City of the Big Shoulders

“I could have just told a really funny joke but I decided to eat it instead.”
                                       —Sam Lincoln Tweedy

Just another Will Rogers-like rumination from my five-year-old nephew as he contemplated an unusually shaped carrot on his plate of beef stew at Manny’s Deli. Sometimes I wish I could follow this kid around for several days with a tape recorder and then publish a book of his bizarre and zen-like non sequitirs. Sammy definitely has some unique stuff going on in that head of his.

This may be a very disjointed post. I seem to be incapable of extended cohesive thought when I’m here in the land of my birth. It’s probably a combination of going back into age-old family patterns, fighting the tendency to regress to my 12-year-old emotional state, and the fact that my blood sugar levels are off the charts here since we spend every waking moment planning, eating, or discussing our next meal. On our first night we were having dinner at Lou Malnati’s, a yummy Chicago institution where the pizza has about 2 lbs. of fatty cheese per square inch. As we polished off two deep-dish pies and sat in the restaurant wiping bits of tomato off our mouths and sweat from our brows from the work our digestive tracts needed to do to process all that lethal cheese, my father said in all seriousness, “that was a great appetizer—now where should we go for dinner?”

My sister, who just moved to a great old 1905 house, only got her TV service hooked up yesterday so it was the first time we saw any moving images from New Orleans. Unbelievable how an entire city can change like that overnight. I won’t even try to comment on that nightmare except to say that while I admit I’m predisposed to criticizing George Bush’s actions, I continue to be amazed that even Karl Rove and an army of PR experts can’t manufacture at least the appearance of competence or compassion in the public images of the president responding to this disaster. If I were down there having lost everything and struggling for my family’s survival I can't even imagine how pissed I'd be at our government—billions and billions spent on Iraq while some families stuck there still can't get any help. When I hear people talking about whether New Orleans should be rebuilt at all, I realize that I’m still in denial about the loss of so much of that beautiful historic city. I keep walking around Chicago trying to imagine such a disaster taking its toll on this magnificent city, God forbid. Leaving aside the loss of life for a moment which is obviously horrendous no matter where or how it hits, the thought of this city being destroyed and needing to be rebuilt seems so unfathomable. But of course it could happen here or anywhere (Chicago fire, anyone? The “Big One” hitting L.A.?) and I shudder at the idea of such desperate actions overtaking these cities I know so well. Some of the descriptions of New Orleans remind me of accounts of the Warsaw Ghetto at its worst—children walking by dead, rotting corpses in the middle of the road, scavenging for food and water, increasingly desperate for outside help.

We’ve been staying pretty close to home on this trip, except for going from one meal to the next. My sister has a new GPS system in her car which is amazing but it’s also clear how quickly we become dependent on new technologies. I still can’t get over the fact that this device knows where she is at all times, displaying it on a large bright map, and that it offers constant directions in a soothing female voice she calls Doris. The only problem is that now  my sister can’t travel anywhere without laboriously entering her destination into the system. “But Sue,” I moan, “you’ve driven to dad’s house about 10,000 times—why on earth do you need directions?” “Because I want to see how Doris would do it,” she replies, and then complains when her auto-android takes a few different turns from her normal route. Still, the system is genius. We made a wrong turn yesterday on a downtown interchange and we all freaked out, kvetching about how we were totally lost. But Doris, calm automaton that she is, didn’t miss a beat. “Recalculating route,” she said without a trace of emotion, and promptly gave my sister directions that had us back in the right direction in around 45 seconds. Amazing, but a bit disconcerting to have such an unfamiliar reaction in the front seat with us. Maybe they should invent a Jewish GPS system that offers up a little emotion with her directions:  “Sue, you schlemiel, what the HELL are you doing? You weren’t supposed to turn there!! Now we’re going to be LATE! Okay, genius, turn right at the next intersection, then another right on Fullerton. Oy, what would you do without me??”

I thought Los Angeles was the offensive cell phone use capital of the world but I’ve noticed that in Chicago far more people use those wireless ear pieces that make you look like Lt. Uhura in “Star Trek.” They walk around with these things affixed to their heads all day long, and because they are quite small the impression you get is that you’re in a city of crazy people who are constantly talking to themselves.

Yesterday a man who works for my father stopped by my sister’s house. I haven’t seen him in many years and when he saw me he lurched back, his eyes widening, and exclaimed, “Oh my God, Danny, is that you? You’re so much heavier now, I didn’t recognize you! And you’re so bald!”  Note to self: when I see old  friends who have gained weight, try not to step back in horror and comment. Remember that, unlike you, they have actually been looking at themselves in the mirror during the years you haven’t seen each other. On the other hand, this is an area that gets very tricky for me. I remember when Leah was younger and she used to make innocent comments in airports when she saw people who were very fat, thin, tall, short, in a wheelchair, missing a limb, etc. I would always whisk her away and explain that we mustn’t make comments about such things because it would hurt the other person’s feelings and wasn’t polite. Now while I DO think it’s appropriate social conditioning to teach kids not to offer their loud assessment of other people’s physical traits (“Wow, dad, look at the nose on that lady over there!”) I worry about the hush-hush shame aspect that we’re embedding in our children's heads. It’s also a cultural thing, I think. The man who works for my dad is Hispanic and, freed from the angst-ridden Jewish palette of  neuroses, I don’t think he thought anything of commenting about my weight, it certainly wasn’t meant in a malicious way. Of course I was horrified nonetheless and determined to start getting back into shape the minute I return to L.A. (and get a workable distance away from Lou Malnati’s pizzas).

As I head towards the age of 46 in two  days, I find that I often think about the issues raised on Ronni Bennet’s Time Goes By blog. Questions about age are treated with the same hushed shame as comments about weight or other physical characteristics. “Never ask someone how old they are!” we urgently teach our children. “It’s very impolite.” Why? Why should such a question ever be impolite unless being older than 40 is considered something the person should feel ashamed about—like they did something wrong by surviving past the age of 30? It’s always so refreshing to hear older actresses state their real age without the slightest bit of self-consciousness. Doesn’t everyone realize at this point that we all know anyway, thanks to the Internet Movie Database? Some actresses tend to shave a year off their birth date with every passing year. I think by the time she died, Ann Miller was claiming that she made “Stage Door” when she was 7.

Have you read the great poem about Chicago by Carl Sandburg in which he dubbed it the City of the Big Shoulders? Here’s a portion of the poem that could also well relate to New Orleans and its current ordeal:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them
For I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer:
Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is:
On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city
And I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
So proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job
Here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities.

Comments

[david]

I love this post, for all sorts of reasons. Which is not to cast aspersions on any of your other posts. (That's so you'll know, the next time I see you and say, "Danny, you look great," you won't give the classic Gottlieb/Jewish response, "Oh, so last time I was a big fat pig?!!")

I think everyone here does the Lt. Uhura thing because you have to use a hands-free device in the car in Chicago, and so people just keep it glued to their heads the whole day.

I'm always amazed at those GPS things, too. I often think, Why would you need such a thing, in a city so well planned, where almost all streets are at right angles to one another, and numbered in such an intuitive way?

Then I get lost.

[Neil]

It's nice that you get to celebrate your birthday in such a great place as Chicago. Happy birthday. Never been a big fan of the deep-dish pizza, but that's an East Coast-Chicago fight that's been going on longer than the Yankees and White Sox.

Glad you're not ashamed of your age, although it might have been a poor time to publicize it since I'm not sure the LAX authorities will allow you back in Los Angeles knowing that you are OVER 30! That's why Botox was invented.

As for the GPS, it is very cool and all, but it's another piece of technology that is going to make us one day incapable of reading a map. Sophia has one, and when it broke one day, she was literally freaking out driving to Santa Monica because she was so used to being told where to turn. She literally called me up so I could read her directions from Mapquest.

Again, happy birthday. I'd say something about you being a Virgo, but I don't much believe in that crap.

[The Retropolitan]

As Jack Benny (and the guy at the radio blog I read) would say, you're not turning forty-six; you're celebrating the seventh anniversary of your thirty-ninth birthday.

[Danny]

Thanks, David, Neil, and Retropolitan. We're heading out of the Windy City tonight provided Doris the GPS Savior/Nazi can get us to Midway Airport.

Biggest shock of the trip (that will only make sense to current or former Chicagoans): Marshall Field's gargantuan flagship store on State Street, which I would without hesitation call the best department store in the world (including those in New York and Paris), has been purchased by Federated and they're seriously contemplating changing the name of the store to MACY'S. I can almost accept George W. Bush being president for 8 years more easily than I can this potential travesty (okay, I said *almost*). Had a long talk yesterday with Tameka, a Field's associate (they don't use the word salesperson) who was selling my sister a lamp and we both got so riled up that I offered to fly in from L.A. and join her in a picket line on State Street if this name change comes to pass. Just say NO, Chicago! Macy's Frango Mints? I think not. What was that movie where every single store and restaurant in a future Los Angeles was owned by one mega-corporation, possibly Taco Bell? Was that "Blade Runner?"

[Rosie]

Doris is an absolute genius. I couldn't believe how she found my house better than I could.

The Marshall Fields thing was a shock to all of us...I'm still nervous to find out what they're going to do about the name. (The Frango's aren't even made in the building anymore! People say they taste different now.)

[Mar]

Danny-
Happy bday. next time you're in chicago give your long lost sis a call.