More than just green beer and cabbage

     Happy St. Patrick's Day, though the actual Tuesday holiday seems an anticlimax and afterthought following the weekend of heavy pre-Paddy partying. I walked from the Sun-Times to the Four Seasons Saturday night, through a city of drunk people, one vast beery queue of guys and gals draped in green beads and wearing green t-shirts and green deely boppers, waited to get into the next bar.  Not a good look. 

     My sympathies to the actual Irish.  Being Jewish has its downsides, true,  but at least we don't have to put up with a lot of crude expropriation of our religion (by people other than ourselves, I mean). I wouldn't want to walk to synagogue for Yom Kippur through a crowd of rowdies swilling Manischewitz from blue and white plastic cups, wearing fake beards and rubber noses and big black foam Borsalino hats, chanting, "Re-pent! Re-pent!" 

     I don't know how the Irish do it. How year in and year out they watch their proud and long and tragic history get put through the meat grinder of American culture. "Kiss me I'm Irish!" It breaks the heart. But I guess the Irish experience is a machine designed to break the heart, so why should this be any different? Still, resistance is both futile and necessary. Nearly 20 years ago, the Sun-Times published this guide, the idea being that the St. Patrick's Day revelers packed into Irish pubs and faux-Irish pubs might glimpse these portraits on the wall, through the crush, and be puzzled as to who those old guys might be, and it wouldn't detract from their celebrations, and might even help, if they were informed, and equipped with a bit of verse to recite once they are really in their cups, around noon. 

     One mark of a real Irish bar is the inevitable shrine of portraits of Ireland's greatest writers. Some are easy to identify -- George Bernard Shaw with his big beard, Eugene O'Neill with his cadaverous cheeks (he started writing plays in a tuberculosis asylum). But some are a puzzlement to the average Chicago bar crawler of today. Here is a quick guide:

William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939                          

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

W.B. Yeats

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

     "Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry," W. H. Auden said of Yeats, the towering figure of Irish literature. Yeats seems to bring together all the threads: 19th century dreams of romance, 20th century slaughter, mysticism and fascism, Greek history and the "mere anarchy" of the new. Unlike every other poet who ever lived, Yeats blazed brighter and brighter as he aged, dictating brilliant poetry even hours before his death.

James Joyce, 1882-1941

. . . and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

     Joyce left Dublin when he was 22 and, like so many expatriates, spent the rest of his life looking homeward. To the narrow-minded censors of his day, Joyce was a pornographer whose writing stank of sweat and dirt and sex. His masterpiece, Ulysses, was banned from the United States until 11 years after its publication, which only drove the curious to read it.  E. M. Forster, a Brit, called the book "a dogged attempt to cover the universe with mud."


Samuel Beckett, 1906-1989

Pozzo: . . . One day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? (calmer) They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instance, then it's night once more!

Samuel Beckett

     Beckett was a 51-year-old obscure poet and novelist who had only recently stopped working as a shop clerk when, in 1953, his play "Waiting for Godot" took Paris by storm. The haunting words and dark wit of his masterpiece immediately hurled him into the company of Kafka as a bard of disjointed and menacing modernity. He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1969.


Brendan Behan, 1923-1964

I am a cowardly man by nature, and to go there I had to take a couple of drinks and when I saw her so small and lonely in that stark, ether-smelling ward of the hospital, I knew that I loved her very deeply.

Brendan Behan

     Behan was 16 years old when he was sent to a British prison for his activities in the Irish Republican Army, and, like Oscar Wilde, he used his time in prison to feed his muse. His play "The Quare Fellow" rocketed him to fame in 1956, and he divided his few remaining years writing amusing memoirs and drinking everything within reach.

         —Originally published in the Sun-Times, March 15, 1996

              

Sweet (not) home Chicago

     On the afternoon of Jan. 20, 1961, Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower slipped away from the Inauguration Day festivities, piled into their 1955 Chrysler Imperial and famously drove to their farm at Gettsyburg, Pa. Contrary to myth, they were not alone — two servants and a chauffeur, Leonard Dry, were with them, but even then, the ex-president felt "an eerie loneliness about the absence of motorcycle escorts and caravans of Secret Service and press cars" according to Ike's grandson, David.
     It was about to get lonelier.
     "When the Eisenhowers approached the entrance to their Gettysburg farm," David Eisenhower wrote, "the Secret Service honked the horn and made a U-turn, heading back to Washington."
     Ex-presidents didn't get security. His predecessor, Harry Truman, didn't even receive retirement pay — he had to live, at least initially, on his $112.56 Army pension, and took out a bank loan in his last week in office to tide himself over.
     Not issues that will face Barack Obama, who will leave office Jan. 20, 2017, a rich man, the way politicians tend to. He'll head, not back to Chicago, but to New York City, to join the claque of rootless wealth.
     That has to raise some tangled emotions here.
     If I had to categorize it, I'd say a disappointment but not a surprise.
     Reading Mike Sneed's column Friday on how the Obamas are set on living in New York, which means their library will probably be set there too, has to sting.
     Though Chicago was never really Obama's home, despite his house in Kenwood. That notion was just another spoonful of a politician's honey, and shame on those who swallowed it. Born in Hawaii — really, get over it, join us in the fact-based world — gone to school in Boston, Obama didn't set eyes on Chicago until his late 20s. Chicago was a way station and not really, as it turns out, his home. A means, not an end.
     At least not to Michelle Obama, and a husband goes where his wife wants to go, if he knows what's good for him. When people were aghast that I would move to Northbrook, I told them, "If I didn't follow my wife's lead, I'd still be a single guy living in a one bedroom apartment in Oak Park..."

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Sunday Puzzler No. 3

                                          Last week was elegant but not hard.
                                          This is less elegant but, I hope, harder.
                                          Though doable.
                                          I think. 
                                          Good luck.
                                          Have fun.
                                          The winner gets a 2015 EGDD blog poster.
                                          Post your guesses below.

                                          Two thousand fifteen years ago
                                          Using our system 
                                          Not that they would then
                                          But only two digits
                                          Plus the Latin, abbreviated
                                          And          
                                          John Candy and Judy Holiday
                                          Had this in common
                                          All together now, a kind of code
                                          Plus
                                          He preferred being an unhappy fellow
                                          To being a porker smiling in shit
                                          Not that he was given the choice.

                                          Where is this?

Round, tasty & a tad more than 3.14

    Happy Pi Day, and a special one at that. This is the day where, once in the morning and once in the evening, it will be 3/14/15 9:26:53, the exact digits of pi (which, for my far right wing readers, is the ratio between a circle's circumference and its diameter, whether you like it or not). 

     I can't believe I wrote this, two years ago, without mentioning that my older son Ross used to organize his friends into "Pi Offs"—competitions to see who could memorize the non-repeating digits of pi the most. I believe he usually won.

     Enjoy the day, eat some pie, do some math. Just remember the specific events in this story cannot be attended without going back in time, and the necessary time travel technology isn't here yet. But I'm sure some of the same people excited about Pi Day are working on that.  

     How do you turn a million dollars into a quarter?
     Easily. Behold the power of math.
     Years ago, I was this newspaper's charities, foundations and private social services reporter—which in today's attritted media landscape seems a luxurious title on par with the Royal Keeper of the King's Slipper.
     Despite my arch title, I was still me, and I liked to shake up the routines of the charitable beat. Thus when the MacArthur Foundation doled out its annual "genius" grants, rather than dutifully track down the various local batik artists and Icelandic clog dancers who had won and convey their esoteric interests, I wrote a piece about how those grants sometimes ruin people's lives, focusing on all the resulting suicides and divorces, the creative blocks formed and faculty spats ignited, seeking out all the butterflies crushed by this brick of money falling squarely upon them.
     I was proud of that.
     Or there was the time that the foundation of some company—I believe it was Standard Oil—called to share their big news: They were giving a million dollars to the Chicago Public Schools!
     I think they expected me to clear the front page. Instead I asked a question:
     "What's the time frame?"
     Pardon?
     "Over how long a period is the grant being given?" One common dodge to make largess seem larger is to dole it out over time.
     Papers shuffling. "Ten years."
     "Okay," I said. "There are 400,000 Chicago school kids. What are you doing with your money, giving each one a quarter a year?"
     Thus can a million dollars be turned into a quarter. By doing math to put the figures in some perspective. The same way a bargain can, with a bit of quick figuring, be identified as a scam. Math is indispensable to this job—to any job really—and considering all the attention given to utter triviality, to celebrity woes and political tugs-of-war, we don't focus on that fact nearly enough. To not stop and estimate, to not look at the numbers, is to forever doom yourself as a boob and a sap.
     Which is why I want to draw attention a nifty holiday being celebrated Thursday: Pi Day, the calendar's only mathematical holiday, since March 14—or 3/14—is also the first three digits of pi, the ratio between the circumference of a circle (the curving part around its edge) and its diameter (the line straight across the circle, dividing it in half) or 3.1415926... and on into infinity, represented by the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet.
     The Illinois Science Council is ringmastering a number of goofy events Thursday, a Pi Day Fun Run/Walk downtown—all sold out, sorry—and has enlisted several area restaurants and bakeries to offer up specials.
     Evanston's Bennison's Bakery is selling individual pies in Boston cream, strawberry-rhurbarb or apple for $3.14. (Since skepticism and math go together, I checked to see what the pies normally cost, expecting it to be $3—nope, normally $6.99, so this is a bargain.)
     "We do this every year," said manager Samantha Griggin. "It's always a fun day."
     Pleasant House Bakery on W. 31st Street is participating, as is Sweet Cakes Bakery on North Damen and Sweet Pies Bakery in Skokie. Swirlz Cupcakes on West Belden is offering "Pi" and "Einstein" cupcakes. (In one of the coincidences bound to occur with billions being born on a limited number of days, March 14 is also Albert Einstein's birthday.)
     One of my favorite spots, Artopolis Bakery, 306. S. Halsted (I can't walk past without stopping in for an espresso) is participating Thursday—they're offering their trademark savory pie for $3.14, instead of the $4.50 it usually costs. Ina's, 1235 W. Randolph, has a Chicken Pot Pi on its menu (come early—the place is open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.) but no pi pricing here: Pony up $10.49.
     "Chicken pot pie can be such a dense, mucky kind of dish," said manager Seana Monahan. "Ours is lighter version so people can feel good about eating it."
     It is round, though, correct?
     "Our pie is round," she said. "I don't know exactly what the diameter is." (Keefers has a shepherd's pi pie, but it is not round).
     This is the fifth year the Illinois Science Council has hosted Pi Day, which reminds us not only of the value of 3.1415926 etc., but "there is a real value to learning this stuff," in the words of ISC executive director Monica Metzler. From designing bridges to buying aspirin, it helps if you feel comfortable doing the numbers. You don't have to be a genius—just keep math in mind, and realize it can be fun, especially two years from now.
     "In 2015, it will be 3/14/15," Metzler said, noting the year will coincide with the next two digits of pi. Of course their race will start at 9:26 in the morning: 3/14/15 9:26 a.m.
     "We're going to have pi to seven digits [to the right of the decimal point]," she said. "We'll be totally geeking out."

              —Originally published in the Chicago Sun-Times, March 13, 2013

Saturday fun activity: Where IS this?

     The whole idea seems impossibly quaint, now. 
     There would be these little private rooms, these booths, scattered about in public spaces, so people who wanted to make a telephone call could go inside, and hide themselves away, and conduct their business without being overheard.  
     In private, as it were.

This one's in Michigan

     Now phone booths have vanished so completely that their disappearance isn't even noticed anymore forget about being mourned. You can't miss what you never knew existed. You rarely see even the half glassed-in booths that would be found on busy streets, never mind the full booth, with accordion door, I noticed, still, downtown, as it were, in the Upper Peninsula Michigan town of Ontonagpn. 
     Rarer still are fancy wooden booths, such as the ones above, with their own gold leaf numbers and yes, working telephones still inside. Think of them as the original phone case.
    I suppose the idea of privacy will go next. People all yabber away, oblivious to each other. Even cupping your hand around your mouth seems a needless nicety. You certainly wouldn't expect someone to step away, to suggest that their conversation isn't public information. Heck, everything is public information. Why be discreet  about something your going to post on four different forms of social media just as soon as you can? Just the thought of popping into a phone booth for some privacy while you klaxon your news to the world seems hopelessly convoluted. 
    But we still understand the rough outlines of privacy.  It doesn't puzzle us. Quite yet. Until that inevitable day, where did I see this quartet of ancient phone technology sarcophagi? 
     The winner will receive—speaking of old methods of communication—one of my hand-typeset blog posters, printed on century-old equipment at the famous Hatch Show Print shop in Nashville, Tennessee. Remember to post your guesses below. Good luck. 

Heroin deaths skyrocket, but hope remains

     Taking heroin feels wonderful.
     "It's been described as returning to the womb, and I think there's some truth to that," said David Cohen, who was addicted for years. "There's an instant sense of safety, almost an orgasm feeling at the beginning: 10 seconds of bliss and an overwhelming sense of warmth and comfort and safety from your head to your toes, like you're in a cocoon."
     At first, that is. The bad part quickly follows.
     "You build a tolerance so quickly," said Cohen. "It's not uncommon to need to shoot up three or four times a day. Pretty easy to get a $100 a day habit."
     So users steal to support their habits — that's what Cohen, now 42, did in his early 20s.
     They also have an increasing tendency to die. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that between 2010 and 2013 the death rate from heroin overdose nearly tripled, from 1 in 100,000 people to 2.7 in 100,000. And unlike the cliche image of heroin addicts being youth in the inner city, the group most likely to die from heroin overdose are early middle-aged white males, 25 to 44.
     Why the surge in deaths?
     "People are dying from heroin for two reasons," said Cohen, who managed to kick his habit with the help of his parents, first, and then rehab, AA, and Hazelden Betty Ford Chicago, which he entered as a volunteer and now is clinical director. "First, there's more of it, second more people are attracted to it" because it's cheaper and often more pure — except when it's cut with drywall or other drugs, or even Ajax or poisons.
     Officials have been trying to respond to the upswing. In 2013, the DuPage County created a program to distribute Narcan, the nasal anti-overdose medication, and already credit it with saving 32 lives. The Schaumburg police started carrying Narcan kits in January.
     The FDA hasn't yet approved the sprayable form of Narcan, and Sen. Mark Kirk is pushing for it to do so. Late last year, he formed the Suburban Anti-Heroin Task Force to combat the drug.
     "There is no typical heroin addict," said Cohen, a member of the task force. "I am a heroin addict."
     Cohen was born in Peoria, went to Niles West then Highland Park High School, where he was smoking pot every day at age 15 and, like many, he started taking harder drugs using the most convenient source: his parents' medicine cabinet.
     "Prescription medicines are the hidden gateway drug," he said. "There's a message there. If you have a medicine cabinet full of unused medications, stimulants, sedatives, be smart. Lock up your drugs. When you are finished with your medications, dispose of them properly."
      Cohen overdosed on his 21st birthday, was in a coma for three days, then spent three years living the junkie scramble, until a concerned friend pushed his parents to action, and they shipped him off to rehab. He credits AA for helping save his life.
     "AA worked for me, I loved it," he said. "I found hope for the first time. They took a hopeless dope fiend and turned me into a dopeless hope fiend."
     Which is his message now.
     "While heroin is killing people, there is hope," Cohen said. "No parent should have to go through this alone. There's help out there."
     To reach Narcotics Anonymous, call their helpline at (708) 848-4884.

Maybe killing Ronald would help

   Nobody likes to see a business in trouble. Particularly an important American business, headquartered right here in the suburbs of Chicago.
     That said, am I the only person who's enjoying the troubles that McDonald's is having? Its sales continually erode—another 4 percent slide for U.S. restaurants in February, coming on top of a 2014 spent entirely in the red, solid negative growth, no matter how it struggles to retain its fleeing customers.
     Resentment? Sure. McDonald's was—is—the cheerleader for obese America. The drug dealer dangling our fat/sugar fix. The company and I grew large together. I remember when we both were young, and its outlets  were white and red tile. You ate in your car. My mother phoned my father, after Sunday school, to ask if it was okay for us to go: he had condemned the places as "greasy spoons," a lovely old Americanism. 
      He said it was okay, alas. I remember the childish joy of unwrapping the waxy paper around a cheeseburger, a crusty filet-o-fish. The forceful suck it took to draw a swallow of that chocolate-like frozen shake substance up the straw. 
      That it was crap never crossed my mind. Five years later, when I was a fat, bowl-haircut teen, McDonald's had some celebrate-ourselves special where hamburgers were 10 cents apiece, the way they were when the place was founded. Maybe it was their 20th anniversary. I plunked down a dollar and bought ten. I can't recall whether I ate them all—I hope not. But I remember the warm pile of burgers, the sense of endless need being satisfied.
     I'm not blaming McDonald's. But it didn't help.
     It's satisfying to think that the nation took the same route that I did, from yum-yum-eat-'em-up hungry early years to a more controlled maturity. When the boys were small, we'd go to McDonald's--you have to with children, they make your life hell if you don't. But we regarded each visit as a failure of will. And for a period of time, I'd occasionally want one of those cheeseburgers, out of nostalgia, and order one, with black coffee, every year or two.
     But I'd regret it immediately. Now, if I smell the distinctive McDonald's fare stench when I enter a Metra car—somebody's dinner—I'll turn around and go to another car. I watch what I eat, and while McDonald's has salads and such, that's like ordering milk in a bar. Better not to go at all. 
     I'm not sure if the rest of the country is shunning McDonald's due to healthier living. Or maybe they're just tired of it, a collective revulsion after a 50-year burger binge, and we're moving on to equally-revolting food sold by some other company.
     Either way, me, I'm done with McDonald's. I try to imagine what would draw me into one. If I could buy a whole grapefruit for $2 at a McDonald's, I might go, provided it was good grapefruit. If their salads were bigger and more real...no, the problem would be, even if it were a sweet grapefruit or a decent salad, I'd still have to eat them in a McDonald's.  Their employees are the most put-upon, lowest rung of the employment scale, with their brusque mayeyehelpyou mumbles and their baleful, kill-me-now glares. Their restaurants, the worst kind of primary color, easy scrub plastic play pen. Maybe a redesign. Maybe if they dragged Ronald McDonald behind the corporate headquarters and put a bullet behind his ear. I've always hated him. Everyone I know hates him. That might be a start. Kill Ronald, remodel the stores, and pay your knot of crushed down employees a living wage, to make the  experience more like dining out at an actual restaurant and less like something guilt-ridden, furtive, the gastronomical version of buying a pornographic magazine.
     Or maybe the slide is just going to accelerate.