P.J. O’Rourke, scribe of a franker time

     When I wrote this, it never occurred to me that the Sun-Times would refuse to print the offensive way that O'Rourke described a Korean political rally back in 1988. But we wouldn't. Respecting that decision, I won't share it here either. I realize that my bosses are just trying to protect me from being run out of town on a rail, a quivering ball of tar and feathers. Neither of us want that, and better safe than sorry. 

     Though you can be too safe, which is also a sorry situation. Nobody writes in to complain about that, so perhaps I should. This is an example of something we can think of as "N-Word Creep," where banning one word as being too disturbing to be mentioned in any context ever leads to other words receiving the same banishment, because it's the path of least resistance. I guess that's also why you can't guess "wench" or "slave" on Wordle. The danger is that you do it enough and it becomes, not a sign of enlightenment and consideration, but condescension and timidity. Maybe that day has already arrived. The bottom line is, I don't set newspaper policy, I follow it, sometimes grudgingly.

     Every time another 1960s musician dies, Facebook keens with grief. Tears spatter Twitter, as people clutch at their hearts, decrying this latest loss.
     And if the departed are in any way famous — say, Michael Nesmith of The Monkees — a process I call “The Full Diana” starts up, wheezing like a circus calliope, with the stacked teddy bears and cellophane-wrapped flowers.
     “Save it for somebody you love,” I mutter.
     Sitting at Denver Airport Tuesday, waiting for my flight home, I saw that P.J. O’Rourke had died. I felt ... well “sad” is overstating the case. “Sorry” is more accurate. I was thinking of him just last week, wondering what became of the arch, edgy humorist, so big in his day, and whether it might be worth tracking him down for a chat. Too late now.
     Even “sorry” is too strong. “Grateful” might be more to the point. Not grateful he is dead, of course. But that he lived, and wrote, amusing millions while inspiring an army of lesser talents such as myself. He was frank and fearless.
     When I got home, I went to the bookshelf and pulled down my O’Rourke books. “Parliament of Whores,” his keelhauling of the U.S. government, begins, “What is this oozing behemoth, this fibrous tumor, this monster of power and expense hatched from the simple human desire for civic order?”
     Did I mention he was a Republican? He was.
     My favorite of his 20 or so books is “Republican Party Animal,” containing the delightfully titled, “Ferrari Refutes the Decline of the West,” one of those delicious assignments freelancers once dreamt about:

     “Ferrari North America, which is based in Montvale, New Jersey, had a 308GTS that needed to be delivered to Los Angeles by January 2, to be featured in a movie. Ferrari called Car and Driver and asked if they’d like to assign someone to drive it across the country. Car and Driver was good enough to ask me, and of course I said yes.”

     Though a member of the media — he was “international correspondent” for Rolling Stone; the title initially something of a joke — O’Rourke could be critical of the press. With good reason. I just waded through two long obituaries, in The New York Times and the Washington Post. Neither mentioned his most relevant story, “Seoul Brothers,” a report on the South Korean presidential election in 1988.

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Sharing Wordle scores: "This is all madness."

"Random Word Machine," by Daniel Faust
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     People despise Facebook. And rightly so, as an addictive time sink, a gigantic 24-hour carnival of triviality and pathos and malice that they can neither abandon nor embrace. A cheap simulacrum of life and the world that keeps them from experiencing the real thing. 
     I get that.
     Myself, I kinda like it, as a curated 5,000 member shock troop of readers, as a source of ideas—I often learn the news, not from publications such as mine, but from snippets people post. Now that we don't gather in public anymore, Facebook delivers the zeitgeist, the tone of culture, at least those clustered around me. 

     Then there is my own life, served back at me from a decade ago.
     "Don't do anything reckless," I told Ross a dozen years ago, when he was in his mid-teens and heading downstate for an overnight chess tournament, the precious memory preserved in amber like a paleolithic wasp.
     "What do you mean?" he asked, guileless.
     "Don't open with anything other than your king or queen's pawn," I sputtered, improvising.
     "What about the Sicilian?" he answered, sailing beyond my chess knowledge.
     I shared that with the public. Some readers fill their page with Bible quotes, or real estate listings, or trite memes. Which is their right. I would never dream of objecting. "What's all this about your wife being in heaven? Heaven is an artificial human construct. Ludicrous, really, in its..."
     So it surprises me to see the pushback directed at Wordle, the popular little game where you have six guesses to nail a five-letter word. There is a button that lets you post your score—not the mystery word itself, which is the same for all players every day, but the colored boxes reflecting how accurate your series of guessed words was. 

    I post my score, because dozens of people then comment. They have a Wordle party on my Facebook page. I posted Wednesday's score with the remark, "Nailed it in three." All sorts of people chimed in: from my college roommate's mother to director Bob Falls.
     Most comments were along the lines of this:
     "Took me 5. I just couldn't pull it together!" wrote Joe O'Connor.

     It doesn't seem the sort of stuff to annoy people. But it does, big time. Forty-six people commented on my Feb. 12 score, including this, from Joe Lenord:

     "This is all madness to me and I refuse to be a follower."

     The classic refrain of all the objectors, which is curious, given the actual madness going on, and what people are clearly willing to follow. Their objections reminded me of the Chicagoans-don't-put-ketchup-on-hot-dogs trope, which of course is not a culinary debate at all, but a parody of the sneering you-don't-belong-here exclusion that our tribal city used to feel comfortable projecting at anybody arriving on the block uninvited, now preserved as this very odd, ritualized condiment scruple.

     In that spirit, given what an enormous wildfire Facebook represents, it is very human that public ire would be directed at the five-minute commitment required by Wordle. Yet "madness" is the word people frequently use. 

     "Feel free to play, but for G-d sakes please STOP sharing this madness!" Bruce L. wrote on Wednesday's post, setting off an interesting exchange.
     "How about people stop getting so upset about it?" I replied. "You don't hear me complaining about golf."
     "Because we’re not posting about our golf game!" Bruce riposted. "Yet 20% of our feeds these days are people posting this silliness... That’s why you hear complaints..."
     "I'm confused," I wrote. "Are Worlde scores any more trivial than baby photos or what somebody ate for lunch today?
     That drew a lengthy, thoughtful exegesis from Bruce:

     "Yes Neil Steinberg, Wordle scores are infinitely more trivial than baby pics and modestly more trivial than food pics..."And again, we’re not posting our golf scores, our Scrabble results, our bowling scores, or our completed NYT Sunday crossword puzzles...
     Why do so many people feel the need to share their Wordle scores? I guess that’s the part the rest of us are confused about... Why do Wordle players think that other people care, yet nobody else seems to share any of their scores from those other trivial activities...
     Go ahead and play and enjoy! But why the need to share? Unless the ulterior motive is to clear out your friends list because you know so many people hate it and will stop following you... in that case, you may just be a genius! ."  

     While I do need to periodically thin the herd, that isn't my intention.  I replied:

     That's easy. Because they can. Wordle gives you a button to paste the score to your clipboard, for easy posting to social media. I guarantee if there were a button next to the handle on your toilet, posting your efforts online, Facebook would be crammed with those photos. So perhaps gratitude is in order; worse is no doubt coming.

    Even as I typed that, it occurred to me that my reasoning was doing more to bolster his argument than mine. I try to be able to be persuaded; it's my superpower. I'm sure the blush will go off both the playing and the posting of Wordle. New baubles will appear to distract us with their shine. Until then, if anybody should be bitching about Wordle, it should be me. The column I wrote about Wordle drew two comments when I posted it on Facebook Feb. 9. My Wordle score for that day drew 38.

Saying goodbye to Colorado

     When I think of my wife's amazing ability to prepare for complicated situations, I remember her getting our apartment ready for children more than a quarter of a century ago. Not just gathering baby furniture and hiring a consultant to go through the place and point out unprotected electrical outlets, but laying in all manner of necessary supplies.
     In one flash of recollection, I idly reach over to a table and pick up a large bag of cotton balls.
     "Cotton balls?" I inquire idly of my very pregnant wife, holding up the white puffy bag. "What do we need cotton balls for?"
     The next moment it's 3 a.m. and I'm pressing the baby, squirming and howling, gainst my shoulder with one hand while the other reaches out in her direction, fingers waggling frantically. "Quick!" I cry. "Give me a cotton ball!"
     Although I still don't know what the cotton balls were for. To dab something, no doubt. Or administer some kind of ointment. Forgetting the specifics being part of the amnesia process that allows second children to come into the world.
     Anyway, last Thursday we arrived in Colorado to shut down and pack up my parents' home after 35 years and my wife shocked me, and I imagine my parents, by striding in, saying hello and not ... as I would have done, left to my own devices ... making tea and small talk and playing Scrabble, or going to the Pearl Street Mall to browse the hip boutiques, or wandering down the trails that begin practically in their back yard. 

     Instead she promptly mobilized everybody, hands flying while issuing instructions that somehow never came across as orders, while we all busied to the task at hand, into getting the million things done that needed to get done before before the movers showed up Monday morning.

     Groping for a way to convey what she had done, I came up with General Eisenhower planning Operation Overlord.

     "Operation Overlord?" she asked.

     "D-Day," I explained. 
     So passed Thursday and Friday, Saturday and Sunday, a blur of busyness, building boxes, wadding up newspapers, filling bags of garbage, hauling them out to the dumpster. My little brother was a superstar, in business meetings much of the day but still shouldering the burden in a way that amazed me. He also popped for a lux lunch at Japango at a key moment, keeping us all from going insane. My mother was coaxed into making decisions: keep this, get rid of that, and did so with a minimum of sentiment and a maximum of what can only be described as courage. My father gradually perceived that a change was in the works. 

     "I'm going to miss this house," he announced one morning, surprising us all. "It's been a good house." So he was on board with the move, at least for the moment.
     Now it was Monday morning, and my task was a simple one: get my parents out of the way for a few hours. Otherwise my mother would captivate and charm the moving crew, and the hours that were supposed to be dedicated to loading the truck would instead be spent sitting at her feet, fingers laced around their knees, raptly listening to her sing, "Embraceable You."
     First breakfast at Tangerine, complete with a pair of mimosas for them to celebrate their new life in Chicago. I surprised myself by ordering the vegetarian hash (when in Rome) served on a bed of pumpkin puree. My mother, true to form, chatted with a young lady at the next table about the tattoos on her upper leg. Penguins? No, the ghosts from "Beetlejuice."
     But even lingering, breakfast took less than an hour. So Plan B was in order.
     "I wouldn't mind a good picture of the Flatirons," I told my mother as we got in the car afterward. She directed me this way and that, driving past gorgeous Victorian houses and construction sites, always too close, or the view blocked, I gamely took a few shots of the distinctive formations, which hove into their current position about 50 million years ago and symbolize the city of Boulder.

    Now what? Luckily she thought of friends who live a few miles out-of-town.
     "Let's go say goodbye!" I suggested, and we headed there. That was very nice, sitting in their lovely, enormous living room—her husband owns a big roofing company. I killed time telling stories until my mother cut my performance short ("You're giving a monologue," she said, curtly) and we returned to their home—for the past 34 years and the next five days—a few minutes after the movers left. (United Van Lines, by the way. Not just professional, but kind. Communicated thoroughly beforehand, always available, the process orderly and transparent. I felt I got to know Barbara and Bill. The crew arrived when they said they would. Pay the extra money. It's worth it)
       Tuesday, I had to run to Home Depot for more boxes—for stuff that wasn't being moved, but shipped to my sister in Dallas. At at a red light a block from their house, at the intersection of Valmont and Foothills Parkway, I looked over and realized the mountains were at the angle and lighting that struck me as characteristic of what I've been gazing at for the past 49 years, since I first came blinking in wonder to Colorado so my father could spend the summer working at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. After all that chasing around, all I had to do was roll down the window and snap a picture. Though of course the Flatirons are too huge and impressive to be captured by anything as paltry as a photograph. A single shot and then the light turned green and I hurried on my way.

Why Russia is about to invade Ukraine

     Have you ever seen anything made in Russia? I don't mean an automobile or a toaster? I mean slacks. Or a steak knife.
     I bet you haven't. Russia doesn't even have a significant share of the vodka market. The United States exports more vodka than Russia. So does Sweden. And France.
     Ever wonder why that is? This is the nation that once known for its craftsmanship. Whose jewelers constructed those amazing Faberge eggs, the treasure of kings. The answer: because Russia is a failed state. Nearly a century of soul-crushing, initiative-dampening communism morphing into an organized crime kleptocracy. A totalitarian state reflecting the grain-of-sand soul of Vladimir Putin, a former KGB goon. Without natural gas they'd be even more impoverished than they already are.

     Its people are crushed down, cynical bitter. The result of living in an atmosphere of official lies. Something for Americans to look forward to, perhaps.
     Hence the pending Ukrainian invasion. Because everyone wants to be significant, or at least pretend to be, even nations screwed by themselves and history. They need to shine on the world stage, and aggression is the go-to move of the weak. Every 5th grade dimwit, every isolated octogenarian sputtering contempt at the others in the day room; constant criticism and knee jerk hostility is the language of the weak, oppression their philosophy, their religion. It's all they have left to feel important, powerful, alive. That's why the Republican Party, as it shifts into a totalitarian cult, has to conjure up imaginary weeping liberals and lap up their tears, an elixir to maintain their strength. Because otherwise they got nothing. And why they must be opposed. The only argument they understand is defeat, their natural condition.

Flashback 2010: Kinky Llama delivers on the double

     In October, I visited Andersonville's Early to Bed sex device store to celebrate their 20th anniversary—they sent a press release, and I figured it was a chance to peek into a world that doesn't get into the paper much. While was checking to see if "dildo" is the sort of word than can run in a family newspaper, I stumbled upon this, and thought it might serve as a Valentine’s Day diversion while I'm in Colorado. It was back when the column covered a page, and I have left in the sub-headings.

Anthony Mikrut with his custom-made Gary Fisher bike
 with studded tires. (Sun-Times photo by Al Podgorski)

OPENING SHOT . . .  
     Valentine's Day gifts can be a puzzlement to us long-married folk. Candy is out—diets— anything expensive roils the budget; anything cheap, well, is cheap. Though this year I blundered upon a novel romantic gift source that, frankly, would never cross my mind in a million years. But I'm getting ahead of the tale.
     Male homosexuality was made a crime in Great Britain while lesbianism wasn't, the story goes, because Queen Victoria objected to the lesbian clauses in the law, announcing that ladies simply do not do that kind of thing.
     Too good to be true, but the tale nicely serves as an image of sexual naivete, and came to mind the moment I heard of the Kinky Llama.
     Not because the Kinky Llama is an online purveyor of sexual devices—dildos, vibrators, gags, that kind of thing. I realize people buy that stuff.
     But what threw me is that, for a mere $5 fee, Kinky Llama's owner, Anthony Mikrut, will bicycle over to your Chicago home, apartment or office, any time of the day or night, and deliver your new sex toy. Business is jumping—Tuesday, he rode 35 miles in all that snow, making deliveries. Ninety-eight percent of his delivery customers are women.
     "No!" I said, incredulous. "Do women really DO that?"
     "Oh yes," said Terri Miller, a Kinky Llama customer. "It happens. You're in a situation. You're looking for something, like lube. Something is necessary in the middle of the night."

RESTRAINTS, GAGS, INFLATABLE SHEEP

     And these people in these situations . . . they're hookers, right?
     "He has clients who are in the sex industry," said Miller, 36, who sells telecommunications equipment. "Bachelorette parties—there are a lot of reasons why."
     Some are in need of condoms. Others keep odd hours.
     What threw me was the middle-of-the night immediacy; would not one improvise rather than go online and order up material?
     "Say you lost your handcuff key," said Miller. "And you realize it after the fact. You can order up handcuff keys and have the Kinky Llama deliver them to your partner."
     The need must be out there.
     "My business tripled last year from the year before," said Mikrut, 34, who started the Kinky Llama in 2006.
     He does have a day job—a manager at Village Cycle Center on Wells. That one detail convinced me this is real. After all, $5 isn't enough for you or I to hop on our bikes, but for a bicycle fanatic, it's plenty.
     I could see where "Kinky" is from, but "Llama"? Are llamas known for . . . ?
     "It's my nickname," said Mikrut, explaining it's from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," where a llama figures in the credits. "My family called me 'Llama,' everybody calls me 'Llama.' "
     OK Llama . . . so what exactly are we talking about here? What's a big seller?
     "A lot of rabbits," he says.
     Such as the Waterproof Jack Rabbit, $52.99 in pink or purple.
     "I delivered a rabbit to a couple making out in a car," said Mikrut. "I showed up to make the delivery, and no one was there. I was leaving, and people in a car said, 'Wait, wait, that's for us.' She tipped me 30 bucks."
     And those rabbits, they're, umm, effective devices, are they?
     "It's insertable. It vibrates, it turns," said Miller. "It . . . does all kinds of crazy things."
     A good gift for one's Valentine?
     "She might like it," said Miller. "You might eliminate the need for yourself."
     Well that's the rub, isn't it? It seems a lose-lose proposition (at least for the guy) -- either the gift is rejected as an obscene joke, or it's welcomed, and used, making certain people moot who do not want to be moot.
     What shocked me was the ease with which Kinky Llama customers discuss this.
     "I heard about it; I ordered some things delivered," said Becky Welbes. "There're all kinds of things to choose from. The one I bought was to be used by myself, but could probably also be used by a partner."
     And the one-hour delivery?
     "You're like, 'I don't really feel like going to the store right now,' " she said. "It was, like, 12:30 and I didn't feel like going outside. I thought: 'I could use something' and didn't really want to go to Walgreens at 3 in the morning."
     This struck me as contrary to the dictum that a lady should see her name in the paper three times, when she is born, when she marries and when she passes on.
     "With the younger generation people are a lot more proactive and open-minded about sex toys and all that," said Welbes, 24. "The younger generation grew up with it; people are a lot more accepting of sex as being part of pop culture. I don't think people are as bashful."
     That they aren't. Mikrut says that yes, customers do inquire about, ah, product demonstrations.
     "I've been invited in a couple times," he said. "But I don't go. It could be bad. I try not to mix the two together. I don't want to ruin a customer either."
     He expects to ride 150 miles Sunday on his black custom-made bike sporting carbide studded tires. The Web site, if you need to be told, is kinkyllama.com.

TODAY'S CHUCKLE . . .

     I'm not sure if this is actually funny, but I laughed, and the guy in my office laughed, and my wife laughed when I told her, so if you don't, you're outvoted, three to one.
     REPORTER: So, what are you going to do for Valentine's Day?
     COLUMNIST: Stay married.
       —originally published in the Sun-Times, Feb. 12, 2010.

Turn around.

\

     It was 6 a.m., still dark, when my brother and I set out to the Wonderland Creek Greenway Trail, just beyond our parents' town home in Boulder, Colorado. We spoke of the practical and emotional difficulties of closing down the place where our folks have lived for 35 years, and moving them to Chicago. We paused to admire ducks on a pond, the sky slowly brightening, and went about a mile and a half when we decided we'd better turn around and get back at our task.
     The "VEHICLE CROSSING" sign was illuminated by the first morning rays. It practically glowed an I briefly considered taking a photo of it for future use. But "VEHICLE CROSSING" is not a particularly enigmatic sign, not like "CAUTION" or "GO SLOW." It didn't seem something that could prove useful to me here, not worth fishing my phone out of my back pocket and bringing it to my eye.
     But some subsystem in my brain must have been working, considering what the sun bouncing off the sign meant, that faint pink cast to the clouds. I stopped and looked behind us.
     "Hey Sam," I said. "Turn around."

North Shore Notes: Soaring

    Our Saturday correspondent, Caren Jeskey, is back on her feet, and returns with her regular report, sharing a surprising development:

     A ruddy faced man with gleaming eyes and a glossy Irish Setter heeling by his side rounded the bend towards me. I’d gotten turned around on a walk in Kenilworth on my way to downtown Wilmette. The streets were designed to keep outsiders out— not easy thoroughfares. A man kindly stopped and offered me directions. “Just take this street to a wall with two doors in it.”
     I collect quotes of the day— sentences I repeat in my head or aloud to myself that conjure up fun images. or otherwise bring me delight — and this one was it.
     “A wall with two doors.” My life, once again, is a French movie. (An artistic ex used to remind me that all we have to do is choose to see the world through the eyes of Amelie or another acteur dans un film d'art et d'essai if we want to soak up the deliciousness). As I moved on, I smiled and gazed up at the stark bare trees on this glorious winter day. I was hoping to see an eagle, or a hawk at least. I settled for a giant crow, cawing majestically from the very top of an impressively aged elm.
     I headed in the direction apple cheeks pointed me to, and found myself on 10th Street. I turned right to head the mile or so to my destination. A couple walking a graying black lab named Fiona cautioned me that the sidewalk was icy. I wanted to walk in the street but feared the wrath of drivers. I’d chance the messy sidewalk. I yielded to a man wearing black Adidas sneakers with crisp white stripes. As he passed me I warned him about the ice ahead.
     I stayed a virus cautious 20 feet or so behind him. Sure enough, he misjudged the situation and I watched him tumble into a hard fall, his arms flailing about and his messenger bag flying into the snow. The first thing he did was look back at me from his flat on the back position— I’m not sure if it was out of embarrassment or camaraderie. The two of us just trying to get some exercise in the dead of a Chicago Winter. I called out “are you ok?” and he said “yes!” He got up and brushed himself off. I suggested that we retire to the street, drivers be darned. He agreed. Again I gave him about 20 feet of space and we walked single file towards Central Avenue.
     At the end of the trek we chatted a bit. He thanked me for my support and the warning that he had not heeded. I reminded him to take some ibuprofen as soon as possible, for I knew he’d be bruised and in some pain when the adrenaline wore off. I had wiped out on the roof of Mariano’s myself just a couple weeks ago, and again when I forgot that Yaktrax are not ideal for a dark foyer with concrete floors. These little coils that slip over your shoes work great on the ice, and I highly recommend them, but please be careful on surfaces other than snow, ice, or nubby concrete when you have them on.
     Adidas and I parted ways. I passed an old wood-framed house with a porch that’s made for sitting. I passed the bell that was originally rung to gather Wilmette residents to the town square many moons ago, and the Lutheran church with the banner reading “Black Lives Matter to God and to Us.”
     I stepped into Torino and ordered a citrusy ramen to go — double masked of course— then I headed to Central Station Coffee & Tea. I left there with an oat milk latte with their homemade raspberry syrup. Small paper shopping bag of noodle soup in one hand, coffee cup in the other, I gingerly made my way back to my new rental home a mile and a half west.
     A mere two weeks ago I was miserable and sleep deprived since loud neighbors had moved in on December 1st. The stress of it all put a damper on my holidays, my career, and my well-being. Today I sleep in a place so quiet I can easily forget anyone else is around at all.
      Three weeks ago a neighbor was carjacked in her alley in my old neighborhood of Ravenswood after dropping her child off at school. A woman was carjacked on the 5100 block of North Broadway three weeks ago today. She had just gotten her car back from her last carjacking the previous Wednesday. I am very concerned for her. I had to stop reading a local neighborhood group’s Facebook posts since the outrageous number of shootings less than two miles from where I was living, on a weekly basis, were impossible to digest.
     A savvy friend commented “I knew you’d end up in the suburbs” because I was so craving a quiet home to live, rest, and work in. If I am to show up for my burgeoning caseload of clients I have to have peace and safety myself. I sincerely wish everyone on this planet could have the same.
     Just before I moved, a neighbor snapped a photo of an eagle in a tree near Wilson and the river. There is beauty and delight around every corner for all of us, but only some of us have the good fortune to be able to enjoy the wonders of this world. For others, life is a daily exercise in survival.