Ask Me About My Racism

The Beverly Area Planning Association hosted the forum in the wake of racist graffiti that was spray-painted on several cars, garages and buildings over a two-day span beginning late Sept. 19. The Beverly Area Planning Association hosted the forum in the wake of racist graffiti that was spray-painted on several cars, garages and buildings over a two-day span beginning late Sept. 19.DNA Chicago

Now, how did I miss that?

There is nothing that tickles my fancy more than any opportunity to scratch and sniff at the scabs on my see-through- 2nd Generation Irish pelt and considering the horrible systemic racial darkness of my heart.

Me and mine are just about the most low-down, dirty, arm-pit smelling, Hairy Ape nasty, bunch of bull-whip cracking Thornbirds who ever Riverdanced poor colored folks into a Melissa Harris Perry level of righteous outrage to soil Mammy Earth's clean and wholesome gravel.

My racist comings and goings begin upon waking and leaping from my dollar stuffed pillows and mattress and shaving my white privileged mug with a straight razor no stranger to violence and blood.  My infringement upon the Souls of Black Folks begins when I pull into the driveway of a single- mother of two whose car happens to be a victim of race hatred these last three years and expect the poor woman to accept a ride from this ChiRish bully to work. Then, I go to work at an all boys Catholic high school funded almost entirely by my black hearted Irish Cousins, where we do good out of White Flight Guilt alone!

There is no limit to the lengths that I will go to make people of different colors obliged in some dark and twisted expiation for my sins. The only people more active in tormenting African Americans and getting more privilege would be the Jews, according to NPR, Rev. AL and Pork Chop Louie Farahkhan, but Micks take a back seat to none when it comes to racial hate, or race guilt and scab-yanking.  You should hear my Ofay glad-handing bonhommie when I pick up the twelve young black scamps from Englewood to Bronzeville every school day.

I watch every Ken Burns documentary and see the strange fruit swing from every limb in Beverly, Morgan Park and Mount Greenwood enough to no that hatred is the only by product squeezed out of these bones and sinews.  Bill Moyers continues the fine public work begun by William Lloyd Garrision, Jospeh Medill and carried on by Reverend Al Sharpton from Ferguson to 111th & and Rock Island line in Morgan Park.

Any chat about race is a monologue and usually a pretty loud one where I must nod with conviction that I only watch the first twelve minutes of Armistad and the last fifteen minutes of Glory.

It is very important that I recognize that I secretly delight in every act kindness, affliction, raised-eyebrow and every outrage manufacture by Reverend Jackson, or Reverend Al as just another nail added to the White Tower of my privileged life.

Dog whistles, or codes will always catch me out.  People better than me will define me. Gee, black people do not like being defined, from what I hear.  White folks have defined who I am - NPR, Ken Burns, Bill Moyers, Eric Zorn, Carol Marin . . .Gosh I guess we are equal!

The very best people continue to say so.

Change Is Pukka! Hickey On The Cot!

I was having a wet-on the terrace, after padding the hoof in my parish, when I noticed a pukka sahib from down the quad ,  who had recently gotten the chuck at work and had  moithered the neighbors with his yowling.

The Traps from District 22 had set upon the Topper and determined to take the Old Sweat, who was obviously off his chump, on the peg.

Ichabod!! No pother to me Old Boy.  I'll just chat up the God-Wallah at Sacred Heart about this bother on Sunday next and hand sketch it down in my moleskin notebook.

Tales of the South Side: Watching The Stanley Cup on Radio at Downton Abbey in Morgan Park

"The family must never be a topic of conversation." – Violet Crawley

Bob Crawley is a retired Chicago Fire Department Battalion Chief and a Sprinkle- Fitter.  He is a frugal man who saved and invested and yet a fastidious and gracious host. Bob is often called Lord Crawley, due to the Crawley Manor, built during one of the earlier housing bubbles and managed through deft manipulation of Chicago's Byzantine building and zoning codes, the application of the 'proper envelope to the proper person' and a shrewdly crafted investment portfolio, to remain far above the mortgage waters and right-side up.

They call this urban estate Downton Abbey, because Bob was always down town, until he got more dough in vaults at Standard Bank and prounced downtown as Down-TUN. Some folks.

Crawley Manor is located on South Rockwell between 107th and 109th on the east side of the CSX tracks over by Joe Waddel's house what's near Jerry Tourville's. Last night I joined many of my neighbors at Downton Crawley to listen to the Hawks Game on Bose Speakers, as Lord Crawley eschews television altogether as the idiot box.

I arrived well after 8PM, through much fault of my own, which did not go unnoticed by Lord Crawley when he greeted me at the back door. (thus follows dialog)

Lord Crawley - My dear man, there must have been some epic tragedy, or crucial incident necessitating your delay in arriving before Face-off.  But!  We will say no more on the subject, My dear Fellow. Do tuck away at the modest spread prepared by Mr. Carson. . .
Hickey - The Rib guy? 

Lord Crawley -Um, . . . no.  How shall I put this . . . My Man.  

Hickey - Carson MY MAN!

Lord Crawley - Mr. Carson . . .Mr. Hickey

Carson - Indeed. These are canapés, Mr. Hickey. For your first course, some truffled egg on toast, perhaps? Some oysters a la Russe? There’s lobster rissoles in Mousseline sauce or Calvados-glazed duckling, or do you fancy a little asparagus salad with Champagne-saffron vinaigrette? 

Hickey -That's Italian?

Carson: But Mr. Hickey is very good, you know. He’s very willing. Even if he is Miss O’Brien’s nephew.

Matthew Crawley ( Bob's son-in law - a lawyer) : Clearly, nothing worse could be said of any man.

Hickey - Matt, You go to Mount Carmel?

Lord Crawley - There hasn’t been a Catholic Crawley since the Reformation.

Mrs. Patmore - Anyone who has use of their limbs can make a salmon mousse.

Lord Crawley - Mrs. Patmore, please.  Return to the kitchen and your duties.

Mrs. Patmore - You know the trouble with you lot? You’re all in love with the wrong people. Now take those upstairs!

Robert: I’m flabbergasted.

Cora ( Lady Crawley) : You’re always flabbergasted by the unconventional.

Hickey - This mousse tastes like fish.  Clare ( my daughter -watching the Hawks on Buster Sheridan's Dad's 186" Flat Screen) makes it with Chocolate.

BOSE SPEAKER - WITH TWO MINUTES REMAINING IN THE THIRD . . .IT"S BRUINS 2 and HAWKS 1

Dr. Clarkson: So you want me to lie to them and say there was no chance at all?

Violet ( Lord Bob's Old Lady Mom) - Lie… is so unmusical a word. I want you to review the evidence honestly and without bias.

Clarkson: Even to ease suffering, I could never justify telling an outright lie.

BOSE Speaker - WITH 1:16 left in the 3rd PERIOD BRYAN BICKELL HAS TIED THE BRUINS!!!!!!!!!!

Violet - At my age, one must ration one’s excitement.  

Hickey - Any more of that lobster rissole in fridge?

Lord Crawley - Are you not popular downstairs?

Mr. Carson - Well, in my opinion, to misquote Dr. Johnson, if you’re tired of style, you are tired of life. 

BOSE SPEAKER - With 58.3 seconds left . . . .DAVE BOLAND HAS SHOVED THE PUCK PAST TUKKA RASK . . .HAWKS WIN THEIR SECOND STANLEY CUP IN FOUR YEARS!!!!!!!!!!

Violet: Have we nothing in common?

Hickey - How 'bout sa'more of that Calvados duck stuff?

Robert: I’m flabbergasted.

Cora: You’re always flabbergasted by the unconventional. Good nght Mr. Hickey.

The great doors closed on a splendid evening!

Catenation! Cats + Caffeine + Comestibles = Japanese Cat Cafes

I live in a blue collar ethnic neighborhood, Morgan Park of Chicago.  This is place where folks live in bungalows, Georgians, raised ranches and two, or three flats . . . over by Western . . . Western Ave.  There are two sets of train tracks, alleys aplenty and the od prairie ( Archiac Chicagoese for an open lot between two buildings N.B. I had originally written  "a space between two buildings," , but that is more correctly termed a gangway.  Families with kids, lots and lots of kids live here.  Kids need pets and the largest fur-hided, four, or three legged, determined by the fleetness of the critter where CXN trains are concerned, demographic is the dog. The dog is a great pet and man's best friend. It also makes a tasty snack with peppers and coconut milk for future transcendant and post-racial Presidential timber.

Dogs are easy to train and fun to tease.  As a young buck I prided in my Irish Terrier Leroy who could sit for ten minutes with an Oreo perched on the bridge of his smeller, until given the Okay to snap it into his yap.  Leroy was the ugliest dog on the planet circa 1964 - 1977 - he had a red goatee  and a thumb sized tail.  He was also a bad-ass and won the acclaim of my contemporaries around 75th & Wood Street by kicking Bowzer ( a mixed bull terrier & Nowegian rat) Lanigan's ass. 

Dogs need affection and constant attention, because they are fundementally trusting, sloppy, needy and not real bright. Dogs of both genders are male in this way; hence Man's best Mirror.

Cats are feminine.  They are aloof, sexy, alluring, dismissive, neat and brilliant.  Cats are independent for the most part and require only clean torpedo sand, or $6 a gallon stink free stuff, water and Whiskas.

Hickey -I have a cat, now. 

Auditor/Reader -Pussy.

Hickey - This we know.  I bought my kids a cat four years ago, knowing full well that its care would fall into the hands of dear old Pa.  It did.  I am a quick read in some ways.  Sophie is a female-woman cat, with fur as black as a mother-in-law's heart.  Sophie is a strange agent.  She will stand with one fore-paw balancing her upright on a foot stool, while crossing her hind legs - exactly like Mr. Peanut.  Tru Dat.

She also joins me for morning prayers and leads me to the day's task immediately like a goodwife: " Scoop the Poop, Change the Water and spill the Whiskas! . . .Now! If not sooner! $hit, shower and shave on your own time!"

With those tasks completed, I read and not until.  I now read at the computer and Sophie perches on my right shoulder, following her ablutions and breakfast. Having read, I get to practice my prosing. Sophie is astride my clavical as I type.

I read this morning that in Japan, due to the tyranny of condo and apartment holders, cats are denied to people.  With Nippones business savvy, an enterprising gents have created a Cat-Cafes - Super Happy Hi Kitty Number Ibe Starbucky Plenty . 

Cat cafés are huge in Japan right now. As the name suggests, these are coffee shops where cat lovers go to sip overpriced lattes and hang out with an adorable smoosh pile of kitties. In the past five years, exactly 79 such cafés have popped up all over Japan. What’s weird is that the café cats aren’t expensive pedigreed felines like Persians or those other ones with the funny bendy ears, they’re just the everyday mixed breeds you might find in the back lot of your local supermarket, cats who, in the immortal words of Brian Setzer, “slink down the alley, looking for a fight/Howling to the moonlight on a hot summer night.” Likewise, in the past few years, there’s been an explosion of photo books and DVDs featuring average-joe cats. If people are so fascinated by what are essentially domesticated alley cats, why don’t they just swoop one up from the legions of strays all over Japan and take them home? I’ll tell you why: because landlords in Japan are dicks.

I would have written Diques just to gussy up the prose for the feinter of heart. . . . well, maybe.
I enjoyed this exchange between the author and customer.

                                        Are you a regular here?

Kayoko: I first visited three weeks ago, and since then I’ve been coming here every week. I’m completely hooked.

You sound like a devoted fan. How did you discover this place?

I ride the Yokohama Line train a lot, and one day I saw a glimpse of the café’s interior while I was passing through. If you tiptoe you can see people playing with the cats from the train. I checked out their blog and it looked like a nice café, so I invited a friend to come with me and we found that it was a really friendly place. Now I come alone, like a lot of customers here. Chatting with other people is part of the fun.

It looked like the cat you were playing with earlier was scolded by one of the staff. What did he do?

I saw him grab a stick of sugar from the table with his mouth and run, so I told one of the staff. I had heard they’re not allowed to do that. So he ended up getting scolded… Apparently that was his third time today. Other cats try to lick milk out of the pot that they bring with your coffee. Maybe that’s just their way of saying that they want to play with you.

I wondered if the Japanese scold in the same manner they revealed during the Greater Far-East Co-Prosperty Sphere.
 
 
Hickey -  Sophie, may I have word with you about the hair-ball suprise my toes and nose had this moring?

 

Lie Like a Dog

Last night, like most of us here in Chicago, I was plowing the snow on my walk, driveway and porch - every ten minutes - and decided to treat the neighbors and took the Old MTD Snow Blower north on Rockwell.

At 107th, the auger was packed with wet,icy chunks and not blowing snow out of the chute as it should. I shut off the machine and unclogged the blockage. I noticed a sign in the front window of one of the houses - TALKING DOG for SALE.

As it was about 7:30PM, I decided to inquire.

"You gotta talking dog?"

'What of it?'

"Nothing. I saw your sign."

'He's out back in his house. Hey do my drive.'

" No sweat."

I plowed the man's drive - sounds homoerotic, that.

In the fenced-in back yard was a beautiful Golden Lab.

"Hi, there handsome! You are a good boy."

'Don't patrionize me. please.'

I was Gobsmacked! "You Talk!??!"

' Is that a question or an exclamation? Yes, I talk very well. I have from the time I was a puppy. I speak Farsi, Arabic, Russian and Korean, as well as English. The lout who pointed you in my direction - who wants to be rid of me - has only had me for the last year. You see, I was placed in the Department of Defense and served with distinction in Desert Storm II - I listened to Al Qaeda and reported on their planned attacks. I was so effective that I was transferred to the Department of State and sent to pick information wherever the Nation needed me. I was retired, took a mate and went halves on three litters of pups and eventually sold to this Knot-head from Chicago.'

" Would you care to move down the block? My dauhter Clare would love you!"

'Proud to! Get his asking price.'

I knocked on the back door and the man answered, 'You do my drive?'

"I did. What are you asking for the dog?"

'Sawbuck ($10)'

"That's all for a talking dog? Here. . . here's a Jackson!"

'Take him! He's #$%^ing Liar! He never did any of that $hit!"

. . . And on I plowed. That lying dog stayed put.

With apologies to John Linehan Leo 1977!