Haloween 2005

Wotan Clan: Mime, Wotan, Brünnhilde, and Fricka.

The Savoir Vivre of American Heroes

A recent news story disclosed that the typical entering college student could not name five American heroes. Typically, those entering less selective schools had trouble naming any five notable Americans, while those entering elite schools didn’t think enough of America to say that five Americans were “heroes.” Naturally, I wanted to see the state of affairs in my own household, so at dinner that night I asked my kids to name five American heroes. I was dying with curiosity as to who they might name: Smedley Butler? Klaus Fuchs? Harry Hay? Father Coughlin? Emperor Norton? At first I was not disappointed ...

Pod-Man: Dalton Trumbo, because he broke the black list.

Bean-Girl: Mother Flynn, because she’s a mom.

Pumpkin: Lucy Parsons, because she worked for justice all her life.

Pod-Man: Colonel McCormick, because he knew how to live!

Bean-Girl: Hey, Charles Gates Dawes’ Mansion is a whole lot nicer than the Cantigny!

Pod-Man: Is not! Cantigny has that cool Art Deco bar, and that machine that makes 650 ice cubes at once, and it’s own private landing strip!

Bean-Girl: Yeah, well the Dawes Mansion is right by the lake, and it has that cool library and that glass solarium, and ...

At this point the discussion broke down into an argument about which of these reactionary, Republican millionaires had the nicer mansion, so I would count the experiment as a failure: my children could not name five American heroes.

The Wrath of God

My mom and I went to this lecture last Wednesday. The Reverend Barry Lynn was speaking on the importance of the separation of church and state at Temple Shalom up on Lake Shore Drive. My mom is a big liberal and secular humanist (so she’s kind of militant about this issue) and even though I’m staunchly Catholic I don’t think state sponsorship of religious initiatives is a good idea. So, as we waited in the audience for the program to start, we introduced ourselves to the person sitting next to us and chatted for a while. This was an older lady who sort of looked and dressed like Janet Reno, Jewish (though not practicing), and very worried about the overtly Christian bias of the Bush administration.

The lecture was okay. The guy was mostly right but, unlike him, I don’t think abortion is a religious issue. So when it was over, my mother turned to the Nice Lady and said:

Mom: You know, I think that having prayers in the schools will do as much to stop delinquency as having Gideon’s Bibles in motels has done to stop adultery.

Well, the Nice Lady laughed at this, and my mother said she had to use the ladies room and would meet me later, and so I ended up walking out with the Nice Lady and talking to her.

Dutchman: You know, I wouldn’t want my mother to find out about it, but — once I was in a motel room with a woman who wasn’t my wife …

Nice Lady: Oh?

Dutchman: Yes — and before I could fall into carnal sin, I saw that Gideon’s Bible on the table next to the bed, and I picked it up …

Nice Lady: Really?

Dutchman: Yes! And as I picked it up, the Spirit filled me and God put it on my heart to correct this fallen woman!

Nice Lady: Correct her?

Dutchman: Yes, I told her “Woman! The wrath of God has filled my heart with righteousness and has made me the instrument of his vengeance!” Whereupon I bent that sinful woman over and smote her upon the fundament with that Holy Book until she gat a great heat. And then we copulated like the dogs of Egypt!

Nice Lady: The dogs of Egypt?

Dutchman: Is it not written in the book of Strabo that the dogs of Egypt must drink quickly from the Nile?

Nice Lady: I wouldn’t know, I’ve never read the Book of Strabo …

Dutchman: Oh, there’s my mom! Remember, don’t tell her!

Nice Lady: Oh, I won’t!

The Big Schmuck

I was backstage at Lyric Opera, watching Mime (Dennis Petersen) forging the sword of Sigfried in Das Rheingold, when I asked Eric (one of the stage managers):

Dutchman: Did he say “schumck?”

Eric: (Worried) I don’t think so.

(Just then, Dennis came off stage, and so I asked him.)

Dutchman: Were you singing about a schmuck?

Dennis: I was singing about a really big schmuck!

Eric: (now really worried) Oh!

Dutchman: What?

Eric: Do you know what that means?

Dutchman: In German? Yeah, schmuck means “jewel.”

Eric: Oh! Well, in Yiddish is means something else …

Dutchman: Really, what?

Eric: Just — something else.

It’s Not Exactly Like I’m Straight Either

So I’m leaving work, heading towards the building door, when I spot this bike messenger. Now, maybe I’m doing a little conjecturing here, but I think he was about twenty, intelligent, probably taking a year off from college to “sort things out,” and bisexual. Though one day he’ll be a top, right now he’s just a boy and pretty much open to anything, and he’s gorgeous! He’s dressed in jeans and one of those black thermal jackets, he’s got tousled blond hair, pale dry skin, and big wide eyes and — keys hanging on the right.

So now I’m at the top of the stairs and I say:

Dutchman: Nice keys.

Delivery Boy: Huh? (Sees my keys and points.) Yeah, keys!

Dutchman: Wear them on the right, do you?

(About now, Mary Pat, from a big PR firm in the building comes down the stairs. She’s my age and has worked in the building and known me since Pumpkin was born.)

Delivery Boy: (Stands real loose, resting the package on one hip.) Sometimes.

Dutchman: I always dress left.

(So now Mary Pat can hear everything we’re saying and she kind of slows down.)

Delivery Boy: Look —uhm— this is my last delivery of the day.

Dutchman: So, you’re as good as off in five minutes?

(Mary Pat is staring right at me, as if to say “What are you doing?”)

Delivery Boy: Yeah —uh— want to go get a cup of coffee or something?

Dutchman: (Laughs.) I can’t. My partner’s got dinner waiting for me at home.

(Mary Pat has stopped dead on the bottom stair.)

Delivery Boy: You’re partnered?

Dutchman: Been partnered nineteen years.

Delivery Boy: Wow, you don’t look that old.

Dutchman: Thanx.

(The elevator’s there and the boy gets in. Mary Pat walks right up to me and asks:)

Mary Pat: Aren’t you married?

Dutchman: Yeah. (Steps to the door and begins to head out.)

Mary Pat: Well — then why did you say “partnered?”

Dutchman: That boy’s gorgeous; I didn’t want him thinking I was straight!

Mary Pat: (Stops dead.)

Dutchman: (Out the door.)

Fighting Fire

It’s Sunday afternoon and I trying to take a nap on the couch when someone pulls up in a Hummer and begins to bark their horn. You know the story — too lazy to get out and ring the door-bell, this jerk is going to honk until everyone in the neighborhood (including the person they’re here to pick-up) is looking out to see who it is. So I tell the Pod-Man, “Go out and tell that ass-hole to cut it out.”

So my eager little boy runs out, and I hear the horn honk a few more times, then I’m knocked off the couch by a loud blast. I look outside and Pod-Man is standing by the open passenger window with his rail-road air-horn. (You know, the kind of compressed-air horn they use to warn track crews that a train is coming …)

The woman in the Hummer is furious and she starts to honk her horn in anger, but then Pod-Man gives another ear-splitting blast from the air-horn and she quits.

Wow — I love that kid!

Having a Side-Kick is Great!

The other day I went to pick up Pod-Man. He attends the Columbia Collage Arts day camp and so we were coming back to Red Star on the Brown Line. At about Lake/Wabash he asked what I was reading:

Pod-Man: Are you reading the queer newspaper?

Dutchman: Yeah — it’s free.

Pod-Man: What are you reading that for? You don’t read everything that’s free.

Dutchman: Checking out this gay marriage thing.

Pod-Man: What about it?

Dutchman: Well, there’s got to be a grandfather clause.

Pod-Man: A what?

Dutchman: Do you think I would have married your mother, denied my true nature, and set myself up for nineteen years of living hell if I could have married Brian back in 1985?

[People start to look at us …]

Pod-Man: I guess not …

Dutchman: Shit no! Now, if they go changing the rules in the middle of the game, then don’t I get a do over?

Pod-Man: So — are you going to move to Vermont and marry Brian?

Dutchman: Faster than the wind out of a duck’s ass!

[Now they’re really staring …]

Pod-Man: Are you two going to dress like sailors?

Dutchman: In Vermont? Of course not! We’ll dress like lumberjacks.

Pod-Man: Do I get to live with you?

Dutchman: You don’t want to live with women do you?

Pod-Man: Will you let me smoke cigars?

Dutchman: When we’re not abusing you …

[At this point, I think everyone on the car was listening in …]

Pod-Man: What kind of abuse?

Dutchman: Now — If you had a word for it, then you’d go telling the authorities all about it, wouldn’t you?

Pod-Man [Evincing mock guilt]: I guess …

[The train pulls into Chicago Avenue.]

Dutchman: Our stop, let’s go!

[I pat his ass on the way out]