Scares the hell out of me and to this day I have no idea what the add was for.
These were after the parade. At 35th & Archer, you can get off the el and take a bus. The building here was a block back, I had to run past some gang dudes, but I was surprised to see even a better shot from ground level. Going around front, I saw that it was a beauty salon. I forgot the name of the beer bottle which royally pisses me off as I could have simply written it down in my commonplace book. Ah, well. More posts to come, once I hit Archer & Sacramento, its magic. Plus, you'll see scenes that once looked different back when BACKDRAFT was filmed in 1992.
I was going to simply post his oddly painted bench inside the UIC Blue Line terminal, near the Greyound station, but Louis The Guy From Albany had to send me this photo, taken yesterday at a holiday gathering. The guy takes fantastic photos of the stars and night skies. You'd think he's stop pointing the camera so low. And so the curse continues...
These are the rest of the ill-fated Indianapolis trip. The price for that pale son of a bitch hot dog should have been a warning. I do enjoy Greyhound, though. I like being on the bus at night, the only one awake. Seeing a red dot that might be a Coke machine a half-mile away at a gas station. Horatio Salt told me before I left that there are always bus stories. Richard Matheson wrote a few, his ownself.
I'm still getting notes about my head. Its OK right now, earlier I had a screaming headache, and I don't even want to talk about yesterday. As long as I don't get double-vision, I'm cool. After the contusions in my head after the accident in 1989, I described the headaches as like having a twisty nail hammered into my head, yanked out, then punched in just...a...little...bit deeper. This wouynd here, its cake. Not good cake, mind you.
The last of the Indianapolis photos. Interrupted by gashing my head. Bo commented correctly, you just commit your soul to the written word. You hurt, you write about it. You enjoy watching DANCING WITH THE STARS, you, well, OK, maybe you keep that to yourself. I mentioned spending time in this bar. Across the alley was the viaduct, the Amtrak trains ran above it. I talked more to the guy in the beard earlier in the day than I did the other dude, I gave them both a buck to take their photos. The guy in the sleeping bag has that specifically so his laptop cannot be stolen. I really wanted to sleep out there instead of inside the terminal, but I knew I'd regret the early morning chill. Oh, I even gave a buck to the Whiskey Sign guy. He wasn't even begging, I just gave him a buck for the photo. (This goes back a bit.) Look to the left, sure looks like some object in the window is giving the finger. So I ate two breakfasts in the Red Eye Diner and wrote "Salt." I'm baffled by the imagery, I've never written anything like it before. Maybe I'm evolving. Can't seem to upload it. Fucking technology. Like I said above, its all about the written word. I'll email y'all the story, if you want...Wayne
Sometimes, when it gets to be too much, I just spasm out, becoming, well, the real me. It was by far our warmest day this year, it might've hit 90. I had lunch with Greg Loudon, then went to Reckless Records and bought CDs on the cheap of Cannonball Adderly, Roxy Music, and Dizzy Gillespie, bought some great stuff at the Unique Thrift Shop at 35th and Archer (having noticed their 50% off sign on the way downtown), rode my bike to Walgreen's and back, sat with Buddy the Mitch and read a bit of DREAM BABY by Bruce MacAllister. Never once feeling tired, so I kind of expected my brain would pop a rod at some point. It just happens. There's no trigger point. Not in this weather. In winter, a stiff wind will jolt my neck and make me clock out. Not in this weather, though, it can happen any time. I ate Pepe's tacos and watched the Cubs. Nothing. I talked with my agent about a pitch regarding @joymotel. Emailed Horatio Salt, my partner in crime who started it all, just fine. Nothing. Bip bop Bip. Emailed Salem Press about some articles I'd write for their Masterwork Plots books. By now I was quite sweaty, so I thought a shower was in order before I continued with this lengthy writing project I'm involved with.
And THAT is when it happened. Best I recall, I smashed my skull against the side of the soap dish, chest-high, because it was dangling from one end. There's some swelling around the soft tissue area, gee, good thing I bought a Bricklayers Union cap at the thrift store, hey? (For those keeping track, I currently have 39 visible scars). And it hurts like a bitch. But I used that pain to put in the very scene in this writing project that needed it. I think I pulled off a much better Chapter 68 than if it was just another night. Maybe Karma is like Rain Man. Hurt Wayne. Uh oh, Wopner. More of Indianapolis tomorrow. If I wake up. K-Mart, Cincinnati. Three o'clock, Wopner's on.
Yep, that's me at 4:15 AM, sleeping in the Greyhound station. That Friday night was both frightening and fun. Let me explain. I was due to be picked up by a friend, but did not have his cell #, only the home #. So there's that. Now, I know my way around Indianapolis, I make a point of knowing the bus routes and all. I've been there a few times, waiting on the next bus to Louisville, or the time I went to Terre Haute to see Timothy McVeigh get executed. I read the bus maps, I look at the streets. After an hour of no one coming to get me, after three calls and an answering machine, I decide to hop the #29 bus to where my friend lived. Well, it turns out "lived" meant past tense and my friend never knew that I didn't know that he and his wife had moved from one of the scariest neighborhoods I had ever been in. Thugs on porches, music blaring, me looking like an anorexic Vic Mackey. Stares all around. I called Martel, who had maybe planned to show, on her phone, turns out she didn't have any info and so she told me she would Twitter and Facebook my friend telling him where the eff I was, at an intersection with my damnable numbers next to me (I purposefully kept the photo sideways), and a huge place called Liquorland behind me. An older fellow walks across the street and is cool enough to tell me there is one last bus. It shows up twenty minutes late, I listened to a good hour of Mexican rap music from an oddly colored Churros van. A fat girl with pink hair shaved on one side was the one person in the group around the ice cream truck-sized Churros van that stood out. I had asked them where the bus stop was, as I was basically walking along the grassy end of an endless strip mall, they shrugged in the way people shrug when they FUCKING KNOW WHAT YOU ARE SAYING BUT JUST DON'T GIVE A SHIT. Well, the last run of the #29 wouldn't take me where I needed to go, back to the Greyhound station. The driver called ahead to this dude what drove the #36 bus, because that route, too, was shutting down for the night. I had about a block to run, but he was there. Dropped me within three blocks of the station. I walked up Meridian, resigned to the fact that I'd be sleeping in the station, went into a bar called Howl At The Moon, somehow slipped by having to pay the cover, then was given free drinks because I was only drinking Cokes. Listened to the band for about two hours. Across the street was the Red Eye Diner, and I went in there and ate two breakfasts. I love eating breakfast at crazy times in odd places. I wrote a story called "Salt," that came to me as an image and I rolled with it from there. Then I trudged a block away to Illinois Street and the terminal. Got someone by the vending machine to take my photo. Ate breakfast at the White Castle, to illustrate how ass-backwards my eating habits are. When I got home, I learned that my friend had sent other people to retrieve me, and in retrospect, I can see the whole thing playing out where they look around for me and I'm in the john or tying my shoe. I was never frightened earlier that night, you do what cops do, look at everyone. Because only two kinds of people look at everyone, cops and crazies. Oh, and it had rained. So as I waited for the bus, it was humid and the sky was lighting up and you could hear the thunder and I was thinking oh fuck, what next? And it was actually raining by the time I hit Meridian Street, but it was a nice rain, the kind where your sinuses open up and you want to hear Del Shannon singing "Runaway" from some open window. The question is, will I get a cell phone? So I can call from anywhere, not just looking for pay phones that work or don't need credit cards? A cell phone so I can sound just like all the other idjits yapping away on the streets? Nope. What I WILL do, in the future, is get my facts straight, make certain I know where someone in another city ACTUALLY lives, and have more than one number to reach them at. So I take the blame there. But get a cell phone? Nope. Not gonna change.
Got in late from reading at Twilight Tales, so I've only scanned a few photos. Here are two that about sums up two aspects of my stay. More to follow.
So Rick and I met up in Wicker Park, had a meal at a place called Pint. I was quite elated, not just because I hadn't seen Rick since, well, since Harry's memorial, but because I got my hands on an Omegas Plus light blue transistor radio for ten dollars. I plan on walking with it everywhere and giving a big retro eff uuu to everyone with their cell phones and texting. Of course, until I find a 7 volt battery, I'll just have to make up the music. This specific intersection is cool, Damen, Milwaukee, and North. About two miles east of where I grew up, Humboldt Park. We then took a cab to Quenchers, at Western and Fullerton. I had known of The Polkaholics for years--in fact, they mentioned having formed in 1998--and I used to find small saddle-stitched copies of Polka-Zine up north. The band had to start late because of the playoff game with the Bulls and Celtics. Got me a t-shirt and afree CD, plus one for Rick. Free because the cardboard was stuck together, but the songs were pretty much what we heard. "The Beer Barrel Polka." My favorite of all time, "Who Stole The Kishka?" (I had to explain to Rick that it was Stashu who stole the kishka, even though its not explicit to the song). Then, inexplicably, they sang "All Right Now" by a 70s band named Free. How nuts is that? I know! Other songs: "Hallelujah, I'm A Drunk," "Old Style Polka," "Beer, Broads, and Brats." I had to look them up, and the CD still smells like Brylcreem or Wildroot. Good thing those guy don't run Magnum Sharpies through their hair. I got the Western bus to the Orange Line (near that vinegar factory) and watched one train go by. It was neat standing all alone at 12:30, I did the old walk down the up escalator for a bit. Got one of the last cabs from Midway, it was already in lockdown mode. Never cut it that close before. Got home around 1:15 AM and that's the end of that tale.
G.W.Ferguson pegged it in the last posts comments. Not From Michigan Mike had given me a link to VSL (Very Short List), with illustrations by Thomas Allen. You can see the type of work he does, and the article mentioned The Nymph and The Lamp in the opening paragraph. I was fascinated, as I have that book. (In fact, I have two, and have given at least two other copies I can recall away. Every tenth trip to the thrift shop, I'll find a copy, go figure. Could be 55th and Kedzie in Mexicago, could be Uptown.)
But I digress. Man, this stuff is cool, I'm buying this book. I've shown a few covers, like the one Allen did that resembles Kiss My Fist. I put Make My Bed In Hell up just because I freaking LOVE that title. Also, there I am with my copy of Nymph. I, of course, suck at posting links, but you can Google Thomas Allen or Paintalicious or VSL, or even better, link to it from G.W.s comment in the last post. G.W. always puts links in his posts because he is the Mastermind of Virginia. Enjoy the art. I am.
