The Old Town Ale House in Chicago, where writers, comedians, poets and musicians go when they weren't doing all that other stuff. Across the street from the famed Second City improv venue.
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Facebook is starting to make me hate my friends.
OK, actually they’re doing that all by themselves. But through no fault of their own, Facebook is helping, giving them a well-designed forum to become insufferable jerks. I get Facebook was conceived to help friends keep in touch with each other. And in most cases it does a fine job of that. I’ve been able to locate people I haven’t talked to or seen in literally decades and send them a short note, give them a “thumbs up” to something new that’s happened in their lives. But it’s also given some friends the opportunity to become the people they never were in real life: Insufferable know-it-alls. Intolerantly opinionated and quick to dismiss the opinions of longtime friends. Basically, they’ve become blowhards. Dare to disagree with them at your own risk or suffer their densely-worded wrath. Their posts are either cryptically short word-darts aimed at the latest social issue, or long screeds that ramble and try to cover every base and are generally posted after 11 p.m. Social issues are the topic on which they seem most confident in flexing their Internet muscles: police brutality, marijuana reform, feminism…some of my friends have apparently become “experts” in these subjects and more. But it’s not just the subject or the length of the posts that has made me start to hate (some) of my friends. It’s the tone of both the original post and the replies to comments. Dismissive. Quite often unnecessarily rude. Pointlessly insulting. They come with an authoritarian tone, the idea that their beliefs are imperious to criticism. They stand in clear, sharp contract to the posts of most of my other friends, which consist of funny anecdotes, updates on their kids (OK, that can get a bit annoying), vacation pics, drinking in various bars, etc. Basically inconsequential stuff. Which is why the unnecessarily arrogant posts are a shock. I know these people in person, some more than others. I’ve never had a similar conversation in person. But behind that Facebook wall, things happen. One person in particular could be described as “meek” in person – never raised his voice, never confronted anyone on an issue during discussion at our writing group, discussions that sometimes veered into subjects other than writing. But on Facebook they become, well, jackasses. Quick to argue, combatative over minor issues, and not at all reluctant to wave whatever minor credentials they may have on an issue over all others. The aforementioned “meek” person recently defriended me apparently because I had the audacity to offer a counterpoint to one of his posts. While I took great pains to avoid making the comment personal – something I always do – he nonetheless took it as such and replied with a comment that accuse me of talking to him as if I were his dad (Calling Dr. Freud) and seguing into a rant about why I was never his “friend” (no we weren’t FRIENDS, but we were definitely friendly to each other). Being defriended, something I never gave a shit about before, was actually a welcome event in that occasion. That same friend also declared that people can’t handle his “truth - which, in actuality, is merely his version of the truth. Another friend, meanwhile, recently concluded that because his innocuous posts about pets and kids, etc., received more “likes” than his posts about a fatal police shooting, it was evidence of a lack of compassion on the big issues on the part of his friends. “Likes” were a scorecard of social justice and he was an electronic Martin Luther King (eKing). Because of them, the remaining friends who take Facebook that seriously I hold at arm’s length, picking and choosing carefully which comments I respond to and what I said when I actually do comment - along the lines of “Well said!” or “You nailed it!” or simply hitting the “Like” button. It’s this quick-to-battle attitude that had made the ads and news posts the only things I really enjoy reading on Facebook these days. I’m probably going to stay on Facebook. Like I said, it’s a good way to stay in touch with friends. But I’ve already begun limiting my comments and interaction, even with friends. I want to continue to “like” them, no matter how difficult they’re making it for me. It only took 25 years, but there’s been a break in the famed Isabelle Stuart Gardner Museum art heist.
Video that purportedly shows the guard on duty on March 18, 1990, the day of the theft, has finally been released. It shows him letting a man into the museum through the same door the thieves used to walk out with 13 works of art, including Vermeers and a Degas or two. The incident is part of Boston lore, like the Tea Party or the Red Sox sucking for so long. Books have been written about it, and there may be a movie in the works. People have long questioned who was behind the theft and where the absconded works may have ended up. Some may question why the video is only being released now. But when I first learned of the incident, my only big question was: They still did that stuff in 1990? When I first heard the story of the Isabelle Stuart Gardner Museum heist, I assumed it had occurred in some bygone era, when crooks and thieves wore fedoras and suits when they committed their crimes. When each “crew” had a guy who actually practiced the art of safecracking, listening for “tumblers” falling with each turn of the dial. And another guy who was an expert in security alarms, having researched each new model and manual that was printed. And another guy whose only – ONLY – job was to drive the getaway car (usually a former racecar driver who was bounced from the sport for cheating). And a “boss” whom everyone in the gang actually called him “Boss” and who knew which artworks were worth stealing and which weren’t. But when I found it the crime happened in 1990 - practically yesterday - I was floored. Even though it was 25 years ago, 1990 was still the era of instant gratification. Daytraders trying to become millionaires before lunchtime. Napster bringing people onboard with the idea of downloading their favorite songs without waiting, or even paying for it. So the idea of someone carefully planning, plotting, orchestrating the theft of specific valuable piece of art is some old school stuff. I mean, while other crooks were content to just stick a gun in someone’s face on the street or rip ATM out of walls with trucks and figure out how to get inside them later, these guys were out there buying police uniforms to exacting physical specifications, drawing diagrams, plotting escape routes. Perfectionism. It’s movie stuff, starring Cary Grant and Danny Kaye as the debonair art thief and his ever-nervous associate attempting to abscond with DuBonfet’s “Cat With Pillow” (Note: not an actual piece of art) from wealthy countess Olivia DeHavilland. Not some guys who earlier in the day could have been watching Forrest Gump on the big screen. But this sort of - quaint? – criminality is not unusual here in Boston. Bank robbery is big here. Like at-least-once-a-week big. For a city of its size, Boston (and surrounding area) is right up there with the big boys like Chicago and Los Angeles. According to MassMostWanted.com., so far this year there have been three bank robberies in July, four in June, three in May and two in April. In the Chicago, according to BanditTrackerChicago.com, there were two in July, two in June, one in May and two in April. Close, but given their disparity in population, area, etc., quite impressive, Boston. These old school robberies are but one of the aspects of Boston that seems to show the residents’ love of the old school. Like guys who still wear their baseball caps backwards as if the 1990s never ended. Or kids who are still trying to perfect their skill at popping a wheelie, something me and my friends did in the 1970s. Sure, they’re probably doing those same things somewhere else in America, but having live in two other time zones and not seen it anywhere else since the dawn of the new millennium, I have to tip my backwards White Sox cap to Bostonians for keeping it old school in the face of the march of time. I keep wondering what other blasts-from-the-pasts Boston has in store for us here. Do they still breakdance in the subway on large pieces of cardboard? I assume there must still also be cat burglars in Boston, as well as second-story men, counterfeiters, bunko artists, flimflam men and B-girls. We’re flying back to Chicago for a vacation in a few dans. I hope they don’t hijack our plane to Cuba out of Logan Airport. I moved out of Chicago in 2010 and moved to Denver. That was hard.
In 2012 I moved from Denver to Boston. That? Not so hard. Not to knock Denver, but leaving it was pretty easy. It wasn’t, of course, like leaving Chicago, a city I lived in all my life and where nearly everyone I know and everyone who really knows me lives – family, friends I’ve known since I was 10, that sort of thing. I welcomed the adventure of moving to Denver and residing in an entirely new place, but the reality of leaving Chicago was something I held down and tried not to think about. But leaving Denver, even after living there for almost three years, was rather easy. Now some people might say, “Sure, it’s easy, it was only three years.” But they’d be surprised at the number of people who absolutely fall in love with Denver after, oh, say, three hours of living there. They gush about their new city and walk around like kids who’ve been given $1,000 and sole access to a toy store. You hear “Awesome” a lot about everything in Denver: the mountains (which are not actually IN Denver, but whatever…), the rock climbing (again, not actually in Denver, but I won’t quibble), the music scene (which leans toward the semi-obscure indie rock bands, so not a lot for me personally to get nuts about) and the beer culture (OK, I got on board with that pretty quickly). But everything else was, as the kids say, “meh.” Of the activities that actually occurred in Denver proper – the weekly jazz fests in the summer, the street fairs, the citywide celebrations, etc., they were nice, but… you know, sort of not what I was used to. Oh, everyone appeared to be having a good time, but to me it seemed as if they were having a good time because they assumed they were supposed to be having a good time. At the jazz fest, people would occasionally get up and dance to music, despite the fact that most jazz really isn’t music for dancing. But they do so because, you know, it’s music and it’s a festival and, well, we’re supposed to be having a good time. Argue with me if you must whether jazz is a dancing music, but I think to truly appreciate it you have to listen to it, to hear that whole “notes between the notes” thing to appreciate the skill. But, yeah, dance if you want to, I guess. Note: Not that I’m Michael Jackson, but I know not-good dancing when I see it. In fact, I concluded they were moving their feet into the spaces BETWEEN where their feet was supposed to be. I cringed. Despite my “underwhelmedness” with Denver, I liked the city. And I was growing to appreciate it. Not love it, but appreciate it. I learned to keep my mouth shut when people – again, mostly newcomers to the city – raved about everything around them (again, “awesome,” or “fucking awesome” or some other variation utilizing the word “awesome”) and just let them go on. “Don’t you think that’s awesome?” they’d ask about some innocuous thing – a restaurant that had ping-pong tables, a bar that served peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Tim Tebow. I’d respond with a non-committal “Mmmmm.” Which sounds like an answer, sounds like an agreeable answer, but is really just a vibrating of the vocal chords signifying nothing. I used to counter those raves with stories about similar things back home in Chicago and how much better they were there. A bar with ping-pong tables? Eh, back in Chicago there’s a bar that has nightly axe-throwing contests. That bar sells peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Well, in Chicago there’s a bar that makes s’mores over a fire in a metal trashcan in the middle of the room. I found myself trying to one-up almost everything with a similar comparison to something bigger, badder and bolder that was to be found in Chicago. And I started to realize it was not only obnoxious but unfair. I figured out I did it partly because I missed a lot about Chicago for a number of reasons. And partly because it was all true. But just because something’s true doesn’t mean it needs to be said. But that’s what you do when you’re from a big city: you make instant comparisons to wherever you are. And wherever you are is always inferior to wherever you’re from. It can be world capitals like London, Paris, Madrid or Moscow and a resident of New York City, Los Angeles or, yes, Chicago will always find ways in which their city is better and more badass. “Soccer hooligans? Whatever. A couple of Gangster Disciple shorties would kick their ass.” “Damn, the streets of Paris are fucked up…at least Chicago laid them out where they make some fucking sense.” “Those Russian fuckers think they can drink, but in Chicago the bars stay open until 4 in the morning… 5 on Saturdays!” So I finally decided to let Denver be Denver. It is what it is, even if it may not really doesn’t know what “it” is. (In the course of writing this, I tried to figure out the Denver “identity.” A lot of other places, both big and small, have a distinct civic identity. And as far as I could determine, Denver didn’t really have one, as far as I could tell. And “chill” is not an appropriate city identity). From that point, when people walked up to me in their skinny jeans and told me how “awesome” that bar that featured ‘70s music is, I pushed down the urge to respond, “Not if you actually LIVED in the ‘70s.” Instead, I merely agreed with them. It was difficult, like trying not to tell your best friend that his girlfriend offered to give you blowjob in the bathroom. But I held it in until we finally moved away and I exhaled as we crossed the state line. But now we’re in Boston and the game is completely different. This is a different fight. Denver was Ali vs. Chuck Wepner. Boston is Ali vs. Frazier, or at the very least, Ali vs. Foreman. In this corner, a city with a hugely diverse population, a very distinct personality, a strong character, a definite edge, a crazy devotion to sports and an abundance of dark bars where old guys sip cheap beers for hours on end and bitch about whatever the last thing they saw on television when they left the house. In the other corner…the same thing. I keep wondering if I can or should play that “yeah, but in Chicago…” game here in Boston. I could probably win the “which city is more dangerous” game. Yeah, that’s a real game played by people who are lifelong residents of a big city. Nobody wants their city to be a thought of as a “punk” city so a guy from Chicago will debate a guy from Boston on which city has the most dangerous neighborhoods, the roughest bars, how you have to watch your ass at all times on the subway. It’s a stupid argument that nonetheless happens. As of now, I believe have the lead over a Bostonite in the dubious contest of which city is more badass, thanks to an average of, oh, 30 people shot per weekend in Chicago. Boston does has its share of crazy/dangerous people and situations. A while back, a guy chased down a bus and took a couple of swings at a bus driver because he passed him by at a previous stop. Sure, it’s crazy, but it’s not exactly “Chicago crazy.” I try not to play the game, but a few Boston people have managed to pull me in. I made an off-handed comment a while back on Facebook that joked about a couple of guys in Boston who got in trouble with the law for playing hacky-sack near the subway. I wrote: “In Chicago, the guys play hacky-sack with an actual guy’s sack…with his sack still attached.” A Boston friend instantly felt the urge to immediately respond with tales of violent “Southies” (aka South Boston residents), the thugs in Mattapan, and dire warnings of the consequences of wearing a New York Yankees cap, which mostly consisted of getting “beat up.” Beat up. How quaint. I think next year I’ll own this town. |
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August 2015
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