Here's To Your Health

When I was twenty one years old my father bought me my first drink, and as we clinked glasses he said "happy birthday, here's to your health." And then he quickly added: "...By the way, you're not covered on my insurance anymore so do me a favor, when you get in a car don't put on a seat belt 'cause it'd be cheaper to bury you than fix you."

Oddly enough, it was probably his advice that saved my life a few years later when I was in a head on collision. Had I been wearing a seat belt, the impact from the crash would have caused the belt to crush my chest, and if I had lived, I would have had to file for bankruptcy since I still didn't have health insurance. Fortunately, since I was following my fathers instructions and not wearing my seat belt, the airbags saved my life.

I was on vacation, driving along a two lane mountain highway on a sunny afternoon, when an intoxicated fourteen year old, joy riding in his parents car, came around the bend on the wrong side of the road. I remember my last thought was: Wow, this is just like the Dukes of Hazard. My next memory, I was being unloaded from an ambulance, and the sickly, stale air of an emergency room was bathing me in the reality of what had just happened.

If I'd had health insurance I would think I might have been given various x-rays and pain medications, maybe even gotten seen by a doctor, or at the very lest been given a band-aid or something. But since I had no insurance I was only given a breathalyzer test, and that was by the state trooper who was following up on the accident report.

The impact of the collision had been so strong that the engine of the car I was driving came through the dashboard, and the floor of the car came up to the drivers seat. I must have curled up into a fetal position a split second before impact, because rather than my legs being crushed, only my feet had been broken and now looked like two egg plants, dangling lifelessly at the bottoms of my legs.

Once I was fully conscious, I was told to leave.

I asked the nurse if I could use a wheel chair, and she said "no." I asked if I could use some crutches, and she told me that they don't just give things away, and since I didn't have insurance they wouldn't get paid for them. When I offered to pay in cash for the crutches, she told me that they don't take cash - "this isn't a McDonald's, it's a hospital," she barked. And then she told me that my feet weren't that badly broken, and it wouldn't hurt and I should just suck-it-up and walk.

When I asked if I could have something for the pain, the nurse rolled her eyes, as if I were demanding a sling because I had a splinter in my finger. "You-don't-have-insurance! You-have-no-way-to-pay-for-it!" She said, mouthing the words slowly so I could understand the severity of the situation. And then she left, only to return begrudgingly with her purse. "I shouldn't be doing this," she muttered while rifling through her bag and shaking her head with self-disgust for what she was about to do. She produced a small bottle of Tylenol and instructed me to put out my hand. She then opened the top and proceeded to shake one red and white capsule into my palm. "Here," she said. "Take that." And then she walked away, leaving me to swallow the pill dry.

Tylenol is one of those things that you offer in pairs. When you go out to breakfast and you order eggs, it's implied that you're getting two, not three or one. Offering someone one Tylenol is only done out of hostility, it's like giving somebody one tick-tac.

Around six weeks later I received a bill in the mail. $800 for an ambulance, $1200 for the emergency room, $300 for the breathalyzer, and $75 for one Tylenol out of a woman's purse -coded as "medication."

In the months to follow I would consult a few different personal injury lawyers who would all tell me the same thing: since the parents of the kid who hit me were illegal residents, and themselves had no insurance, there was no point in trying to get my damages covered - they didn't have any money. I could sue them all I wanted, and I'd probably win, but I wouldn't get anything. And even if I could get their wages garnished, they'd just disappear for the season, and return next year with new names. So, in a sense, their not having insurance kept them from having any real responsibility, and my not having insurance saved me from having any read debit.

The boy was fine. I hear he was fine, at least. And his parents got to keep their jobs as migrant grape pickers in Northern California. And I'm reminded of the experience every time it rains and my feet ache. I'm reminded of how badly it could have turned out. I could have died a financially efficient death, or even worse, I could have lived and lost everything.

It was years ago when my father told me that I wasn't insured anymore and to not wear my seat belt, and at the time I don't think I understood what it meant to have insurance. I had an image in my head of a glass, wrapped in newspaper in a moving box. If a glass gets chipped or cracked you throw it away, and I was like a glass without any protective newspaper. Naturally, what I walked away with was: save money, and try not to get chipped, because I don't want to have to glue you back together, kid. Now that I'm much older, when I look back at that conversation, in retrospect, I understand that he might have been joking.

To this day, whenever I clink my glass to someone else's in toast, in the back of my mind I'm thinking here's to your health. And then my next thought is always: Wow, I really wish I could afford insurance.

THIS MUCH IS TRUE

I'm a pretty average Joe.  

Nothing about me stands out in any way, so I tend to always look familiar to people.  I get a lot of "... you know, you look just like a friend of someone I use to know."  And "I've seen you somewhere, haven't I?  Where do you work?"  

It's my devilishly average looks that always gets me the photo prize, because while I'm oddly familiar to most people, I am horribly non-photogenic to a point where it could conceivably be considered a disability.  

I'm constantly at a disadvantage when there's a camera present because moments before the image is stolen, my face seizes and locks into an inhuman form.  That's why I always see my picture popping up in newspapers and online, it's a novelty.  I'm always at the forefront of a picture being snapped after having just bitten into a scalding slice of pizza that I'm automatically rejecting from my mouth. Or I'm wearing a hat that is a little too big for my head and my ears are sticking out, and the photo is snatched from reality just as I've taken a lazy drink of water rendering my lips glossy and slick, inevitably freezing me in time looking as if I have Down Syndrome.  I've graced the cover of RedEye being fed ice cream by an unnamed hand and looking as if I have extreme Cerebral Palsy.  I've been interviewed on TV under harsh lights in a loud ambiance, where off camera bangs and hoots caused me to flinch and whip my head around mid word, so the word I was speaking came out more of a sound that went whoop!   I knew what the interview was about, but the channel flippers who saw the interview that knew me were quick to point out that for a moment they thought the news was doing a story about people with tourette's.  To make matters worse, afterwords I was asked to sit on a chair behind the news reporter and told to smile big and wave excitedly when the light went on while the reporter introduced the next story.  It seemed simple enough. It was later that I discovered that the following story was about The Special Olympics, making me the body double for the severely retarded Olympic hopeful, up next. 

Most recently I was online, the forefront subject in a snapshot during an afternoon gallery opening this past June.

Every year in late July,  a place in California called Gilroy is host to the largest garlic festival in the country.  I know this because several years ago a friend of mine attended this festival and was thoughtful enough to bring me back a tee shirt.  I never really wear the tee shirt unless I'm completely out of other clean shirts, but I'll admit that it has been in my second string rotation on and off for the better part of a decade.  It isn't that don't wear it because it has a large clove of dancing garlic or anything like that, I just don't like that people always want to comment on it.  I don't like garlic people.

Garlic, you see, is one of those cult things that some people are drawn to and love beyond description, reveling in the fact that they LOVE garlic.  One might even say that garlic is the bacon of vegetables.  I do not share in this sentiment.  I have nothing against garlic, but I don't really want to invite conversation on the subject. 

On this heated June afternoon my garlic festival tee shirt had made it into circulation once again.  I remember thinking that it's an afternoon reception, how dressy could this event be?  After all, the show was dedicated to recent grads and undergrads of the Art Institute painting program - hopefuls to watch in the years to come.  I didn't expect a 2pm opening to be flashy, and I suppose on some level I wasn't wrong.  

The gallery was filled with the usual SAIC types -  dark rimmed glasses, black skinny pants, and an overwhelming feeling that a large portion of the room was going to attend a TOTALLY 80's theme party later that evening.  All the featured artists dressed the way they're presumably taught in art school to dress - in that look at me ... HEY what are you looking at? - sort of way, so spectators know they're artists without having to ask.  Parents were dressed business casual, the way all parents dress when they want to show support for their art school graduate children (whom they secretly had hoped would one day become President).  Buyers dressed in ties, and gallery hosts dressed in expensive looking print button down shirts, black slacks with creases like razor blades, and leather shoes that reflected the sun outside.

The photo online of the event shows all these different people, melding together on a Saturday afternoon in a highly regarded art gallery, and in front of it all is me.  Me, in my flip-flops and cut off shorts, standing  apparently closest to the photographer, almost intentionally to show that I'm the token juxtaposed character. The atypical oddball. The sunburned tourist standing on the shore of creativity.  Me, with my expression that looks as if I'm boringly trying to find the right answer to a rorschach test.  Me, looking as if I've suddenly becoming aware of the effects of a full breakfast three bran muffins and a pot of strong black coffee; standing there for the online world to see, clumsily riding a the crest of an art wave in a tee shirt that reads: SNIFF THIS.

The other night I attended a reading series entitled: THIS MUCH IS TRUE, where the writers read what amounts to essentially a snapshot of their lives.  Memories,  frozen in the mind of an individual as a photo of an event, a place, or an awkward moment time.  

I listened to readings about becoming a college dropout, and finding both work and identity in the fallout.  A story about finding the hero right under your nose, while preparing to abandon a ship in the middle of the night that might, or might, not be sinking.  A story about remorse and lessons learned, when people naturally hit the trigger needed to ignite an explosive outburst. And two very different stories about moments of restraint when you realize that your life is no longer yours, but rather has happily been traded for the unconditional love of a child.

Each of these stories - these pictures of the frozen moments of  a strangers life - were told in only a few pages, thus proving that a picture truly is worth a thousand words.  And it started me thinking about the pictures of me.  What story would my pictures tell?

What I realized, after thinking about it for a while, was that during the THIS MUCH IS TRUE reading, the writers weren't talking so much about themselves in their stories, they were talking about other people.  The writers weren't the focal point of the snapshot, they were off to the side somewhere and really what these stories were about was how others perceived them,  and how they were affected by a view of themselves through someone else's eyes.  

If you ever get the chance to attend a THIS MUCH IS TRUE series, I highly recommend it.  I know I'll be there.  There's no better way to reflect on your own life than through the mirror that the readers hold up to themselves for your entertainment.  And should you see me there, feel free to say "hi" and buy me a drink.  I'm usually sitting in a corner, sipping on a whiskey and trying not to be noticed.  You'll know me because I'm the one who looks vaguely familiar ... or mildly retarded.  It depends on your snapshot of the moment.  

YOU DON'T HAVE TO LIKE WHAT YOU DO

I recorded someone recently who told me that he never reads. 

Odd.  Very odd.  But, then is it really all that odd to have a passion for creating something of which you yourself have no interest? 

I've been thinking about it since he told me, right after he finished reading an excerpt from his novel - his third, I believe.  I haven't

 read more of his work than the one chapter, and I must admit that the chapter knocked me off my feet, which is why I asked him to record for The Reading List.  It was really fantastic - as is the rest of the book, I'm sure.  It just never occurred to me that a writer wouldn't be a reader.  I could understand it if it were the other way around, in fact I know a few avid readers who don't write and have no interest in writing.  But to have an interest in writing and none in reading what other people are writing was like a new discovery for me.  I felt as if I had found the most plump and concise answer to the greatest question that nobody ever asked.

I started trying to think of other situations that were similar, like a painter who hates paintings, or a musician who hates listening to music, or a doctor who's disgusted by sick people

I once knew a baker who wrote all his own recipes for pastries, cakes and cookies.  He would tell me about his chocolate drizzled macaroons dusted in candied hazelnuts, and black forest cupcake bread pudding with whipped cinnamon cream and peach zest.  When I'd walk by his shop I couldn't help but crave everything.  I craved the air.  The sweet, doughy smell of warm lust topped with a dusting of powdered sugar and the memory of a moment of richness.  If I was lucky enough t0 pass when the rare customer was going in or out,  I would slow down 

and linger for a moment, basking in the waft of the little shops perfume with hopes that the scent would stick to my clothes.  I would inhale deeply and lock every morsel in my lungs as a temporary souvenir that would be all mine for the time of a breath.

The baker was passionate.  His ideas were delicious, his creations like sculptures, but whenever he offered a taste, a bite, a treat or a nibble I always declined.  No reason. I guess it's just that as much as I like pastries, I like looking at them more than eating them.  I just don't have much of a sweet tooth, I suppose.  

I finally walked into the little bakery one day at the very moment his new creation was cooled and being plated to go on display under the counter: vanilla shard, peppermint bark, chocolate truffle brownies served with a fresh shot of espresso. 

The baker was acting more like a crack dealer trying to hook me.  He plated a brownie, and pulled a shot of espresso, and then came around to me and placed it on a small table in the window and sat down and gestured to the empty seat for me with a grand, over exaggerated sweep.

"You've got to try this, you gotta - gotta - gotta." He said. "It'll make you big and strong.  Don't you want to be a big, strong boy?"

I tried to decline, but it was really no use.  What was the worst that could happen, I would love it and have to have buy some to take with me?  That I'd become addicted?

As I sat, the baker playfully clapped his hands.  "I need your honest - HONEST - opinion, okay?  You're the first to try this." 

I must admit, I was flattered.  And the brownie did look awfully wonderful.  The baker watched me carefully with a big grin on his face as I forked a corner of the brownie. He instructed me that I needed to get more of the peppermint bark because it was homemade, and after amending the contents of my fork I placed the enlarged bite in my mouth.

It tasted as if something small and adorable had curled up on my tongue, farted and died.

For a moment I wondered if I had just eaten a turd.  The grainy texture was like salty, sandy flesh, and it somehow emitted an odorous vapor that reminded me of wasabi without the sweetness, but with a tangy zip of sizzling horse shit.

I wondered how long I could sit there with the baker looking at me, waiting for me to chew so he could ask me for praise.  I wondered if I could coax my face into lighting up, or if I would be able to finish the single bite at all. 

The melding flavors of gasoline, burning hair and bad breath finally overwhelmed me and I was forced to expel the contents of my mouth into a napkin.  I knew it was rude, but what would be worse: faking it and telling him that the brownie was as good as it looked, or telling him that something tasted ... off?  And anyway, if he took it too hard I could always tell him that I have an allergy to salt - which was definitely a favored ingredient.  I was doing him a good service, I convinced myself.  If I let him sell these he would lose all his customers.  It was then that I realized that I was the only one there, and when I saw people in the shop it was no more than one or two at a time - if at all.  And in fact, the place was usually empty.

The bakers face dropped and he put his elbows on the table, mushing his face into his palm.  "What?  No good?"  he asked.  Which I guess was an obvious question, seeing as how I had just spit the contents of my mouth into a yellow, flowered paper napkin.

"It ... it tastes a little off," I said.  He nodded his head. 

"Hmm, how?"  

"Well, I can't quite put my finger on it, but something's off," I said, shoving the plate across the table to him.  "Here, try it."  

He pushed the plate back, "No, I can't." He said.  "I'm a diabetic."

"Have you always been a diabetic?" I asked.  He said since he was a very little kid.  "So,  you don't actually eat any of this?"  

"No, never.  Can't have sugar."

"Hmmm." I said.  

The two of us sat there for a moment.  "Why don't you try using other peoples recipes?"  I asked.  

"Oh, because I don't want to be influenced," he said. "See, I'm writing my own cook b

ook."

It was winter in 2002 when I ate the vermin flavored brownie, and by the following summer the bakery had closed.  I lost track of the baker, he moved out of the neighborhood and I never saw him again.  

About three weeks ago I was in Borders and I came across a cookbook for sugar free baking.  On the cover was the baker from my old neighborhood, his face was a little bit rounder, and his hair was shorter, but he smiled as big as he always had as he posed surrounded by mountains of baked goods. 

Beneath the title, and beneath his name in bold white lettering was a little note that said: "EASY STEPS TO MAKING BEAUTIFUL TREATS THAT WILL LOOK SO DELICIOUS YOU WONT WANT TO EAT THEM!"  And I couldn't help but smile, as I wandered over 

to the cafe and ordered a brownie that I didn't want - just for old times sake. 

WHAT ARE YOU READING?

There's a bond you have with someone when you've read the same book.  Sometimes, when I'm on the train and I see someone reading a book I've read and I want to run up and talk to the person about it.  I never do, but I want to because I automatically feel a kinship to that person, and in a way I feel superior because I've already read the book.   Part of me wants to flex my knowledge, I can admit that.  It's an ego thing.  I want to ask them questions they couldn't possibly know the answer to because I've finished the book, and this person is still reading it. In the back of my mind I'm singing I-know-something-you-don't-know, but all the same, I feel like there's a bond between us - even if the other person isn't aware of it.

Over the winter I went to a reading at The Book Cellar on Lincoln.  I was itching to get out of the house, even if just for a few hours.  There's something about the winter, it's a good time to catch up on your reading but at the same time you feel like your grounded and more than anything you want to get out.  

On this night at The Book Cellar, it was obvious that I wasn't the only one having the urge.  The windows were fogged over with bad breath and wet with condensation, and from the sidewalk all you could see were the colored blurs of puffed winter coats.  When I got inside I was amazed at the crowd and how tightly packed people were, assholes to elbows up and down the stacks.  The moment I walked in I decided that I wasn't going to stay, but no sooner did the door close behind me that it opened again and more people filed in, pushing me to the point of no return.

After a minute or two I spotted someone I knew.  I didn't spot him so much as we were shoved into one another, and he said the most interesting thing to me.  He didn't say "how are you" or "what have you been up to," or any of the normal things you say to someone you know who has just been shoved against you in a crowded room.  He said: "So, what are you reading?"

It was a real question.  An honest, real question, and one I had to think about before answering.  It wasn't that I didn't know what I was reading, I had simply never been asked that before so I was unprepared, and with no stock answer to fall back on I simply didn't know what to say. 

It's August now, and I still think about that question. 

I had decided that I was going to start asking people the same question. Rather than "what are you up to," I'd say "what are you reading?" But what I realized was that most people aren't reading anything.  How many people are always reading something?  I am, I know that.  And I know a few other people who would be able to answer my question, but for the most part I don't know many people who read for enjoyment.  

It became painfully apparent when I started working on The Reading List in the spring.  People would ask me what I'm up to, and when I would tell them it would take less than fifteen seconds for the glaze to start filming over their eyes.  Narrow focus became a 1,000 yard stare at nothing and I could feel myself become translucent.  Dull around the edges.  Two dimensional.

Chicago is home to the PRINTERS ROW BOOK FAIR - one of the largest book fairs in the country, right?  But the thing is, Chicago media doesn't cover books, or literary events, any other time but that one weekend.  Why is that?

Is Chicago a literary city?

There's a core indie lit scene - it's more of a bunch of clicks, really - but is Chicago actually a literary city?  Are people readers?  

I propose this: Why not have a book club? Not one where a bunch of people sit around and talk about a book that everyone is supposed to be reading.  Something more social.  Everyone can read a pre selected book and then there's a party for that book and the people who have read it.  At the party you can meet the author, get your book signed, and if you want to talk about the book there's a room full of people who will have the exact same answer as you when asked the question: "what are you reading?" 

If you would be interested in this contact me at: THE READING LIST

When Independent Publications Were Real

The other day I sat at one of the few independent coffee houses in my neighborhood and I realized that at the door there is a table dedicated to flyers and publications that I hadn't really noticed before.  Above the table there is a sign that says: PLACE ALL PUBLICATIONS ON THE FLOOR with  an arrow pointing to a pile that I had perviously thought was merely trash.

On that day there was a young guy using the Indie publications as a pad for his knee while he worked on a chalkboard that was propped up against the wall.  He would would rub the colored sticks against the freshly washed back surface, and then blend the colors the the tip of his finger. When he messed up he would rip a piece of paper from the pad below his knee, dab the paper on his tongue, and use somebody's thoughts and words to fix his mistakes.

When I started the idea for The Reading List, it was going to be a print publication.  I guess old habits die hard, and I suppose I like the feeling of paper.  I like seeing words in print.  There's something about the idea that a letter in ink is tattooed on the flesh of a page; and that letter came from a punched button, which was punched by a finger, which was cued by a thought.  Once that ink is on a page there's no undoing it. It's out there for the world to see, with or without typos.  

Print publication actually meant something once.  It was real.  It meant that you were a writer if you wrote for a publication, and you would strive to actually be in print.  You would pitch a story to an editor, who would then tell you to send over your book of tear sheets, and then would make a point of telling you that online publication didn't count.  Writing for a website just wasn't the same, as if it was a larger bucket that somehow held less water.  But now, that isn't really the case.  People are proud to be published online, and in fact online is the only place some are "in print."

For me, being in print was a sense of permanence and immortality, I guess.  Somewhere, your thoughts and words were out there, and people were reading them.  I remember once, a long time ago, walking down Belmont towards the train and across the street I noticed two girls reading a magazine together as they walked, followed by two guys who were each holding the same magazine the two girls were reading.  The  two girls strolled slowly while one read out loud to the other, and I could clearly see the page facing the one being read.  It was an illustration - and not only that - it was the same illustration that faced the page of the piece I had just published in that same indie magazine.  I was watching someone read my words aloud to someone else while walking down the street.   The feeling was overwhelming and I had to fight the urge to run over to them an offer them an autograph.  

I was famous, obviously.  

Unable to withstand the curiosity, I ran across the street and caught up to the two girls and followed closely behind, straining to hear the one girl read to the other.  I stayed close by, nearly walking next to the girl who was listening to her friend, listening to be sure that the laughs were coming in all the right places.  I wasn't really paying any attention to how close I was getting to the girls, or where they were walking, until they turned into an ally that lead to a nearly hidden storefront.  They turned into the ally, and so did I.

A blunt blow to my lower back rocked my head up quickly and for a split second I saw nothing but tops of buildings and sky.  And then a second blow to my side immediately followed and the next thing I knew I was looking at the scuffed wheel of a dumpster.  Somebody pinned me to the ground with what felt like a knee in my back, and hands wove into my unkept, shaggy hair and gripped it while pushing my face into the broken glass and asphalt stones on the pavement.

  I heard a girls voice screech something like: what the fuck are you doing?  And I didn't know how to answer.  In fact, I really didn't know what was going on at all.  And then I heard a guys voice say something like: he was trying to steal your fucking purse. And then another guys voice saying: "Yeah!"   At first I thought I was being mugged, but then it dawned on me that I wasn't being mugged ... I was the mugger, and I had been caught.

The one with his knee in my back was light, I could feel that much, and when I stood up there wasn't a whole lot of resistance.  After getting my bearings I realized that I had been jumped by a couple of young kids who couldn't have been more than seventeen or eighteen, complete with acne and braces.  They stood there, ready to fight, both taking their shopping mall "position one"  karate stances, and hoping for dear life that I'd attack by taking one giant and deliberate step forward and reach for one of their right wrists.

What had happened was the guys who were following behind holding the magazines were the boyfriends.  The four of them had just taken the train into the city from Skokie together and were on big-city-high-alert status.  

After brushing the rocks and safety glass off of my clothes I explained to them that they shouldn't go around jumping on people. For some reason I had completely lost interest in telling them that I was the person who had written the piece the other two were reading.  No sense in letting them know they had just assaulted a celebrity, I thought, and so I went on my way.

And now, so many years later, it's sad to think that those days are coming quickly to an end.  Suddenly, seeing a stranger walking down the street reading an independent publication is less likely than seeing a stranger with his knee in the back of some words that will never be read out loud.