I need to learn how to have fun at home without guns, pot, pit bulls, and small children. Maybe I should go out more.'"

Here are this week's most over- and under-hyped games.

Over-hyped: Atlanta at Philadelphia
Storyline: Philly looks to win and get the third seed and a home game next week. Atlanta looks to win and eke into the playoffs.

What They Forget To Tell You: After placing some figures into the "Total Meltdown Index," we find the following: Overrated Coach Making Ignorant Statements + Unhappy Overrated Star + Unhappy Owner = Level Five, Grade A Meltdown of Epic Proportions.

The fun happens when they turn on the microphones. With Philly playing their best football of the year, Atlanta starts pointing fingers and cleaning out lockers.

Pick: Philadelphia minus 7/Over 44.5

Under-hyped: Jacksonville at Kansas City
Storyline: Both teams need a win and a lot of help to make the playoffs.

What They Forget To Tell You: I'll agree with the conventional hype about this game. Both teams possess talent, and remain motivated to play well. Do you take Jacksonville with their good run defense and bad road record, or Kansas City and their mediocre run defense and good home record?

Heck, I'd analyze it, but I'm mailing this year in. I just know this will be a helluva game.

Pick: Kansas City minus 2.5 points/Over 38

*

Last Week: 2-4
Season: 40-51-3

*

For more Emery, see the Kool-Aid archive, and the Over/Under archive. He can be contacted at Eric_Emery12345@yahoo.com.

Posted by Lou at 05:38 AM | Permalink

The Blue & Orange Kool-Aid Report

We arrived at my in-law's on Christmas Day to the smell of roughly seven different appetizers. I know this sounds like a cliche, but in this Italian household we spend a good amount of time eating and drinking. It should be noted my in-laws are not the fake Italians who eat at Olive Garden and profess their love of the movie "Rocky." Almost all of my wife's relatives grew up in Italy and emigrated to America later in life.

Since many of the younger folks speak only English or limited Italian, and the older folks speak a Sicilian-Italian dialect, communication becomes difficult at times. And my father-in-law is a man of few words. But on holidays, he shines. It's tradition to toast each other through rhymes. Called "brindisi," a person makes a toast to another, using their name in the three-line rhyme. Sometimes heart-felt or funny, the "brindisi" ends with you drinking alcohol.

Without a doubt, my father-in-law is the champion of the "brindisi." On most holidays, my father-in-law breaks out two or three. This year, my brother-in-law busted out a few. All of a sudden, the "brindisi" turned into one big drinking game where everybody tried to out-do each other.

Finally, after four hours, a couple folks started stumbling around. Before we all passed out, we quit the "brindisi" to open presents. Being in the holiday spirit, the experience inspired me to write some "brindisi" toasts for the Bears

1. Every season after the next
Da Bears choke in the playoffs
You can expect the same with Rex

2. Da Bears field many navy blue knockers
Injuries plaque the defense one after the other
Perhaps they can clone ten more Urlachers

3. "Don't worry, don't have any fits
Never frown or speak critically"
Is that Dusty or Lovie Smith?

4. 'Round here there's a defensive boss
The Tampa Two is his only call
Rivera's ready for a home playoff loss.

5. When we could be playing better
Can we give the ball thirty times
To rookie Devin Hester?

6. I'll teach you a lesson
I'm the best running back
Signed Cedric Benson

7. Here is something you can take to the bank
Six guns near children plus trip to a club
Clearly not the brightest choices by Tank.

8.We are good there is no reason to fold
When the O always stalls at the thirty
We'll kick a field goal with Robbie Gould

9. Drew Barrymore, Dakota Fanning
My first name is a man's name
Yours truly, Danieal Manning.

10. It's not hard it's quite easy
To get a playoff win
You put in Brian Griese

Green Bay at Chicago (Sunday Night)
Pick your favorite pre-game hype:

A) The Cinderella Packers look to find win and make the playoffs. The wicked stepsisters want to make Brett Favre to return to the farm for the rest of the year.
B) Is this Brett Favre's last game? Huh? Wanna know? Well, I want to be on tape asking the question just in case it's archived in the Hall of Fame.
C) Packers coach Mike McCarthy might actually know what he is doing.
D) Will this be the last win of the season for the Bears?

Last time these teams tangled late when the Bears had home field advantage, the Bears won by a touchdown. This time around, the Packers need a win and a Giants loss to make the playoffs. There are other convoluted possibilities, but by Sunday night, chances are high this game is meaningless. On the other hand, I'm going with the theory that the Bears have trouble with defenses that are decent against the run and when the weather is cold. Sunday night we have both.

And, I'm still dying to say, "I told you so."

Pick: Green Bay plus 3/Over 38

*

For Bears win:
Sugar in the Blue and Orange Kool-Aid: 80%
Recommended sugar in the Blue and Orange Kool-Aid: 65%

Sugar in the Super Bowl pitcher: 75%
Recommended sugar in the Super Bowl pitcher: 30%

*

For more Emery, see the Kool-Aid archive, and the Over/Under archive. He can be contacted at Eric_Emery12345@yahoo.com.

Posted by Lou at 01:15 AM | Permalink

December 27, 2006

Barista! The Gift Card That Saved Christmas

When I wrote about our motley weekend bunch for last week's posting, I had no idea the overwhelming response I would receive, nor that it would arouse a sequel. My devoted related readers appreciated my uncharacteristically sparing use of the word "fuck." And my sister thought it was good of me to write a "nice" column right before Christmas. Ha! I guaranteed her this was not a decision I consciously made, but rather the column appeared nice because I didn't actually talk about any of my regular customers for a change.

But perhaps the best thing to come from last week's column was the response from my tittilicious co-worker's husband, Niles. I've talked about Niles in past posts, specifically about how he is a cynical sonuva- just like me. For the past eight weeks of red and green disgust, Niles and I have been in a duel trying to see which of us hates Christmas more.

I took the lead about a week prior to Christmas when I developed a nasty flu and my shriveled heart actually shrunk three sizes, as I had even less energy to deal with the holiday shit hitting the fan. I suffered through my work week, which was only enhanced by two random nosebleeds in front of customers, and the sudden appearance of hundreds of more assholes than I usually see.

It was this past Saturday, on the eve before the Eve, when Niles came into the store and purchased a gift card. He handed it to my sick disoriented self at the bar and instructed me to buy the homeless people's coffees that evening, on him. Needless to say, I was very touched by his gesture.

Saturday turned into the most hectic and stressful day I have encountered in my barista history. And my week-long illness took an unfortunate turn into an ear infection, rendering me closer to useless and also partially deaf. I was miserable beyond words by the time the homeless people arrived early that night.

As they began ordering their usual small coffees, I told them to get whatever they wanted, that it was the treat of one of our customers. Each of their faces lit up like I had just handed them a million dollars. In disbelief, two of them in particular, Chris and Tiffany, followed my offering by asking how much a bottled soda would be. "Free," I said, "take whatever you want."

Embracing Tiffany, Chris told me that he had no house, but he had a car to sleep in and a great friend. He felt blessed. Tiffany told me she still believed God worked miracles through people like me. I battled with Chris when he took out a five-dollar bill and put it into our tip jar. He said he worked at McDonald's and he appreciated our hard work and refused to take back the money. I was humbled beyond words at his gratitude and selflessness.

Of all the rich suburbanites I serve on a day-to-day basis, many of them don't even think to throw their ten cents' change into our tip jar. These are people who live in 6,000-square-foot homes and carry Louis Vuitton purses and never flinch when their daily drink order alone totals more than five dollars. So you can imagine what happened to this Grinch's shriveled heart when a homeless man gave more than he could or should, to express his appreciation to us.

Later in the night, a man I had never seen before came into the store. He was obviously of money, and he purchased a gift card with a couple other little merchandise things. As he stood at the counter, he wore the most pompous smirk on his face while he looked around at the homeless people in the store. He continued to smile like that until the end of his transaction, when, behind his grin, he asked me, "Is it always this . . . crowded here on Saturday nights?"

I knew what he meant, but decided not to give him the satisfaction of joining his arrogance. I think he was expecting me to poke fun or express some sort of discomfort with the less fortunate crowd occupying the store. When he left, I watched him walk past the store and stare at each of them individually through the window, as if he was attempting to dehumanize them through the glass. After the kindness I witnessed that night from someone like Chris, that man only appeared even more pathetic and soulless to me than he would have on any other given day. I wanted to smash his head through the glass so he could get a closer look at the superior quality of people he was degrading.

But I could no longer be upset or miserable by the time that jackass crossed my path. I was too high on holiday warmth to let him bother me for long. He only served to put the night's events into clearer perspective for me.

When Niles originally bought and gave me the card late that afternoon, he tried to justify his good deed to me, as if my non-spirited self was going to argue with his gift or something. "You know I hate this time of year, but it is the season after all . . . " My response to him was along the lines that his action was what the season was supposed to be about. Here we were, the two biggest Scrooges in the whole town, trying to make the holidays resemble something other than a materialistic scramble to the ornamented tree.

I didn't even feel right accepting the bombardment of gratitude from all the homeless people when it was Niles who ultimately provided it. But I must say it made my hellacious day all the better, and for the first time in a long time, I really felt that holiday cheer that I've heard so much about. And coincidentally, it didn't come wrapped in a box.

Maude Perkins is The Beachwood Reporter's pseudononymous service industry affairs editor currently serving time as a store supervisor for a large, publicly-held corporate coffee chain. Catch up with the rest of her heartwarming stories here.

Posted by Lou at 06:33 PM | Permalink

Home for the Holidays: Day 7

So I'm coming home tonight. Last night, my mom threw a monkey wrench in my bitterness. She cornered me, took me by the shoulders, stared in my eyes, and said, "I need something from you."

Huh?

"I need you to forgive me for all the things that I did wrong when you were growing up. I know I screwed up. But I did the best I knew how to do at the time. And I need you to forgive me. And when you're ready, I need you to tell me."

Jesus. Of course, I'm trying not to cry, and she's crying, and all I can say is, "I'm trying. I love you, but I'm trying on the other stuff. It takes some time, Mom. It takes . . . a lot of writing. And a lot of time. But I'll let you know."

I hugged her and left.

Then it hit me that maybe she needed to forgive herself.

So I tried that conversation this morning, but somehow it degenerated into a discussion about God and about how if you were lacking faith you needed to just go to church and listen. That made me profoundly uncomfortable. So I wrapped that up as quickly as possible, gave her a squeeze, and went to finish packing. This has been one weird freakin trip.

Well, at least I don't need to feel bad about writing about it. "Mom," I told her, "I've been doing a lot of writing about my truth. And you know, we all have different truths. But until I write mine, I can't really move forward in this whole thing."

"Well, I think that's probably true," she said.

This is where I really hope a book deal comes through, one that passes under her radar. Jesus, what a boondoggle.

1:41 P.M.: So this morning was my father's turn to attack my approach to family, particularly to my fabulously screwed-up relationship with my parents. He was a little more aggressive than my mom. Make that a lot more.

"You know," he said, "You have to get to a point where you let the past go and forgive me and your mom for things we did in the past."

I do?

Then he launched into this long deal about how until I could learn to forgive them and not be so angry, I would never be an OK person, etc. etc. etc.

Ack.

All the while, he was going through various bills and budgets of mine, shaking his head, and writing checks to get me through my unemployment. Finally, I said, "Look, I know it's not true, but all this stuff with the money makes me feel like you're paying for your mistakes."

Big mistake.

That pissed him off.

Probably because it's partially true.

Then there was the continuing request to speak with my shrink so that he and my mom could "understand" what was going on with me. Yikes

Finally, I just turned back to my book, said, "I can't talk about this anymore right now," thanked him for the dough, and moved on to something else.

Only eight hours and I'll be at home in my bed.

Claudia Hunter is the Beachwood's pseudononymous holiday affairs correspondent. She is reporting from the homefront in Central Pennsylvania. Previously:

* Home for the Holidays: The Preamble
* Home for the Holidays: Day 1
* Home for the Holidays: Day 2
* Home for the Holidays: Day 3
* Home for the Holidays: Day 4 (Christmas Eve)
* Home for the Holidays: Day 5 (Christmas)
* Home for the Holidays: Day 6

Posted by Lou at 09:47 AM | Permalink

Brown vs. Ford

James Brown vs. Gerald Ford.

Brown: Sex Machine
Ford: Golf Machine

Brown: Feels good.
Ford: Feels wood.

Brown: Exorcised demons.
Ford: Pardoned a demon.

Brown: Godfather of soul.
Ford: Godfather of man without a soul.

Brown: Black and proud.
Ford: White and right.

Brown: Laid foundation for rap.
Ford: Let Nixon beat the rap.

Brown: Tried to whip up a frenzy.
Ford: Tried to whip inflation.

Brown: Worked the chitlin' circuit.
Ford: Worked the speaking circuit.

Brown: Papa's Got a Brand New Bag.
Ford: Papa's Got a Brand New Golf Bag.

Brown: In the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Ford: In the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame.

Brown: Warrants commissioned.
Ford: Warren Commission.

Brown: Prison for two years in 80s.
Ford: President for two years in 70s.

Brown: High-speed chase after fighting with his wife.
Ford: High-profile rehab named after his wife.

Brown: Get Up Offa That Thing!
Ford: Get Up Offa The Ground!

Brown: Celebrity hot tub.
Ford: Celebrity golf club.

Brown: Wore a dashiki.
Ford: Threatened by Squeaky.

- Steve Rhodes, Rick Kaempfer, Bethany Lankin, Marty Gangler

Posted by Lou at 09:12 AM | Permalink

The [Wednesday] Papers

1. If the NFL can't honor those who have bought tickets to one of their games and made plans, they may as well take the next logical step and play their games in TV studios or hire crowds to appear at their televised events, instead of screwing fans who have made the commitment to show up in winter on their own dime.

2. This is both necessary and bad news for those still planning to go to the Bears game.

3. My guess is the mayor is privately livid at the NFL, given the near-certainty that tragedy will result from a Bears game on New Year's Eve.

4. "Spike Lee To Direct James Brown Movie."

5. James Brown will lie in state at the Apollo.

6. "Mr. Brown's innovations reverberated through the soul and rhythm-and-blues of the 1970s and the hip-hop of the next three decades," Jon Pareles wrote in The New York Times. "The beat of a 1970 instrumental 'Funky Drummer' may well be the most widely sampled rhythm in hip-hop."

Public Enemy shows how.

7. How great is YouTube?

8. "Depression is a deep, nasty disease."

9. Dock Walls says the mayor will not survive a challenge to his nominating petitions. In the incredibly infinitesimal chance that Walls is right, Daley campaign manager Terry Peterson's punishment will be:

A) Sent to Guantanamo as enemy combatant.
B) Named Tony Snow's replacement.
C) Re-assigned as Todd Stroger's chief of staff.
D) Returned to his old job as head of the CHA.

10. Cook County Public Guardian Robert F. Harris is right. Asking for deep, across-the-board cuts is typically lazy of Todd Stroger. In effect, he's asking everyone else to balance his budget for him. The real answer to the county mess requires the vision to not only cut, but to reconfigure and re-prioritize county government. You know, the kind of thing that won't happen for at least another four years.

11. I mean, we all know that if there was any justice in the world, and any sense in our political system, the public guardian as well as the public defender, among others, would get more funding, not face cuts. But then how would we afford such higher priorities as the pensions for Bobbie Steele and Bill Beavers?

12. Neil Steinberg is probably worth listening to on WCKG-FM (105.9) from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. today, seeing as how one of his prior radio appearances resulted in a newsroom confrontation with Jay Mariotti a few weeks ago that had to be broken up in part by editor-in-chief Michael Cooke. Apparently Steinberg had his glasses off and his dukes up.

13. Mary Laney is the last person on the planet outside of Laura Bush who believes the real problem in Iraq is a media that isn't telling the "good news" that is happening there.

"We are shown images of carnage in the streets of Baghdad daily, but coverage of the good that is taking place is curiously missing," Laney opines. "Hospitals are being built, new schools are opened, and Iraq's economy is doing surprisingly well since American soldiers landed there. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports that, three years ago, there were 8,000 Iraqi businesses - and today there are 34,000 registered companies."

Jesus H. Christ. Even David Brooks was moved to admit recently, "[T]he idea that this is some media concoction, you - I said that a year ago, two years ago. But at some point, face reality!"

I mean, are you going to believe Mary Laney or these people's own eyes?

14. It's a good thing we still have wise traditional media pundits like Mary Laney who deal in facts to combat of all that lazy and reckless blogging on the Internet.

15. No one in the Sun-Times business department was willing to put their name on this warmed-over press release. Who's the business editor over there, Mary Laney?

16. Dear Beachwood:

To say I was astounded by the Chicago Tribune's December 26, 2006, editorial ("Do We Need A Bigger Army?") would be a substantial understatement.

First, it tacitly complimented the Clinton administration when it referred to our pre-Iraq Army as being "prepared to handle with ease any challenge that could possibly arise" with its top personnel and "state-of-the-art weapons and equipment" and "vast resources." This refutes the oft-heard claim from the right that our current military shortfall can be traced to the prior president.

Second, it tacitly acknowledges that the miscalculation by the current president has led to the intense strain on our forces today. Interestingly, it ignores its own role as a cheerleader for this misadventure. In fact, even earlier this year the paper re-examined that role and determined that the initial choice to invade Iraq and our continued involvement was not a mistake.

But these tacit statements are really only peripheral to the amazing statement it makes about whether we could even get a bigger Army. It notes that it would take five years to increase our current force from 507,000 to 540,000 troops, and that there is no assurance that we could do this at all.

What makes this so astonishing is that the Tribune regularly asserts that it is some deficiency within the Iraq government that has kept that nation from replacing our 140,000 troops with trained Iraqi forces over the last three-plus years. We can't be expected to find, train and equip 33,000 American troops here in less than five years, but they expect a war-ravaged and much smaller Iraq to find, train and equip more than four times that many soldiers in just over half the time?

This fundamental failure to recognize and acknowledge facts and reality lies at the heart of the failure of the Bush administration and its enabling media outlets like the Tribune.

- Tim Howe

17. The small moves of Kenny Williams will prove far more effective than the big moves of Jim Hendry. One of them understands the game; the game has passed the other by.

The Beachwood Tip Line: The good news people.

Posted by Lou at 08:23 AM | Permalink

What I Watched Last Night

It's not that I'm obsessed with how bad My Guys is, is that it's so bad I keep watching out of amazement. I mean, the premise isn't half-bad, though inherently sets up stereotypical gender bullshit as an integral part of the storylines. P.J. Franklin is the Cubs beat writer for the Chicago Sun-Times and hangs out with her guys, which hinders her dating life. Sportswriters have been done on TV ad infinitum - though rarely well - but it might have been more interesting to dial back the focus on P.J's social life and write the show through the prism of her workplace. She could really have any job - the focus of the show is the poker table at her apartment, and whatever situations the writers can think up to put P.J. in. Bad choice.

The show is also incredibly strained in its efforts to namecheck Chicago in ways that both no national audience will understand and no local audience will countenance, given the incredible rate of inaccuracy, irrelevance, and ignorance these references display.

The effort to parallel the lessons of sports - baseball in particular - to the lessons of life that P.J. is learning is also pretty lame. First, it's been done - by a lot of us. When we were 23. Those lessons are already known to us - the importance of taking one for the team, for example. We don't need a lame TV show repeating them, badly, and not even really getting them right. And for those who aren't sports fans, they'll never get the references anyway.

In other words, in just about every way the producers and writers of this show have made the wrong choices.

Beyond that, the show offends me. It offends me because it gets baseball wrong, it gets Chicago wrong, it gets sex wrong, it gets dating wrong, and in the character who hosts some sort of heavy metal radio show, it gets rock and roll wrong.

This show needs to die.

*

I love the blues, but how many people in Chicago do you know who love the blues - and actually go out to see it performed live? Right. And yet, the opening to My Boys is a bluesy number meant to be shorthand for "Chicago." I guess Wilco wouldn't do. I mean, no one's heard of them, right?

And yet another scene of lining up at a hot dog stand on a downtown street. Hello? We don't have those here. Wish we did, but we don't . . . oops, it's actually a coffee stand. That actually makes it worse.

If you want to capture Chicago, why not have a character who gets clouted into a City Hall job, and show the main characters standing on an El platform a lot waiting for full trains they can't board or broken down trains on fire or hanging from the rails.

*

The first of last night's two new episodes was titled The Manager. You know, "all relationships need to be managed, and everybody needs a little coaching." When your characters are 12-year-olds disguised as adults, yes, that's true.

This episode was built around PJ's brother, Andy, a stereotypical hen-pecked husband who gets a free weekend away from home and "goes wild," meaning he drinks too much at a Mexican restaurant one night and the neighborhood bar, Crowley's, the next. Wow, that's crazy, dude!

PJ realizes by episode's end that Andy needs his wife to put restrictions on him. She is his manager.

Yeah, it's that bad.

*

I do give credit, though, for a show that actually shows drinking. You don't get much of that anymore. Of course, it's pretty lame when PJ tries to beg off another shot because "I've got a double-header tomorrow." Um, they really don't have many of those anymore. Besides, most games at Wrigley are in the daytime anyway.

The writing of this show is inexplicably bad. I mean, really, the chatty guy-talk dialogue is so lacking that I think the Beachwood staff could turn out a better season of scripts in less than 48 hours, with or without the tequila.

*

And the thing with the T-shirts - please stop. Mostly it's the "rock guy" who last night was sporting a way-too-crisp, obviously never-been-worn Motorhead tee that the producers probably ordered off the Web for 75 bucks. This guy can't name one Motorhead song, I'm certain of that.

And PJ went from a Guthrie's Tavern tee in one scene to a Wrigley Field tee in another - both way too obvious. Stop trying so hard. Please. I beg of you. This isn't Chicago local access - though it would be cooler if it were.

*

In the second new episode last night, Taking One For The Team or something, the "rock guy" switches to a Black Sabbath tee. In seemingly mint condition. I'm certain this character can't name a single person who was in that band.

This episode is centered around Trouty, played by Johnny Galecki of Roseanne, and his friendship (and thus access) to the owner of the trendiest exclusive club in the city, one that somehow features craps tables and baccarat.

Galecki is so good as an obnoxious hip-hop wannabe, and his dialogue so righteous, that I can only believe he brings it on his own. (Taking in the advice of the gang to relax around his friends, he rephrases in his own vernacular: "Chill out in Friendtown.") My Trouty would be a nice spin-off.

But the hot club? It's called The Streisand, and believe me, it looks nothing like the Ice Bar. It looks more boring than my kitchen. And if you're going to play up the hottie stereotype, the women ought to be hot. Just sayin'.

When one of the doofus guy characters says, upon their entrance to The Streisand, "We are now in the top rung of Chicago coolness," well, that was when I realized I can do this no longer. I can't keep watching this show out of wonder and amazement and loathing and in the service of my readers. It is no longer even worthy of comment.

When "I could've spit on Gary Sinise" and "Cusack couldn't even get Piven in" are your big celebrity references, well, yes, you've reached a certain rung of Chicago coolness, but the top one it isn't. Oh hey, is that Jim Belushi over there talking to Mike Ditka?

My work here is done. I've taken one for the team.

*

Just a word about Scarborough Country. It's good. Joe Scarborough is an honest, transparent guy, and not a shouter. He's consistent with his principles, and far from a shill like Bill O'Reilly. Following Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, Scarborough gives MSNBC a pretty strong evening lineup to fall back on when you're trolling the dial.

Last night Scarborough did a respectable, if sparse, job on James Brown, recalling seeing a trademark performance and seeming to appreciate in full the enormity of the man's contribution.

Scarborough is also often adult entertainment, not shying away from the realities of sex the way many conservatives seem to. Last night he showed a segment that I didn't quite understand in terms of its origination, but it was titled something like "Unnecessary Censored Words" and showed video clips of recognizable characters and celebrities saying, for example, words that started with "f" in which the rest was blooped out. Having flipped to it late, I couldn't quite determine whether that puppet on Sesame Street, for example, really said "fuck" or the bleeps were designed to make it seem that way, but it was pretty hilarioius.

Scarborough has been letting loose, both politically by calling out the president with increasing verocity, and culturally. He's worth watching.

Submissions to What I Watched Last Night are welcome. And you can visit the What I Watched Last Night collection to see what we've been watching so you don't have to.

Posted by Lou at 05:17 AM | Permalink

December 26, 2006

YouTube's Rockin' Eve

I spent some time on YouTube this Christmas Eve and ended up watching the following.

1. Thunder Road/Bruce Springsteen. Live 1976. Greatest rock song ever. The piano is hope; the harmonica despair.

2. Thunder Road/Shannnnon lip synching in her backyard. "I guess bruce springsteen is all i think about." The comments are priceless.

3. The River/Bruce Springsteen. Live 2003, Milan. The economy with which Bruce tells this story is breathtaking. Each line is more haunting than the last.

4. Badlands/Bruce Springsteen. Live 1980, Landover. Lights out tonight, trouble in the Heartland.

5. Backstreets/Bruce Springsteen. Live 1984, Toronto. Dreams, promises, faith, love, desperation, and betrayal. Tying faith between our teeth, sleeping in that old abandoned beach house, getting wasted in the heat. We swore forever friends.

6. The River/Bruce Springsteen. Live 1980. It's about his sister and brother-in-law. Man, that was all she wrote.

7. 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)/Bruce Springsteen. Live 1978, Largo. Oh love me tonight, and I promise I'll love you forever.

8. Growin' Up/Bruce Springsteen. Live 2005, Madison. The flag of piracy flew from my mast, my sails were set wing to wing; I had a jukebox graduate for first mate, she couldn't sail but she sure could sing. Done here the way Dylan would do it.

9. London Calling/Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Dave Grohl & Co. This one's for Joe. And none of them channel him better than Bruce.

10. Youngstown/Bruce Springsteen. Live 1996, Stambaugh Theatre in Youngstown. Them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do.

11. Spirit in the Night/Bruce Springsteen. Live 1978, Landover. The worst part is when it's time to go. The good times never last; they just turn into bitter nostalgia.

12. Atlantic City/Bruce Springsteen. Video, 1982. The DA can't get no relief.

13. Desert Moon/Dennis DeYoung. Video, 1984. I'm a sucker for this kind of sentimentality. And I'm not ashamed. Because it's true.

14. Lawyers in Love/Jackson Browne. Video, 1983. Even lawyers fall in love. Just like humans.

15. 5:01 a.m. (The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking)/Roger Waters. Video, 1984. Did you understand the music, Yoko, or was it all in vain?

16. Sunglasses at Night/Corey Hart. Video, 1983. Don't switch the blade on the guy in shades. Oh no.

17. Call It a Loan/Johnny Cardinale doing Jackson Browne. Can we call it a loan, and a debt that I owe, on a bet that I lost. If I'd only known what your heart cost.

18. The Gunner's Dream/Pink Floyd. Video, 1983. In the space between the heavens, and the corner of some foreign field, I had a dream.

19. When the Tigers Broke Free/Pink Floyd. Video, 1982. Left off The Wall and The Final Cut. The story of how Roger Waters' father was killed at Anzio in World War II.

20. The Final Cut/Pink Floyd. Video, 1983. A vastly underrated album.

21. Not Now John/Pink Floyd. Video, 1983. Could be re-usable shows.

22. The Fletcher Memorial Home/Pink Floyd. Video, 1983. Now admitting new residents George W. Bush and Tony Blair.

23. Southampton Dock/Roger Waters. Live 1999. They disembarked in '45, and no one spoke and no smiled. There were too many spaces in the line.

24. 5:06 a.m. (Every Stranger's Eyes)/Roger Waters. Video, 1984. In truck stops and hamburger joints/In Cadillac limousines/In the company of has-beens/And bent-backs and sleeping forms/On pavement steps/In libraries and railway stations/In books and banks/In the pages of history/In suicidal cavalry attacks/I recognize/Myself in every stranger's eyes.

25. The Tide is Turning (After Live Aid)/Roger Waters. Video, 1987. Satellite buzzing through the endless night/Exclusive to moonshots and world title fights/Jesus Christ imagine what it must be earning.

26. 4:41 a.m. (Sexual Revolution)/Roger Waters. Video, 1984. As I've always said/I prefer your lips red/Not what the good Lord made/but what He intended.

27. Ah, Leah/Donnie Iris. Video, 1980. I can touch you but I don't know how to love you.

28. Some dude playing the bass part to Red Barchetta. I mean, how great is this?

Posted by Lou at 07:16 PM | Permalink

The Periodical Table: Time and Again

A weekly roundup from Shipley's nightstand.

Grading on a Curve
Entertainment Weekly, also known as ew!, averaged the votes of a collective noun of movie critics (a thumb of critics? A balcony of critics? A Goober of critics?) in its December 29th double-issue and the following movies received A-minuses: The Queen, Letters From Iwo Jima, The Departed, United 93, Borat, and Volver. You know, there's really no pleasing Entertainment Weekly.

Congratulations, You
Time's year-end issue congratulated you for being Person of the Year. Congratulations! They looked past the fact that you're socially retarded and made Dancing With The Stars a hit. I mean, let's face it: You suck! You haven't had a date with another country in three years (those booty calls with England don't count) and you can't even name your congressman. Well done! Time is impressed! Hit 'em up for dinner and a free subscription while they're still infatuated.

Magazine Honors Magazines
The January issue of Utne featured their 18th annual Independent Press Awards, given to publications that are in some way outstanding and essential. The winners include Wilson Quarterly, GeneWatch, 28 Pages Lovingly Bound with Twine, New England Watershed, Tikkun, Raw Vision, N+1, New Mobility, Bidoun, NACLA's Report on the Americas, In These Times, Ecologist, Seed, and High Country News. None of them are even as remotely impressed with you as Time.

Online Addicts
The January issue of Popular Science says that 31 million adults show signs of compulsive Internet use. The ramifications? Thirty percent of U.S. businesses have fired employees for problematic Web surfing. The ratio of time typical net addicts spend on recreational use vs. business: 10:1. Time, ever the enabler, doesn't blame you. You're just under a lot of stress.

Down Doggies
Got the winter blahs? Down in the doldrums? Have a profound sense of ennui? Fear not, the February issue of Yoga Journal is here with yoga moves that'll help you snap out of it. These are the poses recommended to get you rarin' to go: Bridge Pose, Upward Bow Pose, Half Lord of the Fishes Pose, Fish Pose, Shoulderstand, and the One-Legged Downward-Facing Dog Pose, which requires wrapping your non-working leg in a bandage and wearing one of those lampshade things around your neck.

Shipley can stop anytime he wants. He just doesn't want to.

Posted by Lou at 05:29 PM | Permalink

Home for the Holidays: Day 6

After getting up and assembling my "light," which took some doing (and which will take some undoing as I've got to pack it up in the morning to come home, glorious home), my best childhood friend arrived with her two-year-old. I know I'm supposed to think he's wonderful and appreciate his fabulosity, but all I can think is, Thank the Lord it's not mine.

Seriously. I'm extremely fond of some children, but I think actually having one would be the death of me. They're loud, they smell, and you have to act as though something that was cute the first time is cute the eighteenth time as well. They stayed for lunch and after, and finally left only as everybody was getting on coats for the family movie, which was Eragon. Not bad, really, though it scared the kids.

But then we came racing home, and the kids got nutty pretty quickly, and I realized quite fast that I needed to leave at once before I said something awful to someone who didn't really deserve it. So I headed to Borders with a gift card and realized that I wanted to kill most of the people there as well, particularly the people with small children who allowed them to shriek at-will. Bookstores should be somewhat sacrosanct - no shrieking allowed. I came pretty close to telling a complete stranger to take his fucking kid outside if she was going to keep making such a ruckus, but I kept myself in check.

Soon I will carefully pack away my things and start counting down the hours til my flight leaves from Baltimore tomorrow. And I'll be home, sweet home.

8:16 P.M.: An interesting final evening at "home." I allowed my sister to give me a haircut with a pair of paper-cutting scissors (I suggested pinking shears, but she wouldn't go for it) while using my mother's black nail polish to paint my toenails. Turns out she had to buy black nail polish to paint some buttons on a dress. "Otherwise, I'd let you take it," she told me. They have yet to notice my cartilage piercing. Or at least to mention it. A year or so ago, they would have had a cardiac arrest.

Something weird's going on around here, and I can't quite put my finger on it. Surely it's not acceptance on any level. Maybe they've just given up. Poor sods. The next ten years are going to be one rocky ride.

Claudia Hunter is the Beachwood's pseudononymous holiday affairs correspondent. She is reporting from the homefront in Central Pennsylvania. Previously:

* Home for the Holidays: The Preamble
* Home for the Holidays: Day 1
* Home for the Holidays: Day 2
* Home for the Holidays: Day 3
* Home for the Holidays: Day 4 (Christmas Eve)
* Home for the Holidays: Day 5 (Christmas)

Posted by Lou at 05:14 PM | Permalink

The [Tuesday] Papers

The Sun-Times asked a few prominent Chicagoans if they got what they wanted for Christmas. I found these replies to the most instructive.

1. "The adult in me wanted ties - I need ties but its so stereoptypically boring no one wants to give them to me."

- Antonio Mora

Antonio Mora wanted ties? Don't they have a wardrobe department at Channel 2?

2. "[I wanted]peace in the world," but did not get it.

- Cardinal Francis George

Um, because you were bad this year? Because sometimes God says no? Just curious.

3. "Really it's nothing material: I wanted to make sure that my family was happy and safe. I really thought a lot about the young men and women in Iraq - gosh, they're not with their families."

- Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke

Plus, you already got a seat on the state supreme court in a back-door maneuver that the press has lost all interest in asking you about. Besides, it's much easier to attack Todd Stroger.

4. "Out of all the material things that we get and give every year, nothing is of greater measure throughout the year than knowing that there are fewer victims of homicides and crime. Fewer grieving families. For me, that's the greatest gift that I would want to receive."

- Police Superintendent Phil Cline

Said in a written statement, obviously. Please.

5. "Well, obviously world peace and fewer homicides - neither of which I got either. And this morning I wanted my papers to arrive - I'm one of the few who actually still subscribes to print home-delivery - but once again the Sun-Times did not show up on my doorstep because their whole operation is amateur hour.

- Steve Rhodes

God's Sentence
God is here, Cardinal George told inmates at Cook County Jail.

He just couldn't give you what you wanted for Christmas either, though He did cut Tank Johnson a break this year.

Bad Returns
May all your returns be bright.

Worse Returns
Or not.

Christmas Cliffhanger
"Fights Mar Christmas Movies," the Sun-Times reports.

"Chicago Police reported at least three incidents of large fights at movie theaters Monday night,From about 8:30 p.m. to about 9:30 p.m., police were called to the scene at theaters on the 3300 block of West Roosevelt, the 7600 block of South Cicero and the 200 block of West 87th Street, according to Chicago Police News Affairs."

Um, just one question . . . WHICH FRIGGIN' MOVIES?!

Chicago Way
"Christmas Thieves Steal $20,000 From Poor Kids."

Daley said the thieves were men of fine character, and refused the suggestion that money lost to corruption could go toward helping others.

The Godfather
"In versions of 'Cold Sweat,' Brown can be heard dictating the song's progress," the Tribune's Greg Kot writes in his remembrance of James Brown. "'You don't have to do no soloing, brother,' he barks at drummer Clyde Stubblefied. 'Just keep what you got, 'cause it's a mother.'

"As ordered, Stubblefield's give-the-drummer-some break in 'Cold Sweat' wasn't really a solo, but it is one of the most copied drum patterns in popular music. It was later sampled by hip-hop producers as a foundation for countless rap vocals."

Imagine the immensity of that.

Gettin' Some
Clyde Stubblefield playing "Cold Sweat."

The JBs playing "Cold Sweat."

James Brown playing "Cold Sweat" on The Mike Douglas Show. (At 2:40, the drummer gets a little, though the user comments indicate the drummer is not Stubblefield.)

Ignoramus
Anyone who thinks YouTube is about "watch[ing] kittens play with balls of yarn" is an idiot.

Silent Salute
"Paying Respect To A Fallen Soldier."

Home for the Holidays
Our six-part series continues, with CSI: MIami replacing the Christmas Night Family Game.

Greatest Gift of All
How many of you got this for Christmas?

How many want to return it?

Cosmic Christmas
"Massive Cosmic Explosion Has Astronomers Stumped."

Bowling for Dollars
The Beachwood Bowl guide has a nearly 100 percent success rate so far. Climb aboard!

Trumped
Donald Trump, of all people, had some interesting things to say to Maureen Dowd, as told in her (TimesSelect-only) column Saturday. The highlights -

On the Bush twins: "When you're a president who has destroyed the lives of probably a million people, our soldiers and Iraqis who are maimed and killed - you see children going to school in Baghdad with no arms and legs - I don't think Bush's kids should be having lots of fun in Argentina."

On Iraq and Bush: "No matter how long we stay in Iraq, no matter how many soldiers we send, the day we leave, the meanest, most vicious, most brilliant man in the country, a man who makes Saddam Hussein look like a baby, will take over and spit on the American flag. Bush will go down as the worst and by far the dumbest president in history."

On Colin Powell: "He's speaking up now, but he's no longer relevant. I call him a pathetic and sad figure."

The Miss USA Scandal
A primer.

Nanny City
Mayor Daley thinks it's silly to enact a law banning food inherently derived from torture, and like a petulant tyrant refuses to enforce a law he doesn't like, but he's spending money re-cutting curbs, installing cameras, and putting undercover officers on the streets to enforce intersection etiquette.

Death Penalty
"Were Others Involved In Okla. Blast?"

We'll never know, because we killed the one person who could tell us.

Body Haul
Richard M. Daley, Manager of the Year.

Recycling Green Daley
The view often looks different to those who have lived elsewhere.

Oilocracy
"The United States offers some of the most lucrative incentives in the world to companies that drill for oil in publicly owned coastal waters, but a newly released study suggests that the government is getting very little for its money," The New York Times reports.

"The study, which the Interior Department refused to release for more than a year, estimates that current inducements could allow drilling companies in the Gulf of Mexico to escape tens of billions of dollars in royalties that they would otherwise pay the government for oil and gas produced in areas that belong to American taxpayers.

"But the study predicts that the inducements would cause only a tiny increase in production even if they were offered without some of the limitations now in place.

"It also suggests that the cost of that additional oil could be as much as $80 a barrel, far more than the government would have to pay if it simply bought the oil on its own."

Head Games
The best sports moment of the year.

Well, besides the time when that pop fly bounced off the top of Aramis Ramirez' head.

Slouch Mouth
Q. Do you wake up on the wrong side of the bed every morning? (J.P. Cleary, Houston)
A. No. Sometimes I wake up on the wrong side of the couch.

- Norman Chad

The Beachwood Tip Line: Give the gift.

Posted by Lou at 07:47 AM | Permalink

December 25, 2006

Home for the Holidays: Day 5

Well, it's 12:35 p.m. and we've finally finished opening all the presents and breakfasting. The whole gifting thing doesn't hold a ton of interest for me these days - everyone showers the kids and their own spouses with stuff, and then, well, there's the afterthought: Me. Consequently, I received one of those lights that people who don't do well in winter in Northern climes are supposed to sit next to every day til summer comes; a pillow from Turkey (my parents visited there this year - my siblings received rugs); a necklace from Greece (not much of a jewelry girl, but the stones are nice); some sheets, which was probably the best gift; and the new Tom Waits, which I'd been wanting. I can usually count on my brother to get me something that I actually want.

The rest of the time, I just stare off into space while everyone else opens millions of gifts.

Now it's time to clean up the loot (I think I can get most of it upstairs in one trip), then avoid being co-opted into the making of Christmas Dinner. Of course, I should probably decide which is the lesser of two evils - the making of or the cleaning up from. Sheesh, pressure on all sides. My parents had to give their dog a Xanax this morning. If a dog in this family gets that stressed, you can only imagine what it does to a human being.

3:54 P.M.: We are preparing to eat Christmas dinner. I swear, all we ever do is eat around here. Already my sister has said, "Wow, you've put on a lot of weight since I saw you in September!" Thanks. I've been waiting for my mom to pull me aside and stage whisper "Your pants are too tight in the crotch!" She has to say this at least once an official visit.

All this aside, it does smell pretty damn good. My uncle sent a smoked turkey, and my brother-in-law is a gourmet chef (on the side). Not looking so good for skiing tomorrow - it's pouring rain and looks positively grim out there. I'm glad I was able to stay in and sleep. That's right, I haven't helped one bit. I slept my afternoon away, and I'm better for it, in every way, shape, and form. Now, maybe there won't be the annual "Christmas Afternoon Row," which occurs when I allow one of my parents to bait me into one of the continuing themes of my life (being poor, being under- or unemployed, dressing inappropriately non-mainstream, being too thin, having weirdos for friends, ad infinitum).

On the gift front, my nephew got a truly weird one. There's this show now called Boohbah, a spin-off of Teletubbies that's utterly psychadelicized, and he loves it. This being my one-year-old nephew, Daniel, not the eight-year-old, Robert. Anyway, this crazy toy says "BoooooooBaaaaah" when you press it's hand or foot, waves its hands around, squats down and makes a noise like a fart (seriously here, folks), and then does a ridiculous little dance. My nephew has the dance down and everything. Fortunately he skips the fart.

Santa brings gift cards now - Robert got a gift card for a Nintendo Wii. Santa's pretty hip.

Well, it's time to go cram some more food down my throat. And drink. All the drinking definitely helps the situation around here.

Hope everyone else is having a blast.

6:46 P.M.: We have eaten ourselves sick, and we opened our crackers, and we all wore paper crowns (I am still wearing mine - yellow this year, and there was a tiny squirt gun in my cracker. I tried to squirt my niece and inadvertently got my one-year-old nephew in the ear, which did not make him happy.)

The Christmas Dinner Debate (and open mockery of me) was over the gelatanized cranberries. I refused to eat them because I do not eat pork. No one at the table believed me that there is ground-up pig's feet (among other swinish delights) in gelatin, and so the table jeered and joked until I finished my meal, calmly got up, went to the computer, and printed out the entry for "Gelatin" from Wikipedia. Sure enough, the connective tissue of "either porcine or bovine" is a major ingredient, so my point was proven, and they took it pretty well. But they still make fun of me for not eating pork.

I don't particularly care, as this has been going on for some years, but I would think it would get tiresome for them. At least this year my father conceded when it came to buying seperate turkey bacon for me, so I guess that's progress. I swear, I'll never understand why it takes jeering and mocking to make this family feel good, rather than generally supportive gestures.

Off to the Family Game.

9:58 P.M.: So we managed to miss the Christmas Night Family Game by taking several hours (in shifts, no less) to tidy up the kitchen. Then there was the ubiquitous watching of football, but I escaped to the second, ancient television, which is in my parents' room, for my nightly fix of CSI: Miami. I know it was a gesture meant to bridge a gap, but my mother, who sounds as though she has croup, said if I would catch her up during commercials, she'd watch with me. This was not what I'd intended for my evening. I could scarcely hear over her coughing, I developed a sympathetic cough as well, and every five seconds, I had to explain (1) Who the characters were, (2) What the plotline was, (3) The basics of forensic science. Maybe I'm just overeducated from watching eight million forensics documentaries, but I felt like I was teaching a remedial Evidence course.

"Yes, that's called Luminol, it shows where there's blood. Fibers in cars are always trilobal, which means they have three sides, so it's significant to find a fiber that isn't, which is why they're excited. Yes, Horatio is being set up by the bad guy."

Oh well, at least she tried.

Christmas is exhausting. I want to go home to Chicago, curl up with my dog, visit with my cat, eat at the