Jesus Starfish

Warning: You will never, ever be able to un-see the following image

I've never been one for scatological humor.  It's just not to my, uh, tastes.  For me, fart jokes stopped being funny in about the 8th grade.  I find that because of this, I am unlike most dudes.  To the average guy, farting is one of the joys of being a man.  Entire symphonies have been tooted in rooms full of dudes on New Years Day after several bowls of chili during the Rose Bowl. 

Bathroom humor just isn't my thing anymore.  It's part of the reason why I stopped watching Family Guy.

Pictured:  Humor

However, sometimes something so spectacular within this genre comes along--something so wonderful, sent down as a gift from God--that we just have to share it with the world.  Something like, oh, I don't know...Jesus appearing on a dog's butthole:

Praise the lord!

I know, I know.  Gross, right?  But isn't that an amazing likeness?  I have to admit, it kills me when people see Jesus or Mary or God in or on an inanimate object.  Remember that guy that found a Cheeto that vaguely resembled Jesus on the cross?:

Or the dude that found the Cheeto of Jesus praying?:

 

Or the woman who found the Cheeto of baby Jesus?:

Or the person who thankfully didn't eat the Cheeto of Mary holding baby Jesus aloft?:

Clearly, any bag of Cheetos could be blessed with a divine, delicious image.  However, Jesus and Mary don't exclusively appear in Cheetos brand snax.  My fellow Chicagoans might remember when the Virgin Mary allegedly appeared on the Kennedy Expressway's overpass at Fullerton Ave.  Dubbed--hilariously, so--"Our Lady of Fullerton", people came from all over the country to pray beneath the blessed image; probably just before donating a dollar to the unwashed homeless guy playing the bucket on the other side of the street.

 

Now, I'm not here to make fun of someones faith.  Just because I don't necessarily share the same beliefs, I would never, ever question your belief in God.  I do think that all bets are off, however, when you willingly worship a water stain that honestly looks more like a Gelgamek vagina than anything else.  

What is amazing about the Canine Jesus Starfish is that, to my knowledge, this is Jesus' first appearance on a totally animate object...on a living, breathing organism.

Though if I was a Christian, I'd feel awfully conflicted about taking that dog for a walk.

Christ-fil-A

My morning commute lasts about 50 minutes, give or take.  I usually take the 84 bus to the 147 bus and then walk the 3 blocks from Michigan Avenue to my work at 680 N Lake Shore Drive.  Sometimes, unfortunately, the bus gods don't play nice and I'm forced to take the Red Line downtown.  I don't have anything against the train...it's just louder, more herky-jerky, and is super-crowded by the time I reach my destination.  Today was one of those train days.

One bonus of taking the train to work is that the exit of the Chicago red-line stop spills out at the front door of Chicago's newest fast-food joint, Chick-fil-A.  Those of you from south of the Mason-Dixon line are well versed in the deliciousness of Chick-fil-A.  Those from up north likely only recognize the establishment for those amazing cows that urge folks to avoid eating beef:

Seriously.  These cows SLAY me.

This morning, my second bus was running late so I reluctantly took the red line to work.  However, such a travel annoyance comes with the promise of a delicious chikin biscuit at the other end of my commute.  I ordered my biscuit, waited, like, 30 seconds and a nice lady delivered it to me.  I said "Thanks!", turned around and started to walk away when I'm 90% sure she replied with "God bless you!"  As I said, since I was running late, I had already turned to walk away but I'm pretty damn sure those were her words.

Now, Chick-fil-A's politics are well known.  The company was started by a deeply religious man down in Georgia and their mission statement is almost as funny as those cows:  "To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us. To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.   And serving deep-fried chicken sandwiches to everyone but fags." 

Full disclosure:  I may have added that last part. 

However, they have donated a ton of money in the equally-hilarious (and terrifying) "National Organization for Marriage" and have been involved in a number of discrimination lawsuits.  Because, you know, its ok to hate on queers and Muslims because, like, God and stuff.

So by all means I should avoid this place like the plague.  Like Target, they have an abhorrent political stance and I should not support either organization but damned if I don't like the joint.  The chicken sandwiches are really good.  Plus, they serve waffle fries and their single serving ketchup doesn't come in annoying packets, it comes in an awesomely convenient cup that you can squeeze in the traditional fashion or peel back the top and dip stuff into it:

How cool is that?  And why has no one thought of this before?

Returning to my experience this morning, it was odd to be preached-to at a fast food restaurant.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not gonna go all Jimmy Johns and boycott the place.  It's just weird.  Growing up Catholic, I'm used to being surrounded by god-stuff: crucifixes, flying through our prayer before dinner ("blessusohlordandthesethygiftswhichweareabouttoreceivefromthybountythroughchristourlordamen"), morning prayers on the intercom at school, spending my Saturday mornings at stupid CCD class...I get it.  God is all around us if you want to believe that sort of thing.  I don't think, however, that if I was hit by a bus on Michigan Avenue later this morning, I would be granted the keys to the gates of heaven just because I ate a delicious $2 chicken sandwich and was blessed by the cashier before I did so. 

I dunno.  Maybe I'm wrong and the girl with the colorful beads in her hair that blessed me today is right.  And maybe I'm screwed anyway because despite my Chikin baptismal, I feel a dude should be able to marry another dude and "Christians" should just back the fuck off. 

And maybe--just maybe--nothing that occurred this morning matters at all in the cosmic scheme of things and all I really did was make a bunch of cows ludicrously happy because they won't face the slaughterhouse for another day. 

I'm sure we'll meet again soon at White Castle, cow.

I Got Assaulted!

I loved my dear Godfather very much.  He died about a year ago and most of the memories I have of him still bring a smile to my face.  For instance, since I lived in the city of Chicago he was 100% certain that I was going to be murdered. 

See, Don grew up on the south side of the city during the Great Depression.  He spent most of his (non-army) youth getting into all sorts of shenanigans, many of them illegal.  When he returned from WWII, he opened a blues club on the south side in a predominantly black neighborhood.  Some of the stories from this era are hilarious:  he once tried to buy out Muddy Waters' contract so he could come play at The Circus (his bar) and Mr. Waters politely declined this invitation...after lots of whiskey.  Another time, he got stinkin' drunk with Dinah Washington...after lots of whiskey.  Many of his stories began or ended with "after lots of whiskey". 

Anyhow, living in the city exclusively on the south side meant that he lived in a series of ever-changing and sketchy neighborhoods.  He witnessed his home turf--around Western Ave and, say, Pershing--go from German, to black to Hispanic in a matter of decades.  He viewed this change only through the eyes of a slightly racist, old-school Chicagoan who was concerned about escalating crime.  He then extrapolated the change in his neighborhood throughout the city and, in his older years, viewed any neighborhood in the city of Chicago as a death trap. 

He was not happy when I moved to Chicago and he spent the remaining years of his life attempting to convince me to move back "home" to the suburbs.  I called him on a daily basis as I left work downtown and since I work right next to the Northwestern "hospital district", he often heard ambulances screaming by as we chatted.  As a result, I heard lots of hilarious exclamations like "GOD!  We have to get you OUT of that damn city!" and "Don't walk down alleys, Michael!  DON'T WALK DOWN ALLEYS!" 

I consider myself--as I suppose many of us do--to be pedestrian street-smart...I know what areas to avoid and how to walk defensively.  One thing you cannot take into account, however, is the wild card.  For the purposes of the following story, that "wild card" was a "drunk, crazy, (perhaps) homeless guy". 

Marc and I had consumed many, many beers at Joe's on Weed for an intense college football Saturday.  Drunk on triumphs of Notre Dame, the Big 10 and $5 Coors Light pitchers, we took the Red Line up to my neighborhood and attempted to flag down a cab for the remainder of the trip home.  Immediately, a cab pulled up at Ridge and Broadway and a shaggy, flannel-clad guy got out of the cab and started to pay the driver.  To paint you a picture, on a very busy street, this guy was paying for his cab:

I hopped into the back seat and noticed that the guy above left his bag on the floor of the cab.  I crossed back over the seat and said "Excuse me, sir, you left this in the back seat". 

I should have known something was wrong with this character by his choice of beverage.  In his hand was a Natty Ice Tall-Boy that was sort of crumpled, as if he was crushing it as he drank.

"You can really taste the goat"

He sort of stared at me for a moment, as if he was trying to process what was happening.  I was still holding his bag out for him when he sort of snapped and said "Why the hell you got my bag?!?!"  I attempted to explain to him that I did not "got" his bag...I was attempting to return his precious cargo to him (for the record, within the bag was a bunch of napkins, what appeared to be a dirty shirt--god I hope it was a shirt--and another Natty Ice tall-boy).  The next few minutes were awkward:  an increasingly nervous cab driver was reluctant to do anything, this crazy dude was trying to climb into the back seat with me and Marc was forced to sort-of stand behind our homeless friend just waiting for his opportunity to jump in the back seat himself. 

Sadly, that opportunity never arrived.  This guy wasn't going to let Marc in so I got out of the other side of the cab, watched helplessly as our cab driver peeled away and Marc and I attempted to flag down another cab while this pissed-off crazy guy was yelling all sorts of slurs at me.  I tried to calm the dude down but that just wasn't happening.  He kept jamming his finger in my chest so I finally started asking him why he was doing what he was doing.  I don't think even he knew the answer at that point.  But he was getting really scary...I had even flipped open my pocketknife in my pocket by now.  Eventually, he grabbed me by the neck--hard--and I slapped his hand off me and said "You do NOT put your hands on me." 

Eventually, he just sort of wandered away, muttering the whole time and threatening us.  Marc and I did grab a cab and make it back to my place and we went to sleep behind the safety of my locked door.  But my neck hurt all the next day.  Not cool. 

I've lived in the great city of Chicago now for 10 years, almost to the day.  I've heard gunshots and witnessed some harassment going on but never have I had any direct experience in this type of thing.  I guess I can check that one off my bucket list. 

Don would have been happy about one thing though:  Crazy Drunk James Brown up there didn't assault me in a damn alley.