Retrospecticus

Hi there. I only just now realized that I put a link to a blog that I rarely, if ever, post on in a book that just came out that has an article that I wrote. So, if you're here after reading the Tour Sucks book, welcome! And hi.. again. Most of these blog posts are years and years old. I got really into the blogosphere about six or seven years ago, and then got over it just as fast. I got really sick of having to explain or apologize for my posts to friends I'd see at the bar a few nights after I'd post something, or having to retell or give someone a complete history of the facts that led up to a post-in-question, so I kind of just stopped posting blogs. Here I am complaining about people actually being interested enough in what I was writing to ask me about it, but hey, what can you do? Plight of the asshole. This was also before the advent of social media the way we use it today. Sure, we were leaving bulletins on Myspace and such, but certainly not interacting in the real-time way we do today with Facebook, Twitter, etc.

A lot of what I write/wrote here is true to life, real stories of things that happened to me. On the other hand, I tend to fictionalize a bit as necessary. As an author, that is my wont and I feel no obligation to inform the reader either way when I post something. Most of the time it's fairly obvious. So, when a casual acquaintance asks me, "Did that really happen?" in response to a story I posted about BEING SHOT IN THE FACE WITH A SHOTGUN AND DYING on a pizza delivery gone wrong, you can see how I might have gotten a little annoyed and stopped posting things as much. However, there are a lot of things on here that I'm still proud of, and rather than have you wade through the whole goddamned blog to find one or two things that might make you laugh, I've decided to post a few highlights here. If you like 'em, let me know, and I'll start posting here again regularly. Lately, I just submit articles/stories to publications that never write me back, or keep my work confined to Word, where no man (unless you consider the paper clip thing a man) can judge me, until I'm ready to submit it for publication, that is. So, without further ado, please read the following posts and judge/criticize at your leisure. You can always email me directly at jgpool@gmail.com, too.

On Stealing My Own Van From an Impound Lot  

Just in case you're wondering, the above post is completely true.

A Series of Haikus I wrote about One Sarah Palin

Sometimes I write poetry. Not really, though.

On Getting My Bike Stuck in a Subway Turnstile

Also true.

On Failing Miserably at a Job Interview

I only wish this wasn't true.

Weird Fiction about Your Eyes

It would probably make sense to say I was doing a lot of acid at the time I wrote this, but I wasn't. No excuses.

On the History of Comedy

Bill Cosby invented comedy.

The Unfiltered Reaction to Coming Home to My Cat Being Mercilessly Slaughtered on My Kitchen Floor

This one got the cops called on me.

On Writing in Code and Puzzle

There actually is a hidden message in this post. I don't remember what it is.

On Dennis Madalone

I'm still proud of this one.

On My Trials and Tribulations at Carmax

This post won me $200. I suppose I should be proud of that, but I'm not.

On the Creation of a Fake Myspace Page and Corporate Espionage

This is one of those posts that people really thought was real, and got me more phone calls, emails, and texts than I'd care to recall. Don't bother clicking the link at the bottom- it's not there anymore. Myspace, ha!

On Quitting A Job Based On The Advice of Birds

True as fuck.

_______________________

So, there you have it.  A brief history and a look back through some of my biggest hits as a blogger.  I welcome your questions, comments, and publishing contracts. Thanks for reading, and if any of what you've seen above makes you question whether what you read in Tour Sucks is true or not, know this: you can't make that kind of stuff up. Consider that story my first piece of music journalism.

File Under Meager Accomplishments: Book List, 2011

 Here's a list of the books I read or partially read, in no particular order, this year, along with a few words, mostly only slightly uninteresting. Please read and forward on to the the authors in question at your leisure.

 _____________________________________________


When You Are Engulfed in Flames, David Sedaris
I read the majority of this book while sitting in a parking lot protecting wedding goers' vehicles. This was comprised mainly of me sitting in my van, smoking cigarettes, reading, and every twenty minutes or so, strolling around the parking lot to make sure that no one's cars had been vandalized or whisked away as part of some heretofore unknown mechanical rapture. During my six hour career as a parking lot attendant, while gaining an unhealthy, undeserved sense of ownership over a rhombus-shaped piece of concrete that I previously had only walked by ("Hey, cab! You can't fucking turn around in this lot!"), this book at times made me laugh aloud. And essentially, I was paid $20 an hour to read it. Best book I've read all year! 

The Air Conditioned Nightmare, Henry Miller
This book sat on the back of the toilet for months before Lindsay silently and graciously removed it, as it was clear no progress had been made in my reading of it. I don't know if it's just because I'm older than I was when I first read Miller, or if it's just that this book (that I'd never heard of before I bought it on a whim at the Newberry Library Book Sale), which must have been poorly accepted in the States, is a stinker, but I just couldn't get through it. I loved Tropic of Cancer and The Colossus of Maroussi, but hearing Miller's whiny diatribes about how much America blows is just plain fucking boring. I'm certainly no nationalist, but if you truly despise your homeland so much, why waste an entire book complaining about how ugly Boston is? Everyone knows that. Get back to France and drink wine, do some mescaline, and fuck a bunch of weird people. That's what everyone likes to read about, anyway. Also, invent a time machine so I can send this review 50 years into the past. This book isn't even good for poopin.' Two shits down.


The Chainbreaker Bike Book, Shelley Lynn Jackson and Ethan Clarke
I read the majority of this book, tried to fix my brakes, and failed. This either says something about me or the book. I think I'll let history decide who is to blame. Useful if, at times, highly cryptic information. Fun, zine style anarcho stories about working at bike shops, tattoos, and using bicycle tubes to make bracelets or whatever.



The Braindead Megaphone, George Saunders
A series of essays wherein, among other things, Saunders gets to go on a paid vacation to Dubai, stay in the most luxurious hotels in all the world, and write about the disparity between himself, perched aloft his ivory balcony while sipping a blood diamond/kiwi reduction smoothie, and the immigrant proletariat, hunched miles below, paid pennies a day to continually wash and squeegee the gold inlaid marble steps leading up to the hotel's entrance. Powerful stuff. I mean, imagine it- blood diamonds.. in a drink!

Quicker Than the Eye, Ray Bradbury
 I read this entire book, but remember nothing about it. Honestly, no recollection whatsoever. Guess it wasn't that good. I'm about to read his more popular works, since I've gone my whole life avoiding them, so I hope they're better than this. At least memorable. Oh, wait! This was a collection of short stories. Eh, whatever.


McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes, Editors of McSweeney's
The name pretty much says it all. A whole book dedicated to literary jokes. There's a page in the back with a graph that charts the ratio of the jokes you actually got to how big of a fucking dork you are. Well, there should be. Even calculating liberally, my score was alarmingly high. I never realized being in the intelligentsia elite would be so lonely.


McSweeney's #32
Reading these quarterlies is a bit like listening to the Slayer station on Pandora before you've finished training it- most of it's great, but every once in a while, you're stuck listening to "Ain't my Bitch" while you're washing your dog or something. The irony isn't lost on you, but it still sucks.


McSweeney's #37
More short form fiction from McSweeney's 37th quarterly installment. Not all great, but mostly great. McSweeney's doesn't put out much plop. This issue also included a few chapters from an upcoming "Yukon adventure story" by John Sayles called A Moment in the Sun. The few chapters I read were awesome. Plus, getting an excerpt from a Yukon adventure story really made me feel like I was reading in the 1920's. Publishers don't seem to release physical trailers for their books like they used to. It's a shame, really. As soon as I can find Sayle's book as a  .mobi on Demonoid, I'm totally downloading it!

More Information than You Require, John Hodgman
Hodgman's sequel to The Areas of My Expertise. The formula works, but it started to get old in this book.  I still loved it. I haven't rushed out to buy That is All yet, but I'll probably read it at some point.


The Instructions, Adam Levin
I met the author of this book at his book signing at The Boring Store early this year. Knowing absolutely nothing about this 1,000 plus page tome, I bought it simply based on its commanding and intimidating size. It took a couple of months, but I got through it. I even friended Adam Levin on Facebook, as I had developed somewhat of a case of Stockholm Syndrome about halfway through the book. It was a great read, but little did I realize that when the main character of the story refers to the book he is writing (and you are reading) as a new scripture for the Judaic religion, Levin, as an author, seems to be fucking serious about it. I know satire, and when I finally finished the book, I didn't get that smug feeling of self-righteousness one gets in knowing an author really pulled one over on the subject he or she is satirizing. No, by all accounts, this book actually appears to espouse a hardline stance for radical new Jewish thought, couched in the story of a young-boy-would-be-prophet/savior-of-God's-forsaken-people. Entertaining read, and there was an element, for me anyway, of seeing something I'm not supposed to. This book wasn't meant for goyem like me, except perhaps as a stern warning of what fate awaits my wretched blood. Nonetheless, I still invite Levin to every Brickfight show on Facebook, just on the off chance that he may think we're a Hacidic punk band, and that the name might refer to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, or something.
 
Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1
The first 60 or so pages of this book are filled with academic writers patting themselves on the back for undertaking such a massive project- thanking themselves for the thankless job of sifting through Twain's yellowing, rum and piss stained private papers. Once I got to the actual autobiography, I made it about 30 pages in before I realized, "Wow, Twain was a real self-important prick!" Any writer who decrees upon high that his autobiography may not be published until 100 years after his death is either highly delusional about his value to culture at large, or has something damning and shameful to hide. I'd say both are true in this case.
 
Gun, With Occasional Music, Jonathan Lethem
This was the second book I read on my new Kindle, and at the time I wasn't aware of just how many errors a lot of these .mobi files have. Perhaps the industry of ebook editing is still in its fledgling stage, or maybe this was just a bad "rip," but, WOW, did this book have a shitload of grammatical and spelling errors. So many, in fact, that I thought perhaps that they were intentional, and that at the end of the book I'd be let in on the joke. Because, honestly, this book was a horrible joke. I was a huge fan of Lethem's Fortress of Solitude, but this book is a hard-boiled detective story set in the future complete with talking animals and "Babyheads," a genetic experiment designed to make children grow up faster gone horribly awry. Bad, slow timing, and the mystery revealed wasn't that shocking or illuminating whatsoever. With as many mistakes and just bad literary techniques as there were in this book, I felt as if I was reading an O. Henry award winner from Idiocracy. 

While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction, Kurt Vonnegut
These are all short stories from before Vonnegut really found his culture-cutting voice. Milquetoast, lackluster fiction with a high morality factor that you really don't find in any of his novels after he went off to war. His publishers should have let his mortal coil sleep, and left these charming, ethical vignettes in his family's attic, to be used as stocking stuffers for his great-grandchildren. What I really learned from this book is that in order to develop a scathing satirical voice one should probably travel thousands of miles and watch people die, like, a lot.


Pygmy, Chuck Palahniuk
I wasn't a huge fan of Rant, so I didn't really have high hopes for this book. To my surprise, Pygmy turned out to be one of Palahniuk's best since Choke. Told from the perspective of a young Chinese would be terrorist, the narrative is delivered in broken and coded English that takes a while to fully understand, but by the end of the book just seems normal. Going back to reading properly structured sentences takes some getting used to, actually. Palahniuk's chosen method of delivery for this story is not dissimilar to the first part of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, except, in typical Palahniuk fashion, the entire book is written from the perspective of a character that the reader must actively engage to fully understand. Faulkner copped out by putting the perspective of people his readers could actually understand in his (legendary, critically lauded) novel. That's right, I just compared Palahniuk to Faulkner. And also, essentially called Faulkner a pussy. I stand by my decision.


I Drink For A Reason, David Cross
Somewhere between David Sedaris and John Hodgman, this book is another hodge-podge collection of essays and musings from one of America's great funnymen. Unfortunately, this book does not match up to his sketch writing, stand up, and acting prowess. It's a fairly boring read, with no real structure, except for a few one-liners thrown in hastily at the end of some of his essays to tie them into the next one you're about to read- almost like a Mr. Show segue way ,  but not nearly as witty or well timed. Not to mention his unbelievable overuse of the words "ubiquitous" and "ostentatious." At one point, he even refers to something as a "ubiquitous ostentation." I hear the audiobook is pretty hilarious, though.

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
This book has been on my list to read for years, but I just never got around to it. What a great book! I don't know much about Toole's life other than the fact that he killed himself before this book ever got published, and that his doting mother hounded an English professor at a local college to read it before it finally did get published, but if the main character, Ignatius C. Reilley and his insane, self-centered roommate mother are in any way autobiographical, it is no surprise that Toole blew his own brains out. Scholars and literary critics always mourn over the loss of such a great writer and what work we missed out on by him preemptively ending his own life, but it's doubtful he ever could have achieved as great a work as he did with this book. Also, Dwight Schrute of television's The Office HAS to be at least loosely based on the character of Ignatius C. Reilley. I wonder... Anyone got B.J. Thomas's number?

 Imperial Bedrooms, Bret Easton Ellis
Ellis's "long awaited" sequel to Less Than Zero. Falling somewhere between the seminal work he shit out while in college and American Psycho, this book is basically just two hundred or so pages of Hollywood self-aggrandizement, brutal sex, and some heinous murder thrown in for good measure. What is left out is all the sly, poignant themes about celebrity culture and the pursuit of wealth that made both Less Than Zero and American Psycho so fantastic. Ever since Lunar Park, a novel about a fictional character named Brett Easton Ellis by Brett Easton Ellis, I've been a little suspicious and reluctant of this author. I doubt I'll read anything else he comes out with in the future.  Ellis is today's F. Scott Fitzgerald.. with juggalo face paint.

Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami
Someone recommended this book to me years ago and wrote the title in Sharpie on the back of a used Taco Bell hot sauce packet. I had the packet tacked to my bulletin board for years, until I finally got rid of it the last time I moved. I wish I had followed the hot sauce's advice so long ago! What a phenomenal book. I can't wait to read everything else I can get my hands on of Murakami's. I'll never be so cavalier towards a condiment again.

Zeitoun, Dave Eggers
In the same vein as What is the What, Eggers tells the story of real life people who have gone through a horrible tragedy. This time, the setting is Hurricane Katrina, and the main characters are the Zeitouns, a middle eastern family with a well known painting and construction company in New Orleans, and their harrowing misadventures with Louisiana law enforcement after the breaching of the city's levies in 2005. A great read, but I do question Egger's motivation for telling these (albeit necessary) stories. I think he's got a case of that San Franciscan White Guilt that a lot of writers get after they option their narcissistic, semi-autobiographical novels for one million dollars that never gets made into a movie (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius). Whatever the case may be, he's a great writer and seems to have found his niche in telling the stories of those that society has heaped so much shit onto. This, coupled with the philanthropic work he does in conjunction with these books, along with the 826 workshops across the country, must surely allow his rich, tortured soul to sleep at night on his mattress made of Icelandic infant skin.

All I Will Say On The Subject of Female Fronted Rockabilly Music, Ever.

I might actually like Wanda Jackson if she hadn't spawned such horrors as Kim Lenz and the Jaguars.

Yep. That's pretty much it.

You know I'm bad.

Economic times being what they are, or, at least, what I'm told they are, I've lately begun to consider- academically, anyway- crime. Not in any specific, real terms the way one might plan a bank heist or a really sweet dognapping/ponzi scheme (mental note...), more in just a general sense- like, what is it? Or, How do I get involved? It's kind of just this over-arching, lofty ideal in my mind that I can't really grasp. It looks like this:

CRIME.

..only less wordy. I've begun to wonder just what exactly it might take for me to involve myself in “crime,” whatever form it might take. I wouldn't consider myself a greedy person, and, if asked, will tell you that I am wont for nothing. But, don't let that fool you into thinking that I'm not broke as fuck. Oh, because I am. Yes, sir, this economic global crisis has hit me too, buddy. Never mind the fact that my increasingly expensive cross-country move last summer just happened to coincide with the country's failing rocket jump over the yawning chasm of crippling depression. Nope, that was just good luck on my part. Like my friend said the other day, “Man, this recession hasn't affected me at all. If anything, the gas prices have just gone down.” I've considered that, as well. I know that if I hadn't moved, had kept my nice, steady, relatively well paying jobs back in Texas, none of this would have really affected me. I wouldn't be months behind on bills, wouldn't have applied for food stamps, wouldn't have to scotch tape my laptop screen to stay up instead of just buying new hinges for it (this last one, especially since the screen fell onto my hands just as I typed that, has introduced a whole new series of criminal thoughts into my head). I also wouldn't have had the chance to finally realize, once and for all, just what it would indeed take to push me towards actions that may, by all means, be considered...

CRIME.

It should be noted that the Brazil/Idiocracy-esque bureaucratic, stupidity fueled visions of the future we all love to laugh at and glance quickly over our shoulders for in those moments of impending doom do indeed exist, in real time, and the tale recounted below serves no purpose but to illuminate that fact. Take heart, however! This is not a tale of defeat or regret. My only hope is that you may find inspiration and hope in direct correlation to the overwhelming sense of fear and dread I felt in the intervening hours before the incidents recorded below were resolved. Holy shit.

I. 2:30 a.m.

“We can park here, right? This is weird- why is no one parked here?”

“Yeah, this looks okay- there's a meter,” Robyn says.

“Looks good, dude,” Vern agrees.

“Okay, sweet. Oh, wait- I forgot. We can't park here after 3 a.m. or they'll tow it. Or is that only in the winter? There's no snow anymore- does that sign still count?”

We all half-heartedly agree that this parking spot seems pretty much shruggingly okay.

“Well, whatever. I'll just come move it by three,” I say.

II. 4 a.m.

“Car's gone, dude.”

After a quick, informative telephone call to the friendly dispatchers at the non-emergency police hotline, I learned where my and so many other late night Milwaukee Ave. revelers' vehicles had been removed to: Auto Impound No. 6. I wasn't surprised. I wasn't even angry. I suppose it makes perfect sense that one shouldn't be allowed to park on a street that has nearly no traffic between the hours of 3 and 6 a.m. Why not?

I also learned that the ease of getting one's car out of the impound at 4 a.m. is made exponentially more convenient by the ultra-modern policy of only accepting cash. I breathed a sigh of relief when I fished through my pockets and realized I was only a mere $152 short of the necessary funds to exhume my van from the city's cash grabbing tomb. Fortunately, Robyn had a friend that worked at the bar, who, after hearing our tragic story, quickly pulled out his wallet and practically shoved $160 at us, and said, “Go get your van. I'm a traveling musician, too. I know what it's like.” I was amazed by his generosity, especially to someone he didn't know at all, and I did all I could to show my gratitude in the best way my drunken stupor would allow me. I gave him my number, assured him that I would return his money in the morning, and gave him, like, at least twelve daps.

It got kind of weird towards the end. Perhaps he had second thoughts, because his attitude seemed to quickly change from that of a benevolent brother-in-arms to that of a, I don't know, twice betrayed ghetto bookie? “Hey. Don't fuck me on this deal. I've got your number. I can find you. Don't fuck with me.” After numerous assurances that I had indeed given him my correct phone number and that I had no intention of “fucking” him, he even gave Robyn an extra $20 to get a cab to the impound! It was only the following morning that I realized I had cashed my check from work earlier that afternoon, and had all the cash I needed buried somewhere on my person. But hey, what's another debt saddled with thinly veiled threats between friends of friends? Buy the ticket, take the ride, I always say.

III. 4:45 a.m.

After arriving to the impound and standing in line for a few minutes, Robyn sees some more friends whose car shared the same fate as mine that night. Wow, she seems to know people everywhere she goes, I thought. When they don't offer to pay my impound fee outright, I begin to question just how cool these people are she calls “friends,” anyway. When we finally make our way to the front of the line to the teller's window, I could tell right away how the interchange would go. The lady behind the glass had seen it all before, and I'm sure to her I was just another privileged, drunk white kid that always got his way, and for this night to be anything but an exception to that rule would be a miracle of biblical, fuck-all proportion. I've always struggled with the concept of being able to simply say “Motherfucker” with one's eyes, but this lady had it down pat. If I could only mimic that gloriously hideous glare half as well, I am confident that my life would be infinitely easier.

After the tedious process of identifying just which 1998 red GMC Savana on their lot was mine, filling out all sorts of various forms in triplicate, mining my brain for various pieces of inane information that I never thought I would need (Who cares what my second grade teacher's name was?), and relinquishing my state issued ID, I was handed a yellow pass, which, when presented to the lot attendant, would grant me access to the impound lot, where I was to retrieve my registration information from the van.

IV. 5:15 a.m.

Though knowing all too well that I had none of the pieces of paper required of me when I finally climbed into the van, I nonetheless frantically rifled through layers upon layers of CD's, empty Taco Bell cups, and band t-shirts for a good fifteen minutes in hopes of finding something, anything, that would serve as a cure-all, magic one way ticket out of this comical-snafu-quickly-turned-Camusian-nightmare. There were no papers. What papers? The title of the vehicle was in some bank's coffers 900 miles away, the registration was out, and the current insurance card was nowhere to be found. And even though I did eventually find the current insurance, it would serve no purpose, anyhow. When a curious lot attendant finally shined his flashlight in my window to inquire as to why I had been in the van for so long, he saw the expired registration in the windshield and said, “Man, your registration's out. You might as well just go home, 'cause you ain't gettin' this thing out tonight.”

Refusing to believe the inevitable, I trudged back into the office with my current insurance card and a growing sense of urgency and financially inspired fear inching its way up the back of my neck.

“I couldn't find the current registration, but here's my insurance card.”

“I don't need your insurance card, Mr. Pool, I need your registration card,” said the lady behind the glass.

“But I don't have the registration card. You know the car's registered to me- it came back that way when you ran my plates. “

“That don't matter, Mr. Pool. I need the card.”

“I don't have it. They don't do paper registration cards in Texas [lie], it's all done through the plates and the windshield sticker. Besides, the registration's expired in Texas,” I said, moron that I am.

“OH. Well then, you can't get it out anyway,” she explained.

“Wait. Why? It's registered in Texas! It has nothing to do with Illinois. You won't see any of the revenue from its expiration here. Why does it matter?”

“You can't get your car out if the registration's out,” she further illuminated.

“That makes no sense! What do I have to do?,” I half-yelled, growing increasingly fucking furious.

“You'll have to go to the DMV, get a seven day pass, come back in the mor-”

By this time, I had ceased to listen, and was beginning to formulate all sorts of murderous or suicidal plans. My brain took over, and threw out one last-ditch-ninth-inning-hail-mary-shot-at-the-buzzer-sudden-death-shot-of-adrenaline-to-the-heart attempt:

“Aaactually, I think I may know where the registration is, now that I reeeeally think about it. I think the state mailed me a new one a few weeks ago,” I kindly smiled through clenched teeth.

Somehow, impossibly, I was handed one more yellow pass to return to the lot. The pass was check marked “Retrieve Personal Belongings.” I walked back towards the yard, and never again returned to that office.

V. 6:05 a.m.

Sitting in the van, alternately staring at the side panel of the navy blue van they had parked directly in front of me and the blinding glare of the numerous floodlights that cast an eerie, unnatural glow about the oversized gravel parking lot, my mind played over and over the events of the preceding two hours. I half joked with Robyn and Vern, telling them we were gonna “bust outta here,” and to get ready. I even had them wait outside the gated property for me. They waited and waited, but nothing ever happened. Robyn eventually called a cab and went home, offering to take us with her, but we declined. Vern continued to wait outside the office door, loyal. This loyalty likely arose from the fact that he had nowhere else to go, and also that he probably had no idea where he was, or why in the fuck he had moved to Chicago in the first place. I thought about my interactions with the lot attendants and how nice they were, considering the circumstances, and how unwavering they were in their adherence to the rules of the impound lot. Bribes were denied, unbelievably. “You think I'm gonna risk my job over 160 fuckin' dollars?”

“Fair enough,” I replied.

I thought about my final entrance back into the lot- how the lot attendant didn't believe me when I told him I was coming to get the piece of paper that I needed, how he had to radio back into the office to make sure my entrance was legitimate, how he returned my pass to me with a suspicious glance and yelled to me as I walked slowly away: “Don't START that van!”

“Right on,” I muttered.

I thought about the bulldozer that had previously been parked in front of the gate, blocking all cars from coming or going, its glaring absence at this moment, and how, as I walked to the van, the lot attendant squelched into his radio, “Hey man, bring that bulldozer back up here.”

I thought about my roommate's casual mention of needing the van to go to the unemployment office later that morning, and how his own vehicle was in a state of disrepair. I thought about how unbelievable it is that nearly every action, every move we make is motivated primarily by money or the lack thereof, and though it often has before, disgusted me to a point of shame. I stared at my pants and shoes, covered in the flour and sauce of a job that pays me $8.50 an hour in a business where skill and pay rate are completely disproportionate, and how this concept is nothing new. I saw the lights of the bulldozer in my rearview mirror, ambling slowly, robot-like, from the rear of the lot back to its unwavering parking space, as if in mocking, waiting for me to pay its gaping metal claws, laughing.

And I snapped.

VI. What is time to a criminal?

There are decisions in life that, once made, can never be reversed. I do my best to avoid these types of situations most of the time. But, I knew that, once I had turned the ignition over on the van, there was no turning back. I dropped the gear into drive and floored it. The van they had parked in front of mine, presumably as a deterrent, proved to be quite helpful in my escape, as it provided a few precious seconds of driving before the lot attendants saw me. They had parked it close, but not close enough that I couldn't squeeze through the gap and barrel towards the gate. The bulldozer, though closer now, was no match for my speed. I yanked the wheel hard and blew in front of it, leaving a cloud of grey dust for it to crawl pathetically through. Rocks and dirt sprayed everywhere as I raced toward the front of the lot. The lot attendants had seen me now, and screamed, waving their arms, angry, jumping in front of the van to stop me. I swerved around one, leaving the main one at the front of the lot as the final obstacle between my freedom and my financial imprisonment. He jumped directly in front of the van, spewing venom and horrible sailor's curses at me. I faked left, then swerved right, hard, and as I narrowly missed running him over, he pounded the van with his fists and hurled all sorts of unnecessary insults at me. I think I waved at him as I passed, for some reason. I yanked the wheel, and spun a hard left out of the parking lot. I passed Vern, who gaped at me confoundedly as I blazed past him, out of the yard, and off the impound lot's property altogether. I screeched a right out of the driveway, and onto an adjoining side street. Vern sprinted out of the parking lot and met me on the street, and I slowed just enough for him to take a running leap into the van's passenger door.

“Go! Go! Go!,” he screamed.

“Holy shit!,” I responded.

I took the first left I could, then the first right, then the first left again, instinctively, to lose the trail of any number of cops that were surely on my tail. Vern rolled me a cigarette, and though we were both strung out from fatigue and the overwhelming adrenaline of the movie-like escape we had just been the primary actors of, we were both surprisingly calm. Between “Oh my god's” and “What the fuck's,” I said, “Um.. I'm pretty sure I just committed Grand Theft Auto.”

VII. 7 a.m.

We made it back to the apartment, and I edged my way into the tightest parking spot I could find, in an attempt to block the front and rear license plates from any patrol car searching for the APB that was surely out on my car. We ran inside and sat in the living room, smoking one cigarette after another, trying to process what had just occurred, and trying to come up with solutions in typical male fashion. All the commotion must have woken Nick, because he stumbled out of his room and said, “Whoah, late night, huh guys?”

“You have no idea,” I said.

He would later tell me that we looked like we had been doing speed all night.

After recounting the terrible saga, I said, “We gotta change the plates on the van, man. We gotta do something!” I kept saying that I was pretty sure I might have to skip town over this deal. At some point, he wisely told us to get some sleep and figure out what to do in the morning. Over the course of a nearly hour long conversation between all of us, I went to sleep with a feeling that this wasn't that big of a deal, and that everything would be fine in the morning.

VIII. 12 p.m.

Upon waking, the feeling I had when I went to sleep had now been replaced by its most severe counterpart. At this point, I was sure I had committed a felony, and was likely hours away from being arrested and put in jail for a long, long time. I considered my options. Before I went to sleep, both Nick and Vern thought it would be a good idea to call the impound to find out the possible ramifications for my actions. It wouldn't hurt to find out, they said, and the folks from the impound had called three times since we left the lot, and had even sent me a text message that simply had a phone number to call. On top of that, they still had my ID, and seeing as I was supposed to be getting on a plane in two days to go to Texas for one of my best friend's wedding, it was sort of imperative that I get it back. So, I called the number that was texted to me.

“Impound.”

“Hi. I, uh, I left the impound last night without, um, paying, and I just need to know what I need to do to get my ID back, and what I have to do, uh, or, whatever.”

“......Hold on,” the woman on the other end belatedly replied.

Seconds later, a man picks up the phone. Two words, with just the right amount of inflection, instantly popped beads of sweat onto my forehead.

“Frank Maroni,” said Frank Maroni.

If I'd never heard the perfect voice combined with the perfect name of a Chicago police officer before, I certainly had now. I repeated the same sentence I said to the lady that had answered the phone.

“Mr. Pool,” he liltingly responded, all too knowingly.

Swallowing, I replied, “Yeah.”

“Well, Jonathan, do you wanna save you and me both a lot of hassle, or do you wanna do this the hard way? 'Cause as it stands right now you have a felony warrant out for your arrest.”

“Easy way, please,” I replied.

IX. 12:20 p.m.

Frank Maroni laid it all out for me. He told me that all he wanted to do was to get this “little mishap” off his books. He said that the city just wanted their money. He told me I had a felony warrant for “theft of services” out for my arrest. He said it wasn't a big deal, but that he just wanted to clear his books before day's end. All I had to do was come in and pay the $160, collect my license and my paperwork, and be on my way. Easy as that. None of this seemed right. I asked him why it was so easy for them to take my money today, when just mere hours ago, I was practically throwing money at anyone I could at the impound, and not a single person would take it. He explained that he was the supervisor at the impound, and that the people working here the night before (there was an air of exasperation in his voice as he referenced them) did not have the ability to authorize such an arrangement. All I had to do was come in and pay the money.

“Are you a cop?,” I asked.

He assured me that he, Frank Maroni, was not a cop, and, perhaps to illustrate his non-police officer status, said, “No one's gonna fuck witcha- I just needa get this shit off da books. Man ta man, I give ya my word.”

Trepidacious, I hung up the phone. I told Vern and Nick about the conversation, and they were both as skeptical about the situation as well. Nick suggested that I call back to double check everything that he had said. I said, “But he gave me his word. If that doesn't mean something coming from Frank Maroni, then what can we trust these days?!”

When that line of thinking failed to work even on me, I called Frank Maroni back. But not before I called the police station to find out if there was a warrant out for my arrest.

“You'll have to go to the police station to find that out, sir.”

What the hell was this? Were they all, the whole goddamned city, in on this? Was this a massive sting? I shut the blinds.

“Well, I don't think I'll be doing that. Let me just ask you this. Is 'theft of services' considered a felony?,” I asked the beat cop on the other end.

“No, man, it's a- well, it depends on how much you stole, first of all.”

“Whoah, wait a second,” I said, “I'm not saying I stole anything. Say, hypothetically, it was for $160.”

“Pssh, naw man- that's a class c misdemeanor. Don't worry about it.”

“Thank you, officer.”

X. 12:45 p.m.

Armed with this newfound knowledge and some interesting internet research that Nick had done on this place (turns out this particular impound, which was not police run, but just sub-contracted out, has been under a series of investigations for all sorts of shady shit, from things like employee theft from some of the impounded cars, all the way to an insane story of forklifting some poor girl's car with her still in it, because she was hysterical and wouldn't move), I called Frank Maroni back to see what else he might have lied to me about. The ironic catch of it all was that if he was in fact a cop, he wouldn't have even been able to arrest me for the crime he said I had a warrant for.

“Can I speak to Frank Maroni, please?”

“Who is this?”

“It's Jonathan. I just spoke to him.”

“Hold on.”

Minutes later, a man picks up the phone.

“'Lo?”

“Hello, Frank?”

“Yea, whaddup?”

“Um, is this Frank? We just spoke..?”

“Who 'dis?”

“It's Jonathan Pool.”

“Who??”

“Is this Frank Maroni?”

“Oh! You say Frank?”

“Yes. Frank. Maroni.”

“Aw man, 'dis Spank! Hode on..”

XI. 12:49 p.m.

When Frank finally gets on the phone, I ask him, again, if he is a cop. He explains once again, swears, even, that he is only the supervisor of this impound and just wants this off his books. He seems to get a little more animated, and, frankly, well, frank, and begins to lay out the true reality of the situation. He explains to me that it is the cardinal sin of auto impound to let a car get off the lot without paying. He tells me that it is a paperwork nightmare, and to make this incident just “go away” will be a lot easier on both of us. In fact, he says, this is such a big deal that one of the lot attendants got fired over this deal for not doing his job. I assumed this was the same man who I tried to bribe for $160 that wouldn't risk his job over so paltry a sum. I feel really bad that this man lost his livelihood over this ridiculous situation, and I wish he had taken the money when I offered it to him, because now he didn't have a job or $160. I wondered why Frank Maroni had lied to me a) about the severity of the charge levied against me, and b) the apparent severity of the situation. Earlier, he had said this was no big deal. Someone lost a city job over this shit, which, after seeing the sheer ineptitude of many city employees (and I don't just mean in Chicago), seems really hard to do. When I asked him about the supposed warrant, he merely stumbled over his words, never answered my questions, and mumbled some report number. I dropped it at that.

“Look, I want to get this taken care of. You've given me your word that you're not a cop and that no one is gonna 'fuck with me,' but I still don't trust you. Can I send in a friend to take care of this?”

“I don't give a fuck,” Frank responded, “I just wanna get this off my desk before 5 p.m. today.”

XII. 2:30 p.m.

I nominated Vern to go in my stead, and he accepted with great humility. We climbed into Nick's truck- he had fixed it that morning after learning there might be a felony warrant APB out on it- and drove towards the impound. We didn't want to take the van, anyway, for fear that they might try.. to.. re-impound it..? Whatever, fuck you! You have no idea what we were going through!

I hid in the tiny seat behind the main cab, and Vern sat in the passenger seat. I was really worried that the guy that had gotten fired would be hanging around the lot, right next to the lead pipe and gun store. I pulled my hoodie as far over my face as my eyes would allow. They demanded to see their impending slaughter. Nick devised the code word “Maddragon” for Vern to text to us if things started to go south while he was in the office. We dropped Vern off, and as he slowly walked the 300 yards to the office, we watched, and we waited.

And waited.

“Wanna call him, dude?,” Nick says, handing his phone back to me.

“No,” I said, “Let's give him a few more minutes.”

Moments later, I said, “Give me the phone.”

When Vern picked up, he told me that everything was fine and that he just had a lot of paperwork to fill out. Relieved, I hung up. Then, Nick said, “What if they made him say that?”

I sent him a text saying, simply, “Maddragon?,” to which he replied, “Unfortunately, no.” Minutes later, he exits the office, walks back to the truck, license, receipt, and police report in hand, and says, “Done, dude.”

XIII. Maroni's Last Lie

It turns out that the supposed police report Frank referred to was anything but. And I mean that literally. Right there on the piece of paper were the words, “This is NOT a police report. It is for informational purposes ONLY.” Strike three, Maroni.

XIV. Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

Although knowing now that busting out of the impound like a fucking murder suspect ended up costing me far less money than it would have if I had bowed to the City's absurdly strict standards and regulations, I hasten to add that in a better time, economically, I would not have allowed this situation to be pushed to its scary, awesome climax. But, my hand was forced, and I guess I know now how far I can be pushed before I really fight back. When logic and reason cease to be a factor, we must react in any way necessary to restore natural order.

We must all know by now that everything is nothing more than child's play- a silly game played with bigger toys and harsher consequences. If we fail to realize the absurdity of it at any time, we lose. Vern is not Vern's first name. It is his middle name. Vern does not have a state issued ID. He only has a passport. When he went in to retrieve my license and pay the fee, he used his passport as his identification. Since there is no address present on the passport, they merely used his first and last name in the address blank on one of the required forms. The pink piece of paper he handed to me as he climbed back into the truck clearly illustrates, to me, anyway, the perfect comical absurdity of this whole fiasco. It says, simply, “Street Address: Michael Jackson.”

The Tie-In that Binds.

There are a few intersections in Chicago that present a geometrical nightmare to someone who spent his sophomore year in high school math pining after a POE-crazed, Kool-Aid hair dyed, near drop-out, Geo driving, pot smoking skinny girl who was in love with a bad boy named Billy. Billy was so bad he vomited on the carpeted floor that year. Twice.

I'm always reminded of the time I wasted skipping class to get high and go to Denny's with a girl I knew I could never attain when I'm on the verge of being hopelessly lost. The correlation my brain makes between my usually trustworthy sense of direction and my occasional poor choice in women is a palpable example of my mind's penchant for torturing me with cruel analogies at the most inopportune moments.

Spinning in concentric circles looking for a familiar Burger King or Taco Bell at the most obtuse of triangular intersections is not the best time to begin ruminating on the theorem (the reader will note my rudimentary use of geometrical terms in this essay) that had I been only a year older, that misguided 17 year old, late 90's burnout in a 16 year old's class (for the second time) could've been mine. No, that would be the time to buckle down and find out where the fuck you're supposed to be going.

Although, I suppose this action, this diversionary tactic, that my brain presented to me at this particular moment was not completely irrational, and my brain should be given some credit for trying to take itself off the slew of information and experience it had running through itself at this particular moment. I mean, I had just walked nearly 15 minutes out of my way only to realize that I was heading in the opposite direction of my house, after exiting the train station at an unfamiliar location in the hopes of saving time, after having to leave my bike locked up to a bike rack, since my lock decided to stop working, forbidding me from riding home, which occurred directly after having a meeting at the place of employment I was fired from five days ago for a karaoke performance the night before.

And, while the above statement may appear ludicrous, were one to know my history, one might not be so surprised at the eventualities that led me to the situation I found myself in on this quickly cooling Chicago winter's day. (I hasten to add that the glossed over nature of the above paragraph will not stand for long. You have all asked, and I will be reporting on it fully, as soon as certain obligations permit me to do so. Wait for it..)

A light snow had begun to fall, but was no match in the race it and the temperature were having. Watching the breath float out of my nose and into the noisy din of the rush hour bustle, I thought momentarily that it might be in my best interest to cross the street, to walk, somewhere, anywhere, rather than stand on the curb for another five minutes. I knew I'd find my way eventually, even if a 20 minute walk took two hours. Who gives a shit- it's not like I have a job to get to, I thought.

Having resolved to let the genius of The Frogs, which was blaring through my headphones, carry me wherever it deemed necessary, I stepped into the street. Where I was headed didn't matter at this point. I had already let pride win out over basic survival by deciding not to ask anyone for directions. I slushed through the first puddle of my sojourn into the unknown when I heard a muffled "Hey!" through the lyrical gold on the "It's Only Right and Natural" record (Lotta cute guys in the club tonight. Lotta juicy asses hangin' out!). I continued walking, and only briefly turned to see where all the yelling was coming from when I heard "HEY, MAN!" again.

Shooting a sidelong glance over my right shoulder, I saw a rather large dude in an even larger red windbreaker staring at me. And, though I've never seen a fat kite before, I feel like I have a better grasp on what one might look like now. He wore clear sunglasses. I assumed that these were safety goggles for the fashion-savvy construction worker, but who knows, maybe he had a deathly allergy to UV rays that only dumb looking, wrap-around, clear shades could prevent. Having never seen this strange man, and fearing the worst, I gave him the universal "Whaddup." nod to allay any doubts he may have had about my downness.

"What's up dude?," he exlcaimed. "How you doin'?"

Shaking my head slightly, pulling my headphones off, I said, "Hey... man. What's goin' on?"

"Ah man, shit! You remember me from the other night at the bar? Fuck, when was that, Tuesday? Yeah! Tuesday! Remember me? Holy shit!"

"Uh, what?," I asked. "Where?" I knew my short term memory was terrible.

"The other night, dude! At the, at the fuckin'... bar! Down the street!"

"OH, yeah! What's up, man?" I hadn't been to a bar since Saturday, and it certainly wasn't down the street from where I presently found myself.

"Damn, dog, I knew I recognized you! That shit was CRAZY the other night, huh?"

"Yeah, man.. yeah! I was wasted. I was all, Who the fuck is this guy talkin' to me, then I remembered that crazy night at the bar! Haha! Sorry, dude," I lied. "So what're you up to, just coming home from work?"

"Fuuuck yeah, man- I'm working down at Shedd Aquarium, replacing all the tile in the new exhi-"

Who is this person, and why are we friends?, I wondered, as the Kite told me about his day.

"So, what're you up to, man?," he asked, snapping me out of my inner dialogue.

"Oh, man, I'm just walking." Wait- benevolence! Why stop a stranger to ask for directions when you can just ask your good friend from the bar?

"You know where Fullerton is?"

After beautifully detailed instructions and the benefits of taking said beautiful directions over much less convenient ways, I gave the Kite daps and turned to walk towards home.

As I thought to myself, The City, she does provide, I heard a bellowing "See you Tuesday, homie?"

"Oh, hell yeah, man!," I returned, walking backwards and waving. "See you there!"

Thanks, City, I thought, and made my way home, beating the severe cold front by mere minutes.

I retired to my apartment and decided to make a bowl of chili with corn and potatoes- a perfect, if not wholly cliched, end to my icy walk. I gathered the necessary cans out of the pantry, wondering, momentarily, why it was that these cans were wet. Perhaps some condensation from the cold, I thought. Wait, why.. what.. what the fuck is that smell?

"Oh, goddamnit. Awesome."

Clearly, the city does giveth, but she also taketh. Pantry Cat, also referred to as Gordie, whose theme song is "Can I Play with Madness," by Iron Maiden, decided that this would be the perfect day to piss all over my food. Hanging my head in acquiescence to the City's fickle finger, I switched off the pantry light, and just laughed.

Terrible PUNditry: Poetically Correct.

It is no great epiphany to say that Governor Sarah Palin is clearly a master of the spoken word. But here, through the ancient wisdom and mystical nature of Japan's finest export, the haiku, we are able to extract even deeper, more meaningful connections to this brilliant orator, one carved in the stalwart traditions of such titans as Lincoln, Churchill, and Kennedy.

Unless otherwise noted, all references to the following material may be viewed at your leisure here.

On Experience

"Now, what I've done as
Governor and as Mayor
Is (inaudible)."

On Tax Reform

"Still on the tax thing
Because I want to correct
You on that again."

On Domestic Drilling

"Senator McCain
Does support this, yes. The chant
Is 'drill, baby, drill.'"

On Iraq

"Your plan is a white
Flag of surrender and that's
Not what our troops need."

On Nuclear Armament

"Nuclear weaponry
Here in the U.S. is used
As a deterrent."

On Leadership

"John McCain tapped me
And said, 'That's where I want you,
I want you to lead.'"

On McCain

"Who has been there and
He's faced challenges and he
Knows what evil is."

On Foreign Policy

"A comment like that
Was made to char- I don't know.
You know, reporters."

Viewable here.

On Personal Media Choices

"I've read most of them,
A great appreciation
For the media."

"All of 'em, any
That have been in front of me
Over all these years."

Viewable here.

My bicycle and Dave, the friendly, if not grossly misinformed, homeless man.

Today, my bike got caught in one of these:



See, I've read the rules(#2, second paragraph). I know what's up. I knew better, seriously. I definitely knew better than to try to put an awkwardly shaped piece of metal and rubber through a labyrinthine, even more awkwardly shaped gate constructed of hundreds of metal poles and flaking paint.

But, you need to understand the circumstances surrounding that which, at first, appeared to be a comical snafu, but which quickly deteriorated into the kind of human traffic jam you only read about (here), the disgusted eyes of the carless rabble heaping shame and humiliation onto me as they trudged back up two flights of stairs to find alternate exits.

Also, you need to stop judging me.

If I preface this story by saying I was in a not-so-great part of town when this tragic mishap occurred, would that do anything to quell your heartless cackles? I doubt it. You cruel fuckers.
Well, I was. And now, I'm not even going to tell you exactly where I was, because you don't deserve to know. Also, I don't need any more heartless cackles added to the mêlée when you call me a pussy for thinking the Green Line at California and Lake is a bad part of town. Heartless cackles. Heartless cackles. I'm really into that phrase right now. Heartless cackles.

Thing is, I'd never been to this particular stop before today. When I tell you that the reason I found myself at this particular place in the universe is that I had just finished walking a pair of dogs downtown- one that was in its third year of remission from lymphoma, and one that had IBS and incontinence, and was required to wear what amounts to a doggie diaper (affectionately referred to as a belly band) on its way from the apartment to the outside- and was on my way back to a saw blade factory to wash and dry over 1,500 wine glasses, well, you'll just have to trust me. Because that is what I was doing. And also scoring a shitload of crack.

So, where I might normally know the access points of bicycle friendly exits at any number of my regular, more gentrified stops, today I did not. I merely hustled off the train with the lunchtime herd and headed to the nearest exit, where I was being corralled. It wasn't until I reached the halfway point of the trip down that I espied the forbidden gate ahead, but by then it was too late. Not too late to turn around and find the correct exit, mind you, but too late to avoid being seen by Dave, a streetwise tough that looked as bright and sharp as the pile of broken glass he stood in, but not nearly as shattered.

"C'mon man! We can get that shit through here! I done it befo'!," he hollered at me as I faltered in step on the platform, eyeing the gate nervously.

"Nah, I don't think so, dude. It looks pretty narr-"

"It's cool, man! C'mon! Fuck it!"

Yeah, I thought, yeah! It is cool! AND fuck it! This guy knows the score!
________________________

Minutes later, my bike now punishingly wedged in CTA purgatory, neither in the train station, nor out, Dave, safely outside the train station, looks at me, safely inside the train station, and says, "Shit, man. I fucked up."

"I don't know, man. I thought it would go, too. How're we suppposed to get it out?!"

"Fuck.. man I don't know! A damn saw? Shit," Dave mused.

By now, the initial crowd of onlookers and angry passengers had diminished, and we found ourselves quite alone in this predicament. I fully expected at any moment that Dave would grow weary of this absurd task, this extraction of a fucking bicycle from a fucking turnstile, and wander away, leaving me to my own devices and fulfillment of so many existential nightmares.

But Dave stayed. Whether it was pride, boredom, or maybe just working off a buzz before returning to the halfway house (I will note my own unfair characterization of the homeless, thank you.), Dave stayed. And we solved our problem together. And it did not include the destruction of any city or personal property, I can proudly say.

Did we alter any chemical properties, perhaps? There is no way to know for sure (except for any number of blood and DNA tests, MRI's, etc., but must we bog ourselves down with such minutae?), but I can safely say that we were different men when we met on the outside of that gate, bike intact, shaking hands heartily in acknowledgment of our shared triumph. Could there be a more apt physical manifestation of not being kept down by The Man, not letting The City win yet again?

As we stood there exchanging accolades, reminiscing about the experience we literally just had, and smoking drugs, Dave said, "We all fuck shit up sometime, man." He's right, you know.

Then he said, "Got any change, man?"

A heartless cackle* flew past my lips as I handed him a dollar and rode down the street, onward to all points wine and saw.

*Heartless cackle, in this context, can also be taken to mean "Here ya go, man."