Category Archives: Ben Joravsky

12/29/2011
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An American in Paris, Andy Warhol, Ben Joravsky, Bloomington Indiana, Bridges of Madison County, Caskie Stinnett, Elvis Presley, Foot Fetish, Gene Kelly, Goethe, Gout, Henry VIII, Hypochondria, Indianapolis, Jerry Abramson, Leslie Caron, Louisville Kentucky, Monroe County, Pate de Foie Gras, Robert Fulghum, Robert James Waller, The Third City, Thomas Hardy, Vi Simpson

The Pencil Today:

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TODAY’S QUOTE

“The trouble with being a hypochondriac these days is that antibiotics have cured all the good diseases.” — Caskie Stinnett

Read On To Find Out Why I Put Up This Pic Of A Big Toe (And Its Buddies)

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MY DOPEY DISEASE

Life is not fair. We should all know it. The only people who cry about this state of affairs are those who expect life to be fair.

That, of course, is what kindergarteners think. BTW: Remember the rage for that gooey book by Robert Fulghum — “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”?

The man should have been incarcerated (right after Robert James Waller, whose “The Bridges of Madison County” hit it big around the same time.)

And who’s heard of Fulghum (or Waller) in the last decade or so? They’ve been swallowed up by the anonymity they so richly deserve.

Criminal

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Life has nothing to do with kindergarten.

Anyway, I didn’t post yesterday because I spent the morning in my doctor’s office. The diagnosis: gout.

Isn’t that the dumbest goddamn disease you’ve ever heard of? I mean, honestly.

It doesn’t kill you. It doesn’t maim you. It just hurts to high heaven, to the point where you can’t even sleep at night.

Ridiculous.

And its image really, really stinks. Unless you’re knowledgeable about it, the first thing you think of when you hear the word gout is some fat slob like Henry VIII, gorging himself on fatty, rich foods until his body rebels against him.

Slob

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Nobody’s gonna hold a charity walk for that.

The truth, as my old pal and colleague Benny Jay found out a couple of years ago, is another story.

Benny’s my age but as trim as a 25-year-old. He eats like monk, rarely drinks, and runs every day. I really hate him. Yet he got gout. The docs told him he had a genetic predisposition for it.

When I first heard he had it, I immediately chided him: “So, you’ve been eating all the wrong crap, huh?”

If You Eat Pâté de Foie Gras, You Deserve Gout

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I thought he was going to clobber me. He set me straight about what a straight-arrow he is (did I mention I hate him?) He really educated me about gout, too.

So when it felt as though a safe had fallen on my left big toe Monday night and I came to the conclusion I had gout, I didn’t put myself through the self-flaggelation that most sufferers do.

Still, gout is stupid. And life is not fair.

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A WARNING FOR YOUR OWN GOOD

Don’t google pix of big toes, as I had to do to find the image above.

I didn’t know exactly what I expected to find. Figuring it’s the Internet and I was looking for images of a certain body part, I suppose I thought most of the results would be porn sites. The human capacity to fetishize things for masturbatorial gratification is positively amazing.

To my dismay, the vast majority of big toe images were 73 times more disgusting than any foot porn could be. (And BTW: did you know Goethe, Thomas Hardy, Elvis Presley, and Andy Warhol were foot fetishists? Man!)

For god’s sake people, take care of your toes!

And while we’re at it, men should never wear sandals. Yeah, I know, it feels comfortable, but the rest of us don’t want to see how you’ve ignored toe care for the last 20 years.

Women Can Get Away With It

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TWO HEARTS BEATING AS ONE

In more pedestrian matters (hehe, a pun) the Herald Times yesterday ran an editorial calling for consolidation of the Monroe County and City of Bloomington governments.

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That’s what Indy did with Marion County back in 1970. They call their set-up Unigov. Louisville, Kentucky and Jefferson County did it, too, in 2003, dubbing their marriage Metro Louisville. Former mayor Jerry Abramson used to brag that his town had become the 16th biggest city in the nation. Unfortunately, no one else bought into that conceit.

The editorial cites the county’s election day screw-up and the County Auditor’s credit card mini-scandal among the reasons the two entities should merge.

We’ll be listening for the reactions of the folks in Ellettsville, Stinesville, and Smithville.

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FOUND MONEY

State Senator Vi Simpson wants to get her hands on some of that $300 million of state money auditors found laying around last month.

Vi Simpson

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Apparently, she’s interested in directing some of that dough toward state school districts that have had to endure — mirabile dictu! — some $300 million in state cutbacks of late.

Doesn’t she know these are more prudent, conservative times we live in? And she wants to throw away money on kids’ educations? Sheesh.

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AN AMERICAN IN PARIS

Just a little taste from what I consider one of the 10 greatest American movies ever made. Sheer pleasure for the ears and eyes.

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12/18/2011
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Ben Joravsky, Chicago Park District, Divine, dlisted, Incest, Ke$ha, Li'l Wayne, Mary Karr, Michael K, Minnesota, Pink Flamingos, Rosemount High School, Sleazy Remix, Sleazy Remix 2.0, Subway, The Third City, Tim Tebow, Vaclav Havel, Velvet Revolution, White Owls, William Bennett, Wiz Khalifa

The Pencil Today:

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THE VELVET REVOLUTIONARY

“Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.” — Vaclav Havel. The leader of Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution died yesterday in his home at the age of 75.

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WHITE OWLS IN SOUTH CENTRAL INDIANA

My old blogging partner, Benny Jay of The Third City website he and I founded, recently wrote about his wife seeing a white owl as she walked along Chicago’s lakefront. The gist of the post was that Benny couldn’t care less about the rare bird; he was busy reading about the Bulls as his bride gushed.

The soulless brute.

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I saw a white owl at the lakefront on my birthday back in 1980. The bird was standing on one of those big four-spout concrete water fountains the Park District used to have everywhere. My girlfriend at the time and I saw the owl, stopped suddenly, and gaped. The bird then noticed us and took it on the lam. Swear to god, his (her?) wingspan had to be a three or four feet.

I’ve never forgotten that moment. And I’ve never seen another white owl.

Now, I may get another chance.

The Herald Times reports that Snowy Owls seem to be migrating as far south as these precincts this winter. The last such “irruption” (unusual migrating pattern) occurred fifteen years ago.

I’m grabbing my binoculars and bird book just as soon as I finish with this post.

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NOW THAT’S DISGUSTING

I try to let very little disgust me.

I can think of only a few examples of things that have actually made me want to retch. I saw the body of a wayward juice loan collector who had his head blown clean off by shotgun blasts on North Nora Avenue back in 1975. I saw Divine eat dogshit in “Pink Flamingos.” And once at the Subway on North Walnut Street, I was forced to listen to Ke$ha’s collaboration with Li’l Wayne, Wiz Khalifa et al entitled “Sleazy Remix 2.0” while trying to eat my Veggie Delight sandwich.

Divine: Screenshot From Pink Flamingos

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I remember that incident well. It took three Subway employees to pry out of my hand the pistol that I had pointed at my temple.

Anyway, while reading Michael K‘s indispensable celebrity gossip site, dlisted, yesterday, I nearly horked. (H/T to memoirist Mary Karr for the word.)

Michael K linked to a pep rally at Rosemount High School in Minnesota where — gack! — jocks and jockettes were blindfolded and then forced to make out with their parents!

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Force yourself to look at the vid. Check out the mom who starts rolling around on the gym floor with — I remind you once again — her son. And watch another mom move — gluck! — her son’s hand onto her ass.

Sometimes I think I really don’t like kids. But then I realize it’s very often parents who turn my stomach.

And, by the way, should I by some weird chance learn that any of these parents vote Republican because this holy land is not living up to its “Christian ideals” I will personally drive up to Minnesota and kick them in their genitals.

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WE DO FACEBOOK SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

A spamily- and brattle-free zone.

◗ John Spencer Bergman of Chicago was one of my earliest roommates, back in  the days when I had the maturity of an 11-month old. He taught himself how to play bass guitar and turned out to be a pretty good one, providing the rhythmic foundation for the late ’70s cute-boy band Clox. He used to work at a little corner grocery on Clybourn Avenue that sold pig’s ear sandwiches. No lie — the place actually had a big sign out front advertising them. Poor earless pigs.

Anyway, John takes on god’s personal emissary on Earth, the NFL quarterback Tim Tebow, who is beloved by, among others, the degenerate gambler Bill Bennett.

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11/14/2011
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Ben Joravsky, Bonk, George Carlin, Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, Los Angeles Times, Michael Moore, Mike Elk, Occupy Wall Street, Penn State University, Republican Party, Roger Ebert, Soma Coffee

Today: Monday, November 14, 2011

If the boys in charge were smart, they’d let winter quash the Occupy encampments across this holy land.

But the boys in charge are smart about as often as a Republican candidate for president talks about issues that mean something to you and me.

So, this weekend riot-geared cops waded into Occupy camping jamborees here and there. And it’s ironic, considering that within the last few days there was a street melee that warranted the use of force in response.

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I mean, honestly, wouldn’t you have felt good about the world in general had local and campus police cracked some skulls with their nightsticks when those Penn State reprobates rioted Wednesday?

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An essayist on Michael Moore’s website opines that arrogant white men don’t like to be held accountable for their actions. The author of the piece, one Mike Elk, holds that Penn State is is the capital of whiteness in Pennsylvania. (Hat tip to my old pal R.E. for putting this up on her Facebook page.)

But the cops played nice with the entitled white boys who were so enraged that their child-molester-protecting, GOP-supporting football coach was fired.

The fact that poverty is spreading here in America, right wingers are clamping down on sex and women, corporations are taking over world governments, the gap between rich and poor grows more alarming every hour, and other terrifying developments meant nothing to these little frat farts. Only their football coach being persecuted for sitting on his hands while his great and good pal sodomized ten-year-olds in the shower room drove them into the streets.

An op-ed contributor in the LA Times rails against the cult of college sports, a sentiment close to my heart. I realize I risk being lynched in these precincts but the whole hypocritical, corrupt, fairly racist major college sports structure makes me ill. (Hat tip to Roger Ebert on Facebook for citing the LA Times piece.)

My next door neighbor Tom asked me if I wanted to watch the Hoosiers basketball game with him the other day. I like Tom. He’s a good man and a good neighbor and I enjoy spending time with him but watching college sports ranks just below submitting to my yearly prostate exam on the list of things I want to do.

One of the Irish Tough Guys who hang out at Soma, Tough Guy Pat, holds season tix to just about every sport on the Hoosier athletic department sked. His mood often is dictated by the result of yesterday’s football game or last night’s volleyball match.

College sports means a lot to guys like Tom and Tough Guy Pat. I get that. I also get that were it not for Hoosier sports husbands would have to start talking to their wives around here, and that, of course, is unnatural.

And, speaking of unnatural, it strikes me that too many folks burdened with what they or society consider “unnatural” sexual urges seem to gravitate toward institutions that frown on the whole notion of doing fun things in the nude.

Authoritarian clubs like the Catholic church and the Republican Party sometimes seem overrun with closeted gays and boy-lovers.

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Now, I need to clarify my usage of the term “unnatural.” We all agree that men who have sex with boys are operating with frighteningly faulty wiring. Gays, on the other hand, are not. But many, many, many poor souls consider their own homosexual feelings sinful or sick. They would consider themselves “unnatural.”

Here’s why I made mention of Joe Paterno’s Republican party affiliation. The GOP in the last 35 years or so has become fixated on sex. Birth control, abortion, gay marriage — if you don’t hew to the party line on these topics you ain’t gettin’ elected, simple as that.

(Which reminds me of the George Carlin bit about how these sex-obsessed people aren’t the kind you’d want to have sex with anyway. Thanks to Benny Jay for reminding me of this routine.)

Anyway, the Church and the GOP hold that every kind of sex except the stultifyingly boring kind between married heterosexual Iowa farm couples is icky to the point of criminality or sin.

Once you paint bonking as intrinsically evil, you lose the capability to see truly evil sex for what it is.

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Maybe Joe Pa didn’t even realize that poking a pre-teen lad is an ugly crime. Maybe he just thought Jerry Sandusky had simply succumbed to temptation, you know, like offensive guards who engage in premarital sex or tight ends who masturbate too much.

Maybe he’d been listening for too long to the fetishists who’ve taken over his party.

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