Old Man Winter, on the march

Halloween past, Autumn has definitely given up the ghost, and Winter is well on its way. I'm near the end of my biking season, just because it gets too sloppy and crazy as Winter comes on the scene. Yesterday I had 30 mph wind gusts hitting me on the ride down and back, which makes for a challenging ride (given that my top biking speed is about 12 mph!)

I have the boys the next two weekends, because of Exene's running obsession err, hobby. I'm fine with that, and the boys are fine with that; they love "Daddy Weekends." B2 always hugs me lots when he first sees me again, says "I love you, Daddy! I missed you!" which is always touching. When they found out they had a cluster of Daddy Days, they were stoked.

Exene is actually going out of town next weekend, on a trip with one of her "gal pals" as she puts it. Running another race. I told her I'd be fine with watching the boys, so long as I get equivalent "comp time" at some point. Not that I have any travel plans, but I just always have to be sure for reciprocity, where Exene is concerned.

Anyway, as biking season nears an end for me, it'll mean taking the CTA, which is fine, but it'll be an added expense I have to factor into my already-packed budget. That was the nice thing about the biking -- free transportation (and I worked my exercise into my commute). As Winter kicks into gear, it'll mean X expense, moneywise, and me having to block out more time for exercise. Ah, well. Not complaining, just aware of the options ahead of me.

Of course, I never actually complain about the weather; it simply is. And since Fall/Winter is prime Writing Season for me, I welcome it, honestly. If I lived in Hawaii, I'd never get a damned thing written, would just drink rum and walk the beach, collecting shells, or hike around the volcanoes and in the jungles. But living in Chicago, the bad weather is an incentive to create, honestly. And so, I will.

Olive Park, right near Navy Pier.

Scuffles, Sniffles, and Skittles

Poor B1 tripped (or was tripped; still trying to suss that out) at the playground yesterday, and scuffed up his face. He has a scrape on his cheek and across the bridge of his nose. Poor lil' scamp looks like a boxer! He's okay, otherwise. I'm just glad that he didn't crack any teeth. Lordy. When B1 falls, he's like a tree being felled -- he never manages to get his hands out to catch himself.

Got a flu shot the other day. Woo hoo! We'll see if I get the flu. Any time I get that shot, I eventually catch the flu. Fucking flu!

The boys were too jaded to go trick-or-treating on Halloween! After hitting the business districts in our 'hood over the weekend, when Halloween came, I asked'em if they were up for it, and they were both "Meh." I'm old-school in my trick-or-treatery, so I was like "Really? Not even for more candy?" and they were like "Nah, we have enough candy." Wow!

Space Bridge Too Far

Watching the original "Transformers" now and again with the boys, I keep wondering: why the hell did the Autobots never build their own space bridge? How is it that the Decepticons had no problem whipping one up, but the Autobots never were able to? Are the Decepticons more intelligent? I mean, who designed their space bridge, anyway? For all the engineering acumen of Wheeljack and Ratchet, who is their equivalent among the Decepticons? I dunno. All I know is that the Decepticons sure seem sharper than their Autobot enemies.

You Don't Know Jack-O'-Lantern

I carved pumpkins with the boys tonight. Obviously, I do the carving, but B1 was great about helping scoop out the guts, and B2 was having fun hanging out and watching us and offering commentary. Here are our results, which the boys were well-pleased with...

I like to pretend that the green turban squash one is some kind of monster fish-man one.

Hello? Daylight Savings?

Man, I really wish they'd shift the Daylight Savings Time date back to what it was before GW Bush set it for; it sucks to have everything so dark in the morning. It makes it hard to get the boys up and at'em.

I had weird dreams last night, like stuff with a ventriloquist's dummy (never a good sign in a dream, right? Sheesh) I can only remember some of it, but it was like being in the basement of this place with this guy with a dummy, and somebody walked up and muttered to me "You know, the DUMMY is the one doing the thinking, here, not the GUY." And then when the guy was talking to me, I was wondering that, and was keeping an eye on the creepy dummy.

Had some other weird dream that flowed from that one, but I forget what it was, now.

Gonna pick up some pumpkins today for the boys and me to carve. They're stoked about that.

Musica

This was a good piece...

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/27/have_wilco_and_radiohead_become_the_new_adult_contemporary/

Birthdaze

Today's Exene's birthday. She turns the big 42 today! I'm sure she'll celebrate with her "gal pals" and assorted running chums. I have the boys for the next few days, so I'm not sure what I would do with the birthday thing, vis-a-vis them. I mean, I know that were today my birthday, and Exene had the boys, I know she'd not do anything for me (in the sense of telling the boys it was my birthday, or having them sing Happy Birthday), so I guess I won't do the equivalent. It's hard to know the route to go with that -- all too often, I would "play nice" without a hint of reciprocity. So, in the wake of that, I'll just maybe mention it in passing. I'm sure Exene will be keen to remind the boys, one way or another, anyway.

So, it looks like the police are clamping down on OWS in many places. I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner. Maybe the authorities realize so many people are pissed that they tried to let people let off steam before taking action. Not sure. The thing is, structurally, nothing has changed -- everything that has boned the economy, has mortgaged our future, has held all the politicians captive -- all of that is still in place. While it is good that people are actually bestirred to get pissed, the changes required for our country are huge. I've said it before, but a lot of heads are going to have to come out of countless asses for real progress to be achieved in this country. Much of that involves breaking the Beltway Consensus -- the staid duopoly that keeps 99% of the country screwed for the gain of 1%. The things that need to be done aren't getting done, and won't be getting done. And what that means for the future, in a democratic society, is more protest. A lot more. OWS is really just a preview of what's in store. I mean, the economy is still crap -- the Republicans have their anti-immigration initiatives that are already causing bad effects in their states (by scaring off the immigrants who were willing to work the shit jobs for low wages that Americans won't take because they don't pay nearly enough). The Democrats are nearly as captive to Wall Street as the GOP. Really, what we have seen in the past decade is the triumph of Capital over Democracy, and you have people finally waking up to that cold reality.

What do you do in a country where 400 people are worth more than 150 million of their fellow Americans? How is that democratic? It's not. It's plutocratic. You can propagandize those 150 million so they feel like they have something in common with the 400 -- but propaganda doesn't fill an empty stomach. That might only bamboozle, what, 3 million of them. What about the rest? No, it's untenable.

Americans never like to talk about class -- we like to pretend that we're all Americans, immune from history. But a system where 400 > 150,000,000? Democratically speaking, it's not sustainable. Especially when those 400 enjoy far more political and economic voice than the 150 million. Telling those 150 million "You suck. Go get a job, Hippie!" isn't actually going to solve anything. It doesn't speak to the daily reality for those people. And in an economy driven by consumer spending (around 70% of it), it's very clear that those 400 people cannot possibly consume enough to lift the economy up. At some point, those 150 million will have to be helped, and in a meaningful way.

I saw the other day that real wages have stagnated for 50 years. And this was in a business magazine. That means that the late time people enjoyed actual, tangible buying power for their dollar was in 1961 -- that pay levels have plateaued since then. It's why food costs crush people, housing costs, car expenses, all of that. It's why people went to two-economy households to try to make ends meet. It's reflective of the declining power of the working class relative to the owning class.

And, I know, a segment of the owning class likes to say "Tough shit. You suck, Po'folks." But it's not a productive or constructive stance to take. Not when you're outnumbered 375,000 to 1. Think of that. Each of those 400 equals 375,000 other Americans, in terms of economic power and clout. It's not sustainable. The amount of police and military repression required to keep those people at bay? Too much. It'll destroy everything our society thinks it's about.

Or, we just give up on the notion of having a democratic society entirely, or become a hollowed-out, democracy-in-name-only kind of nation. Really, we're there already; it's just that most people don't realize it. If we really move into a postdemocratic future, then all pretense toward justice, fairness, equality before the law -- that all gets tossed aside. The rich will hunker down behind their walls, with paramilitary protection, and the impoverished hordes will mill about outside said walls. The sad truth of that is that neither group is free in that situation.

No, OWS is just a preview of what's to come. A last, peaceful gasp of a dying order. Rough times ahead for the country -- and that goes for the rich few as well as the poor multitudes.

Damned Right!

I saw The Damned at Metro last night, part of their 35th Anniversary Tour. Was glad to have caught them, since they still have it! They turned out a great show, covering their debut album ("Damned Damned Damned") and their "Black Album," their fourth album. They looked good, sounded good, and seemed to be having a good time, although, sadly, no Rat Scabies on the drums. I was right near the front and center, and it was slamdance-tastic! Yes, I still call it "slamdancing" -- moshing is what Metalheads and Grunge kids do, and only after Punks first came up with slamdancing! Bahah!

They were one of THE seminal Punk bands of old...

Dave Vanian, frontman, working his mojo.

Captain Sensible and Dave Vanian.

Amusingly enough, I got caught in this cellphone clip during the show -- I called out "Love Song," which they then played; you can see Captain Sensible pointing to me when they call out the title, and you can see me in the clip!

At the end of the show, this drunk-as-a-skunk guy was lamenting loudly that they didn't play "I Just Can't Be Happy Today," and I said "Yeah, I wanted that one, too." and the guy shook my hand, said "Thash MY theme song, Man." and he introduced himself, said "Jesh wanned to say yer a real snappy dresser, Fella." Bahah! I said "Thanks!" as I was leaving. I normally would never wear a tux to a fucking show, but for the Damned, it kind of demanded it, especially with it being so near Halloween. As I left, I saw one other guy wearing a bowtie -- his girlfriend pointed to me, and he said "Hey, I thought I was the only one!" and I just whooped and pointed to my skull-and-crossbones bowtie...

Yo

Youngstown gets a nod in this SALON article (in fact, two out of three of the cities referenced are in Ohio...

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/25/occupying_the_rust_belt/

Occupation with an expiration date

Youngstown, Ohio, is an elegiac city a few hundred miles to the west of Allentown. What was once the manufacturing district  is a mausoleum of industry. A brick smokestack stands sentinel over acres of cavernous shells that once poured out streams of goods. Crumbling brick buildings sprout trees two stories up, while inside pancakes of concrete drip toward the ground, suspended precariously by a bramble of rusted rebar.

Demolition is one of the few signs of economic life. Starting in 2006, the city tripled its budget for razing abandoned buildings. In an open-air yard in the industrial quarter, heavy machines whine and billow exhaust as they pound large concrete slabs, surrounded by small mountains of rubble sorted according to size.

With more than 43 percent of the land vacant, Youngstown is slowly being erased. In some neighborhoods boarded-up houses and empty lots island the remaining inhabited homes, which shrink behind spreading foliage lest they be next.

Since 1950, the population has declined from a high of 218,000 to less than 67,000 today. The poverty rate is a stratospheric 32 percent, and the median value of owner-occupied homes is a paltry $52,900. Manufacturing dropped from 50 percent of the workforce in 1950 to 16 percent in 2007. This includes a staggering loss of 31 percent of manufacturing jobs in the region from 2000 to 2007 – and that wasbefore the economy fell off the cliff.

At the downtown crossroads, Occupy Youngstown has taken up position in the shadow of three different banks, including a Chase branch. The occupation is a latecomer, having started on Oct. 15, with a rally more than 400 strong at its peak, according to Chuck Kettering Jr., an aspiring actor who has been unemployed for a year from his previous position as an HVAC technician.

“We were once a huge steel city for America,” says the cherubic, 27-year-old Kettering. “In the 1970s they started closing up all our steel mills, taking all the jobs and shipping them down south and overseas where labor is cheaper. Youngstown’s been a city that has been going through this economic struggle for almost 40 years now, and I think we have a valid voice of addressing these issues on a national scale.”

His family is living proof of the toll of deindustrialization. In a phone interview, Chuck Kettering Sr. calls himself “the poster boy for the Rust Belt.” A Youngstown native, he went to work in 1973 at age 19 and worked at two local U.S. Steel plants that shuttered, one in 1979, the other in 1982. Next, he landed a position with Packard Electronics in 1985 making electrical components for GM cars. After GM spun off Delphi in 1999, Packard was subsumed by the auto-parts maker. The company started moving jobs overseas.

“Local operations were pressured by wages, and most operations moved south of the border” because of NAFTA, he says. Following Delphi’s bankruptcy in 2008, Kettering and some co-workers were given a one-time chance to work for GM itself and keep their wages, benefits and pensions.

“It was a no-brainer,” he says, but their seniority did not transfer to plant assignments. Despite nearly 25 years at Packard and Delphi, Kettering says, “I found myself at the age of 54 starting at the bottom, working alongside 21-year-olds trying to keep up on the line. Many of us who transferred were not spring chickens and it was hard to keep up.”

His wife, hired by Packard in 1979, worked her way into management, was forced to retire after 30 years with a monthly pension that was slashed in half to $1,600 and with expectations of further cuts. Now he’s on disability.

“I’m really proud of our local guys,” he says. “The police and the firefighters really support the occupy movement. Our mayor supports it. We have a united front here in Ohio.”

Unlike the seven other occupations I have visited, Occupy Youngstown embraces electoral issues. Kettering and other occupiers wave signs and wear buttons opposing Issue 2, which would strip some 350,000 public sector workers of collective bargaining rights.

Karen Joseph, a soft-spoken 59-year-old mother of two whose family spends one-third of its household income on health insurance, is by no means the only one who is against Issue 3, which would exempt Ohio from the incoming national healthcare law.

Everyone is against privatizing the Ohio Turnpike, which is being pushed by Republican Gov. John Kasich. All the occupiers we talk to express dismay at the prospect of hydrofracking in Mill Creek Park, which Kettering describes as “the jewel of the area with waterfalls, streams and lots of wildlife.”

This occupation comes with an expiration date. The city asked the occupiers to “take down the tents before business hours on Monday, Oct. 17, when the banks were opening,” according to Chuck Kettering Jr. He says they complied, but Occupy Youngstown still maintains a 24-hour presence and has pledged to do so until Nov. 8, Election Day.

Tired

I saw "Rubber" (2010) this evening, which was billed as a horror comedy, but it annoyed me. It's basically about a killer tire. A tire comes to life and kills and kills and kills again. Now, I'm willing to go with that, sure, but the way the director (who also wrote it -- always a potential danger sign: too much creative power concentrated in one pair of hands) ran with it, it was just pretentious, unfunny, and un-horrific. It seems ridiculous to complain about a movie about a killer tire failing to meet one's expectations, but I think that's what the moviemaker was taking refuge in, that the concept was so "original" and "ridiculous" that he would be given the latitude to make a bulletproof movie.

I mean, there were some good shots, good use of visuals, and even some decent enough characterization (I know, I know) of the tire. But there was so much absurdist bullshit the writer-director threw into the mix that it scuttled what was good about the movie.

First, it wasn't remotely scary. Gory, certainly, but not scary. The tire makes various things explode with this psychokinetic powers (yes). Again and again. Mmmkay.

Second (and more damning), there was this ridiculous "fourth wall" bullshit going on, with the director talking through some of the characters directly to the audience -- and some of the audience were themselves spectators within the movie, who were busy watching and commenting on what was going on, Beavis & Butthead-style. That was just beyond pretentious bullshit, in my view. Like the writer-director wasn't confident enough in his work to let it stand on its own merits, he had to create a Greek Choir of "Spectators" commenting on the movie-within-the-movie (until they are nearly all poisoned midway through). These Spectators act as mediators of sorts, trying to either shape audience reaction to the movie, or else lampoon the audience, the equivalent of the writer-director flipping the audience off.

Third, for a horror-comedy, it wasn't nearly funny enough. So, in addition to being un-scary, it was unfunny, to boot. Like an asshole onstage trying to juggle and not being able to do it, and saying "Wait, I'll get it this time" and dropping plate after plate. It wasn't funny. It was weird, might even had pretensions toward zaniness (always what people opt for when they can't find the funny -- just as people opt for gore when they can't find horror or terror).

Fourth, the movie forced the viewer to swallow far too many conceits -- it's why you don't see alien zombie movies, or racing movie family dramas where somebody dies of a lingering illness. Aliens, sure. Zombies, sure. But don't put alien zombies in one movie, because it's asking the audience to suspend too much disbelief. This movie had:

1) a sentient, ambulatory, killer tire
2) which developed psychokinetic powers
3) and characters that addressed the audience directly, breaking the Fourth Wall
4) and another group of characters as Spectators who were stand-ins for the audience

That's just too much to put in one movie. Too many concepts stacked atop one another. There's a reason why they call it "High Concept" and not "High Concepts."

Bullshit movie. It didn't have to be -- even with such a ridiculous premise -- but the writer-director made it so. I knew, even without seeing the credits, that it was a French director. I actually love French moviemaking, but I can tell a French aesthetic in a movie when I run across it, especially a French Absurdist aesthetic. But, as crazy as it sounds, there is Absurdism and there is absurdity, and it's like the difference between good wine and grape juice. This movie was grape juice that thought it was fine wine.

It wasn't as smart, funny, silly, or scary as it thought it was. Flat tire. It's that pretentious. Not completely bereft of merit, but only in terms of technique, not in terms of story or good moviemaking in general. The moment the writer-director had a character addressing the viewer, directly (and, the audience's proxies in the form of these Spectators), I was like "Oh. No." Complete bullshit.

Ridin' the storm out

They opened the lake shore bike/jogging path in the wake of that gale we had (for lack of a better term). Pretty amazing damage was done all along the length of it, so those waves had to be something to see. At least 30 to 40 feet away from the shore, there was profound damage. A length of fence was crushed, too, all from the force of the waves (and, again, we're talking about 40 feet away at that juncture). Impressive and awe-inspiring amounts of force. There were big slabs of asphalt on the path, having been ripped out by the wave action. The city's been dealing with that pummeling for a long, long time, and the civic engineers know what to do about it, but it's still amazing to see the damage done. There's also an effective sand trap in place at Oak Street Beach, where copious sand had piled up along the path, making it particularly dicey riding.

But, in the wake of that big storm that blasted through here, it's a pretty nice day -- great light, and an imminent late autumn/early winter chill in the mix.

Today is B2's 6th birthday! Little man is becoming a big boy! B1 and I sang "Happy Birthday" to him this morning, which he clearly enjoyed (B1 was especially cute, hugging his baby brother -- B1's such an affectionate and loving big brother; B2 is so lucky to have him). The boys are with Exene tonight, so she'll likely do whatever birthday stuff she had lined up. I'm doing something for B2 over the weekend, including baking him a lemon cake, since he loves lemon cake. Also, I'm getting him a Lego set he's been wanting for, I dunno, six months. Perfecto!

Tomorrow'll be a busy day, as I'm doing a big grocery run, and, as I said, a birthday run for B2. Plus, I have some miscellaneous workaday errands to run, just stuff to take care of, that kind of deal.

Some of Chicago's homeless sell "Streetwise" -- it's a newspaper they sell in an attempt to make a bit of money. "Streetwise" vendors are ubiquitous in the city. Anyway, there's one who's a regular in my neighborhood, and he's clearly a guy who has had a tough life; you can just tell. Maybe a Vietnam War-era vet, that kind of thing. I usually give him a spare buck when I see him (that's the price of a copy of "Streetwise") but I always tell him to keep the issue. He recognizes me, usually says "Thanks, my big brother." One time, when I had the boys with me, and B2 was wearing his leather jacket and had his shades on, he called B2 "Hollywood," which amused me. Even now, B2 has that vibe. The kid has IT. He's got that presence. I would never, ever want him to be a child star, wouldn't be that kind of a parent, but I'll encourage him to do theatrical stuff while in school, and when he's 18, he's welcome to go do acting, if he wants. He'd be good. I still remember him role-playing a statue -- gosh, how old was he? Three? He let his face go blank, held himself perfectly still. It was so cute.

The other day, he was doing a voice for a character, and I said "Wow, that's great, [B2!] So actorly." and then he tried a few other things, and said "How about that, Daddy? Is THAT actorly?" Cracks me up to hear a kid asking that. Next I'll have him asking me what his motivation is for a scene. I can actually help him with that stuff, in my way, since I did some improv stuff in the 90s, have at least the rudiments of constructing a scene and what-not.

Really, B2 is too smart to be an actor. I mean, he might do it because he's good at it, but I can see him doing far more than that, down the road, because he's so sharp. His facility with language is amazing, and his understanding of people and situations is preternatural. And he knows it, the lil' stinker.

Anyway, this is his day, Birthday Boy. Same birthdate as Carrie Fisher. God help me. The Force is strong in this one! Bahah!

Another Ghost Walks These Halls

The traumatic thing I alluded to the other day (10/17), well, the person who had triggered that died. I found out late yesterday. So, she died two days after I saw her. Out of respect for the person's privacy, I won't go into details, but I definitely can say that having been in the same room with that person two days ago, death was very clearly in the room. And a bad death it was. My stepdad would always say that death was either the fulfillment of your dreams (assuming paradise and afterlife) or, if nothing else, the cessation of pain and suffering. In the case of this person, I can only assume the latter, but it sucks, because that person was suffering pain for months before her end, and the collective failure of her significant other and her family to take care of her in that time hangs like a shadow over her last days. She was semi-friends with Exene, and had called Exene for help the other day, and Exene had done so, but had needed my help, too, because she wasn't strong enough to move the dying woman, so I helped. I ran into her significant other the day before yesterday, and he'd thanked me for helping out in an "Aw, shucks" kind of way, and I just choked out "Yes, it's a terrible scene." I wanted to ask him why he wasn't there, but didn't. The whole situation was bad, and I can't talk about it without going into a lot of context and back story, but I couldn't help but feel like the building had gotten itself another ghost with the passing of this woman. I don't believe in ghosts, but the pain and suffering of that woman haunts the hallways, all the same. I walk by their apartment and I grimace, because I can feel that. And since they have a child who is a year older than B1, who used to be a playmate of his, it compounds the suffering -- I can only imagine what that kid is feeling, how much emotional damage she's suffered from her father's criminal neglect (or, at best grotesque bungling) of the welfare of her mother, and how that all shakes out. The woman is dead, and I imagine they'll move out of there; I can't imagine them staying in that tiny apartment, now, in the wake of this.

I'm a compassionate soul, and my heart bleeds. I freely admit that. I feel every emotion keenly; I think it's part of my own artistic temperament. It informs my work, the ability to feel things keenly. But in matters of suffering and anguish, it's a double-edged blade, because I feel agony as much as the rest of the emotional palette. And to see what I saw the other day, to know that a person was in such dire straits, and with only so much I could do, it's haunting. Like I said, a ghost. Ghosts haunt that way.

Howling

I think we're going to get hammered, winterwise, this year.

At least here in Chicago. It's been nasty all day, big-time howling winds, rain. A late fall monsoon, practically. Fierce. Seems like it's a herald of imminent winter! I was walking downtown and the wind gusts were nearly strong enough to stop me, which usually means the gust are at least 60 mph. People's umbrellas were pulsating, hyperextending and snapping back into shape, and then back again. Raincoats are a must in Chicago; umbrellas are always dicey.