Food poisoning isn't that bad after all

A couple of weeks back I got hit with a bout of food poisoning. It was terrible. I could write at least 10,000 words on the unspeakable horrors that violently burst out of my body over a 36 hour period that felt like an eternity, but where's the novelty in that? Everyone knows that food poisoning is awful, even if they haven't recently experienced the Sophie's choice presented by "coming out both ends." What I quickly learned was that sometimes the cure is just as bad, if not worse, than the sickness.

Now, a little bit of background on my specific case. I got sick two days before I was scheduled to go on vacation. To Oregon. Portland happens to be a six hour flight away from beautiful Jersey City. It would be enough of a nightmare scenario to be ON a flight with a passenger whose insides are attempting to flee their body with ferocious force, being that person is perhaps my greatest fear. And this isn't even factoring in the great dread this fat man has for airplane bathrooms. Thus I took some drastic measures to ensure an event free flight.

The first measure I took worked out wonderfully and had no side effects whatsoever. I moved my seat back to be on the aisle in the second to last row. This way if something horrible was about to come up I would be as close as possible to the bathroom, and the bonus was that there was no one in the middle seat so we could stretch out like rockstars. It was glorious. And no problems occurred. Which brings us to...

The second thing I did was take Imodium AD. A double dose of Imodium AD since I had made roughly 34 separate trips to the bathroom in the previous 36 hours this seemed like a safe bet. Instead it catapulted me into a hell that I did not imagine was even possible.

Now, first off, all props to Imodium. It works. Too well. To say that it completely shut down my digestive system would be the understatement of the century. One moment the contents of my body were flowing freely like Niagara Falls, the next it was as if the river just turned off.

At first this was a welcome respite from the way that I had spend the previous could of days. It was nice to be on vacation and seeing things other than the beautiful lavatories of the Pacific Northwest. Then I started to feel the pressure. I don't necessarily mean physical pressure, that would come soon enough, but I mean more of a mental pressure about not going. I'm a fairly regular fella, I have a schedule when it comes to these things, and I like to adhere to that schedule. So when we entered day two of a closed shop I started to freak out.

I felt like I had to go constantly. But every time I tried, nothing. Nada. I started to believe that I was doing something wrong. This process that I have been doing for my entire life, often with great aplomb, had become an unsolvable mystery to me. There was nothing I could do to just make it happen. This was the strangest and most infuriating crisis of confidence that I have ever had.

By day four every time I went to the bathroom with nary a nugget to be flushed I felt I walked away feeling depleted and worthless. Since I felt fine, meaning the food poisoning had clearly passed, I was eating like a normal human on vacation. On the Oregon coast this means a lot of clam chowder, fried seafood and a decent amount of IPAs — all of which usually grease the wheels of the system for me. Yet, nothing. By this time I could feel that I was approaching full capacity.

Finally, on the morning of the fifth day I woke up to the most glorious rumble in my stomach. With the zeal of a small child on Christmas morning, I leapt from my bed and ran to the bathroom. I don't need to tell you what happened next in great detail, but let's just say that it was one of the truest feelings of pure joy that I have ever experienced.

Pure. Unadulterated. Joy.

The Hardest Part of Being a Premier League Fan in America

I don't know if you've noticed this, but there are a shitload of different sports teams to root for in the United States. There's baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer, arena football, professional lacrosse, American Gladiators, ultimate frisbee and the most American sport of all, competitive eating. Not to mention a college and minor league version of goddamn near every single one of those sports. The point being, there are hundreds of American sports teams that I could root for and follow, why the hell would I turn my attention to a soccer league in Europe? 

To put it the most succinctly — because it's awesome. I sincerely love the Premier League and Tottenham, even if it can be a pain in the ass to be a fan. There is the constant need to explain to people (like my father) why I like soccer in the first place. There is the annoying time difference that leads to way too little sleep on Saturday mornings and the awkward situation of explaining to your boss why you are screaming at a computer in the office during what seems like a typical Wednesday afternoon. There is the complete insanity of the transfer windows that I have yet to fully grasp. There are the insanely tight fitting jerseys that are not flattering for a portly man such as myself, to put it mildly. But all of these are simple annoyances, nothing to get too upset about. The thing that drives me nuts is the complete blind devotion that many fans have toward their club*. 

As I dive headfirst into my Tottenham fandom, which admittedly I chose haphazardly as a young man wanting to embrace something new and have doubled down on that fandom the last few years, I've been spending a lot of time on Reddit and Facebook interacting with other Spurs fans. And almost every single person that posts does so from the point of view that we need to support the team 100% at all times and with full trust in every decision made by the team. When someone questions a decision that Pochettino has made people jump on it and attack the person for not being a true supporter. When someone says that Llorente has been shit this year (because he has), they are met with multiple people telling them to take their support to some other team. To me it is all very... bizarre. 

It really is a completely different way of approaching the idea of being a sports fan. As a Chicago sports fan, I've always looked at my beloved teams with a bit of skepticism. Yes, I cheer for them full-heartedly every single game, but I still know in my heart that Dollar Bill Wirtz was a shitty owner that cared nothing about Blackhawks fans. Or that the McCaskey family has often been too cheap to sign the right players to turn the Bears into true title contenders. These are just opinions that you would argue about with other fans over a couple of Old Styles. 

Take the Mitchell Trubisky draft pick. My buddy Joe (the biggest Bear fan I know, in both height and passion) absolutely loved the pick and had no qualms about trading up for it. I liked Trubisky well enough, but thought they gave up way too many draft picks when the fall back option was Deshaun Watson. We talked about it, raised our voices a bit, someone may have been called a jagoff but then we moved on. But this was just a conversation that we have as Bears fans. Neither of us screamed that the other should be a Packer fan and they need to support the team 100% or get the fuck out of here. 

I guess in some ways this is why English fans identify themselves as "supporters" instead of "fans." It just feels strange to me. I like to critically think about my team. I like to dissect the stupid personnel decisions, tactical missteps and sloppy play. Part of being a Spurs fan, to me, is being able to talk with my friends (or on Reddit, Twitter, etc.) about how terrible Dele has looked in the final third this season and pondering if he'll ever get his finishing touch from last season back. I should be able to do this without some asshole named KaneIzAble10 telling me to root for the fuckin' gooners, dammit. 

I'm sure that over time I'll adapt to this different way of thinking, just like I've adapted to thinking that draws aren't the end of the world (except when they are against Swansea). Or, at the very least, it'll just annoy me a little bit less. But for now it makes my blood curdle every damn time I see that over optimistic refrain of "Trust the team! Be a real supporter for life!" When I really think it should be, "Put the goddamn ball in the net against fuckin' Southampton you shitheads!" 

All this complaining aside, the songs are badass. We need to bring songs into the fan repertoire over here. I mean, who doesn't love this?  

The word "shithole" is not the issue here, dude.

I always thought that by my advanced age of 37—I'd be long dead if I was an ancient Roman—that I would sort of understand the world that I live in. But, nope. Every single day I find myself slapping myself on the forehead in complete astonishment at the idiocy all around me. Many times, not surprisingly, it is my nation's politics that force this frustration. It truly is a miracle that Donald Trump's presidency hasn't caused me to develop a Wesley Willis-esque head callus from all the head slaps. It's one thing after another with him, the latest circus is based off of his use of a certain vulgarity.

Shithole.

Now, I could go off about what a disgrace it is to have a sitting president make such a clearly racist comment about an enormous chunk of the planet. I could get on my pedestal and lecture you about how this is a nation made up of immigrants and that I believe we should welcome them with open arms. But that's not where I'm going with this, at least not today. A lot of other people have already made these points far more eloquently than I would.

What I want to talk about is how pathetic it is that so many people in the political sphere, particularly in the GOP, are clutching their pearls about the specific word that was said. Some are saying that Trump didn't say it at all. Others are saying that they heard him say "shithouse," as if that is some type of improvement. And others, like DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, simply say that they heard "rough language." All of a sudden we are having a fight over whether or not Trump swore. And if he did swear, we're arguing about how he swore and if others joined him in the profanity parade. Who gives a flying fuck?

I understand that words have meaning, like you, I've heard the cliché at least 10,000 times, but it is idiotic to go back to our Puritan roots and tremble over the specific word used. The point of the statement made by the president was that he believes immigrants from Africa and Haiti are undesirable for our nation. That they are worth less than immigrants from Norway are. Whether he did this by calling Africa a "shithole" or by saying that "African countries are economically disadvantaged and immigrants from those nations negatively impact the American economy," the meaning is exactly the same.

There has always been a lofty standard about what it means to be "presidential," and I've heard the argument that using such coarse language violates this standard. And here I find myself defending Cheeto Jesus, which makes me horrifically uncomfortable. I do not care if the president swears. This didn't happen during the State of the Union, it was during a closed door meeting, and in that context I don't really care what language the president uses. I care about what he means, but I don't particularly care how he makes the point.

For example, I strongly believe in universal health care. Imagine if Bernie Sanders had an outburst during a senate meeting where he said, "Listen here, bitches. We're going to pass the best goddamn health care bill in the fucking world for all those uninsured motherfuckers scared shitless about going to the doctor."  Would this do anything to change my belief in universal health care or the faith I have in Sanders to fight to make it a reality? Absolutely not. I might sigh that he opened himself up for attacks by calling his fellow legislators bitches, but the language wouldn't be the point, just like it's not the point here.

Any thinking person can see that this whole kerfuffle is just to distract us from the reality that Donald Trump is a racist that semi-secretly wants to deport all of the Dreamers. And if he had his druthers we all know he would cut off all immigration from any country that isn't as lily-white as Norway. We all know this and have known this for quite some time. So, can we please move on from the shithole nonsense and secure a future for the Dreamers, renew CHIP and make sure that we don't build that idiotic wall? Thanks.

The Day I Almost Smashed a Person's Head Open With a Marcel Duchamp Sculpture

A brief note from our beloved author: Holy shit! It's been three years since I've posted on here. I've once again been using shouting at the wall as my primary form of venting my daily frustrations. And while that is liberating to some degree—I don't have to spell check or worry about proper grammar—it has raised the ire of my dear girlfriend and the neighbors. I don't much feel like being single or homeless so the yelling has been silenced and the blog has been revived. Yay? Damn right. Let's do this.

Over the last couple of days I have attempted to give myself a wee bit of culture. I've been spending way too much of my summer carousing with friends in various watering holes and far too little time questioning my place in the universe; it was time that I got myself back into a museum and took in some art. I can think of few things more relaxing than spending an afternoon strolling through a museum and contemplating the big picture questions of life while staring into a piece of art that grabs me by my very soul. And then the actions of my fellow humans had to go and fuck everything up, as they always do.

I should have known when I read about people catching Pokemon in the Holocaust Museum that there are no longer any safe harbors from repugnant assholes ruining public spaces, but nonetheless I was completely taken aback by the idiocy I encountered at MoMA today. 

Now, I understand that I may end up coming off like an elitist prick here, but I swear that is not the case. I accept that people are going to be on their phones basically everywhere on Earth, I'm guilty of staring at my phone far more often than I should as well. But this went way beyond that. An enormous number percentage of my fellow museum-goers weren't even looking at the art. They were running up to paintings that they knew were famous, pushing past any of the people attempting to appreciate the art, taking a picture of the painting on their phone, taking a picture of the card explaining who was responsible for the masterpiece they clearly weren't even looking at and then running on to the next piece. The most egregious examples of this happened to Warhol pieces, a hilarity that I'm sure Andy would have appreciated, but it pissed me right off.

What's the point of even going to a museum if you're going to be running around snapping pictures like you are on some sort of scavenger hunt? "Find a piece of art by Dali with zero phallic references - 100 points." If you're just snapping pics on your phone you may as well just Google "art" on your phone, save yourself the price of admission and the possibility that I fly off the handle and swing a priceless piece of Dadaist art into your useless cranium in a fit of rage.

I have no problem with people taking pictures of the art. I did this. Nor do I have issue with people posting pictures of the art to their social media. I did this as well. But when all they seem to care about is getting a picture without even taking a second to really look at the art they are supposedly admiring it disgusts me. And, as we should all know by now, it only got worse from here—people were taking selfies with the art.

How do you think our bitter old friend Vincent van Gogh would have reacted to a bunch of tweens (as well as people who were old enough to know better) lining up to take selfies with The Starry Night? I'm guessing he'd slice off more than a few ears. After witnessing this I must admit that I would have been a perfect model for Edvard Munch's next painting. Who the fuck thinks this is a good idea? Who wants to look at a selfie of some bozo next to a famous painting? It's not like you ran into Diddy on the street... you paid admission to get up close to an inanimate object hung on a wall.

How hard is it to ask people to show just a teensy bit of respect? These are people that went out of their way to go to the museum, no one is there by accident, you'd think that they'd like to take a second to actually look at the art. It completely baffles me. And enrages me. Only one thing in the world could calm me down...



Look at that beauty. Underneath all of that delicious sauerkraut, red cabbage and potatoes is a mouthwatering bratwurst and succulent currywurst from the Hallo Berlin food cart. Few things soothe my troubled soul like encased meats. Now, when you see a culinary masterpiece like this could you possibly be content just snapping a picture of it? No. You'd want to experience it to the fullest. Appreciate it. Spend time contemplating what it means to you. And as you lick the last drop of mustard off your greedy fingers you know that you have just made your life a little bit richer.

Act the same way around art, doofuses.

I Do What I Want

The other day a friend of mine on the Facebook shared an article that was about the Facebook. I know, we're getting dangerously close to meta here but bear with me. The article was from the Huffington Post and was credited to Waitbutwhy.com. I'm sure if I went to that website I could find out the author's name somehow but despite the high level of hatred I have for the imbecile that wrote this article that's just too much damn effort for me to put forth. Oh, here be a link to the article so you can read it for yourself before I eviscerate it.

OK, I'm going to assume that you read it, or at the very least glanced at it before becoming half as enraged as I was upon reading it.

I can't even begin to imagine what an insufferable human being the author of that steaming pile must be. Apparently the sole reason people are on Facebook is to entertain this waste of space. I thought the whole idea behind Facebook was for people to, you know, share things about their lives with the people they know in any goddamn way they please. If I want to use all of my status updates to put up pictures of food that's my prerogative. Same thing if I want to post petitions to impeach Obama, songs by Nickelback or passive aggressive snipes at people I work with.

I fully understand if all of those things annoy you a little bit if you were to see them on my wall. Of course, all you have to do is not read it. Or unfriend me. Or block me. Really, the options are endless if you are looking to ignore a person on Facebook. Which is where we get to the core of what really got my goat in this article. Why does anyone, especially this fool, get to tell me what I should or shouldn't do with my Facebook?

There aren't rules for things like this. People get to use it for whatever methods they want to. With me in particular I use it to pimp things that I have written, like I will definitely do when I post this blog, and also have you seen the awesome article I did about Gwar? It's dope. Sorry, I love self promotion. I also like to put songs that I've been rocking out to, pictures of outlandish things that are entering my body (food and or drinks, pervert), dick jokes, and little life updates that I think you may be interested in.

In the article the author dismisses almost all of these things as acts of great narcissism by the poster. They posit that if I'm actually happy about getting a new job I should only text/call/talk to the few people in my life who would care. Well, I'm sorry Mr. Uppity Writer, I've already done that with the people closest to me but I still think it's notable enough to share with my Facebook friends. It's not bragging and it's certainly not done purely to build up my own self esteem. I'm telling my friends, and yes I consider all of my Facebook friends to be actual "friends" even if I'm not particularly close to some of them, something that happened in my life. What's so wrong with that?

In the eyes of this author the only reason to put up pictures of a vacation a person went on is to make others jealous. Really? I thought it was to share pictures of a cool experience you had with people you know/care about. I'm a devious jerk from time to time but this writer assumes that every single thing a person does on the Internet is aimed at making other people feel badly.

This brings us back to my key point, who in the world makes up rules for what a person can post on Facebook? It's idiotic. Remember when Darren Rovell, possibly Northwestern's most insufferable graduate which is quite a claim to fame, decided to make rules about what people can and can't do on Twitter? The result? A ton of people hating him for being an elitist prick about something as silly as Twitter.

I am Facebook friends with people for one reason and one reason alone; because I like them. Well, and you can throw a couple of ex-girlfriends and people I'd like to make future ex-girlfriends in there that I like to creep on. . . . I'm kidding. Seriously, I like every one of my Facebook friends. I actually care about what people post most of the time and I would never think that they talking about their happy relationship merely to make me feel like shit about sitting alone shirtless eating a family size thing of hot and sour soup. I would assume they were doing so because they are happy and want to share that with their friends.

I've now written way too much about Facebook. Ugh. I guess the point that I want to leave with is this; I'm going to write whatever I damn well please on my Facebook. And I expect everyone else to do the same damn thing.

Bummed Out by Bums

At one point in my life I was extremely generous to the homeless. Not naive, mind you, I didn't get suckered in by every sob story I heard or anything like that, but if I had some extra change I usually forked it over. The longer I lived in Chicago the more and more grizzled I got. A lot of this was out of necessity; if I gave a dollar to every homeless person I encountered I would have been joining them in begging for food money after a week or two.

Roughly 15 years of city living later and I find myself completely oblivious to homeless people. Other than the annoying ones outside of Trinity Church who are apparently still occupying Wall St I really don't notice when people are begging for money, and if I do notice I just quickly shake my head and keep going. The only reason I notice the occupy jerks is that they are always sprawled out on the sidewalk while I'm on my way to work and more often than not I have to step over one of them, if they weren't a tripping danger I probably would ignore them as well.

About a month ago I was walking home from work. As usual I was in my own world and sort of singing along to "Skate or Die" by Teenage Bottlerocket when a young lady asking for change stopped me in my tracks. She was sitting up against a wall with a sign that said something about needing to get back to Georgia. Next to her was an adorable but obviously underfed dog, you could see every single one of its ribs. The girl was looking up at me with the largest eyes I have ever seen, they would have been considered big for anime eyes, and my heart just broke.

I gave her the two dollars in my pocket, smiled, and kept walking. I couldn't get the image of her and the sad little pup out of my head, it was as if it was burned into my retinas. So, without really knowing what I was doing, I walked into the closest Duane Reade and started shopping. Twenty something dollars later I walked out with some dog food, some people food, a few assorted travel size toiletries and gummy worms. I went back and found the girl and gave her the bag and quickly took off before she could say anything.

This is the part of the exchange that I have been playing over and over in my head and getting really angry about. Why didn't I strike up a conversation with the girl? Or at the very least let her say thank you instead of shuffling off as fast as my little feet could carry me? Because I was ashamed is the answer.

I was ashamed, and more than a little angry, with myself for caring about this homeless girl and her puppy. Why you ask? Because she was cute. I knew in my mind, regardless of what I might try and convince myself of, that the only reason that I had gone out of my way to help this girl was because she was cute. If I wasn't attracted to her I would have just kept on going and not thought a damn thing about it, like I do with the other 5 to 10 homeless people I see every day. Yet I went way out of my way to take care of this girl, and her pup, entirely because I was attracted to her.

What the hell does that say about me? For my whole life I have tried to convince myself that appearance means very little in the grand scheme of things. I like to think that I am above base thoughts like that, that I am enlightened. But that's bullshit. I valued her life over every other homeless person I see walking to and from work for no reason other than when she looked at me with her enormous, sad, green eyes I was attracted to her.

If I was sitting down with someone having a conversation about homelessness I would talk about how I hope all of the homeless people could be taken in, that every person deserves to have a roof over their head and a meal in their bellies. Yet when I needed to put my generous thoughts into action I chose only to do so for a girl that I wouldn't have minded taking to dinner and a movie under different circumstances.

I can't understate how mad I was at myself about this, how it still eats at me. This is a way more personal entry than I would normally post on here, I recognize that. Yet if I have a blog dedicated to being angry and I'm angry at myself for being a hypocrite when it comes to helping homeless people I don't want to be a super hypocrite for not writing about how completely enraged with myself the situation made me.

The experience made me question whether I'm just as full of shit about every other thing I stand for. It made me think that I have no convictions, that I'm just a bunch of talk. When it comes right down to it I'm just a selfish prick like everyone else who will only act generously if I think there could be something for my benefit in the end. I know in my heart that none of this is true, but I still have been thinking it periodically since my encounter with the cute homeless girl. Against all odds my level of self loathing managed to kick it up a notch.

I'm a logical person, I know the real reason that I don't help every homeless person I meet is because I can't.  I make chump change and live in a damn expensive area of the world. I'm getting by comfortably but if I spent an extra five bucks every day on my way to work to help people out the electricity would be getting shut off in a month. I can't beat myself up over this.

So, I've moved on. Obviously, I'm still thinking about that girl a little bit. I gave half a sandwich to the ugliest bum on my way home the other day. It might not even things out, at least not yet, but I felt just as good helping out that hideous looking man as I did when I helped the girl. Maybe I'm not the heartless monster I feared.

Coffee Guy

I'm not exactly a people person. By that I don't mean that I'm a jerk or that I shun personal contact. What I really mean is that I rarely go out of my way to build any sort of rapport with random people that I encounter in my life unless I need to. If you're a coworker or a friend of a friend, sure, we'll talk a bit. If you're my upstairs neighbor who I already disdain for your bad taste in music, well, let's just say I'm going to do my best to keep my distance.

This also goes for people that I often buy things from. I don't particularly want the guy at Taco Bell to know what I like to order let alone my name or any details about my life. Basically I like to keep the people who sell me stuff as nothing more than a vending machine that says thank you and hopefully doesn't make pithy comments about the weather.

Despite all of this I let my coffee guy into my soul.

I didn't want it to happen because I knew the pain that I would endure when everything ended. Yet Coffee Guy broke me down. It might be the way he would greet me with "Good morning, boss!" on Tuesday through Friday. Nah, as much as I love being called "Boss" it was his Monday greeting that always got me.

"I made the coffee extra strong for you, boss. Mondays are a son of a bitch."

Yeah, Coffee Guy was the best. I say was because he has abandoned me. He disappeared without a trace. He has been replaced by a surly guy with a paper hat. My world has shattered.

The way I commute can probably best be described as sleepwalking. Sure, I'm completely dressed and "awake" from the minute I leave my house but in all honesty I'm not there. Not mentally. Hell, half the time I keep my eyes closed while going down the tunnel at the PATH because I know it by heart, I don't need the eyes, may as well trick my body into thinking we're back in bed.

The first time I feel really awake is when I get to my coffee stand. I chose this one because it was about two blocks from my building giving me just enough time to take a few enormous pulls on my large iced coffee which I pay two dollars for. Not $2.25 like the price says, $2 because Coffee Guy knows I never had change and he doesn't feel like making me take 3 quarters from him. Once again, Coffee Guy was the best.

Now I don't know what to do. I had to tell the new guy what I wanted, after a week Coffee Guy knew my order. New guy just threw the straw down on the counter with my drink and handed me a napkin; Coffee Guy put the straw in the coffee (leaving the top on so he doesn't touch the business end) and wrapped the napkin around the cup so that my hand doesn't get wet from condensation. New guy charges me full price, doesn't smile, didn't say thank you, and sure as shit would never call me boss.

I feel a need to go to every coffee stand in the city until I find Coffee Guy so I can beg him to come back to his old stand and make my mornings tolerable once again.

You know that scene in As Good as it Gets when Nicholson buys the fancy doctor to take care of the asthmatic kid so that Helen Hunt will go back to work? I always thought that scene was bullshit. I knew the idea was that Nicholson was doing it out of selfish reasons because he was OCD but I saw through that and knew he was going to be making a move on her eventually. No one would spend that much money, even if they were loaded, just to get their regular waitress to come back to work.

Now I get it. If Coffee Guy has been at home taking care of an asthmatic child I will cure that lil' bastard if it means that Coffee Guy returns to his stand. If Coffee Guy is in the clink I will gladly pay his bail, if he's had a falling out with the mob after betting too much at the turtle races I will pay his debt or let the mobsters break my knees instead. I will slay a fucking dragon with a nail file if the end result is Coffee Guy giving me my quarter discount on my delicious iced coffee tomorrow morning.

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking that I'm out of my mind and I should just get over it. Maybe strike up some sort of rapport with the new guy or just go to a different cart. I can't do that. I can't cheat on Coffee Guy. When it comes to coffee purveyors I'm a penguin; I mate for life, friend.

Also, if I were to strike up any sort of rapport with an asshole who wears a paper hat in public I'd kick my own ass. I have a little dignity.

Hopefully he just took the week off. If he's not there tomorrow I don't know what I'm going to do. Maybe find his new stand and start to convince my company to relocate. I'm telling you, it's worth it. The coffee is so good. . . or at least I wouldn't have to talk to a guy in a paper hat.