The Weekend of Foolish Attention

Bits and Bytes of the week

Yup. Biden’s freaking old. I wish he’d take a clue from what happened when Ruth Bader Ginsburg refused to acknowledge that life can suddenly end and allow a superconservative SCOTUS in the wake of her arrogance. On the other hand, as much as I’m generally unimpressed with V.P. Harris, she’d be a more qualified president than Trump. In fact, Charlie Sheen, Ezra Miller, and the cyst on my left ball all are more qualified than the Donald.

Hey, vote for your favorite WWE Wrestler but, seriously, which of these geezers would you rather have a meal with? Trust me—if you said Trump, he’s gonna over order and stick you with the check.

Pizza? Really? The guy who hired me for the radio stations and who is the sole reason the Earth hasn’t swallowed the place whole is leaving after 12 years. No severance, no end of time bonus, no watch. The GM scheduled a lunch for his last day. Pizza. Like he was a graduate of the Second City Training Program decades ago. Don’t love your job cuz it cannot love you back.

The cat is outta the bag. I gave notice on Friday (a surprising relief to finally pull that trigger), finishing out next week at the radio stations, and moving to Chicago on March 1. I start at Millennium Park the following Monday. Yes, I will miss being seven minutes away from my mom’s house, cooking for my sister, and hanging with my pops but the Big City is my place. I’m looking forward to the culture, the park, the music, the theater, the people.

My new office…

Oh, and King Spa. The local YMCA (about three blocks from my place) has a steam room. It’s been under construction for three months or so and just re-opened. So, of course, I went, worked out, and then sat in the steam room for thirty minutes until I felt as if I were made of the gel inside those cushy shoe insoles. It reminded me how much I love that and I’m making a commitment to doing King Spa in Niles at least twice a month once I return to Chicago.

Polyamory, my ass. There has been a lot of squawk about polyamory (multiple sexual partners with the pretense of the kind of commitment one can associate with a lightly worn hat). There is the New York Times bestseller which prompted articles in the Times, New Yorker, Esquire, and so on. My ex-wife’s john—the one who reviewed my book about marrying a prostitute—tried to position the whole sex-for-money thing as a form of it. Wrong. Polyamory is just white women gentrifying the gay man’s lifestyle and calling it something brunch-y. Men just call it fucking around.

Yup. I called this years ago. It’s official: Chicagoans know pizza.

Yelp has released the 2024 Top Pizza Spots rankings, according to the Yelp Elite Squad. Pequod’s Pizza, the beloved pie shop for locals, has secured the No. 1 spot for the best pizza in the country.

If the GM had ordered Pequod’s for the outgoing Operations Manager for his farewell lunch, I’d have a completely different perspective on the event.

Pointless debate? The arguments about whether a hot dog is a sandwich or whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie are silly and fun until they aren’t. These are the sort of arguments that are effectively meaningless and unimportant but culturally, because we need to be engaged in some sort of “I’m right, you’re wrong” struggle on a nearly daily basis. Pragmatically, it doesn’t make any difference what you call a hot dog or when you decide to watch John McClane kill bank robbers while spouting sarcasm. It affects no one else but being right is so ingrained that these stupid questions become fodder for contention.

Important, life changing debates are not subject to opinion. The pervasive influence that poverty has on crime is not the same as discussing which color the internet dress appears to be. The effects of the COVID virus on older and heavier people is not in the same lane as determining whether the MCU is being tainted by progressive ideology. So few of us are experts on anything but the increased distrust in expertise has us all vying for the badge of righteous truthteller without any bedrock to stand upon.

While it took me nearly sixty years to learn, I’m thinking that sometimes—most times—the best answer is “I have no opinion on that.” You can see in the eyes of the inquisitor whether or not any statement of opinion followed by a look to see where you stand is worth the drama. I’m far less interested in drama than I was in my younger days.

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That’s the weekend! I’ll spend next week wrapping things up, packing things up, and living in transition prepping for the next chapter of the weirdest novel ever written. For your week, try doing something that seems improbable and wonderful. At least it makes a good story.