E-mail: Brian7Morris "at" hotmail.com Archives March 2002 April 2002 May 2002 June 2002 July 2002 August 2002 September 2002 October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 current Blogs Mandapants farkleberries Uranium City Records The C.M. Sienko Foundation Storyteller Musings Solotarian Views Lynne Wiora Tek Poker News Blog Some Biscuits Evil Eye Emporium Niggling Doubts Pressure Release Sara as Mommy runswithscissors Defective Yeti Afternoon Delight trancejen The Terrarium Bird Nird Slipperily Tofu Hut Stereo Gum Links Fixed Gear Gallery Get Crafty This is Grand Featherproof Books Gapers Block Chicago Bird Watching	No one must know my terrible secret... House of Noh! Sunday, September 28, 2003 I didn’t like the homeless guy sitting across from me on the El until a crowd of over-perfumed women boutique shoppers got on at one of stops. First of all, the homeless guy was kind of stinky. Then he started pulling stuff out of his tattered knapsack. I usually enjoy watching what people pull out of their knapsacks. I like the anticipation of waiting to see what the person will produce and I like to rapidly tabulate mental lists of what I hope it is they are reaching for. I always like to think it’s going to be something like a small wooden crate full of clementines, a polished rock with sparkles in it, a contented golden hamster folded inside a Chinese food box, a pear, a very small ficus, one of those red film passion fishes, a letter that’s been read so many times the folds are starting to wear through, an angry carpenter ant, that kind of thing - but what this guy pulled out of his knapsack grossed me out just a little bit. First came an old discarded prescription pill container. It was half-full of some sort of petroleum jelly or something; he put his finger in the container, rubbed it all over his lips, and then he smacked his lips together with satisfaction and said, “Ahhh!” Then he put his lip ointment away. The next thing that came out of his knapsack was an old pickle jar three-quarters full of some sort of brown liquid. I was pretty sure that he was going to spill it on me, especially when he was balancing the jar on his knee so that he could rip open sugar packets and dump them into his liquid. Judging from the smell, I think it was cold coffee or tea, or probably some mixture of the two. I thought the mixture was pretty gross, especially being as it was in an old pickle jar with a ragged label still affixed, but he quaffed it with apparent delight, even waving his nose over the jar to inhale the aroma before drinking, as if the pickle jar was a brandy snifter. His thirst sated, the guy then pulled out David Deutch’s Fabric of Reality (link) and began reading out loud, frequently underlining, making faces that demonstrated how deep in thought he was, and consulting a paperback Oxford dictionary. Even when the guy, just before finding his place in Deutch’s book, pulled out a pair of comically bent reading half-glasses from the kangaroo pocket of his stinky sweatshirt and put them on, I still couldn’t appreciate him. And reading things while wearing half-glasses makes EVERYTHING better. I guess I was in kind of a sour mood, going in to work and all on a beautiful Sunday. The book, his glasses, and the concentration the homeless guy displayed in reading his book answered the question I had asked myself just after getting on the El: why was there an arsenal of formerly discarded pencil nubs with eraser caps and chewed disposable pens quivered in the appropriate loops on this homeless guys’ knapsack like some sort of Mead back-to-school commercial with mendicants as the target demographic? The answer: obviously, this man is a homeless scholar and these are the trappings of his profession. When the crowd of over-perfumed boutique shoppers boarded the El, I have to admit, the car did smell better. They all paraded onto the car and sat themselves around the homeless scholar and myself, talking in their self-satisfied way about what sort of appetizers they would order in Chinatown. The homeless scholar found their inane chatter very distracting. He put down his books with apparent frustration, took a few more sips from his coffee-tea jar, and then fiercely regarded the crowd of chattering women with quiet but conspicuous disdain over the tops of his half-glasses for interrupting his studies. That’s when I finally started liking him. Brian 7:15 PM Saturday, September 20, 2003 When the person next to you is reading something on the El, is it rude to read it over their shoulder? My question is merely academic. I’m not going to stop doing it, no matter how rude it is. But it’s not like I feel ashamed about it. There’s nothing to be ashamed about. I figure if you’re reading something that somebody can see, then that’s giving them implied permission to read it. It’s not like another person reading it is going to use up all the words off the page, right? And if it’s so sensitive and secret, why are you going around showing it off to people? Whenever I read something sensitive on the El, I curl up the edges of the paper, all secretive-like so nobody can see the words, and then I hunch in the corner and growl and bare my teeth at anybody who approaches like a hungry stray mongrel with a scrap of food. And if that doesn’t work I repeatedly pantomime like I’m spitting on the literature-interloper like how angry old Italian people spit on the ground after they mention the name of somebody who they find objectionable. That’s how people know that I don’t want them to read what I’m reading. It’s very clear. I’m very open and honest about it. So, consider yourself warned, okay? If you’re reading something on the El next to me, then I’m going to read it over your shoulder. I’m going to read it, and then, based on what you are reading, I’m going to make a snap judgment of what kind of person you are and how I feel about you. Some examples: If you’re a scowling old person sitting there reading your bible with your yarn-tasseled cardboard bookmark somewhere in Deuteronomy, you’re a lame-ass. If you’re tilting your stainless steel Starbucks coffee mug dangerously close to spilling on me so that you can both hold onto a bar and read your stupid mutual fund glossy advertisement while standing on the El, you’re a butt-licker. If you’re sitting there highlighting passages of “Effective Techniques for Kissing the Ass of Highly Effective People” or some similar drivel, then you’re a bed-wetter. And if you’re an attractive woman in her late twenties/early thirties wearing business dress and carrying a bag embroidered with the name of a prestigious accounting firm, intently reading a dog-eared copy of SuperFudge by Judy Blume, then I think you’re pretty cool. I can’t help it. I’m intrigued. Why are you reading Superfudge? I assume you have a reason. What are you getting out of it? I want to know. Is SuperFudge your favorite book? I understand that you had a hectic day and you don’t feel like talking. I know that you would rather just relax and read in peace without getting asked a bunch of questions. But it’s not like I asked you your whole life story, you know. I just wanted to know why you were reading SuperFudge. Brian 12:16 PM Saturday, September 13, 2003 Ah, Saturday. I’m taking the day off work. I slept in and then consumed a delicious soy burger that I prepared myself on my home-baked mountain man sourdough bread that I made last night kneading kneading kneading in tattered boxer shorts and flip flops while trying to subdue an anxiety attack. After my delicious soy burger this morning I followed it with cup after cup of soy milk cappuccino, elevating myself to cruising altitude while watching a re-run of Saved by the Bell (the episode where, despite his scheming ways, Zach Morris learns the responsibility of leadership through participation in a pilot Marine Corp outreach program at Bellevue highschool). Now that Saved by the Bell is over, like any bastard with a Saturday off, my mind turns to projects. I COULD clean up all the spilled potting soil in my living room that’s been there since weeks ago when mini-hurricane Rupert blew in off Lake Michigan and through my negligently open windows at two in the morning, blasting my micro forest and knocking potted plants off their crude shelves to be dashed against the wooden floor around my sleeping body where I had collapsed earlier in my unaware parody of business casual dress after a sixteen hour work day. Or perhaps I COULD finish one of my amateur self-tattoo projects - or, even better as far as the amateur tattoo asthete goes, I COULD start a whole new amateur self-tattoo project before I’ve finished the others. My next idea is to tattoo a semi tractor trailer from wrist to elbow on my inner left arm. I’ve discussed my new tattoo plan before, but I did not receive the positive feedback that I had expected. What you must realize, naysayers, is that this is TRUCK COUNTRY! Back when I was in college I once bought a lighter that bore this proud slogan at a truck stop with a parking lot full of trucks with metal trailers that held squealing and mooing pigs and cattle parked in the hot sun on their way to their various slaughterhouses. The lighter was shaped like a semi tractor trailer and it had a picture of a semi tractor trailer on it in sharply diminishing perspective, billowing diesel soot behind it far into the distance, all set upon an American flag background. Below the illustration the lighter read, “Truck Country!” Whenever I lit somebody’s cigarette I’d say, “It’s true you know.” Then they’d ask, “what?” And I’d shout, “This is Truck Country!!” and unless they unequivocally agreed I’d start pointing stuff out that travels in trucks, which is pretty much everything. I followed this protocol until the butane in TRUCK COUNTRY ran out. Then the fucking thing was totally useless (poignant commentary, wouldn’t you say?) Long story short, that’s one reason why people would get all quiet if they were planning a party and I walked by with my Truck Country lighter. But so anyway, some people have expressed to me that they think my new tattoo idea is a bad one. Fortunately, I have a ready come-back: “I don’t see YOU tattooing ANYTHING on yourself!” I shout back angrily at them. “That’s sort of the point,” they respond. But then I shout, “Ralph Nader for president!” and dance my so-obscene-that-it’s-not-even-a-little-comical-and-is-just-embarrassing-both-for-myself-and-others booty dance. I realize that dancing my obscene booty dance does not resolve anything. I realize that. But you should be aware that my personal endorsement of amateur self-tattooing runs much deeper than my obscene booty dance. “Self-mutilation,” you say? I say “self-tattooification!” And I’m not the only one out there in truck country who is proudly emblazoning him or herself with squiggly lines and green/blue blotches. So what if this story (click here)doesn’t have a happy ending? This one (click here)does. I guess that I COULD start my new tattoo project, but my Saturday off is already more than half over. I’ll probably just wander down to the used book store without washing my face first and buy another age-yellowed paperback of Sylvia Plath poems to take to the lakeshore and find a place to sit by myself among the speed-walkers striding blameless with hand-weights in the sunlight and where I’ll cup the burdened whistle of the lake breeze in the whorl of my ear like a scooped-out pumpkin crown while I read Plath’s observations on half-ripe grapes, English estates, and how it makes her feel when she realizes that her trust fund money is about to run out again. I figure I’ve got about an hour and a half before whatever the bacteria/yeast/protozoa it is that lives in my mountain man sourdough starter culture churns my guts into a case of the cramping poo’s that will start me on a panicked shuffle for home. Brian 4:45 PM

E-mail: Brian7Morris "at" hotmail.com

Blogs

Mandapants
farkleberries
Uranium City Records
The C.M. Sienko Foundation
Storyteller Musings
Solotarian Views
Lynne Wiora
Tek
Poker News Blog
Some Biscuits
Evil Eye Emporium
Niggling Doubts
Pressure Release
Sara as Mommy
runswithscissors
Defective Yeti
Afternoon Delight
trancejen
The Terrarium
Bird Nird
Slipperily
Tofu Hut
Stereo Gum

House of Noh!

Sunday, September 28, 2003

I didn’t like the homeless guy sitting across from me on the El until a crowd of over-perfumed women boutique shoppers got on at one of stops. First of all, the homeless guy was kind of stinky. Then he started pulling stuff out of his tattered knapsack. I usually enjoy watching what people pull out of their knapsacks. I like the anticipation of waiting to see what the person will produce and I like to rapidly tabulate mental lists of what I hope it is they are reaching for. I always like to think it’s going to be something like a small wooden crate full of clementines, a polished rock with sparkles in it, a contented golden hamster folded inside a Chinese food box, a pear, a very small ficus, one of those red film passion fishes, a letter that’s been read so many times the folds are starting to wear through, an angry carpenter ant, that kind of thing - but what this guy pulled out of his knapsack grossed me out just a little bit. First came an old discarded prescription pill container. It was half-full of some sort of petroleum jelly or something; he put his finger in the container, rubbed it all over his lips, and then he smacked his lips together with satisfaction and said, “Ahhh!” Then he put his lip ointment away. The next thing that came out of his knapsack was an old pickle jar three-quarters full of some sort of brown liquid. I was pretty sure that he was going to spill it on me, especially when he was balancing the jar on his knee so that he could rip open sugar packets and dump them into his liquid. Judging from the smell, I think it was cold coffee or tea, or probably some mixture of the two. I thought the mixture was pretty gross, especially being as it was in an old pickle jar with a ragged label still affixed, but he quaffed it with apparent delight, even waving his nose over the jar to inhale the aroma before drinking, as if the pickle jar was a brandy snifter. His thirst sated, the guy then pulled out David Deutch’s Fabric of Reality (link) and began reading out loud, frequently underlining, making faces that demonstrated how deep in thought he was, and consulting a paperback Oxford dictionary. Even when the guy, just before finding his place in Deutch’s book, pulled out a pair of comically bent reading half-glasses from the kangaroo pocket of his stinky sweatshirt and put them on, I still couldn’t appreciate him. And reading things while wearing half-glasses makes EVERYTHING better. I guess I was in kind of a sour mood, going in to work and all on a beautiful Sunday. The book, his glasses, and the concentration the homeless guy displayed in reading his book answered the question I had asked myself just after getting on the El: why was there an arsenal of formerly discarded pencil nubs with eraser caps and chewed disposable pens quivered in the appropriate loops on this homeless guys’ knapsack like some sort of Mead back-to-school commercial with mendicants as the target demographic? The answer: obviously, this man is a homeless scholar and these are the trappings of his profession. When the crowd of over-perfumed boutique shoppers boarded the El, I have to admit, the car did smell better. They all paraded onto the car and sat themselves around the homeless scholar and myself, talking in their self-satisfied way about what sort of appetizers they would order in Chinatown. The homeless scholar found their inane chatter very distracting. He put down his books with apparent frustration, took a few more sips from his coffee-tea jar, and then fiercely regarded the crowd of chattering women with quiet but conspicuous disdain over the tops of his half-glasses for interrupting his studies. That’s when I finally started liking him.

Brian 7:15 PM

Saturday, September 20, 2003

When the person next to you is reading something on the El, is it rude to read it over their shoulder? My question is merely academic. I’m not going to stop doing it, no matter how rude it is. But it’s not like I feel ashamed about it. There’s nothing to be ashamed about. I figure if you’re reading something that somebody can see, then that’s giving them implied permission to read it. It’s not like another person reading it is going to use up all the words off the page, right? And if it’s so sensitive and secret, why are you going around showing it off to people? Whenever I read something sensitive on the El, I curl up the edges of the paper, all secretive-like so nobody can see the words, and then I hunch in the corner and growl and bare my teeth at anybody who approaches like a hungry stray mongrel with a scrap of food. And if that doesn’t work I repeatedly pantomime like I’m spitting on the literature-interloper like how angry old Italian people spit on the ground after they mention the name of somebody who they find objectionable. That’s how people know that I don’t want them to read what I’m reading. It’s very clear. I’m very open and honest about it. So, consider yourself warned, okay? If you’re reading something on the El next to me, then I’m going to read it over your shoulder. I’m going to read it, and then, based on what you are reading, I’m going to make a snap judgment of what kind of person you are and how I feel about you. Some examples: If you’re a scowling old person sitting there reading your bible with your yarn-tasseled cardboard bookmark somewhere in Deuteronomy, you’re a lame-ass. If you’re tilting your stainless steel Starbucks coffee mug dangerously close to spilling on me so that you can both hold onto a bar and read your stupid mutual fund glossy advertisement while standing on the El, you’re a butt-licker. If you’re sitting there highlighting passages of “Effective Techniques for Kissing the Ass of Highly Effective People” or some similar drivel, then you’re a bed-wetter. And if you’re an attractive woman in her late twenties/early thirties wearing business dress and carrying a bag embroidered with the name of a prestigious accounting firm, intently reading a dog-eared copy of SuperFudge by Judy Blume, then I think you’re pretty cool. I can’t help it. I’m intrigued. Why are you reading Superfudge? I assume you have a reason. What are you getting out of it? I want to know. Is SuperFudge your favorite book? I understand that you had a hectic day and you don’t feel like talking. I know that you would rather just relax and read in peace without getting asked a bunch of questions. But it’s not like I asked you your whole life story, you know. I just wanted to know why you were reading SuperFudge.

Brian 12:16 PM

Saturday, September 13, 2003

Ah, Saturday. I’m taking the day off work. I slept in and then consumed a delicious soy burger that I prepared myself on my home-baked mountain man sourdough bread that I made last night kneading kneading kneading in tattered boxer shorts and flip flops while trying to subdue an anxiety attack. After my delicious soy burger this morning I followed it with cup after cup of soy milk cappuccino, elevating myself to cruising altitude while watching a re-run of Saved by the Bell (the episode where, despite his scheming ways, Zach Morris learns the responsibility of leadership through participation in a pilot Marine Corp outreach program at Bellevue highschool). Now that Saved by the Bell is over, like any bastard with a Saturday off, my mind turns to projects. I COULD clean up all the spilled potting soil in my living room that’s been there since weeks ago when mini-hurricane Rupert blew in off Lake Michigan and through my negligently open windows at two in the morning, blasting my micro forest and knocking potted plants off their crude shelves to be dashed against the wooden floor around my sleeping body where I had collapsed earlier in my unaware parody of business casual dress after a sixteen hour work day. Or perhaps I COULD finish one of my amateur self-tattoo projects - or, even better as far as the amateur tattoo asthete goes, I COULD start a whole new amateur self-tattoo project before I’ve finished the others. My next idea is to tattoo a semi tractor trailer from wrist to elbow on my inner left arm. I’ve discussed my new tattoo plan before, but I did not receive the positive feedback that I had expected. What you must realize, naysayers, is that this is TRUCK COUNTRY! Back when I was in college I once bought a lighter that bore this proud slogan at a truck stop with a parking lot full of trucks with metal trailers that held squealing and mooing pigs and cattle parked in the hot sun on their way to their various slaughterhouses. The lighter was shaped like a semi tractor trailer and it had a picture of a semi tractor trailer on it in sharply diminishing perspective, billowing diesel soot behind it far into the distance, all set upon an American flag background. Below the illustration the lighter read, “Truck Country!” Whenever I lit somebody’s cigarette I’d say, “It’s true you know.” Then they’d ask, “what?” And I’d shout, “This is Truck Country!!” and unless they unequivocally agreed I’d start pointing stuff out that travels in trucks, which is pretty much everything. I followed this protocol until the butane in TRUCK COUNTRY ran out. Then the fucking thing was totally useless (poignant commentary, wouldn’t you say?) Long story short, that’s one reason why people would get all quiet if they were planning a party and I walked by with my Truck Country lighter. But so anyway, some people have expressed to me that they think my new tattoo idea is a bad one. Fortunately, I have a ready come-back: “I don’t see YOU tattooing ANYTHING on yourself!” I shout back angrily at them. “That’s sort of the point,” they respond. But then I shout, “Ralph Nader for president!” and dance my so-obscene-that-it’s-not-even-a-little-comical-and-is-just-embarrassing-both-for-myself-and-others booty dance. I realize that dancing my obscene booty dance does not resolve anything. I realize that. But you should be aware that my personal endorsement of amateur self-tattooing runs much deeper than my obscene booty dance. “Self-mutilation,” you say? I say “self-tattooification!” And I’m not the only one out there in truck country who is proudly emblazoning him or herself with squiggly lines and green/blue blotches. So what if this story (click here)doesn’t have a happy ending? This one (click here)does. I guess that I COULD start my new tattoo project, but my Saturday off is already more than half over. I’ll probably just wander down to the used book store without washing my face first and buy another age-yellowed paperback of Sylvia Plath poems to take to the lakeshore and find a place to sit by myself among the speed-walkers striding blameless with hand-weights in the sunlight and where I’ll cup the burdened whistle of the lake breeze in the whorl of my ear like a scooped-out pumpkin crown while I read Plath’s observations on half-ripe grapes, English estates, and how it makes her feel when she realizes that her trust fund money is about to run out again. I figure I’ve got about an hour and a half before whatever the bacteria/yeast/protozoa it is that lives in my mountain man sourdough starter culture churns my guts into a case of the cramping poo’s that will start me on a panicked shuffle for home.

Brian 4:45 PM

<< chicago blogs >>

Archives

Blogs

Links

No one must know my terrible secret...

House of Noh!

Sunday, September 28, 2003

Saturday, September 20, 2003

Saturday, September 13, 2003