Chicagoing Straight to Hell! The Unofficial Secret Insider Guide to Nonexistent Chicago Tours

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By Dan Kelly

Once a tool-making, wheat-stacking, hog-butchering powerhouse, Chicago ditched its filthy work gloves and bloody apron long ago to become a buttoned-down, tie-wearing purveyor of finance, publishing, and tourist delights. Regarding the latter—and despite being regularly stripped for parts by the political and business elite—Chicago maintains sights and sites that continue to dazzle tourists from across the globe through gimmicky tours led by chipper guides infused with a perfervid passion for the Windy City most often found in End Times cult members—but with more Ferris Bueller references.

Unrelentingly proud of the architecture developers have yet to obliterate; splendid diversity of cultures, long kept separate but not always equal; and dark, violent criminal history made adorable by time’s distance—Chicago’s main tourist draws can be easily enjoyed on foot, by bicycle, via boat, or by becoming as one with a majestic flock of Segways. But truthfully, it’s all getting a bit predictable, isn’t it? After all, you can only point out the deep-dish pizza joint where Frank Lloyd Wright shot down Elwood Blues so many times before it becomes meaningless, can’t you?

With the segment of tourists drawn to secret menus and off-the-beaten-track* experiences in mind, here are some little-known tours for those seeking the actual authentically really genuine secret Chicago.

*  Outside the borders of the area occupying the space between the Lake, State Street, Navy Pier and the Bean—also known as Rahmsylvania.

 

The Sadly Complete Architecture of Louie Sullenman

Architecture buffs flock to Chicago like moths to the flames of neglect, greed, and actual fire that consumed most of the city’s former grandeur in the last century. Be aware that this tour is not devoted to the 19th century prima-donna genius Louis Sullivan, whose vision transformed modern architecture. We’re talking about 20th Century building planner/mercenary idiot Louie Sullenman, fountainhead of an embarrassment of grotesque apartment complexes, industrial parks, skyscrapers, public housing, and double-decker outhouses that have scarred eyeballs with unimaginative design, lack of ornamentation, and a vicious disregard for the humans that live and work in them. Come see why even the most brutal of Brutalists uttered a tearful, howling “What hath God wrought!?!” after seeing Sullenman’s concrete and steel horrorshows. Unlike city darlings Sullivan, Burnham, Wright, and others, Sullenman’s entire catalog remains intact, arrogantly standing beside and astride the work of greater artists than himself, contemptuously flicking bits of air conditioning sweat and pigeon excrement onto them all year round. This is an interactive tour in which participants are given sledgehammers and torches and ordered to try and destroy the architectural beasts, quickly learning that Sullenman’s scabrous eyesores cannot be destroyed, and will exist long after the last of us perishes from the earth.

 

Chicago River Slog

Get ready to pull on your waders, slip into your wet suit, strap on your goggles, and seal every orifice with industrial strength filtration devices. You’ve seen the city from the Chicago River boat and kayak tours; now get your hands, legs, abdomen, neck, and that little grooved space just below your nose dirty as you explore the river’s wet, bubbling, viscid history. Wade through the mighty backwards-excreting waterway’s two centuries of garbage, filth, cattle bones, and human waste. Become one with history as the muddy (you hope, you pray) river bottom sucks you down deeper with each step, down to dwell amidst the trash, algae, and undead swamp-mobsters.

 

Walk the 666

After the successful conversion of the old Bloomingdale Line railroad track into the 606 greenway, doodad-loving Chicagoans and equally thrilled alderman begged for another elevated human cattle chute. Easily entered on the Lincoln Park lakefront and various notches along the boulevard system’s hipster belt, the 666 is a self-contained walkway that rises 100 feet above the rubble and rabble of Chicago’s most neglected neighborhoods. Power walkers, militant bike riders, hover board goofballs, and attention-hungry powered unicycle dumbasses can glide safely through a leafy green comfort zone, blithely unbothered by less politically connected Chicagoans gazing up at them, wondering why funding can’t be found for their schools and local infrastructure.

 

Just the Touristy Crap

Ready to take a selfie in front of the Bean while stuffing your deep dish pie hole? Itching to hear genuine Chicago Bloozeâ„¢ music without leaving the safe confines of the Navy Pier Ferris wheel? Get it over with quick in this special enclosed area so we don’t have to look at you. Please.

 

Cthonic Cthicago

The next step for participants in the city’s celebrated underground pedway tour. Go deeper, beyond the network of tunnels that enable Chicago downtown workers and vampires to purchase coffee and donuts beneath the sidewalks, avoiding precipitation and the accursed purity of the sun’s rays. Discover a blighted honeycomb of caverns, crevasses, and crypts three miles below City Hall, where the city fathers once wove unspeakable pacts with the  terrifying Lake Michigan lizardfish race (several of whom continue to hold aldermanic positions, ruling their wards with an iron flipper, decade after hellish decade).

 

The Running of the Schools

Hola, mi amigos. ‘Tis the Feast of St. Swerski. Garb yourself in the traditional white shirt and trousers, tie red scarves about your waist and neck, and test your mettle in the annual Running of the Schools. Several thousand teachers, parents, and students will be released into the city streets and driven toward Soldier Field, in hopes of finding placement in a charter school, continued employment…or a glorious death. When the second rocket goes off, you and your fellow runners will race before a thundering herd of confused children, incensed parents, and striking educators driven to a mad frenzy by mounted politicos and CPS officials, jabbing them with brightly festooned lances, banderilla, and assessment tests. Beware of goring from their #2 pencils, and take heart that this is the best possible way to educate children. Isn’t it pretty to think so?

 

Virtual Lucas Museum

Our mayor has had a vexing time selling the city on the Lucas Museum of Narrative Whatever the Hell. His biggest obstacle? Disgruntled sane people who see little benefit in selling off a chunk of the lakefront so upper-class elites can build a structure that resembles the haloed remains of a melted snowman. Now everyone can see what George and Rahm see when they close their eyes with this virtual tour helmet! Walk the Soldier Field parking lot and enjoy a 360° view of the lumpy looking museum. Enter it and be dazzled by Lucas’ collection of Norman Rockwell paintings, abundant kitsch, and maybe…some droids or film props? It’s not real clear at this point, but it’ll inspire local school kids to dream great big future dreams, or something. Look, George has his heart set on the lakefront. Give it to him. Now.

 

Sansmelanin Park

A truly untouched Chicago curiosity, the neighborhood of Sansmelanin Park was founded in 1888 by paint magnate Mr. Chalkworth H. Sansmelanin to keep, you know, “them” out. Right? (Wink) “THEM”.

Wanting as colorless a neighborhood as inhumanly possible, Mr. Sansmelanin and his fellow Sansmelaninidiots first built the Northeast Side village, then whitewashed it from top to bottom. Houses, churches, stores, schools, chicken coops, gardens, lawns, pets, citizens…the whole kit and kaboodle—white as a white supremacist polar bear in a bigoted blizzard. Sansmelanin whitewash, of course, was later discovered to contain large chunks of lead, arsenic, mercury, cobalt, barium, and a bit of radium, because it looked so damned cool in the dark. Eventually the village population turned so white as to become transparent before expiring en masse. Sansmelanin got his wish though, in that no human life, dark-skinned or otherwise, can live there. Tours last 20 seconds. Visitors are asked to bring their own Level A hazmat suits and, for God’s sake, not to touch anything.

 

Tomorrow’s Crimes of Yesterday Today Tours

Inspired by popular tours highlighting the city’s colorful gangster past and corrupt near-past, tour-goers will behold the city’s neglected and pockmarked backside up close. Participants can look forward to viewing actual drug deals, armed robberies, and general bloodshed. Watch the flower of Chicago’s youth cut down in their prime from the safety of our armored bus. Participants will enjoy all the blight and neglect they can stomach while nervously hoping to reach Lincoln Park intact. Cap off the tour by enjoying ironically named cocktails and appetizers while viewing locally produced, hand-tooled interrogation techniques at Homan Square before you are never seen again.

 

Why the Hell Is Nothing Happening Tour

Glide through Chicago’s most untouched neighborhoods, notable for their utter lack of theme bars, restaurants, shopping centers, and identifiable features. From Mayfair to Jefferson Park to Bowmanville to Edison Park to Hegewisch (which is totally not made-up) explore the City That Works through the Neighborhoods Where Fuck-All Happens. Visit completely cachet-free diners and tap rooms and sample local delicacies like Bud Light, uninspired BLTs, overcooked burgers, and the soggiest italian beef sandwiches you’ve ever slid your teeth through. See juxtaposed bungalow after bungalow until your brain screams at you to stop. Watch authentic Chicagoans gape at you from their porches and windows, wondering why you’re driving the wrong way down their street before they call the cops, pound out terrified posts on Everyblock, or approach your car with a softball bat.

AWESOME TRAGIC! 86% OF AMERICAN MOMS CRIED LIKE VETERAN PUPPY-BABIES AT THESE VIRAL VIDEOS!

HEARTWRENCHING—Racist grandpa gets new glasses, sees people of color as human for first time.

DAWWWWWWW! See adorable baby’s first taste of chocolate, bacon grease, and gamma rays.

POW! HILARIOUS! Daredevil show-off graduate gets PUNKED as his ass becomes stuck in dead-end job for 10 years!

BOOM! WHOOPSY-DOODLE! Bikini-clad car-washing cheerleader had no idea why the crowd was CHEERING until the judges awarded her the John Newbery Medal for Children’s Literature.

PANDA-MONIUM! Adorable panda sneezes, sparking hilariously decimating worldwide panda-emic.

I KNOW, I KNOW, JESUS CHRIST GET OFF MY BACK ALREADY, MA Adorable goat’s baas and brays sound EXACTLY like your parents criticizing your life choices.

HAVE A TISSUE READY because for some reason this video of a hippo eating a watermelon causes your laptop to spew unidentifiable fluids.

CUH-YOOOOOOOOT! See unsettling toothless baby’s first gummy ingestion of an entire 28 ounce porterhouse steak.

WHOMP! KABLOOEY! BUH-BONNNNNGGGG!!! Patriot hero cop shuts down protesting quarterback by telling him he raises valid points about institutionalized racism and, based on his own experience, agrees that many police officers operate with flagrant disregard for the law and should be dismissed and arrested.

GOOD LUCK TRYING NOT TO SMILE!!! Series of flashing lights, high-pitched bat screeches, and mind-warping scenes from the Afterlife induce a state of rigor mortis in the viewer. Death is only a beginning. Death is waiting. Share this (and DEATH) with your friends!

OH NO HE DIN’T! OH YES HE DIN! AT LEAST I THINK HE DIN. DIN’T HE? Republican OWNS liberal female senator with shattering put-down while throwing rocks at her because that’s how he shows he likes her.

OOBA-DOOBA! FLOOBITY-WOOBITY! Hummina hummina hummina p-KOW! p-KOW! p-KOW! GLUNGGGGGGGG!!!! Oh thank God, the attack is over. Hey, do you MIND? I have a medical condition. I can’t help it. Show some consideration, you insensitive shits.

THE VIDEO TRUMP DOESN’T WANT YOU TO SEE because he didn’t get it. What? Is that loser jellyfish doing something besides just floating there? And what’s with the huge pile of shoelaces? Is this supposed to be funny? He doesn’t get it and wants his fellow Americans to forget clicking on this garbage.

SMART-ALECK TEENS THOUGHT HE WAS A HELPLESS OLD MAN!!! Gelatinous inseminoid oozes from geriatric cocoon to absorb screaming teenagers on subway car.

REAL GHOST CAUGHT ON CAMERA but refused to sign the waiver so we had to blur his face, which kind of defeats the purpose since he’s pretty amorphous already.

WAIT TILL YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT I mean, you won’t be SURPRISED, per se. The idiot juggles blasting caps while wearing a team mascot costume and gargling ghost peppers and grain alcohol at the same time. You know what? We all get a little stupider every time someone clicks this monstrosity. Just…just move on, and pray for humanity.

ZOMG BABY WON’T STOP EATING! OH GOD, THE DOOR IS LOCKED! HE’S CRAWLING THIS WAY! HELP US! (BANG BANG BANG!) HELP US! See repellently insatiable crocodilian infant’s first taste of human flesh.

“X-Offender” by Blondie: A Researched Rumination by Dan Kelly

Recently, Liz Mason of Quimby’s asked me to do a reading at a performance by the Blue Ribbon Glee Club, an adorable punk rock singing ensemble she belongs to, and whom you must see the next time they perform. Pure joy.

The band sang three songs, and two other writers and I delivered essays inspired by the tunes. Mine was “X-Offender” by Blondie, which, honestly, I’d never heard before. It sparked my imagination though, and I wrote and read the following piece. Hope you like it. Note: this is not anti-cop. I was the son of a small-town mayor, and I was brought up to believe the policeman was our friend and protector. Unpleasantly, however, it seems many need to be reminded of that fact and about the importance of the public’s trust. I’ll quote every authority figure ever: “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about, right?”

 

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“X-Offender” by Blondie: A Researched Rumination
by Dan Kelly

“My vision in blue
I call you from inside my cell
And in the trial, you were there
With your badge and rubber boots

I think all the time how
I’m going to perpetrate love with you
And when I get out
There’s no doubt I’ll be sex offensive to you.”

It was 1976, and two years before Sting and the Police asked Roxanne not to turn on her red light, Debbie Harry and Blondie recorded “X Offender,” a tune about a prostitute and an officer she found arresting in more ways than one.

According to noted rock music historian Dr. Wikipedia, “X-Offender” was originally titled “Sex Offender.” Written by Blondie bassist Gary Valentine, “Sex Offender” told the tale of an 18-year-old boy being nicked for knocking boots with his underage girlfriend. The 70s weren’t as freewheeling as we’ve heard, and Ms. Harry wrote new lyrics describing a strumpet’s crush on the cop busting her for solicitation—a MUCH more family friendly storyline.

Furthermore, to calm their skittish label, they changed the title. “Sex Offender” became “X-Offender.” A meaningless term, but adding the letter X before or after any word—ray, men, brand, or Malcolm, for example—always makes it sound cooler.

Ms. Harry barely tries to describe the cop. We’re told he’s “big and fine,” and that he wears a badge and regulation rubber boots. According to photographs of 1970s NYPD cops, it is 65 percent likely he had sideburns, and 93 percent likely a mustache. Ms. Harry’s surrogate sexual surrogate’s reasons for the infatuation are unclear. The song can be read different ways. A kind of reverse Stockholm syndrome, where the perp comes to empathize with and even love her captor. As a disturbing tale of a nascent stalker. Or perhaps a cynical bit of Machiavellianism by the hooker who hopes she can get off by helping the cop, well, get off.

But let’s assume it IS a tale of a lady of the evening’s unrequited infatuation. A boy (in blue) meets (working) girl story, if you will. If it is, it is anomalous. You can search for songs about police officers, but you’ll find few that are pro-cop, and almost none that are fuzz-sexual.

Early cop songs by 78 rpm record era white performers tended toward the gently comic, and were delivered in a  bogus brogue. In 1922’s “The Laughing Policeman” we learn of an obese constable who endlessly chortles on the corner. In “He’s on the Police Force Now,” we discover the innate hilarity of corrupt Irish cops.

Early blues recordings about the Force, however, are far more numerous, and usually about sheriffs, deputies, railroad bulls, and other lawmen busting the song’s subject for public drinking or killing a man for screwing his wife or, even worse, touching his hat. At no time, however, do we hear bluesmen Blind Blake, Robert Wilkins, or Peetie Wheatstraw, warbling about pitching woo at the man with the keys to his cell…and his heart?

By the 50s and 60s, cops were showing up in rock ‘n roll tunes like “Hot Rod Lincoln,” busting the juvenile delinquent singers for drag-racin’, hubcap stealin’, switch-bladin’, and similar hell-raisin’ antics. What nerds. Later on, in 1966, Bobby Fuller sang his regrets about the foolishness of robbin’ people with a six-gun, for when he fought the law, the law won. Sadly, Bobby died at 23, not long after the song shot up the charts. He was found dead in a car in his Hollywood apartment building’s parking lot, stiff and drenched with gasoline (but not set afire). The LAPD coroner declared Fuller a suicide. Conspiracy fans think it was murder. Whatever the truth, Fuller didn’t win that one either.

The 60s and early 70s brought protest songs powered by the rampant misbehavior of the nation’s finest. In Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs’ tunes, cops show up as by the book stiffs; nightstick-wielding goons and hicks; and shadowy Feds, ever looming and swooping in to pummel, jail, and do far worse to the songs’ protagonists. Ochs, never one to mince words, took an extra dig at Mississippi cops, singing “Behind their broken badges there are murderers and more.” Ouch.

In 1973’s “I Shot the Sheriff,” Bob Marley wailed about being framed for deputycide, when he really only meant to shoot the deputy’s boss in self-defense. More gently, in 1967, Arlo Guthrie rattled on for 19 minutes about Thanksgiving littering, draft board travails, and interactions with Officer Obie in “Alice’s Restaurant.” But note at no time do Arlo, Bob, Bob, or Phil broach the subject of cop on criminal action. Thankfully.

Let us jump ahead to the Bicentennial again, and rejoin Ms. Harry singing about cop-boinking on CBGB’s stage.

While Ms. Harry sang about her forbidden po-po paramour, the disillusionment and righteous anger of 60s hippies for the cops was metastasizing into seething punk rock rage.

I plumbed the collective brains of my geriatric punk friends for songs about cops. A scabrous songbook of cop fear and loathing was quickly drafted. Contributions included Big Black’s “Big Money,” the Swans “Cop,” the UK Subs’ “Police State,” the Partisans’ “Bastards in Blue,” the Dicks’ “Hate the Police,” the Authorities “I Hate Cops,” and half the Clash’s back catalog, with “Police and Thieves,” “Guns of Brixton,” and “Police on My Back” as standouts. Consulting with Professor Google, I found Taboo Tunes, a book on music scares and censorship. Which added even more ditties to our glee club song folio. “Police Story,” by Black Flag, “Police Force” by Fartz, “Police Oppression” by Angelic Upstarts, “Fascist Pig” by Suicidal Tendencies, “Anticop” by TSOL, “Death to All the Pigs” by Naked Aggression, “Kill the Police” by G.G. Allin, “Cops for Fertilizer” by the Crucifucks, and “Police Truck” by the Dead Kennedys.

In light of “X-Offender,” it’s worth mentioning that “Police Truck,” an acid shower of contempt for bent cops, contains the lyrics:

It’s roundup time where the good whores meet
Gonna drag one screaming off the street

Here, Blondie’s courtly cop’s colleagues go on an offensive against the X-Offender’s peers.

Taboo Tunes further listed several punk, hardcore, and noise bands that go that extra mile to extend a finger to the police force. For example, Officer Down, Cop Shoot Cop, Pig Destroyer, and MDC—which is short for Millions of Dead Cops. Driving the back roads with one of those names scrawled on the side of your band’s van must have been exciting.

As a side note, and of local interest, what’s up with Chicago police jackets, a youthful punk fashion statement that started sometime in the eighties? I contacted the primary purveyors of CPD wear, the Alley, asking how and why the trend started. They replied with a link to an article about John Belushi’s funeral, when a melancholy Dan Aykroyd marked his friend’s hometown roots by wearing a Chicago cop jacket as he led the cortege. The look caught on, and the Alley met the demand. When you think about it, The Blues Brothers soundtrack was rhythm and blues, but it had a punk sensibility. Trivia: 60 cop cars were demolished during filming.

I have no idea how police reacted to the sudden sight of funny-haired kids wearing the CPD badge and Chicago flag. Probably not well. According to the CPD site, which offers rules on uniform wear and proper mustache length—no, I’m not making that up—hair guidelines are spelled out:

Head hair will not be adorned with any type of ornamentation nor be styled, sculpted or carved in radical fashions such as mohawk, dreadlocks, punk, new wave, etc.

Can’t we all get along?

If there’s a genre with a greater strain of police resentment than punk, it’s rap—a bigger subject than I can tackle tonight. Also, I’d have to mention Ms. Harry’s freestyle skills in Blondie’s “Rapture.” It should be mentioned though that unlike NWA, no punk bands have received letters from the FBI and Secret Service expressing their displeasure with an album, the way they did in 1989 for NWA’s Straight Outta Compton. The Feds, Secret Service, and media overlooked the album’s rage and frustration with American culture’s racism and deathly status quo, as documented in the seminal “Fuck tha Police”—a tune which appears to be enjoying a resurgence in popularity these days.

In short, as song subjects, the police rarely come off well. But it’s hardly accurate to say there’s NO love for the flatfoots—or would that be flatfeet? As in Ms. Harry’s ode, there are others who’d like a piece of a peace officer, or at least a platonic friendship.

Cops are people too, willing to “get down” with the young people. In 1986, all the cops in the donut shop (Oh Way Oh) willingly walked like E-gyp-shee-ans for the Bangles…but who wouldn’t if Susanna Hoffs asked them nicely?

In song, the Beatles had a pleasanter relationship with the cops. Paul had the hots for lovely Rita, meter maid. In real life, when the Beatles played their final public concert on the roof of 3 Savile Road for Let It Be, they cranked up “Get Back,” tying up traffic below. Promptly, the Metropolitan Police Service showed up and very Britishly asked them to kindly turn down the volume. In later interviews, Ringo Starr still wishes there’d been footage of big-helmeted Bobbies dragging him away from his drum kit. Alas, the Fab Four were too cuddly to arrest.

Like maids and librarians, cops inspire a crazy amount of fetishization. Ms. Harry sings as much in “X-Offender,” of course, but more recently, Fat Mike of NOFX united the worlds of Sex and Law Enforcement in the song “My Stepdad’s a Cop and My Stepmom’s a Domme,” telling us:

They both wear uniforms
They both have shiny boots
They both use unnecessary force
One whips one shoots

Despite the “sadistic tendencies” of both individuals, Fat Mike still thinks its pretty cool.

Other musical romantic liaisons with cops are brief and rife with perversion—especially if you make up stuff that likely never entered the minds of the performers. Though with David Bowie you never can tell.

In “Five Years,” Ziggy Bowie sings of the police officer who kneels and kisses the feet of a priest, inducing vomiting in a nearby homosexual. In “Life on Mars?”, Aladdin Bowie asks us to take a look at the lawman, beating up the wrong guy, and wonder if he’ll ever know he’s in the freakiest show—a freaky sex show, perhaps.

Earlier on, in Leiber and Stoller’s often covered and catchy as hell “Love Potion #9,” a young man is driven to insatiable sex cravings by Gypsy aphrodisiacs, and locks lips with a cop down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine. The officer smashes his supply of lust juice, but whether out of anger at the assault or in the throes of passion, I leave to the fanfic writers.

In “Straight Outta Compton” the song. Ice Cube rapped “Just ’cause I’m from the CPT, punk police are afraid of me.” Punk police? Can such a thing be possible?

As evolution shows, separate species can survive and grow stronger through reproduction and hybridization. Dirty Harry frequently railed against the scourge of “punks,” but who’s to say he didn’t encounter a young, tattooed, green-haired miss who was pleasing to his eye and vice versa.

“Are you feeling lucky, punk?”

“I think we both are, Inspector Callahan.”

Let us speculate that they bred a new spiky-haired, polyester-pants-wearing being, carrying a nightstick in one hand and a Minor Threat LP in the other.

Punk cops, like Republican punks do exist, but make slightly more sense. Errol Morris’ excellent documentary The Thin Blue Line draws its title from the expression that the police are the thin blue line standing between the public and anarchy. Not “Anarchy in the UK,” however. A search for “punk” and “police” brings up news stories of a hardcore member of the NYPD who was busted for taking sick days and collecting disability from an arm injury once it was discovered on YouTube that he could mosh, head bang, and fist pump on tour with his band quite well. Which is pretty punk rock, actually.

Celtic punk band the Dropkick Murphy’s—perhaps culturally simpatico, since all us Irish have at least one cop relative—won’t have poseur punks arbitrarily trash-talking the police. As they sing in their song “John Law”:

Suburban anarchists who’ve never broke the law
Sing about police oppression, but they’ve never met John Law
He doesn’t fuck with young kids drinking in the Park
But he makes the city safe for women after dark

Finally, who better than Killdozer to extend an olive branch to the police with their cheerfully growled tale of the awesomest cop in town, “The Pig Was Cool.”

We were at the Journey show
The first three songs we were hanging low
Then the band played “Wheel in the Sky”
Me and my babe started getting high
The dude next to me said gimme a hit
So I passed him the joint I already lit
When I saw his badge
I thought this is it
But he just said to me, “man, this is good shit”
The pig was cool.

Indeed he was, Mr. Killdozer.

After September 11, cops were imbued with a glow hard won after the decade of LA riots, Amadou Diallo, telephone book beatings, and broken broom handles. This post-9/11 canonization was so pervasive, the Strokes willingly pulled the tune “New York City Cops” from their debut album, delaying its release from September 25 to October 9. A bare month after the towers went down, no one (including the band after watching footage of valiant, dust-covered cops picking people out of the rubble), was comfortable with lyrics like “New York City cops/They ain’t too smart.”

Sadly, the halos have tipped again in recent months. Which is a shame, considering that despite a few bad apples, corruption, systemic racism, use of excessive force, evidence tampering, enhanced interrogation techniques, and…this is getting depressing. Anyway, despite all this, there ARE good cops who deserve our admiration, support, and, dare I say it? Love?

In that spirit, let us consider “X-Offender” as a hopeful anthem for, as it were, establishing better relations with the cops.

Let us hope that one day “Fuck tha’ Police” becomes a slogan both sides can get behind.

Ten Books That Have Stuck with Me Off the Top of My Head as I Make Them Up

1. Teddy’s Skin by Margaret Wise Brown—The peculiar recurrence of furry animals and fur-lined rooms in Brown’s work becomes apparent in this little-known and strangely horrifying entry in the author’s whimsical oeuvre. Uncommonly, Brown is a character in her own children’s book, having been made by the Color Kittens when they mixed together “all the colors of the world rejected by God.” The Brown character is locked in a room with only two chairs. She sits in one, her childhood bear in the other, mute but obviously too, too alive. It is unclear how long she’s been in the room, or if the room exists. An example of a passage from the book:

“Miss Brown had spent the morning (was it just this morning? Or another?) purchasing parsnips and leafy green vegetables from the local grocers, when she was overcome by a wave of nausea. The world went black and she awoke in a windowless, doorless room. The farthest wall wavered in her sight until she approached it, at which time its infinitude coalesced into a blank, bleak solidity. She imagined she heard a duck kicking at the wall outside, cursing her with quacks and heaving small pebbles at the house for spite.

‘Goodnight, room,’ said Miss Brown.

‘Goodbye, Margaret,’ it replied in her father’s voice. She fell to the floor, chattering, and counted the seven shiny brass buttons on her jacket.”

Throughout the book, Brown is taunted by her beloved Little Fur Family, who appear through orifice-like openings in the very air, demanding that she explain what the fuck they’re supposed to be, and why the fur son found an even smaller fur-being living in the ground, before snapping shut with disgusting liquid sounds. “I don’t know! I don’t know!” sobs Brown, before Scuppers the Sailor Dog appears in his yellow rain slicker and hat with a large baling hook. He swings at her, but vanishes before connecting, representing her deceased mother’s distant personality.

Eventually running out of parsnips and leafy green vegetable, hunger and cold gnaw at Brown. She looks to her bear who would surely provide SOME sustenance and warmth, but at the cost of removing her fondest memories, and perhaps her sanity. The illustrations by Garth Williams are soft and edgeless yet filled with Much-like anxiety. Here is a man tired of drawing cute fluffy animals and filled with a desire to see the world melt and burn, as hinted at by the cover of Wise’s other collaboration with Williams’ Fox Eyes.

The book ends with Brown eying Teddy over her shoulder, fondling a Opinel knife left behind by Mister Dog/Crispin’s Crispian after he appeared in the form of a fur tornado and dared her to finally “belong to herself…or belong nowhere.” Brown weighs the possibilities in her mind and the knife in her hand, but the final page shows only a wordless illustration of a crib filled with flaming autumn leaves. What it means is left to the reader’s imagination, but it probably has something to do with fucking.

Greeeeeonk!

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Back from Destroy All Monsters! with Nate.

Mike: How was the movie?

Me: About what you’d expect. Giant monsters battling each other.

Mike: Uh huh.

Me: Though the ending still gets to me. It shows Godzilla, 60 years later, sitting on his home’s porch dressed in a white kimono and greying at the temples. His friend ‪Anguirus‬ is sitting next to him, and he says, “You know…What the hell were we fighting about back then anyway?” And ‪Anguirus‬ says, “I don’t know, man. I don’t know.” And Godzilla replies, “In the end, we were only destroying…ourselves.” Then a single tear trails down his scaly cheek.

Mike: Yeah, that didn’t happen.

Me: Wouldn’t it be awesome if it did? I’d pay to see movies like that.

Action Words to Use in Your Resume

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Assgravated

Bloodied my knuckles brutally upon weaker co-workers

Cried repeatedly

Drizzled across chest, received positive feedback vis a vis writhing, pleasuremoans

Emascuglazed

Fungussied up

Gnutered

Hummed a merry tune whilst cobbling, guv’nor

Idiotliminated

Jabbed and twisted in back, repeatedly

Killed again and again and again, so much blood, oh God, so much blood

Licked it all clean

Meatjuiced

Nailed it, fucking

Orgasminized files, secretarial pool

Putrescented

Quackstrated

Rhythm ‘n Boozed

Stopped doing that disgusting thing with my teeth and fingernails

Ticklemonstered!

Uvulaminated

Vaselined up, yeahhhh, nice an’ greeeeeeasy…

Wrist Assessment

XXX-rated all products filed under the XXX product code, particularly plugs

Y, dear God, WHY am I still working in this shithole?

Zip-locked dimebags better’n anyone

SEX TORTOISE

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Me: So, I have an idea for a present for you, but I want to bounce it off you first.

My Wife: I don’t want a turtle.

Me: (Blank sarcastic expression)

My Wife: Ha ha ha!

Me: Actually, it’s a TORTOISE, smart-ass.

My Wife: Oh, well, that’s okay then.

Me: Actually, it’s a device called THE SEX TORTOISE.

My Wife: Oh really?

Me: It’s round and has five probes for maximum pleasure.

My Wife: Ha ha ha!

Me: We might have to have some friends over.

My Wife: Ha ha ha ha ha! Well, that’s just great.

Me: We must all assume “scissor” position perpendicular to the SEX TORTOISE.

My Wife: Har har har!

Me: It operates like this. (I assume a SEX TORTOISE position and begin vibrating while emitting a mechanical NRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHH! sound.)

My Wife: Ha ho hoo hoo!

Me: Sometimes I wonder if you’re really laughing at the shit I say or if you just feel sorry for me.

My Wife: It’s a little of both, actually.

99 Glass Balloons

Many years ago, I read at an event covering the topic of writings found on the Internet. It was the late 90s, and the Web was still a brave and uncharted new world. The concept of uncompensated writers covering unusual and personal topics was novel enough to warrant this sort of attention.

The guy who organized the event was a friend of a friend, and he asked me if I wanted to participate. “Sure,” I said. I like attention, I wanted to pimp my writing, and I almost always accept any public speaking engagement because it forces me to step out my shell. Words of advice for young people: do the things that terrify you, while avoiding the things that might kill you—you’ll be the better for it. I was free to read whatever I liked, just as long as it came from Web version 1.0. I told him I’d give it some thought.

I was already treating the Internet as my personal book genie—whatever I wanted to read appeared on the screen after punching a few words into Yahoo’s search engine—magic! Yahoo provided everything in a tidy outline format, with links leading to links leading to other links. A search for Religion led me to paganism, satanism, and alien-astronaut-worshipping sites; a search for recipes turned up chili, hot sauce, and dog meat dishes (a weird obsession of mine back then, though I’ve never indulged); and a scan of the Sex subject heading turned up every kind of humping imaginable. Humans sure are funny, and the Internet brought me more than a few surprises. I recall the paraphrased words of Rev. Ivan Stang: No matter how strange you think you are, after you start digging you discover you aren’t.

Such was the case when I discovered a balloon fetishist’s site. I’d heard about “balloonatics” before—Quimby’s sold a zine addressing the topic (doubly strange since it was a balloon/inflatable furry zine—because, you know, why the hell not?). Given the commonality of latex fetishes, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine someone being into balloons. For perspective, I read a psychiatric report about a fellow who was in love with his car. Yes, he did THAT, and in exactly the way you’re imagining it.

Comparatively, the site was almost cute, with no photos or films—just little sketches of puffy unicorns and vignettes about the site owner “frolicking” with balloons. If there’s such a thing as hardcore balloon porn (probably), this wasn’t it, and while it wasn’t something you’d show your 90-year-old Presbyterian grandmother (unless she’s into that sort of thing), it was amusing. I’ve seen far worse.

The guy provided an “About” page that seemed perfect for the reading. No profanity, no icky-sticky imagery, just a honest description of the fun he had bouncing and boffing about in a closet full of balloons. I don’t remember the storyline, such as it was, but it ended with the memorable phrase, “The balloon didn’t pop… but I did!” Come on. If you’re not chuckling at that, your heart has ceased to beat. I’d found my soliloquy. I e-mailed the guy and asked for permission to read it. The balloonatic had a sense of humor and said, sure, go right ahead. Nice fellow.

I showed up at the event with my girlfriend/future wife Michael and my friend Kathy. It was held in an auditorium at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and I was surprised the place was at least half-filled. I was expecting something much smaller. I certainly wasn’t expecting recording equipment on the stage, manned by a bespectacled guy in a suit.

I told the event organizer what I planned to read, and he was fine with it, not to mention amused. Cool. I figured I’d stand up, read, plug my zines, and then sit down. As I recall he mentioned the event was being broadcast on the radio. Really? Wow. Where? He told me the name of the show. I’d never heard of it, but of course, I was a fairly insulated person back then. Just like now.

As I waited my turn I wondered what I’d gotten myself into. I can’t remember most of the speakers, but two stood out. One fellow walked up and started expressing his concern about his mother being online, sharing the usual predator fears. The host began inquiring about the roots of his problem, turning the situation into a humorous therapy session.

Another reader… Ye gods. I’m almost afraid to describe the situation.

His reading was… disturbing. He’d found (I assume he found it rather than written it himself) a creepy testimonial by a man in an apartment, raving paranoiacally about the “loser” next door. The part that sticks with me—and I mean “sticks” as in “GETITOFFME!GETITOFFME!”—involved the “loser” neighbor having a three-way with his buddies, featuring various unpleasant descriptions of the attendant sounds, smells, and stains. The guy read it in a creepy voice, sweating buckets and shuddering so hard you could see him quivering from the back seats. It was uncomfortable. I would have put it down to method acting, but when the organizer called time (we had a time limit), he screamed, “Fuck! FUCK! FUCCCCK!” then ran from the theater, smashing the push bar on the exit door on his way out We could still hear him screaming “FUCK!” in the lobby. Ye gods.

During the first reading I mentioned, the recording guy seemed bemused, but more interested in flipping switches and turning dials, though he described the “therapy session” for his audience: “At this time, listeners, both men are laying down, stretched out, on the stage.”  I couldn’t see or hear his reaction when the second fellow self-immolated. Wish I had.

Then came my turn. I set the scene and proceeded. Well… I didn’t have them rolling in the aisles, but I got a few chuckles (and not just Mike and Kathy’s, thank God). When I reached the part about “The balloon didn’t pop… but I did!” I looked up at the crowd with a gaze of wide-eyed wonder. That got the big laugh I was looking for. After I finished and the crowd applauded, I heard the glasses and suit guy (stationed stage right) say, “Wow…” I didn’t expect him to talk. I figured he was just some AV nerd, not a co-host. I turned to look at him.

I wouldn’t call his expression one of horror. Slightly shocked, yes. He looked like many another person I’ve met, suddenly discovering the world isn’t as homogenized as they thought it was. I can’t claim to have read his mind, by the way. That was just my impression after he paused, shook his head, and said, “I wouldn’t know where to BEGIN editing that!”

I shrugged and said something like, “All right. Good luck!” But I left the stage thinking, “Good Lord. After that other guy you’re worried about editing ME?”

Now… I can’t say when I first learned who the host was (I bet many of you have already figured it out). More than likely Mike or Kathy told me he was a local radio personality named Ira Glass who had a newish show called This American Life on WBEZ. Really? Neat. I tuned in the following week to hear myself on the radio. Considering Glass’ response, I didn’t get my hopes up. Sure enough I wasn’t on the show. C’est la vie, I said with tremendous originality.

I later heard from my friend (the one I shared with the organizer/host) that Glass was fairly unhappy with the event (all hearsay, so don’t hold me or him to any of this). He was particularly displeased with the human volcano, but he made a point of mentioning, “that balloon guy!”.

Oh, how I laughed at that. Dan Kelly: Balloon Provocateur.

Again, humans are funny.

I get it. TAL isn’t for people striving to reach the boundaries of human endurance and good taste. But it all seemed a little silly. I’ve never sought to shock people. My tolerance for weirdness is higher than most, but I’ve trained myself to edit my topics according to my audience. Still, every now and then you have to introduce high strangeness to the general population, otherwise they’ll never grow up. Getting it through the gatekeepers is the challenge. It’s interesting that, in 2012, someone like Louis CK is an NPR darling. Clearly, he should be, because his show Louie is an often touching and highly intelligent exploration of humanity, emotion, society, sexuality, and so on. Still, while they’ll chat with him about his adorable daughters and that suicide episode, I doubt they’ll ever run sound clips of him singing his happy song: “Shittin’ in Hitler’s mouth/and I’m pissin’ in his mother’s face.”

As a postscript, life moved on, things have changed, and other cliches have abounded. Glass got famous, works out of New York, has a TV show, and had a voice cameo on 30 Rock. I, on the other hand, remain unknown and have aged badly. WHO’S LAUGHING NOW?

As a semi-serious postscript, I’ve run into Glass on occasion over the past 15 years, usually at social events where we share friends. He’s a pleasant enough fellow, though he seems to have a drive to perform for whoever he’s with. But even as he talked at me about whatever, I was able to amuse myself by looking him in the eye, smiling, and nodding, all the while thinking, “You have no idea I’m balloon guy, do you?”

As a post-postscript, I shared the above purposeless story for one reason. Namely, to explain why this video filled me with wrongful delight.

You… you don’t think I converted him, do you?

A Mighty Bastard Is Your God

Whenever a GOP idiot says God approves of something reprehensible, try to imagine the following exchange happening with a co-worker.

God (in the Next Cube): Say, Brad, what’s wrong?

Brad: (Crestfallen) My… teenage daughter was… raped last night.

God: Tsk. Oh, that’s a shame. (Scratches head) Say, was she dressed like a whore? That might have done it.

Brad: What? How could you ask such a question?

God: (Starts squeezing a pair of exercise grips) Come on, Brad, let’s face facts. Was she wearing a short skirt and lipstick? Was she in jeggings? Could the guy see her naughty pillows? Was her hair, you know, exposed? How exactly did she instill lust in the poor guy?

Brad: (Aghast) How can you say that? What kind of unfeeling, thoughtless, hateful bastard would suggest a young woman was responsible for her own rape?

God: (Shrugs) I’m not seeing the issue here. How does saying the little tramp was inviting ravishment by dressing wantonly seem “unfeeling and thoughtless”? (God makes air quotes with his fingers)

Brad: WHAT!?! Are you insane!?! She’s physically and psychologically scarred because the son of a bitch couldn’t control his own urges! Worse yet, she’s pregnant!

God: (Smiles brightly) What!?! Awesome, Brad! A grandchild for you! Mazel tov!

Brad: (Punches God’s lights out.)