I work for a bank; I used to think that my office was in the Hyatt Center in Downtown Chicago, but it turns out I work in Gitmo, or, as I now like to call it, Pritzker Prison.
We are a very secure building. We are forced to place our bags through X-ray machines and we have to walk through metal detectors. In the past, this was a minor annoyance, but recently, it seems like the metal detectors are turned “to 11” (as they would say in “Spinal Tap”) and the incursion on people’s civil rights has increased, and I’ve been getting pissed about it.
Maybe it’s the inane question the security people are forced to ask. If the detector goes off, they ask “do you have something in your pockets?” Which makes one want to answer, “of course I do, you f@#%ing idiot,” but I don’t since I know it is a canned question. Some of the “officers” see us everyday and can tell (being summertime) that we have not smuggled an AK-47 in our pants, do a cursory run of their wand over us. But some of these people are more than a little more “gung-ho” at their jobs (which could be what happens when less educated people are given positions of authority – “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”). When the gung-ho (low rent Gestapo) want to see my wallet, I think it is going too far and I have said so occasionally. So, I have a history with some of these people.
Which brings us to last Friday; coming to work that morning, the detector went off and I was approached by a young Hispanic woman who I have seen before but am not friendly with.
“Do you have something in your pockets,” she asked.
“Yes.”
Can I see it?”
“No.”
At this point, words were said by both sides. She later said that I told her she could reach in my pocket if she wanted to see my wallet. I don’t think so since my argument is against this trashing of my civil rights, not some “come on” to a woman. I remember her saying that if I don’t like it, I should “work somewhere else.” At which point I did say loudly enough to reverberate around the Franklin Street lobby “I hate this f@#%ing building and can’t wait until the lease expires.”
Seething at her comment, I went back down to the lobby to talk to this woman’s supervisor. He appeared from a back area of the lobby like the Wizard of Oz from behind the curtain; a slight man of uncertain heritage who, to this very moment, has never told me his name. In almost 4 years of working in this building, I had never seen this man in my life. He listened to me, agreed that the comment was inappropriate and said that he would investigate.
He also told me that the Pritzkers, local Chicago multibillionaires who have controlling interest in the Hyatt Hotel chain and own the building, have to go through the same screening as everyone else, and that if President Obama was to come into the building, he would have to go through it as well. Well, I can’t comment on Obama, but I’m willing to bet that if the Pritzkers come into the building, there is some kind of secret entrance so that they don’t have to interact with the “rabble” otherwise known as us commoners. (In retrospect, I should have asked whether they were asked to empty their pockets if the metal detectors went off.)
In the heat of “battle” I made a tactical error. While explaining to him that I worked security a long time ago (at ballparks and so on), and while I appreciated what his people were doing, there had to be some level of common sense. He disagreed, but then I told him that if I wanted to get something into the building, he and his Keystone Kops (my comment for this writing, not said to him) wouldn’t find it. He said that he would bet his job that he would find it. I said that I would bring in pieces bit by bit until it was in, but he was confident – which may have been what triggered the comment in the first place. Now, I have no weapons; have never fired a weapon; and believe that Americans should have the right to bear arms as soon as we have the right to arm bears. But this would come back to haunt me.
I took a walk at lunch, and came back to the building. Again, the metal detector went off. A different security person, but again, the same insipid question; again, I gave the same answer. But this time, on top of everything else, the wand went off on my left front pocket which held – Look Out – a plastic comb and a plastic container of eye-drops. No metal. no weapon. No danger.
Once again, I did not want to show my wallet, and asked, loudly again if this guy wanted to “check my f@#%ing underwear.” At this point, I see the Wizard Of Oz again (I have since found out that his name is John Christian). He said that he now understood what had happened (meaning that this was all my fault). I left and went upstairs back to work.
Little did I know that this little dick-less sub-human creature didn’t like having his authority challenged and called the bank security and my boss (who happened to be off that day) to tell them that they planned to call the police and have me arrested for disorderly conduct, which would have been a slap on the wrist since I was not violent nor had I called anyone a name. But they also threatened to arrest me for “making a terrorist threat,” (the “one part at a time” comment) which was a felony and would have required me to get a lawyer and fight in court. Fortunately, I know the bank’s security person and she said that I was not a risk and that the further step would be unnecessary.
I didn’t learn of the threatened arrest part until Monday when I had a meeting with the bank’s Security person and my boss, which was required. Over the weekend, I decided that I wouldn’t deal with these people anymore; I now carry a Ziploc bag into which I put my wallet and eye drops, and change and pens and I either put them in my briefcase, or take it out and lay it where it could be seen beside the metal detector and therefore I have nothing in my pockets at all.
I was commended for being the “bigger person” (I’m sick and tired of having to be the bigger person while the @$$hole that just insulted me or got in my way can continue being the smaller person, or the bigger @$$hole) by trying to avoid the situation. Never mind that my doing so has thrown my civil liberties out the window.
I mentioned the fact that the-former-Sears-now-Willis Tower, a much more symbolic terror target, no longer has metal detectors and x-ray machines; I was told that there is state-of-the-art technology being used to spy upon us. And maybe that makes me feel better since it’s unobtrusive and not in my face taking away my civil liberties, but I can’t see our building getting any of this technology to make it easier and less stressful to come to work. After all, this building was erected in 2003 but without the technology to help boost cell phone reception. So, cell phone reception sucks in a building erected AFTER the start of the cell phone revolution. I can see that in a building built 20 or 30 or more years ago being bad for cell phones, but a five year-old building? Either someone was being exceedingly cheap; or they didn’t want cell phones working in their building???
So, what is the latest from Hyatt Center’s Public Enemy Number 1? Torture? Arrest? Well, I continue to pull everything out of my pockets, and the metal detectors have been silent and so have the building security folks. I haven’t seen the two guards that I had run-ins with, nor have I seen the spineless little maggot Mr. Christian (who is probably back behind his curtain, scanning the lobby in case Osama Bin Laden is coming in for a meeting).
Until last week, I was happy to be one of the minority of African-American men who had never found himself on the wrong end of the criminal justice system, but I could easily have been incarcerated in the name of “security.” Which is exactly the same boat that Dr. Henry Gates, or numerous young black and Arabic men face everyday. The bank security officer said that they have to take every comment as a threat and don’t know me and can’t, and that I “can’t win” against the likes of them. But again, there is a level of common sense and I think that any charges would have been easily thrown out ion court, but my reputation would have been ruined. This is Dick Cheney, George W. Bush-type state sponsored fascism.

Are you scared yet?

According to numerous accounts, the Arena Football League is on the brink of folding and declaring bankruptcy, bring to and end a 22-year-old sports league.
As a fan, I won’t miss the league at all. I never attended a game; nor did I ever watch more than a few seconds of any televised broadcast of an Arena League game. It seemed kind of silly: a 50-yard field, eight players on a side. It was, like indoor soccer, kind of a pinball version of the real thing.
So, I’m not really going to miss the Arena League, but I think I will miss the idea of it, that is, as a place where athletes who don’t get drafted by the NFL, or who never get a chance to play college ball, or guys who still strive to get into the NFL can play. Where are the opportunities for these guys?
Sure, most of them won’t make it, but Super Bowl and MVP winning quarterback Kurt Warner revitalized his career in the AFL as did other players not as successful or newsworthy.
That is what opponents of affirmative action miss: we want the opportunities leveled, and as a chance for guys to fulfill their dreams, either of playing professionally, or perhaps reaching the NFL, the Arena League will be missed. Just not on my television.

• As Ryan O’Neal’s drug addict son calls him a self-centered jerk, one would ordinarily chalk that up to a family squabble. That is until he reportedly hit on his own daughter Tatum (knowingly? Unknowingly?) at his late girlfriend/wife Farrah Fawcett’s funeral. Creepy? No question.
• To all “Birthers” – why don’t you just stop with the nonsense and put on your white sheets and hoods but admit that the President was born in Hawaii?
• Lou Dobbs – most Hispanics hate you with you anti-immigration rants over the past few years, and now you have African-Americans joining them by not cutting off the “birthers” at the roots on your radio show. Get off television and radio and run for Grand Imperial Wizard, will you?
• You know – if mental health checks before buying guns were effective, or, better yet, all guns that cannot be used to hunt game were outlawed, we wouldn’t have lonely losers killing women in health clubs.

I don’t like the torture porn horror movies that have come along over the past few years: Saw I, II, II ad nauseum (although Saw I was an interesting concept); Hostel, et al. are all movies I’ve easily avoided. But I know where the next sequel of Saw is coming from, and it might be a documentary.
A 36-year-old Wisconsin man apparently had been cheating on his wife with at least three other women and they decided to get revenge. One day last month, his wife apparently figured it out and notified the other women, according to a criminal complaint filed in Calumet County, Wis., in a town about 90 miles north of Milwaukee. (How he thought he could get away with it in a town that small, I don’t know, but after all, this is a story about a man thinking with the “wrong head.”)
The women formulated a plan. Therese Ziemann, 48, lured the man to a Stockbridge hotel promising a “rub down.” He was blindfolded and tied to a bed. Then Ziemann text-messaged the other three women, including the man’s wife, who joined her in the room. They threatened the man with mace, punched him in the face and taunted him; but that wasn’t enough. According to the complaint, Ms. Ziemann glued his penis to his stomach.
The man was able to escape when he was able to start screaming. Now, all four women stand charged with false imprisonment, and Ms. Ziemann also faces charges of fourth-degree sexual assault and misdemeanor battery.
Now, perhaps I can understand wanting to hit on all of the older women, but how could he keep the lies straight? The stories don’t say how long he was able to “keep it up” (pun somewhat intended), but now he needs the solvent to Crazy Glue just to pee. It is kind of just in a perverse way.

I know it’s been over a week since we’ve corresponded, but I have been asked a few times when I would address the Henry Lewis Gates incident. Now’s the time…
Unless you have been living in a cave, Dr. Gates, a prominent Harvard professor and outspoken author on race was seen having problems getting into his own house, but a woman called 911, police officer Sgt. James Crowley arrived and Gates ended up getting arrested for disorderly conduct.
Eventually, the charges were dropped, but President Obama said that the police “acted stupidly,” and eventually, the 911 call showed that the woman said that it looked like the person trying to enter the residence looked “like he might live there.”
The right wing, thrashing in its death throws as a white, elitist entity, bashed the president with the Cambridge police chief defending his officer and saying that he was angry at the president. One member of the House of Representatives wrote legislation that Obama should apologize.
Last night, President Obama, Dr. Gates, Sgt. Crowley, and Vice President Biden had a beer at the White House to try and settle the issue. While no formal press statements were made, no one apologized and the original participants wanted to move forward.
My take is that there were a lot of mistakes made. First, the caller assumed that a black man in an upscale neighborhood must not belong there and called police. There is a helluva difference between someone looking like Bill Cosby at a door trying to get in and someone who looks like 50-Cent.
Second, Dr. Gates’ unfortunate mistake was in getting indignant at the officer, and not because the officer was in power, but for his own safety. Black men learn, often painfully, that backtalk to a police officer can be painful or even deadly. Dr. Gates’ error was in thinking that he was “above” this type of suspicion, or that he was somehow better than the average black man.
Unfortunately, there is no distinction made by most cops: you are a black man, and therefore a threat. Bruce Springsteen wrote “American Skin (41 shots)” about the New York incident when it’s police pumped 41 shots into an unarmed African immigrant. Dr. Gates should remember that and be thankful that he is still among the living.
And of course, the officer was wrong. Once it was obvious that Dr. Gates was unarmed and not a threat, he should have tried to diffuse the situation, but he wanted to teach this uppity nigger a lesson. Any challenge to authority, especially from a minority is to be shut down. He will wear a badge in the world of public opinion as yet another racist cop, and I know he will wear it proudly.
Anyway, racial profiling is a tough thing – I watch young men when I am in dark places, and black kids get more of my attention than others. I admit it. But as someone who grew up in a tough area of Chicago, if four young men who looked like Eminem were on the train with me at night, I’d be alert then too. But I’m aware that I can easily be stopped for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even my Northwestern education; my job; my achievements will not remove my black skin.

If there is one man in the world who will never be a finalist in any Father of the Year contest, it will be Joe Jackson. The patriarch of the Jackson family, he practiced his children relentlessly; beat them with belts at the very least, and terrorized the kids to fame and fortune. He was the ultimate “show-biz parent.”
The former steelworker lived vicariously through his children, leading to immense wealth and success, but also the downside: substance abuse, failed marriages and relationships, money troubles, etc. But the elder Jackson, who reportedly was using his son’s death to publicize a new record company, crawled once again out from under his rock to claim that he never abused his children. The father told CNN’s Larry King that he never beat his son or, more surprisingly, he never made any mistakes in raising him.
CNN.com reported that when King asked about stories that he was abusive to his son as a child, Jackson said “Oh, that’s a bunch of bull S. That’s a bunch of bull S.” “You never physically harmed him?” King continued. “Never. Never have. And I, and I raised him just like you would raise your kids, you know? But harm Michael, for what? I have no reason. That’s my son. I loved him and I still love him,” Jackson said. He said he made no mistakes in raising his children. “Michael was raised properly,” he said. “He didn’t run the streets like most of those other kids that was in his neighborhood.”
While denying any child abuse, Joe Jackson did appear to suggest that he did spank his kids, and, as so many people do, rambled on too long, blaming his actions on history: “The media keep hollering about saying that I beat Michael. That’s not true. You know what this beat started, beat started in the slavery days. Where they used to beat the slaves and then they used to torture them. That’s where this beating started. These slave masters, and that’s where that come from. But, hey, there’s a lot of people in America, Larry, a lot of people in America spank their kids, you know? They say they don’t, they’re lying. They’re lying. Now, Michael was never beaten by me, I’ve never beaten at all.”
So, let’s get this straight, he did spank his kids, but he didn’t beat them. And he has a notorious temper, so he never got out of line with the kids, right. Of course, in some instances, the fear of physical abuse can be worse than the actual assault, and according to many of the Jackson siblings, Joe was the master at psychological abuse. The late Michael Jackson gave numerous interviews before his death where he talked about his abuse and his abject terror of his father. Michael’s bizarre behavior along with the unnatural behavior of Michael’s other siblings suggests that while fame played a part, upbringing also played a huge role.
Even more impressive, the elder Jackson says that he made NO mistakes with his children at all? Wow, I’m impressed; I’ve been a father for almost 5 years and I know I’ve made some mistakes (but I have yet to hit the kids yet, however).
To further show that Jackson family is off their collective rockers, Joe Jackson repeated the suspicions of one of his wackier children, LaToya, that foul play was involved in his son’s death last month, but he conceded he did not know what happened. That’s probably because there was no foul play – maybe a terrible accident, perhaps an overdose of some kind, but no one had reason to end the weird superstar’s life.
The fact that Joe Jackson was barred from seeing Michael for some time, is reportedly estranged from the otehr children, and apparently lives apart from his wife of nearly 60 years says to me that while Joe Jackson may have done much to bring fortune and notoriety to his talented family, he, like Faust, he has sold his and their souls and they have paid dearly for his drive. Joe Jackson may be rich; but his personal legacy may be the head of the most dysfunctional family in the world that doesn’t involve sexual abuse.

I took a comment from a friend, Tom Watson (no, not the golfer) that describes my political leanings: when asked if he was a Democrat, we respond “on my most conservative day.” But I have to admit that I have had an anti-government moment this week, and of course, it involves the corrupt, inept Daley Chicago administration.
To go to work everyday and again on Thursday nights to go to my guitar lessons, I have to drive down Lincoln Avenue, one of the handful of diagonal streets in the area. For the past several months, Lincoln between Devon Ave. and Kedzie has been a minefield of potholes. Tire flattening holes caused anyone who didn’t want to buy a new set to enter into a “game” The Indignant Wife and I call – pothole slalom. This consists of weaving back and forth to try and miss the biggest holes while our internal organs are bounced like carrots in a Quisinart on the smaller holes and bumps.
Things showed noticeable improvement when the city workers, under a sign that brazenly displayed that this repavement was being paid for by President Obama’s economic stimulus package, paved the street. However, it was clear that the work wasn’t complete because the paving wasn’t as high as the curbs and the lane painting was minimal. But that’s OK, at least out tires and internal organs weren’t being jostled like large breasts in a tube top 2 sizes too small.
Until a couple of days ago, that is. I was driving down Lincoln Ave. over the weekend and work crews had ripped up the previous pavement, returning the street to its bumpy, pre-repaired state. The workers were out again this morning, turning the intersection of McCormick Ave. and Lincoln into an unusual traffic jam. Naturally, my ire level went up nicely and
I’m sure that they will be working on the street, and eventually, it will be paved nicely. My question is: why didn’t the workers pave the street correctly the FIRST time? Why did they pave the street, then tear it up AGAIN, to pave it a second time?
As I said, I am as liberal as can be, but I have to side with the right when they talk about waste in government. Not to mention that my teeth are still rattling from the bumps.