"The blog has made Glab into a hip town crier, commenting on everything from local politics and cultural happenings to national and international events, all rendered in a colorful, intelligent, working-class vernacular that owes some of its style to Glab’s Chicago-hometown heroes Studs Terkel and Mike Royko." — David Brent Johnson in Bloom Magazine
But my screed will have to wait. Just for a moment, mind you, but wait it will.
I purchased my customary pint of life-giving joe (which is really my ever-ready first priority on any given day) and strode purposefully to the cream and sugar bar to make the drug palatable.
There I saw Soma’s Toastmaster General, Smiling Kevin Sears.
“You look like a man who’s got something to do,” he observed.
“Yer damned right,” I said as I sweetened the pint. “Those goddamned Republicans aren’t gonna know what hit ’em.”
“Alright,” he said. “but let me ask you this first.”
“Go ahead,” I said, hoping my tone conveyed my urgency.
“What do people value more,” he asked, “their car or their connectivity?”
This? (The General Lee)
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Suddenly and for the moment, I forgot all about my rage. I honestly didn’t know the answer.
Smiling Kevin explained that he’s wondering what to do about his investment portfolio. Should he continue to sink his dough into oil and transportation stocks or should he transfer at least some of his wealth into telecoms?
So, Smiling Kevin’s finances aside, I put it to you, loyal readers. What’s more important to you — your hot rod or your smart-assed phone?
Remember, I’m from Chicago so I encourage you to vote as often as you like!
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HOLDING ALL THE ACES, WANTING EVEN MORE
Now, then. The Republicans.
Okay, babies, you’ve got your anti-union legislation.
The GOP Has Discovered A Better Way Than This To Crush Unions
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And that’s because you’ve got your Indiana General Assembly.
And you’ve got your Indiana Senate.
And your Indiana governor.
And your two US Senators from the Hoosier State.
Oh, by the way, you’ve got your entire US House of Representatives, too.
So if I hear one more of you sons or daughters of bitches complain about how the liberals or socialists or feminists or Black Panthers or NPR reporters or Sharia Muslims or any other bogeymen that you want to scare the couch potatoes to death with are taking over this holy land, I’m gonna scream.
And I’m gonna do everything I can to get everyone I know to scream.
Book it, babies.
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BOYS IN THE FEST
So Steve Llewellyn didn’t spend all his college days staring out the window or eating lunch. Of course, he was a grown man when he took some Communications and Culture classes at our hometown reformatory. He paid attention when he heard about the Iris Film Festival.
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A few years later, after working on “The Trouble with Boys” as a cinematographer, he nudged director Chris Rall and screenwriter Tony Brewer and told them to enter their video opus.
And so they did. And it was accepted. And, this coming Saturday, TTWB will be screened along with 17 other works of cinematic genius at the IU Cinema.
(l to r) Rall, Brewer, & Llewellyn
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Here (direct from the Iris FB page) is the complete lineup:
“Lester Kannon” by Graham Walsh
“Project Z-6463” by Chris Eller & Sophia Parkinson
“TTWB”
“Petie Stewart, Manny Pacquiao’s Biggest Fan” by Duane Busick
“Black & White” by Sahar Pastel-Daneshgar & Emily Erotas
“Fertility 2.0” by David Ross
“Dance of Souls” by Caz Tanner
“Two Crowded” by Peter Johnson
“Lorelei” by M.C. Madrigal & Ryan Miyake
“A Song for the Undertaker” by Josh Tuthill
“The Single Mother” by Jesse Lacy
“The Woods” by Austin Gardener
“Gloom” by Jackson Van Meter & Ryan Smythe
“The Keeper” by Mark Johnson
“Reflection” by Kevin McClatchey
“DADT: A Film from America” by Kaleb Basey
“Imprints” by Javier Ramirez & Maggie Rossman
“Food Fight” by Laura Caldie
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SPEAKING OF VIDEO BRILLIANCE
Have you heard the Stephen Colbert interview with Maurice Sendak yet? Click on their photos for the link and enjoy.
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Sorry kids, I can’t embed the vid — you know, copyright issues and all. Trust me, though, it’s worth the extra step.
“Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it’s important.” — Eugene McCarthy
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SMALL TOWN HEARTS
One more observation from the sad tale of Diane Singleton, who was found dead near a creek Monday evening after wandering away from home earlier in the day.
More than 100 people volunteered to search for her Monday. The volunteers included friends, family, her fellow church-goers, her husband’s co-workers and students, and many others. Once again, Bloomington-folk have proven themselves to be caring and willing to go out of their way for their brothers and sisters.
Searching (photo by Jeremy Hogan/Herald Times)
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Which is in stark contrast to the likely reaction of people in my old hometown Chicago. Sure, the word would have gotten around and people would have shaken their heads and clucked their tongues upon learning of the woman’s disappearance. “That’s a horrible shame,” a typical Chicagoan would have said. “I wish I could do something to help. Say, let’s get over to the Purple Pig for dinner — I’m dying to taste those prosciutto escarole bread balls.”
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WON’T THEY EVER LISTEN?
A lesser human than I am would become frustrated.
Once again, the world is refusing to listen to me. I mean, I’ve got all the answers, which I gladly share with the Earth’s seven billion residents on a daily basis here.
See, I’ve harped on this too many times to count already. Still, people continue to waste their time and effort doing things that…, that…, well, that are stupid.
To wit: someone named Felicity Aston has become the first woman to ski solo across the Antarctic. I remind you that the Antarctic is more than a thousand miles wide. It is the world’s largest desert. Mean temperatures during the summer (it’s the equivalent of late July there right now) range from -5 to -31F.
Summer
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Locations in Antarctica experience a phenomenon known as whiteout. Here’s a description from an Antarctica travel site (go figure): “”Whiteouts are another peculiar Antarctica condition, in which there are no shadows or contrasts between objects. A uniformly gray or white sky over a snow-covered surface can yield these whiteouts, which cause a loss of depth perception — for both humans and wildlife.”
Early explorers learned to keep an eye on their fellow travelers, looking for signs of disorientation due to hypothermia. People can literally go mad in the frigid air and the howling winds.
Bet you’re itching to click on that site so you can plan next January’s vacation, no?
It’s in this frozen hell that Felicity Aston decided to ski, alone, for 59 days, in order to get from one end of the continent to the other.
A continent, by the way, that’s fairly well mapped, considering there’s nothing there.
So Felicity Aston isn’t doing the world a favor by pushing into an unknown land, striving to discover new flora and fauna, hoping to learn something about the biome that might benefit civilization.
No. She skied 1,084 miles, dragging her supplies on a couple of sleds behind her because…, well, because.
Aston
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NPR Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep interviewed her this morning as she waited for the last flight out of Antarctica before the weather turns bad (turns bad?) for the year. She spoke of days when she was unable even to see her feet because of the driving snow. She could only keep her head down and watch her compass as she schussed across the ice shelf on those days.
Inskeep asked her if she was happy to get back to base camp and interact with people again after nearly three months of solitude. She replied, unsurprisingly, no. She did say, though, that she had to remind herself not to pee wherever she felt like it, as she did during her journey.
Nice of her.
At the conclusion of the interview, Inskeep told her, “Congratulations.”
Lucky I wasn’t the interviewer. I would have told her, “So what?”
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FAVORITE SON
Mitch Daniels gave the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address to Congress last night.
When it comes time for the GOP to select a vice presidential candidate in August, the party could do a hell of a lot worse than Daniels. They probably will.
Daniels
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WE TREASURE DAVID BAKER — BUT NOT AS MUCH AS…
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last few weeks, you know that David Baker celebrated his 80th birthday on December 21st.
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The Indiana University and Bloomington communities have been toasting him since November. The Jacobs School of Music threw a gala birthday bash for him Saturday night at the Musical Arts Center. Speeches were made, Michael McRobbie presented Baker with the President’s Medal of Excellence, students and fellow faculty members serenaded him, a proclamation by Mayor Kruzan was read declaring January 21st David Baker Day in Bloomington, and the Jacobs School announced the establishment of the David Baker Jazz Scholarship.
Baker, natch, is a legend and one of the top people in his field in the world.
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So, troublemaker that I am, I decided to check the Herald Times database of public employee salaries, just — you know — for kicks.
Baker, as near as I can determine, made nearly $147,000 as a professor in the jazz department at the Jacobs school last year.
Good. I’m glad he gets paid handsomely for his contributions to that peculiarly American art form. I hope that the residents of the planet Kepler 22b, when they finally translate our radio transmissions, hear some of Baker’s music. They’ll get a good first impression of our crazy, mixed up world.
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And how crazy and mixed up is it?
IU football coach Kevin Wilson made half a mill last year for the singular accomplishment of leading the Hoosiers to a 1-11 record. Tom Crean, the basketball boss, made 600 Gs. Of course, Crean’s guys are a tad more adept than the gridders.
I looked at the photo of the missing woman and wondered why people would be worried. The flyer indicated she’d been missing for only a few short hours.
Missing At Noon
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Another Maurer student came in with flyers at about 4:00pm. I told her someone had been in already. Then I asked her, “What’s the deal here? This woman has only been gone since this morning. How can you call her missing? Hell, I’ve been out of the house since this morning and I’m not missing.”
The student had the lawyer’s poker face down already. She mumbled a few things that I didn’t quite catch and then she shifted gears. The woman, she said, now speaking clearly, was the wife of a well-liked professor.
“Come on, now,” I pressed. “What’s going on?”
The student took a few steps back, toward the door. “It’s really…,” she started. “I can’t….”
I filled in the blanks. “Is it a medical issue?”
She seemed relieved, as if by guessing correctly, I’d taken her off the hook. “I’m sure you understand,” she said, “there are privacy issues here.”
“Hmm,” I said.
I’d left the flyer the first student had brought in on a book cart. In the hours since she’d come in, that flyer’d been buried and reburied by dozens of books.
By 6:00, when I was locking the door and The Loved One was waiting for me with her flashers on outside of Williams Jewelry, I’d forgotten the flyer completely.
We drove home in silence. It’d been a tiring day for both of us. The Loved One turned right off 3rd Street onto SR 446. The sign at the Bruster’s still advised ice cream junkies to visit its downtown location during the winter, but I had my window cracked. It’s been a weird January.
Then we saw the flashing lights. Dozens of the them. Black and white squad cars, fire trucks, ambulances, unmarked police cruisers, they all formed a clot around the entrance to the new housing development that used to be a horse pasture.
The street has been laid, the utility vaults installed, and safety capped power cables poke out of the ground like plastic crocuses, but not one house has been built yet. None has even been started. Some recovery.
“Uh oh,” The Loved One said, “looks like a bad accident.”
Emergency vehicles were parked well into the new road. Some police cars were parked on the fresh sod.
“Well, what are they doing inside the development?” I said.
Then it hit me.
“Aw shit,” I said. “What if it’s that woman?”
“What woman?” The Loved One asked.
As we drove slowly past the scene, I told her about the students and their flyers. “We’ll find out soon enough,” The Loved One said, her voice indicating I shouldn’t let my imagination get the better of me.
“Well, I’m gonna go there and find out,” I said.
“You do that,” she said.
She pulled into our driveway and I jumped out of the car, grabbing the flashlight from the glovebox. The scene was no more than a couple of hundred yards away from our back porch, just over a rise that obscured the flashing lights until I hit its crest.
I saw a group of firefighters milling around an ambulance. Firefighters, I’d learned long ago in Chicago, usually are good sources of initial information at an emergency scene. They’re not as tight-lipped as the cops, as a rule.
“Pardon me, guys. What happened? Was there an accident?” I asked.
They all looked at each other. Finally, one guy spoke up. “No,” he said.
We stared at each other and simultaneously shifted on our feet. I tried again. “Okay. What happened?”
Another uncomfortable silence. After a long moment, the guy responded. “Somebody,” he said, “was injured.”
His pals all averted their eyes.
I knew I wasn’t going to get anything more out of them.
So I loitered a bit. A heavy duty tow truck came by and positioned itself to pull one of the squad cars out of a ditch. Judging by the ruts in the sod, it looked as though the driver had zoomed off 446 and gotten stuck. Maybe, I thought, it was a chase. Maybe another bank robbery. Maybe there was even gunfire.
Suddenly, I was nine years old again. I thought: Jeez, I’m a grown man and here I am getting excited over a police gunfight. I scolded myself: People get hurt in gunfights, my internal voice said. They even get killed.
The tow truck slowly began to tug the squad car out of the ditch, the driver hoping, I supposed, not to rip apart its undercarriage in the process.
A couple of cops ambled over to their cruiser. Things seemed to be winding down. I ran over to them before they could get in.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m a neighbor. Anything we should be worried about here?”
“No,” one of the cops said. Again, there was an uncomfortable silence.
“Well, what happened?”
He looked at his partner. His partner shrugged. The cop looked back at me. “They found somebody down by the creek.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” I said. And it hit me again. “Aw man,” I said, “was it that missing woman?”
The cop nodded.
“Is she gonna be alright?”
He stared at me, meaningfully. I caught on.
“Is she dead?”
“I’ll let you come to your own conclusion about that,” he said.
And then the two cops drove off.
I thought about those students as I walked back home. I thought about the professor, too. The woman’s husband. Right now, I thought, there’s a person in this town who’s likely suffering through the worst moment of his life.
I didn’t feel so tired anymore. And I remembered that flyer. I never did put it up.
“I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper, and the old men and the old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.” — Brendan Behan
Yep. The man has (or, more accurately now, had) an albino wallaby named Kimba.
Typical Albino Wallaby
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A week ago today, Ron Young let the critter out in his fenced backyard and, next thing he knew, Kimba had taken a hike. Well, actually four hours later, the animal took her hike.
Wild creatures can figure out many ways to escape a fenced enclosure if you give them four hours. Hell, if I left Steve the Dog out in a fenced yard (which we don’t have) and came back four hours later, I’d find the yard empty save for a pair of fence cutters dropped in haste on the grass.
I mean, Steve likes me and The Loved One well enough, but the allure of out there is irresistible. And this is a pampered hound who looks at me as if I’m from the moon when I suggest he go outside in a light mist to do his business.
“I Like Youse Guys But Gimme Half A Chance And I’m Outta Here.”
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Anyway, Young is a former director of the Evansville Zoo. You’d think he’d know better. And not just about leaving an animal unattended for such a long period of time.
Just having a non-native animal in Southern Indiana seems rash to me.
Wallabies, I’ll hazard to guess, don’t want to be here. Were we to give the macropods a vote in the matter, it’s a good bet they’d overwhelmingly elect to stay in Australia, New Zealand, or any of the nearby Oceania islands they inhabit.
Which reminds me of an egregious example of humans introducing a non-native species to a strange geographical environment.
A wealthy goofball named Thomas Austin brought a couple of dozen cute little bunnies to his estate in Victoria in 1859. He’d wanted to shoot at them for fun and games. See, rabbits had never before lived in Australia and a man can become bored blasting away at the same old 755 different species of reptile as well as countless platypi, echidnae, kangaroos, koalas, wombats, emus, kookaburras, dingoes, and other mammals and birds native to that land.
Apparently, Austin never bagged his limit because the surviving bunnies did what bunnies do — that is, they bonked and bonked and bonked until they’d essentially taken over most of the continent within forty years.
You might say, So what? What can cute little bunnies do to a continent? The answer: devastate it.
The hundreds of millions of rabbits who now hold sway over the entire landmass have eaten so much foliage that exposed soil and land erosion is now a major problem in many huge swaths of Australia. Not only that but a significant number of plant species have now gone extinct, thanks to the voracious rabbits. And since the plants have disappeared, at least two mammals species, the bilby and the bandicoot, have essentially vanished.
Not that we have to worry about wallabies taking over North America now that Kimba has escaped her pen. She’s probably dead now since wallabies really don’t know how to live in winter climes.
When I was a bartender at Club Lago, an Italian restaurant in Chicago, one of our cooks was a funny man named Chico. He loved to concoct new dishes using only the stuff that was leftover in the kitchen at the end of the night. He’d serve up plates of the scrumptious stuff to the waitstaff and me after we’d locked the doors.
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Occasionally, a new hire might ask before digging in, “What’s in this?” To which Chico would swiftly reply, “Just shut up and eat.”
I found his directive to be sensible and easy enough to follow.
Not that Chico was worried we’d learn he’d been dumping toxic substances into his skillet or pot. His philosophy was if you really love to eat, just eat. The act of consuming comestibles should be enjoyed without worry or fear. Eat!
Admittedly, one might want to question the company that whips up, say, Spam. A wise person wants to know how many species have sacrificed their lives for that rectangular hunk of “meat.”
“Food”
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But Chico’s dishes were made of fresh vegetables, succulent seafood, lovingly-stirred sauces, and prime meats. Just shut up and eat.
Which brings me to a recent study that indicates the food fetishists of this holy land — thousands of whom seem to have settled here in Bloomington — ought to try to hew to Chico’s axiom.
Apparently, according to the study, people tend to think a food is more nutritious, is safer, and is more pure only because it carries labels like “fair trade,” “natural,” or “organic.”
It’s called the “health halo” effect. And it’s pretty much bullshit.
Yeah, It’s Natural — But It’s Still Junk Food
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Now, the organic designation is defined by federal law. It means simply that the grub you’re jamming into your mouth is reasonably free from certain prohibited substances like dangerous pesticides or controversial additives. The organic designation in no way affects the taste or nutritional quality of a food. It’s conceivable, for instance, that Hormel Foods could apply for and receive the USDA’s approval to slap the organic logo on its cans of Spam.
“Fair trade” and “natural,” on the other hand have no legal definitions. I could market cow flop tomorrow, calling it “all-natural” — which it is — and be well within my legal rights. And making sure some Colombian coffee growers get a fair price for their crop doesn’t make my cup of joe any different from yours.
Still, the study found that people will go so far as to believe a piece of fair trade chocolate contains fewer calories than one not marketed under that label.
So, yeah, we’d like to make sure we’re not screwing the world’s farmers to death because we need to stuff ourselves with sandwich cookies. And it’s good to know there isn’t a cupful of Red Dye No. 3 in that package of Jujubes.
But let’s try to be reasonable. Just shut up and eat.
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WHO ARE THE KARDASHIANS?
For the longest time, my mind has refused to retain information about the Kardashians.
The gray mass inside my cranium is like that. It has also prohibited me from understanding basic economic precepts for many long years. For example, I’d ask somebody what the national debt is. Not how much it is, but what exactly it is, as in its definition. Financially savvy pals would explain it to me in excruciating detail and I’d nod my head as if I were taking it all in.
But — swear to god — ten minutes later all those words and ideas would have spilled out of my ear and onto the floor, only to be mopped up by the bartender or busboy at whichever saloon or restaurant I’d just had my lesson in.
Not Even IU’s Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Ellie Ostrom Can Help Me
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Same thing with the Kardashians. I must have asked at least three dozen different people through the years who the Kardashians are and why this holy land knows of them.
And every time the knowledge imparted to me simply departs my brain, leaving no forwarding address.
When it comes to the national debt, I feel bad about my ignorance. But I’m proud of my Kardashian stupidity.
Duh, I Dunno
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Apparently, many others in the Great United States, Inc. also are less than enthralled by the K-clan. This despite the fact that all corporate news outlets must record and recount the family’s every muscle move.
Now I don’t feel so out of touch. On the other hand, who the hell is The Situation?
Um, Uh, What Was The Question?
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WHITE ROOM
Right off the bat, I’m not advocating the use of heroin. Lemme put it this way, back in the days when I and my circle were willing to ingest anything for a high, the very idea of heroin scared the bejesus out of me.
I’d met a young woman when I was about 23 years old. She never missed a chance to extol the wonders of heroin. I asked her what it was like. Her eyes turned dreamy and she said, “It’s the greatest feeling you’ll ever know. After heroin, sex is nothing.”
I vowed at that moment never to try it — and I never have.
Eric Clapton waged a well-documented, years-long battle against heroin addiction. He’s been clean for nearly forty years. But his heroin-free output includes such treacle as “Tears in Heaven” while his “White Room” with Cream was recorded at the height of his horse ride.
“Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (But who will guard the guards themselves?)” — Juvenal
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GERSTMAN’S GOTTA GO
So now Monroe County Auditor Amy Gerstman is facing another charge: She hasn’t been taking minutes at county meetings, as she’s required to do by state law.
This, of course, is on top of the charges that she used credit cards issued to her office for personal expenses like groceries, gifts, and even her kids’ private school tuitions. The county board voted to censure Gerstman yesterday.
The Soon-To-Be Ex-County Auditor?
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Board members say Gerstman has been notably absent from board and committee meetings even though it’s her duty to record their proceedings. For her part Gerstman says she’s entitled to send a proxy to do that grunt work.
That would be fine if, say, Gerstman came down with the flu on the date of a meeting. But, if county board members are to be believed, this “flu” has lasted a long, long time.
I suppose we can’t blame Gerstman for not wanting to show her face at public meetings, considering the silly and embarrassing things she’s been doing with county dough. Admittedly, she has paid it all back but, as I cracked earlier, the bank robber who tries to return the sack of cash he took at gunpoint still is a bank robber.
Gerstman didn’t show up to work yesterday, indicating she may be contemplating doing the right thing. That’s resigning.
I mean, honestly, the woman is the auditor, for pity’s sake. Her job is to make sure the county’s money is being spent correctly. The Gerstman saga is the equivalent of learning that Sheriff Jim Kennedy runs a local crime syndicate.
And, BTW, Gerstman hasn’t been the only official who feels the county’s credit cards are really hers. Human Resources Director Rhonda Foster quit her post abruptly last week after it was learned she, too, had played fast and loose with county plastic. If not the flu, then something‘s going around the Showers Building.
The Ex-HR Chief
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A regular county commissioners meeting is scheduled for tomorrow at City Hall at 9:00am. The smart move is for Gerstman to submit her resignation at the meeting and, perhaps, issue a heartfelt public apology at the same time.
We’re forgiving folks around here. We’re happy she’s paid back the money that she used for personal expenses. We hope she’s learned her lesson and will go on to thrive in the private business world.
But we know this: We don’t want Amy Gertsman watching our public funds anymore.
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MONEY FOR SOMETHIN’
Yes, I realize I may be run out of town for this statement, but I’m glad somebody’s giving Indiana University a pile of cash for something other than a sports cathedral.
Kelley School of Business Dean Dan Smith and IU President Michael McRobbie are patting each other on the back for scoring a $33M grant from the Lilly Endowment for an expansion and renovation project. Kelley’s undergrad factory will gain an additional 71,000 square feet and will be decked out with all the latest hi-tech gadgets by 2015.
Excessively Straight-Backed Biz Students Watch Vid Screens In Their New Digs
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That thirty-three large will be thrown in with some $27M already collected from alumni and other donors to round out the planned $60M job. The Lilly grant is the largest the Kelley has ever received as well as one of the biggest in the university’s history.
Smith says: “The new facilities will allow the school to more fully execute an experiential learning approach to business education.” I think he means the new plant will make Kelley students smarter.
Which I’ve always thought was the aim of a major university. Or even a minor one, for that matter.
See, I only arrived on the scene a couple of years ago. Native Bloomingtonians may be used to it, but I was shocked at the size and scope of IU’s sports facilities. And the area’s deep-pocketed usual suspects, like the late Bill Cook and the still-kicking John Mellencamp, seem always to be donating bread for another towering, sprawling gym or shower room.
How clean do our “student-athletes” need to be after a workout?
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SMART COOKIE, PROUD PAPA
WFHB Music Director Jim Manion dropped by the Book Corner yesterday. He’s still crowing about his daughter Riley’s nomination to the Phi Beta Kappa Society in December.
They say pride is one of the deadly sins but when a guy is walking on air because his daughter has been named to one of the most prestigious academic societies on the planet, well, that ain’t no sin, baby.
Riley (l) And Jim Manion
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The Pencil extends its warmest congrats to Riley and Jim.
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MONEY (THAT’S WHAT I WANT)
Barrett Strong‘s “Money…” can be considered the granddaddy of all Motown hits. Start-up record impresario Berry Gordy, Jr. released the 45 in 1959 under his Tamla label and it became a hit in early 1960. Its success spurred Gordy to incorporate under the Motown banner that spring.
“The clock talked loud. I threw it away. It scared me what it talked.” — Tillie Olsen
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TEMPUS FUGIT
It was a wild ride around the sun this time, no?
Don’t unbuckle your seatbelt just yet. The next one promises to be just as bumpy.
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HUGO
The Loved One and I caught Martin Scorsese‘s “Hugo” yesterday. An out and out visual treat. It was the master director’s love letter to the movies.
Understand that I’m a big Scorsese fan. His “Raging Bull” was the greatest sports movie ever made and deserves consideration as the greatest movie ever made, period. At least two scenes from his movies have become conversational mantras: “I’m funny how? I mean, funny like I’m a clown? I amuse you?” and “You talkin’ to me? I’m the only one here.”
Joe Pesci As Tommy DeVito
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But Scorsese, in my unhumble opinion, always has kept a distance from his characters. He has handled the likes of Travis Bickle, Tommy DeVito, and Bill “the Butcher” Cutting with an icy reserve. He’s as dispassionate as a surgeon.
Even Hugo Cabret, the train station orphan who’s desperate to discover his purpose in life; Scorsese observes him from a remove. It’s the story of “Hugo” that Scorsese embraces, as if it’s his own.
“Hugo”
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I’ll bet in the deepest recesses of his imagination, it is.
Anyway, one thing I couldn’t get past. The movie is set in a Paris train station. The vast majority of characters are French women and men (and kids). So why does everybody speak with an upper-class British accent?
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NOCERA SWIPES MY IDEA
Speaking of sports (well, I mentioned the word in the above bit, didn’t I?), Joe Nocera penned a compelling piece for tomorrow’s New York Times Magazine. He suggests we strip away all the pretense and just pay college football and basketball players. He also recommends dropping the whole student-athlete charade.
Nocera
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I endorse every word he writes, mainly because they’re precisely the things I’ve been hollering for years.
Living in a college town for more than two years now I realize how important the Hoosiers or the Buckeyes or the Badgers or even the Nittany Lions are to their surrounding communities.
Big time college athletics has become so ingrained in the life of the region around each university that the teams have become, in essence, public trusts. The Hoosiers, rightfully, are more a possession of the local citizenry than they are of Indiana University.
So, run the operation like a business. Which means pay the labor.
Even The Chinese Who Built The US Railroads Got Paid
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NEWS AS ENTERTAINMENT
The Herald Times decreed today that the Lauren Spierer disappearance was the top local story of 2011.
I suppose that would be true if by “top story” you mean the one that played out most like a dramatic daily serial.
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Me? I figure the top story was — once again — funding cutbacks for schools, libraries, social services, Planned Parenthood, and the like due to the 2008 crash and the inexorable move to the right in our holy land.
Then again, that’s not as riveting as The Case of the Missing Well-Heeled Pretty Blond Coed.
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STAYIN’ ALIVE
Hey, if you’re planning to get sloshed tonight, remember to take the Yellow Cab Company up on its offer of a free ride home. IU-Bloomington Hospital as well as the city and the county are helping pay for the service.
Some 19 drivers will be shuttling the tipsy and the downright drunk home from their parties from 9:00pm through 4:00am.
See, It’d Be Better If This Guy Didn’t Drive Tonight
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Call 812.339.9744 for your ride.
Oh, and don’t be a smart ass — the free ride is not meant for people shuttling between parties. There’s always some knucklehead.
You know, where two uniformed simians on skates pound each others’ heads and faces and otherwise express their version of sportsmanship.
Relaxing
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Yep, nothing like watching incidents of otherwise-felonious assault to reach that zen-like state of repose. As long as you ignore the fact that many hockey goons will suffer brain degeneration and may well die young.
Is it any wonder why I’ve never voted Republican?
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TIME
It’s a good day to listen to the Chambers Brothers hit from the fall of 1968.
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Live this next year as if it may be your last. And let’s hope we can say that to each other fifty more times.
“I never make the mistake of arguing with people whose opinions I don’t respect.” — historian Edward Gibbon
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A WHITE CHRISTMAS (AND I DO MEAN WHITE)
Traipsing around beautiful downtown Bloomington Saturday afternoon, I came upon some puzzling flyers pasted up on lampposts and kiosks.
Now, lampposts and kiosks in a college town are, of course, the retro social media for student PR and agit-prop. But instead of the usual conspiracies, rebellions, astonishing revelations, and concert promotions for bands like Lesbian Dopeheads on Mopeds, the flyers that caught my eye offered up a different message.
Quaint: A Typical “Post” On A Post
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They wished one and all a white Christmas. And never mind the absence of snow.
Yup. The KKK, apparently, wants to get into the swing of the season along with those of us who possess the ability to form thoughts.
Here’s what was printed on the flyers:
We wish the best for you and your family throughout the New Year, Merry Christmas
Like Genital Herpes, The Klan Never Seems To Go Away
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I was too lazy to do it Saturday but yesterday morning I grabbed my digital camera and went out to snap a shot or two of the flyers for this post. No luck; they’d all been ripped down.
Or should I say, a lot of luck?
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INDIANA AND THE KLAN
Some people around here like to repeat the tidbit that our fair state was the birthpace of the Ku Klux Klan.
Others, who might consider themselves more knowledgeable on the subject, say, “Tut tut, that is wrong. But Indiana was once the headquarters of the Klan.”
Well, they’re just as wrong.
Indiana was not the birthplace of the Klan, nor has it ever been anything remotely like that herd’s HQ. It should be noted, however, that Indiana was, in the 1920s, the state where the Klan wielded its most political power.
Yeesh.
Indiana Governor Ed Jackson, Republican & Klansman
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Pardon me while I dash off to scrub myself in a scalding shower.
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CHRISTMAS COOKIES
There. I feel better now, cleansed of all traces of Gov. Ed Jackson and his Klan.
And ready to bake cookies!
The Honorable Regina Moore, Clerk of the great city o’Bloomington, stopped in at the Book Corner Saturday for some last minute shopping. Somehow the conversation got around to the batch of fab cookies I’d whipped up the day before. Moore asked me to post the recipe so, obedient citizen that I am, here it is:
Big Mike’s Sicilian Butter Cookies
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Ingredients
5 cups unbleached flour
4 eggs
1½ sticks unsalted butter (at room temperature)
1 cup granulated sugar
4 tsp. (heaping) baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 pkg. semi-sweet chocolate chips
¼ tsp. lemon extract (optional)
Preparation
Mix flour, powder and salt together in a bowl. Put aside. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar together. In a third bowl, fork whip eggs and add vanilla (and lemon extract, if desired). Pour the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar. Mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Add the flour/powder mixture gradually, mixing with your wooden spoon. Eventually you must knead the mixture by hand — it will be very dense. Once you’ve achieved proper consistency, place the dough aside and preheat oven to 350F.
Pull out two large, ungreased cookie sheets. Form balls of dough ¾-inch to 1″ in diameter. Place dough balls on sheet 1½ inches apart. When the sheet is filled, press down on each doughball with your thumb to form a little lens-like disc. Press a single chocolate chip in the middle of each disc, pointy side down. Bake one sheet-full at a time for 15-18 minutes, until golden brown.
Let cookies cool on sheet for five minutes. Remove from sheet to large, flat plate. Be careful: even after the cookies seem cooled, the chocolate will still be soft and potentially messy for another few minutes.
Eat.
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NOT A TOTAL LOSS
My foray onto Kirkwood Avenue to search for Klan flyers having proved fruitless, I pocketed my camera and headed toward campus. The Loved One and Steve the Dog were with me.
I’ve been a Bloomingtonian for two years and a couple of months now. In a lot of ways the place is still new to me.
People who’ve lived here all their lives might have forgotten this but the Indiana University campus is stunningly beautiful. And when the three of us took our stroll, the weather was perfect — 50 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. The light was perfect, bathing the Bedford limestone walls in dazzling gold and creating crisp shadows.
My idol, Mike Royko: “It has been my policy to view the Internet not as an ‘information highway,’ but as an electronic asylum filled with babbling loonies.”
Royko
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NOW WE’RE GETTING SOMEWHERE
At long last, I can throw my enthusiastic support behind the Occupy Movement.
I’ve been fairly tepid in my backing of the three-month-old grass-roots protest. Staging a Boy Scout Jamboree in People’s Park won’t do the job when the corporate and legislative forces of the mightiest nation in the history of the Earth are aligned against you.
Occupy Bloomington
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Yesterday, things changed.
Women’s defense courses teach a few tricks when a person faces a much stronger foe. A man may menace a woman, towering over her, possessing twice her brawn, but if she carefully aims a knee or a toe at those little ovoid organs dangling between his thighs, the contest will suddenly — seemingly magically — be evened.
Occupiers aimed a swift kick at the balls Monday. Protesters tried to shut down ports in Oakland, Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston, and Portland with varying degrees of success. Others tried to interfere with operations at Walmart distribution centers in Salt Lake City and Denver.
“The Man” isn’t writhing on the ground just yet. He may never. But yesterday was a nice start.
Occupy Protesters Block The Port Of Oakland
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THE CRUSADING JOURNALIST
So, having spent Sunday night writing up my Top Ten Local Political Stories in 2011 article for the Ryder magazine, I felt awfully smug and snarky.
I chided both parties, wondered when there’d be a funeral for the local Republican party, gave a justifiable raspberry to the entire Indiana General Assembly, guessed that a certain elected official had nightmares about wearing a county correctional center jumpsuit, and repeated unflattering speculation about how an unsuccessful mayoral candidate raised his hefty war chest this past spring.
Heading Out To Pasture
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In fact, I fairly bullied that candidate, a harmless fellow named John Hamilton. His wife, it so happens, is a fairly well-known former Washington appointee, Dawn Johnsen.
Johnsen, you may recall, served under Bill Clinton in the Office of Legal Counsel. When Barack Obama took office, he nominated her to be the head of that office. The Republicans dug into her past and discovered that she’d once or twice uttered a sentence about abortion that didn’t conclude with her demanding that women who’d had one ought to be horsewhipped.
Naturally, GOP Senators tripped all over themselves trying to paint her as something akin to a blood-soaked abortionist herself. They held up her appointment in 2009, then adjourned. Obama renominated her in 2010 and, yup, the Republicans held it up again. Finally, after months of sitting around and waiting, Johnsen stuck her tongue out at the whole of Washington, withdrew her name from consideration, and came back home to Bloomington.
She seems happy enough teaching constitutional law here at Indiana University.
Johnsen At Her Nomination Hearing
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Hamilton, on the other hand, has led a less headline-worthy life. Were it not for his fortuitous taste in brides, I implied, he might not be given a second thought as a mayoral candidate.
I echoed the oft-repeated whisper that his campaign contribution pot of gold might have been the result of Maurer School of Law faculty members feeling compelled to write generous checks to him as a way of currying favor with their esteemed colleague, his wife.
I even referred to him as Mr. Dawn Johnsen.
It was 21st Century journalism at its finest. I proved myself to be witty, bold, sassy, and ready at the drop of a hat to point and gawk at people in power and those who want to be. And hidden somewhere among all that brilliant verbiage might even have been an atom of truth.
Okay, maybe an electron.
Hell, Bloomington’s a small town, really, and everybody knows everybody else’s gossip. Especially politicians and IU faculty members.
Hamilton might even be the next Congressman from the great state o’Indiana’s 9th District. That’s part of the gossip, too — that his mayoral tilt was really a test run for a bigger prize.
Hamilton’s Real Goal?
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One of the hazards of being a professional smart-ass is the fear that one day one of my subjects might walk up and jab me one in the nose. Worry not, though. I figure that John Hamilton is too much of a refined gentleman to flatten my snout. Plus, it’d look bad for a guy trying to run for Congress having to explain why he assaulted and battered a beloved blogger.
Everybody’s happy, right?
I thought so until yesterday afternoon. I was blissfully peddling tomes at the Book Corner at about 2:30 when who walks in but Dawn Johnson herself.
My body froze but my mind raced. Oh sweet Jesus! She’s here to tear my head off. Oh holy god, here she comes!
But Johnsen strode past me. I exhaled. What am I worried about? She’s a big time lawyer. She’s too smart to bloody up some knuckleheaded snark-meister.
Probably Some Journalist
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She headed for the back of the store where Margaret, the boss, holds forth.
Oh no. No, no. She’s gonna demand that I be fired. I love this job. I get to hang out among books and readers and meet everybody in town. I even get paid a couple of pennies a week to do it. Oh, what an idiot I am! Why do I have to be such a smart-ass?
I watched as Johnsen conferred earnestly with Margaret. They took an awfully long time, talking about my future. Jeez, I thought, let’s get it over with.
I figured, All you gotta do is tell Margaret that nobody in town’ll ever shop in her store again as long as she keeps that no-good, insulting, smart-aleck, so-called journalist in her employ.
But then I shook my head clear. What the hell am I thinking? The piece hasn’t run yet for pity’s sake! I haven’t turned it in. I haven’t even finished it!
Hahahaha! What a dope I am. I felt like dancing among the stacks.
Johnsen came up to the checkout counter and placed a kid’s book down. “Everything alright?” I asked, my voice cracking the tiniest bit.
Oh sure, she said. She added that she’d ordered another children’s book from Margaret. That’s what had taken so long.
I snorted. Johnsen looked at me, puzzled.
I couldn’t stop myself. “I gotta tell ya…,” I began. I told her the whole story of my little panic attack moments before. Well, not exactly the whole story; I left out the Mr. Dawn Johnsen part.
“And, I swear to god, I thought you were gonna clunk me on the head,” I concluded.
Johnsen laughed. “Oh,” she said, “I’d never do that!”
I handed her the kid’s book in a bag. “Thanks a lot,” I said. “You’re a great sport.”
“I can’t wait to read your piece,” she said. And then she was gone.
I smiled as she went out the door. I watched her walk down Walnut Street, the smile still plastered on my face. For at that moment it occurred to me: Dawn Johnsen and her husband, John Hamilton, are going to read my story.
Sure, she’d never clunk me on the head. But is John Hamilton really all that harmless?
Yeesh. The things you have to worry about when you’re a crusading, smart-assed blogger and so-called journalist.
So, Anne Hathaway’s getting married. I guess The Loved One can rest easy from now on.
Big Mike Must Face Facts: She Loves Another
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MAKE IT EASIER TO VOTE? I DUNNO, IS THAT WISE?
The Monroe County election board will vote Thursday on voting centers. The board’s only Republican, Judith Smith-Ille, has opposed a 2012 start-up for the centers. County Clerk Linda Robbins, a Democratic board member, wants them for next year’s election.
Butting Heads: Smith-Ille & Robbins (IDS photo)
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The idea is the county will do away with its 90 precinct polling places and replace them with strategically located sites in which any registered voter from anywhere in the county can cast a ballot.
Everyone agrees the vote centers will make it easier for citizens to do their duty. So why are Smith-Ille and other Republicans fighting the 2012 roll-out?
Search me. But is it my imagination or do Republicans as a rule start to get itchy whenever talk turns to increased voter turnout?
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IF YOU DO THE CRIME YOU MUST DO THE TIME
Jails in a few cities and towns of this holy land hosted hundreds of Occupy protesters last night. Los Angeles cops busted up the encampment in that city with a couple of hundred earning their plastic wrist-ties. Philadelphia police applied the strong-arm as well, taking 40 into custody.
LA Bust Last Night
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And whaddya know? Even Bloomington, the Solar System’s center of liberalism, progressivism, and intellectualism, saw its cops wade into a mass of protesters. Officers nabbed five of them and shipped them off to…, let’s see now, Guantanamo? No. The Gulag Archipelago? Uh uh.
No. The kids were taken to the county lockup and were promptly bailed out.
Apparently, the protesters were not affiliated with the local Occupy gang although they claimed to be “in solidarity” with the campers at People’s Park.
And forgive me for judging this book by its cover, but yesterday’s protesters at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business didn’t appear to be used to such rude treatment. The protesters were blocking the door to a room in which capos from JP Morgan Chase were to recruit new soldiers for their mob.
Civil Disobedience
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See, when you do civil disobedience, you should expect to be jailed. And when you’re jailed in those circumstances, you should take it with dignity. After all, in an unjust society, the only place for a just human being is in jail.
The first hero I ever had was John Glenn. He was the first American to orbit the Earth in a space capsule, Friendship 7.
John Glenn, Weightless In Orbit
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Glenn was a member of the coolest gang on the planet, the original Project Mercury astronauts. Let’s see, off the top of my head there were Glenn, Wally Schirra, Scott Carpenter, Alan Shepherd, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper, um, uh….
Okay, help me Wikipedia. Oh yeah, I forgot Deke Slayton. Poor guy — was diagnosed with a heart murmur and was grounded before he could go up in a Mercury capsule. Fortunately, he was given clearance to ride on the Apollo/Soyuz mission in 1975.
So, I got six of the seven. Pretty good for 50 years later.
Swear to god, I spent the years from September 12, 1962, when President Kennedy committed America to landing humans (oh, okay, men) on the moon by the end of the decade, to July 20, 1969 in a state of eager impatience.
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The only things I looked forward to as much were getting my first drivers license and, aw gee, having my first sexual experience.
Turns out the drivers license thing was an anticlimax. The sex thing, you’ll pardon the pun, was not.
But neither experience could match the night that Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin hopped out of the LEM onto the lunar surface. Honest. I remember that night — I do not remember my first sexual experience. Okay, call me a geek.
Buzz Aldrin On The Moon (Neil Armstrong In The Reflection)
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I remember just staring at the moon that Sunday night. I knew I wouldn’t be able to see anything out of the ordinary but, still, I stared.
Yes, I was a space geek. Always have been. In fact, The Loved One and I visited Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center a few years ago. I kid you not, I spent a full 20 minutes just gawking — with my mouth open — at the Saturn rocket hanging from the ceiling of the museum.
