News (03/03/10)
Norman Einstein’s ISSUE 10
Norman Einstein’s ISSUE 10 is now online:
In this issue:
Jason Clinkscales of a Sports Scribe discovers what happens when hoops dreams ends. Cian O’Day sets out on a hoops pilgrimage in a dismal winter. Fredorrarci of Sport Is a TV Show considers a soccer protest gone colorful. Eric Nusbaum of Pitchers & Poets ponders what Olympic hockey means for the sport.
As always, if you like the magazine, subscribe for free.
News (02/02/10)
Norman Einstein’s ISSUE 09
Latest issue of Norman Einstein’s Magazine is now online:
http://normaneinsteins.com/09/
In this issue: Zac Soto of Throwing Into Traffic previews the Super Bowl; Rough Justice of There Are No Fours considers the aesthetic poverty of Lance Armstrong; Cian O’Day toasts the losers of the NFL Playoffs to Valhalla; Jason Clinkscales of a Sports Scribe explains why the NBA All-Star Game is the best exhibition in American pro sports; And Corban Goble of Epilogue Magazine chronicles a very bad day in the life of sports fan.
If you like the magazine, don’t hesitate: subscribe for free.
Essay (11/11/09)
Drinking With the Homeless
I remember his hands, hard like the barnacles we’d find in the early morning light on the rocks along Lake Michigan. I’d wait as he would spill change from hand to gnarled hand to the glass covered counter between us then count it out slowly, deliberately, a measure of insurance he extended to me that he wasn’t ripping me off. I was young and impatient, wanting more to see the line forming behind him move along and make its way out of the store. A few times, I rushed him, scooped up quickly the slowly piled change, brushing against a barnacled hand, while slapping his half-pint of Old Grand-Dad in the other hand, nodding to him that all was right but now was not the time for stories.
It was always the same: a half-pint of Old Grand-Dad. He swore by it. He claimed it was the best bourbon ever made, like it existed as some sort of secret in broad daylight, a cosmic joke for his hoarse, throaty laughs, the folks in clean and pressed clothes wasting their good money on Jack and Maker’s and Knob Creek. It was bonded, a fact that gave Old Grand-Dad great power in his reckoning. He tried several times to explain what that actually meant but I never understood him, whether because of his tendency to mumble or my disinterest, I do not know.
I came across a lot of odd characters at the liquor store. I was too young to work there, just 20 years old at the time, and hired to run the lotto machine (a slight concession to the illegality of my hire). My age was of secondary legal consequence, in fact, as I was being paid under the table just as the three other of-age employees of the shop were also. The arrangement was fine by me. I needed a job and was happy to take part of my pay in Johnnie Walker.
The shop was owned by Bonnie the bitch who I respected quite a bit despite her rough demeanor, I sensed her good intentions behind the deep mistrust in the world around her. But she was seldom there. Instead, the place was run by her husband, John the Asshole, as he was known throughout our little part of Hyde Park. John the Asshole wasn’t around too often, though he would occasionally bring by prostitutes for a quickie in his office, or a “friend” who had a serious nose candy problem. They would do lines of blow then gleefully grab good stock from the shelves to fete their highs further.
There were plenty of times John the Asshole would come by to actually do the work of running the shop, whether that was having me unload the contraband liquor out of the trunk of his car. Or running the numbers until boredom would take over and he’d start jerking off in his office (the shoddily constructed office had a few exposed gaps to the stock room in back… an unfortunate fact I discovered during one of John the Asshole’s self-love sessions, almost giving away myself away with the gagging sound that loosened my throat). Sometimes, John the Asshole would just drop by on his Harley to tell me how short my drawer was and how much he’d be docking my pay that week. The first few times, I was angry and argued… after awhile I would simply shrug then redouble my efforts to exact the docked amount from store’s stock of scotch.
(To John the Asshole’s credit, he would often buy the night shift dinner, in my case a buffalo chicken sandwich from the Florian which eased the hunger of my paycheck-to-paycheck stomach. In his own twisted way, he offered a bit of kindness, a blowjob from one of the hookers from time to time, an offer I repeatedly declined.)
John the Asshole was forever on my case about the bums that came through the store. I was good at getting them to leave without being a complete dick about it… but John the Asshole preferred the front. Tony, the painfully overweight guy I worked with most nights, left the shop more or less to me. I didn’t care much… I always preferred working alone because I knew I would do a better job. Tony would smoke up in the stock room then sit in the office, the door open, the lights off, eerily invisible given the midnight darkness of his skin and the dimmed office, yet with a watchful eye should the store get out of hand.
Out of hand was a distinct possibility. Yes, the liquor store was in Hyde Park, a relatively affluent neighborhood surrounding the University of Chicago. But the store was on the far side of Hyde Park, the curious clashing of the University’s student population, the affluent African American population of Kimbark, and the Hyde Park non-University nightlife that brought in young African Americans from other nearby South Side neighborhoods to the bars and restaurants along 53rd Street. A group of Blackstone Rangers hung out at the corner across the street outside Pullman’s. Outside the Tiki Lounge a couple of blocks down semi-frequent stabbings occurred … no violence inside because no one wanted their presence banned by Cyril, the elderly owner whose Hawaiian shirted specter, strangely imposing, clung to the bar each and every night. Mostly this short stretch of 53rd was where White and Black, young and old, with a couple bucks in their pockets came to unload those greenbacks for a little fun without great event. But tension often hung somewhere in the background ready to spill over.
More than once, I had to menancingly brandish the bat that laid so nonchalantly askew in a box beneath the register. Tony’s massive presence, sliding down from the darkened office more often induced the desired effect, a scattering of whomever was trying to shortchange me at the register or slip a bottle of Boone’s out the store in an overlarge coat.
Mostly, though, the liquor store was a place of calm quirks, regulars leaving muted traces of themselves in-between the racks of twenty-five cent chips and displays of ten dollar wines. There was Andre the barber dropping by to lay the neighborhood gossip on Tony and me with his lispy drawl. The well-worn routines of Andre’s life, every meal taken at Valois cafeteria next door, the same Pick 3 and Pick 4 numbers bought every day from me, bookended a great sweep of local history which he assembled into broken narratives and shared with us, most likely for his own pleasure. There was the old pensioner whose name I forget, a quiet sort who would kick around and smile, occasionally sharing some tale of 53rd Street past, but mostly just waiting to exchange pleasantries with other regulars in and out of the store in the afternoon. There was the crying woman, her two young children always in tow, buying them their dinner of chips and RC Cola, yelling at them to make up their mind. I call her the crying woman because that was her hustle, approaching passersby with tears in her eyes, begging for some pittance with which to feed her children. This singular talent, to produce tears without hesitation, might have served her on the stage or in some grander scam. Instead it was a cynical novelty to propagate cycle of abuse for whichever drug with which she found her life enmeshed.
And, of course, there was our man, the bum who swore by Old Grand-Dad. I remember his face, too, not just the barnacled hands. He looked like a Muppet, features worn and exaggerated by a life on the streets. Big sleepy eyes that would widen rarely but dramatically. A nose bulbous and shiny, looking like if squeezed it would let out a glorious “honk!” Beard flecked with snow-white and gray sticking straight down to a jagged and satisfying point.
One time, Old Grand-Dad claimed he was once a millionaire, that he once had it all, but gave it up because it didn’t mean anything. The whiskey was enough now, it was all he wanted. Women he detested. And fancy clothes and food held no appeal.
When he told me this, I, naturally, didn’t believe him. But he assured me of its truth. He beckoned me forward across the glass counter that divided us. I leaned in for the great secret. But he didn’t tell me. He simply laughed a furious hoarse giggle that stunk of cheap-ass Old Grand-Dad and staggered out the store.
*Originally published at a Sporting Life (now defunct).
Fragment (11/09/09)
There is something in the thrill of discovery, new worlds opened up in-between the unlit crevices of the one you’re already too familiar with, new words to be spoken which untie the knotted tongue. I worry sometimes that I’ll never again be thrilled as I was when I stumbled upon Miyazaki’s movies in my mid-20s, or the Lord of the Rings books in early adolescense, or the bizarre work of Phillip K Dick from the Eileenosaurus’s bookcase, or the first time I listened to the Black Saint and the Sinner Lady… It’s foolish, I know. There’s too much within this world to know even a meaningful fraction of it. But when certain great works created by others, by genius, become personal, it’s hard to imagine how anything else could put its grips on your heart if not in the same way then at least with the same force.
*Originally published at a Sporting Life (now defunct).
Essay (10/12/09)
Return To the Neighborhood
There are those days when cynicism clouds the sidelong gaze. The days which I look back on childhood, the childhood endemic to a certain America, and see a lot of cheap plastic, shoddy production values, and dime-card sentiment all hustled to turn a buck.
Then I remember Fred Rogers.
There are so many stories. The limo driver Mister Rogers insisted be invited into a television network executive’s home for dinner when he discovered the driver would have to wait in his car outside. The boy with autism whose first words came after seeing Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. The Stanford educated gorilla Koko who didn’t miss an episode and, upon meeting Mister Rogers in person, embraced him before proceeding to remove his shoes.
Then, of course, there is the fact Mister Rogers saved PBS. The Nixon administration (can there be a better villain?) wanted to slash the funding for PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Fred Rogers, at the time a lightly known children’s television host syndicated in a few markets throughout the country, testified before a congressional committee with a straightforward and simply-worded plea:
I’m very much concerned, as I know you are, about what’s being delivered to our children in this country. And I’ve worked in the field of child development for six years now, trying to understand the inner needs of children. We deal with such things as the inner drama of childhood. We don’t have to bop somebody over the head to make drama on the screen. We deal with such things as getting a haircut or the feelings about brothers and sisters and the kind of anger that arises in simple family situations and we speak to it constructively.
…
We made a hundred programs for EEN, the Eastern Educational Network, and then when the money ran out people from Boston and Pittsburgh and Chicago all came to the fore and said we’ve got have more of this neighborhood expression of care.
And this, this is what I give. I give an expression of care every day to each child to help him realize that he is unique. I end the program by saying that you’ve made this day a special day by just you’re being you. There’s no person in the whole world like you. And I like you just the way you are.
And I feel that if we in Public Television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health.
The outcome? Congress doubled funding for PBS.
My favorite story, though, is the one about the Impala. Fred Rogers drove a rusty old Impala, never bothering to trade it in for a newer shinier version, a new shinier toy. One day, after the taping of his show, he found his old Impala gone from the parking lot. He filed a police report. It made local news.
Less than two days later, the Impala was returned to the exact spot from which it was stolen. Everything the same, except for a note attached: “If we’d known it was yours, we never would have taken it.”
Here this hopelessly corny man, a lithe little man who wore sweaters that his mother knitted for him every day on television, could move the conscious of even the most hardened.
My first memories of Mister Rogers are of his hopeless corniness. For various reasons, I don’t remember the early years of my life, those tender ages which Mister Rogers so directly and deftly nutured from behind the warm glow of a glass screen. I remember squirming through the show, being downright bored with much of it.
I remember wondering why I bothered to watch the show at all. Mister Rogers looked like he stepped out of another time. The music was sweet but annoyingly so. The lessons of each episode I felt like I already knew.
But I continued to watch. I returned to the Neighborhood every day probably a little longer than was appropriate for my age. I returned for that message of care which I so desperately needed. I returned for that assurance, for that positive affirmation, that was so hard to come by elsewhere. I returned for the calm comfort offered amid the turbulent and dramatic world childhood can so often be.
I don’t know how well I’ve absorbed all the lessons of Mister Rogers. I would probably fight someone if they spoke a cross word of old Fred Rogers. I’m sure he wouldn’t approve of that. I curse and drink and stay up late. My intentions haven’t always matched my actions, sometimes much too much so. I’ve hurt others and haven’t always known how to apologize.
Still I know if Fred Rogers were around he’d likely be more than a little forgiving of falling short the saintly line Mister Rogers sketched. He’d probably say the same thing he always did when people were trying to coax a judgment out of him to suit whatever ends: “God loves you just the way you are.”
*Originally published at a Sporting Life (now defunct).