I rode a Chicago bus yesterday to get up to the United Center for the Black Sabbath show last night, and somewhere around Milwaukee Avenue an older Mexican American fellow climbed aboard with his shoe shine box. He sat there rubbing his hands and wincing as if his hands were very much cold, in pain, or likely both. A woman seated next to must have noticed this as I did and offered him some gloves. You should have seen the look of surprise and appreciation on his face. It was a very tender moment of generosity to observe.

The glove giving gal was thin, looked to be in her late 40's or early 50's, was wearing a John Lennon type Army coat, had really short blond hair, and she had kind of a "butchy" demeanor, for lack of a better word. Actually, after the fact it dawned on me that she looked and acted a lot like like the actress, Jane Lynch, the boss in 40-Year-Old Virgin and the lesbian dog trainer in Best In Show.

"Hey, sport! Want some gloves?"

Shoe shining guy's English was not great, but that didn't stop glove-giver from telling him a bunch of information. After giving him the big and bulky gloves, she showed him the slimmer ones that she was wearing and said "These are for gun handling," and "These are for handling guns" - in case he didn't hear the first time. She said she was a retired cop and for some reason told a story about her and some other officers arresting a drug dealer. Apparently the dealer shot her partner and during the exchange giant bags of "china white" exploded everywhere and exposure to the drug led to her to being laid up in a hospital for 10 days, regularly hallucinating all through out her stay (which doesn't sound all bad).

(A good time. If you have a lot of free time in your immediate future)

Wow.

What started a nice moment of a woman performing an act of kindness for a random senior citizen quickly escalated into a crazy violent crime adventure story straight out of "Scarface." I did not see that coming at all, but you do have to expect the unexpected when you hop on a Chicago bus.

Be kind to others, readers. And watch out for accidental ingestian of dangerous amounts of "China white," whatever the hell that is. 

Maria and the Dragon

I had lunch with my good friend, Gung Ho, the other day, and we got talking about a time the two of us were at a strip club together. No, neither of us go to those types of places regularly, but it was a bachelor party. One of the dancers had a seat next to us and we proceeded to have a fun, lively, and drunken discussion. She said her name was Maria. One of us asked "Why Maria?" and she said it's her mother's name. Gung Ho was astonished and said, "You use your mother's name for your stripper name?!" I was already dying laughing, but then it got funnier. And sadder.

It was quite a while ago, but I think Maria looked something like this.

Maria told us that she was new to Chicago and liked it so far. She said she got out of Los Angeles because she was "chasing the dragon" out there and needed a new setting. Neither of us had any idea what in the hell she meant by that so she had to clarify that she was addicted to heroin. Gung Ho said, "Wow, heroin, huh? You ever miss it?" This instantly changed the mood. Maria became forlorn, looked off to the distance, and to neither one of us in particular admitted, "All the time. Excuse me." With that, she got up from the table, walked into the back room, and we didn't see her again the rest of the night.

I said, "Gung Ho, I think you just caused a relapse!"

To this he put forward, "Maria was going to chase that dragon tonight with or without our little talk."

He may be right. 

Poor thing. 

Tonight Crom and I got together to go over future creative projects, but mostly we just drank beers and caught up.  We decided to cut a podcast while we were at it with the topic being the top 3 Jason kills from "Friday the 13th" movies, since it is Friday the 13th today.  Turns out Jason killed people in lots of fun and creative ways.

Then we went across the street for dollar bottles and live band karaoke.  Let me tell you right now, you cannot find anything near that good of a deal in Lincoln Park in Chicago.  He and I threw down the first two songs of the nght.  He did "Crazy Train" and I did "White Wedding."  Suffice it to say, if you have ever done live band karaoke with a kick ass band behind you, making you fee like a rock god, you will never go back to the little monitor with the bouncy ball, making you feel like a drunk Korean business man.

We then went to visit my girlfriend, L.S.D., at the bar she works at, where Crom told me that he has purchased a wedding ring.  I'm really happy for him.  He's a really good dude and will be a terrific family man.

So then I had to get a late night bite to eat back in Lincoln Park, so I got a chorizo burrito at a local burrito joint.  Why do people order anything but chorizo?  Maybe it's the funny colored grease turning them off because it is without a doubt the most bomb-ass option.  In the booth next to me sat a coked out Asian Indian man with long hair, a beer belly, and a shark tooth necklace, and he was ordering up a coke deal.  I've never been into that scene, but I guess I always assumed there was code for things like that.  Nope.  This guy was just loudly bellowing into his phone while housing a pair of tacos: "I need money tonight.  I went in on this 8 ball and then everyone flaked.  These girls are expecting to have it.  What phone is this?  Call me in 5 minutes.  Meet me on the corner of (Dr. Ken's Street0 and (Dr. Ken's Cross Street)."

Unfortunately when I got to the coordinates of my home, there was no awesome drug deal going on, so I just came inside and wrote this shitty blog.

Eating Marijuana

I saw this article where some guys opened up a shop where you can go in and have some Marijuana cheesecake, for example.  In Oregon, medicinal marijuana is legal, so you have to have a card saying you can be "treated," and once in the door, everything is free and everyone shares pot to smoke or eat. 

There is a Ganja Gormet in Denver that opened in 2009, and this doesn't surprise me because Denver is a pretty laid back and progressive city like that. 

One customer said of a "medicated" beef and broccoli, "You can't even taste it that much."  So it may taste a little dopey, but it's much better for your lungs than smoking it.

What do we think about this, Seven Readers?  It doesn't bother me one bit, unless it's filled mostly with people with bogus reasons for the cards.  Actually, that doesn't really bother me either.  Who cares, right?  Smoke your brains out and eat the shit out of that cheesecake for all I care . . .