FireVaney's

Hours later we’re back at Diner Deluxe for more. Ernie says, before it was this place, it was another place. But that’s most of Chicago—nearly everything’s something that used to be something else. Take a boat ride down the river that winds through downtown, and the tour guides will draw your attention to all these architectural ghosts.  For Ernie’s second Diner Deluxe dinner, he orders an egg skillet with pancakes. That, he washes down with an Oreo cookie milkshake. Ernie says it’s good—no, actually, it’s a great shake. And this, Ernie says, is because it’s an end-of-shift-made shake. We’re our waiter’s last table. I don’t remember if he was male or female or both or neither. The first one, from earlier, was definitely female. Understand, between our first and second Diner Deluxe visits, Ernie and I got business-serious busy with the baking of our brains.  For my second Diner Deluxe dinner: mozzarella sticks. These are three times bigger than my best-ever erection. And when erect, bab

I…  myself,  hand deliver,  to you,  where you,  “work,”  red roses.  I do so every day of the  “work” week.  Friday nights, I… present to you, a new, sparkling diamond ring, or, if not that, a pair of new sparkling diamond earrings. Or, if not that, a new sparkling diamond bracelet. Always Friday nights: a new sparkling diamond something .  Saturday nights, I… present to you, a new, radiant golden necklace, or, if not that, a new, radiant golden watch, or, if not that, a new, radiant golden brooch. Always Saturday nights, a new radiant golden something .  In my Hummer limousine, colored Day-Glo fuchsia, with the open-air hot tub, and always, with your preferred chauffeur, Jacobs Jacobsonzweigsberg (preferred because he has only one arm, is blind in one eye, lazy with the other; but more so because he’s an unabashed cracker of dirty jokes, a connoisseur of rare tuning fork timepieces, and an inveterate BASE jumper); yes, I escort you, any night you want, to the restaurants highest ra

Those of us seated at the far end of the table spend most of Jacques’s birthday dinner discussing what makes for real art, why I’m too old to drop acid, who the Bong Boy * is, and when at least three of us are going to try hallucinogenic mushrooms. We reach no solid conclusions, we set no firm plans.  And it looks like I’ve made a mistake with the Super Blowing Ball Series II UFO. As Jacques unwraps the gift, Mr. Wench proclaims, “Uncle Fun strikes again, huh?” I thought Jacques would dig it. It’s a rare, or seemingly rare, or at least somewhat unique, sci-fi-esque toy. I figured he’s had his fill of Star Wars stuff. But he seems a bit uncertain as to what to make of the gift. Ah, well.  Ry makes a cameo. He’d made himself scarce after he broke off a wedding engagement, twice , with one of our number. I hadn’t known that he worked at this particular tapas bar. (Whose idea was it to come here, anyway?) For obvious reasons, he would not wait on us. He said doing so might result in an u

The conditioner of air – a small, albeit noisy window unit – makes him sleepy. That is, it does, whilst in operation. This is a good thing. That is, it is, until he has to wake up. The conditioner of air, whilst in operation, always makes him wake up groggy. But at night, if he’s restless, all he has to do is blast it, and he’ll fall asleep. Every time, this’ll work, like a dream, this’ll work, no matter how stressed out he is; no matter how much he can’t prevent himself from dwelling. He spends most of his waking hours dwelling, which is to say, in a way, that he spends most of his waking hours dreaming. And perhaps this is why he never seems to dream when he sleeps. At least, he can never, or almost never, recall the dreams he’s dreamt overnight. He’s just jotted the following observation down on his notepad: “I have tremendous difficulty living in the present tense.” He Recalls Yoda’s wise words to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back : “All his life he looked away… to the future, to the

[ PART I ] The object of this exercise—this one you’re currently running your eyes across—the object is this: relevance. Rather, “relevance” is the preferred object. “Pertinence to the matter at hand,” as the American Heritage Dictionary will tell you. The “matter at hand” being: my life.  And yet, it is entirely possible that, generally speaking, I’ve nary an inkling. Inkling deficiencies notwithstanding, I take some pleasure in wielding the words “nary” and “inkling” and “wielding,” and “notwithstanding,” even if misapplied. And, nae, there’s nary a thing you can do about it. You can’t un read it. Can you? At most, you can hope to forget it. This raises a question: Do people with regret-filled lives at long last find peace and happiness once dementia takes them?  Cut me some slick, Mick, Rick, Dick, Nick, Vic, I’ve been up nearly twenty-four hours.  So he called his “pal” yesterday. (Note the illeism.) This is the same “pal” he hadn’t heard from since [INSERT DAY MONTH YEAR HERE]