...and a cartoon short to cleanse the palette

The door to the lizard's cage has been left unlatched. He doesn't notice until the mouse stops kicking and becomes uninteresting. He bumps the door with his nose. It moves. He bumps the door again with his nose and, again, it moves. A third time and it is open. All four legs move at the same time, and every now and then, when none of them are touching, he bumps his hgut and slaps his chin on the floor. He grinds his teeth against his cheeks and tongues the roof of his mouth. His eyes dart left and right. There is no one to stop him. He is a rocket, aimed at the spider underneath the couch. The spider is smug and taunts the lizard. No more.

His breath quickens as the short hunt commences, his nostrils suck in dust and web. He is a shooting star streaking towards the kitchen tile. He knew the function of a window, and the formica is more afraid of his yellow claws than they are of climbing.

A trap! Doom! He has never felt the surface of wet salad bowl before, and fights to keep footing. His front legs slide and grasp until they find dry land. He thrusts his full grin into the green-and-yellow flesh of a hard sponge and rips it in two. The sky is blue outside and iguanas do not bruise so he braves the drop and finds the highway. He comes across an aardvark retiree along the way, adventuring in the direction of his tongue all along the red dirt and black pace of the American Southwest.

Lost pet signs are posted and ignored. He is never again seen, except by truck drivers and motorcycle gangs, and never wears another leash. The boy who originally wanted a puppy, and was put in charge of latching his pet's cage, finally gets his wish.

originally it was a boy

Dorothy came home late, barefoot and tired with one cheek swollen. Before he could have even see her, her scared black terrier was scratching at the front door. When she was within fifty feet of the house, he started barking and her aunt ran over to gather her up. She smelled of corn whiskey and soil, like cigarettes and other people's spit. Her checkered blue dress was torn and her makeup smeared across her soft pink cheeks. The storm subsided and she went with them to celebrate. She chose to go with them, into the fields where nobody could see em. By the time the sun had gone down, they were so deep in the thicket it was already dark. They took advantage of her there, drunk and laughing underneath the chitting of the crows and the flapping wings of invisible bats, below the gnarled trees ravaged by the storm, that moaned hen the wind wove through them. With the first one on top, it felt as though a house was pressed on her abdomen. She was pinned, sucking in air whenever she could and breathing in short bursts.

She collapsed into her aunt's arms and made up a story. There were rainbows in the story, and emeralds, a tin woodsman and a wizard, and a gentle beast There was a strawman, too, just like Uncle Henry's but animated, whose twisted gait and grotesque visage frightened off the savage brutes that stalked the woods. Emma held her, brushed her hair, and held a compress against her skin. She told her niece that she was sick, although they both knew she wasn't, and suffering fever hallucinations. She encouraged her to tell the story often, until she was convinced it was wonderful. When the baby was born dead, they blamed the sickness and called it a shame, and blamed the twister for opening up the earth and covering everything with dirt and disease, and they called it a shame, and her Auntie Em called it a 'damn shame', even though she was a churchgoing woman, because thirty years earlier the same thing happened to her.

Why I Don't Do Interviews Anymore

12:30: Arrive at gates, am buzzed in.
1:00: Someone needs to clean the microwave. The whole reception area smells like beef and bean burrito. A beetle runs over my foot, I decide against squishing it.
1:15: Peter searches me, lets me in.
1:39: God walks in. Shorter than I thought he'd be, but better groomed. Classic good looks. Reminds me of a young Sean Connery with a Charlton Heston muzzle.
1:40: Million dollar handshake.
1:42: I suggest we leave the sterility of the office and hit a bar where we can really get to know each other.
1:43: "I like your style." Wish I'd brough a tape recorder, instead of a legal pad.
1:44: Ponder Can you hear my thoughts right now? No response.
1:45: Don't fuck with me?
1:46: Sorry. Really sorry. Didn't mean it. Very petty. But, seriously, can you hear my thouhts?
1:47: "Only when you think really hard, you'll get an embolism that way, you know."
1:56: God has really plebian taste in beer, but a phenomenal tipper.
1:57: Everyone at the bar calls God 'Terry'.
2:15: Catch God staring at the bartender's rack.
2:16: God catches me staring at the bartender's rack.
2:17: Nods, smiles, clinked glasses.
2:22: Whatever I order, God wants to taste.
2:30: "Ready to get down to business?"
"Sure."
2:33: Softball questions.
God's favorite color is silver, and that's why he salted the clouds with it.
He works out six days a week, mostly weight machines and elipticals.
Untucking his shirt to show me his abs: Not bad for an old man, huh?
He prefers Japanese baseball to American, and but football to soccer. He never liked the Oilers.
God's favorite names are Marisol and Sari, he's not a fan of men's names, though he's always liked the way 'Mephistopheles' rolls off the tongue 'softly, and elegantly' and 'it's a shame how no one can use it.'
2:58: On Mephistopheles: It's a shame it had to happen as it did. A lot of good people were lost, I think we both did things we regret and now we can never go back. It's too bad, you can't turn back time though.
"You can't?"
"No."
"You can't?"
"Nope."
"Damn."
3:08: God is slurring his speech a little. He buys a round for the bar, a made-up drink called Jordanian Slammers. We laugh as the waitstaff scrambles to concoct something worthy. I detect a hint of tequila, guava, honey, and something I don't recognize. Not bad.
3:10: "You know Terry, you can be a real ASSHOLE." The entire bar shuts down, the bartender drops a glass. God/Terry looks at me for a full minute without blinking or speaking, then lets out a big belly laugh. Everyone takes a big collective breath and sighs, relieved.
3:11: Terry, I figure it's okay to call him that now, saunters over to the jukebox, "You like the Boss?"
"Excuse me?"
"BRUUUUCE."
3:12: He hits the jukebox with the back of his fist like the Fonz. "Born to Run" plays. He knows the chorus but is kinda iffy on the rest, mumbling through most of the verses while getting louder and louder until he's screaming the part where Springstein is like "BABY WE WERE BOOOORN TO RUUUUUUUNNNN!"
3:13: To the bartender: I think God's buzzed.
3:14: "Oh yeah, Terry is a total lightweight."
3:17: God looks like an idiot rapping all three parts of "Brass Monkey".
3:21: Ditto "Thunderstruck."
3:24: Ditto "Brown Sugar"
3:28: Ditto Salt N Pepa's "Push It", which he did not pick out himself.
3:34: "Terry, your musical tastes seem pretty steeped in the 1980s."
"Naw, it's just cause we're in a bar. [to the bartender] A BAR WITH A SHITTY JUKEBOX SELECTION."
"Hey, fuck you Terry," the bartender makes a face and cups her crotch, before returning to a crossword puzzle.
God turns back to me: "Besides, it's not like you can get down to Rossini in a bar..."
"You're right."
"That's fucking music."
"Excuse me?"
"You know, music for when you wanna get down with your lady. Rossini. Wagner... Prince."
"So, God is a heterosexual?"
"Sure, why do you think I made procreation between a man and a woman?"
"So, is homosexuality is a sin?"
"Fuck no! People get off in a lot weirder shit than each other, I can tell you that."
"Like what?"
"A nautilus."
Terry says this very matter-of-fact and we both laugh. We talk about music some more. Given his predilection for the 1980s he entertains me in one of my favorite debates: Punk vs. House. We agree to disagree.
4:00: "Another round! Something thick! Something you can set on fire!"
4:01: I hit him with a surprise: "How much of the bible is true?"
4:02: Ten per cent. Tops. They don't even get the names right.
4:03: "Really?"
"Yeah, it's like a fucking star bio." I'm surprised to hear him balk, "Those Jews did a fucking hatchet job on book one."
4:04: "...but they're really good people, I love em. Really."
4:05: "Is that why they've had to overcome so much adversity over the years?"
4:06: "Fuck no! They did it to themselves."
4:07: "Howso?"
4:08: "With their own fucking bad press."
4:09: "I sounds like you're still not very fond of them."
4:10: "Look, you're a writer. How would you like it if someone wrote a book slandering you, making you look like an abusive, egoist with no self esteem and then signed your fucking name to it? You'd be pissed but it's not like you'd spend the rest of your days persecuting them almost to the point of extinction just to make existence a fucking Sissyphian task."
4:12: "I don't know..."
4:13: "Well sure, you would, but I've got more class than that. TWO TALLBOYS!
4:14: "So you're not particularly a fan of the Jewish faith?"
4:15: "No, fuck em. And not just them... the Jews, the Catholics, Islam, the Ykchrichtine--that last one isn't from your planet, a real bunch of zealots over there. There are other planets, by the way but they'll probably never meet."
4:17: "Okay, so...which religion do you like?"
4:18: "I like the fun ones."
4:19: "Care to elaborate?"
4:20: "No."
4:40: "So, I've got one last question. Are there any children, outside of Jesus?"
"Jesus isn't my kid."
"What?"
"He's a stepchild, like Adam and Lillith. I made him but he was born of a virgin birth."
"So, if you had a child, he would be conceived..."
"The same way you were,ugly andsweaty and full of passion,and maybe not even that. Maybe it would be an accident. Maybe I'd do it the normal way and be there at the hospital holding her hands and...[his voice dropped off]"
"So, you don't have children?"
"Who's got the time? The whole world is my children and all that but really I'm just an old man who's lucky enough to have a lot of friends and a lot of girlfriends and a lot of pets to keep me company on those nights when I feel all alone."

We ended the interview there. That was it, his real rockstar moment. He was drunk and tired. Almost contemplative, but too far gone to really form the thoughts he needed. I think I saw a tear drop out of his eye. To think what some people would do to catch a tear from a miracle statue and here I was, watching Terry flick one of his own onto the dirty tiled floor. Terry. This was my last interview. The magazine didn't pick up on any of his humanism. HOMOPHOBIA! SEXISM! ANTI-SEMITISM! By the time the Pro-Lifers picked it up I was done. I cashed a big fat check and blew as much of it as I could as fast as I could.

The whole experience gave me a lot to think about. The most important thing I learned was that I didn't really like writing and doing interviews. I really liked Terry but, to be honest, there were a lot of times that day that I felt scared for my own life. The business isn't worth all that. Especially with a the big heartbreak at the end. It's heartening to know that, whatever I do next I'll be doing it with the knowledge that someone is watching over me, someone that really doesn't give a shit, but is still kinda, sorta, vaguely rooting for good things to happen.

spring loaded

time was saved and we made the most of it
that one green apple quick step song plays as the car
nestles into its space in the garage
first I hear the seabirds with salt on their tongues as they circle the block
then the sparrows, then the pigeons

the sky is the color of king's robes and sexually transmitted diseases
and the time is relative

I go out and come back in
rain dots my suede
the ground is littered with melting pebbles
I go out and come back in, decide not to do it again
and now, if nothing happens
then I know it's no one's fault but my own

the house is naked but for
mold and memories and all the holes we kicked into it

there is so much fruit and sugar
mixed with the vodka that it feels like punishment
my body anticipates the ruse
a spoonfull of sugar is all it takes to go down

The apartment we dubbed the Elks Lounge is dying. It has two months at best. A third strike for Tania and if she has to bear the burden of any more scars it is doubtful there'll be a Tania underneath. So we're leaving, likely, lovely Humbolt Ukrania to some step-up somewhere. If you are looking for a place, let us know. You can join in our search, or take the old place off our hands. The walls bleed when it rains too hard but the cops'll let you kill someone if you stay off the porch.

I want to be listening to Nina Simone, but for lack of a decent turntable, I settle for Bjork. If this is a metaphor for life, it is perhaps the worst I've ever made.

There's one other problem with the apartment prospective purchasers should ponder. Since I've lived here, I've felt seperated from my friends on the North and South sides. You'll be hard pressed to find anybody closer to a train than to Western to come by to watch movies. You can make the trip a million times a week with no reciprocation. But if you're still making that trip, why bother complainig about it? I assume I'm moving East and I hope the same drowsiness that affects my friends does not affect me.

Thank you to the folks at the Beach House and the Good Idea House, Breanna, Nell, Sarah and Emerson, and the people I've met through you, for being good people.

I still need to learn to ride a bike.

letters sent to Senators Durbin and Obama

Dear Senator Durbin,
I voted for you, it will never happen again. This probably doesn't concern you. As long as you're running as a Democrat you have a free pass here in Chicago, and because of Chicago, Illinois. That is why it is all the more shameful that you and the much-beloved Senator Obama refused to stand up to an unjust law and re-signed the disgusting Patriot Act this past month. This law does nothing more than erode many of our principle freedoms, as well as our supposed right to privacy.

You've not only lost my vote, but my respect.

Good day

--that was a bit of a stretch, I liked the guy and I voted for him, but I don't know if he ever had my respect. Here's a similar note I sent to Golden Boy Barack Obama--

Dear Senator Obama,
I voted for you. I enjoyed voting for you, and had hoped to do so again in the future. It will never happen again. This probably doesn't concern you. You're more than just the flavor of the month, people are comparing you to Kennedy (in a good way). As long as you're running, you have a free pass here in Chicago, and because of Chicago, Illinois. That is why it is all the more shameful that you and Senator Durbin threw away a grand chance to stand up to an unjust law and re-signed the disgusting Patriot Act this past month. This law does nothing more than erode many of our principle freedoms, as well as our supposed right to privacy. Apparently, you are not part of the solution and certainly part of the problem. You've just disenchanted a lot of good people who thought you could do no wrong. And to think, you're one of the few Democrats who could have said whatever you wanted and "gotten away" with it.

You've not only lost my vote, but my respect.

Good day
Eric

--When the Patriot Act came up for revision, it was delayed a couple of months, changed a tad and then quickly passed through the Senate. There were only ten dissenters:

Akaka (D-HI), Bingaman (D-NM), Byrd (D-WV), Feingold (D-WI), Harkin (D-IA), Jeffords (I-VT), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Murray (D-WA) and Wyden (D-OR))

I seriously advocate registering to vote, just so you can vote the bastards out. By bastards, I mean any incumbent from my area whose name I have never heard. I follow a lot of politics, but I shouldn't have to just to know who's representing me. By bastards, I mean anyone who had a chance to do something special and wasted it (Rod Blagojevich, anyone?) and anyone who towed the party line just to play politics, regardless of affiliation or how much I like them. Seriously, fuck these fuckers--

themes from a dream I'm not sure I understand

the Wizards take a field trip to an Einsturzende Neubauten show
(I am extra careful to pronounce it correctly: Noy baht ten),
a black reggae rapper opens, he could be the son of Matisyahu and GQ tha Teacher,
Eli Sloan has gone from backpack head to Orthodox Jew
and boards a bus with a crew of Hillel kids twenty-deep,
driving through the Northwest Side of Chicago from the suburbs
the return of the Fireside Bowl
not just a show but the old days
Deanna meets me in a pink dress
are we in Chicago or New York?
a crew of high school ROTC kids
,all black,
show up
fresh from a military funeral
Lamon is there
with a huge afro
and Navy charcoal
this feels like a secret date
but we talk about each others' boyfriends and girlfriends
somebody's on X
and he's hypnotised by the zine table
in a secret room
I am fooled,
floored
by an impromptu song by a guy in a suit
an undercover set by Mike from Noise (Not) Noise
I take the bait

the phone rings and I wake up. Breanna and Robyn are heading back home. It's one pm. the apartment is too hot and we need to get started.

a transcript of my roast of Reverend Shahbaz Shah, if you don't know him, it ain't funny*

*and even if you do know him, still I'm not sure. Also, a lot of it is in the delivery. Okay, you've been warned. With no further ado is my speech from the In One Ear open mic at the Heartland Cafe on March 15, 2006 roasting Shahbaz

So I'm talking to my Shahbaz the other day, which can be really expensive by telephone because I live in Ukranian Village and he lives on the ass end of that way, and I'm like, 'Heeeey, Shabby!' and he's like 'Heeey, Labby!', and I ask him:
"Is it safe?"
"Yeah, she's watching The Idol. So when are you comin' over to see the apartment?"
"Shahbaz, I can't afford to see the apartment. Besides, I gotta figure out what to do with all these retarded baby kittens," and Shahbaz gets all quiet and goes:
"Shhh. Don't say that word."
And I'm like "What?" (because I'm slow) but as soon as I get it, I get a little smile on my face. And then I say it like this:

HELPLESS
RETARDED
BABY KITTENS

and right away Cheryl gets on the phone:
"Eric?! Why do you have baby kittens?!"

'Which is actually a pretty interesting story; you see I left some meat on my front porch one night-you know, to mess with my neighbors-and all these deformed mutant retard kittens started crawling out of the sewers and out from under people's stairs to feast and shit and they've been following me ever since. I was thinking of turning them into a shelter to have them put down' and when I say that, I could hear this noise on the other end of the phone, you know, like her heart was breaking and she's all...
"Eric?! I need to see them!"

So I started faxing pictures on my invisible fax machine and I can already hear Shahbaz giving them Urdu nicknames in the background.

"This one has only two legs and falls down a lot."
"He will be Sarsar, or gust of wind."

"This one suffers from Feline Chlamydia. He doesn't have any fur and seems to be less a cat than a scab with legs."
"He will be Satah, or surface."

"This one has an overbite that causes its fangs to pierce through its jaw, which often cannot open on its own."
"He will be Naasaaz, or indisposed."

"This one has no short term memory. This one smells like cabbage. This one has a heart murmur. This one has an extra vagina where her head should be, but not another cat vagina, more like a... donkey vagina.
"Faqih! Marbaha! Hadiiyaa! Naahid!"

"This one doesn't have eyes, because he was born with his eye sockets inside out, so not only does he not have eyes but instead of eyes he has these backwards caterpillar-butt things sticking out of his head."
"We'll taked it. We'll take em all."

"What about this one. I't's seventeen years old, its in pain all the time and it's going to die soon." At least that's what I would have said, but as soon as I used the words seventeen years old Pete Wolf jumped out of some bushes with a hard-on and called dibbs.

[pause]

We're here today to honor and dishonor one of our own. A man of faith, a man of class, a drunken, rambling insecure poet with a stupid name. I would like to introduce to you all, the Reverend Syed (Mohammed) Shahbaz John Stephen Cyril Shah. Give this man a round of applause. While we're at it, I'd like to introduce the woman he loves, his silent, brooding better half...Cheryl, take a bow.

Now as a couple, they suffer a huge persecution complex, maybe even larger than my own, so on this, his 24th birthday, the ninth anniversary of the first, second, and third bowls I ever smoked, and a day that holds no historical significance to Cheryl, I have a great gift for them. I need you to all repeat after me...
SHAHBAZ, WE DON'T HATE YOU

Now turn your attention to Cheryl and do the same...
CHERYL, WE DON'T HATE YOU

Now cross your eyes so you can see them both....
SHAHBAZ AND CHERYL...no no no, I said repeat after me! I have to start over...SHAHBAZ ANDCHERYL, WE DON'T HATE YOU...BUT OVER THE COURSE OF THE LAST FOUR OR FIVE YEARS THAT YOU'VE BEEN TOGETHER, OUR FRIENDSHIP HAS UNDERGONE A LOT OF CHANGES AND YOU CAN'T PRETEND IT HASN'T. ok, now you go.

[bedlam]

Thank you.

movie review

If I was better-read, I could tell you if there are as many novels worthy of adaptation as their graphic counterparts, but I am not very well read.

"V for Vendetta" is a good movie, and a polarizing one. It is the meterstick I will now use to guage the worth of film critics.

Enjoy the long monologues. The simple metaphors that feel both broad and personal.
Enjoy the cruelty of the hero and enjoy...character development, as you may not see it again this year.

This week, Sarah has no right leg and I have no left, but we walk everywhere and we dance as we always dance. To the best of our abilities. In basements, where the sun will never wake us. In pain.

looked back upon, our week will smell like whiskey. like polyurethane and eucalyptus. A million other words I'm too dumb to spell and worlds I'm too dull to describe, all copped and pursed from place to place.

In the lights, we do not belong. we are ghosts watching tourists watching screens where people watch people on screens where people watch people on screens where...ad infinitum like MC Escher or Mtv.

A mouse has joined us in the apartment. He's not great company but he's happy to get fed. It's hard to find a spot to lay your head in the city and everybody's happy just to get some sleep. It's good to know that we'll wake up tired even when we make our own schedules.

Today, we held hands and watched fish die. We ate like Jews and rode the subway. We popped pills and Tic Tacs and limped up stairwells. We let our mouths drop at the same stupid moments and didn't get into any arguments.

We went to a Chinese gun store today. To be sure it was more for kitch than protection, but I can't let go of the idea thatI shold be taking up arms. That's how they got the Panthers, though. That's how they get everyone they can't get for tax evasion, and now they can't get their names on a streetsign. Not that that's anything, martyrdom is the romantic part, not honour, and definitely not an honorary parkway.

I wish I could tell my story in pictures, like French cavemen and Jack Chick, but I haven't got an outline yet. I haven't even sketched the characters.

Here though, is a list:
My personal opinion on the top threebest comic book movie adaptations to date (in no real order):
1. V for Vendetta, based on the comic by Alan Moore
2. The Maxx (actually a miniseries developed for television), based on the comic by Sam Kieth
3. Sim City, based on the comic by Frank Miller

Very-close-but-not-quite honorable mentions:
1. Ghost World, based on the comic by Daniel Clowes
2. Batman Begins, based on the character created by Bob Kane
3. X Men 2, based on the characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the first film and none of its successors), based on the comic by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird
5. Heavy Metal, based on a number of comics from early issues of Heavy Metal Magazine
6. American Splendor, based on the comic by (and life of) Harvey Pekar
7. The Crow, based on the comic by James O'Barr

The worst adaptations of the best comics:
1. Spawn, based on the comic by Todd Mcfarlane
2. Tank Girl, based on the comic by Jamie Hewlett
3. Hellboy, based on the comic by Mike Mignola

There is one line in the movie that I feel relevant:
"A revolution without dancing, is a revolution not-worth having."
it's good to know that the girl I like gets as teary-eyed as I do,
to scenes of an armed peoples revolution.

confidential to Peanut Butter Jenny: thank you for the conversation over pancakes last week. we have many more comix to discuss and bootlegs to trade. I eagerly await our next chance encounter

knife goes in, guts come out

today I gave a squid a tattoo with its own ink
my hands still smell like carp and formaldehyde

I love my job
but I need a new one, come summertime

anything that pays $10 or more where I don't have to put dicks in my mouth
I'll accept less money if I'll actually enjoy myself
any leads?

knife goes in, guts come out

today I gave a squid a tattoo with its own ink
my hands still smell like carp and formaldehyde

I love my job
but I need a new one, come summertime

anything that pays $10 or more where I don't have to put dicks in my mouth
I'll accept less money if I'll actually enjoy myself
any leads?

delilahs was delightful

unprecedented: getting paid twice in one week for djing

conversation:
/driving
/flagged down
woman:Hey, y'all. can y'all give metwo dollarsdollars
d.j. demchuk: You need to get on the bus?
woman: No, I need to buy something at Seven Eleven
d.j. demchuk: What do you need to buy?
woman:[silence]
d.j. demchuk: [knowing look]
elr:I think I can spare a buck.
d.j. demchuk: Yeah, me too. Good luck on whatever it is you're buying.
woman: [sheepish] Thank you.
d.j. demchuk: They sell crack at Seven Eleven now?

highlight of the evening:
"Searching" by the Omens, and the new Revolting Cocks album

conversation:
/liquor store
wiley-eyed old white guy: ...fuckers don't know what the fuck they're talking about!
heavily accented sweeping dude: So do jou believe in an abterlife?
wiley eyed old white guy: Hell yes, I just hope that when I die there's not a SPIRIT WAR going on. If I'm not going to Hell, then I'm not ready to face the devil!

confidential to the guy trying to get up in Kelsey:
While awell timed Alkaline Trio song may have gotten you laid in the past, repeated requests for the band highlight not just their unoriginality but your own. Thanks for the shot, though.

conversation:
/math class
student 1:[having just given a presentation on Ada Lovelace]On what would have been her birthday in 1980, the Department of Defense named a computer programming language after her, but because she died so young, she really was not that accomplished.
student 2:[having just given a shitty report on Ada Lovelace and been schooled by Student 1] That's what happens when you use drugs.
student 1:[incredulous] Cervical cancer?
student 2: [silence]

blockblockblockblockblockblockblock

'clear your mind' he said
to no one in particular

'that's...the problem'

he shook his head, he could hear the

trivia

rattling around in there

he put the pen in his mouth
it tasted like lsa, sour and potent but
he must've gotten a weak batch

there weren't any words in this one
he needed something sharper, a quill
something rougher: embossed wood, cork, papyrus
he unplugged everything, reached for the stairwell and started making wishes

when you pitch a coin down a flight of stairs
at some point
it stops clinking
and you can pretend that the stairs go on forever

the stairs are not bottomless however
below, there is a whole world of cars and emotionally unstable women
you can throw yourself in front of

he plead to his gods of the day
Dave, the Fat Sonuvabitch God of Convenience
Joanna, The Stupid Fucked-Up Cunt of Sheer Luck
His High Holiness Val, the Creator of Sexual Envy and Bittersweet Consequence

he had paid the wrong bills and shut himself off from the world
sitting on the top bunk of a bed with no mattress
trying to pull the gloss from magazines like a moth's wings
he rubbed himself gingerly
with laminate
and smell samples
cleant his teeth in newsprint and silly putty

he was a plaster cast, a consumer, an obtuse metaphor
perhaps it would be cheaper to ride the train and own a car,
but not if he utilized them both

he fell back on old habits
his reflexes were game,

slid off the bed
chin to the floor
eyes on a screen
hands carpal tunnel curled

he kissed the ground
and tasted his thumb

buried himself in clothes
like a wayward nautilus

and waited for the clouds to drop

and when I woke up, my pillow was gone

I had another one of those boring dreams where I'm mostly online, but with a twist: I was still an AOL user. For some reason this was wholly unsettling, like as if the last five years had never happened. Weird.

ericlabratt@hotmail.com

I Go A-Walkin'

Dear Chicago,
I know I haven't written in a while, but I wanted you to know that I'm really digging the fog we've had the last couple days. It goes really well with the warmish cold weather and my general demeanor right now and I'm trying to find the right music to accompany it. My head's scanning for indie shit but my gut's telling me Floyd. Suggestions are always welcome.

I was reading old issues of Cerebus at work today. Each issue had a preview of another black-and-white comic. Some made it, others didn't. I think I like those ones the most. Dave Sim made a point of printing each letter that was sent to him and some issues have more letters than they do comics, sent out by sexually frustrated fanboys and adolescents, and all these other eccentric people who didn't have any other output.

I think there is a beauty in irrelevence and there are few things more irrelevent than the letters page of a sixteen year old comic.

I forgot how lonely the world was without the internet, how when you were alone, how truly alone you felt.

I still get caught up in Wikipedia the same way I got caught up with Encarta the same way I got caught up in the World Book in the middle of the night. Stalking the people that I love and the people that I'm curious about on Myspace feels like when I'd pace someone's block when I had nothing to do, because I knew that sooner or later a car would show up and drop them off, kinda harmless and kinda creepy, sweet at best and pathetic at worst.

When I was eleven, I started watching my neighbors' TV. In my parent's house, there were two twin little rooms upstairs at the end of the hall. I picked the Southwest room because of the closet. A big, walk-in square with a ledge and another smaller square behind the wall where no one could see me unless they were standing in the doorway where I could see them. When I saw it, at four, I saw it as Eternia, anyd many great action figure battles would be staged there. Dinah and I started our spy club there. Every few years I would reclaim it as my secret space.

The Southeast room was its twin, except it had no Eternia closet and the walls were far less busy, because, well, I wasn't living there. As my insomnia got worse, I preferred the drab, olive walls to mine which were covered in stickers and posters and, more and more, pictures of women. The collaged walls were too noisy for the late hour, when the rest of the world was quiet and I needed to think. Usually, I read the Encyclopedia or one of the comics from the small stash I'd hidden under the bed. They were all New Mutants, TMNT, or relics from the Secret Wars. Then there was Cracked, which I preferred to Mad, and a tiny collection of independent comix, which I couldn't (or wouldn't) convince my Mother to buy, but occasionally came across on my own. When I got bored of reading, I looked through the windows. That's when I discovered my neighbor's television.

I never met the guy whose window was most in line with mine in the building next to ours. He existed as a sihouetted bald head that ocasionally disappeared to get food or go to the bathroom. His television was always on, and always showing the same two things: basketball and porn. Perhaps these were the only two things I could've understood muted, and also in my own silent, isolation. Undoubtedly, they were the only two things I wanted to see.

The basketball was important cause it was a Bulls championship year and I didn't have ESPN but the porn was something else altogether. At the time, and for a few years afterward, the machinations of sex were completely alien to me, and that alienness was only magnified when watching the act on a TV screen forty feet away. Sometimes it was gay porn, sometimes it was straight porn, sometimes it was "Real Sex" on HBO. I loved it, all of it, and I stared awestruck for hours on end at the tangles of flesh before me.

After _______ was raped, my parents told me not to shortcut through alleys, so when I started going on walks, I took alleys exclusively. North in the morning, South in the evening, and West whenever I had enough time to make it all the way to Diversions and back. North through Touhy Park and Pottawatamee to the dollar store to buy blasting caps. South to Vibes Records, through Heartland and the No Exit, Turtle Island Books, the Shamanic Counselor's, Glenwood's murals and Loyola Beach. West through Indian Boundary and the Jewish part of Devon, Thillens, the Latin King record store and then the Arcade if I had more than a dollar in my pocket. I took the same routes because I was stupid, but I got to see a lot of the same people and their patterns. I looked for people too...Alia gets home between three and four, try to be on Touhy then, Zera gets home at five, see if she has Alana with her. If I took this shortcut I'd catch the ice cream truck, this one the paleta man, the good paleta man.

I've always felt that some people want to be watched, maybe because I always have. There was one girl I stalked for a year, for up to a minute-and-a-half a day, if I was lucky. Every afternoon, as the train picked up steam towards Morse, just before the turn, I'd see her on her roof, sunbathing in a blue bikini. She was right underneath the tracks and the train rarely stirred her, I wondered what the chances of catching her eye were, of making her notice me. I wondered if she knew I could see her. I was sure that she did.

I still go on walks, but not as often as I'd like to. I've heard talks of organized missions of urban exploration, but as of yet I've only trespassed, into homes and buildings that are halfway constructed or being torn down. If you believe in ghosts, at least the way ghosts are generally regarded in the public conscious, on those rare occasions when they're regarded at all, they'll remain at a location even once it is razed. I wonder if second floor ghosts have to wait for a new set of stairs to be built to return to the second floor, or if they're stuck there in orbit.

At ten o'clock the street is dark, and I'm wondering if I want beer, at least, whether or not to buy beer. You can tell a lot about a person by what they have in the windows that face the street, if it's a computer desk or a couch. It's rarely anything else. At ten, everyone has their televisions on. The glow creeps from garden apartments and illuminates the sidewalk. Every room is blue and I wonder if there is a particularly blue show on TV or if that's just the general color of television.

I hate that I feel the cold. I could stay outside forever if it wasn't for the cold. I hate my own thin skin. I go inside.

Sarah has been taking digs at my emotional immaturity, how I can't say the word love in the second person. When I talk about the dog I'm going to get someday, my eyes light up. When I think of huskies, they water; my lips crease at the thought of an English bull. She says that when I talk about owning a dog, I sound like a teenage girl that wants to get pregnant. I just want something that'll love me forever, that I won't be able to fuck up. Maybe if I added that I'll outlive it would put everything into perspective. Still, I'm starting to think about being a father some day. It's biological, I'm sure, but I keep thinking, 'Why should all the assholes get to have kids when I'd be such a great Dad?"

Maybe I'll adopt, maybe later on I'll forget that I don't want to pass on my genes any more, the same way I forgot my own stalwart 'I'm not having children.' Shayna will have kids. I'll be the cool uncle, it'll be great. I won't be a burden to them, they'll never find me crying and unsure. I wrote a letter, but I couldn't make me believe In it.

Dear Son (that I'm Secretly Beginning to Want, but Hope that I will never Have),

I've been driving around and looking at neighborhoods I've never spent time in before. Mostly, West. Mostly, Black. I'm trying to get an accurate handle of where I'll be living, if I'm living in the city ten years from now. It's scary that there are parts of town where I don't know anyone, that are full of people I'll probably never meet, whose houses will be gone, whose stores will be gone, whose schoolsI don't know what this city does with inadequate schools in gentrified neighborhoods. I'm looking for a path to walk on, and if it's outside of the roads I'm already digging treads into, I may not veer into it, and if all things are preordained and you're to exist anyway, if you could maybe give me a shove in the right directions. I'm having a lot of race trouble right now, in that I see the affects of systematic racism but I don't see how I can fix them, and have very little desire to anyway. I'm having a problem with work these days, in that I don't know what it is I want to do to get money while I try to make "art". I'm sure it's all just typical twenty-something postgraduate jitters, but I could use a little guidance right now from someone who doesn't have any degrees, if only just a song title.

Thanks,
Eric (I Don't Know What Last Name I Should Be Using Right Now)

P.S. Horses Can't talk, Therefore, Mr. Ed couldn' talk. Therefore, Wilbur Post was insane
P.P.S. Apparently this exists. I am amazed

for the love of pete, even if you hate the player, don't hate the game

So I was just listening to the Spanish hip hop and reggaeton station (93.5, apparently) and I heard a song featuring recent Oscar-winners Three 6 Mafia where they were imploring me to "shake it like a rattlesnake", which seemed a bit more of a stretch than certain other metaphors I've been invited to shake (i.e. a polaroid picture, a salt shaker, etc.)

As many of you know, I've always wanted to be a rap superstar, but I busted my flow eight years ago in a tragic rollerblading incident. After much soul searching, I've decided that I'm willing to settle for a carreer as a ghost writer for rap superstars. As such, I've decided to compile a list of shakey things.

BEHOLD!

Things That Shake or Are Shaken
maracas
dice
bottled juice
diet shakes
subterranean California faultlines
happy dog's tails
Lotto balls
Spirograph
googly eyes
the very cold
aerosol cans
jackhammers
James Bond's martinis
rattles
roll, as in shake, rattle and
epileptics, grand mal
epileptics, petit mal

I really like that last one, check this out:
"Shake it like a petit mal, come on and swallow that tongue"

Things That Do Not Shake in and of Themselves, but Bend, Twist, Fold or are otherwise Stretched Out (i.e. "that Laffy Taffy")
bendy straws
a paycheck
the time we have on this planet
waistbands
Plasticman
joins, ball-and-socket
joints, hinge
space age polymers
chewed gum
joy buzzers
Chubby Checker
Twister, the Milton Bradley foreplay game
Twister, the Bill Paxton/chick from"Mad About You" weather-adventure film
folding chairs
fresh laundry

that one works as well:
"Fold it like fresh laundry bitch, I wanna Snuggle"

please forward this to any and all famous rappers you may know. thank you.

nick and I are drug zombies stuck in routine

I come home from the bar and Nick is standing at the toaster, which sits on the shelf that we call the pantry. I grab a handful of Goldfish crackers and walk past him. I go into my room, I change. I go to the kitchen. Nick is standing by the toaster. At his right, there is a huge lump of cream butter from the Polish Deli, maybe a pound of it. I eat the crackers and go into my room; I arrange something and go to the kitchen. Nick is standing by the toaster, there are crumbs on a plate and in the butter. I grab a cookie and go back to my room. I look for something, anything, to kill time. I want Nick to go away, so I can eat more E.L. Fudge cookies and Goldfish crackers. I want to eat too many. I don't want to feel fat. I need to do crunches too but I can't with him standing endlessly by the toaster in shorts and a wifebeater. I go to my bedroom to plug in my phone. I return to get the charger. He's still there. I eat more. I brush teeth and look for zits. I stare sidelong into the mirror. Finally the light is off in the kitchen. The thermostat is turned down. I eat the majority of the cookies and crackers, and make a dent in the cold Polish ham, turn on the news and do crunches til I'm too sleepy to continue.


I don't know if this actually happened.

miss america...got the clap

1. How to catch a cold and get chapped lips at the same time

I use public computers all day long. My lips are chapping. Everyone around me just got sick for the second time in a month. I've been doing my best to fend it off. I get up to wash my hands. The pink goo is economy soap, scentless and hypoallergenic. As soon as my paws are wet, I touch them to my lips. Realizing they are not adequately clean I scrub them vigorously for two seconds, pull the paper towel roll from atop its perch above the paper towel roll dispenser and give it a kiss, drying my mouth out more than before.

2. As soon as your teeth are gone, it's all over.

In my mother's car, I listen to B96. The song is called "Look at my Grill." Sarah wants gold caps. Nothing showy, like the sort Kelis and Nas exchanged at their wedding, or fierce like Ol Dirty Bastard Wore on the cover of the "Brooklyn Zoo" cassingle. Just a gold cap.

The homeless man on the train is all smiles. As far as I can tell he is down to four teeth. They surround the place where the two front teeth would be up top and below. His fingernails are yellow and bent like a scrap of cardboard left in a puddle, dried and evaporated by the sun. He says he was roughed up. Maybe he fell. He tells me he wishes he knew how to talk to women, and maybe if he had went to college he would be as smart as the redheads avoiding his stare. He may never have sex again. This is my thinking. He will never hold a job. his situation will never improve. No one will ever see him for who he is, just four fangs and too much gums.

I splurged yesterday. Fructodent Mint & Licorice Whitening Toothpaste for Smokers with Vitamin C. The tube is shaped like a rocket, the paste is dark grey and foams like a thick whipped cream. When people go to Hollywood, the first thing they do is whiten their teeth. The first flaw the camera picks up that the mirror misses is yellow teeth. Only Shane McGowan can get laid with a mouth like that, and very few of us are Shane McGowan.

I would pay for more fluoride in my water. I wonder what the rate of tooth decay is among ADD. I have free dental as long as my uncle is alive. He's in his ighties, and still fairly hard-assed but his hands shake these days. The equipment he uses looked old when I was to young to know the difference. I want to run a geiger on my Aunt Rosalyn, who acts as his receptionist. I don't see them enough. I'm no good at making appointments/.

3. I haven't listened to B96 since I was twelve, but the radio station I work at is too close to my parent's house and the car I've just borrowed to change the station. In ten minutes I hear two advertisements for strip clubs. Both of them are aimed at men, but pretending to be aimed at women. Want to have fun? Need a little cash to go to the mall? Come out to the Admiral, compete in amateur's night, and apply for a job.

The voice actresses have the priorities of fourteen year olds. No doubt, that's who they're looking for. Nice girls to imprint on who'll come down fresh as soon as they're legal or have something that says they are. That's what they want and that's what they want the men to think. These aren't cold cynics and single mothers. Just kids lookin to have a spot of fun before hittin the real world.

Don't get me wrong, I've known a lot of nice girls who've worked as strippers and a lot more nice guys who've frequented their clubs, but this isn't what the job is like. It's cutthroat hard work where you're guaranteed to get harassed as far as you'll allow the patrons to harass you, and then a little bit more. The money is good though, if you don't trust no one. Carreer girls don't need shopping money so much as college degrees and Similac, and they need em enough to fuck you over good for em.

I have no problem with stripping, strippers, or the whole sex industry in general, but I've got a serious beef with the machinations of commercial radio. Especially when the commercial breaks are longer than ten minutes. People keep asking me why I don't do real radio, when they can see how much I love learning about bands and playing music for people. I just can't stand this shit.

3. (addendum) The thing I always say is that I wouldn't do right-side-of-the-dial radio unless a gig fell in my lap. I would indeed do it though if it fell in my lap.

4. In highschool there was a kid named Marco. He was gayer and more Puerto Rican than anyone I'd ever met before and dually filled with pride. He was the only boy in women's clothes who wasn't doing it to get attention. I had never heard the term Fat Tuesday before. We were in Mr. Scotese's English class. He turned around and dumped a handful of Lifestyles condoms and generic lube packets out of his purse and onto my desk. "Do you want these?" he asked. A beaded Puerto Rican flag dangled from his neck. He pretended not to be cold in his mesh shirt but it was obvious.

"Sure. Why?"

"I'm giving up sex for Lent."

"You?"

"Jess."

"You're Catholic?"

"Jess."

"And you're giving up gay sex for Lent."

"Jess."

"You're still going through Lent because you're Catholic even though Catholicism wants nothing to do with you and will condemn you to Hell anyway."

He looked at me and didn't say anything. He gave me a half nod and turned around as Mr. Scotese entered the room. I scooped all of the condoms into my overcrowded duffel where they would become bent and unusable anyway.

5. My eyes hurt. They know they're in the wrong city. They want to watch the Zulus and Frenchmen. They want to party and rebuild. Crabcakes are not enough. Beads are not enough. To day, Chicago does not cut it.