Everything old is new again. And blue.

     The two old motel chairs gave a certain Dogpatch feeling to our front porch. Mottled with rust by their—what?—nearly 20 years of being battered by the rain and weather.
    The thing to do would be to pitch them and get new chairs that cost, what? A hundred dollars or so?  That's what people do; throw out the old, move to the new.
     But we liked these chairs. Comfortable.
     "Pick a couple colors," I told my wife, and she did, grabbing two cans of Rustoleum at the Ace Hardware. I set about repainting the chairs. First I took a wire wheel brush, set on the end of a drill, and flayed the rust off. Then a sander. Then I masked the things off, and painted the selected colors. It took a few days, what with the drying and retouching. But finally I finished the first chair.
    "The blue is a little bright," I observed to my wife.
     "Yes," she said. "Brighter than I thought it would be."
     "I could repaint it a different color," I suggested.
     "No," she said. "It'll be nice bright."
     Maybe it is. You tell me. I finished the first and am, today, beginning my vacation by going after the second. There is nothing wrong with bright blue chairs, per se. The neighbors won't complain. I hope. Who knows? Maybe they'll like them. I do. Or at least am trying to. Giving it a go. They seem an improvement over the rusty chairs. Heck. I'm sure that there are people who prefer bright blue. For me, there will be an adjustment process. I really need to have them both set up on the porch, and come home for a month, or a year, or a decade, before I decide.
     "You know," I might observe to my wife one day in 2032, out of the blue, as it were, "Maybe those are too bright..."
     The chair-painting process is oddly enjoyable, though time-consuming. Maybe because it's time consuming.  I'm not sure what I'm really accomplishing, writing this. But those chairs sure are re-painted. No denying that. 
    I don't repaint chairs much. In fact, I don't think I've ever repainted a chair. It's rather peaceful, with the masking and the going over rough patches with steel wool. The result wasn't perfect; that is the hardest part, for me, even harder than the bright blue. And perhaps the most valuable part as well. I'm used to polishing sentences, going over the imperfect improving it. Just stopping, and having it be finished, though a bit homemade, well, that's a new skill. I was aiming for a higher state of perfection. But didn't make it. You can't really tell from the photos but, well, rough around the edges. A bit ragged, close up. 
     Which is how the world is, and accepting it as such is a useful skill. I can't fix anything, completely. But I can get rid of the rust and repaint, though not in the shade prudence would dictate. Anyway, the sun's up, and I better get at that second chair. 

 
   

Trump blows into Kenosha to fan the flames

     Police know an arsonist will sometimes return to the fire he has set, to enjoy the commotion and savor the flames.
     But arsonists don’t run up in full view of everybody and pour more gasoline to the fire.
     That’s basically what Donald Trump did in Kenosha Tuesday. Though begged to stay away by the mayor of Kenosha, the governor of Wisconsin, and leaders in Illinois, Trump has an election to win. Since claiming he beat the COVID-19 pandemic that he in fact completely botched won’t work as the death toll rises, he’s shifting to his standard go-to move: whipping up fear. In 2016, it was Mexican rapists and South American refugee caravans. That’s old hat — the fearsome becomes familiar, which is why it’s much easier to go grocery shopping now than it was in April.
     So Trump is fanning the flames of urban chaos, the riots that began after the killing of George Floyd, and continued in Kenosha after Jacob Blake was shot in the back seven times a week ago Sunday.
     Most leaders hurry to scenes of trouble intending to comfort and unify. But most leaders aren’t narcissistic sociopaths. Trump is deepening the divisions in America today, under the impression that he can disassociate himself from the bedlam happening on his watch and somehow pin it on his opponent, Joe Biden, while offering himself as the solution. He’s basically running against himself, promising he’ll do a better job in 2021 than he’s doing in 2020.
     Toward that end, Trump toured burned-out blocks in Kenosha and met with business owners. Together they posed before the rubble, the business owners masked, Trump, of course, unmasked.

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Quick to react to the peril that wasn't there

     One of the many challenges of being a liar is you have to keep track of your fabrications. If I claim to be the King of France on Monday, that claim is undercut—for those who care about such details as actual reality—if on Tuesday I claim to be Emperor of Austria. Which is it?
     During the dystopian nightmare of the Republican National Convention last week, the president and his enablers claimed in chorus that Donald Trump was quick to grasp the threat of COVID-19 and react decisively.
      “We developed a wide array of effective treatments, including a powerful antibody treatment known as convalescent plasma,” Trump said—a double lie, since the process has been around for years. This, he said, “will save thousands and thousands of lives.”

     Save thousands of lives from what? On Sunday, during a barrage of 89 early morning tweets and retweets, Trump shared a Q-Anon conspiracy theory that the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths were misinterpretations or fabrications. That only 9,210 people have died of the virus, and "this week the CDC quietly updated the Covid number to admit that only 6% of all the 153,504 deaths recorded actually died from Covid." 

    Which is it? France or Austria? Did Trump leap to boldly respond to the pandemic peril? Or was there no peril in the first place?

     This of course only matters to those of us who live in the world of reality, who are trying to keep alive in country where our leader is a delusional, traitorous sociopath, surrounded by fawning toadies. Who simply want our actual problems to be perceived and coped with, as opposed to ignored then lied about. 

    That will never happen in a Donald Trump administration. To him,  there is no lie so enormous it can't be plastered over with more lies. He doesn't bother to keep track because he demands that we don't keep track either. And millions of Americans, incredibly, tragically, are all too happy to comply. 

     On Monday, Twitter took down Trump's false tweet. You know you're in trouble when a freewheeling social media site is acting as a reality check for the President of the United States.

     Spoiler alert: we're in trouble.

About more than playing ballgames

     Sports is the same thing happening over and over.
     Teams meet, agitate a ball, which is thrown and caught. Tossed through a hoop or hit with a bat. Sometimes kicked. There’s also hockey.
     I am not insulting sports fans, mind you. I understand that for them, sports is the hub on which the universe spins. It just isn’t my table. The night the Cubs won the World Series in 2016, I attended a lecture at the Field Museum on tattooing in Polynesia. I was not alone.
     Sports is the same thing happening over and over.
     To me. Generally. But not always. Occasionally, something noteworthy happens. Something will transpire in the world of sports so seismic that even I perceive it, like a deaf person sensing the orchestra by vibrations through the floor.
     Last Wednesday, the Milwaukee Bucks announced they wouldn’t play their first round playoff game against the Magic. Not with Kenosha roiled nightly with unrest over the shooting of Jacob Blake.
     The NBA didn’t count the game as a forfeit but picked up the series three days later. The rest of the NBA, even some baseball teams joined in. Now they’re talking about using basketball arenas as polling places.
     That seems significant.

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Flashback 1996: Sometimes the one you can't trust is yourself

     Trying to keep the house we're confined to orderly, I pulled open a night table drawer and started to unjam. There, an expense check from December 19. $100.43. Quite a lot. The checks says "VOID AFTER 90 DAYS." Ever the optimist, I deposit it anyway, thinking maybe that's more of a suggestion. 
    It's not. The check bounces back, and the bank charges me $12 for my trouble. I appeal to our human resources department, which, used to my bumbling, says they will look into a new check, and delicately suggests I consider direct deposit for my expenses.
     Yes, I say, "that would be smart." I already have direct deposit for my pay, arranged after the episode outlined below. 

     "Bzzzz!" The buzzer. "UPS!" the intercom cries. A glance out the front window confirms the presence in the street of a big, boxy, brown truck. I let the guy into the building.
     That glance is a practiced part of city living. Can't be too careful. This supposed UPS guy could be a maniac, fresh from Stateville, with a double-edged ax under his coat. The truck is a good indication that everything is on the up-and-up.
     In day-to-day living, you have to assume the worst. Scan the bill for ripoffs and bad math. Check for complaints to the state when hiring the new plumber. Nothing dire about this; just being smart.
     Spending my days as I do scanning the horizon for trouble, I was doubly shocked last week not only to lose a big chunk of money, but to do so in a manner so stupid and careless that I never before imagined possible.
     I'm sharing the tale here, despite deep humiliation, for the purpose of perhaps helping one poor hapless individual avoid a similar circumstance.
     Also, my wife insists it is funny. She's been laughing all week. Perhaps you, too, will find it funny. I certainly don't. Maybe in several years. But not now. Not anytime soon. Maybe never.
     Here goes. Every week I take my paycheck and deposit it in the bank, personally. I understand doing this has become an antiquated process, on par with dipping candles or spinning wool. I understand banks discourage their customers from actually showing up and demanding services. A reader complained that his bank charges him 5 percent to run coins through the change machine. Make a deposit at the wrong ATM and you end up owing the bank money.
     What's next? A whack with a big mallet when you open an account? They used to give away toasters. . . .
     The bank wants us to use direct deposit or their ATM machines. But I like going to the bank. Or used to. It was a manageable errand, like dropping off a pair of shoes for repair at the shoemaker. No stress. Something I could do often and do well. The bank tellers are nice young people who respond politely and quickly.
     Returning to the tale: Every week I deposit my check, carefully filling out a bank deposit slip. About a month ago, I noticed the balance on the receipt was huge—many times what it should have been.
     I mentioned this to my wife, who handles the bookkeeping. She didn't blink. "You must be reading the wrong number," she said. "A code or something." The matter dropped.
     The next week it happened again. And the third. I gathered my courage and tried again. "Honey, I really think this is the amount in our checking account. It's got a dollar sign in front of it."
     The dollar sign usually means something.
     She got off the couch, sighed, and took the receipt from me. There was a long silence. I could hear the clock ticking in the next room. Her face went slack, and when she spoke, her voice sounded tinny and far away, as if filtering up through the heating ducts.
     "You've been writing the wrong account number—see, two numbers are switched," she said. "You've been depositing your paycheck into somebody's else's bank account."
     A month earlier, with great effort, I had memorized our account number. I had been so proud.
     In the movie version, the camera, at this moment, would pull back quickly, perhaps spinning, while the soundtrack filled with boisterous cosmic laughter: "Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-hah!"
     There's a feeling common in childhood, mine anyway, a kind of sinking in the gut, a horrid, "I'm-in-trouble-now" feeling that doesn't happen much in adulthood, thank God.
     I felt it now, and no matter how much my brain reassured me that of course the bank would rectify the error, my gut tormented me with images of grinning bank clerks shrugging their shoulders. "Tough luck, pal. Be more careful next time and don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out. . . ."
     My wife added this helpful thought: "Well, maybe the people whose account you put our money into will be honest and agree to give it back." Thanks, dear.
     The most galling thing to me was this: It was a problem I had never imagined possible. I just assumed the tellers checked the number against the name on the slip. I had counted on the kindness of strangers, bilking myself the way so many people get bilked, through trust.
     The next morning I slunk to the bank, hat in hand, and presented my case. I could have taken the offensive and yelled that it was their fault—why have a spot on the bank slip for a customer's name and address if nobody looks at it?
     Instead, I meekly pushed the crumpled deposit slips I had found in coat pockets and atop dressers at the teller and begged for my money back.
The teller was very nice—of course they'd look into it, he said, right away. He would pull the records and set everything right. Very friendly and sympathetic. I'm going to miss those bank people, I thought, as I immediately arranged for direct deposit. Better safe than sorry.
—Originally published in the Sun-Times, Dec. 15, 1996

Texas Notes: Trusty Steed

     Austin bureau chief Caren Jeskey takes us for a spin through life today. 

     “Can I put your bike in my car?” 

      My pat answer to the bike question was “no, thank you,” but that usually did not suffice. “You can’t ride home from here! Let me take you,” or “it’s too cold/late/rainy.” The well-meaning friend or family member thought they were doing me a favor by offering to drive me home when, in fact, my body and soul wanted nothing more than to get on my bicycle and ride. A cyclist has a sturdy countenance and a hankering for the wind. We can tell you if it’s blowing at 5 or 10 miles per hour, and at 12 or more we know we might be in for a bit of a challenge. This depends on whether it’s a headwind, coming from one side, or mercifully at our backs. We’ll only concede and remove the front tire to gingerly place our babies into the trunk of a car if we are absolutely beat or— as happened once or twice in my drinking days— a friend absolutely insisted.
     My love of bikes started early. First came the shiny red tricycle with tassels flowing from the grips. Then came the Big Wheel. I remember the day my mom picked me up from school, a giant wheeled tricycle of sorts rolling around in the folded-down back seat of the station wagon It was a few days before my birthday. She said “don’t look in the back!” so of course I did. I was overjoyed to see it there and counted down the hours to my birthday morning. From that day on I’d ride in endless loops around the house. I was lucky that the living and dining rooms were divided from the kitchen and downstairs bathroom by one long partition wall, making a perfect race track for my little legs.

    When I got my first real bike, it had training wheels that my dad had firmly affixed for my safety. One day when in the early 70s when I was 5 or 6, my tough Nana— my grandmother’s sister Kate— had enough. She unceremoniously removed the trainers. I got on the bike, and she pushed me away from her to sail or to crash, a cigarette dangling from her lips. I sailed all the way down the whole block of Birchwood Avenue between Albany and Sacramento.
     The next bike had a big banana seat and could easily fit a friend or two, or even three; one on the seat with me, one standing on the hubs of the back wheel, and one perched on the handlebars. We learned from an early age that it was necessary to have wheels to get to McDonald’s quickly to assuage the craving for a hot apple pie or vanilla milkshake and fries.
     I don’t quite recall what I rode in high school— too distracted by boys, Water Tower Place, and L and subway train excursions.
     When I moved to Santa Monica in my early 20s I bought a Diamond Back mountain bike that became my trusty steed for many years. She carried me along the ocean from Santa Monica to Venice Beach and beyond, day in and day out for the year and a half I lived there. When I’d had enough shots of booze at the 2nd Street Bar & Grill where I worked, and smoked enough Mary Jane to last a while, it was time for me to come back home and finish college.  

     Diamond Back and I moved back and cruised Chicago streets year round; neither snow nor rain nor sleet nor ice could stop us. Her sturdy nubbed wheels kept me safe. Many folks don’t realize how quickly the body warms up when riding. Just keep your face properly covered and wear glasses or goggles, and voila; it’s almost like biking on a 70 degree day. We were living in West Rogers at that time and would cruise down California to Dodge to the Family Focus community center in far North Evanston where I worked at non-profits. At the end of the day we’d bike to various and sundry yoga and meditation schools, or to the green markets full of health food and tinctures that were starting to burgeon in Evanston and the near north side. We might grab a bagel at the shop on Ridge that sold the yummiest “bagel bites” I’d ever had, before they got shut down for selling LSD (or at least that’s what legend holds).
     Poor DB finally got stolen, due to my negligence. I’d been living in Hyde Park and going to graduate school when I had a short stint in a co-op of activists who gave me a room to rent. I left her there and a so-called friend “borrowed” her. Allegedly he had her locked up in front of a Kinko’s on 57th Street where she was stolen. I didn’t quite buy the story—the “friend” was more of an acquaintance with a recent incarceration that involved theft. I have a feeling she was sold for his profit. I tried to get him to at least pay me for her but he ghosted me, never to be seen again.

   Fuji Cross Trek was next. She was lighter and more upright than DB. She could easily sail me from Uptown to the West Loop to Andersonville in a day. She got me to the 6 a.m. yoga classes I was teaching on Clark and Balmoral from where I was living on Racine and Adams in no time. I loved her the way a gearhead loves a hotrod. I peppered her with stickers of local community gardens and my favorite coffee roasteries. She had a bumper sticker that said something about peace. The fix-it crew from our favorite mechanics at Uptown Bikes on Broadway under the Wilson L would let me know that they’d seen her parked downtown or other places around the city. She stood out. I rode her until she fell apart and there was no fixing her.
     I ordered a Felt Verza City 3, a hybrid, from Iron Cycles on Montrose. She was chocolate brown and sleek, with no fenders or rack so I could keep her light. When I got to the store to pick her up, they told me they had accidentally ordered me the fanciest version of this bike— the golden colored City 1 with the burnt caramel leather seat. Since it was their error, they decided to be angels and gave it to me without an upcharge. This baby was the Mercedes of all bikes to me. She gleamed with elegance. I hopped on and was a little scared to have such a fancy object in the city. As I rode through Ravenswood Manor on my way home a man called out “nice bike!” and I turned to wave, proudly. I was somehow not surprised to see the man’s thick head of dark hair as he watered the flowers in front of his classic Chicago blonde brick home. It was Blago. Yes, I had arrived.
     Sometimes I’d return to her after an errand or a movie, surprised to see her $1500 frame still securely locked up and waiting for me. More than once a person or two or three would be ogling her as I walked up. They’d crouch down to get a better look. They’d ask about the disc brakes and internal gear hub, which I didn’t know much about, and I’d collude with their delight because it was fun. They’d walk away plotting their next big purchase. She came out to Texas with me and is currently snugly locked on the porch of the tiny house I rent. She’s looking forward to hitting flat Chicago streets again one day.

Trump ends convention with one truth

     It had to happen.
     Donald Trump said something entirely true.
     Not true in the way he meant it, of course, and nestled in his usual thicket of lies.
     But there it was, in his speech Thursday closing the 2020 Republican National Convention, with the White House gang-pressed into service as a scenic backdrop, in violation of both law and American tradition:
     “This is the most important election in the history of our country,” he said. “At no time before have voters faced a clearer choice between two parties, two visions, two philosophies or two agendas.”
     No kidding. Those two philosophies are the fact-free, law-flouting, malevolent cult of personality that is Trumpism, taking a pickaxe to the foundations of American democracy.
     And the other, offering at least hope of return to an America of decency, intelligence and integrity.
     The choice between ignoring a pandemic and doing everything possible to stop it.
     Trump’s speech capped what has been a four-day master-class in cynicism, beginning to end.

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