July 31, 1974

I damned near ran over the corpse.

I’ve seen plenty of dead men, and plenty of violent death in Viet Nam, and you could say I’d become immune to the shock, but this dead man gave me a jolt. I thought at first it was a raccoon, one of those big sons of bitches that live in the city’s sewers and whose bulging eyes are frequently trapped in my cab’s headlights as they creep out of the concrete caverns they call home. Or maybe a porcine urban rat, one that scurried off a thick docking rope tied to one of the ocean-going ships anchored in the harbor; the kind that morph to the size of puppies. Or an alley cat; the thirty-plus pounders that every animal in the city gave a wide birth, or risk a world-class ass-whipping. But it wasn’t any expired metropolitan wildlife bathed in my cab’s beams. It was a dead man sprawled out in the middle of the road, legs bifurcated, arms spread crucifix-style, face pressed against the pavement like some half-assed Jesus ashamed to look heavenward and face his Dad.

I slammed on the brakes, put the cab in park and cursed my bad luck as the old cab’s engine wheezed as it idled. I’d have to tell Fat Bob the dispatcher, and then Fat Bob would have to call the cops, and that meant hours with the constabulary and the rest of my shift (and my tips) blown to hell. And rent was due tomorrow. I pounded a fist on the steering wheel, grabbed the mic and checked in with Fat Bob who sat in Sparky’s living room, noshing on chips and dip, beef jerky, candy bars and other junk food he washed down with lukewarm cans of Pepsi as he took calls and dispatched fares to the half dozen drivers on the road. I was free and the closest to the Twinkle Star Tap, where one of the late night drunks had the bartender make the call for him, so Fat Bob gave me the fare. It was supposed to have been a simple tavern pick-up. I wrote down the name of the joint and the time of the call on my log sheet, backed out of my spot at the Chicago and Northwestern station where I was waiting for the two a. m. train and zipped the two miles to the Twinkle Star Tap. When I’m in a hurry I’m a two foot driver; one foot on the gas, the other on the brake, and I was in a hurry tonight, hustling Fat Bob for fares. I’d bought a dozen donuts: elephant ears, bismarcks, cyclops; the cloying sugar-packed pastries the overweight dispatcher loved so much, stopped in at Sparky’s at the beginning of my shift and asked him to keep me at the top of his list when fares became available. Bob eyed the donuts lovingly, almost sexually, pouty smile arching his girlish mouth and nodded an affirmative to my request. If a driver kept Fat Bob in donuts, Fat Bob would toss that driver a bone or two. I cursed my bad luck, my decision to take the side streets to save a minute or two, the wheezing cab, my boss Sparky, the drunk who needed the cab, the bartender who called Sparky’s Cab Company instead one of the other four cab firms in town and Fat Bob who passed the call on to me even though I’d sprung for the dozen donuts to make sure he kept me busy. I had a girlfriend once who used to say “everything happens for a reason” and found myself wishing she were here with me in the cab so she could explain how this confluence of events that brought me here in the cab parked on a tiny side street that saw no more than a half dozen vehicles a day with a dead man sprawled out on the pavement before me actually had a reason behind it.

My new landlord was a prick and I was a bit short on the rent and I was positive he wouldn’t take any excuses as to why I didn’t have the entire amount. Now I was screwed, and this guy wouldn’t take a painting in lieu of rent like Ned, my old landlord had. Klaus was a septuagenarian German immigrant; a real hard-ass with a take-no-prisoners temperament and an up-from-nothing old world respect for coin of the realm. And disdain for those who had none. Hell, I could hear him already: “Ver iss da rent, Chonny?” My boy Pablo’s free-wheeling spirit did not reside in Klaus’ shriveled walnut of a heart. Yeah, Art-Boy, I mumbled to myself, “Ver iss da rent?” I knew where; my rent was ticking away as I sat in the wheezing cab, waiting for a squad to respond to my call while a dead man blocked my path. Something about the corpse looked hauntingly familiar, and I had to turn away. He wouldn’t have to worry about such mundane things as love, rent or where the next meal was coming from, I thought. In a perverted sort of way, I envied him. But where was the constabulary? I needed to get back on the road and rack up the fares, or Klaus the goose-stepping landlord would have my fanny on the street. Me, Johnny Jump, who walked away from a million samolians less than a year before worrying about a couple hundred bucks for the rent.

Where were the cops?

Time, they say, is money.

***

One squad answered the call. Two uniforms, one black, one white exited the auto. They were in short sleeves in deference to the August night, and blocky patches of sweat stained their armpits. The black officer walked to the body, knelt and gave it a perfunctory look. He looked up at the white cop. “Dead,” he said matter-of-factly. The white cop sauntered to my cab, fingers hooked in his gun belt. He made a circle gesture with his finger, ordering me to roll down my window.  I did.

“You find the body?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Touch anything? Move anything?”

“Nothing.”

He jammed fists into his hips and gave me a cool once-over. He had a broad face peppered with acne scars, a blonde handlebar moustache and thick mutton chop sideburns. He turned away from me and toward the black cop, who was still kneeling over the body.

“Is it him, Fred?” he asked, pointing casually to the corpse.

The black cop shook his head in the affirmative, hat balanced precariously on his abbreviated afro. “Uh, huh,” he said.

Mutton chops turned his attention back to me and was about to say something when an unmarked squad pulled up. I knew the rumpled suit who stepped out of the car. Leonard Featherstone had been on the force for more years than anyone could remember. There had been talk of him becoming Chief of Police at one time, but he hadn’t smooched the right number of political asses, so he remained a detective. I remembered him as the guy who arrested me when I went back to ‘Nam in my mind during a bad acid trip, waving a gun and taking hostages. Featherstone stood for me in court, pleading leniency to the judge, who was himself a World War Two combat veteran and therefore cut a fellow Silver Star recipient a break, sentencing me to eighteen months in prison (of which I served twelve), rather than the ten years he could have handed me. I picked up the habit of reading the classics during my short prison stint, as well as pumping iron, and continued both after my release from the joint. I keep a selection of solid reads: Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, et al, in my digs, as well as a pair of fifty pound dumbbells that I toss around on a regular basis. Mens sana in corpore sano. Lockup had been good for me, and I owed Lenny Featherstone big time. One day I’d pay him back with a painting. I am, after all, an “art boy.” Definition: broke.

Featherstone frowned and shoved his hands in his pockets, strolled casually to the corpse, knelt down and rolled it over with effort, stared at it for a long moment or two then walked to my cab, leaning down and staring into my open window.

“Johnny Jump,” he said. “I heard you were back in town.” His craggy face begged for the stark reality of Leonardo’s pen. His hooked nose perched above a graying moustache. Deep furrows creased his forehead, and crows’ feet fanned out from the corners of his deep-set steel-blue eyes. A developing double chin quivered above his unbuttoned collar. All the hard years were creeping up on the detective, I thought, and they weren’t going to be kind to him.

“I also heard you came into a lot of money,” he said. “And lost it pronto. Any truth to that?”

“None, Lenny,” I answered. I wasn’t about to give him the unexpurgated version of how I came into one million dollars of boosted bank loot and gave it away within six months after realizing the money was making me lazy and hindering my ability to create art. Maybe I’ll give you the straight poop later on, but suffice it to say that I violated every societal expectation by divesting myself of what most, if not all, Americans would call their primary goal in life: cash, and lots of it. As if money equated to happiness. Most wealthy people I know are miserable. Worst of all, they don’t know they are. Not for me, thank you.

He grunted and gripped my open window with rough-hewn hands. He nodded in the direction of the corpse. “What about this?”

“I took a shortcut, Lenny. Damn near ran over it. That’s all I know.” I wanted to get the hell out of there and see if I could salvage what was left of the night. Maybe Sparky would let me cover a bit of the day shift, and I could still make the rent. If I could wrap this up pronto and get back on the road.

“You take a look at the body?” Featherstone asked. “See his face?”

“Never got out of the cab. I called it in to dispatch, and they called you. Why?”

“It’s Tank Dupree. “

Tank Dupree. I was stunned silent for a long few seconds.

Featherstone added, “Somebody stuck him with a knife. Right in the gut. Must have been a big blade to make a hole that size.”

I studied the corpse now bathed in the patrol car’s headlights; the thick shoulders and biceps and narrow waist. I couldn’t see his face, but the physique gave it away. It was Tank, for sure. Built like a brick shithouse and sprawled dead in the street. Whoever had taken him out had to have been one tough son of a bitch. Tank Dupree was no pushover, and was perhaps the toughest man in the city. Tougher than me, even.

Now I knew the night was shot. I was going back to the PD for sure to spend at least an hour, probably two, in the interrogation room. Tank Dupree was the closest thing I could call a friend in town. I operate at society’s fringes. I don’t go to parties, I don’t aspire to wealth or prestige and therefore I am not on anyone’s short list for those-in-the-know soirees. Neither was Tank Dupree. He was a veteran of Korea, had been on the long retreat from the Chosun reservoir, and like me he’d seen the foul face of combat. Like all soldiers who’d seen war’s horrors up close and personal, we shared that common bond of the thousand yard stare.

Featherstone studied me for a reaction. “He was a pal of yours, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “Sort of.”

I didn’t know of anyone who could get even get close to Tank Dupree, let alone to catch him so off guard that they could shank him.

But the bigger question wasn’t who, but why?

City Hall occupied a five-story red brick building a few blocks off of the lakefront. A former bicycle factory turned discount furniture warehouse, it had been purchased by the city after the company went bankrupt and was retrofitted to accommodate city offices and the city council chambers. Its monolithic cold brick facade reminded me of the anonymous prisons of fascist governments, where innocent civilians entered and none ever returned. I imagined people on the streets outside hurrying by, covering their ears to muffle the screams of the tortured inside, hoping against hope that if they kept their heads down and their mouths shut they could slide under the radar of the gendarmerie but knowing deep down inside that soon it would be they whose screams would float through the halls and out into the street as thuggish secret police beat false confessions out of them.

I parked the cab and entered city hall reluctantly, like an apprehensive puppy dog being dragged to the vet. The building embodied government, the arch-enemy of all true artists. It represented those who passed unconscionable laws, levied unjustified taxes and sent young men off to fight in unjust wars to protect corporate profit. I thought of my dead buddies left behind in ‘Nam and got a sick feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. City hall was a brick-and-mortar symbol of all I detested and feared.

I opened the swinging glass doors and went inside.

The dimly lit halls exuded a chilly pathos as icy as the building’s exterior. It was after normal business hours but City Council was meeting tonight so the building was open to interested spectators. These hours-long governmental gab fests drew the usual political wonky few who hovered in the wings, waiting to get their three-minute chance at the microphone during citizen’s comments, as if their truncated screed would do anything to change the minds of the pocket Mussolinis who lorded it over their police, parks, public pools and garbage collections.

Halfway down the long hall a woman ensconced behind a glass window slid it open as I approached.

“Can I help you?” she asked. I inquired after the address of alderman Lou Pine. She carefully studied my face as if trying to ascertain my motives. I studied hers in return, noticing that with a dab of makeup she had skillfully covered a pimple threatening to erupt on her cheek. She noticed me noticing it and reflexively brought a hand up to her face, touching the offending blemish as if she could make it magically disappear.

“What do you need that for?” she demanded.

“For myself. It’s public information, isn’t it?”

“Yes it is,” she replied. “But we need to ask.”

“For the protection of our elected officials,” she added. There was a deep hostility in her voice, and I wondered whether it was because I had asked for information she was reluctant to give or that I had noticed the pustule on her face.

“Can I have it, please?” I asked again.

“I need to know your name.” It was a demand, not a request. I gave it to her. She scribbled it down. “And your address and phone number?”

Something told me that this was not standard procedure, but she was a bureaucrat, and worse yet a low-level bureaucrat with an inflated sense of her own importance. A woman like this could make infinitely more trouble for a mope like myself than could the President of the United States. I gave her my address.

“No phone?” she asked.

“I don’t need one,” I replied. We were sparring now; me, Johnny Jump, arteest, vs. Signorina-Fascista-in-Training. I wondered if she’d ever been laid, but restrained myself from asking the question.

“Well I need one. I can’t give you the information if I don’t have a phone number for reference. It’s the rules.”

Ah, the much vaunted rules! Can’t have the information if you don’t toe the line, play by the book, can you? I gave her Sparky’s number at the cab company. She reluctantly wrote down an address for me and slid it halfway across her narrow counter. She gave me the once-over once again.

“I don’t know . . .” she mumbled, but I snatched the paper from her hand and exited the building pronto. I was beginning to suffocate from the oppressive atmosphere. As I opened the door to leave I turned and noticed her jabbering away into a phone, one hand self-consciously massaging her pimple. She threw a furtive glance in my direction, and I knew it was me she was talking about to whomever the storm trooper was on the other end of the line.

I began to regret my decision to press her for the info. Something told me it was going to be more trouble than it was worth.

***

Lou Pine lived on the farthest reaches of the city, at the tip of a dog leg that stretched out beyond, and past, the interstate that connected Milwaukee to Chicago. I learned later that the section had been gerrymandered into the city twenty years before to accommodate Mr. Pine’s purchase of a massive trailer park and his relocation to the three-story mansion on the grassy hill lording it over the two hundred plus trailer homes below. It allowed him to live like the old world padrone he felt he was and still keep his seat at city hall, and his power base.

I had radioed in and told dispatcher Chuck that I was going on the hunt for fares. It was standard operating procedure on slow call nights and sometimes you could hook onto a live one, which meant a big fare and even bigger tips. It was a steamy Mid-August night and the city’s streets were bereft of people, most of whom who had taken refuge anywhere they could find air-conditioned comfort. I decided it was as good a time as any to at least see where the mysterious Mr. Pine lived. I turned off the cab’s radio and took the twenty-minute ride west to Lou Pine’s spread.

There was a full moon, and a cloudless sky. The main entrance to the trailer park exited off a lonely county road and wound up a grassy hill and ended at the front gate of what I assumed was the alderman’s palatial digs; a sort of mini-taj mahal constructed in the late Victorian style with peaks and turrets and a wide porch that wrapped around the home. The windows were dark, but a solitary porch light winked in the night; an attempt, I assumed, to ward off burglars or anyone else foolish enough to try to rip off the pocket godfather’s humble abode. I turned into the park, noticing the side roads that led to trailers deep inside the neatly laid out development. There was a flash of an occasional light from a trailer, but for the most part all were tucked in for the evening. Tomorrow was another workday when they would again bust their humps to pay the mortgage on their trailers, get braces for the kids and save up enough money for a week’s vacation at some musty Northwoods resort.

Halfway into the park the main road split in two, bifurcated by a large pond with tall rushes that quivered in the night breeze. The moon reflected off its placid surface as if in a mirror. I cut the lights in my cab. No sense in raising any alarms from the lord and master’s castle or from his proles below. I parked the cab alongside the pond so it was half-hidden by a bank of rushes and leaned back and studied the home above. This was the guy who, according to Cicero, could shed light on who had filleted Tank Dupree, and why. I watched the small porch light cast jack-o-lantern-like shadows on the home and pondered what type of man would live like this, lording it over his tenants like a medieval baron. I wondered if he also exercised the right of prima nocta with his serfs. I had never met Lou Pine, had never even heard his name until the night before but just from the layout of his home I knew he was one of those who possessed every goddamned thing worth anything in this world and used it as a weapon to beat down those who owned little, or nothing at all. And if the peons got uppity they were publicly drawn and quartered; legally, because the laws were drawn up to protect the nobles, not their vassals. Pablo had nailed this in “Guernica,” and I was hoping I had likewise nailed it in my last canvas. For a fleeting moment I thought of Cat Dupree’s comment that my masterwork needed a “smile.” I would have to work on that, once I figured out exactly what she meant.

It was just then I noticed movement in the rushes. I had been spotted. I started the cab and attempted to back out of the drive but when I turned my head to get my bearings a police car suddenly pulled in behind me, blocking my way, its bright lights temporarily blinding me.

Through my blurred vision I saw a figure emerge from the rushes. It was wearing a police uniform, and was carrying a flashlight which it aimed into my suffering eyeballs as it walked directly toward the cab. This wasn’t going to play out well, I thought.

I got that tight feeling in my gut again.

This is a sample chapter from my novel in progress, “Tricky Dick Nixon & the 5 Naked Nuns.”

We had been exchanging stories along with shots and beers, Tank and I, on one particularly bitter winter day. The snow obscured the view of the busy street outside the tavern’s wide windows and the wind hammered angrily at the fragile glass like the fists of Thor. Tank stared down at our pitiful few dollars on the bar. When they were gone we were, the both of us, tapped.

“Broke again,” I said, motioning to our last few bills.

“There’s a certain purity in being broke,” he said in between slamming down his shot of whiskey and then chasing it with a slug of his tap beer. I opened my mouth to challenge him, but he silenced me with a raised hand.

“I said ‘broke,’” he replied, answering my unasked question. “There’s a big difference between being destitute and being broke. Broke is not having enough cash to buy a shot and beer, or maybe a second hamburger or cup of coffee at the diner. Destitute means you have nothing to eat, no place to sleep, and no prospects for getting either. Big difference.”

He took another sip of his beer, and his eyes took on a faraway look, as if he were staring into a dark and painful past.

“I damned well know destitute,” he said. “During the Depression. My father lost his farm, and we lost our home. There were no Hoovervilles where I came from. We built a shack in the woods out of tar paper, tin and fallen timber. We lived there for nearly four years, hunting and trapping to eat, like our neighbors and friends. The game warden kept well clear of us. His predecessor was shot dead one moonlit night, trying to arrest a man seining the river for fish for his family to eat. That warden got between a man and his family’s survival. Nobody confessed to the crime. Nobody was charged, or convicted. There was one constable for three counties. People pretty much set their own rules and abided by them, or paid the price. Justice was meted out by your fellow citizens. It was swift and many times it was harsh.

We had less than nothing. They talk about the Depression in the big cities, where people had to wait in soup lines, and sold apples for a nickel. Hell, we didn’t even have that. Those who were fortunate enough to keep their homes let their cats and dogs loose because they couldn’t afford their upkeep. The dogs began to run in packs, pulling down livestock and poultry. There was even a story of them taking down a little girl and devouring her right in her own back yard. I can’t say whether or not that was true, but I choose to believe it. It was that bad. Feral cats destroyed game birds; pheasant, grouse and doves, by the thousands. They were competing with us for the food supply, the cats and dogs, and we hunted them down and killed them. Everyone owned at least one gun. It meant the difference between starvation and survival. We gathered together in groups of dozens of hunters and flushed them out of the woods and shot them dead and buried them. If we left them where they lay they’d provide food for their brethren. Starve them, shoot them, poison them and then bury them deep; any way to rid the woods of them.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “I wonder how people today would react to that story, that their precious little puppies and kitties would tear out their throats if they were hungry enough. I had thirteen brothers and sisters, and my mother died a few years into it and that left my dad and me and my two older brothers to take care of the little ones. Damn! It was hard!”

He shook his hand, as if waving away the bad memories. “No whining, mind you, just fact. It was tough, but I got through it and when I got to Korea and we were up there on the Yalu River and the winter wind blew down from the north and froze every goddamned thing that didn’t move and some that did I saw men who weren’t conditioned to take it just give in, lay down and freeze to death, as if their life wasn’t worth the effort. I was used to the cold and the wind and the lack of food and toughing it out because that’s what you did to make it through. There was no other option, except to lay down and die, and I sure as hell wasn’t going that route. And when the Chinese hit us by the hundreds of thousands with those goddamned bugles blowing and human-wave attacks the weak tits among us had already been weeded out and those of us that were left fought back like demons. We then retreated through the most miserable conditions any army faced in American history and made it back to our reformed lines and when we got our strength back hit those slant-eyed sons of bitches like the fire-breathing dragons out of their own mythology. We mounted their skulls on pikes, and mounted the pikes on our tanks. We put the fear of God in those godless bastards, that’s for sure.”

He took a long drink of beer, his Adam’s apple bobbing on his throat as he did. He set the glass down, still staring into the distant past. “Goddamn,” he muttered. “We were tough. I was tough.”

I had never heard him brag on himself and it was disconcerting to hear him do so. But he was right; he was tough, the toughest man I had ever met and now he was dead, gutted like a fish and discarded like trash on a filthy city side street. Tank Dupree, a man I had come to view as some sort of immortal Titan from Greek mythology was at this very moment sprawled out naked on the Medical Examiner’s mortuary slab as they poked his wounds and probed his private parts for clues. I flushed in embarrassment for him. There is no goddamned justice in this world, only that which you make for yourself, and Tank Dupree was past that now.

I cursed and punched a fist into my palm.

This was nothing I could render onto canvas with brushes and oils. It was as if I weren’t skilled enough to translate it’s sordid and bloody reality into transcendent art. Maybe Pablo could on one of his best days, but not I, not now. This was real life, and I would have to face it with muscle, bone, sinew and brains. I couldn’t imagine anyone having the physical capability and raw courage to take down Tank Dupree, but they had and they were out there, somewhere, poised and dangerous. Tank Dupree deserved justice–hard justice–and he wasn’t going to find it in the system. I made a vow, sotto voce, to find and kill his murderer.

Before they had the chance to do the same to me.

Lenny Palmer 10/29/11
This is a chapter from my new novel, “Tricky Dick Nixon & the 5 Naked Nuns.”

I don’t like the term “empowerment,” and its liberal application today to anything that justifies pissing away my tax dollars. Like the “I have a disability so you can pay my rent, utilities and food bills so I can sit around all day and smoke pot” empowerment line. I also don’t like the word “community,” as it applies to a certain race, religion or sexual preference. Like “the black community.” What in the hell is that exactly? Is it a gated neighborhood, and do you need a ticket to enter and watch black folks eat fried chicken, rap and vote in a single massive block and only for the Democratic candidates? Or “the gay community,” as if it were some sort of alternative planet where gay people sit around sipping Pink Squirrels in apartments furnished out of House Beautiful as they limp-wrist and lisp their way through discussions about accessorizing their wardrobe for the latest Cher concert? This parsing of our nation is incredibly destructive and does nothing to heal the deep divisions among us. It’s why poverty pimps like Al Sharpton use them; it justifies his miserable existence, and allows him to paint himself as a leader of “the black community,”something he definitely is not, and which makes me doubly puke when I watch the simpering ring-kissers on MSNBC legitimize the man who brought you Tawana Brawley and race riots in New York. In case you’ve forgotten, here’s a refresher course:
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/30/nyregion/sharpton-arrested-in-protests.html

And oops, she was lying and Sharpton made himself a media hog and finally a media presence on the basis of that lie but who cares because we need a guy from the “black community” to round out our lily-white cast so we’ll annoint him and forget about his rocky and prevaricating past and ooo! don’t we feel good about ourselves and aren’t we so liberal and cool and with it and Rastus could you serve more chablis and brie to our guests, please?

We may live in a video world, but words still mean things. Like “illegal alien.” Pretty simple term, and one that lights up most Americans. It’s straightforward and to the point: illegal, meaning against the law, and alien, meaning you don’t belong here. But those who have a vested interest in “empowering” those who sneaked into America couldn’t argue the point if that was the accepted label, so they did what benefitted them most; they changed the terminology. Illegal alien became “undocumented alien,” and then morphed into “undocumented resident.” See, they belong here too, they just don’t have the papers to prove it, and your problem with their being here is just out-and-out racism you Nazi, sheet-draped, KKK thug. You flinched when I called you those names, didn’t you? Hard to respond to being called a Nazi or KKK thug, isn’t it? Did it force you to look down at your hands to see if you had to wash the soot off your hands after the latest cross burning? It takes a heart of steel and the soul of a lion to combat them but you can, if you use what is the most empowering word in the world:

“NO.”

That’s right, the simple word “no” can combat even the most vicious of critics and go a long way toward solving many of our problems in America today. You see the word every day: no passing zone, no swimming, no fishing, no hunting, no parking, and what may be the most insidious of all, the unspoken but understood concept in modern America of “no thinking.” You know the sentiment is out there, and has inserted itself into the fabric of our nation: I am your elected representative and therefore I am smarter than you. I will do your thinking for you, and to help you along here is a check generously provided from me to you. “Give me liberty or give me death” has been replaced with “give me liberty or give me my check.” I’d feel more comfortable about it if these elected philanthropists would cut us a personal check out of their multi-million dollar bank accounts, but that isn’t going to happen, is it? They’re in the business of fattening their bank statements, so any idea of sharing the wealth (their wealth) is out of the question. Never mind that the monies given to you are actually yours, cut out of a depleted national  treasury desperate for more tax dollars so politicians can bestow more largess upon their ignorant, humble subjects; you, all of us, have bought into this big lie. But you can fight back, using that simple, empowering word:

“No,” I don’t need the money. I can take care of myself, thank you.

“No,” I am not a Nazi or KKK cross-burner. I do not want to exclude persons from locating here for any reason, and certainly not because of racial issues but there is a legal process for it and if that process can’t handle the influx then perhaps we should re-examine it and tweak it to fit today’s circumstances, but don’t lay your name-calling bilge on me.

“No,” I do not believe there is a black community, or gay community, or Hispanic community, or any other horse-hockey names you want to tag them with. I believe there is an American community, and that we all live and work and play and prosper within the protection of its borders and our magnificent Constitution.

“No,” I don’t need more rules and regulations to force me to eat what you eat, drink what you drink or to not smoke or read certain books or listen to certain radio programs. I am real, authentic grown-up person and can make those decisions for myself, thank you. And by the way; I don’t need you harping on my children, either, or usurping my parental authority. They are my children and I have the ability to raise them to become responsible, caring adults.

Finally, and for those who are ostensibly running this mad house called America: ”NO, you are NOT doing a good job. Your performance these last few decades has been execrable and in fact may be criminal. Back off and let the people decide for themselves once again. Take care of the roads and bridges, the sewage, the water and protect us from enemies foreign and domestic and leave the rest in our capable hands. We are not saying that we don’t believe government has a place; it does. What we are saying is that you have forgotten exactly what that place is.”

Parents of daughters lecture them to say no when boys become insistent. Parents of boys lecture their sons to say no to their most carnal of instincts. Responsible parents understand the disastrous fallout from out-of-wedlock births, and do their damnedest to prevent them by the liberal application of the word “no.” It’s not too difficult to make the leap from responsible parenthood to responsible citizenship.

Only we must remember that it is we who are the parents, and not those whom we have elected to represent us.

Lenny Palmer, 10/23/2011

Dear Mr. President,

You might remember me. I was the radio guy who interviewed you all those years ago when you were running for Illinois’ junior senate seat and you were lighting up the world with your star presence. I compared the media coverage of you to Jesus’ walking on water and raising the dead. Remember me now? If not, maybe this will shake up your memory: I asked you some stock questions about issues of the day and then as a final question asked you which cookie you would prefer: sugar, peanut butter or chocolate chip. You chose the chocolate chip and I congratulated you on your manly choice. Remember me now?

If not, it’s no big deal. You went on to win the senate seat, capture the nation’s imagination and then vaulted almost instantaneously into the Presidency. I remained at my position as a talk show host at both AM1050WLIP & AM1220WKRS, now as an 8-noon weekday host. I’m happy at what I do for a living, and hope you are, too.

But enough of the small talk.

You’ve had a pretty tough row to hoe since taking the oath of office. The economy tanked, and it seems nothing we do will resurrect it. There are proposals and counter proposals in Washington, and it seems everything you put on the table to encourage job growth is immediately attacked by your enemies. And your enemies are legion, many of them in your own party who expected you to lead from a far-left position and when you didn’t they expressed disappointment and outrage. Too bad for them. They are nattering nabobs, you are the President. Best keep them at arm’s length. You tried to placate them once and look what it got you. Everybody hated you, most of all those you were trying so hard to please.

I’m here to talk to you about jobs, and the economy. I took a ride to Milwaukee with my best buddy a couple of days ago on 1-94. The new construction, IMHO, is an absolute nightmare. A ganglion cyst of highways, tunnels and bridges that are as confusing as the Gordian Knot and twice as difficult to navigate. Milwaukee didn’t need a new configuration for its highways; it needed a face lift, to be sure, but not a redo. But Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett and Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle were early and vociferous supporters of your presidential bid so when monies became available you tossed a cool $3 billion their way and they, like all good politicians, spent it all. A lot of road construction people were to put to work and that’s a good thing, but now you’re talking about another jolt of financial juice for infrastructure to put people back to work. I like the idea of creating jobs but I have to agree with my pal (he’s a cop, and a damned good one) when he stated that all you’d be doing would be keeping the same people working at creating more useless projects like the one in Milwaukee. I mean, if you’re in the roads and bridges business these have been halcyon days, but it’s the rest of us out there who really need the help, Mr. President. Who is that, you ask? It’s the men and women who sling hash for a living, or set up shots and beers behind the bar and depend on tips to make ends meet. The guys who crawl under the hood of your car and get it running in tip-top condition so it doesn’t break down in the middle of a winter storm while you’re on your way to work. The clerk at the retail store who helps your wife find a new outfit. The janitor polishing the floors in the public buildings, or the corporate offices or the corner saloon. The men and women driving the buses, or cabs, or ten wheelers or semis and who keep the country moving and get the goods to market. The guys who mow the lawns and dig the ditches and patch the roofs. The Wal-Mart greeters and yes, even the men and women who put in their time behind the microphone at community radio stations and inform listeners about local issues and relate storm news and traffic news and what’s going on at the local museum or library.

You know, regular people.

They used to refer to us as “Joe and Jane Six-Pack,” a tag some bristled at but I thought was complimentary. It meant you worked for a living, and weren’t afraid to get your hands dirty and at the end of a long day you parked your keister on a stool at the corner saloon and had a few with your pals and workmates to take the edge off a rough day and talked the Bears and Packers and Cubs and Sox and politics and argued and laughed and sometimes even got into the occasional fist fight over some inane issue. You know, straight-up working folks.

Mr. President, WE need the jobs, and we’re not going to get them by laying down more unneeded roads or bridges to nowhere. That will only  put more money into the pockets of those who have already been banking big bucks with current stimulus programs. It won’t find its way to our pockets, and that’s the point. WE need the jobs, and we need them now, or you may just see full-blown unrest on the streets that will make this Occupy Wall Street look like the limp-wristed protest that it really is. The streets very well may descend into uber-violent 1968 fists-flying anarchy with tear gas and truncheons and guns: real world hanging in the balance stuff, and the protesters would not be “dirty, filthy hippies,” but the shattered and disenfranchised middle class. You’re from Chicago, ask around, there are a few old dogs who’ll relate to you how damned unpleasant all of that really was. Believe me, you don’t want a reprise of that, especially under your watch.

So what do you do? It’s easy, Mr.President: NOTHING. That’s right, you do zero, zilch, nada, niente, zip. You have a lovely wife and two beautiful daughters. Take a long, leisurely tour around your country and visit the places where people like my listeners and I live. And please don’t turn these sojourns into media-hyped public relations stunts. Travel on the QT. Shake hands with us. Break bread with us. Listen to us, really listen to us. We’re good, patriotic Americans and we care deeply about our country. We aren’t the selfish, obese, ignorant louts that everyone says we are. We want to work, and contribute, but we are finding it increasingly difficult to do so with meddlesome legislators who seem to feel that they not only have the answers to everything but that they can actually cure our ills by piling more laws and restrictions upon existing laws and restrictions until we are suffocated by them. They treat us like little children, and we don’t like it.

So that’s it, Mr. President, in a nutshell. Do nothing and we’ll take over from here. Take my word for it, the country will be in very good hands.

And here’s my promise: if you do this and I get another shot at interviewing you I will not ask another loopy cookie question. Scout’s Honor.

Sincerely, your friend,
Lenny

Lenny Palmer 10/18/2011

Because of the ages of my children (18-31) I still have a connect with what’s going on in the younger generations these days, and what I am seeing and hearing not only distresses me, but scares the living shit out of me.

I heard this from the mouth of a high schooler a few days ago about a homework assignment: “It doesn’t make a difference whether I get an A+ or a D-, I only have to pass the class.”

As one raised with strict guidelines on excellence and doing a job well or not at all (as was most of my generation), I had trouble getting my mind around that casual remark. I responded by saying that it wasn’t what the teacher expected that counted so much as what you expected from yourself. It fell on deaf ears. Had this been a singular instance of a young man who just didn’t care I would have thought nothing of it, at least not enough to pen a blog, but unfortunately this type of attitude is endemic among young men today, and it has sapped the very lifeblood of our nation.

Now is the time for all of you “take our daughters to work day” screaming mimis to jump in and blast me for my testosterone-laced rant. Never mind that I have fathered two very accomplished daughters and encouraged them to make whatever life choices they thought best for themselves, I have discovered that reality has nothing to do with the politically motivated in America today. Take a position opposed to theirs, and you’ll find yourself in their crosshairs, not because of lofty ideals but rather because you have threatened their political power, i. e., money. And I don’t care what side of the political fence they’re on, it’s always the cash that drives the debate. Not that I’m telling you anything you don’t know.

Back to the A+ vs. D- debate. You don’t hear girls talk this way today. Girls are motivated, mollycoddled, told that they’re special and encouraged to get a college degree. Boys on the other hand are shuffled through the system, pushed into graduation and then onto the street, turned loose on a society that has demonized the penis. Many turn to gangs, father babies without accepting responsibility for those babies, form opinions of women based on mindless TV shows or internet porn and happily become the recipients of government aid for home, food, clothing and shelter, many times sponging off a woman with low self esteem who may or may not have birthed one or more of their progeny.

MEN are not supposed to act this way. MEN are supposed to accept responsibility for their children, and honor their wives. WIVES, not girlfriends. MEN are supposed to work to support themselves and their families. MEN are supposed to be life templates for their children, and that means daughters and sons. MEN do not gang bang. MEN do not use drugs. MEN do not strike their wives. MEN sit down to dinner with their families and discuss family affairs with their wives and children. MEN will actually stand up and be counted when the times comes to do so.

Now before you go off accusing me of some Promise Keepers’ rant, I want to make one point perfectly clear: I’ve violated a few of these sacred tenets myself. I am an imperfect being, a man, if you will, and I understand that these are rules that many of us want to follow and sometimes cannot, or will not. But we do need our Ten Commandments of What A Man Is Supposed To Be like those listed above, don’t we?

And that is what young men need these days, and desperately so. MEN to lay down the rules and expect them to mature into MEN. No disrespect ladies; we all know and appreciate the sacred role of motherhood, but it’s now time for MEN to stand up and be counted as MEN and tell our young boys that a D- is not acceptable, and not because the teacher says so, but because you have set higher standards for yourself both as an American and as a man.

If we can’t stand up as a nation and admit this, then why birth boys at all? Because of our new social mores they have been cast adrift in the womb, dead men the second they take their first breath, sentenced to a life of lowered expectations, bad behavior and second-class status.

“It doesn’t make a difference whether or not I get an A+ or a D-.”

Yes it does, young man, it certainly does.

Lenny Palmer 9/27/2011

Jesus Christ was famous for saying that “the meek shall inherit the earth,” and man, did he nail it with that one. Almost.

But then he got nailed. To the cross, of course. People just can’t handle the truth. Never could, never will.

Truth . . . I read a lot of history, as well as watch it on the boob tube, and I have to chuckle, watching all the attention we lavish on the testosterone-laced heroes like Alexander the Great, Caesar, Saladin, Genghis Kahn, Napoleon, George Washington, et al. The truth of the matter is that every one of these muscle heads depended on their accountants to finance their military adventures. If their armies didn’t eat, or get paid, they conquered zilch. Nada. Niente. Zip. I don’t care how rippled with muscle you are, or how much weight you can lift off the floor or the size of your conquering armies; no cash, no glory.

In honor of that all-too-true insight, I would change Jesus’ wording to fit our modern world. I would insert the word “geeks,” to replace “meek.” The new quote would read, “the geeks shall inherit the earth.” Think it sacrilegious? I think not. Take a moment to actually contemplate who really runs this planet; it’s not the conquering heroes, guns a-blazing, but the pencil-necked geeks who now control your access to information: Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg, etc. Four-eyed dweebs who wouldn’t last a heartbeat in a schoolyard brawl can now bring the mightiest of nations to their knees with the click of a mouse. I learned long ago in the corporate world that you could piss off the CEO and get away with it, but woe be to you if you ticked off one of the accountants. They could move a decimal point over and make your job obsolete, or mold you into a felon, or worse. Just like that. And with the power of our new technology it’s no longer the hand that rocks the cradle that rules the world, but the hand that controls the information. They can make villains out of heroes and heroes out of the most execrable of villains. They can rewrite history, manipulate science, force-feed odious life’s choices upon you, begin wars on the flimsiest of pretenses and convince you to accept every damned word of it as if it were gospel.

Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg . . . Google, Yahoo, Facebook . . . do you really want to subjugate yourself to them?

I believe a lot of you do, and it scares the living shit out of me.

On my radio show, as well as in my blogs, I always refer to Americans now being willing to trade in their soul for government goodies. Not your immortal soul but Ray Charles’ type of “soul,” that undefinable something that you can’t quite put your finger on but you know it’s there when you see it, or hear it. Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding and Sam Cooke all had soul. The Beatles had soul. Ben Franklin and FDR had soul. Mark Twain had soul. Mother Theresa had soul. I’d be hard-pressed today to point out one prominent figure in the arts, entertainment, religion or politics–any leader that has that certain something called soul. Perhaps you can, but I can’t.

I can tell you about a people who have a collective soul, however, and that is the wonderful people of the Menominee Nation in north central Wisconsin. It never ceases to amaze me how Native Americans, who faced a full frontal assault on their cultures from an American nation hell-bent on forcing them to become good European Americans stubbornly and proudly held on to their culture and their sacred beliefs. The Menominee epitomize this fact. I took a group of listeners on a short trip to the Menominee casino in Keshena (radio guys do this stuff, you know), and we drank a little bit, gambled a little bit, raised hell a little bit. The Menominee proved themselves to be gracious hosts, providing wonderful meals and service with a smile, but for me the most enjoyable and illuminating part of the trip was speaking to the members of the tribe who proudly enlightened us on who they are. We shared a common breakfast, a tribal member leading us in a traditional prayer in the wonderful Menominee language. After the breakfast we toured a historic 1880s logging camp, replete with all the tools of the trade of the day. As we viewed the horse barns, the saw sharpener’s cabin, the bunk house, et al; all cut log and chinked structures replete with the tools of the trade I commented to one of my tour mates that it struck me that the great difference between our modern-day culture and theirs was that they were surrounded by wood and metal; natural substances that connected them to the world around them. Ours, however, is defined by velcro and plastic; artificial replacements that may be superior in convenience, but at the same time remove us from the world around us. The loggers were brawny men who labored long hours at incredibly dangerous, incredibly physical jobs. Obesity was the least of their worries, and I’m positive that if you told them the world (or at least the government) owed them a living, they would have spit in your eye. We live longer, to be sure, but much of that longevity is spent hooked up to tubes, bound by wheelchairs, trapped in small apartments, alone, separated from family and friends, anxiously waiting on a government stipend, fearfully anticipating the inevitable. Is that any kind of life at all?

Everything in our world today is plastic: there used to be a small pitcher of cream, a butter dish and jam or jelly jar on your restaurant breakfast table; now they’re hermetically sealed in annnoying little plastic containers. Where once it was paper-wrapped bar soap for the shower, now it is “body wash” in plastic packaging. Milk in glass bottles delivered to your doorstep has been replaced by milk in plastic containers in refrigerated grocery cases. Fruits and veggies that were available in unadorned bulk in the grocery store are now entombed in hard plastic clam shells or plastic bags. The personal touch of the butcher’s counter is now an array of plastic wrapped meats and poultry on the grocery shelves. It separates us from everything, removes us from the world around us, and all in the name of a longer shelf life. Artificiality abounds, and we have become a siliconed, botoxed, liposuctioned, drug-dependent nation. Plastic, plastic everywhere, and nary a thing to touch.

In the Menominee visitors’ center at the logging camp is a great wooden bear, intricately carved from a single butternut tree, golden as early morning sunshine. It represents the great creator bear-god of the Menominee, and our tour guide, the same man who led us in the morning prayer before breakfast, explained to me exactly who and what the bear represents. He made the comment that we all worship the same deity, only by a different name. Perhaps, sir, I thought to myself as he spoke; only your god is carved by a human hand in luminous butternut. Ours, on the other hand, is cast from an anonymous mold in hard, unfeeling plastic. And probably somewhere in China, by underpaid coolies who have no idea what they are casting, or why.

You choose which is best.

Lenny Palmer, 9/19/2011

Joe Scarborough, host of “Morning Joe,” has written a “powerful anti-war song,” in the words of the Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/08/reason-to-believe-joe-scarborough-song_n_953335.html

Big f-ing deal. Where was His Joeness 10 years ago, when GWB hit a stone-age nation with everything the United Sates of America had, blasting it into the pre-stone age, and ginning up a war that has now lasted for 10 years? I’ll tell you where I was: I was on-air, warning against a full-scale attack against the nation that harbored Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9-11. I stated on-air that our war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda should be a conflict waged in the night, a war of throat-slitting and murder, comparing our armies of the night to God’s Old Testament vengeance against Pharoah’s first-born. I made the analogy that we should “kill all their goats.” In other words, hit them where it hurt the most.

Where was “Morning Joe” Scarborough then?

Later on, when Bush the Second made the decision to attack Saddam Hussein’s Iraq under the flimsiest of circumstances, I penned a column for the late web site “A Citizen’s Voice,” parodying an old Civil War tune titled “We Are Coming Father Abraham, 100,000 Strong.” The original was a martial call for volunteers to fight for the Union cause, my blog called for the invasion of Iraq not by 100,000 American troops, but by 100,000 Wal-Marts. I argued (brilliantly, I might add) that if the Iraqis had access to a lot of stuff they’d get fat and happy and would therefore be much less motivated to cause trouble. People who have stuff are more inclined not to take risks which might lose them their stuff. It’s a lot smarter way to wage a conflict and the chances of any of our fine young people getting hurt or killed are virtually nil.

Where was “Morning Joe” Scarborough then?

I was anti-war, both wars, from the get-go, and took a lot of local heat for it. I never varied from my position, either. I didn’t wet my finger and hold it up in the air to see which way the political winds were blowing, or the public mood was shifting. Then again, I’ve never been a politician. “Morning Joe” Scarborough was. And still is, apparently.

Sour grapes by yours truly? Probably. I’ve been in the media game; print, TV and radio for over three decades, but always on the local level. I don’t make a lot of money, and I don’t have the high-profile like a guy like Scarborough. I also don’t have a hard-on against the guy. He seems like a nice enough fella, affable, and the type with whom you might want to watch the Monday night game while quaffing a few brewskis. He plays in the big leagues. I don’t. But in the big leagues it’s like this giant closed circle jerk. The host of one show hosts the host of another show and plug their shows, their books, their upcoming specials and yes, their songs; and then that host appears as a guest on the other show and hawks whatever he or she is hawking and they all sell books, songs, specials ad nauseum, ad infinitum, and pocket a lot of loot while laughing all the way to the bank. Is it any wonder the Huffington Post lauds Scarborough’s song? Arianna Huffington, who named the web site after her fabulous self, appears on his show almost as much as he. Of course she’s going to plug his tune. It’s good business, just like it was good business for her to be an arch-conservative and blast Bill Clinton for years until she divorced her right-wing millionaire businessman husband and banked some sweet alimony that bankrolled her bald-faced political flip-flop and subsequent rise as a prominent voice in liberal politics. It was a prime example of coldly calculated life choices that would have made Machiavelli blush. Or Lucrezia Borgia.

The point to all of this? That there were a few of us little guys who were on the right side of this issue from the get-go, and we had to face our critics on the street on a daily basis. We didn’t get to hide behind the walls of our gated communities, or cower behind call screeners or 1-800 numbers or move in cocktail party circuits with the high and mighty. We nosh at local greasy spoons, bang down Miller Lites and shots of bourbon or brandy at corner saloons and rub elbows with our listeners, not our corporate bosses. There aren’t many of us, but I believe our impact is far greater than guys like Scarborough because we talk to people about the issues that concern them. We aren’t in the biz to scratch the appropriate backs or kiss the proverbial asses, but to do our jobs. And say what we mean and mean what we say.

Just sayin’.

Lenny Palmer 9/9/11

What in the hell has happened to common sense in America these days? Because of the nature of my business, I run into many stories that leave me with mouth agape at the apparent stupidity of those who are apparently in charge, and their unwillingness or inability to take the bull by the horns and admit to the truth of the matter. The truth of the matter is this: we are a nation led by fools in the employ of fools pushing foolish agendas; all so frighteningly incompetent and out of touch with reality that I wake every morning amazed that the nation has not had a collective coronary over its appalling lack of leadership.

Case in point: the University of Illinois has decided to direct some of its precious resources toward the study of bullying:
http://www.1220wkrs.com/University-of-Illinois-to-Study-Bullying/10822694

Excuse me, but shouldn’t a university be studying Shakespeare instead of bullying? Or quantum physics? Or economics? Or art, or music, or biology, or medicine? Anything but bullying. And what is the fascination with bullying these days, anyway? It seems that every happy planet asshole with a direct conduit to the public teat wants to use precious taxpayer dollars to study kids who pick on other kids. You want to know about bullying? I’ll tell you about bullying. I was the proverbial fat kid in school, and was mercilessly bullied through grade school and junior high school. The kids who picked on me were sick and twisted little bastards who almost always had sick and twisted parents and they only laid off me once I got into athletics and got big and strong and stopped being an easy target. They were reticent to torment someone who might give them a solid right hook to the jaw. That’s another thing about bullies: they’re cowards; craven pieces of garbage with no redeeming value, and who take up valuable space that could have been occupied with something more worthwhile, like a rock, or a tree, or a grand piano. There is nothing you can do to reform them, if they can be reformed, other than lay down the law to them and hope they can climb out of their personal sewer on their own power.

Any working class hero with half a brain can tell you that, but half a brain is half a brain more than those who run the American university system have in their possession. Or members of Congress. Or pubic school administrators. They are so removed from reality that they feel this irresistible compulsion to study bullying, or the effects of skipping breakfast on learning, or why corporal punishment is bad parenting, or any one of a plethora of inane causes they feel compelled to pursue like knights of old in search of the grail. There was no grail, and there is no cure for something like bullying. It is the human condition, and a sad and undeniable fact that there will always be bad people amongst us and your best defense is not some half-assed study by a team of professorial jackasses, but  your own willingness to put up your dukes and defend yourself.

But hey, if these intellectual luminaries at the U of I feel compelled to study bullying, or breakfast, or lunch or why the sky is blue instead of peach I say let them go at it. If they use their own salaries to fund the study. No more sucking off the public trough. Make that the first rule of any collegiate investigation such as this and you’d pretty soon see an end to this nonsense, and a return to sanity on our campuses across the land.

Hell, all the rest of us have to prove our case every god-damned morning we drag our sorry asses out of bed, make coffee and breakfast, shower, brush our teeth and leave the comfort of our homes to face the rigors of the day. Why shouldn’t those whom we pay have to do the same?

Bullying, indeed. We are being bullied by them. Bullied into accepting nonsense as the norm. Bullied into pie-in-the-sky happy planet bullshit we know has nothing to do with the real world. Having it all shoved down our throats, all the while knowing we’re paying for the unraveling of our own great country with vital public dollars that should be directed towards real education so that our children can read, and write and add and subtract and find America on a map, and not towards soggy breakfasts and tater tot and chicken nugget lunches and everyone in the race gets a gold medal because I know I’m special and God don’t make no junk.

Well, I have news for you, kiddies; God does make junk. He makes bullies, doesn’t he? Bullies who give you a black eye, and bullies who take your money and piss it away on worthless studies just because they can.

I prefer the guy who gives you the suborbital hematoma. At least he’s honest about punching you out.

Lenny Palmer 9/6/11