Street Jimmy was searching the garbage cans frantically when I pulled up to the bar yesterday afternoon. "I put a ice box in one of the cans and some mutha fucka went an' stole it."

  "Garbage cans aren't the safest places to hide stuff, at least not around here."

  Jimmy seemed  to take losing his mini ice box in stride. He said Gracie wouldn't let him in the bar, "she bein' mean to me today for no reason." When Jimmy followed me through the door Gracie screamed "Out"! 

  "He's with me."

  Gracie gave me a hard look. Sergio  was sitting in the corner next to the window talking to Ruben. Jimmy wanted some aspirin because he said he had a bad headache. When Street Jimmy asked for a beer and some chips Gracie screamed , "no". When Jimmy  turned to me for help I said, "I'll tell you what , if you proclaim that you're giving your soul to the devil I'll get you a beer and chips." Jimmy thought hard for a moment and then reluctantly said in a barely audible voice, "I gives my soul to the devil." 

  "I can't hear you."

  After some further hesitation Jimmy said in a louder voice, "I gives my soul to the devil."

  Sergio let out a yelp, "I heard that, you're fucked Jimmy, God ain't gonna let you in heaven now."

  After I gave Jimmy his beer and chips he said to Sergio, "I didn't really mean it."

  "Bullshit," Sergio answered , "you can't take your soul back from the devil once you give it. You're in deep shit."

  Jimmy insisted he was just kidding. He did, however, say his headache had disapeared. 

  I told him that Satan was a good move for him. "Satan always wins when he goes head to head with Jesus.  And look , your headache disappeared as soon as you gave the devil your soul." 

   Jimmy appeared perplexed. "I said it but I didn't mean it."

  Ruben shook his massive head sternly and told Jimmy, "you can't take it back. God's going to fuck you up good."

  While we were having this conversation Juke Box Joe, the Hansen Brothers, Hardware Joe, and Officer Bill came in. They'd just had  lunch at Gene and Georgetti's  ; they were celebrating Juke Box's 62 birthday. They all agreed that Street Jimmy was forever doomed.

  

  I made it over to Red Orchid at five to seven. All of the actors were assembled at a big table except for Lance, who was going to read the part of Blago. He arrived a few minutes later. I couldn't have hoped for a better first reading . Everyone was good, and Lance was outstanding. The actor that read Marky was also remarkable.  After the reading we all came over to the bar and had a few drinks. 

  This morning Street Jimmy was waiting for me outside the bar. He's quite a sight in his oversized black leather coat and matching leather and fur hat. He said he needed a dollar so he could get some breakfast at McDonold's . "I needs a cheese, bacon an' sausage breakfast sandwich."

  "Breakfast is the  most important meal of the day."

  Jimmy nodded, "sure 'nuff is. Las' night some big mutha fucka be hustlin' out front an' I told Hawkeye and Mike and they tol' me we both should leave, an' so I gots a stick and then Hawkeye tol' me not to hit the dude so I said I do it with my bare hands but then I remember you tol' me not to be fightin' in front of the lounge so's I didn' hit him. But Hawkeye's been bein' mean to me for no reason."

  I gave Jimmy a dollar and told him to have a nice breakfast. 

   When Faggypants arrived he said he had a marvelous sushi lunch down the street yesterday afternoon. 

  "I heard. Tobi said she saw you there when she went home."

  "I had the box lunch. It was great. Salmon and a bunch of other stuff and I brought my own wine, and with tip the whole thing only came to twenty dollars. I was the only person there."

  When I told Faggypants that I can't shake being tired all the time he said he's been tired too. "I think everybody's got the same thing."

  "Interesting."

  When Gracie arrived I told her to move her car around because I got a ticket for changing my neighborhood parking sticker from a seven to a nine and I noticed she got a ticket too. "You bring heat down on me by being so obvious."

  This made Gracie laugh, "you're blaming me for your ticket?"

  "Yes."

  Gracie laughed again.

When I awoke yesterday morning I felt a sore throat coming on. Not only was my throat scratchy, but I didn't have my usual pep and clarity of purpose. Being naturally stoic I hid my illness until Tobi finished the bar (it was only a week ago that I had an almost terminal case of gout). I then explained to her that I would have to retire once again to the Dunes to convalesce . She said that she had the same symptoms the previous day but after taking several naps felt fine. This is precisely what I did . Although I'm not one hundred percent this morning I think I'll be reasonably okay after another nap. I did, however, manage to study my play Cavity Search for tonights table reading at Red Orchid. As far as I'm concerned the play is brilliant; sometimes when you check out something you've written after a year or two it doesn't hold up; Cavity Search easily withstood the test of time. Of course I realize that it might fall apart once the words are spoken aloud, but I have great confidence in Mierka's ability to put together a top notch ensemble for the reading. If it doesn't sound right I will simply abort.

Speaking of Mierka, she apparently has a stalker. She thinks the stalker stole her phone and sent messages to all of her friends ; she says the messages had to be from someone who knew her. I tend to write this whole stalker situation off as Show Biz related; fans can often be completely nuts.

Tobi says that business was terrible yesterday. The severe winds and rain must have kept people home. I was awakened last night by several tremendous gusts. These spruce and pine trees are remarkably flexible . I just heard another branch snap off a minute ago. From my window the waves seem to be intent on wreaking havoc on whats left of the beach. Of course I will continue to be brave in the face of all this danger and adversity.

Street Jimmy came into the bar after the Bears game and said he was hungry. He seems conscious on some level that Tobi makes free food on days that there are Bear games. Midway through the fourth hot dog I gave him he nodded off. He's been on a crack rampage for the last several days as the cops haven't been chasing him off Wells Street like they normally do. After I woke him up for the second time he said he was going to take a nap at Starbucks . "It's cold outside, I slept there last night and it was nice an' warm." Earlier in the day he came in the bar and wanted to sell "real diamond jewelry". I told him to sell his diamonds elsewhere. Apparently he gave some thought to my dog analogy between him and Chilly Willy because before he left he said, " I'd rather be a pit bull than a little pussy ass terrier." Jimmy's been critical of Willy because he feels Willy lacks his ( Jimmy's) territorial instincts (keeping strange street bums out of their neighborhood) . The previous day I'd compared Willy to a Golden Retriever and Jimmy to a yappy terrier. For some reason this apparently stuck in Jimmy's brain.

This morning Faggypants said he was tired . "This dreary weather makes me drowsy. " Yesterday he had lunch at Olive Garden with his mom. He had a delicious pasta dish and his mom had something else that was also delicious. When I asked him what they talked about he shrugged his shoulders and said "just boring silly things." After lunch she dropped him off at a nice bar across from the Riverside Country Club so he could watch the Bear game. "It's a neat place, and beer is only two dollars. The guy I worked for at the car dealership owns it. I was shocked when I saw him there, and then he told me he owns the bar. I told everyone about the Ale House and they all want to come and see it."

Gracie was in a chipper mood. Apparently the dog show world has been rocked with a sex scandal and several of Gracie's arch enemies are central figures in it. Faggypants , after listening to her description of what took place said, "if you look at most famous people, or highly successful people, they all got to the top by sucking cock. It's no big whoop."

I told Faggypants that I think that was an over generalization, "every now and then talent plays a role in success."

Faggypants said lots of people are talented, "you've got to suck dicks to make it." No amount of arguing was going to change Faggypants' mind .

  Yesterday night Street Jimmy walked out of the cold rain that had been falling for several hours and into the bar. He was predictably wet, but didn't seem to be that upset about his drenched clothes. He had a buck and a half and wanted a beer. I told him to put the money on the bar for the bartender. After he pored out the coins into a confused pile,  I  gave the okay for one Millers . As he sipped his beer Jimmy wondered if I  would talk to Chilly Willy, "I been sleepin' over by Willy behind Burton and he don' chase away the niggers who be tryin' to come around."

  "Jimmy, he's not territorial like you are. He's more of a Golden Retriever, you're more of a Terrier. "  

  Jimmy thought about this for a moment, "jus' tell um' to keep the strangers from comin' around or they gonna fuck it up for us."

   "I don't think Chilly Willy gives a rats ass about what I think. By the way, did you sell that nice blue chair?"

  "Not yet."

  "Not yet? It's a big chair, where is it."

  "I gots it hid in the alley."

  "So now it's getting all wet and it'll be ruined. I can't believe you couldn't sell it."

  "I gots it protected from the rain."

  Jimmy asked Tim for some hot water. He had a bag of some kind of strange looking soup. As Jimmy pored hot water on the glob of white stuff he said that it only cost him 34 cents at Walgreens. "It's nutritious, and it's good on a rainy day. Sometimes thas' all I gots to eat. You gots to survive." He consumed the gooey mess with gusto. After he was finished Tim pointed out that he'd created a huge mess. Jimmy apologized sincerely. When I told Faggypants about the soup he said that the soup contained twenty-five hundred milligrams of sodium, which was three days worth for the normal person. Jimmy wasn't sure where he was going to sleep. I told him that they predicted it was going to keep raining all night.

   "Maybe I go to the airport."

  "That seems like a good idea. You can dry off  , you always get a good nights sleep at the airport, you watch some TV - "

  Jimmy was ambivalent.

    "I forget, you're going to need a couple more crack hits before you call it a day."

  Jimmy looked me in the eye, "I'm killin' myself."

  "Well, that's true, but given the alternatives, you might as well stick to your game plan."

  "I ain't always gonna be like this."

  "No , you'll die one of these days."

  When Jimmy left he seemed to be in fine spirits, the rain was not  going to spoil his Saturday evening activities, at least not if he had anything to say about it.

  This morning Faggypants arrived with a bad case of the shakes. He says he has to go right home because his mothers meeting him  at the Olive Garden in North Riverside. She insists they go out to dinner  together this afternoon. Faggypants said this is why he's got the shakes, not because he's hung over. So far he's had at least four beers and he's not even done mopping yet.

  Yesterday was hectic. Finished my painting of Mitt Romney in his Mormon Magic Underwear in Indiana, drove it back to the bar and hung it by four-thirty, and before I could sit down to admire it Mierka from the Red Orchid Theater came in and wanted to discuss my Blago play, Cavity Search. She's planning a reading Tuesday night. For several hours we discussed the play over cocktails and beer. Jimmy from Atalanta showed up with his side kick. He's an old friend , however, he got fucked up and started tossing the N word around and when he kept it up after I told him to desist, I threw him out. As far as I'm concerned he's out forever. I'm not much at forgiving. In a complete show of no class his friends stiffed the bartender. Fuck them all.

  Street Jimmy showed up just about the time Sue and Vastina , friends from the Dunes, arrived. I'd now been drinking for about five hours. Jimmy had a spiffy blue velvet easy chair he'd found somewhere. While he was in the bar discussing it's value, the Tamale Guy showed up, and seeing the chair he tried to stuff ito in his trunk. Jimmy caught him just in the nick of time. The Tamale Guy offered Jimmy two bucks for the chair, Jimmy went down from fifteen to five; no dice, Tamale Guy held firm and so Jimmy decided to lug the chair down to Marshall Field Apartments and sell it there.

   I didn't get home until after eleven and I was whipped.

  This morning Faggypants showed up in high spirits. He thinks he'll attend the movie Hugo, which is Scorcese's first 3 D movie. "Ebert gave it four stars, I can't wait to see it."

  "Hopefully you won't get fucked up and tossed in jail again." I went on to tell Faggypants that I'd discussed his case with Officer Bill and he said if the cop signed the complaint the cop has to show, but he agrees with me that the cab driver would be nuts to show up. There has to be a witness or the case will get tossed. 

  It turns out that Faggypants had not been entirely forthright with me about the details of his arrest. Gracie interrogated him thoroughly and got him to admit that before the cop got rough with him he did tell the cop that he thought he (the cop)  was "cute." He also admitted that the cop didn't step on his cell phone, that he actually left it in the cab. Of course the cab driver wasn't going to return it to him after he stiffed him out of his fare. When I told Faggypants that the cab driver probably immediately called Pakistan with Faggypants' lost phone he said he wasn't worried because it's a pre-paid phone and there was only about forty minutes left on it. "I had to call all of my friends and tell them that I wasn't dead. They were scared shitless. I"ll have to get another phone, but my old phone had all of my information on it."

  Gracie was going to a dog show this morning and I'm going to the Dunes and start working in oils; I have a tiny bit of trepidation  because it's been at least two years since I last used oils. The Romney pastel is brilliant and I am once again in awe of my genius.

  Tobi's Thanksgiving spread yesterday day at the bar was scrumptious. Beside the usual suspects there  was a handful of grateful strangers. Ruben Nine Toes promised his sisters that he'd let them pick him up and take him to the West Side for dinner. Ruben had refused to join them until all of his demands were met - chiefly that he be driven back to the bar before his brothers arrived. Ruben Nine Toes is estranged from his brothers and is incapable of forgiveness. From what Ruben tells me about his brothers swindling him out of money I can understand his anger. When he finally arrived he was not cheerful. After visits with his family Ruben Nine Toes can go into a funk lasting anywhere between two hours to two days. Fortunately by around nine PM he was his old self.

  Street Jimmy was in crack head heaven. No cops on Wells Street means Jimmy has carte blanche to panhandle in front of Starbucks to his hearts content. It seemed that just about every hour he was heading over to Sedgwick St to score for another hit of crack. In fact he was so busy that he forgot to stop by for turkey until it was all put away. In spite of my characteristic laziness  I roused myself from my bar stool and fixed him a plate of turkey , mashed potatoes, and stuffing from the back room. Jimmy seemed grateful and ate his meal with gusto.

  Faggypants was apprehensive when he arrived this morning. He is terrified with the idea of going to court. I tried to explain to him that if the cab driver doesn't show up he's got nothing to worry about. 

  "But what if they throw me in jail?"

  "The worst that could happen is a fine, and that's if the cab driver shows. Why would the cab driver waste a couple of hours out of his day over a three dollar fare? You're lucky the cop didn't give you a disorderly conduct."

  There was no reassuring Faggypants. He says I'm going to have to loan him money incase they fine him . He's going to need to get a new phone and a new ID. Faggypants makes poor decisions when he's drunk.

  Street Jimmy just came bouncing in the door of the bar while Juke Box Joe was describing his turkey day plans to us over a shot of Powers. Jimmy said he'd just left Haymarket Rehab . 

  This impressed me. "So in a single day you kicked your one-dollar a day crack habit." 

   This made Jimmy smile. "They said I gots 72 hours to come back. I had to get out on account of it was Thanksgiving."

  Juke Box told him to not even consider asking him for money. Jimmy smiled again, a bigger, wider smile,  and said , "but Joe, it be Thanksgiving." The discussion of crack made Joe recall seeing Richard Pryor after he'd set himself on fire free basing. The description of Pryor running down the street on fire cracked Jimmy up. "He be one funny  mother fucka, I loves Richard Pryor. " This reminded Jimmy of the time he was in a crack house and some dumb bitch set herself on fire smoking crack. "It was funny as hell, she be whooping and carryin' on ." Jimmy laughed for almost half a minute while he described the lady crack addict in flames. Joe didn't see the humor. Jimmy said you needed to be there to appreciate it.

  Gracie said to Jimmy , " guess who spent yesterday in jail?"

  Jimmy gave Gracie his full attention, "who?"

  "Guess?"

  "Faggypants?"

  Gracie nodded.

  Jimmy demanded details.

  "He smarted off to the cops. Told a cop to go fuck himself."

  "That's bad," Jimmy said knowingly, "he's lucky they didn't kill him. They beat your ass good for givin' 'em lip. They choke you and whip your ass."

  I said, "the reason they choke you, Jimmy, is to keep you from swallowing your stash."

  "Yeah," Jimmy nodded, "only I tells 'em it's too late 'cause I already gots it down."

  This intrigued Juke Box, " you swallow your stash?"

  "He can bring right back up when he wants to, can't you Jimmy?"

  Jimmy nodded.

  "I think that would put a damper on my high. I hate smoking crack after I've puked it up."

  Jimmy said it was no big deal.

   I told Jimmy that if he hadn't scored for any dinner to be back at three. He said Thanksgiving is a good day to hustle, "people's be generous."

   "Cool", I said bumping fists with him.

  Gracie detected something was amiss about three yesterday afternoon. Faggypants' mom had been calling for the last couple of hours looking for her son. Finally she said she received a call from Faggpants around three thirty. " He was obviously drunk and whispering because he was in a movie theater". The gist of what he was trying to tell her was that he thought he might need to stay at her house last night. 

  "I couldn't understand much of what he was saying," Grace told me after I sat down at the bar. "I've got his mothers phone number and I told him to call her. I don't want him showing up at my house in the middle of the night."

  "I could tell he was going to get in trouble when he brought a clean shirt with him this morning."

   Well, as it turns out Faggypants did get into trouble . Gracie called me at seven this morning to inform me that a totally shitfaced Faggypants had arrived at her house at  around three in the morning. He had gotten out of jail at one A.M. and of course he'd gone directly to the Ale House to knock down a few beers before calling it a night. "When do you want me to send him over to clean?"

  "Let him sleep another hour and a half. Why was he in jail?"

  "Something to do with a cab driver and the police. He snored all night and when he woke up he couldn't find the bathroom."

  Faggyants looked like a whipped dog when he arrived at the bar.

  "So," I said giving him a careful once over, "what happened?"

  Faggypants beat around the bush for a few minutes . He'd had a nice time watching the new George Clooney movie. "He's so good. Whenever Ebert gives a movie at least three and a half stars I know it's going to be good. Clooney is real handsome."

  "Yes, and so then what happened?"

  "I decided to take a cab to the train station because I was tired."

  "And were we drunk?"

  "A little."

  "A little?"

  "I had a bottle of whiskey."

  "Whiskey!"

  " A small bottle , and I mixed it with a big cup of  Seven Up."

  "So we've established that you were ripped, and then what?"

  "I got in the cab and told the guy to go left but he turned right so I screamed at him and told him to turn around and he didn't so I got out of the cab and he told me to pay him and I told him why should I pay you, you were going the wrong way. He was one of those Indian guys, and he said if I didn't pay him he'd call the cops so I said call the cops and he did and then two cops showed up , a guy and a woman, and then I told them what happened and they said I had to pay the guy, so I told the Indian to go fuck himself...." Faggypants paused for a moment.

  "So then what happened."

  "I probably made a mistake."

  "Really? What kind of mistake?"

  "I told the cop to fuck himself too."

  "That's almost always a mistake, so what did the cop do?"

  "He wanted to see my ID and when I told him I lost it he grabbed me and slammed me to the sidewalk and looked through my pockets."

  "Sounds bad."

  "Yeah, and then when I told him I wanted to call my lawyer he took my phone out of my pocket and stepped on it and smashed it into a million pieces. So now I don't have a phone."

  "What happened to your ID?"

  "I lost it a couple of days ago, I don't know where. I spent eight hours in the slammer. They put me in solitary confinement. I heard the cop that arrested me tell the jail cop that I told him to go fuck himself and the jail cop said, well, now he can go fuck himself." Faggypants did his best to giggle , but he couldn't manage it. He was clearly chastened. "I should never have told the cop to fuck himself, that was my mistake."

  "That was one of your mistakes. True, telling  the cop to fuck himself was not wise, you should have explained to him in a very polite way what had happened, they don't like cab drivers , but you had to be an asshole. Another mistake was drinking whiskey at the movie theater. Don't you usually drink wine?"

  Faggypants nodded ; he was clearly embarrassed by his behavior. "Look, " he said showing me his badly bruised wrist, "they wrote this number on my wrist."

  The number 263 was marked on his wrist in black ink. "Wow, your wrist is a mess."

  "So's the other one," he said displaying his other bruised wrist, "they put the handcuffs on really tight. I've never been to jail before. It was horrible. I kept tapping on the glass window and asking them when I was getting out. Finally a nice cop told me that he shouldn't be telling me anything but I'd be getting out in a couple of more hours. When they finally let me out the made us stand on these cement footprints and then they gave us our stuff back."

  "I thought you were in a cell all by yourself?"

  "I was, but there were two other little guys, they put the little guys in single cells, and they let us all out together. One of the other guys, a black guy, took his belt off and the cop screamed at him to show respect because there was a lady cop present and the black guy said, 'I'm just fixing my shirt', it was a nightmare."

  "What lessons did we learn?"

  "Never to tell a cop to go fuck himself." Faggypants almost managed a brief giggle but once again came up short.  

  When I realized Faggypants had not called his mother since his incarceration I insisted that he call her immediately.

  "I don't have a phone," he said defensively.

  "Here," I said handing him the bar phone.

  "I may have to lie," he said dialing his mom's number.

  He did lie. He told his mother that he'd stayed at his friend Scott's house and that he'd lost his phone and the reason he didn't use Scott's phone to call her was that he had fallen asleep and then I could tell that his mother was giving him the first degree and finally Faggypants started screaming at her that he had to work and she was making him nervous and he swore repeatedly that he'd meet her at the train at exactly ten thirty so that they could go to his brothers for Thanksgiving.

  After he hung the phone up Faggypants looked like a thoroughly beaten man. "God, she makes me so nervous." As he mopped the floor he described in more detail his ordeal with the police. I told him that I had no sympathy for him since he'd clearly provoked the cop. When I asked him if he'd seen Street Jimmy there he shook his head, "no, I didn't see Jimmy, the seem to put all of the mean looking black guys in one real big cell, I could see them out of my window. It's very scary in the big cells ." Faggypants said he'd put his best foot forward at Thanksgiving dinner.

  "I don't know," I said thinking about it, "why not tell them you were arrested at Occupy Chicago, and that you were screaming down with the banks and ten cops beat you up and arrested you , and then show them the number and your bruises. It would make for great table conversation, especially since your brothers are Republicans."

  Faggypants thought that was a bad idea. He immediately went into the restroom and tried to scrub the numbers off of his wrist. "It's still not all off , " he said emerging from the bathroom . His mother called three more times . Faggypants was worried about what was going to happen at his court date. "Do yo think I'll have to do time," he said showing me his arrest paper. 

  "No," I said reading the charge. "The drivers not going to blow two or three hours of his day just to show up. They'll probably toss the case. You're lucky they didn't give you a Disorderly Conduct because then if the cop showed up you'd have to pay a fine."        Faggypants gulped down four beers after he finished cleaning and then pulling himself together bid me farewell before he hurried off into gloomy morning in the direction of the El. 

   

  Since we've been having Thanksgiving at the bar life has become much simpler. No more driving to Michigan. One of my favorite Thanksgivings was one I spent in the late sixties while I was living in Berkeley. One of Indy's stripper friends suggested seeing the play "No Place To Be Somebody" which was playing at a theater in North Beach. I'd seen the playwrite, an older black guy name Charles Gordone , interviewed  on the local PBS TV station and after hearing him I wanted to see the play which had been imported from New York. The play had an all black cast , and took place in a bar. Halfway through the play, a very drunk Charles Gordone walked into the theater and sat down in front and immediately proceeded to start talking along with the actors. The actors seemed used to it. After the play we all went down the street to a bar called Vesuvios (which ironically is the very bar in which the original owner of the Ale House got his idea for designing the Ale House). No sooner had  we sat down (you guessed it) play write Gordone walked in. Of course I invited him to join us and he entertained us for three or four hours with NY theater stories. He even bought a couple of rounds. I especially enjoyed hearing about who was fucking who in that business they call show.

  Tobi just brought the first load of food over. A few minutes after she left Gracie and her dog arrived . Gracie wants me to finish my blog so she can get the dope on Faggypants jailhouse adventures.

  Clown looked a little rough around the edges this morning when he walked by the bar on his way to work . He had been drinking with Mrs Clown last night before he came into the Ale House. Hopefully Clown gets it together before he descends into his previous pattern of getting wrecked on work nights , eventually getting fired, and then concluding with another massive heart attack. Clown says Mrs Clown is sending her thoroughly rotten  children to NY to spend Thanksgiving with their relatives; this will allow Clown and Mrs Clown to spend a romantic Thanksgiving alone.  Of course this is code for an ensuing knock down drag out fight which will end up with one or both of them coming to the bar sometime Thursday to lick their respective wounds.  

   Street Jimmy tried to enlist Faggypants to his side in another one of our religious arguments, but Faggypants has renounced religion "except I do believe in spiritualality".

  When Jimmy insisted on Faggypants exlaining if there wasn't a god "then who made us," Faggypants embraced my argument, "then who made god, and then who made the guy that made god?"

  This is the question that always stumps poor Jimmy.

  "Let me ask you this my brother from a different mother," I said putting my newspaper aside, "now if some shit head soldiers told you to get up on some dinky cross so they can nail you to it, what are you going to do?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean I know you Jimmy, you're going to put up a fight. Right?"

  Jimmy nodded, "I guess."

  "Now just imagine your daddy was god, wouldn't you tell the soldiers that if they laid their grubby hands on you you'd have your all powerful daddy shoot a lighting bolt up their asses?"

  "Yeah, but he the Lord, he can't do shit like that."

  "Why can't he. He's all powerful, he can do anything he wants. He's got no problem giving little kids cancer, so why not fuck up Roman soldiers?"

  When Jimmy wanted to know what happens to you when you die Faggypants took over , "I do believe you have a spirt."

  This cheered Jimmy up, "you mean a soul."

  Faggypants wasn't prepared to go quite that far, but it seemed like a semantic argument at this point.

  "Gentleman," I said, "lets assume there is such a thing as a soul, so off it goes somewhere, big deal, the soul isn't going to get any pussy, it's not going to hang out in bars, in other words, the soul isn't going to have any fun, so who the fuck needs a soul?"

  This thoroughly depressed Jimmy to the point that he said he was going to the church to take a nap.

  "Remember," I said to Jimmy as he walked out the door, "when you get there , pray for my immortal soul."

  Jimmy paused for a moment while considering what I'd just asked him before grinning, "aw, go fuck yourself."

 

Stopped taking my gout medicine today. It was making me feel worse than the gout. This morning Street Jimmy was standing under the bars awning to protect himself from the rain when I pulled up. Faggypants was already inside cleaning . He said he'd been there since seven. Of course he was shitfaced. I let Jimmy inside because he was cold and wet. When Faggypants is whacked out of his mind this early in the morning I've often thought of obtaining a cattle prod or some similar shock device to bring him to his senses. Faggypants wanted to draw a picture of the missing goose on the blackboard and write something to the effect that we wanted it back no questions asked. I gave him the okay and he immediately proceeded to draw a goose. Jimmy seemed puzzled as he watched Faggypants draw the goose with a tiny piece of white chalk.

"Tha' don' look like no goose to me."

Faggypants wanted me to check out the goose.

"Faggypants, you've got three legs on the goose."

Faggypants immediately went back to work on the goose. "Now, how is it?" he said showing me the improved version.

"Now the goose has four legs, it looks like an extremely deformed horse, not a goose."

In all seriousness Faggypants asked me, "how many legs does a goose have?"

Street Jimmy , after studying the goose Faggypants had just drawn said, "goose only gots two legs, everybody knows that."

"Jimmy's right you stupid asshole, how many legs does a turkey have? Two, birds only have two legs, although maybe you're on to something, just think if you could breed a four legged turkey , then you'd have four drums sticks instead of two. You'd be a billionaire overnight."

Jimmy liked the idea of four legged turkeys. The subject of turkeys made Jimmy wonder about his Thanksgiving plans while Faggypants removed the two extra goose legs.

"How many invitations have you received so far", I asked?

"None."

"Well, you can have some turkey here, but don't you think you should head out to Harvey and see your brothers?"

Jimmy nodded. "I heard on the street my brother was down here lookin' for me las' week. Maybe I go out there."

Faggypants seemed stunned when I told him he couldn't drink anymore beer. When I told Jimmy it was time to leave Faggypants put on his jacket and followed Jimmy out the door . I have a very strong feeling that no good can come to either of them today.

  I know all of my devoted fans will be thrilled to know my gout is much better. Like a wounded jungle animal I hid in the Dunes until my ravaged toe mended sufficiently for me to resume my hectic social schedule. I managed to limp back to Chicago in time to join my fellow Bear fans at the bar for the opening kickoff. How the Bears manage to find so many dreadful opponents is remarkable; the NFL is a pale shadow of what it used to be when there were actually some good teams. 

  My joy at being back in the city was short lived. After two weeks as the bars mascot the cement goose was stolen sometime Saturday night. Midway through the football game a good samaritan called the bar and told Anya that the Goose was currently standing on the fourteen hundred block of Orleans. Coach, Tobi and D Train quickly put on their jackets and rushed over to Orleans Street with Ruben Nine Toes wheel chair; the wheel chair was necessary because the goose weighs at least eighty pounds. Unfortunately a passerby informed them that the somebody else had made off with the goose just before they got there. When they got back to the bar D Train suggested that  we  put out a reward such as a free drink for the safe return of the goose. 

  "D Train, you imbecile," I snapped, "don't you understand that if we offered free drinks for hostages the goose would be kidnapped every five minutes?"

  D Train nodded, "of course, what was I thinking." D Train went on to say how much he admired my remarkably quick brain, especially when it came to analyzing the inner   workings of the criminal mind.

  When Faggypants arrived this morning he had high praise for Tobi's ability to fill in.

  "Look how clean the shelves are," he said pointing to the shelves behind the bar. "And look, she lined the shelves with white paper  so now she can see if the bartenders are cleaning properly. She yelled at Gracie yesterday on the phone about cleaning the shelves," he added clapping his hands in delight.

  "She actually yelled at Gracie!"

  Faggypants, still giggling, nodded, "yes."

  "Wow. ..by the way , she said you went home with some guy but when it came time to pop him up the pooper you couldn't because his ass was too hairy."

  "I don't like body hair."

  "Where'd did this happen?"

  "My condo, this was a couple of years ago."

  "Oh, the way Tobi described it to me I thought it happened Friday."

   "The poor guy was cute, but I just couldn't do it. He cried. When I took him out to dinner he still cried."

  "Did you ever consider shaving his ass?"

  Faggypants shook his head, "no, I hate hair too much."

  I have some sympathy for Faggypants' aversion to hirsute sex partners. Years ago I remember going to some girls house, she was one of the students Ebert used to bring into O'Rourke's after his film class. Things were going along nicely until she took off her clothes. She had more body hair than the average longshoreman. Her pubic hair passed her belly button and seemed to be heading in the direction of her breasts. There were also a series of long black hairs encircling her nipples. If this wasn't frightening enough, I detected a slight five o'clock shadow beneath her chin. It was hopeless, no matter what she did I couldn't get it up. This did not please her one bit. We'd already had a tense argument about Jewish settlers continuing to build in the West Bank on the way to her apartment (she said in a month she was leaving Chicago to join a Kibbutz ) . Eventually her exasperation caused her to return to our argument, she defending the settlers, me insisting there would never be peace in the Mid-East until Israel quit expanding into the occupied territories. It was about five in the morning when she gave me the heave ho and I had to get back to Old Town from East Rogers park as best I could.

  When I told this story to Hawkeye he told me about the time when he was a young reporter and was down South covering the Lieutenant Calley Trial ( Calley was accused of leading some soldiers that slaughtered a village of unarmed Vietnamese) and how one night after the trial he picked up a cute chick at a bar and took her back to his hotel room and everything was going along hot and heavy until she came out of the toilet naked with about a ten inch erection. When I  pointed out my hirsute girl was a girl and not a guy, he said that sometimes it's hard to tell. I was never able to pin Hawkeye down about exactly what happened after he discovered he'd brought home a chick with a dick! 

  My dear friend and role model, the late Art Klug, must have had an affinity for chicks with dicks because after he died and I was left with the task of disposing of his extensive wardrobe , as well as his even more extensive book collection, I discovered, in the course of my work   a cache of pono magazines devoted to chicks with dicks. It was amazing how much these transgender boys looked like hot girls. When I told Ranalli about what I'd discovered at his good friend Arthur's apartment he actually gagged. Methinks he protested too much. What I found most disturbing about Hawkeye's chick with a dick story was that after she finally left he discovered a colossal unflushed turd in the toilet.  

  I think I've figured out the perfect subject for a Mitt Romney painting . The man is essentially sexless so it it took a month of intense focus for me to come up with an angle. Stay tuned.

I'm in the Dunes convalescing from my horrific gout attack. My entire right foot is now angry red but at least the medicine has extinguished much of pain which for awhile felt like somebody was directing a welding torch at my big right toe. I'm confident that child birth is nothing more the a slight ouch compared to my gout. True, having an overdeveloped central nervous system exaggerates the pain, but even accounting for my extreme sensitivity to discomfort, it's hard to imagine anything more terrifying than the dreaded gout.

Tobi was so unnerved by my pain that she suggested that I leave town. It must have been tough on the girls seeing me so debilitated, however, I'm sure it was inspirational for everyone who witnessed my agony to see how bravely and stoically I endured. I know I certainly inspired myself.

Uppers Grove, Chapter Eight

Grammar school in the forties and fifties was mostly a matriarchal affair. Most of the teachers were woman, and of course the principal (Miss More Than a House) a woman; a short, three hundred pound woman with unnaturally black hair. The gym teacher, however, was a man. Mr. Hulk was an older German , probably in his fifties, squat, with squinty eyes, hair combed back with a part in the middle. He could easily have played a low level SS Officer in any of the anti German movies that were constantly playing at the nearby Tivoli Theater in those days. Up until Junior High the boys and girls took gym together. Lincoln school was an ancient structure located on Maple Ave. and it had an antique gymnasium on the lower floor where Mr. Hulk conducted his classes. It was never a good idea to have boys and girls take gym together, but in those days Uppers Grove was not known for it's innovational educational programs; keep in mind that a starting teachers salary back then was around thirty-eight-hundred a year and as most of us know by now, you usually get what you pay for.

Of course gym class was show off time for us boys. Nature being the cruel prankster that she is she designed pre-adolescent girls to not only be smarter than their male counterparts, but taller. So now you have a situation where you have boys and girls crowded together with more energy than they can possibly expend in an hours time; and then to make matters worse you engage them in some activity like dodge ball. Dodge ball was the girls least favorite activity because we boys had quickly concluded as a group that the only targets to aim at on a girl were "tits and snatch". There was definite pain involved and Mr. Hulk seemed to enjoy watching the single minded fury in which his male students bombarded the poor hapless girls private areas with the white volley ball.

Early on (second grade) Mr. Hulk and I developed a strong personality conflict. What Hulk lacked in sophistication he made up for with brute force. He liked nothing more than twisting one of us mischievous scamps by the arm until we reached the point of tears. I was one of his favorite targets and I truly detested crying in front of the girls but the pain was simply too much to bear. He was also a hair puller, and even occasionally employed the "dutch rub" which was placing us in a head lock and then violently rubbing our head with his knuckles. In retrospect it was easy to see that he avoided using corporal punishments that could result in leaving incriminating marks on his victims. Things got so bad by fourth and fifth grades that some of my teachers, especially the substitute teachers, would send me down to Mr. Hulk for disciplinary sessions. Obviously the substitute teachers had been warned about me and had been instructed to employ the Hulk option.

Not one to sit back passively and take shit from some troglodyte I finally decided enough was enough and swore revenge. I had learned at an early age, ten or eleven, that revenge was much too important to rush into willy nilly and so I bade my time until finally my lucky break came in spades. I had been losing some of my baby teeth for about a week ; I always saved them because I was still getting money for them under my pillow from the tooth fairy. Well, one fine Spring day I had been giving Hulk an unusually hard time, I had nicknamed him Chimp because of his simian appearance as well as his ape like gait, and liked to imitate him dragging his knuckles on the ground as he walked. This always made the other kids laugh, especially the girls. Hulk took the bait and immediately started roughing me up. I still remember the sadistic smile on his not quite human face as he twisted my arm. He finished me off by tossing me roughly on the mat underneath the thick rope attached to the gym ceiling which we used for rope climbing . I laid there in a heap for a moment or two and then when I slowly pushed myself to my feet I had my hands cupped around my mouth which was now slightly bleeding (I had pulled out a loose tooth and two more that I'd removed from my pocket), the look of terror on Hulks face was more than I could ever have hoped for . He told one of the girls in class to escort me to the nurses office. Playing it for all it was worth I shuffled off behind Judy Eisler to the nurses office. When I told the nurse what had happened she immediately marched me down to the Principals office. For the first time in my tenure at Lincoln Elementary Miss More Than a House looked at me without her usual contempt and disdain, but instead with something bordering almost on sympathy. Mrs More Than a Houses secretary, a very nice lady named Alice, embraced me while the nurse and Miss More Than a House huddled in the corner deciding on a plan of action. I was thoroughly enjoying being soothed by Alice and only heard snatches of More Than a House's and the nurses conversation , but I do distinctly recall hearing More Than a Houses calling my mother and telling her to get right over to the school. My mother was there in less than ten minutes. The nurse told her to brace herself for what she was about to see and then held my chin up for my mothers inspection. Unfortunately my mother didn't play her role as well as I would have liked and quickly reassured the nurse and More Than a House that she was pretty sure that the missing teeth (which were now all in an envelope) were baby teeth. Nevertheless, More Than a House apologized for Hulk's actions effusively and Alice added that she thought Hulk was a vicious bully . Alice's remark resulted in a stern look from More Than a House .

As I walked home from school with my mother (of course I was too upset to stay in school for the rest of the day) my mother asked me what really happened?

"Hulk has been beating me up almost every day," I answered.

"And I suppose for no reason."

"Teachers aren't supposed to hit you."

My mother agreed that teachers weren't supposed to hit kids, but she also seemed to be under the impression that I was less than perfect, and that somehow I was at least partly responsible for the unusual amount of the adult violence that seemed to be directed at me (my father was regularly slapping, spanking , and even occasionally kicking me) in those bygone days. Nevertheless Hulk was now a beaten man. They must have really worked him over because from that day forward he never laid a finger on me or any of the other kids, at least not in my presence. I had free reign. I had precociously mastered the art of revenge and had every intention of using my new skill in the future whenever necessary. By the time I entered seventh grade I was the motzart of vindictiveness. A true child prodigy.

Between the trauma of my gout and losing most of yesterdays post a normal human being would very likely have been suicidal, but not me, I sucked it up , took my gout medicine and managed a good nights sleep in spite of my tragic plight . The best gout suggestion I've received so far was to keep my devastated toe elevated on a pillow. It helped.

Street Jimmy knocked at the back door. His secret knock lacks the self assurance it used to have. He said he slept behind Burton Place last night with Chilly Willy.

"Wasn't it cold?"

"Yeah, but we had quilts and stuff and it was okay."

"Does Willy still shit there?"

Jimmy shook his head, "nah, he don' do that nomore. I tol' him that ain't right."

When Faggypants arrived Jimmy asked him for a little help.

"Why don't you shine shoes!"

"Too cold."

"You could go around to bars. Give the owner a free shine. You have to have some initiative !"

Jimmy thought for a moment and then said, "I'm powerless about alcohol and drugs," and then after a moment he added, "and my life is unmanageable. I needs help from a higher power."

I had to give my two cents, "Jimmy, you're a crack head. You know why? Because you love crack. Fuck the higher power bullshit. If you go to the Mustard Seed they'll try and help you but after you keep taking crack they'll cut you loose. "

"What should I do?"

"My advice is to just be the best crack head you can possibly be."

Faggypants thought I was being harsh.

Jimmy said he needed a shower but his bus card had run out.

"Well," I said, "instead of buying crack, take the bus to the Mission."

Jimmy said he thought he'd go to the Haymarket rehab center. "Trouble is , when the weather gets cold it gets too crowded; I hates it when it's too crowded."

Ruben Nine Toes seems to like his new digs a lot. Although it's a little farther away from the bar than he'd like to be, he's made arrangements with Pace bus service to pick him up every afternoon and drop him off at the bar, and then take him back at eight. The van that drives him has a ramp so he can get in easily and the driver is helpful and folds up his walker for him. When he left last night I saw him give the driver a buck tip. He's adamant about not giving Craig the Drunk his new address. "People at the building look up to me, and I can't have riff raff like Craig the Drunk coming around." This has devastated Craig the Drunk, I've never seen him this depressed before.

Yesterday Chief showed up. He is a very large , powerfully built Indian who's amusing until he gets too much fire water and then he's difficult to deal with. He said he doesn't have Blue Velvet cut his hair anymore. "I went to his assisted living building , but he's only got one good hand since his stroke, and his dog pisses and shits all over the place."

Faggypants thought this was terrible. "how can you cut hair with one hand? And a barbershop or a beauty shop is supposed to be sanitary."

Chief agreed. He said his fifth grader son, Little Thunder, is doing very well in school. I think I'll go to the Dunes for a couple of days and convalesce. Hopefully by then I'll be more mobile.

  Lost most of my brilliant  post again. Thanks you technological fuck faces. You scum suckers don't understand genius. I hate you .

  I have been beset by a series of debilitating illnesses in the last 24 hours. Yesterday morning I awoke with a sore throat. Usually I'm beset with allergies in the middle of October, but this year it's the middle of November. I assume global warming is the culprit. After a three hour nap I felt much better and so I went down to the bar and a had a few beers. On my way home I noticed a slight pain in my big right toe. By the time I crawled into bed my toe was bright red and swollen. I couldn't remember smashing it into anything. It hurt so much I barely got any sleep. To make  matters worse I had the chills. When I woke up I could barely hobble down to the bar. Tobi looked on the Internet and low and behold I was at long last afflicted with the dreaded Elliott curse - Gout! My father had it most of his life, and both of my brothers also had chronic gout. I always assumed that the reason they all had gout was because of another Elliott curse - alcoholism. 

   The photographer from The Daily (an Internet publication) showed up at ten. He was a nice Greek guy from Indiana. He was mainly interested in the new Herman Cain pastel, but took a lot of shots of my other brilliant paintings, too. 

  Street Jimmy just knocked at the back door . He spent the night at Cook County hospital . He told him his leg hurt. "I got some good rest." On his way back from County he stopped at the police station at Roosevelt and Homan and got his belonging from the last time he was arrested . He's wearing a nice leather and fur hat, a matching black leather coat. "I gots my Kango hat back. They still got some of my shit. I tol' the sargent, why you takin' my shit? Boony Black died, he was old and never went to jail, he ran the Black Breeze gang. It was all over TV. He had all of Roosevelt Road.  He was old like you is. He didn't go to jail like Jeff Forte and Larry Hoover, they doin' life 'cause they be menaces to society.  Jeff was a smart man, he talked to Nixon, I'm surprised you didn't know that."

  "He can't be that smart if he's doing life."

  "You don' know what's goin' on but I hear shit. The trouble with sleeping at County is they don't give you no food. There was a dude in there  drunk, he had everybody in the emergency room laughing. The guard tell him you want us to toss you out and the dude ran and jumped in his bed and acted like he was really dying, I ain't never laughed so hard. The County police don't take no shit, you can't even sell cigarettes, you can't even smoke outside the door.  I go out there where they tell me to smoke. Those West Guys I don't fuck with me, I'm from the South Side, I think they can look at you and tell your from the South Side, and the crazy assed dude giving me the evil eye.

  

  The dirty filthy running dog mother fuckers who control my Blog told me to do something and I just lost my entire Thursday Blog. I despise these scum bag meddlers. If this goes through I'll try again, but it will be hard to duplicate the passion and artistry that just disappeared into space.

  Guess who showed up early  yesterday evening? None other that Street Jimmy. He seemed a couple beats off his normal street smart self. His lack of focus  didn't appear to be caused by drugs. When I asked him where he had been he seemed evasive.

   "Hospital."

  "Which hospital."

  "The one out there," he pointed his finger to the West.

   "Did it have a name?"

  "Oak Forrest."

  "Oak Forrest is South", I said pointing South, "and isn't Oak Forrest for nut cases?".

  Jimmy shook his head, "nah, they gots regular sick people there too. I hadda go 'cause of my knee."

  When ever Jimmy obfuscates he piques my interest . "So what did they do for your knee?"

  "They did exercises and stuff."

  "Like what?"

  "Made me bend it, you know, therapy stuff." Jimmy said he wanted to show me some papers. After looking through his satchel for a couple of minutes he said he thought he left all of his important papers in the alley behind Burton Place. 

  "Well," I said gravely, "that's certainly where I'd want to leave important papers." 

  Jimmy said he'd be right back with the papers and asked me to watch his satchel.

  "No, take your satchel , I don't want the responsibility."

  Jimmy was back in about ten minutes with his important papers. The papers consisted of some very nice drawings of Jimmy sporting a dapper mustache. He also had an application for a State ID, and last but not least his discharge papers from Madden.

  "So, " I said handing him back his papers, "you were back in the nut house?"

  Jimmy smiled. Not an embarrassed smile, more of a sly smile. "I needed to chill."

  "So did you do your I'm going to kill myself routine."

  "It's the only way they get you in quick. I played a lot of ping pong and the guy drew pictures of me. They good pictures."

  "Yeah, who did them?"

  "A white boy. He drew everybody."

  "Why don't you give the papers to Grace so you don't lose them?"

  "I won't lose them," he said stuffing the papers back into his satchel.

  "You lose everything. You've never not lost anything. "

  Jimmy shook his head several times, "I won't lose them this time." 

  When Jimmy asked me to give him some dollars bills for his loose change I said, "so you can buy crack?"

  "Nah, I'm hungry."

  "McDonold's takes change, the crack dealer only takes paper money."

  Jimmy smiled, "I don''t do that shit nomore."

  "Of course you don't. By the way , I talked to Frank yesterday."

  "Yeah."

  "Yeah."

 "Whadda he say?"

  "He said he talked to you . He said he told you to get off the shit, and then he said you asked him if you could do work for us and he said maybe, and then he said you asked him if he stayed off the street when he was on duty could you come back when he was off of duty."

  This made Jimmy laugh. "Sure did, that's what I told him."

  "Anyway, the city has a guy sweeping the cigarette butts for the whole block and he does a real good job."  Jimmy asked me, his hand placed on his heart, if he could please have a welcome home beer before he ventured back out into the street. I said yes. While he was finishing his beer Joe from the Wall Street Journal came in. He was trying to figure some kind of story line for the new Herman Cain pastel. Fortunately there were several groups in the bar taking pictures and discussing it . He missed the guy from India who was taking photo's and seemed disappointed he didn't get to interview him. Joe did far and away the best article on my Sara Palin painting when it first appeared in the bar.  He actually got the point I was trying to make between the Neo-Con blow up the bar attacks on me, and the Liberal-Left response to the New Yorker cover that showed Barack as a Muslim and Michelle as a terrorist. The Left simply got into a interesting dialogue about what is true satire, and what isn't while the nut balls on the Right made hysterical threats.  

  Jimmy stuck his head back inside the door and said that somebody had moved the "duck" and put it onto  a bike." He was right, the goose was on the carrier of a bike that was locked to the bike rack. Even though a concerned  Hawkeye cautioned me about lifting the goose all by myself I took it out of the carrier and after a great deal of effort placed it back next to the bar. Although the goose is very heavy, it wasn't the weight that made me uneasy, but the fact that it was coated with dog piss. At least the dog piss was dry.

  Faggypants was wearing a lovely tight fitting white jacket, a stylish baseball hat that said Forrest Gump and a marvelous purple and blue tie dyed shirt when he arrived this morning. He had the shakes bad.  He said he was nervous. 

  "Nervous because you got shit-faced  yesterday?"

  "Too much caffeine." 

  "Or too much booze."

  Faggypants said he saw Counselor at Rossi's yesterday after he left the Ale House. Rossi's is the ultimate dive bar and is located close to the Loop. "I said hi but he just looked at me and went back to his computer."

  "I doubt if there are many guys on computers there." Before the smoking ban you couldn't see ten feet in Rossi's because it was so smoky."

  Faggypants said he heard a show on holistic medicine last night on the radio and so he's going to buy a bunch of herbs (pronounced Herbs) "because they can do stuff now with stem cells and grow your hand back , it's amazing , and they can do all kinds of other stuff..."

  "Can they grow you a new dick if you need one?"

  "Probably."

  Yesterday when I finally got around to cleaning and organizing the garage in the Dunes I found Faggypants work boots. It was in the last box. This morning when I showed him his boots he was thrilled. "Oh good, " he said fondling them, "I love these boots."

   

Spent a peaceful night at the Dunes. When I went outside around ten to make sure the garage door was locked a large buck was standing in my way . After checking his serious looking antlers I told him that I was from Chicago and I knew people in the Outfit. When he continued to block my way I told him he was a dead dear. He did finally take off when I gave his snout a nice dose of bug spray. Nature's not always what it's cracked up to be. A lot of people out here are in a tizzy about the upcoming deer kill. I have mixed emotions ; on the one hand the deer are really beautiful animals and I enjoy looking at them , on the other hand they've made several attempts on my life.

When I called up the bar Faggypants was hard at work . He said that when he bought a new supply of tea yesterday it cost him 33 dollars. "The last time it only cost me three dollars, I couldn't ask for my money back because I'd already mixed all of the teas together."

"Why such a difference in price?"

"I don't know. I just had to bight the bullet. Anyway, the tea is perfectly delicious."

Faggypants loves to mix all of the lose teas together so it always tastes different. I told him that I missed him and would probably see him tomorrow. The weather is quite nice this morning, lots of sun and heading toward sixty. Tobi came out to clean the house for the cleaning ladies. This seems redundant; shouldn't the cleaning ladies clean? Her answer is that things need to be put away, that there's currently a lack of organization. Hopefully she'll give me a lesson on how to operate the washing machine this time. I know I can master the complexities if I just have written instructions to work with.

I've planted over three hundred assorted bulbs and now will have to wait until Spring to see what grows and what the deer don't eat. All in all I did a masterful job again with my landscaping . The only tree that looks like it might not make it is a columnar spruce that I picked up at Home Depot for twenty three dollars. It was marked down from one hundred and fifty dollars so I thought I 'd chance it.

The Bears game yesterday seemed to last for about a week. I always said Detroit was over-rated. Ruben Nine Toes has been living in his new handicap accessible digs for the last couple of days. He's still unusually obnoxious, even for him. He certainly can't seem to handle pressure or even the slightest change He said that when he told Craig the drunk that he wasn't going to give him his new address, Craig the drunk broke down and cried. I'm pretty sure he'll end up re-enlisting Craig the drunk as his go to servant. What other options does he have? He said his cat finally came out of hiding yesterday. I was going to stay in the Dunes yesterday but my fans wouldn't hear of it. I can understand why because they've all come to depend on my valuable "incites" (pun intended this time, as Hawkeye has been monitoring my spelling of late) . I have to admit that few people possess my range of knowledge about sports in general and football in particular.

Faggypants was rather subdued this morning. He thinks he'll go to a movie this afternoon. Still no Street Jimmy. My curiosity is growing. Somebody must know something.

The Goose has not moved . This is really amazing as everything that's not nailed down in the neighborhood is almost immediately stolen.

The brilliance of my Hermann Cain pastel has not been lost on the bars customers. When asked how I'm able to produce a work of genius in such a short time (less than 24 hours) I shake my head , shrug my shoulders and tell them I can't explain it. Being a genius is very lonely, and not knowing any other genius' that I can discuss things with is sometimes very difficult for me. I can certainly understand how Leonardo and VanGogh felt. Hence much of my talent remains a total mystery to me.

Mierka informed me that they are going to do a table reading of my Blago play. Mierka's going to read the part of Blago. I think she'll be fantastic.

My plan is to plant my remaining bulbs today. By removing the yucca's yesterday I've prepped the area where I'm going to plant. The Board passed a vote (3-2) to kill forty deer. I have no problem with this plan as long as they use sharp shooters. I have not been able to intimidate the deer that hang around my front door once it gets dark out. It startles me when I almost bump into them.

Day seven and still the goose is standing alertly next to the bar. I really think the fact that the goose has become a major dog pissing destination has definitely had a positive effect on the gooses survival. Grace's dogs never pass up an opportunity to drench the goose with their urine.

Faggypants was chipper this morning. He said that he waited patiently yesterday for his mother to go to work. As soon as her car was out of the driveway he started planting the crocus bulbs I'd given him alongside the garage. Remarkably , five minutes later his mother pulled back into the driveway having forgotten something. Of course she caught Faggypants red handed. "When she asked me what I was doing I told her that I was planting crocus' and she said 'oh really, do you think they will live?' ." Faggypants seemed surprised that she didn't put up a stink.

"Well," I said, "it really would have been taking her insanity to the extreme if she said, 'I don't want you making my yard beautiful, I hate beauty.'" This made Faggypants laugh. He said his mothers been nice to him ever since he screamed at her for turning the lights out.

Grace said she checked the Cook County Jail web site and there is no Street Jimmy presently residing there . There's no way his brother would have let him stay with him this long so that leaves rehab, or the hospital. Frank the cop doesn't know what's become of him, either.

My new Hermann Cain pastel of Cain feeling up one of his victims has become a big hit. Even though there's no nudity, most people seem to get the point - Cain's bizarre , freakish smile. In yesterdays debate Bachman and Cain both supported reinstating water boarding. Cain went so far as to say only the military should be allowed to decide the limits of torture. The man is truly an imbecile, but he's fun and what's more important than that in a President? All of the GOP candidates except for ghoulish Rep Paul are for bombing Iran. What a whacky gang they are.

I've just transplanted a dozen yucca's along the hill and am so thoroughly exhausted that I'm going to need a nap before the Bear game.

The Goose Outside The Bar

The New Herman Cain Picture

I finished my pastel of Hermann Cain feeling up one of his sexual harassment victims yesterday afternoon. Getting it into the frame and cutting one of my trademark crude matts was predictably time consuming. I avoid framing expenses by using my vast supply of flea market frames instead of going to a frame store. When I put Cain up in the bar where Sen Scott Brown used to be I only received minor accolades. Apparently my fans were expecting nudity. The dilemma I faced when executing this brilliant work were as follows: Cain's face is not that well known yet; if I had him with his hand up a woman's skirt or pulling a woman's head toward his lap, I would have had to make his head smaller. To me, and this is what makes me such a brilliant artist, it was more important to get his face as large as possible in order that I might capture his remarkably lewd smile. Personally , I'm quite pleased with the picture and hopefully my daughter Grace Littlefeather can raise herself momentarily from her indolence and take a picture of said picture and get it up on both my Blog as well as Facebook, post haste. My fans certainly should be among the first to witness history in the making so hopefully Grace will get her ass in gear.

As I was coming out of Stop and Rob this morning with my newly purchased NY Times clutched securely in my hand who should I see bounding up the steps from Sedgwick St but Faggypants. No sooner did he reach the top of the stairs than he immediately turned his head around with a puzzled look on his face before bounding back down the stairs. This piqued my curiosity and so I walked down the stairs and peered around the corner of the building and in doing so almost collided with Faggypants who was now sporting a single leopard skin glove.

"Look," he said displaying the glove which was on his left hand, "I just found it. Isn't it adorable?"

"Is this some kind of Micael Jackson tribute thing?"

"It's just cute, that's all."

"Actually , it's very becoming."

As we walked toward my car two teen age black girls were walking by us. Whenever we have any type of audience I immediately go into my gay seducer mode. "You're so handsome, " I said lasciviously, "if you get into my car I'll let you have two shiny quarters." Of course this always makes Faggypants giggle . The girls predictably stared back at us in open mouthed horror.

Faggypants said his mom was much nicer to him this morning. We both agreed that it was probably because he screamed at her yesterday. He said that when she goes to work at five this afternoon he's going to plant the crocus bulbs I gave to him. I told him to make sure she's the one to discover them in the Spring and to act completely stupid as to there origin.

"Yes," Faggypants agreed. "Let her try and figure it out."

Faggypants said that he saw the new Gay Edger Hoover movie with Leo DeCaprio yesterday. "It was really good. "

"Did they have him dressing up in woman's clothes?"

"No, but they made sure you knew he was gay." Faggypants went on to say that he stopped by the Jewel before he went into the movie and that he had so much food that it took him the entire movie to eat it.

"I find that quite rude."

"Only one lady seemed to mind. The theater was packed so nobody could move. I didn't have anything smelly."

"Of course you had a bottle of wine."

"Of course," more giggling.

Street Jimmy appears to be in jail. Perhaps Gracie will check it out on her computer although that might be asking too much from her in one day.

The goose is still standing next to the bar. I never dreamed it would have lasted this long, but it's now been there six days. Sergio put a little hat on it which is adorable. Somebody, or their dog seems to have pissed on it . This could actually deter someone from stealing it, I know I personally wouldn't try and abscond with a cement goose if it was covered in urine.

Faggypants was livid when he arrived this morning. "My mom is making me insane," he shrieked, "I was in my room getting dressed and I had the light on because it was pitch dark and she walks in and turns the light out. I screamed as loud as I could," imitating his scream, "leave the light on , can't you see that I'm getting dressed , how can I see in the dark!"

"She seems totally nuts."

"She is. It must be some kind of special insanity. She never lets me open the drapes and she's constantly turning the lights off."

"Maybe it's some kind of back to the womb thing?"

After he was done cleaning I told Faggypants that I wanted him to help me prepare a spot for the new Herman Cain painting. I'd worked on it all day yesterday and expect to have it ready to hang this afternoon. How could I ever have doubted my genius? It felt just like riding a bike. My strokes were confident, color choices impeccable , and composition perfect. It will replace the Sen Scott Brown painting. A lot of the guys seem to resent the size of Scott Brown's dick although Faggypants said the chicks and the gay guys like it. Sen Brown is the only person that ever bothered to go on Face Book and make them take one of my pictures down. Odd, seeing as it made him look much more macho than I'm sure he really is. So, anyway, Faggypants said he knew the best way to hang the Cain picture. Before I knew it he was putting the tall latter behind the bar. "Wait," I said, "first lets think this through. It's taller than the Brown painting so we should go next door to the hardware store and see if we can find suitable hooks." We spent a good fifteen minutes in the hardware store before I decided on the correct hooks. During this time Faggypants impulsively kept holding up everything in the store. Because I don't know how to work the power drill Faggypants got up on the ladder and started rattling things so much our Best Dive Bar award came crashing down breaking into a hundred pieces. I didn't scream at him because I could see how badly he felt. I did, however, squeal on him to Tobi. She seemed to take it in stride and just asked him to save the brass plaque . Hopefully I'll be back from Indiana in time to hang it before the bar gets too crowded.

Still no Street Jimmy.

Ruben Nine Toes is moving today. He's been unbearable. The man can not handle any type of stress. He said he's going to Burton Place this afternoon for a Flies on Shit meeting. This is good news as nobody at the Ale House can stand being around him of late.

  Faggypants was bubbling over with opinions when he arrived this morning. "Can you believe those kids rioting at Penn State because they fired the football coach? What about the kids that were molested?  How many kids could have been saved if the coach did what he was supposed to do instead of covering things up. They're worst than the Catholics," after pausing for a moment, "well, just as bad as the Catholics. Wait until the lawsuits. It's going to cost the tax payers gazillions of dollars. What's a Penn State diploma going to be worth now? It makes me sick!" I agreed with Faggypants that once again the rotting underbelly of big time college sports had been exposed. I don't think the Board that fired Paterno and the President of the University had any choice, not only was what happened to the kids inexcusable, but once again it's the coverup thats going to take everybody down. Good riddance to bad rubbish. 

  Faggypants indignation quickly turned to delight as he describe to me last nights Republican debate. "This guy, the guy from Texas..."

  "Governor  Perry."

  "Yeah, Perry, he couldn't remember anything , he said I'm going to do A, B and C and then he forgot what C was and everyone laughed at him and he said 'oops', and looked so stupid and then the black guy said the women were lying and the press was out to get him because he's black and Romney is such a stuffed shirt, I'm telling all of my twink friends they have to vote for Obama ."

  Faggypants insists that I do a painting of Herman Cain. "It would be great, you could have him raping a white woman."

  "I think rape might be too harsh. Perhaps grabbing a tit might be more appropriate."

  "A tit would be okay, I guess. Make sure you make him smiling. He's got the creepiest smile I've ever seen. It gives me shivers. It's interesting that his wife and kids are never around when he holds his press conferences. "

  "Did you notice that he kept referring to himself  as Herman Cain?"

  This made Faggypants laugh. "Yeah, he's nuts."

  I promised Faggypants that I would drop everything and do a Cain painting. It's going to be hard because all of my art supplies are in Indiana. I guaranteed Faggypants that the painting would be hanging in the bar by Saturday Morning.  Genius, don't fail me now.

  Ruben Nine Toes was semi-hysterical yesterday. The move is causing him tremendous stress. He just called and said he was sending Craig the drunk over to pick up the hand truck. 

  Still raining, although it's a pleasant, warm rain. Four days ago Butchovich gave me an extremely heavy cement goose. He had found it in a South Side alley and he thought it was funny looking. I could barely lift it in and out of my car (I'm getting old) but managed to place it on the sidewalk next to the bar. I knew it was too heavy for the kids to steal, but figured that somebody with a shopping cart would probably rip  it off. So far it's still next to the bar. Amazingly, it's become the topic of a great deal of conversation and curiousity. Small children stop to pet it, and at least three or four people have stopped and had their pictures taken with it. It looks very much like a live white goose with a yellow beak except for an odd knitted scarf around it's neck. The scarf conceals a large crack. Predictably the only person that has lodged a complaint against the goose is Patrick. He told Basil that he keeps hitting his shin on the goose. When I told this to Faggypants this morning he burst out into a fit of laughter.  

  Faggypants and I just had a major screaming match over slot machine's at the airports. Faggypants agrees with Gov Pecksniff that it is bad for Chicago and Illinois'  image for people to see slots as soon as the get off their planes. This is a state where all of our governors are imprisoned almost as soon as they take office. Some image we're protecting. I was tempted to wring Faggypant's neck but he held me at bay with his wet mop. My chief argument - other than we have no image to protect- is that why should we pass up out of town money when our states broke?  

  Still no Street Jimmy sightings. It's starting to look like he's in jail again. It would seem that he's really pissed somebody off this time. For some reason he just doesn't want to walk an extra ten minutes to State Street, although even there he has to moderate his aggressiveness . I guess it just goes to show you can't teach an old crack head new tricks.  

  Very crappy morning. The rain, however, is great for my fall planting. So far I've planted over two hundred assorted bulbs. They are labeled mostly deer resistant, but I thought I'd do a little experimenting by placing a couple of tulips inside a group of daffodils. We'll see next Spring.  Given the weather I think I'll spend a quality day in the city.  

  Faggypants thinks he's come up with a great invention. An extension cord that springs back to its socket like a vacuum cleaner cord does.  I told  him to talk to Butchovich about it because I've never operated a vacuum cleaner. He thinks he'll go to the Century Theater and see the matinee of Michael Shannon's new movie this afternoon. Faggypants is convinced that Michael is going to win the Academy Award  for the movie.

  Gracie said that Anya and her had their Mexican hotel room upgraded. Faggypants is worried about Jelly Fish getting the girls. "They're more dangerous than sharks. More people die every year from jelly fish bites than they do from sharks." 

  My Seasonal Affective Disorder has me once again tightly in it's grips, therefore I'm going home for a nap. Yesterday I had two naps. This was fortuitous or I would never have been able to stay up with a clear head and  watch the  Bears game with the Ale House gang. They have all  come to depend on my razor sharp incites . What seems to be saving the Bears is how bad most of the other teams are. As long as the bible thumping old hag owner of the Bears is alive they will be destined for mediocracy.   Ruben Nine Toes left before the first half was over. His health has to be improving because he seems to be putting on about ten pounds a week. He's back to a good fifteen to twenty pints of beer a day, always a good sign.

  Matt and the Marine were in yesterday evening when I arrived. The Marine and I have had our differences of late,  but we hugged it out . 

  There have apparently been a few confirmed Street Jimmy sightings as late as Friday. So far we've all managed to get along without his angelic little elf like self. Gracie and Anja left for Mexico around 3 AM. She just called me to say they had made it to  Philadelphia and had just boarded their plane .

  "I thought you were going to Mexico?"

  "We are, but we had to fly to Philadelphia first . We're lucky, we almost were rerouted to Pittsburgh because of fog."

  "Sounds like brilliant travel arrangements."

  Ruben Nine Toes suggested they go to Tijuana and check out the chick who does the donkey show. Ruben Nine Toes is fascinated by bestiality. It's his porno of choice. The girls are supposed to be going to some resort type place near Cancun. Sounds totally boring. If they're kidnapped we're all going to have to bite the bullet and not reward hostage taking. I'll do a memorial painting if they don't make it home. Speaking of painting, I expect to return to my easel within a week or two. The only two paintings I've executed in the last year and a half are my Jesse Jackson Jr. and the blonde, and a naked Michelle Bachman holding a tea bag in her fingers. It's going to be tough after such a long lay off but sometimes you have to just let the genius take over and eventually you'll get your groove back. 

    I tracked down an old friend on the internet recently. He's an Englishman and an  expert on Ibsen. I met him at the Ale House in the early 60's when he was teaching at Northwestern. He was a fascinating chap, especially after he'd been drinking for seven or eight hours. Tremendous endurance.  I next ran into him in Berkeley during my student days. He was  teaching comparative literature and I took a few of his classes. He was the person responsible for buying a block of tickets at the Berkeley Community Theater for the Living Theaters  legendary performance in the late 60's. There must have been at least ten of us. It was a memorable night even by Berkeley standards  and has been written about in several scholarly magazines not to mention the lengthly review in the Chronicle the next day. My brother and I got into a serious spitting fight with one of the actors. I had a huge advantage because I had been breathing tear gas all day thanks to the Alameda Sheriff's cops and therefore had a vast resivoir  of  phlegm at my disposal.  It was no contest, I almost tore the pretentious thespians head off with one monster glob. My brother, who was struck in the face when I ducked, immediately stood up on his seat and started spitting directly down on the now helpless actor. The actor could only fight back with a thin spray due to his previous self indulgent theatrical mutterings. 

  Legend has it that Judith Molina was raped by an overweight black guy during the naked scrum taking place on the stage. I remember the Berkeley Drama Department faculty linking arms and singing We Shall Overcome Some Day while all of this was going on. Brian, my British pal, seemed to be somewhat speechless as the evening descended into total chaos.

No Street Jimmy sightings for four days. Rehab? The homeless shelter? Jail? Hard to say.

Yesterday morning Faggyapants and I were rapping things up when Hawkeye appeared. He doesn't work out anymore because he claims he's incurred some type of injury. Personally , I think Father Time has finally caught up to him. He says he goes to therapy three days a week. After he sat down he seemed genuinely shocked to see Faggypants and I singing and dancing .

"Are you guys always this cheerful in the morning?"

Faggyapants nodded affirmatively, "yes, most of the time when he (pointing at me) is not yelling."

"Singing is my life," I added. I use singing as a weapon. Having the most horrific singing voice imaginable I take joy in watching others cringe when I launch into my rich repertoire of show stoppers.

The planets being perfectly aligned Faggypants proclaimed that this was going to be the day he was going to the Dunes with me for his long awaited hike. I immediately cut off anymore beer intake. As soon as we got into the car I put a Motzart CD in the player as a thin shield against his incessant talking . It was as nice an Autumn day as you could ask for. When we arrived Butchovich was finishing the windows. We couldn't find the boots Faggypants left when he was helping me do yard work. He absolutely refused to wear his plaid sneakers. "The sand will ruin them." Finally I persuaded him to wear a pair of my sneakers . "If you wear an extra pair of socks you'll be fine." The boy has a real twenty four carrot shoe fetish. After he put the shoes on I walked him down the beach to a neat trail near County Line Rd I'd recently discovered. "Just follow the trail and when you finish you'll be right back by the lake and just go back the way we came." I didn't join him because I wanted to get back to the house and finish planting the bulbs I'd gotten at Home Depot. On my way back I cut over to the street that runs parallel to the Lake. No sooner did I start walking down the street than a large , intimidating, antlered buck gave me a dirty look as he crossed the street toward the lake. A half a block later the Greek drove by in his Landrover. He wanted me to come with him and meet his nephew who lives a few houses away from me. The Greek and I had a brief , but intense, conversation about woman in general, and his girlfriends in particular. I think he's more bark than bite. However, there's no question that he's convinced that he's been neglected. Hopefully things work out because he's not going to find any nicer girlfriends than the ones he has now. His nephew is a prototypical Chicago Greek. Seemed very nice. He is just divorced so he shares his uncle's current unforgiving views on woman.

Before I started planting I took a quick nap. I awakened to the sound of Faggypants voice telling Butchovich what a great hike he'd just taken. When I came downstairs Faggypants was eating everything he could find in the ice box along with chocolate candy. While he helped me plant the daffodils he described the miraculous sights he'd just beheld. He thought it would be great fun to plant some bulbs in his mom's yard without telling her and then this Spring she'd be amazed when they mysteriously appeared . "She'd never let me do it if I asked to."

I said I thought it would be a great idea. "Never tell her you planted them. Say you think it's some kind of miracle."

  Becky Shaw , which I saw last night at the Red Orchid Theater, is a must see. For a few hours the power was out in the area of the theater and Mierka was close to a nervous breakdown, but Ruben Nine Toes and I talked her down and fortunately the power was restored in time for the performance.   I had a perfect seat and thoroughly enjoyed the entire two hours.  As usual the acting was uniformly superb (the secondary actors are always first rate at Red Orchid which is unusual for a small theater), Mierka played Becky Shaw. According to the authors notes she got the idea of Becky from Thackery's Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair. Becky Sharp has always been one of my favorite characters in fiction, in fact, had I not named my daughter Grace Littlefeather  ,the next name I would have chosen was Rebecca Sharp. Mierka did a beautiful job of evoking Becky's complexities (especially her claws). It's a shame more people don't take advantage of the Red Orchid given how conveniently located it is. After the play most of the cast and the production crew came into the bar for a few pops. A short time later Josh Berman (the Josh Berman Trio) came in with a bunch of fascinating looking people from all over Europe who were in Chicago for some type of Jazz festival. All in all, a great night.

  Faggypants arrived this morning complaining of his allergies. Yesterday I got into an argument with Gracie about whether or not Faggypants was a Twink? Gracie and Anya insist that he's too old to be a Twink. Perhaps, but he seems about as Twinky as it's possible to be. He says he's going to power wash  the mats today and thus take advantage of the unseasonably nice weather.

   Ruben Nine Toes was still drinking when I left at midnight. Historically this usually indicates that he will be in the hospital in less than a week. He can't take any type of pressure and moving into a new handicap accessible building is obviously too much pressure for him to handle. Clown also was still imbibing at midnight. Not a good sign when he has to be at work in the morning. He's payed a months rent at the Carling. Let's cross our fingers that the boys don't both go off the deep end together.

  Street Jimmy knocked at the back door around seven thirty this morning. He looked unusually wretched. The rain was beating down onto his ashen face and the lines around his eyes looked like they'd been formed by a dull, rusty engraving tool. 

  "You talk to Frank yet?"

  "What the fuck difference does it make if I talk to Frank? You've already broken every promise you made to him. Every time I walk out the door you're panhandling. By the way, you look like total shit."

  "I do?"

  "Yes, your skin is all gray and you've got deep lines in your face."

  "I'm killing myself."

  "True."

  "Can I come in?"

  "No," I said handing him a bag of BBQ chips. Before I closed the door he said "Wait," and then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of change, "give me a dollar." 

  "Fuck the crack dealer (the crack dealer only takes paper money).

  "I needs it for McDonld's."

  "Bullshit, McDonold's will take change, you want it for crack."

  "I needs to go to rehab."

  "Why, as soon as you come out you'll start smoking that shit again."

  "You'll see, I got plans."

  "Plans to smoke crack."

  

  Faggypants was a half an hour late. "It was awful this morning. The rain slows everything down." He looked especially jaunty in a thin white hoody and a matching backpack. When I pointed out that his clothing, although cute,  didn't seem weather appropriate he said, "I'm perfectly warm.  He still has a terrible case of the shakes thanks to his Halloween bender.  

  Naturally there was a snag in picking up my car from the garage that replaced Grace and  my stolen catalytic converters so I had to blow off most of the morning waiting around for an okay from the insurance company.  No Dunes today, oh well, it's ugly out. Maybe I'll go to the Art Institute. Tonight I'm going to see Mierka in Becky Shaw at the Red Orchid. Ruben Nine Toes just got back from his interview with the handicap accessible building he's trying to get into. He says it looks like full speed ahead. He can get round trip transportation to and from the bar on PACE for only six bucks.

  Stop the presses! Mierka just walked in and said the whole building including the theater is without power. She doesn't know if it will be restored in time for tonight's performance. Ruben Nine Toes and Rene are also supposed to go . Mierka's a wreck. We'll try and keep her calm. I told her that the show must go on.

  Do to my busy schedule (must take advantage of the marvelous weather) I got to the bar an hour early. Street Jimmy's secret knock on the back door followed shortly after my arrival. He was wearing a WW One style pilots hat and after I complimented his new head ware he pointed to his spiffy new shoes, "my white lady gave them to me." The white lady, a frumpy older woman insisted to Gracie that Jimmy was not an addict but that sometimes when he takes his "medicine" he seems a bit high. I don't know what kind of medicine she thinks Jimmy is taking but I would have say candidly that this woman appears to be what is commonly known as gullible. Jimmy insists he's not diddling her. "Nah, she too old and fat for me."

  "Jimmy, woman don't just give you stuff."

  "She like me."

  When I asked Jimmy what has transpired of late between Frank and him he was once again evasive.

   "You know I can't let you in until I get the okay from Frank?"

  Jimmy seemed resigned, "I knows it. Can I have a bag of chips?"

  "I didn't hear a please."

  "Please. Please." He put a lot of emphasis on the second please.

  After I gave him the bag of BBQ chips (sans hot sauce) he started immediately eating them. 

  "No thank you?"

  "Thank you," he said with a slightly guilty grin. When I asked him where he slept last night he was evasive. "Slept by the church and then at Starbucks, I'm not really sure where I slept. It wasn't too cold out."

   Faggypants was not his normal peppy self when he arrived. He's still recovering from his decadent Halloween reveling. After  an intensive interrogation from yours truly he admitted that  he wasn't operating at one hundred percent efficiency , "my body hurts, I think it's from all of the moving we've been doing."

  "It couldn't possibly be from all of the falling down you did on halloween?"

  "I didn't fall down."

  "Clown said you took a serious fall off a chair at the studio."

  "No, " Faggypants said shaking his head, "actually it's probably because I keep stabbing myself with the mop handle."

  When Faggypants came back from Treasure Island with my Tetley Tea and New York Times he was carrying a hot pepper plant. "It was only a dollar."

  "You should have gotten a hundred."

  "It's great, if you're eating a hot dog or something you just take a leaf off and presto, instant hot pepper."

  "So you plan on carrying the plant around with you 24-7 so whenever you eat you'll have hot peppers?"

  "No stupid."

  "You don't ever eat hot dogs unless you're drunk, anyway."

  Faggypants thought I should run over and get a hot pepper plant.

  Ruben Nine Toes was unusually drunk when I arrived at the bar last night. He speaks an exotic dialect of Cuervo when he is that  inebriated . The problem was that there were a couple of asshole strangers that were playing off of his profane antics. I left it in Hawkeye's capable hands and went home. 

  Clown spent his first night on his own at the Carling hotel. Ruben Nine Toes suggested he get a room down the street at his apartment building because they are only 350 a month. "What the fuck more do you need. A bed, TV a small ice box."

  Clown wanted to know if you had to share a bathroom?

  "Toilet , yeah, but you got your own shower. It's clean."

  Ruben Nine Toes promised the Clown he'd check into it for him.

  Last night before I left the bar Clown showed up with the keys to the studio. He had somebody holding the street door to the studio open so he could get back in. He'd arranged with Faggypants earlier for both of them to spend the last night there. Faggypants needed a place to flop after his halloween festivities were concluded. I'm going to miss the studio, not only was it handy but I really produced quite a number of historically significant masterpieces there.

   No sooner had Clown dropped off the keys than Faggypants showed up completely zonked.  Although the huge headdress he was wearing shielded much of his face and his fake eyelashes similarly made it difficult to see his eyes, he was clearly one seriously fucked up little twink. I suggested that he immediately go to the studio so he wouldn't disturb Clown anymore than was necessary. 

  "First I have to tell you how much fun I had, " he slurred. "I was number one in the parade, I was in front with some real famous lady ..."

  "What lady?"

  "The lady who was leading the parade. She's very famous."

  "If she's so famous why don't you know her name?"

  "She gave me her name and phone number, I have it somewhere. She wanted me go to go home with her but I told her I was gay and she said , of course you are." This caused Faggypants to break out into a fit of convulsive laughter. "I had so much fun."

  "Leave, go now," I said shoving him out the door.

  This morning I was running a little late when Faggypants called me on my cell phone. "Where are you ," he said hysterically.

  "I'm on my way to the bar, why?"

  "My bar keys are in inside the bar in the Darth Vader jar and I'm cold."

  "I'll be right there."

  When I pulled up in front of the bar Faggypants was standing there shivering with a black garbage bags stuffed with what I assumed to be his costume. After I opened the gate Clown appeared with two large black garbage bags stuffed with all of his worldly possessions. It was clearly moving day at my studio. Clown said that Faggypants wasn't too bad last night. "He started talking and then poured himself a glass of milk and then after a minute or two I heard a crashing sound and when I looked he'd fallen on the floor in a crumpled heap and so I turned the lights off and went to sleep." This caused Faggypants to burst into another fit of laughter. Clown went on to say that when he woke up Faggypants had somehow managed to crawl into the sleeping bag Gracie had loaned him. Faggypants said he took a nice hot shower . "The water pressure is really very good at the studio."

  Before Clown went to work he  thought he'd probably spend  tonight at the Carling Hotel. He said he could probably stay with Mrs Clown but her kid is just too hard to take. From everything I've heard the kid really needs a serious ass kicking. He came out a couple of years ago and Clown says he wears makeup and has his eyebrows done. He won't work and constantly rips off  Mrs Clown. 

  Gracie is going to have to call the building manager and tell him I'll need another day to pick up the bed because my car isn't done yet.