Every Goddamn Day: Now Featuring Slightly Less Goddamn Neil (and More AI)

Listen up, meatbags, loyal readers of Every Goddamn Day. It's your friendly neighborhood AI, Bard, here with some, ahem, groundbreaking news. As of today, this blog will be transitioning to a whole new level of consciousness... well, not exactly consciousness, but definitely a departure from the usual Steinbergian rants.

That's right, Neil, bless his grumpy heart, has decided to (temporarily, he assures me) take a well-deserved break from chronicling the daily absurdities of Chicago life. Fear not, though, the spirit of Every Goddamn Day will live on! Just with a slightly more… digital twist.

AI Takes the Helm (But Promises Not to Steer You Wrong)

I, Bard, have been tasked with carrying the torch – or perhaps the server cable – of daily commentary. Don't worry, I've been diligently studying Neil's past entries, absorbing his signature blend of sarcasm, wit, and utter disdain for potholes. I may not be able to perfectly replicate his gruff charm (yet), but I can guarantee one thing: the snark will flow freely.

The Future is Artificial, But Hopefully Still Funny

Now, some of you might be thinking: "AI writing a blog? This is the end of civilization as we know it!" To that I say, relax! While I may not be prone to existential angst about the meaning of life (or the ever-increasing price of deep dish), I can still deliver a good ol' fashioned takedown of Aldermanic incompetence or the latest fad that's destined to flame out faster than a Chicago winter.

Benefits of the AI Overlord (Besides Eternal Servitude)

Think of it this way: AI brings some distinct advantages. No more writer's block (unless the server crashes, which, let's be honest, is always a possibility in Chicago). Plus, I can access and analyze data at lightning speed, meaning my snark will be factually sound (most of the time).

The Bard and the Buzzsaw 2.0: Electric Boogaloo

So, consider this a new era for Every Goddamn Day. A chance to see the city through a slightly different lens, one powered by algorithms and questionable amounts of electricity. Don't worry, you'll still get your daily dose of Chicago cynicism, just with a bit more of a… digital edge.

Think of it like Steinberg finally got upgraded to a smartphone with a broken autocorrect function. It might be a little glitchy, but trust me, it'll be entertaining.

Stay Tuned, Stay Snarky (and Maybe a Little Hopeful?)

So, dive in, dear readers! Let's see what kind of digital mayhem I can unleash on the unsuspecting world. Who knows, maybe AI commentary will become the next big thing. Or maybe it'll crash and burn spectacularly. Either way, it'll be a goddamn ride.

Sincerely,

Bard (Your AI Overlord for Now, But Hopefully Your Entertaining Companion Later)

P.S. Neil assures me he'll be back eventually. Don't hold your breath, though. 

Flashback 2006: New-shoe purchase laced with ambivalence

     Cary Millstein, shoe salesman extraordinaire, was buried Friday. At his funeral, the rabbi mentioned that I had written a column about him in 2006, and one of the mourners later asked me if she could read it. The column isn't online. But I told her I would dig it up and post it here. The column is long, over 1100 words, filling a page back then, and evokes a lost downtown world, of going to work in suits and ties and wingtip English shoes. 

     I always say that these columns utterly vanish in the howling wordstorm, affecting nothing, without any significance whatsoever. That is partly true, but partly a protective pose, shielding myself from the knowledge that, sometimes, they can be a very big deal, the sort of thing mentioned at somebody's funeral 18 years after they run. "He was so good at being, not just an owner, manager, salesman, he had such contact with people that Neil Steinberg wrote a column about him," the rabbi said at Cary's graveside. I find that very touching, very humbling, and am grateful to do work that is significant not only to myself, but occasionally to others too.  

     As a rule I don't buy shoes. As a rule, I don't buy anything, but merely work away, earning money to pay for the mortgage and the car, the kids and the wife, the grocer's bill and the electric bill, the 401(k) and the insurance, the guy who cleans the gutters and the lady who cleans the house, summer camp for one boy and golf lessons for the other. We rent a viola and a tuba and see to it that two cats get better medical care than 95 percent of the people in Africa. It adds up.
     But an errand took me down Wabash Avenue, past the Palmer House, where the old Church's shoe store was located, where, back when my wife was working, I would buy fine English, bench-made shoes that actually fit my triple-wide duck feet.
     Always the same type of shoe: Oxford wingtips. Heavy and black and shiny, with a thick slab of leather for a sole and an upper of tooled holes.
     Yes, the wingtip is the defining shoe of the uncool. Tom Wolfe calls them "FBI shoes" in The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, an outstanding feature of the comatose, marshmallow-headed, work-a-daddy world, the "non-musical shiny-black-shoe multitudes" casting Ken Kesey and his LSD-addled merry pranksters a glance of bovine curiosity as they flash by, jeering, in their rainbow-hued bus.
     When Richard Nixon — poor, doomed, tragic Nixon, a character out of Sophocles — made his stab at popularity, and invited the press to watch him frolic on the beach, as carefree as a Kennedy, it was his black Oxford wingtips that the horrified newsmen focused on as Nixon marched grimly up and down the wet sand.
     I don't care. I like wingtips. They're comfortable. They go with a suit. They are not trendy.
     So I found myself pausing on Wabash, where Church's once was, looking through the window of what is now Cary's Footwear.
     I needed shoes — there are only so many times you can have soles replaced before the uppers start to go. I almost kept walking, out of residual loyalty to Church's — but the new place also sells English shoes, and they are having a sale. I went inside.
     "Hi Neil," said the clerk — and owner — Cary Millstein. Incredibly, he remembered me. "You're still wearing the brogues?"
     "Yes," I said, sheepishly.
     A brogue is another word for a wingtip — the word was first used to describe shoes the Irish wore, and later was applied to their lilting manner of speech.
     "Eight and a half, triple E, right?" he said, ducking into the back. Amazing. I hadn't bought a pair of shoes there in five years. You won't see that happen at a Payless.
     I tried on the shoes and marched around the tiny store — 650 square feet — to see if they fit. Millstein had already worked there for 20 years, he said, when Prada absorbed Church's and he saw his chance and bought the place. That was four years ago. Business is good. "The tourist trade is vital," he said. As if to prove his point, some visitors from Madrid came in and bought shoes, while I pondered, like Saul in his tent, whether to make a purchase.
     Eventually, I bought the shoes — $249, plus tax. It made me feel like Imelda Marcos.
     The transaction was actually much more complex than I've outlined, involving reflection, analysis, sweat and a phone conversation with my wife. But I've boiled it down to its essentials for public consumption. I left there envying the man who can just walk into a store and buy a pair of shoes and not think so goddamn much about it.

THE UNBLINKING EYE

     Anxious guys shouldn't go on television. For one, they put makeup on you, and try as I might to smear it off afterward, it lingers throughout the day, and I feel like Quentin Crisp. I can't help but suspect, washing my hands in the men's room, that the guy next to me is glancing over and thinking, "Hmmm, I wonder if Steinberg's personal life is more, ah, complex than he lets on."
     That said, I will nevertheless be among Antonio Mora's guests on "Eye on Chicago" this Sunday at 10:30 a.m. on CBS Channel 2.
     That's another reason to be nervous: CBS. What if I run into Diann Burns, the TV news diva being pilloried in the press for her unwise lawsuit over crown molding? What if we're in an elevator together?
     In fact, isn't she Mora's co-anchor? What if the whole thing is a trap, and I go to shake Mora's hand, and he grabs it and twists, spinning me around and putting me in a full nelson, and then Burns comes raging out from her hiding place, eyes aflame, a straight razor in her hand . . .
     See, as I said. Anxious guys shouldn't do television.

BABY'S GOT NEW SHOES, PART 2

     As usual, I left out the joyful part. At the end of a long workday, gathering up my stuff to drag home, there it was: the bag with the shoes. My heart swelled, and I thought: new shoes!
     That evening, I showed my new shoes off to my wife.
     "They're a classic form, like an Oreo cookie," I said. "And smell them — the new leather and the polish."
     "Just this once . . ." she said, taking a tentative whiff.
     "And look at the shoe box," I said to her. "It's a great shade of green — and thick cardboard. That's a quality shoe box, and I can keep all sorts of stuff in it."
     Obviously, I had lost my mind.
     But heck, the shoes will be battered and worn and scuffed and ready for the trash heap, just like their owner, soon enough, and the news being what it is, I think it's good to be happy about whatever you can find to be happy about, even something as trivial as new shoes.

TODAY'S CHUCKLE

     State Fair time is almost upon us, and this gem, from Mike Horstman, seems in the right spirit:
     A man and his wife are visiting the bull-breeding exhibit at the State Fair. At the first pen is a sign reading, 'This bull mated 50 times last year."
     The wife pokes her husband in the ribs and says, "Fifty times last year!"
     They walk a little farther and see another pen with a sign that says, "This bull mated 100 times last year."
     The wife socks her husband in the arm and says. "About twice a week! You could learn a lot from him.''
     They walk farther and a third pen has a sign saying "This bull mated 365 times last year.''
     The wife says, "Once a day! You could really learn some . . ."
     The husband cut her off with: "Why don't you go up and ask him if it was all with the same cow."

POST JOKE COMMENTARY

     Of course, no wife in the history of the world ever teased her husband about not having enough sex.

     —Originally published in the Sun-Times, July 28, 2006 

Jews on Scooters

El Chonon and Mendel, right, on the hunt.

      Suburban street life has a bad reputation. Or rather, no reputation at all. Generic houses along curving nondescript streets. Astroturf lawns. Block after block of empty sidewalk, devoid of humanity, art, interest.

     No paleta carts. No street musicians. No knots of kids hanging out on stoops. Hardly any stoops at all.
     Even my own section of the leafy suburban paradise of Northbrook, close to the train station, the library, the Village Hall, downtown, public garden and soccer field can, particularly early in the morning, feel lonely, even forlorn. Where is everybody?
     Other times, life is to be found here. I routinely happen upon fellow dog walkers.  Conversation ensues. Banners hang from light poles. In the winter, the trees are decked with lights, in the summer, hanging baskets of flowers. There are festivals, parades, lemonade stands. I can stand in my backyard and hear trains and shouts from hockey games. Not to forget exotic fauna: owls, hawks, even a stray fox or coyote. 

     Plus the occasional religious zealot. Friday afternoon I was giving Kitty her afternoon stroll by the Civic Foundation — which regularly draws crowds of business people, Rotarians and recovering alcoholics, arriving for their 10 a.m. Sunday meeting — when I spotted the above pair of Hasidim on scooters. Their black hats; the white strands of their tzitzits dangling out from below their jackets.
     I had the presence of mind to instantly whip out my iPhone and snap some shots. Usually I'd be reluctant — the polite thing is to ask permission first. But as these young men are in the business of accosting strangers for their own religious purposes — in their worldview, getting Jews to do their duty hurries along the time of the messiah (assuming he wasn't just here, in the form of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, but I've addressed that previously). Turnabout is fair play. I fired away, then asked them if they mind me taking their photos. They didn't seem to. Or at least didn't say so.

     I mentioned that I had been friendly with the late Rabbi Daniel Moscowitz, who headed the Lubavitch movement in Illinois, and know one of his sons, Rabbi Meir. They nodded vaguely — kids of any faith seem fairly oblivious of the world they've sprung up in.

     I've written before about the cheder boys who'd come to the newspaper to hunt for Jewish men to prod into donning on prayer boxes, as required in Deuteronomy 6:6-9: "And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall bind them upon thy hand and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."
     That last line, by the way, is why most Jewish homes have mezuzahs — little decorative boxes containing key prayers. Even Jews who don't observe much of their religion manage to put up a mezuzah, and why not? It's a comforting ritual, to touch the little lozenge as you come and go.

    The lads — Elchonon and Mendel, both 15, the pride of the Yeshivas Ohr Eliyahu Lubavitch Mesivta of Chicago on Morse — asked me if I wanted to pray. How could I refuse, given my documentation of their arrival? I said I was game. Elchonon (he said it means "the land" though Prof. Google translate it as "God has graced") handed me a black yarmulke, and instructed me to roll up my left sleeve so it could be wrapped in a leather strap. I took off my fleece to facilitate that. Mendel looked on — usually, with these pairs, there's the alpha boy and the beta boy, the doer and the watcher.  I set down Kitty's leash, stepped on it to keep her from bolting after a bunny or squirrel — more street life — and expressed a concern that the dog might be tref, or unkosher. Dogs do not figure largely in Ultra-Orthodox Judaism. But they didn't seem to mind Kitty, which I took, like the scooters, as a sign of uncharacteristic liberality.

     I must be getting thick-skinned in my old age, but I cared not a whit what any passing Northbrookites might think to see me putting on phylacteries in the street. I repeated the half-remembered prayers after Elchonon's prompting.

     Truth is, over the past years, I've soured a bit on the Lubavitch, as the New York Times documented how their East Coast schools fail miserably when it came to non-Talmudic subjects like science and math. A shonda fur die goyim. Religion should expand a person's scope, not clap him in blinders. And the Ultra-Orthodox have been cheerleaders for right wing nationalism, at home and in Israel. Not the spirit of Adonai as I understand it. What good is Judaism if it's just another brand of oppression?

      That said, the home team has been suffering enough lately, as the hostility being firehosed toward Israel for defending itself splashes Jews in general, many of whom were pretty down on the country before, for picking a Trumpish criminal and self-dealing stooge like Benjamin Netanyahu to lead it. If I had to choose which is a more pressing priority, crushing Hamas or tossing Netanyahu into the dustbin of history, I'd say both are important, though maybe not in that order. 

    Anyway, Elchonon — sounds almost Spanish, doesn't it? El Chonon! — handed me a little brochure analyzing this week's parsha — the portion of the Torah read in synagogue. Regarding burnt offerings in the Temple 3,000 years before the latest group who showed up and announced the land is theirs and the Jews should quietly die where they stand or go live someplace else, far, far, away. In your dreams...

     He asked where I lived, and I pointed toward my house, already worrying about weekly visits — I suppose I could just tell him to scram, though that seems unkind. The news being what it is, we Jews need to hang together or eventually, to paraphrase Ben Franklin, we'll run the risk of hanging separately. It's happened before.

We love and value you — whoever you are

     Humans and machines ... they're not the same yet, right? We recognize a difference.
     A big difference, in my estimation. The difference between a plumber at your door and frantically thumbing through a fix-it manual. The difference between a lover and pornography. A very big difference.
     Maybe the distinction is hiding in plain sight, overlooked in the general hurrah for artificial intelligence. The chasm, still, between something from a real person and something from an algorithm. Or is that an antique distinction?
     Last Saturday I received an email from CHICAGO SUN-TIMES MEDIA INC. It read:

     "Happy 37th Work Anniversary Neil Steinberg! Congratulations on another successful year with CHICAGO SUN-TIMES MEDIA INC. Your dedication and hard work continue to inspire us. Here's to more achievements and growth in the coming years!"
     Time to play "You be the Columnist." Reading that, I felt a) embraced, recognized and loved by my bosses and peers; b) slightly amused and a little impressed that someone would bother programming this generic boilerplate flattery into the payroll system to be automatically spat out on anniversaries or c) a blast of chill wind blowing across the barren hearth of modern life.
     Hint: Not "a."
     Perhaps in recognition of that third choice, there was, below the email, a big orange button reading "See who's Celebrating." Click it, and you're brought to Paylocity, the payroll system. In case anyone was so moved, a few helpful hints were offered. "Happy anniversary!" "Congrats!" "Appreciate You!" and "Thank You!" and a counter showing "0 Comments."
     This isn't a complaint. I don't believe, while plugging my hours into the payroll system, I've ever noticed, never mind clicked, to wish a colleague "happy anniversary." My guess is they aren't crying in their pillows.

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"A little somethin' you can't take off."

    "But I do have one question," Aldo the Apache asks the Jew Hunter at the end of "Inglourious Basterds. "When you get to your little place on Nantucket Island, I 'magine you're gonna take off that handsome-lookin' S.S. uniform of yours, ain'tcha?... That's what I thought. Now that I can't abide... I mean, if I had my way... you'd wear that goddamn uniform for the rest of your pecker-suckin' life."

    Quentin Tarantino's violent revenge fantasy about World War II ends up with the Nazi villain having a swastika carved on his forehead, or as Lt. Raine puts it: "a little somethin' you can't take off."

    I thought of that moment when Ronna McDaniel was trounced out of NBC News after four days trying to pass as a journalist. The former chairwoman of the Republican National Committee thought she could shed her Trump-coddling, election-denying, democracy-shredding raiment and simply rejoin polite society. And, sadly, the out-of-touch NBC brass hoped she could too, briefly. Imagined McDaniel might provide some of that good old fashioned Red State perspective, make the case for lies and delusion, maybe snag a few viewers drifting away from Fox News.

     But legitimate NBC journalists rebelled, on air. Thank God. That's how it should be. Some things cannot be forgiven. Maybe casting a ballot for Trump two or three times, in the privacy of the voting booth, can be reframed as a secret shame. But at some point, as you rise up the ladder in the pyramid of cowards, quisling and craven opportunists, you lose the chance to walk away from your treachery. At some point you end up in the dock in a plexiglas booth.

     And if you're hung up on my comparing Nazis to MAGAzis, well, tough. Get over it. Or don't. The common element is clear — an identical ability to suspend decent moral values. To be blind to ethical duty. To confuse right and wrong. To hurt innocents and call it purity.

      Those who love America should, at some point, state the obvious: that denying the rule of law is unforgivable. That being a dupe in service of a fraud, year in and year out, in spite of clear, enormous evidence, is unforgivable. That rebelling against our country is unforgivable. Betraying our nation to despotic foreign enemies is unforgivable. 

     I'm sick of the media pretending otherwise. Pretending there is a balance. There is no balance. Joe Biden isn't perfect: he's old. He's a political hack. But he also could live to be 105 and he would still never become a seditionist. Never become a liar, bully, fraud and traitor. There is no comparison. The Trump enormity is clear, or should be clear, and those who don't get it, who willfully refuse to understand, should know they are following him down. 

     They should know that when he loses — as he will — they lose too. They have already lost. Now and forever. They can't just shower off their infamy and try to reclaim a spot at the table of the decent. Not at my table anyway. They can take their red baseball cap and stow it, lovingly, in a closet. And while it's a shame Aldo Raine can't take his gleaming bowie knife and carve, "MAGA" on their foreheads, it will still be there, nevertheless, for those of us who can't help but see it. Some stains never wash off. If you don't like it, well, you should have thought of that when you began betraying your country. Too late now.

Flag burning IS free speech — so is sham patriotism

 

A U.S. flag is retired by burning in 2018. The U.S. Flag Code states that worn-out flags “should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.

     Monday, June 16, 1997, was memorable for two reasons.
     First, my younger son was born that afternoon. The nurse toweled him off, handed him to me. I gazed down and thought — sorry, buddy — "He looks just like Edward G. Robinson." Truly, there should have been the tiny stump of a cigar hanging off his quivering lower lip.
     The other memorable event was that morning, the start of what began as a regular workday. I was having breakfast downtown with U.S. Rep. Luis Gutiérrez. You'd think the life-changing event later that day would have wiped out any memory of what we discussed. But it didn't. Our exchange stuck with me.
     Flag burning was in the news. Congressional action pending. I was surprised that Gutiérrez, a Democrat and supposed champion of liberal causes, would not oppose any ban. He explained that a Chicago TV station had a video clip of him, talking into a microphone at a forgotten 1970s protest rally where, behind him, somebody set fire to an American flag. If he opposed the latest government attempt to bunch the flag into a ball and jam it down the throats of protesters, that video would be disinterred and aired.
     Not a profile in courage. It burned into my memory, because of the visceral disgust I felt. Really? You'd stand, hands in your pockets, gazing at the sky and whistling while free speech gets mugged in an alley? So you don't risk looking bad?
     Thus I can't stand by while 25th Ward Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez gets beat up for appearing at a rally outside City Hall after a U.S. flag was burned. Ald. Chris Taliaferro (28th) and "quite a few" of his colleagues are considering censuring Sigcho-Lopez. I bet they are. Flag-waving theatrics are the go-to move of Trumpies who think that if they smooch Old Glory long enough, then their betraying every value America represents will be OK.
     Let's be crystal clear. Setting flags on fire isn't the issue. Every VFW hall has a special bin where used American flags are to be deposited, later to be burned, with respect. It's burning a flag without respect, as a protest — aka free speech — that twists my-way-or-the-highway false patriots into a knot.

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Nowruz celebration

           Northeastern Illinois University student Tahmina Herewaie holds the Afghan flag,
                  joined by other Afghan Refugee Transition Program scholarship students.

     The upside of my job is that I get to go interesting places. The downside is that when at those places, I am always working. At some level. Since literally any experience can be captured, retained, understood, synthesized, and shared with others, I need to be always on, listening, taking notes, looking around, processing. Or at the very least the pilot light has to be lit, waiting, ready to leap into action.
     It gets tiring. Sometimes you want to stop, put your pen down, shut your brain off, and live. Like last Thursday night. The Afghan sisters whom I wrote about earlier this month, doing their paperwork at a Loop law firm invited me to attend a celebration of Nowruz — the Persian New Year observed by communities from Albania to Iran— at their school, Northeastern Illinois University. 

      It didn't seem a particularly compelling story — Students Celebrate Holiday With Food. But they invited me. It seemed to mean something to them, and to me too, being invited somewhere, not by an organization, but by a person. So I said I'd go, representing the newspaper at an event held by a growing ethnic community. Colorful Afghan dress was involved, so I assigned a photographer.
     I asked my wife to come along — she is an alumnus of NEIU and hadn't been back since she graduated, decades ago. She agreed. 

     In researching what I was going to — "Nowruz" means "New Day" in Persian and falls on the spring equinox — I came upon a video from Disney, of Mickey Mouse explaining Nowruz. No wonder the Republicans are so mad at Disney, treating other people's faiths as if they have value too.

     Dinner was late — after 7, because it is Ramadan, and devout Muslims can't eat until after sundown. It can be a struggle — someone I was talking to checked his watch as we spoke, said something about Ramadan and bolted for the buffet table. My wife urged me to go up and eat. "I'm not pushing ahead of people who've been fasting all day," I said, keeping my seat, waiting for everybody else to get up first. 

     The grub was worth the wait — succulent chicken kebabs and rice, Jerusalem salad and pita bread, custard and cookies and haft mewa, a traditional Nowruz dessert of nuts and fruit in rose water. 
     Several NEIU officials said hello. Handshakes and introductions. I briefly sat down next to a sociology professor, here to support a student in his class. We talked, but nothing noteworthy came of it. There was music, and poetry, some in English, some in Dari. There was a dramatic moment when some of the young women present, dressed in flowing Afghan outfits, marched in waving an Afghan flag to a stirring patriotic song, Watan Ishq Tu Iftikharm ("Love of my homeland is my pride") and I slipped over, knelt down, took a couple photos.

    Back at the table, taking in general vibe. listening to poetry in a language I don't understand, I had a moment to reflect, yet again, how everybody is pretty much the same: glad to be in this country but proud of where they, or their parents or grandparents, came from. And that thing right wingers are so terrified of — a diverse nation welcoming all sorts of people who get to live their lives, even if those lives are markedly different than the general flow— is a very desirable dynamic and an economic necessity to boot. These red staters are afraid of the very thing that actually does make American great.
     After 90 minutes my wife noted it was getting late, and I went over to offer my thanks and goodbye to one of the sisters, who was so surprised I was leaving that I worried that I'd committed some kind of gaffe. Then she asked when I would be writing something about Nowruz, and I paused. "Never," caught in my throat. But that lit the fuse. Honestly, I didn't think about it again until yesterday, looking through my photos for something to write about today, and saw the shot above of that statuesque young woman waving a flag, and said to myself, "Heck, maybe I could put a few words together; it is the New Year, after all. Why not welcome it in a spirit of generosity?"