Meme, redux.

I just did this meme the other day, but whaddya know, I've been tagged again--this time by Katie Schwartz! So I thought, hey, why not? Here we go.

Meme, redux:

1. Five names you go by:

a. Buzz
b. Dumbo
c. Bubs
d. El Martillo
e. Sarge

2. Three things you are wearing right now:

a. A very comfortable fleece bathrobe
b. Very comfortable plaid flannel pajama pants
c. A 2005 Shamrock Shuffle long sleeve tee shirt

3. Two things you want very badly at the moment:

a. To successfully resolve a beef I've got with the administrators of a medical flexible spending account I have through work
b. To get back to brewing our own beer this winter

4. Three people who will probably fill this out:

Forget my last answer. Let's see, MizBubs, the eldest and Lulu

5. Two things you did last night:

a. Watched the movie Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.
b. Slept like a rock.

6. Two things you ate today:

a. Pumpkin pie
b. Pecan-crusted pork tenderloin stuffed with apples and Maytag blue cheese

7. Two people you last talked to on the phone:

a. The eldest
b. My brother

8. Two things you are going to do tomorrow:

a. Meet with my human resource director about the beef I mentioned earlier
b. Attend the first of several work-related Christmas parties.

9. Two longest car rides:

a. Chicago to San Antonio--about 1200 miles, more or less
b. Chicago to New Orleans--about 950 miles, more or less
(well, neither of these things changed in the last couple of days)

10. Two of your favorite beverages:

a. Bourbon
b. Smoothies with yogurt and frozen berries. I make good ones.

_____________________

Stay tuned. Later this week I'll be featuring a new Germany or Florida amputee criminal holiday edition!

Since you asked...

I first saw this questionnaire over at Katie Schwartz' place, and so far I've read excellent responses from Dr. Monkey and D-cup. I don't do a lot of politics on this blog, but I've grown increasingly upset at the direction our country is headed, and when I saw this I felt compelled to add my own response.

1) What is your name (nickname, whatever you're comfortable sharing), your age (range), gender, occupation, income bracket (range), how you identify (gay/straight/whatever)? Married/Single/Divorced? Kids (how many)?

Just call me Bubs. I'm a 46 year old cop living and working in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. I'm the proud father of two smart and beautiful teenage daughters and I've been married to my high school sweetheart for more than 22 years. I've been a police officer for nearly 20 years, and between my job and my bride's job at the library, we make more money than I ever imagined we'd make when we first got married. We feel blessed. We'll never be rich, but we don't want for anything. I won't have to worry about income when I retire, and we're paying for both our kids to go to college (as long as they start with community college and then go to a state university.)

I served in the Illinois Army National Guard (as did my bride) as a medic in the early to mid 80's, and we both finished our duty before the first Gulf War. I'm a gun owner and a member of the NRA. I am that middle aged white guy in the suburbs who is supposed to be a perfect Republican voter, although I don't go to church as much as I should.

2) What are the most important issues to you in this presidential election and why?

The most important issue for me is the economy; specifically restoring some sense of fair play for working people and the working poor. When I talk about the economy I'm including the issues of affordable health care and energy policy as well. I think it's obscene that the greatest nation in the world allows so many of its citizens to go bankrupt trying to pay for medical care. I'm alarmed at the growing disparity between the wealthiest and the rest of us.

I'm outraged by the fact that so many things my parents worked for and expected as part of being a middle class American--things like medical insurance, secure pensions, the ability to send your children to college without incurring crippling debt--are disappearing. Our energy policies have been focused on maximizing short-term profits for corporations instead of being geared to insuring the long-term strength and sustainability of our way of life.

And then, of course, there's Iraq. Putting aside the question of why we invaded in the first place, there can be no doubt that the invasion and occupation have sucked billions of dollars down a sinkhole; billions and billions of dollars that could have been far better spent here in the United States.

3) Why do you think voters should vote for Obama/Biden, what differentiates this ticket from McCain/Palin?

Simply put, I don't understand how anyone can look around at the current state of affairs--hemorrhaging money in Iraq, $4.00 a gallon gas, record bankruptcies, rising unemployment, record deficits, Wall Street and banking failures--and think that putting anyone from the party of George W. Bush in the White House could be anything but another disaster. McCain represents the party that has occupied the White House for the past 8 years, and has controlled Congress for 12 of the past 14 years.

It's like I told a coworker the other day: if you're more outraged by flag lapel pins and YouTube clips of angry black preachers than you are by the fact it costs you $3,000 a year to drive to work now, and you can't retire because you can't pay for health insurance, then I guess McCain is your man. Go home, pour yourself a stiff drink and listen to God Bless the USA a few more times until you numb the pain.

I don't think Obama and Biden will magically solve all these problems, but I'm confident that they won't make them worse. Obama and Biden are not ideologues, and they are not radical leftists. They didn't get where they are by being anti-business. I do believe that they share a concern for the little guy, a true concern for his well-being (as opposed to phony brush-cutting-at-the-ranch theatrics) and would work to do what they could to improve things. Obama and Biden have a far better plan than McCain to provide affordable health insurance to the most Americans.

I used to like McCain, and would have voted for him over Gore had he been the GOP nominee in 2000. It's been depressing to watch the diminishing of McCain as a public figure, as he works so hard to pander to the same "conservatives" and fundamentalists in his party who smeared him in 2000. And Palin? She's a ruthless autocrat and scares the hell out of me as a candidate. Who would you want one heartbeat away--her or Joe Biden? Can you imagine the howling of right wing talk hosts had the Democrats nominated a candidate like Palin? Good lord.

4) If McCain/Palin wins this election, where do you see our country going in the next four years?

I see every negative trend I talked about earlier continuing, and probably getting worse. I see more of the elevation of empty patriotic symbolism and posturing over the true love of neighbor and country. I think we'll see an increasing downward trend in the living standards and wages of average Americans.

5) Economically, where do you think this country is today and how do you think Obama/Biden can make a positive impact?

One of the things that appeals to me about Obama is his commitment to invigorate the economy and create jobs by investing in our infrastructure. He also says he'll invest in green and alternative energy sources. We have to start somewhere. Here's a link to Obama's position page on the economy. Go look around.

6) In the past 8-years, how do you think this country has changed under the Bush regime? Have you been affected by these changes? If so, in what ways?

I've seen an increasing polarization, and willingness to demonize one's opponents. All that red state/blue state bullshit. We saw more of it at the GOP convention with the implication in several speeches that they represent "real" Americans, as opposed to Democrats, who presumably represent all us degenerate urban perverts, elitists, dope fiends and sandal wearing secular humanists. Conservative Republicans have given us the phenomenon of the sore winner.

How have I been affected? Well, it's turned me into a self-identified Democratic voter for the first time in my life. I don't think I'd vote for a Republican for dog catcher at this point.

7) I have read that Palin is considered the new voice of feminism, which is offensive in my opinion. Of equal concern are her views on abortion and the removal of books from libraries. I'd like to know what you think about all of that and how you feel about McCain choosing Palin as a running mate. And what kind of message you think that sends to women?

Republicans have successfully harnessed working class fear to get working class people to vote against their own economic interest (read What's the Matter with Kansas by Thomas Frank). Now it looks like they're trying to do the same thing--trotting out a candidate who, at first glance, working women and moms can relate to, but who actually opposes policies that most of those women would be in favor of. I don't think it sends any message to women, really, since women aren't some monolithic block.

I think that McCain's choice of Palin as a running mate shows that his desire to win is strong enough to overcome his previous problems with evangelicals and Bush conservatives. It's no secret he would've preferred Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman, but ultimately he caved in to the right. And it's paid off for him, so far at least. By picking Palin he's put the GOP's favorite wedge issues like abortion and religion right back in the mix. If we try and win this election on issues like book banning and abortion, the Republicans will beat us like a rented mule.

Post your spam random ten

Hot Rod Baby—Rocky Davis

Funguss—Skinny Puppy

You’ve Got Everything Now—The Smiths

Love Me Two Times—The Doors

Goody Two Shoes—Adam Ant

Help Me Somebody—Brian Eno & David Byrne

The Book I Read—Talking Heads

Mary Ann—Lord Invader

Kizmiaz—The Cramps

A Maiden’s Prayer—Willie Nelson

_____________________

There, the first part is out of the way. There's today's random ten. No time to install the tunes on the music widget though, got to get moving. Yes sir. Today's the penultimate day of this week's work week, and it's gone fast. Tomorrow is shaping up as a 17 hour day; the first 8 at my regular job and then the rest at what looks like might be a very interesting side job that I probably won't be able to discuss here. I've got another training gig lined up for July, and the house looks like a tree full of monkeys as we plan for our big July 5th shindig.

The heightened vigilance that the discovery of the Chicago River alligator caused will not be short-lived. No. As I said before there have been some scary developments in the conflict known as World War G. I have some important gator stories in the pipeline and I promise I'll get them to you soon.

In the meantime, alert reader Katie Schwartz sent this story my way:

So, a crocodile walks into a bar...

Australians are just as good as American rednecks. What better way to deal with a marauding crocodile than to turn it into a bar mascot?

_____________________

Remember a couple weeks ago I suggested posting some random spam on Friday along with your random ten? Consistency is not my strongest virtue, so I didn't do it last week. I forgot, ok? Still, I think it's a worthwhile idea, so here's this week's entry:

I sense the smallness in you, come over to the large side now.
--Jungblut

I don't know about you, but I get kind of unnerved when random spam seems able to sense my insecurity.

Slap-happy Sunday

I'm still happily exhausted from last night's fundraiser for the New Orleans Public Library Foundation. We got home well after 1 in the morning, and ended up sleeping until 10:30. Ahhhh.

Amy Guth raised $4,000 in one night, and she is to be mightily commended. Watch her blog, because I'm sure she'll be posting a bit once Pilcrow ends tonight. I was thrilled that, in the end, I could use my powers for good by providing an armed escort to Ms. Guth when she deposited the proceeds at the bank. At one point one of my daughters asked if I was drunk, but then realized that it was just that my eyes had taken on that watery just-about-to-cry look that I get sometimes when people start talking about New Orleans.

What a wonderful night. I ended up bidding on, and winning, a rebuilt book from author Timothy Schaffert. He had re-worked a library copy of The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters with some doll parts and an antique key. My youngest fell in love with it. After the auction Mr. Schaffert stopped by and chatted, and my daughter told him that his rebuilt book reminded her of the movie Tideland. I think he took that for the compliment it was intended as.

Katie Schwartz... Katie Schwartz! She's now part of our family, and we look forward to her return in October. I wish I'd had more time to talk with her friend Jonuel (I think that's the spelling?) because he was engaging, witty, and a great conversationalist. Meeting Katie and her friend, and seeing the response that Amy Guth got to her inaugural Pilcrow outing, reminded me of the experience we had at Johnny Yen's birthday party last weekend. In all cases I was impressed by the ability of good people to draw other like souls to them, and the gift it is to be able to introduce people, and turn strangers into friends.

_____________________

So now, how do we enjoy a day with nothing to do? (yes, I know about the pile of wood chips, pipe down, ok, I'll get to them tomorrow when I'm done commemorating our war dead.) Here's how we spend a day like that. We cook pork, putter around, and drink something tasty.

Right now we have 6 pounds of boneless pork ribs grilling over hickory smoke in back. According to MizBubs the back porch smells like a restaurant. I made fresh barbecue sauce, which I think came out pretty well, and she's made a huge bowl of Maw-Maw's slaw, an Emeril Lagasse recipe involving cabbage, kale and homemade mayonnaise. There's a pound of fresh asparagus waiting to be grilled, and ice cream from Capannari's.

And MizBubs, bless her, decided to make today's Sunday Afternoon Cocktail: Sangria!

1 bottle of rose wine
1 bottle of Pinot Grigio
1 Cameo apple
1 Valencia orange
1 pint of blackberries
1 cup of triple sec

• Chop the apple and orange, and place in a large pitcher with the blackberries
• Add the triple sec and let sit for a while
• Add the wine, stir, and refrigerate for one hour
• Serve over ice and enjoy
  

Bottoms up!

Alright, enough with the wood chips already

Nothing is ever as simple as you think it's going to be. Before the wood chips can be toted to the back yard, there's weeding to be done. And the creeping charlie was pretty thick in some spots, and then there were the weeds that grew through the boards in the back deck, and between the stones off the back porch, so that meant a trip to Homeowner Hell for some vegetation killer, and in between there's phone calls from work...you get the picture.

I finally got to work hauling chips, and after about 30 or 40 wheelbarrows full, this is what the pile looked like. Time to drop the blinds I think.

So far the best thing about today was a phone call that interrupted my work. My eldest came outside with the phone and a funny but pleased look on her face. "Dad, it's Katie Schwartz!" No shit! The delightful Ms. Schwartz called to say hi on her way to her fabulous downtown hotel, giving me a perfect excuse to drop the shovel and bullshit on the phone a little. I was dying just listening to her talk--she's a hoot.

Well, like I told her when she apologized for taking me away from my chores, considering the size of that pile it didn't matter if I worked another 10 minutes or another 2 hours. The rest will wait until tomorrow.

Because now it's time to get ready to go hear Schwartzie read at the Fixx, and my eldest daughter is coming with. Sadly, MizBubs is slaving away at the library until 10, and youngest is swamped with year-end homework.

I have been remiss

Yes I have.

I've been blogging nearly 2 years now, and I really enjoy it. Along the way I've met some really swell people, and there are eveen more that I haven't met, but feel like I know well enough to consider friends.

There are a lot of you out there with a lot of talent. I mean, really. There are some creative people out there and they've got commercial ventures that deserve recognition. I've been meaning to promote these for a while, but just haven't gotten around to it. Until now. I'd love to see any of the people I'm about to mention get rich from their art and their hard work.

_____________________

First there is Jin, proprietor of Uniquely Yours Pastry Shoppe. Let me tell you something--she is one hawt cheesehead, and she is an absolutely magnificent pastry chef! My introduction to her art was the Black Pearl:

Dark Belgian chocolate ganache is infused with a perfect balance of organic black pepper, ginger & wasabi. Dipped in more dark Belgian chocolate, then rolled in toasted black & white sesame seeds for crunch.

Please, do your tastebuds a favor and order something from her.

Amy Guth is talented and funny and unbelievably gracious. I'm a sucker for anyone who treats my daughters so well and is so genuinely kind to them. She's the author of Three Fallen Women from So New Media. She hosts the ongoing Fixx Reading Series, and most recently she's organizing and promoting the upcoming Pilcrow Lit Fest.

Doctor Monkey Von Monkerstein has an amazing collection of postcards (if you're lucky you might even get one in the mail), and a taste for vintage communist propaganda. He's one talented monkey, and he may be the Compound's favored candidate for president in 08. Here's the thing, though--he's also a writer! I read his first novel, Trouble DeVille, and I've been bogarting it ever since, which has kept Splotchy from reading it. Dr. MVM's debut novel is a complicated southern mess, replete with bible thumpers, lesbians, white supremacist webmasters and plucky independent bookstore employees. I told him that I was impressed with how many plot lines he was able to weave together, coherently, since my attention span barely allows me to finish typing this sentence. There's gunplay, and a cute gal with a gun on the cover, which I love. Click here to see how you can order this book.

Splotchy is, I think, one of the smartest, cleverest and funniest bloggers around. Plus I happen to know he's a truly decent fellow, and does good works when he's not entertaining us all. He's making a movie, too, but I can't plug that because he hasn't shot it yet. But here's what I can plug: his fabulous line of iSplotchy gear, available for purchase right here.

What can I say about Katie Schwartz? Schwartzy, as I think I'll start calling her, since she calls me "Bubbsie". She makes me blush because she repeatedly uses the "c" word and all. The reason I mention her is that she's got a book coming out soon, and if it's half as good as her normal musings on this and that it's going to be awesome. Look for her upcoming book Emotionally Pantsed from So New Media in the next few months.

Becca from No Smoking in the Skull Cave lives here in northern Illinois, and yet we have not met her. She has excellent taste in pinups and exploitation movie posters. Her blog is occasionally not safe for work--as a matter of fact, I can't read it at work because it's filtered--but that's another reason to love it. Becca is an artist and has a business called Wink Studios. Recently we did some remodeling, and I bought MizBubs this original drawing for her tiki bar:



Becca was a pleasure to do business with. If you get a chance to buy one of her drawings, do it.

Write Procrastinator is, as you may have guessed, a writer. I like his style. He has given me one of my favorite phrases:

"Procrastination? It's CRACK for writers."

In addition to his regular blog he's got some clever side projects too.

He's got some good swag over here.

_____________________

That's it for now. I'm off to beautiful Springfield, Illinois, my least favorite city in the midwest, for the 2008 Illinois Police Memorial. Our honor guard will be participating in the memorial ceremonies. This year the memorial falls on May 1, which is usually celebrated here at the Compound with labor songs, red banners and maybe a trip to the Haymarket Martyrs Memorial.

I'll be back in a couple of days.

Take care.

Hard Times

Now for the hard part. The sadness.

I knew it would hit me at some point.

I planned on taking MizBubs and the girls to show them where I worked when I went down there with some brother officers after Katrina, and I wanted to show them the houses we gutted in St. Bernard Parish in March 2006.

We didn't make it to the 2nd District at Napoleon and Magazine, but we did head to St. Bernard Parish.

St. Bernard Parish lies just east of New Orleans. It's a middle and working class parish, full of modest homes, businesses, chemical plants and oil refineries. If you like shrimp, a lot of your favorite shellfish comes from there.

It's also the home of the Chalmette Battlefield, where the Battle of New Orleans was fought. The battlefield has recently reopened to visitors, but there's not a lot to see there. Here's a view from behind the American lines, looking out toward the British:



We drove east into St. Bernard after eating lunch at Elizabeth's, home of praline bacon. When I went down there with Splotchy and MizBubs' sister and brother in law, we stayed in a tent city next to the Chalmette Battlefield and spent our days gutting a couple of houses whose owners had signed up for assistance from the parish.

Much of St. Bernard Parish is still a ghost town. No one has moved back into the two houses we gutted. I talked to a neighbor of one of them, and he said the homeowner took her Road Home grant and relocated. So had most of the other people in the neighborhood. A lot of people don't want to move back as long as MR GO stays open, making it possible for the next storm surge to again flood the area.

MR GO, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, was built in the 60's as a way to allow ships to pass from the Mississippi River directly into the Gulf of Mexico. It's now more than 3 times wider than was originally intended, and it acted as an expressway channeling floodwaters into St Bernard Parish during Katrina. The Army Corps of Engineers has plans to close it, but the government is dicking around, and it remains open as I write this.

We drove back west into the lower 9th ward, and I showed the girls where the levee had broken. When I was there in March 2006 (nearly 8 months after the hurricane) the neighborhood looked like this:

One of the things that impressed me, in September 2005 and in March 2006, was how many people had hoisted American flags, either as they left or as they stayed and tried to get help. A defiant and poignant reminder: "HEY LISTEN! WE ARE AMERICANS, AND WE WILL NOT GIVE UP!"

I took this picture of a church just a few blocks from the levee in March 2006:

Here's how that church looked 3 weeks ago:



Most of the wrecked houses have been demolished and removed, but there are still some streets that are impassable because of debris. Now the neighborhood looks almost rural:

A short distance away from where this picture was taken we came to a haunting sight. The block had been cleared of all its houses, and looked at first just like a vacant field. Looking closer, there was a row of concrete stoops and driveway pads, one after the next, stretching the entire length of the block, each one representing a home and a family that was no longer there.

The instant I got the girls out of the car to stand and take it all in I felt like an asshole for asking them to do it. Everyone went silent and the silence stayed with us for a long time after we got back in and drove off. I wish every American could spend just a few minutes here, and maybe for a moment understand how profoundly we failed our own citizens. And maybe want to do something to help.

_____________________

New Orleans is in trouble.

For a first-time visitor to the French Quarter or downtown, you'd never know the difference.

Get outside the tourist area, and look around. The lower 9th ward resembles a war zone, and the middle and working class residential neighborhoods lakeside of St Charles are only partly populated. The population is about half of what it was. And the shitheads and criminals are back.

Just after the police announced that violent crime is down compared to this time last year, six more murders were committed over the weekend. According to this story in the Times-Picayune, rates for armed robberies spiked 25%, and assaults increased 33%. No one is exactly sure what to make of it all. No one's even sure of how to calculate the figures, since no one agrees on exactly how many people live in the city now. The NOPD says it's about 318,000 while another study estimates the population at 300,000. The police say they're "having a horrendous time dealing with the mentally ill". This is attributed to the loss of hundreds of hospital beds designated for mental health patients.

I met a young woman in a bar who told me about getting robbed on the street a couple of weeks earlier. A friend of hers had been robbed in the middle of the afternoon by an assailant wielding a shotgun. Almost everyone I talked to had a story about getting robbed or having a house or car broken into. I've never been anyplace where I've heard more people talk about crime.

There have always been gutter punks hanging around the lower quarter every time we've visited. It seems like there are a lot more of them now. They don't add anything to the atmosphere, I'll put it that way. There's nothing like seeing able bodied white kids sitting around begging when there's so much work to be done.

_____________________

Rich people like the French Quarter. We saw several for sale signs, and most of those signs were from Sotheby's. The lower quarter seemed almost deserted at times--you could tell that the buildings were occupied, but no one was around. A lot of property owners appear to be absentees. For all the Nick Cages and Brad Pitts buying real estate, few of them appear to be really living there year round. So where do all those shop clerks, and hotel staff and waiters and waitresses who work in the French Quarter serving tourists like us live? Not where they work, that's for sure. Rents have skyrocketed. Part of the charm of the French Quarter has been that it is a residential neighborhood. Now it seems in danger of becoming a ghetto for tourists and the very wealthy.

The vibe was different. I wasn't sure if it was me, because I'm a cop, bordering on paranoid, who distrusts and dislikes almost everyone. But my kids sensed it too. A certain wary, worn-down feeling. Some bursts of anger out on the street that I hadn't seen before--traffic disputes, drivers leaning on their horns and yelling. It wasn't much compared to what you see in a city like Chicago on any given day, but it seemed sadly different for New Orleans.



The upper end of Bourbon Street, closer to Canal, is more porno'd out than it used to be. While Bourbon Street has always had its seedy strip clubs (Bottomless! Topless! Moderate Prices) there are now more in-your-face clubs like Hustler, Deja Vu, Little Darlings, and the girls are out on the street soliciting business. The strippers looked tired and disinterested as they stood outside the door, one foot propped back behind them on the wall. It was sleazy, and not really in a good way. At least now my kids know what a stripper with a beer belly looks like.

_____________________

Then there's the "recovery". I honestly don't know what to think. In some ways progress has been phenomenal, and in others heartbreakingly slow. I ran into a cop from St Tammany Parish at the ILEETA conference. He claimed (and I have not been able to find any figures for this) that for the amount of money pledged to Katrina recovery, and spent without anyone really knowing where it's gone, you could've cut a check for $1 million to every displaced family and be done with it. Like I said, I have no idea if he's correct, but it does look like the Bush administration has approached Katrina recovery with the same prudence and oversight that they've shown in Iraq spending.

This was a front page story while we were down there:

ROAD HOME DETOUR

Owners of homes the government built on contaminated soil are running into bureaucratic snags in selling their homes to the state

The article features a woman who purchased a town house from HUD as part of a low income housing project. The townhomes were built on a toxic dump, later designated as an EPA Superfund site. After surviving cancer, probably caused by the poisons she'd been living on, she lost her home when the levee broke. Now the Road Home program won't pay for her property because her home sits on contaminated land.

I guess we're all beginning to suffer from Bush cronyism and corruption fatigue, because I don't remember this story getting a lot of air time. The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) resigned, and is under investigation for awarding contracts to political buddies. According to this story in the Chicago Tribune:

The FBI is looking into ties between Jackson and a friend who was paid $392,000 by HUD for work as a construction manager in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

How long, Lord?

_____________________

Now, don't despair, because that does no one any good. New Orleans and the people who live there are keeping on. They are a stubborn bunch, and they're not about to just give up and let the city die. Me, personally, I feel like I owe them, for all the hospitality they've shown me, for the food, the music, the cocktails, the stories, you name it. So here are a few ways an average Joe or Jane can help out:

New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity

I can't say enough good about these people. You can click on that link and donate, or even better do like Splotchy and I, and get down there and volunteer. Build something. Splotchy is a mensch, he's been down there twice, but I aim to catch up with him this summer. Here's individual links to make it easy for you:

St Bernard Parish project

Musician's Village

Donate Online

There. Wasn't that easy? I'm sure if you spend a little time you can find dozens of other worthy ways to donate time, goods or money. Please do, and if you find a good charity, please let me know and I'll include it in this list. Here's a good idea: plan your own trip to New Orleans! They'd love to have you, and it's probably one of the only places in the world where your tourism dollar actually helps. You can have a good time and participate in the rebuilding of a great city at the same time. Let me know if you go there, I know some good places to eat and drink.

Closer to home there's someone else who is doing her part to help out. Chicago's very own Amy Guth is organizing the upcoming Pilcrow Lit Fest, right here in Chicago May 22-25. They also has a blog with lots of neat interviews. The lit fest itself will be a blast--you'll get to meet loads o' cool authors, including the sweet and hilarious west-coaster Katie Schwartz.

Anyway, Pilcrow is asking for donations, and you'll find a little donation widget later in this post, as well as in the top right corner of this blog. Why? I'll just steal this bit of text from their site:

Why are we asking for donations?

Pilcrow has a small staff, dedicated to bringing together great writers and publishers in Chicago. Our fundraising goal on May 24 is to raise money for the NOLA Libraries through a silent auction of Rebuilt Books.

Creating and curating a festival takes lots of little things that take a little money.

Name tags, lanyards, printer catridges, a case of wine, cornbread muffins, and other odds and ends that haven't made our list yet.

Since many of our friends can't volunteer time, they asked to make it easy to donate money. And so we are using ChipIn. The goal? To raise money to throw the event which will raise, we hope, buckets of money for New Orleans Libraries.

Here's a link to the New Orleans Public Library "How To Help" page, detailing different ways to help out.

Thanks for doing what you can. My wife and my mistress both say thanks.

Regrets, I've had a few...

But then again, too few to mention.

Until now.

I got tagged by the adorable, frequently raunchy, always awesome Katie Schwartz to reveal 5 things you regret and 5 things you don't. Go check out what she wrote, and when you're finished go and see what Amy Guth said about her regrets and non-regrets, and then check out Write Procrastinator's take on it.

I mentioned to MizBubs, over a delicious apres-work blueberry martini, that I had been tagged, and I explained the regrets theme. She replied that she certainly wouldn't want to share her regrets with other people, which surprised me. Turns out what she was describing as a "regret" was what I'd refer to as a mistake--basically, something I'd done wrong, someone I'd mistreated, some way I'd fucked things up. A failure. An embarrassment. Well, no shit, I don't want to discuss that stuff either.

You know that feeling that you wake up with when you wish you hadn't had too much to drink? Or danced like a monkey to Louis Prima, told a coworker "PIPE DOWN, FAT-ASS" and then puked three times before being delivered by a more sympathetic coworker to your front door at 3am, only to have your wife think you've suffered a head injury at work because she can't understand your pre-verbal grunting as you crawl up the stairs, and then you have to sleep until 3 in the afternoon the next day and you still aren't right, you know that feeling? Oh, wait, you don't? Well, anyway, that's not regret.

That's shame, and a sense of it is a healthy thing to have. Regret, in my opinion, not so much.

When I think of "regret" I think of sitting and wondering what if--not knowing what was behind that door you didn't open, what was down that side road you didn't take. I think of regret as a state of mind, a wistful way of looking back. It goes quite well with equal doses of melancholy and nostalgia. That's regret. And regret, especially in a middle-aged man, is (if you'll pardon me) regretful. I think of it as a potentially debilitating condition:

Main Entry:

²regret

Function:

noun

Date:

1590

1: sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond one's control or power to repair
2 a: an expression of distressing emotion (as sorrow or disappointment)
b: plural : a note politely declining an invitation

That's the thing about regret: most of the time, you can't do anything about whatever it is you're regretting. It's over. Maybe you can try and do better in the future, hopefully providing yourself with fewer things to regret as you get older.

I have said before that I am a lucky man, and things have worked out better than I ever would have dreamed 25 years ago. For a good part of my teens and early 20's I never expected to live this long; I had a difficult time even imagining it.

_____________________

Truth be told, I don't have many regrets:

1) I'm kind of sorry I never joined the regular Army or the Marines when I thought about it in the early 80's. I was already in the Army National Guard, and I came close to going full-time at a low point when MizBubs and I were in splitsville. Here's the thing, though-- I know that if I had gone, MizBubs and I would never have reconciled, and never have married...and I have had nightmares about not being married to MizBubs. So I guess this is maybe a semi-regret?

2) I regret not taking risks and traveling when I was in my late teens and early 20's. I wish I'd ditched whatever crappy low-income job I'd had at the time, taken my chances and done something like hitchhike across Europe. When I visited Galway City with my family in 2003 I had a strange moment. I had an intense physical sensation of sadness; sadness that I had not visited there 20 years earlier as a kid.

3) There are a few friends I've had over the years that I feel pretty shitty about not keeping up with. Same goes for a few of my cousins, who I love dearly but hardly ever talk with or see.

4) Sure wish I'd learned to manage money better about 10 years earlier than I did. It's ok now, though.

5) I don't know how I could've worked this, but there are times I wish we'd started having babies sooner, had a couple more than we did, and that I hadn't had to work so hard when they were in grade school. I wouldn't mind having a few years in the mid-90's back again so I could be a better dad.

Non-regrets? I got a ton of those. Here's a few for a top 5:

1) My crazy stalker behavior at a parish carnival paid off, and eventually MizBubs married me.

2) I've got two smart beautiful daughters who aren't embarrassed to be seen in public with me.

3) I've had a great career as a cop. I've been lucky enough to have a job that is at once its own penance and reward. I'm making an income that in my starving art student days I would've regarded as obscene. I've gotten to save someone's life once or twice, I've helped put some very bad people in prison, and I've been able to comfort people who needed help. I think, overall, I may be a better man now than I was 20 years ago. Lord, I hope so.

4) I was able to have some really good conversations with my dad before he died.

5) Did I mention MizBubs and the girls?

_____________________

This was an interesting experience. I'm reluctant to tag anyone specifically, but I'd encourage anyone reading this to give it a shot.

"There was no point in looking back, fuck no, not today thank you kindly. My heart was filled with joy. I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger; a man on the move, and just sick enough to be totally confident."

--Hunter S. Thompson

8 Things About Me, Baby! All about ME!

OK, time to catch up. I've been drifting along, alternating between crazy work and blissful family fun, and then right when I was about to sit down and do some quality time-wasting, I ran into some puter problems. But now I'm back.

Katie Schwartz provided badly needed focus by hitting me with this tag. Here are the rules:

1. All right, here are the rules.
2. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
3. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
4. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
5. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

See, now, here's the thing: Katie and Coaster Punchman both had such wonderful responses, full of trampoline sex and nipple horror, that I know my own responses can't fail to be humdrum in comparison.

_________________

8 Things

1- I have an inexplicable fascination with New Orleans, and still think about living there when I retire.

2- I'm an art school dropout (twice, really, I dropped out of Columbia College and UIC.)

3- I was born with a vestigial tail. Actually, just a small fleshy nub, not a full tail.

4- I love Mexican border towns.

5- It took me 22 years to finish my degree. And now I'm going back for an MBA starting in September.

6- The sight and smell of stuffed green peppers makes me gag. It's a leftover response from my childhood, being forced to eat the one thing my parents cooked that I absolutely couldn't stand.

7- I love driving and road trips, but I hate cars. I've never had a car that I loved, in the sense that so many guys love their cars. It's just a way to get from here to there, hopefully on the cheap, and I'd just as soon be riding a bicycle or walking.

8- I'm training to run my third Chicago Marathon.

_________________

There you have it.

I tag everyone on the planet.

My dumbest question

The delightfully raunchy, funny and smart Katie Schwartz has tagged yours truly. Here are the requirements:

"For this meme, I'm going to ask you to answer three (hopefully not dumb) questions: What is the dumbest question you ever been asked? Why was it it dumb? And, even though it won't help, because answering a dumb question never does, what's the answer? (Or, as I like to think of them: The Big Dumb Question, The Big Dumb Reason, and The Big Dumb Answer.)"

Now, before I get started, I have to say something. After reading Katie's story I believe that it is really unnecessary, pointless, really, for any other blogger, anywhere, to post another response to this tag. Go read her story, here, and tell me if I'm not right. In spite of that belief I'll soldier on and give you this story.

Like anyone else who works with people--food service, retail, any of the "helping" professions--I've had plenty of dumb questions. But the thing is, there's one dumb question that I've heard at least a half dozen times over the years, from different people, but always in the same context.

Here's the setting: an office or interview room in a police station. Picture the usual institutional gray/green furniture, cinderblock walls and air of human desperation. There's a guy sitting in a chair, and you can tell by looking at him that he's spent, physically and emotionally. Sometimes he looks tearful and afraid, sometimes relieved, and other times almost happy because a great weight has just been lifted from him. Sometimes it's not a guy, it's a girl, but almost always it's a guy. He's in the process of signing his written confession, the one I just got from him, or he's already signed it and he's sitting back as I explain what happens next. At some point he looks up and makes eye contact with me, something he hasn't done for a while, and says "can I ask you a question?" And I just know the question is coming.

And then it comes:

"Do you think this is going to hurt my chances of becoming a police officer?"

Now, why was the question dumb, every single time it was asked? Because in each case the person had just confessed to a f*cking felony, that's why, and even grimy shithole police departments in places like southern Louisiana and Cook County, Illinois, generally refrain from hiring felons. (Seriously, they do--most of the bad cops you read about become felons after they've been on the job a while.)

So how do I answer this question? Like this:

"No, I wouldn't worry about it. They'll probably appreciate your honesty in admitting you made a mistake. Would you like to make any phone calls now?"

I tag MizBubs, Dale, Lulu and Johnny Yen. MizBubs because she works at a public help desk at the library and she's married to me, and I know she could fill pages with the stupid questions I've asked her; Lulu and Johnny because they're both educators, and Dale...well, because I get the feeling people just ask him a lot of dumb questions in general.