Dogged Again.

Photo via iPhone4

I don't know. Maybe I could still do a hot dog blog. The Chicagoland Dog Blog? This, by the way, is NOT a Chicago Dog (nor, in their defense there at The Mean Wiener, do they call it such). It's not a poppy seed bun, there's no celery salt, and even though the menu says I get one, there was no pickle. See, I'm all criticky already!



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The Cost of Creativity

Yet another Sunday came where, while I prepared to go to work, I decided instead to take the day off. It’s one great thing about being self-employed. I don’t want to work today? I don’t work today! Of course, the down side to that is I also don’t get paid today.

The moment called for effort to be made on behalf of breakfast, so I fried up some eggs and nuked some bacon and French-pressed some coffee, and it was wonderful. And then I sat down at the computer, played on Facebook for a while, and I decided that some blogging needed to get done.

And it did.

By then it was time for lunch, and I emptied the last of a bag of Perdue Crispy Chicken Strips, which I highly recommend for flavor only, because, nutritionally, I’m sure they’re crap. As I pulled the bag out of the freezer I also decided to pull out the last of the big, thick, expensive (for my budget) rib steaks I had bought back in January. Those would make great lunch items for the coming week! I set them on paper plates to thaw on top of the stove.

I went back to the computer, played some more on Facebook, and I think I blogged some more. Then I did something I haven’t done in far too long: I uncovered the midi keyboard and plugged it in to the computer, fired up Garage Band, and started messing around.

As I’ve mentioned in this blog in the past, I like to fart around by mainly tickling the keys, and if I hear a sound that’s interesting to me, I’ll explore it. If it takes me anywhere, then I’ll record a track in Garage Band, and keep it for posterity, or better, I’ll get truly inspired and make a grand production of it.

And so it was. I heard it, and I started playing with it, and it began to grow legs! The wonderful, amazing, astonishing thing about a truly creative process, no matter how truly talented you are — and, musically, I ain’t that talented — is how time disappears from your consciousness. I think I’ve babbled about that, here, too — the Flow State.

When you’re in flow, you are completely absorbed in the project at hand. Bodily functions seem suspended, as bathroom urges, muscle stiffness from sitting nearly motionless, and eye fatigue don’t interrupt your effort. And time flies. Quickly! When I pulled out the keyboard, it was around 3:00pm. Doubtful that I would hear anything I liked from my own fingers, I figured I’d play for about an hour, and then go watch one of my Netflix selections. However, when I figured I had reached the peak of my musical ability versus the difficulty of the musical dalliance I had created, I looked at the clock: 10:38. ZOINKS! I never even had dinner!

I had a 4:00am Monday morning pickup, so I had to get to bed! I quickly put away the keyboard, shut down Garage Band, and hit the sack.

Monday morning I was up at 2:30. I showered and shaved, and I saw that I had just enough time for a bowl of cereal before I had to leave. I walked to the kitchen, turned on the light... and I was reminded of my dinner plans of the prior evening, not to mention lunches for the coming week. There on top of the stove sat two formerly beautiful rib steaks, long since thawed, and now mostly dried out, ruined, and a waste of about $15.

Who knew that individual creativity could be so damned expensive?



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Strange Days Indeed

Some people have noticed that I don't blog much about the taxi job any more. It's not that I don't care to, but more that the customer stories that stood out began not to stand out so much after six or eight or twelve months. Not to mention my heavy involvement in theatrical endeavors, which took their toll on my time to write.

But some interesting things happened over a couple of days last week that I want to share. Put your tissues away; it's nothing like that.

No, wait. I make no guarantee against boredom; you might want to keep them handy.

On Wednesday morning I met with my friends for our weekly get-together that we call "Midwest Media Now!", after which I ran to the taxi office to pick up my check, so my morning was cut short from the taxi. When I got back on the road, I was a little more eager and willing to chase fares that were a little out of my usual range. As soon as I had gotten into my car at the office, I saw on the dispatch computer screen a fare sitting open in Schaumburg. From the office that's just too far away for me to chase, even on this day, so I let it be. But as I got closer to Schaumburg, the fare remained open and unclaimed. When I was about 15 minutes away, I claimed it and was on my way.

As it turned out, it was an elderly woman I had picked up several times before, usually at a Wal-Mart store south of her home, but today she was at the Target store on the corner of Meacham Road and Higgins Road on the east side of Schaumburg.

When I arrived at the store, she politely griped about how long she had waited, but I think she recognized me, so she accepted my apologies and stated her awareness that it wasn't my fault. So I dropped her off at her home, helped her with her bags, and got back in the taxi to book back in on the computer.

As I punched the buttons to tell the dispatch system that I was done with my ride and ready for the next one, I noticed that there was now a fare open in the very zone I was in, so I knew that, unless someone else grabbed it before I could punch the buttons, I would get the fare.

I got it. The pickup? At the Target on the west side of Schaumburg, at the corner of Schaumburg Road and Barrington Road! HAH! Another Target store pickup!

I arrived about 15 minutes later and drove the woman to her home in Streamwood, which wraps around the west and south borders of Schaumburg. She took me west and a little bit north. When I dropped her off and booked back in, I was offered another fare, this time in Hoffman Estates, in a zone that I know is a little further west and north of where I was at that moment. I accepted the fare: Target store, corner of Higgins Road and Illinois route 59!

Three fares in a row, each pick-up at a different Target store, the last of which brought me to just 5 blocks from my home, where I paused for lunch!


Princess
Anyone who has ever read every single one of my blog posts ... [crickets] ... may remember one of my passengers, Ricky, who was the source of an interesting ride. Well, his sister, Susie, factored in another interesting coincidence Thursday evening.

On Thursday mornings I meet with my friend Sean as we try to develop several ideas for short films or web series, and last Thursday was no different. But I also had to take the taxi in for an oil change and to get the air conditioning system recharged, which took about an hour and a half longer than the hour they told me it would take! So, with my entire morning shot to hell, I knew I had to work into the late evening in order to have a chance to make up the time and money.

Around 6:00 in the evening I had a fare which brought me into downtown Arlington Heights, so after I dropped off, I parked at the nearby Metra train station because I knew there would be an outbound from the city coming in about 15 minutes. When I arrived at the train station I was the third taxicab in the line at the curb, and the second in the electronic line behind one of my 303 Taxi colleagues. My chances of getting a passenger here were slim.

After a few minutes I saw a fare open up in zone 279 — which almost always means Woodfield Mall — in Schaumburg. At 6:00pm, due to traffic, that's a 20-minute drive from Arlington Heights. Normally I wouldn't chase this, but almost desperate to at least break even, I seriously considered it. Then I saw her: Susie, the gypsy sister of Ricky, approached the taxi line from the rear. She's no longer petite, as she has gained a considerable amount of weight since the last time I saw her, but I was certain it was her. I feared she would come straight to my taxi, for two reasons: I didn't want to have to deal with passing her to the front taxi, as the next passenger rightly belongs to him; and I really didn't want to take her, because her home is only about a mile away from the train station, a chump change ride during which, as was her usual, she would immediately get on her phone and start arguing with her husband.

To my relief, she walked past me, but we made eye contact. I waved. She went to the front taxi, my 303 colleague, who turned her away. Whether he really had a pre-arranged passenger coming on the next train or not, I'm sure that's what he told her. So Susie moved to the taxi behind him, owned by a friendly, affable Nigerian young man. Assuming that the taxi at the front of the line indeed had a prearranged passenger, I figured there would be slim chance that a second passenger from the train would seek a taxi. I asked for — and received — the fare at Woodfield Mall.

About ¼ of the way to the mall I noticed the Nigerian's taxi behind me. He pulled up next to me at a stop light. I tried to look into his rear seat area, but his tinted windows prevented me from seeing anyone there. Did he take Susie? Did I unwittingly abandon her?

The light changed and I pulled away, ahead of the Nigerian. I started to wonder if maybe my passenger waiting for me at Woodfield Mall had, as some passengers do, called two taxi companies to increase her chances of a taxi actually showing up, and taking the first one to arrive and leaving the second guy sucking wind when he gets there. Did the Nigerian get that order? I turned onto Golf Road. The Nigerian, behind me, turned as well. I reasoned that, had he same fare or not, I had to assume he did. It was a race!

True to form, I chose the wrong lane of traffic and got stuck behind some slow movers, and the Nigerian pulled past me. Ahead of me, he ducked back into my lane and signaled a left turn into the mall parking lot! I found a break in the lane to my right, zipped out from behind the slow cars in front of me, and sped to catch the Nigerian, who turned just in front of a line of oncoming cars, leaving me waiting for them to clear.

On the mall property, I once again caught up to him in a line of cars, but I made another crucial mistake. In order to get to the pickup point, outside the "fountain" entrance to Macy's, I needed to make a right turn onto the mall's Perimeter Road. I was in the left lane. The Nigerian was in the right, at the head of a long line of cars. DAMN HIM! He pulled away in the proper direction. I was forced to turn left and then quickly right into the parking lanes, and then double back across to get to the access lane to the Macy's entrance. And there sat the Nigerian, blocking my access to the pick-up/drop-off lane. And then his driver's side rear door opened up, and out came Susie!

How odd that she was headed not home, but to the very spot that my order wanted to be picked up! I waved meekly at her when she again made eye contact with me as she rounded the Nigerian's taxi to the rear and headed to the Macy's entrance, where my fare was waiting faithfully for me to take her to her home.

Just after 9:00 I was still out. The evening had been stingy, and I was just a few dollars under the break-even point for my Thursday. I was in southwest Schaumburg and had just decided to throw in the towel. I had started to pack up my laptop when two fares opened up in zone 279. At that hour the distance to the mall was not an issue, and meant about a 15-minute drive (Schaumburg is quite a sprawling suburb!). On the way there, the other zone 279 fare disappeared from the computer screen, claimed by a driver, and within five minutes of that, another open fare in zone 279 popped up.

I arrived at The Cheesecake Factory as requested by the passenger, but after the five minutes required minimum wait, no passenger had shown up. I requested a "no show" with the dispatcher and waited, nervously eyeing the zone 279 fare that was still open. If no one grabbed it while I waited, I would still get a fare out of this trip to the mall!

The "no show" was granted, and I quickly booked back in to the system. I was instantly offered the fare in 279: Woodfield Mall, Entrance near Stir Crazy restaurant. Susie. HAH! What are the odds?

I went around to Stir Crazy and within a few minutes she was in my taxi and immediately on her phone, arguing with her husband.

Sometimes life is indeed truly strange.



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Chicago Dogged

Lately I've been sampling this area's offerings of the "Chicago Dog” — or rather, the Chicago-style hot dog.

Back when I was a kid — as kids are wont to do — I hated just about everything food related that wasn't done my way. And back then, a hot dog was to be served to me on a bun or nestled in a rolled up slice of white bread, and slathered in ketchup and mustard. Nothing else! I remember going somewhere with a relative, probably one of my sisters, and along the way she asked me, “Wanna get a hot dog?” Also as kids are wont to do, I was always ready for restaurant food!

“Hell yes!” Of course, had I answered her like that, I would have had my mouth washed out with soap. But you get the idea.

So we pulled in to the parking lot of a small roadside stand in Steger, Illinois. I’m pretty sure this was a small chain that existed only in the Chicago area, and perhaps only in the Chicago south suburbs, and I’m not sure exists today at all. It was Bozo Hot Dogs and, despite its Chicago connection, it had nothing to do with the Bozo the Clown television franchise. I don’t recall the chain of events, but I imagine that I was asked if I wanted everything on it and, to my sheltered mind, “everything” meant everything on it I liked, which was ketchup and mustard. Nothing else!

To my utter disgust and disappointment, I got this heaping pile of vegetables on top of a bun. I couldn’t even see the hot dog! But what I didn’t realize was that I had been handed a classic.

The quintessential Chicago Dog is a steamed — not grilled, not boiled — kosher beef frankfurter on a poppy-seed bun, topped with yellow mustard, chopped raw white onions, neon-green sweet pickle relish (sometimes called “picalilli”), a dill pickle spear, tomato slices, sport peppers and a dash of celery salt. A Chicago Dog purist will gouge out your eyes at your mere suggestion of putting ketchup on your Dog. (I don’t understand it, either.)

I vaguely remember digging the frankfurter out of that garden mess and just eating that — the bun’s flavor was "ruined" by all those juices from the tomato and the pickles...and those poppy seeds! And I remember being scolded for all the wasted food.

Until very recently, I still hadn’t cared too much for The Chicago Dog, mainly because it seemed to be so much to put in a bun. But I was in a hot dog mood one day a few weeks back, and I decided to get one “dragged through the garden.” While I don’t consider The Chicago Dog to be anything special, a classic is a classic, and I, as I am wont to do these days, decided to take the “appreciation” approach: rather than concern myself with all that stuff on it, why not take it in and experience the flavor that a Chicago Dog is intended to impart?

Again, while I consider it to be nothing special, it was pretty tasty, albeit quite a handful. A few days later I realized I hadn’t shaken my hot dog jones, so I tried another Chicago Dog at a different place. Its presentation was different than the first, and certainly less fantastic than the one I remember from Bozo Hot Dog. And that reminds me... the first dog I tried didn’t have tomatoes on it. Neither did the next one.

Some weeks later I tried another one. Though I ordered a Chicago Dog, what I got was a frankfurter on a bun with no poppy seeds, relish, mustard, pickle spear, no peppers (but I ordered it that way), and no celery salt that I could discern.

More recently I attended a Chicago Cubs baseball game. After a few innings we went on a nosh run and came to a concession stand that sold "Chicago Dogs." It came with nothing. Just a frank on a bun, with some chopped onions sprinkled on it. The condiments station only offered ketchup and yellow mustard, and little individual blister packs of regular sweet relish.

And that sparked an idea. I would start a blog that would chart my sampling of as many Chicago Dogs I could find, reviewing each on its merits as well as the establishment where I purchased it. There would be photos of each dog and its culinary environs, and a shot of the restaurant exterior. I would schmooze with the management of each establishment and build a rapport, and perhaps have a hand in the improvement of The Chicago Dog across all of Chicagoland, and I would call it The Chicago Dog Blog!

But somebody already beat me to it.

But HEY! It’s a blog about places to take your pet dog! I could just call it something else! I could still inform all of Chicagoland about where to find the best Chicago Dog anywhere!

But, no.

I guess I’ll just stick to inane chatter about long-shot hopes and failed dreams.



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Bums Rush Aftermath

The photographer who took our production shots made up
posters to be put up around the school. The official posters
had a black & white photo of four or five of the cast,
myself included, with the rest of the informational copy you
see here. Then he offered to make individual souvenir posters
for each of the cast memebers, and used my image
as an example. Pretty cool, no?

Back in high school I was heavily involved in theatre. I was more of a techie, then, about equal to the actor I was also, until I realized that I knew nothing about any real tech stuff, and what I did know I wasn’t really any good at. But no matter how I served on a show, the constant with each one was the withdrawal I experienced when it was over.

I’m sure it doesn’t matter which field you may be in; put together a group of people, each with a different task in an effort toward one important — at least to the group — goal, and a kinship will form. Hours each day, together, constantly honing the project from its tangled beginnings into the well-executed show/product/process/whatever you want it to be.

And then you’re done.

I remember weeks of boredom as a teenager, home on the regular school bus instead of the late activities bus; hours yet until dinner instead of a cold plate waiting for me when I got home; unfamiliar TV shows getting in the way between me and the shows I wanted to watch, all after a play — it mattered not whether it was a full length play, or a one-act, or a musical — had seen its final curtain.

And this past season, having jumped into theatre with both feet once again, doing three shows back-to-back in a span of six months, I expected that same withdrawal.

Perhaps it was an effect of being part of three different casts, or of three divergent shows; perhaps it was the effect of being exhausted after half a year of 12- to 14-hour taxi shifts followed by three- to four-hour rehearsals followed by three-hour nights of sleep, but when we took our final bows for Bleacher Bums, I experienced none of the dread of the quiet hours ahead of me. I was ready for a break!

And I thought it would eventually find me. I even scribbled some notes down, a muscle-memory exercise in post-show withdrawal, ready to convey my feelings of loneliness, of anxiety, of loss in my next far·ra·go post. But they never came.

Instead, I’ve been busier than ever in the taxi (nothing over which to get excited...my records show that May of last year boomed, too, just in time for June to bust), even stretching my days to 15 and 16 hours sometimes to squeeze in one more fare. I’ve been working through my Netflix queue. I’ve been taking in plays that some of my friends are in. In the evening the day this post was first drafted (I'm blogging again!!), I went out to see not one, but two bands that friends are playing in, at two different bars!

I have my life back!

But don’t get the wrong idea from the prior sentence. I thoroughly enjoy acting, and thoroughly enjoyed the plays I was involved with since September of 2010. This is just a clear indication that I need to find the niche into which to fall that gets me paid to perform, and paid enough that I can spend my days eating, sleeping, watching movies and interacting with friends and family between the hours spent working under the lights.

The same goes alternately for writing. And for freelance video work.

Perchance to dream.



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Family Tragedy

It was a poignant moment in the flash of a few seconds as I drove on Golf Road in Rolling Meadows during rush hour Friday. A family of Canada geese not unlike the one pictured here had apparently just crossed the road. Golf Road in that area is a stretch of four-lane, divided highway with a speed limit of 45mph past an office park on one side and a forest preserve on the other.

The drama unfolded in the seconds it took me to approach and pass the geese. One of the babies had straggled or perhaps struggled at the curb and was run over by a passing car. The rest of the family was standing in the grass next to the curb. A couple of the babies stood at the edge and looked at the suddenly flattened corpse of their sibling. One adult goose pressed onward in the direction away from the road, with some of the goslings in tow. The other adult looked at the dead bird on the pavement with a sort of bewildered thrust of its head toward the flattened, lifeless form.

I didn't witness the death of the baby bird, but only this aftermath and, as I mentioned, in only a few seconds. But those few seconds are burned into my soul for the moment, and the sadness I felt for that adult goose — most likely the mother — as she looked on helplessly at one less chick in her brood.



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A Big Little Mistree

Among the last of my remaining readers, does either of you know what kind of tree this is?







In the past three days I've had about five people ask me what kind of tree it is. WTF possesses them of the thought that I might know?! ... I guess it's the same thought that possesses me that you might know.



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Free Ticket

A few weeks ago I received a request from the lady at the taxi company who coordinates the school driver service to pick up a kid. A good number of taxi drivers make their hay solely by driving kids to school in the morning and back home again in the afternoon as part of the service which is in place to help the schools get behaviorally challenged kids, or kids with other developmental challenges to school.

I picked up Belinda and drove her to a certain school in Schaumburg, Illinois. I had never been to this school before, so I needed to load its address into my GPS in order to find it. The GPS had me approach from the north and indicated to me that the school would be on my left. And it was. As soon as I saw the school, I began looking for the driveway entrance so I could pull in and drop her off at the curb near a door.

When I arrived at the entrance to the parking lot, I was confronted with two signs bracketing the entrance:

Click on any photo to biggysize it.


Stuck for what to do next, I sat for a moment. Then a large box truck came lumbering out of the parking lot and signaled the driver's intention to make a left turn onto the street I was on. As I was blocking his exit, and the passage of anyone who may have been behind me, I pulled over to the right. I had passed a crossing guard and a policeman who were standing beside the driveway, and I hoped to ask the policeman where I was supposed to drop off this special needs child. But, luckily for me, the policeman approached my car — and proceeded to write a ticket.

"You can't stop here." he said tersely.

I said, "I'm sorry. I was just trying--"

"I know you're sorry," he said, cutting me off, as he continued to take down my vehicle information.

He came around to the side of the car and noticed the girl in the back seat. "How old is she?"

"How the fuck would I know how old she is?!" It's what I wanted to say. My real answer was, "I don't know. I'm helping out the dispatcher by taking her here. I'm supposed to drop her at a door, but if I can't go in the parking lot, I don't know where I'm supposed to drop her off."

"You have to drop her outside the no stopping zone." He pointed ahead, and there I saw a sign made tiny by its distance from where I was illegally stopped.

"I can't just drop her off at the curb," I said. "I have to make sure she gets inside."

Then the cop showed some compassion. "I can take her in. I'm not a sworn officer. If I was a sworn officer I could cut you a break, but I can't cut you a break because I'm not a sworn officer."

Okay. I get it.

He handed me my ticket and took the frightened little girl by the hand and walked her to the school...I think. I never watched where he took her.

I fumed. I drove straight to the police station to dispute the citation, but when I got there I was told the hearing officer had just held hearings the night before, and then next hearing date was three weeks away. On May 9th. Today.

I drove back to the school and, parking outside the "No Parking, Stopping, Standing" zone, I pulled out my camera, handy for me since I've been doing Phlog, and captured the neat little trap the village of Schaumburg has set up at this particular school.

SIGNS
There are signs clearly marking the "No Parking, Stopping, Standing" zone. But they're on tall posts with a lot of inch-tall lettering on a foot-tall board that, at a distance of more than a few feet, you have to slow down just to read. And if you're trying to find the school using your GPS, and it tells you that the school is on the left side as you approach, and you're looking for the entrance to the parking lot, you're not going to see a stupid little sign to your right on a tall post with a foot-tall board with inch-high letters telling you that you can't stop in the zone.



Aside from the signs at the parking lot entrance, there's no indication of the restriction on using the parking lot to drop off or pick up children. If it's the first time you've ever come to the school, you don't know of the restriction until you're at the driveway, preparing to turn left, and then you're already stopped — INSIDE the "No Parking, Stopping, Standing" zone you don't even know you're in — while you read the signs telling you that you can't drop off kids in the parking lot.

And then, while you're stressed with a kid you have no place to drop off and a box truck waiting to get out through the entrance you're blocking, the next sign marking the other boundary of the "No Parking, Stopping, Standing" zone is far away beyond the capacity of your eyes to make out those tiny fucking letters!


Note the sign approximately 30
yards further away that you can
read clearly in comparison
to the one marking the zone
restriction in the foreground.

And that's what I told the hearing officer today, only without the profanity. Or the attitude. I gave him copies of the photos. He gave me "benefit of the doubt," and let me out of the ticket. The $40 stayed in my pocket!



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Reawakening

The silence is shattered by a loud thump, a squeaky grinding of small metal gears. Hinges creak, and a needle of light pierces the darkness. Gossamer veils of dust disturbed by the currents of air rent by the swinging door swirl and dance in the light as it swings by in lazy swaths.

Footsteps further invade, reducing the silence to momentary pauses between movements, between breaths of noise. Tentative, searching, the footsteps and the swinging shaft of light work in tandem. The illuminating beam alternates between sweeping arcs and focused aim as the eyes of its holder find things of interest in its gaze.

"Here we go," a lone, lonely voice mutters, its vibrations muted by the darkness and dust. "This could be it."

The brilliant shaft lands upon a jumbled pile of words. Footsteps become determined as the intruder focuses his attention on the words.

"Uh huh!" he mutters. He trains the light on trove he has found.

The words make no sense as they are. It is just a pile of words — thoughts, mostly; unrelated ideas brought up by circumstance, by meditation, or by random chance, but left here in hopes of being used some day, if their father ever returned.

The light reflects brightly off of something at the bottom of the pile. The holder of the light trains his tool and his eyes on the glinting thing: the edge of a tray or some other sort of receptacle. A hand gently pushes the words to one side revealing a set of dust-covered letters set in place by time, by some long-forgotten promise to give these few letters meaning, to give them audience.

"YES!" the voice pants, certainty resonating. A hand reaches down. Fingers touch tentatively the dust-covered letters. Then, with the reverence of a seasoned archaeologist, the hand brushes the dust from the letters and reveals them to the light, to his eyes:

FARRAGO!

Jubilation erupts from his vocal chords. At last, at LAST!

Without warning, the room is suddenly awash with a light without source, as though this discovery had awakened Light and now Light was aware its father had returned. He takes in his surroundings. What he had remembered as a tiny closet with a few interesting artifacts is in reality a vast, cavernous warehouse full of information, of intense thought, of wild imaginings, of whim, whimsy, passion and pain, and he knows that it is his renewed task to share as much of this information as he can with the world.

"Well," he says to himself. "Time to get to work... but maybe a nap first."



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