Civic Involvement - Psychic Unicorns

March 14, 2016

He Who Must Not Be Named

WARNING! What follows is a blog about politics! Normally I stay away from the “P” word in this space but this time it can’t be helped. If your eyes glaze over at the mention of all things political then now is the time to bail.

Now that those folks are gone, let’s begin.

I don’t know if y’all have noticed (and I don’t see how you could not have) but there’s some crazy shit going on in American politics. Mark my words, these are historic times we are living in right now. No matter what happens, in a few years we’ll look back on this year as the year _____ happened.

No matter what you think of Hillary Clinton, for her to be elected the first woman president would be a BFD especially given how deep misogyny runs not just in this country but worldwide. Bernie Sanders my be a punchline to some, but I’ve been listening to this guy every Friday for the last 5 years on the Thom Hartman show and I think he’s the real deal. We’ve been brainwashed by almost 40 years of Reganomics so of course most people think the things he says he could do are unrealistic because the greedy billionaires have convinced us they are.

Now the fun part. The republicans. Their side is a just a clown show led by the biggest clown, a former reality show star/businessman whose name we must never speak again. He is doing so well that he doesn’t even spend money on ads because the corporate media is doing that for him. In fact, the only ads you see with him in them are negative ads sponsored by the mainstream republican party! Throw in Ted Cruz, (a cross between Dracula and Pee Wee Herman) the most hated man in the senate and it’s self destruct time for the GOP. Personally I couldn’t be happier.

All BS aside, let’s not sit on the sidelines for this one. As much fun as it is watching the party of Reagan implode, we need to unite behind the last man or woman standing on the democratic side come November. The Supreme Court is at stake. Reagan stacked the court with hardcore neocons that have helped to make life difficult for everyone who’s not a millionaire. Now that Scalia has checked out, the next appointment will swing the court to one side or the other. Plus Thomas, Kennedy & Ginsberg ain’t getting any younger. This election is too important to fight among ourselves and stay home.

July 13, 2015

Disco Demolition Remembered

Yesterday July 12th was the 36th anniversary of the infamous Disco Demolition promotion at old Comiskey Park. I have vague memories of my 21 year old self attending that twi-night double header having no idea that I was about to witness an historical event.

Steve Dahl was a DJ on what was then the premiere rock station in town WLUP. Steve had recently been fired from WDAI who used to be top dog until they literally went disco overnight. I was a regular listener to his morning show on WDAI and was shocked when I turned on the radio and heard some announcer welcoming me to the new Disco DAI! I thought it was Dahl pulling a prank.

steve_loreli — Steve Dahl and Loreli the original Loop girl.

There were several reasons I hated disco.

1) I can’t dance. Apparently just being black does not guarantee you will have moves.

2) I couldn’t afford a white 3 piece suit. To be a rocker all you need are jeans & t-shirts.

3) Disco seemed to glorify this shallow superficial lifestyle where you are judged on how well you dance, what you wear and how big a schmuck you are.

So when Dahl organized this demolition thing I was all over it.

So I was able to rustle up 98 cents and a disco record (I think it was “shake your groove thang” by Peaches & Herb) and headed off to the ballpark.

By the time I arrived they were telling people to just keep their records and pay the 98 cents. Sweet! I get in the event and get to return my roommate his disco record. I don’t remember much about the game which I believe the Sox lost, but I do remember records flying through the air like frisbees and an odd mix of people that could give a shit about baseball and were only there to see Steve Dahl and watch some records get blowed up real good.

70s — It’s like That 70’s Show for real! Where’s Fez?

Fast forward to the ceremony. After Dahl & his crew blew up the records there was a thunderous response and then somebody ran on the field. Then 2 more ran on then 10 then 50. I had seen old footage of fans running on the field to celebrate, like when Bobby Thompson hit his famous home run. So I’m thinking. when am I gonna get a chance to do that? Right now that’s when! As I hit the field I head right for second base because I thought it would be cool to say I slid into second in a MLB ballpark. Second base was gone.

ddpic201 — Well it seemed like a good idea at the time…

All the bases were gone, literally stolen. They would have taken home plate if wasn’t a big slab of rock. Well then. I remember jogging past the dugouts and seeing a look of pure terror on the faces of the players & coaches. This was officially out of hand. I remember standing amid the chaos and looking up to the stands from a view I had never experienced before taking in the surreal moment. Then it dawned on me that now was probably a good time to get my ass off the field. I had been back in my seat for 15-20 minutes when the Chicago riot police arrived on horseback to the cheers of White Sox fans.

7/13/1979 -- The White Sox scoreboard message goes unheeded as thousands of spectators engulf the field during an anti-disco demonstration that caused the second game of a double-header to be called off. Detroit won the opener 4-1. UPI photo by Hank DeGeorge.(demolition,Comiskey park,baseball pro,Chicago) — Damn! That dude looks familiar!

When I got home that night my roommates had seen the whole thing on the news but since there was no social media or even cable news it would be weeks before we knew the significance of that night. Steve Dahl and his partner Garry Meier went on to become two of the most famous and well paid radio personalities in Chicago, disco did indeed die a few years later and the music they called rock is now “classic rock”.

There’s nothing short of an earthquake that could get me to run out on a ball field these days. Disco Demolition falls under the category of dumbshit I did and lived to talk about.

March 16, 2015

Superheroes Exist!

Seattle is cool for a lot of reasons. One of those is that they have real live superheroes patrolling their streets. The most famous of these is Phoenix Jones.

Phoenix Jones (real name Benjamin Fodor) goes on nightly patrols much like Daredevil does in Hell’s Kitchen in the Marvel comics. Jones originally was a solo crime fighter but over time he’s added several others to his entourage including his wife who adopted the persona Purple Reign.

ESPN just did a piece on him, Phoenix Rising that is definitely worth the watch.

April 11, 2014

Be Happy

I was a little late discovering this song since I listen mostly to music in my collection that I have amassed since the 70’s. I’ve become that old fart that plays his music from back in the day and wonders what kind of crap the kids are listening to (autotune for instance).

Since I stumbled across “Happy” by Pharrell Williams I just can’t get enough of it. Go ahead you cynics roll your eyes and make a snarky comment, I don’t care. There’s something about the song that touches me so deeply that I can hardly explain it. It’s my belief that life at it’s core is inherently simple and we as humans make it more difficult to make ourselves seem smarter. Be nice to others, share, love, be happy. Sounds pretty good. But somehow us humans come along and fuck that up.

When you get right down to it it’s happiness we are all after. It shouldn’t come from money, success or at the expense of others but from within. If you’re a miserable fucker before you get rich when you get rich you’ll just be a miserable fucker with money. The people in the video are a cross section of America, just walking or dancing down the street. They could be on their way to work, at work or just out kickin’ it. There are celebrity cameos but hey, they’re just people too.

In an interview Pharrell said writing this song was just a “halfcourt shot”. It’ll probably be the biggest swish of his career. The best things start simple.

December 17, 2013

Get out your wallet

Yesterday we received a love note from the City of Chicago Finance department. It was a safety speed zone warning notification. While I thought it was mighty big of them to only send us a warning this time, it’s a grim harbinger of things to come.

Seems ol’ leadfoot Lorenzo was laying down rubber on our beloved streets at the blistering speed of wait for it… 36 mph. This heinous act was committed around 2700 west Irving Park rd. Those of you in Chicago may be familiar with that area and I’ve attached the video that shows me( the green Honda on the right) approaching the hill that crosses the river neck & neck with another silver car. We’re both going about the same speed and with the flow of traffic.

Long story short this is gonna turn into a gold mine for the city. Along with the red light cameras and the parking meter debacle this could be their biggest cash cow yet. If you’re caught going 6 miles over the limit fines will be $35. 11 miles will cost you $100. You know who goes 6 miles over the limit? Everybody. And the limit is usually 30 mph and in some stretches 20 mph. Around schools I get it but “areas surrounding parks” makes this just sound like another part of the money grubbing revenue machine that this city has become.

Hey, at least we got the best pizza here right? Right? Anybody?

October 15, 2012

Spiritual fun making Kiva Loans

Hi guys! I have blogged before about various times I’ve made loans on the website kiva.org. Basically you make a small loan of $25 and people all over the world do the same and then the person who asked for the loan gets it, gets to invest in their small business, then pays it back over time. You get to see the photo, name, and story of the people asking for loans, and you can search by gender and other factors. I search for women asking for the loan on their own rather than in a group, and pick people I feel will pay it back, and who seem to have a positive effect on others. But that’s not all. There’s an extra idea I have in mind….

Kiva_Hedaya — I loaned money to Hedaya in Palestine through Kiva.org

I also pick people I’d like to have tea with once or twice, or people with whom I feel I’d like to have a brief conversation. People I respect and admire and would like to encourage. I do this because I want to reward positive people, and also I believe that the spirit of those I pick actually know about me and the other lenders on a subconscious level. I believe that we actually can meet briefly, in our dreams (on the “astral”), with our angels, and actually have tea. So today I picked Hedaya a Palestinian woman who is 38, married, with two children in school. She is making improvements to her women’s clothing shop.

Kiva_Batbold — Batbold has a wife and 3 kids in Mongolia. His daughter is a university student!

I also picked Batbold who is 53, married with three kids in Mongolia. Both he and his wife are chefs and he is opening a cafe. I had a positive sense of him right away, but when I read that his daughter is going to a university that reinforced my sense that he has a good heart. So here’s to having tea with kind, sincere people, both while awake and in the body, and in our dreams with our angels!

October 8, 2012

The Juicy Tell-All of Harry Potter the Adoptable Cat – Part 1

adoptable cat Harry Potter — But mom, it wasn’t me!

OK here is the biggest deep dark secret of Harry Potter, our foster cat. The kind of secret that you would only ever learn from a cat that’s being fostered in someone’s home, with an honest foster mom. Harry Potter will eat bread, still in the bag, like he’s starving and he hasn’t eaten in years. Seriously.

He will scarf down big pieces of many slices so that by the time you find him having his pig out binge-fest you need to throw away a few slices. He’s had a bread binge fest twice in the month or so we’ve had him. The first time we were so shocked because we’ve never seen a cat do that. The second time we just forgot to put the bread away, so then we decided to keep the loaf we’re using in a tupperware and that’s been a good solution.

So there you go. Now you know the worst. Stay tuned for more juicy tell all about this amazing, loving, mellow, get-along cat who needs to find his forever home. Oh and here’s Harry Potter’s writeup and video on petfinder.com.

September 22, 2012

My First and Last Political Post

Last night our softball game was rained out. After having a few beverages and mediocre overpriced food items at our sponsor bar we headed home. On the way to the car the conversation turned to politics. The team’s organizer, let’s call him “B” mentioned that he does not like Barack Obama and planned to vote for Mitt Romney because of his disdain for our president. B also believes that the media is heavily biased and liberal and that Fox “news” just balances things out with CNN and MSNBC with their Rachel Maddow & Keith Olbermann spewing their liberal views. Now B says he’s not a republican but a libertarian, like Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation.

Libertarians make a lot of sense until you talk to them for a few minutes. They believe that government should stay out of individuals lives. Sounds good on the surface but it runs much deeper than that. You can google the party if you want to know more about them. I asked B what his beef was with Obama and this is the best he could give me: When he met the Japanese Prime Minister he bowed to him and that showed weakness. He blew off Nutanyahu to go on Letterman. There was tape of him not putting his hand over his heart during the national anthem. Really? Really B? You’re willing to vote against your best interests for things that are pretty trivial? I don’t know him very well but I’ll betcha B is not a billionaire or even a millionaire. He used to be a paramedic until he broke his neck in an accident. Thanks to “Obamacare” he can never be discriminated against by any insurance company because of that injury. There are millions of people like B that will vote against the president for similar reasons or just because they don’t like him. They’ll vote for a man that is so out of touch with reality and the common man that he truly believes it is his right and his destiny to be president. A man that has shown his true feelings about half the nation by dismissing them as lazy entitled freeloaders. That is why we have got to make sure that we don’t let anything stop us from casting our votes In November, to save ourselves and even people like B from Mitt Romney even though they don’t even realize they need saving.

November 9, 2011March 20, 2012

Cat #1 becomes Smokey, our new cat “son”

This is an update to our Humane Cat Trapping Project. Yesterday we brought our trapped cat “Cat #1” to the Tree House spay/neuter clinic. We had arranged for them to keep him overnight after the surgery, and we picked him up this afternoon. The best news is that he tested negative for both FIV and FeLV, two cat viruses. They said overall he seems healthy, and is between 1-2 years old. He is 10 lbs. For now, Lorenzo has named him Smokey.

We brought him home and he went from the trap to a big dog cage we have that will be his home for at least the next week. We have to make sure he does not have intestinal parasites before he is allowed to be out loose in the house. He hisses less and less now. Our other cats come by to see him and there is a little hissing our growling on one side or the other, but nothing major. We have a huge litter box in his cage and he used it almost immediately, which is great. The first time I opened his cage to scoop litter he gently tried to get out and meowed twice. That’s the first time we’ve heard him meow. I didn’t let him get out, but I did pet him for a few moments which he allowed, twice on the head, twice on the neck, once on the cheek. That was the first time I pet him, so that’s exciting too. We’re keeping him. This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship! 🙂

November 7, 2011March 20, 2012

Got him! We just trapped “Cat #1″

outdoor cat in humane trap — Cat #1 trapped and in our home!

This is also known as Humane Cat Trapping Project Day #8, and our third blog post on this project so far. Our clinic appointment is tomorrow bright and early so thank goodness we really did trap Cat #1 tonight!!!! We trapped him about an hour ago. He is not a very big guy, and all black with a tiny tuft of white fur at his neck. I brought his trap into my home office, my floor protected with a large tray and newsprint in the tray. I used a “trap comb” to partition his trap safely and give him more tuna and water on one end, and a clean towel on the other end, while preventing his escape. He can’t eat any tuna after midnight in preparation for his neuter surgery, but I’m sure he has already finished it. He has hissed a few times but other than that does not seem to need to hide from us. We took the sheet off of one end of the trap and he did not wriggle back under cover.

Tomorrow I will bring him, still in his trap, to the Tree House clinic and we will learn much more about him. We really don’t even know for sure his gender, but we’ll know all sorts of things by this time tomorrow! Stay tuned…..