Roller coasting and beer drinking

Sometimes I wish I had kids of my own, some young coconspirators whom I could love, laugh with and take on adventures.

Then I visited the Six Flags amusement park. My company gave us free tickets and parking passes, which is the equivalent of a day’ s salary for some of my coworkers. Other companies there had free lunches and T-shirts for their people, but not having to wear a T-shirt for my bosses is not a bad tradeoff for less sway.

Still, some of these folks got a thing called flash pass for the rides from their firms. We wound up buying one for $70 total for three people.

The pass essentially allows you, because you are willing to pay more money, not to have to wait in line. You are a cutter because you have the coin. Instead of standing around for more than an hour, we could walk right up, reserve a spot and spend about 15 minutes to get on certain rides.

I know this isn’t a that new a deal. I guess, like many borderline evil things, Disney started it.

And I am not complaining. It was nice for an afternoon to feel like I was from Naperville. The less time standing in the summer’s worth of sweaty tunnel to the Batman ride the better.

(And how more obvious can it be that Batman and Superman are gay! I mean, in the Batcave they played techno music and it looks like a dungeon. And for Superman, you don’t ride it like you are flying - you are in a doggy-style position, as if you want to sniff an ass in front of you, or ... And that’s not to mention the giant Spider-Man plushy one guy was carrying around on his back as it whispered sweet nothing in his ears.)

But it’s already more than $50 a ticket (unless you have some discount coupon or other) to get into the place. Then, if you don’t want to walk back to your car, it’s $10 for a bag of popcorn and an lemonade. A foot long hot dog was $9.

You need to be an accountant, or married to one, or both, to afford things anymore, especially if you have kids.

The day before the Six Flags trip I went to a Chicago Beer Society picnic, where for $10 I could sample about 20 craft beers, and taste chili, ribs, salsa and desserts entered in a contest.

There even were middle aged white people dancing, which always is amusing.

And the DJ, as if he knew I was there, played BB King’s The Thrill is Gone, which pretty much captures a mood I know all too well this summer for reasons that for now at least remain my own. I relate to the string section, that R & B sadness countering the lyrics about moving on.

A perfect song for the event, because such moments are why the Irish invented beer. Don’t tell me it wasn’t the Irish. If they didn’t they thought about it at least.

Anyway, I’m thinking about joining the group, but am afraid what it might do to my liver. But I met some friendly fat guys who could ski, and ski well, and drink, which inspired me, that if I put my mind to it, and had enough stout in me, I too could glide down a mountain.
And that’s the true beauty of beer.

Irish guys with Irish eyes

Sunday it was still rainy and the sky the perfect shade of gray for getting into an accident with a car of that color driven by someone who refuses to turn on his lights.

Despite this, and that I called a half dozen people who had other plans, I drove up to Milwaukee by myself to attend the Irish Fest. Sometimes you have to go it alone, though I am trying to get out of what for me is a bad habit.

Actually, my Irish pals the Clarkes had their booth o’ jewelry set up at the biggest show of its sort on this continent – when the weather isn’t like a day in winter along the Irish Sea.

They are my babysitters and I am their biggest baby – minus the cell phone habits of their teenagers and already potty trained, to boot.

Speaking of babies, what I noticed being among those from the same gene pool is that quite a few Irish guys have baby faces with big bright eyes. That’s to say, there were dozens who looked like the photo my folks gave me of me when I was a toddler – albeit most of them 210 or so pounds heavier.

The look runs a spectrum from a couple forms – the ruddy chubby cheeks, button nose with the round pale blue or green eyes or the just a tad less round face, longer schnozz with deeper set eyes.

Do we need to thank the conquering Danes for this? Who knows?

What advantage this gives us among humans is a look Mommies love that prevents us from being clubbed to death for the mischief we cause. It’s more honest, too – it says, yes, we are overgrown, tubby, immature, crying, looking for attention.

Just look at the faces God gave us. Hug us. Love us. Maybe even spank us. But remember to put us to sleep on our bellies just in case we have tummy aches from too much air in our bottles.

This is the wide open look that helped the Irish conquer America.

The latter of the two types is a look that can seem like a rodent lying in wait to set off a car bomb or seem as imposing as actor Brian Dennehy.

These are the sadder eyes of lost puppies, don’t mess with me eyes, lost in drink eyes, eyes that have seen hopeless romances or useless violence or any combination thereof, eyes that were once on baby faces furrowed by wondering too often how fast time passes.

There could be no Irish theater without these eyes, no Irish music. No Celtic soul.

Until I am heavyset again (which science has proven will occur by having heavy friends) I think my own face is closer to the latter type. Or maybe an orc from Lord of the Rings.

Either way, when you’re feeling lonely, it’s nice know you are part of a tradition milling about before you, drinking beer, wearing Notre Dame hats and buying ceramic jack o lanterns with shamrock shaped eyes.

And I wonder what the guy I talked to later that night looked like. I lost a credit card sometime between buying a hat Saturday at the air show and buying a hat Sunday in Milwaukee.

So I phoned the call center when I got home, a call that no doubt went to India. The very helpful lad who tried to sell me identity theft insurance: He said his name was Alec McGhee.

Wet Top Guns: An afternoon at the Chicago Air and Water Show

Illinois apparently has a monsoon season now – or maybe God is just crying mad at the politicians in the state for all their posturing about the budget. Or maybe the governor’s hair care products have done something funky to the atmosphere.

Either way, August has been as dreary as November but with mold and mosquitoes.

To look on the bright side (ouch), a cloudy sky makes for a better backdrop for an Air and Water Show. Saturday I went to the huge one along Chicago’s lakefront, an event I had never attended. When I hear 1 million people are somewhere I tend not to want to be among them.

But, in my efforts to change my mopish ways, I headed down with my new pal Tom and met his pals for a day at the soggy beach. Tom knew what he was doing: We left early enough, but not too early as I had been out drinking the night before, and had no traffic to deal with. And he knew a parking deal which I will keep a secret.

All I will say is it was just $12 and maybe a half mile walk, while if you wanted to park close – assuming space was left – the fee was $30.

We were off Fullerton, a good distance north of the main staging area, but it was a great place to see the planes. That is, there were trees and a building for cover during the intermittent showers sprinkling between the stunts.

I readily admit to knowing little about aircraft. My guy hobbies are music and sports. But it almost made me want to rent Top Gun. Almost.

Even the most vegan of liberals has to admit there is something cool about watching planes buzz above you performing seemingly death-defying stunts, running toward each other, flying straight up and dropping into a spin and making vapor trail hearts because, after all, there is a romance to flying. And I stole that line from the PA announcer.

Another radio voice would not let anyone forget how cool it was to jump out of a plane with a military unit, the Golden Knights. It almost made you wish a stiff wind would have drifted him over to Michigan.

Watching high tech military planes seemingly defy the laws of physics raises some interesting questions.

First, the people who design the planes actually do know the laws of physics, which seem like magic to the rest of us. I just throw words on a page and hope some stick.

Second, think of the long, tedious work that must go into creating such beasts and the hours of training over and over on maneuvers it takes to fly them.

Things that look effortless are not. We are programmed to forget that, to think it is all glamour, not hard work. There is grunt work behind everything well done.

Another thing: it is amazing the things these planes can do, flying straight up, seemingly stopping on a dime and heading off on a right angle, or heading out past the speed of sound.

Yet, with all this military might, here we are bogged down in Iraq. If we really were the Great Satan we would have just gone with these killing machines and carved out new boundaries and wiped out masses of people and have been done with it.

Humans that we are, we stumble and bumble, with virtual kings of sumbling and bumbling in charge at the moment. There is no technology that can eradicate the irrationality of the species.

Maybe they should be doing variations of the stunt that the Thunderbirds performed to break the will of the bad guys. The team sent all but one plane forward, then the last one snuck up from behind silently, then with a whoosh, a “boo” that sent a shockwave of shudders through the crowd.

Do that 100 times a day and see what happens.

Or just send daredevil Sean Tucker over the caves of Afghanistan. In his Oracle stunt plane, Tucker takes more G-forces than a fighter pilot. Whirling and twirling through the air, it is obvious Tucker has no stomach – or is addicted to Dramanine.

Still Tucker wasn’t the craziest attraction of the day. There was this guy with his shirt off just down the beach from where we parked out lawn chairs. It was kind of cold not to be wearing a shirt, which is what made me notice him.

Well, that and because it appeared he was sexually assaulting himself, either licking or biting his nipples.

Maybe he rented Top Gun the night before and was just acting out a Tom Cruise fantasy.

The best of my guest blogging

The five prior posts originally appeared on a Typepad blog, First Draft. I guest blogged there for a buddy of mine who went on vacation.

Most of the stuff you will find there is political in nature, and as I wrote there, I have Bush fatigue at this point.

So I posted my so-called life adventures, reposted here for your reading enjoyment.

Enjoy.

Singing sand, sighing Mike (Not a Japanese movie)

The story goes that the sands along the shores of Lake Michigan are silmilar to those found in only two other places - Morocco and South Africa.

If conditions are right, if that sand is packed just so, like it is first thing in the morning, when you walk along it, there is a sound from feer shuffling through it like a dog whining.

At first I thought the noise was just me, as I have a new bad habit when alone and pondering woeful, secret things of making a similar noise. Pay no attention to me at a stop light.

The sound is the same whimper my dog would sit, cock his head and give me when he wanted to go out. I miss my dog. I miss alot of things lately with the book of my regrets seeming as long as a Harry Potter volume.

Oh, the drama! Oh, the beach!

Sad but true, living in Chicago area most of my life, this was my first visit to the shores of Michigan City, Indiana. Like I’ve said before, I need to get out more, and I have been trying to do just that.

Anyway, Michigan CIty is a town, like a lot of us, that’s seen better days, but still has things to recommend it, with a nice park and zoo along the lake and a train that only takes an hour to get to Chicago, along with the coast that’s part of what some call the Michigan Riviera.

So what if there is a nuclear power plant that’s part of the view.

I think places like this used to be mostly working class getaway spots, but the cottage prices here went crazy, too, before flipping went flop.

I was there at the invitation of a relatively new buddy, novelist Don Evans who came to give a reading at the Margo Channing Theater in a beautiful park that was a little hard to find. The park project is coordinated by Don’s buddy Dana Kaufman, who owns the big place where we stayed.

Don’s book Good Money After Bad is a modern Damon Runyon like tale set in the worlld of small time North SIde Chicago gamblers. His writer pals, though, offered darker material on a sunny day: a noirish story about a guy drinking in his favorite dive after breaking up with a dame, when a mysterious stranger starts a fight; a tale of a young lady gangbanger who kils the rapist who impregnated her, then, with the help of a santeria practicing pal, cooks and eats the guys heart.

The audience for this was just Don’s pals, people around my age, a well-educated, friendlly sorts, many who have known each other at least 10 years, quite a few with kids. The cliche would be to liken it to The Big Chill, but no one was really as annoying as that stuck in the 60s crowd, thinking that they would change the world. That crowd sort of ruined it for those us who became adults in the 80s or later, but that’s another story.

Being the newbie is an interesting situation, trying to figure out where, if anyplace, you fit it. And with nobody knowing your past, your old stories are new again, no one has grown tired of them. Hell, you can make up stories. No one here is your human Google to fact check your ass. On the downside, there's no one you can ask, at least at first, to put sunscreen on your beyond pale Irish skin.

But, for the most part, I was on my best behavior and did more listening that talking. On Saturday night, the conversation faded about 1 a.m. and I went for a walk with one of Don’s pals back to the beach.

Get your mind out of the gutter. We both just thought it would be cool to see the lake lit up by the light of the full moon and to see if you could spot Chicago’s bright skyline 60 miles away.

The moonglow reminded me of when they do day for night shooting in a B-grade movie, or a head shop black light, and the beach was crawlng with teens and 20s and I am guessing a good many of them were from well off suburban Chicago homes.

One of them was kneeling by a plastic garbage can, puking. Now that’s a Michigan CIty moment for him and his buddies to remember. Or will they?

Weddings and male bonding

Last weekend I went to a wedding reception after the memorial service I already wrote about.

The party was for my best buddy at work. In fact, someone started saying we were like a married couple, that we were each others' work wives.

I don't care. My buddy amuses me. He's still young and blustery and wants to actually do things, Sometimes those things are stupid, like when he wanted to infiltrate a dog fighting rings and take pictures. This was long before Michael Vick made the subject what it is today.

Still, a 6' 3 Lithuanian guy with way too much gel in his rockabilly hair probably isn't going to bland in the with pitbull set. And where did he intend to put his camera?

Still, at least he has ideas and energy. And we go to lunch together at least once a week to shoot the shit.

I don't know about where you all work, but there was a spell at my office where unless you brought food, finding someone to grab a meal with was pretty tough. So I appreciated his effort. And I think he could tell I have been down in the dumps the past few months so it has been nice of him to continue to ask, to put up with mopey Mike.

Well, my buddy is a bit of a worrier, just like me, and shortly before his wedding he tells me not to make any work wife comments on his fabulous day.

Mind you, at the reception part of the festivities my pal pulled a chicken out from under his bride's dress; danced to an Ozzie Osborne song with his mom; sang along to Bohemian Rhapsody while his friends circled around, then did a mosh pit to the fast part, then he wound up in the middle of the circle at which point I threw a dinner roll at him.

It was funny at the time.

After the reception there was more food and a party in his parents' back yard and it was a nice time, one of those summertime moments you wish there were more of, but since there usually aren't it actually makes them even more enjoyable.

There was drinking and swimming and more food, because we are Chicago people and we love to eat, dammit. And two nice looking blond women showed up with cameras. And there was more drinking.

And when I went to say good-bye to my buddy, he tells his wife, "Oh this is Mike, the guy I tell you about. They say he's my work wife."

Awkward moment, yet inside I am laughing.

Then my buddy hugs me and tells me he loves me. And I think he hugged me one more time.

He was drunk, because sometimes, a lot of times its easier for guys to say that to their pals with the help of booze.

That phrase, "I love you," is a tough one. It can cause so much trouble. It has for me and probably for a few of you. It's become overused and underused at the same time.

But I knew what my big tipsy friend meant and I told him I felt the same. His wife just stood there, probably knowing her husband all too well. He's goofy. His best man used a prop monkey filled with candy as a metaphor for him.

Still, according to an Internet game, if I were a dog I would be a St. Bernard, so I am a goof too, I guess: just a big, loyal, drooling, overweight, attention hungry, knock things over unintentionally, run through the snow with a barrel of booze around my neck kind of guy. Better that than a dog that fits in a purse.

So I headed home. A night can't end any better than with some sloppy silly moment that makes you feel good about yourself, that makes the Sinatra songs they play at weddings run through your head while you drive into the suburban summer night.

White Castle: Bad for indigestion, so-so for memories

For dinner tonight I had White Castle. No big deal. Most of my meals come served in some sort of paper product. And thanks be to Jesus the Dominick's Finer Foods by me closed. In my 100 years of solitude I used to grab their $5 pizza, sit around the house watching non-cable TV with a bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce as my buddy and have the whole pie gone by 10 p.m.

No wonder I once weighed 240.

White Castle tonight reminded me of when I was really, really young. Of when I had light blond hair and a promising future, at least by South Side standards.

My mom wasn't much for cooking, so for some reason I remember having sliders of Fridays. But that can't be, because I was raised Catholic and am old enough to know we still had meatless Fridays all year or at least until I was a bit older and we were out in the south suburbs.

And then I recalled that we would go to a White Castle-like place to get a deep fried shrimp or to another place for very greasy cheese pizza.

I remember sitting in the back of a sedan of some sort waiting for the order to be ready. I spent way too much time as a kid in the back of a boatish car, heading off on weekends to visit grandparents or dead relatives at cemeteries or to birthday parties for cousins where we would play floor hockey in the basement.

There are pictures of my folks from before I was born where they had parties of their own. I don't recall many being held at our house. The word insular comes to mind, a childhood spent among adults and their family gossip and drama and not many memories of my own of other kids.

Does anyone have friends from when they were in kindergarten anymore?

I do have a baby picture of me, a triptych of me in a vest and short pants, hand colored with the vest red, the pants black, and the eyes so blue and oddly puppy dog sad. I know it's me by the hairline.

I'm still trying to figure out what happened. Aren't most of us?

Chicken wings: Hetero gay bars?

A buddy of mine here where I work likes to lunch at a chicken wings chain, Buffalo Wild Wings.

We've eaten at a handful of them, and while there are not bevies of buxomly waitresses, we have noticed that there usually are way more guys at BW-Squared than women. In fact, on some occasions its been about 95 percent men there, including wait staff and management.

I made the observation one time, as the sound system was blaring disco beats, that the place could pass for a straight man's gay bar.

So my question is, What makes chicken wings guy food?

Could it be the TV sets, too, or is there something in the sauce? Is eating messy food just a guy thing?

Do gay guys know that if they want to scope straight guys they should come to places like this, thereby bumping up the already high numbers of guys. I have this from a secret source (whom I will NOT call Deep Throat) that this might be the case.

Or do wings make you gay? I mean fat friends allegedly mean you have a good chance of being fat, so why not get some money to test this theory.

I may have worked with Clarence from "It's a Wonderful Life"

There’s a quality sorely lack in these times, probably any time really, and that quality is grace.

Grace, like jazz, is hard to define, but you know it when you hear it or see it.

Hemingway’s code involved having grace under pressure, but how many heroes are there in these loud, tattle-tale times? I mean, I am sure they are out there, but if you have grace you’re probably not inclined to brag on a blog, smugly host a cable show, or yell at anyone to get attention.

I worked with someone who died recently who seemed to have this quality, which I readily admit I sorely lack. I am a mope by nature, sometimes an amusing one, other times a brooding Dane. But I am working to change that.

Steve Siracusa, though, seemed to go through his days with the grace of Gene Kelly dancing in the rain.

I didn’t know him very well, but that at first glance Steve seemed to an idiot like me to be a quaint old guy in rumpled out of fashion clothes (which he actually wore with a certain flair) who told corny jokes.

But Steve made people smile and had this joy of life about him.

Me, I am still all weepy over a broken relationship I don’t even want to talk about and whine about not being able to find a better job and don’t feel I’m in a good place for me right now, and, and, and, but, but, but…

In other words, I am a product of my bitching and moaning era, just another middle aged white guy stuck in the suburbs.

If anyone had a reason to be sour on life it would have been Steve. He served as an Army captain, and after World

War II, he was assigned as a traffic manager of sorts, directing all parties involved with the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials to their lodging.

He heard the horrible, evil stories, to see the cruel evidence: a Nazi wife who made lampshades out of Jewish skin; another Nazi who collected shrunken Polish skulls.

You’d think that kind of crap would haunt you for the rest of your life, leave you sour on sorry-ass humanity. Instead, he fell in love with Edna Skowbo, who worked for the Allies' legal team, who became his life.

And he spent most of the rest of his life as a salesman, including in his later years, here where I work. He didn’t seem to be one of those slimy types, either, but a guy who used his optimism to get you to buy something. Word is he even paid for newspaper subscriptions for a few people who told him they couldn’t afford one.

He wasn’t Willy Loman, but what good old Willy wished he could be.

After he got sick in his last few years, he volunteered at the hospital, helping others going through pain like he had.

The story goes that before he died a line of hospital staffers waited for a chance to say good-bye to the little guy with the smile and the optimism.

Not to get all Mitch Albom on you, but he said he hoped to see them all in heaven.