And that song's still playing from the car radio, on a never-fucking ending loop from hell.
Yuletide reveal!
The F**cking Movie Never Motherf**cking Ends
@MayorEmanuel, for norah, 7400 words
* Beta action thank yous to katienyc and xica_s (Chicago residents extraordinaire) and sparkymonster (long-suffering roommate).
* Thank you also to norah for her request, and I hope I ended up somewhere she enjoyed.
* When I was writing this story, I thought to myself "I have never written something that is more likely to accidentally find its way to the attention of the source creator. It has never been more likely that the source creator will already have a general understanding of the concept of fan fiction. I have never been more embarrassed at the prospect of this happening." I VASTLY underestimated how embarrassed I would be when Dan Sinker tweeted about being alerted to the @MayorEmanuel Yuletide stories.
* That being said, if you were a fan of the original @MayorEmanuel Twitter feed, I highly recommend reading Dan Sinker's The Epic F**cking Twitter Quest of @MayorEmanuel, because he does a DVD commentary style running narrative on the entire saga and after reading it I appreciated the obscure Chicago insider politics about six times as much as I did before. In the spirit of Dan Sinker's book, I did my own DVD commentary on this story, mostly to explain all the obscure Chicago sports references (Beef Wennington!) and point-and-laugh at all the things I forgot to include (WE HAVE TO GO BACK). If you're inclined, you can read it behind the cut.
Fuck this shit. 9/25/11 6:31:40 PM
All the infinite Chicagos in all the infinite fucking universes and I had to end up here watching the Bears lose to FUCKING GREEN BAY AGAIN. 9/25/11 6:39:22 PMIn retrospect, a lot of teams lost to the Packers this season (like ... all of them except the Chiefs) so maybe @MayorEmanuel shouldn't have taken this one so hard.
Soldier Field, you are a fucking factory of sadness. 9/25/11 6:47:10 PM"Factory of sadness" is stolen from A Browns Fan's Reaction to Today's Game Against Houston by Mike Polk Jr., who was also involved in the hastily made Cleveland tourism videos. (Our economy's based on Lebron James! Our main export is crippling depression!)
There goes three fucking hours of my life I'll never get back. Might as well just aimlessly ride around on the Orange Line with my cock out. 9/25/11 6:59:34 PM
Seven months stuck over here. Every week I kill a few hours on the L, going nowhere, in and out, just back fucking and forth to Midway. 9/25/11 7:06:43 PM
Now that I don't have to hand-shake and dick-palm all over the place, hanging out at CTA stations is a lot less fucking painful. 9/25/11 7:10:56 PM
But, no matter what the destination sign says, that fucking Orange Line never takes me all the way to Ford City, not even in this dimension. 9/25/11 7:14:23 PMI have been to Chicago once in my life, for a weekend, and my primary objective was to catch up with old friends and see a baseball game. (And not even at Wrigley! A White Sox game! I know, the horror.) The only personal experience I can lend to the accuracy of this story is that the part of town that surrounds the Cell is really ugly.
But, I've lived in Boston (another city enamored with its own folklore) for seven years, so I wanted to do right by Chicago, even though @MayorEmanuel could fit everything I know about Chicago in his finger stump. A lot of the references in this story are things I read about and thought "if something like ____ happened in Boston, I think the reaction would be ____."
This Orange Line to Ford City gimmick is the best example of that. The destination blinds on the CTA Orange Line trains include "Ford City," a stop that does not exist on the Orange Line route. Apparently the Orange Line was supposed to go all the way to Ford City (a mall in West Lawn) but the project ran out of money and the line was terminated at Midway Airport.
I love this, because it reminds me of the phantom MBTA Green Line extension to Somerville. (Which even found its own way into Yuletide when kyrafic wrote me a China Mountain Zhang story set in a dystopic future Boston still waiting for that Green Line extension.) I read a Tribune article that mentioned people occasionally see Orange Line trains with the destination sign flipped on accident to Ford City and thought it would make a great metaphorical portal through the time vortex. It's possible this works, it's possible that anyone from Chicago is reading this and saying, "Um, yeah, I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but okay."
*
Expected a lot more shit to be more fucked in the alternate universe. You know, mirror Axelrod with an evil goatee instead of his mustache. 9/25/11 8:53:02 PMIt felt like Axelrod with a Mirror!Spock goatee instead of his mustache could either be its own 10,000 word story or a single throw-away line, but nothing in between.
At least I've got some money. That last day, Daley told me the real secret of the fucking parking meter deal. Called it the Mayor's Code. 9/25/11 9:02:45 PM
Write "03/04/1837" on a scrap of paper and slide it in the credit card slot. Turns the pay box into a sweet fucking riverboat slot machine. 9/25/11 9:05:26 PMI mostly ignored the practical concerns of being stranded in an alternate universe. (How is @MayorEmanuel tweeting all of this? Did he make it through the vortex with his phone?) I tried to address a few of them, like how he has money so he doesn't starve to death. March 4, 1837 is the date Chicago was incorporated as a city. I wanted @MayorEmanuel to be able to punch the date into a keypad, but then I looked at a picture of one of the infamous pay boxes and they have credit card slots but no keypads. I couldn't think of a way around this; my solution was not terribly elegant. Oh well.
Just make sure you have an empty fuck-it bucket of chicken to catch all the quarters. 9/25/11 9:07:21 PM
No fucking idea who ended up mayor over here. I fucking pray it isn't Chico. City hasn't burned to the ground again, so probably not. 9/25/11 9:09:25 PM
Walked by City Hall a few times. When I'm close, all I can hear is this roaring buzz saw. Won't fucking stop until I get to South La Salle. 9/25/11 9:14:17 PM
I miss my goddamn friends. That part chokes balls. It helps to think of them happy, on the other side of the fucking time vortex. 9/25/11 9:19:08 PM
A sweet crony appointment for Quaxelrod to the Park District Board of Commissioners. Carl the Intern sneaking Hambone into Bulls games. 9/25/11 9:27:40 PM
Axelrod's mustache already writing the shit out of Barack's second inaugural. 9/25/11 9:35:06 PMHopefully this is the first indication that all is not as @MayorEmanuel believes. Back in our universe, Carl the Intern will not be able to sneak Hambone into any Bulls games before Christmas, and Barack Obama is not exactly cruising to re-election.
As long as they're happy there, it doesn't matter so much that I'm fucking stuck here. Shit fuck, I'm turning into a fucking Hallmark card. 9/25/11 9:38:01 PM
Chico better not be the fucking mayor. I would rather castrate myself with safety scissors than live in a universe with Mayor Dong Choke. 9/25/11 9:42:51 PM
*
I still want to fuck Chris Spencer in his face mask, but I leave the train at Washington/Wells and cross over to exit onto Madison. 9/25/11 11:47:38 PMChris Spencer is a Bears player who committed a holding penalty at the end of the game, hampering the Bears' chances of making any kind of comeback. Here's something amazing: Dan Sinker writes in his book that he isn't a football fan and never watched Bears games; for most of the season he relied on Twitter to give him material for @MayorEmanuel. I watch a lot of NFL, but not a lot of the Bears, so I mostly relied on ESPN game recaps and my morning gym hour of Sports Center.
Let me tell you a secret: there's a glitch in the time vortex. On the corner of La Salle and Madison. It's a fucking fax machine at Kinko's. 9/25/11 11:56:25 PM
Taped to the fax machine is a sign that says OUT OF ORDER - SERVICE REQUESTED 11/5/02. But some of Plouffe's faxes manage to get through. 9/25/11 11:58:52 PMThere isn't a Kinko's on the corner of LaSalle and Madison, there's a FedEx Office. But hasn't Kino's become the Kleenex brand facial tissue of print and copy stores? Nobody actually says they're going to FedEx Office, right? Also, November 5, 2002 was the date of the 2002 mid-term election, which was the term Rahm Emanuel was elected to the House of Representatives. I was going to do something with November 5, 2002 being the date that @MayorEmanuel unknowingly switched universes, but that got lost in the shuffle.
Fax from Plouffe: "Need to talk NATO/G8 plans, less than 9 months to go." Hope the other me faxed back a cock shot with double birds. 9/26/11 12:05:18 AM
Here's a theory: the time vortex was caused by an implosion of infinite Plouffes constantly time traveling from 1991 to send fucking FAXES. 9/26/11 12:11:27 AM
Fucking seriously, sometimes I miss my fucking friends so much it feels like I slammed my cock in the door of the Civic. 9/26/11 12:29:43 AM
***
MGD and an entire fucking plate of hash browns at Schaller's, just all that's fucking left for me at this point. 9/26/11 11:33:46 PMSchaller's Pump is the oldest bar in Chicago. It's one of the few bars that can believably be called "near" Cellular Field (which is what I was looking for) and it was also apparently known for being the second office of both Mayor Daleys. One of the two Chicago residents who graciously betaed this story for me pointed out that Rahm Emanuel is all North Side and would never go to Schaller's. My thoughts were that he's melancholy and wants to go somewhere where he can pretend to feel like the mayor, and also that no one will recognize him anyway, but that would have been a tangent of introspection. Also, I know that @MayorEmanuel has historically favored obscure Chicago microbrews, but my impression of Schaller's is that they have MGD on tap and … not much else. Yelp reviews reveal the food to be either authentic or terrible (it's probably both) but many mentioned the hash browns.
Axelrod used to say Daley once tried to fuck a Schaller's butt steak sandwich. I always called bullshit. Now I just wish Axelrod was here. 9/26/11 11:47:03 PM
Next table over, guy says, "I don't fucking know, what's on tap for someone who shitcanned himself on TV tonight?" Hey, it's Ozzie Guillen. 9/26/11 11:49:27 PM
Ozzie takes my advice. Hash browns and MGD: The "My Life's in the Shitcan" Special. His goatee's trembling, guy looks fucking miserable. 9/26/11 11:58:01 PMOzzie Guillen was the manager of the White Sox from 2004 to 2011. Throughout the 2011 season, he publicly agitated with White Sox ownership about a new contract. With two games left in the season, he asked to be released from his contract, and effectively fired himself. If you don't follow baseball: managers occasionally get fired throughout the season (regardless of many years are left on their contracts) and very occasionally a manager will quit, but pseudo-quitting with only two games left in the season? That doesn't happen. If anyone was going to do it, though, it would be Ozzie, he's fucking crazy.
So, look, I could give a shit about baseball, but Barack fucking loved those fucking White Sox. 9/27/11 12:01:56 AM
The whole first week of April, if you wanted to get his attention you had to start all your sentences with "Mark Buehrle's fastball ..." 9/27/11 12:03:47 AM
Mark Buehrle's fastball has more velocity than this G-20 summit itinerary. Mark Buehrle's fastball wants to talk nuclear disarmament. 9/27/11 12:06:21 AM
Mark Buehrle's fastball has been up in the zone but not like these fucking 8.5% unemployment numbers, don't you agree? 9/27/11 12:08:44 AM
So I tell Ozzie that Mark Buehrle's fastball, we should fucking jam it up Kenny Williams' uretha. Ozzie finally cracks a smile. 9/27/11 12:11:25 AM
We're doing shots of Johhnie Walker and Ozzie's teaching me how to swear in Venezuelan! 9/27/11 12:47:38 AM
Hey Jerry Reinsdorf: ¡Coño de la madre! Pa el chivo que más mea, tienes güevo pequeñito. Also motherfuck you in your motherfucking facehole. 9/27/11 12:59:58 AMOzzie Guillen is from Venezuela. Colloquial translation: "Oh my fucking God! For the big boss in charge, you have a really small dick." Literal translation: "Mother's cunt! For the goat who pisses the most, you have a really small egg." Kenny Williams and Jerry Reinsdorf are the general manager and owner of the White Sox, respectively.
*
Got kicked out of Schaller's, but Ozzie took the bottle of Johnny Walker and we're sitting next to the Dan Ryan, passing it back and forth. 9/27/11 2:52:29 AMLike I said before, two very kind Chicago residents betaed this story with very short turnaround time and were incredibly helpful, and they both said "Uh, you can't sit UNDER the Dan Ryan." When I wrote this part, I looked on Google Maps to see what freeways were nearby but didn't bother to figure out whether they were ground-level or not (this was before I fell down the rabbit hole of research-as-writing-avoidance-technique and read an entire CTA Orange Line Extension Power Point presentation to figure out whether the hypothetical Ford City stop would cross 63rd Street). One of them told me I could get away with saying "next to the Dan Ryan" (in a ditch!) so I did.
Listening to Ozzie just fucking go off on the White Sox is like listening to Mozart compose Symphony No. 40: a motherfucking master at work. 9/27/11 3:26:11 AM
"Fuck them, fuck their mothers, fuck their sisters, fuck their mothers' sisters. I hope they get fucked by their mothers' sisters' dogs." 9/27/11 3:34:29 AM
"Fuck 'em in their mother-fucked faces, and then fuck 'em again in the motherfucking ear." Sing it, Ozzie, you fucking beautiful bastard. 9/27/11 3:42:31 AM
Oh, fuck no, now Ozzie's crying. "They shit on you, do you get to shit back? No, you say, 'Thank you, thank you for this shit sandwich.'" 9/27/11 4:00:02 AM
"They love you, then they fuck you. Get fucked for a living but it's not about the money? That is some fucking Pretty Woman bullshit." 9/27/11 4:02:24 AMOzzie makes @MayorEmanuel look like your Sunday School teacher.
Holy shit, Ozzie's got a Bic lighter and his World Series ring. Says he's going to melt it down for gold and sell it like a tooth filling. 9/27/11 4:05:19 AM
"Go to Miami. Buy a fucking boat. Those assholes, they'll shit on me, too. But I'll have fucking four million dollars and a fucking boat." 9/27/11 4:10:44 AMThe next day, Ozzie was announced as the new manager of the (then-Florida-soon-to-be-known-as-Miami) Marlins. In a newspaper interview, he was very honest and came off kind of a dick (depending on whether or not you think people who play and coach sports for a living are allowed admit that they care about money), basically saying: I wanted more money, I want to buy a boat.
Ozzie grabs me by the chin so we're eye to eye. There's a red-hot half-melted World Series ring dangerously close to my fucking eye socket. 9/27/11 4:12:35 AM
"Fuck this city. Chicago wants to fuck you? Don't fucking take it, get the fuck out of town. Fuck Chicago." 9/27/11 4:15:56 AM
And it's hard to believe he means it. With our faces smashed together, I can see his eyes are wet. But one more "fuck it" and Ozzie's gone. 9/27/11 4:18:05 AM
*
Mark Buehrle's fastball, it breaks your heart. It is designed to break your motherfucking heart. 9/27/11 5:31:00 AM
You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive. 9/27/11 5:34:48 AM
Then just when the days are all twilight, when you fucking need it most, it stops. And you're alone next to the Dan Ryan with the rats. 9/27/11 5:37:23 AM From the opening paragraph of the essay "Green Fields of the Mind" by A. Bartlett Giamatti, oft-quoted but originally published in the Yale Alumi Magazine in 1977: It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.
And, yeah, sometimes I think about leaving Chicago, but what the fuck am I going to do? Crawl back into the shit-smeared sewer system of DC? 9/27/11 5:39:11 AM
Buena suerte, Ozzie. Chicago may be a shitfest, but it's my fucking shitfest. There just isn't anywhere else for me. 9/27/11 5:58:42 AM
Make no mistake, though, I will burn this entire fucking shitfest to the ground if I don't get some coffee right this fucking minute. 9/27/11 6:31:47 AM
***
Looks like that fucking douche canoe Blago put his house on the market. 10/4/11 4:49:45 PM
Who needs a house in Ravenswood Manor when you're locking down a ten-year lease on a fucking federal prison cell in Terra Haute, right? 10/4/11 5:01:34 PMIt was reported that Rod Blagojevich's house was on the market on October 3 in anticipation that he was finally going to receive a prison sentence; his sentencing still somehow managed to drag on until December of this year. Raise your hand if you live outside the state of Illinois and you had ANY idea the Blago trial was still dragging on in late 2011. I definitely did not.
New theory: the time vortex was caused by Blago trying to shake down an alternate version of himself, imploding the fucking multiverse. 10/4/11 5:03:11 PM
Fuck these Dan Ryan rats, I'm going to crash at Blago's empty house for a couple days. Not like that shithouse rat doesn't fucking owe me. 10/4/11 5:46:23 PM
Pat Quinn should have used that one: "Elect me and every resident of Illinois will get to take a free shit on Rod Blagojevich's house." 10/4/11 6:13:33 PM
*
Every stupid fucker in Ravenswood Manor thinks it's safe to leave the back door unlocked, like high property values are a magic force field. 10/4/11 7:37:38 PM
This place is about as fucking creepy as you'd expect. There's a triptych of those knock-off Warhol portraits over the mantle. 10/4/11 7:49:54 PM
Of course the knock-off Warhol portraits are all Blago. Who'd you fucking expect, fucking Phil Jackson? Shit is going to give me nightmares. 10/4/11 7:52:58 PMBefore he took the triangle offense to Los Angeles, Phil Jackson was the coach of the 90s era Bulls, which will be important in a second.
*
I'm so hungry I could eat a bowl of dicks, but there's no food in the cupboards, the pantry's empty, just fucking nothing. 10/4/11 8:36:24 PM
The only thing in the fridge is a Waterford crystal cake stand. Under the dome, there's a single unwrapped Beef Wennington. 10/4/11 8:38:04 PMBill Wennington was the center for the Chicago Bulls between 1993 and 1999. During the spring of 1998, the Chicago-area McDonalds restaurants sold a "Beef Wennington" burger. Why? Because the Chicago Bulls. Thanks here goes to The Basketball Jones for mentioning the legend of the Beef Wennington when its namesake was the guest at their Chicago stop on their No Season Required tour.
Either that's a 13-year-old burger or Blago has a racket on discontinued McDonald's menu items. I'm fucking starving, so I'm about find out. 10/4/11 8:40:31 PM
Pickles, onions, mustard, barbecue sauce. American cheese, sweet fucking Canadian bacon. Damn, they don't make 'em like this anymore. 10/4/11 9:00:52 PMForeshadowing Kanye West lyric! The Beef Wennington had Canadian bacon because Bill Wennington was Canadian.
Fucking delicious, but I'd bet the other half of my finger stump this ground beef is from the second term of the Clinton administration. 10/4/11 9:17:56 PMI wanted to make a better "Rahm Emanuel lost half his middle finger in a meat grinder accident at Arby's" joke here, but I couldn't quite get the bat off my shoulder.
The Blago portraits are smirking at me like dong-stomping Playboy Bunny triplets, with massive domes of hair in DayGlo neon. 10/4/11 9:22:38 PM
Okay, I might have food poisoning, but that's just how they fucking look. Pop art is such a shit smear on the history of postmodernism. 10/4/11 9:40:29 PM
*
Wake up on the couch and I feel like I got fucked in the colon. The room is dark except for the soft glow of the television. 10/5/11 12:46:29 AM
I don't remember turning on the TV, but I know exactly what I'm watching. It's the 1998 NBA Finals. Game 6 in fucking Salt Lake. 10/5/11 12:49:14 AM
I try to sit up. My colon tries to shit itself. Start of the fourth, Jazz are up five. The picture is fuzzy, Costas' voice is like AM radio. 10/5/11 12:59:55 AM
The rotten beef sinks like a brick in my stomach. What if this is the parallel dimension where Stockton makes that fucking three? 10/5/11 1:06:45 AM
Then, there's a voice in the darkness. "Stockton never makes that fucking three. Not ever. Some things are fucking universal constants." 10/5/11 1:17:44 AM
HOLY FUCKING THREE-PEAT, IT'S MICHAEL FUCKING JORDAN. 10/5/11 1:23:23 AMAll the time stamps in this story are completely random, except for this one. (Michael Jordan's jersey number was 23.)
MJ sits down on the couch. He's wearing a sweat-soaked jersey and Hanes jockey shorts. He points at the TV. "This was the perfect ending." 10/5/11 1:25:47 AMRe-reading this, I'm realizing how many parts of it probably seem bizarre and random if you don't have at least a casual interest in professional sports. Anyway: MJ is a longtime Hanes spokesperson.
"This is how they want to remember me. If this was a movie, you'd roll the fucking credits right here." MJ stops talking and we both watch. 10/5/11 1:28:21 AM
On the screen, it's all just like I remember: the steal, the cross-over, that beautiful fucking wide-open jumper, slow-mo even in real time. 10/5/11 1:31:56 AMThe whole sequence is pretty amazing. You've probably seen the post-game celebration grand jeté in a shoe commercial about 800 times in your life.
I've got chills. MJ shakes his head. "There's no such thing as a perfect ending. If something was perfect, why the fuck would it ever end?" 10/5/11 1:33:01 AM
On the screen, Michael's celebrating, and when he jumps in the air it's as good as any grand jeté you'd ever see at the Joffrey Ballet. 10/5/11 1:37:12 AM
"Fade to black is just a way to close your eyes and pretend. I came back and played two more seasons with the Wizards. So fucking what?" 10/5/11 1:39:22 AM
"Little bitches who say they went out on a high note are kidding themselves. I went out kicking and screaming. I didn't fucking want to go." 10/5/11 1:42:37 AM
I turn on the couch to look at MJ. I look right at him and he fucking looks right back at me and we both know exactly what I want to ask. 10/5/11 1:45:32 AM
"Of course the push-off on Russell was a foul. I told you, this isn't a fucking movie." The TV goes snowy, and then it just goes dark. 10/5/11 1:47:58 AMJordan stole the ball, crossed over on his defender and possibly fouled him but it wasn't called because mid-nineties NBA referees had a separate set of rules for Michael Jordan.
A couple years ago, Joe Posnanski wrote an amazing essay about Brett Favre and whether it's possible to ruin a sports legacy. Posnanski believed all the things that make transcendently memorable and competitive athletes great (and, hah, I see now that he included Wizards-era Michael Jordan in his list of supporting examples) are all the same things that will make those athletes want to play too long and refuse to make a graceful exit. It's one of my favorite insights about professional athletes, and it shaped the role the Michael Jordan character plays in this story.
*
Sweet motherfucking fuck do I need some fucking coffee right the motherfuck now. 10/5/11 8:38:27 AM
I know last night was just a dream but then why is there barbecue sauce all over my shirt? Only the three Blagos know. 10/5/11 9:20:43 AM
I can't stay here. This house smells like a Vegas all-you-can-eat buffet: hustled money and fucking loneliness. 10/5/11 10:35:56 AM
***
Beloved fucking coffee, it is not even motherfucking hyperbole to say you are the only fucking friend I have in this world. 10/11/11 10:11:47 AM
WAIT, THE FIRST TWO WEEKS OF THE BASKETBALL SEASON ARE ALREADY FUCKING CANCELLED? 10/11/11 12:41:23 PM
David Stern, you are such a fucking incompetent cockhole I can't believe I never had to run against you in a mayoral election. 10/11/11 12:50:22 PM
Oh yeah, Stern's already the mayor of New Fucking Ruining Everything City. Probably a fucking residency conflict. 10/11/11 12:58:43 PMDavid Stern, the long-suffering commissioner of the NBA. The NBA season was scheduled to start on November 1. The lockout eventually ended on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and the first games were played on Christmas Day. I tried to use @MayorEmanuel's awareness of the lockout as a bench march throughout the story, but this may not have worked if the reader was not aware of the lockout when it was happening in real life.
Fax from Plouffe at Kinko's: Other me is "studying the water tax"? Fucking sweet, finally turning Michigan Ave into a giant water slide. 10/11/11 1:09:56 PM
Probably needs the water slide for the Bulls championship parade route in June. Double birds to this universe. This entire fucking UNIVERSE. 10/11/11 1:17:28 PM
*
Been camping out in Grant Park since I left Blago's house. Your fucking tax dollars at work, bitches. 10/11/11 6:26:10 PM
Got a satellite TV so I can flip back and forth between the Republican debate and WWE Raw re-runs on cable. Basically the same fucking show. 10/11/11 6:30:19 PMConfession: this was my biggest reality cheat. The debate was on Wednesday, WWE Raw is on Tuesdays. I fudged it by saying it was a re-run but I have absolutely no idea if WWE Raw re-runs. Probably not. I wouldn't feel bad about it, except Dan Sinker wants you to know that when @MayorEmanuel was flipping back and forth between the State of the Union address and a "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" marathon, there was ACTUALLY AN I DIDN'T KNOW I WAS PREGNANT MARATHON ON TV THAT NIGHT. That man is some kind of mad fucking genius.
Let me get this straight: Cain's fucking serious about this 9-9-9 bullshit but fucking ROMNEY's unelectable because he's in a cult? 10/11/11 7:02:45 PM
Triple H in his fucking undies says he'll wrestle a broomstick to get a decent match. Mitt, you try this. Bachmann's basically a broomstick. 10/11/11 7:15:16 PM
Huntsman says "Washington DC is the gas capital of the country." You crazy beautiful bastard, what are you doing with these morons? 10/11/11 7:21:56 PM
Huntsman fucking confuses me, because he keeps saying things that aren't batshit crazy. When does Vince McMahon make him switch sides? 10/11/11 7:26:33 PM
Bachmann's pretty fucking concerned about health care rationing for someone who was clearly born during a fucking brains rationing. 10/11/11 7:39:09 PM
I could debate these fuck faces with my cock hanging out. Clothesline Mitt, sleeper hold for Cain, folding chair Perry the fuck out of here. 10/11/11 7:49:10 PM
SUPRISE! 9-9-9 isn't the price of a pizza, it's not 666 upside down, it's the number of reasons fucking none of you are electable. 10/11/11 7:58:23 PM
That was fun, but everyone knows that shit's staged. It LOOKS like Bachmann's a presidential candidate on TV, but it's totally fake. Right? 10/11/11 9:02:13 PM
***
I'd say instant coffee is worse than no coffee at all, but I'd be lying, because absolutely fucking nothing is worse than no coffee at all. 10/15/11 10:02:33 AM
*
Where are all these people and their fucking tents coming from? Don't these assclowns realize the marathon was last week? What the hell? 10/15/11 7:32:47 PM
This fucking guy starts setting up my tent crammed in close so he's halfway up my fucking colon. 10/15/11 7:45:12 PM
"Hi, I'm Hayden! I'm here because I'm really concerned about accountability and the federal bank bailouts." 10/15/11 7:46:02 PM
Hi Hayden, I'm Decatur Staley, I like long walks on the beach, piña coladas, and fucking the eye sockets of my motherfucking enemies. 10/15/11 7:51:34 PMHayden is named after Tom Hayden of the Chicago Eight. The Decatur Staleys football team was established by the Decatur-based A.E. Staley food starch company in 1919; in 1921 they relocated to Chicago and renamed themselves the Bears.
Hayden also supports: net neutrality, Monsanto divestment, justice for Bradley Manning. Dumb fucker didn't bring enough tent stakes. 10/15/11 8:14:12 PMI fucking agonized over this part of the story (leading me to add the over-compensatory disclaimer at the beginning). Basically, I wanted to involve @MayorEmanuel in the Occupy Chicago movement, but I didn't know how to reconcile 1) How the character @MayorEmanuel would react and what would make for a funny story, 2) How that reaction would conflict with the reaction that we know actual Mayor Emanuel had in real life, and 3) How neither of those reactions are the same as my own personal reaction.
One of my favorite parts of the @MayorEmanuel narrative was when @MayorEmanuel and Axelrod went to Rockford to party with the Wisconsin state senators. Do I think @MayorEmanuel would support the Occupy movement? Yes. Do I know in reality that Mayor Rahm Emanuel was at odds with the Occupy movement? Also yes. (For what it's worth, I don't totally blame him for this: Boston's own beloved Democratic mayor-for-life Mumbles Menino also handled the Occupy movement badly, at one point saying "civil disobedience doesn't work in Boston." No municipal official anywhere came out of that one looking great.) So I think @MayorEmanuel would take some soft shots at Occupy (net neutrality, Monsanto divestment, justice for Bradley Manning) but embrace its spirit. I'm still not sure I got this quite right.
Hayden didn't realize about the stakes because he bought his tent on Craigslist. The story is about as fucking fascinating as it sounds. 10/15/11 8:23:41 PM
Now Hayden's got a Sharpie and he's trying to write his fucking phone number on my arm. Shit is awkward. Sorry, Hayden, I'm not bipartisan. 10/15/11 8:47:12 PMWe'll learn later that Hayden is in some type of communication with Carl the Intern, but he's obviously Carl the Intern's boyfriend.
"It's the ACLU phone number for when we get arrested." Why the fuck would we get arrested? I haven't keyed Dart's car ONCE in this universe. 10/15/11 8:59:12 PM
*
Hayden and his friends are explaining the reasons why camping out in Grant Park is occupying Wall Street. 10/15/11 9:11:09 PM
Top three reasons: 1) the mayor 2) the fucking mayor 3) the motherfucking mayor. 10/15/11 9:20:57 PM
Whenever they talk about the mayor it's never by name, always "Mayor 1%", so I still don't know who's in charge of this fucking shit show. 10/15/11 9:44:39 PMChicago never had a permanent Occupy encampment the way New York, Boston or other cities did, for a bunch of reasons including that the natural spot for an encampment was a public sidewalk. The Occupy activists do call him "Mayor 1% Emanuel" and I … can't really blame them. Yuck.
A sea of people is filling Grant Park, singing and chanting and waving their signs, and I can feel the pulsing bloody heart of democracy. 10/15/11 10:08:24 PM
I see all fucking kinds of people: college kids, union members, grandmothers. They're bigger than themselves and I want to be one of them. 10/15/11 10:09:35 PM
Maybe I raked in a swimming pool of money on the board at Freddy Mac. Maybe my campaign war chest was bigger than the GDP of Slovakia. 10/15/11 10:11:33 PM
But those are the problems of a me who's actually the mayor, in some other fucking parallel dimension. OCCUPY ALL STREETS, MOTHERFUCKERS! 10/15/11 10:13:45 PM
WE! ARE! THE NINETY-NINE PERCENT! WE! ARE! THE NINETY-NINE PERCENT! WE! ARE! THE MOTHERFUCKING NINETY-NINE PERCENT! 10/15/11 11:45:12 PM
The cops are here, but we are fucking unstoppable. We stand together, arms linked, and we are one. 10/16/11 12:40:37 AMOccupy Chicago activists led a march of about 2,000 people through the streets on October 16. The march ended in Grant Park where they attempted to set up tents to create a permanent encampment. The Chicago police showed up after the park officially closed at 11 o'clock and arrested about 175 people by 1 o'clock in the morning. They did the exact same thing with the same results about a week later.
***
What the fuck do you mean no fucking coffee in the holding cell? You might as well take a fucking shit on the Geneva Convention. 10/16/11 10:03:45 AM
Got caught in a pepper spray bukkake when CPD was hustling us into the wagons last night so I can't see a fucking thing. 10/16/11 10:09:17 AM
I get my one phone call. I don't know who to call, so I dial Ari's number, just in case this has all been a bad fucking dream. 10/16/11 10:11:23 AM
But the person who picks up on the other end of the line says "Mr. Gold's office" so I just fucking disconnect. 10/16/11 10:13:41 AMAri Gold being the character from Entourage based on Ari Emanuel. At one point I thought about putting @MayorEmanuel in a universe where all the fictional characters from our universe were real, and he interacted with Ari Gold and Josh Lyman (the West Wing character Rahm supposedly inspired, although I don't really see it) and characters from well-known movies and TV shows set in Chicago, but that would have been … a lot of work.
I got separated from Hayden last night when we got zip-tied. All the guys in this cell are batshit LaRouchers, which is fucking awkward. 10/16/11 11:45:06 AM
Stand up for the 99 percent! But get the entire fuck out of here with that poster of Obama with a Hitler mustache. No one wants to see that. 10/16/11 11:56:25 AMLyndon LaRouche is like a ten-times-more-extreme Ralph Nader. He gets lumped in with liberal extremists, but he's just kind of … extreme (and possibly racist and anti-Semitic). The omnipresent LaRouche canvassers in Downtown Boston went straight from "Indict George W. Bush for war crimes" to "Obama with a Hitler mustache" without missing a beat. I'm totally not kidding about this Obama with a Hitler mustache sign! I see it everywhere.
*
I hear a guard's voice: "Hey, Decatur Staley, it's your lucky day, some asshole's here to bail you out." I still can't see a fucking thing. 10/16/11 2:34:49 PM
The guard takes me to processing. I hear a sound like heavy jewelry hitting a counter. "This should cover bail." I swear I know that voice. 10/16/11 2:41:39 PM
A hand on my arm guides me out of the station. At my ear, the voice says, "You look like shit, let's get you some green bean casserole." 10/16/11 3:01:56 PM
KANYE? KANYE, IS THAT YOU? KANYE, WAIT. I CAN'T SEE, PAL. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? 10/16/11 3:04:22 PM
Kanye knows me. Who I am. Where I'm from. Why Kanye West is the only person in this universe who recognizes me, I don't have a fucking clue. 10/16/11 3:13:40 PM
New theory: the time vortex was caused by infinite fucking universes but only one Yeezy. That makes sense. It would actually explain a lot. 10/16/11 3:22:47 PM
Kanye says that Carl the Intern sent him. "He's going to rescue you. He taught me those crazy ass Jedi mind tricks to use on the cops." 3:27:03 PM
Carl? Carl's crazy, he can't even take care of himself, much less rescue anybody. A fucking Jedi Knight? 10/16/11 3:28:56 PM
I'm out of it for a little while, my friends re-watch too many fucking Star Wars movies and everybody gets delusions of fucking grandeur. 10/16/11 3:31:22 PMSo these are, obviously, Han Solo's lines in his conversation with Chewbacca when they're reunited at Jabba the Hutt's palace in Return of the Jedi. After the original @MayorEmanuel narrative reenacted a scene from The Empire Strikes Back, I had to go Return of the Jedi.
Kanye takes me back to his place. "Sorry, I need to stay close to home, I've got these leopard print ottomans I'm selling on Craigslist." 10/16/11 4:01:43 PM
*
Pounding Hennessy with Kanye, just fucking laying it down. He's letting me take Jay-Z's verses. Fucking glorious bastard. 10/16/11 10:12:46 PM
"I'm losing myself / I'm stuck in the moment / I look in the mirror / my only opponent ..." 10/16/11 11:02:44 PMFrom the Kanye West/Jay Z collaboration Watch the Throne. There's a running theme involving My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in the @MayorEmanuel narrative that I wanted to riff on, not totally sure how well this worked. What kills me is that Jay Z has a line on this record that name-checks Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, but it's one of those that works really well as a rhyme but not quoted in print ("I'm liable to go Michael / take your pick / Jackson, Tyson, Jordan, Game 6").
Hayden just showed up at Kanye's penthouse! Hayden's here to buy Kanye's leopard print ottomans? That's a crazy fucking coincidence. 10/17/11 12:08:42 AM
Apologize to Hayden about getting split up when we got arrested, but he says it's cool, his friend's stepmother bailed him out this morning. 10/17/11 12:12:03 AM
Kanye has to go. I'm pretty out of it and I still can't really see, but I hear Hayden say, "Hurry. The Alliance should be assembled by now." 10/17/11 1:46:38 AM
Hey, Kanye, thanks. Thanks for fucking coming after me. Now I owe you one. 10/17/11 1:51:22 AMLeia and Han's lines from when they split up with Luke after escaping from Tantooine.
***
Oh my God, continued here because it's too fucking long for one LJ post.
The F**cking Movie Never Motherf**cking Ends
@MayorEmanuel, for norah, 7400 words
* Beta action thank yous to katienyc and xica_s (Chicago residents extraordinaire) and sparkymonster (long-suffering roommate).
* Thank you also to norah for her request, and I hope I ended up somewhere she enjoyed.
* When I was writing this story, I thought to myself "I have never written something that is more likely to accidentally find its way to the attention of the source creator. It has never been more likely that the source creator will already have a general understanding of the concept of fan fiction. I have never been more embarrassed at the prospect of this happening." I VASTLY underestimated how embarrassed I would be when Dan Sinker tweeted about being alerted to the @MayorEmanuel Yuletide stories.
* That being said, if you were a fan of the original @MayorEmanuel Twitter feed, I highly recommend reading Dan Sinker's The Epic F**cking Twitter Quest of @MayorEmanuel, because he does a DVD commentary style running narrative on the entire saga and after reading it I appreciated the obscure Chicago insider politics about six times as much as I did before. In the spirit of Dan Sinker's book, I did my own DVD commentary on this story, mostly to explain all the obscure Chicago sports references (Beef Wennington!) and point-and-laugh at all the things I forgot to include (WE HAVE TO GO BACK). If you're inclined, you can read it behind the cut.
Fuck this shit. 9/25/11 6:31:40 PM
All the infinite Chicagos in all the infinite fucking universes and I had to end up here watching the Bears lose to FUCKING GREEN BAY AGAIN. 9/25/11 6:39:22 PMIn retrospect, a lot of teams lost to the Packers this season (like ... all of them except the Chiefs) so maybe @MayorEmanuel shouldn't have taken this one so hard.
Soldier Field, you are a fucking factory of sadness. 9/25/11 6:47:10 PM"Factory of sadness" is stolen from A Browns Fan's Reaction to Today's Game Against Houston by Mike Polk Jr., who was also involved in the hastily made Cleveland tourism videos. (Our economy's based on Lebron James! Our main export is crippling depression!)
There goes three fucking hours of my life I'll never get back. Might as well just aimlessly ride around on the Orange Line with my cock out. 9/25/11 6:59:34 PM
Seven months stuck over here. Every week I kill a few hours on the L, going nowhere, in and out, just back fucking and forth to Midway. 9/25/11 7:06:43 PM
Now that I don't have to hand-shake and dick-palm all over the place, hanging out at CTA stations is a lot less fucking painful. 9/25/11 7:10:56 PM
But, no matter what the destination sign says, that fucking Orange Line never takes me all the way to Ford City, not even in this dimension. 9/25/11 7:14:23 PMI have been to Chicago once in my life, for a weekend, and my primary objective was to catch up with old friends and see a baseball game. (And not even at Wrigley! A White Sox game! I know, the horror.) The only personal experience I can lend to the accuracy of this story is that the part of town that surrounds the Cell is really ugly.
But, I've lived in Boston (another city enamored with its own folklore) for seven years, so I wanted to do right by Chicago, even though @MayorEmanuel could fit everything I know about Chicago in his finger stump. A lot of the references in this story are things I read about and thought "if something like ____ happened in Boston, I think the reaction would be ____."
This Orange Line to Ford City gimmick is the best example of that. The destination blinds on the CTA Orange Line trains include "Ford City," a stop that does not exist on the Orange Line route. Apparently the Orange Line was supposed to go all the way to Ford City (a mall in West Lawn) but the project ran out of money and the line was terminated at Midway Airport.
I love this, because it reminds me of the phantom MBTA Green Line extension to Somerville. (Which even found its own way into Yuletide when kyrafic wrote me a China Mountain Zhang story set in a dystopic future Boston still waiting for that Green Line extension.) I read a Tribune article that mentioned people occasionally see Orange Line trains with the destination sign flipped on accident to Ford City and thought it would make a great metaphorical portal through the time vortex. It's possible this works, it's possible that anyone from Chicago is reading this and saying, "Um, yeah, I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but okay."
*
Expected a lot more shit to be more fucked in the alternate universe. You know, mirror Axelrod with an evil goatee instead of his mustache. 9/25/11 8:53:02 PMIt felt like Axelrod with a Mirror!Spock goatee instead of his mustache could either be its own 10,000 word story or a single throw-away line, but nothing in between.
At least I've got some money. That last day, Daley told me the real secret of the fucking parking meter deal. Called it the Mayor's Code. 9/25/11 9:02:45 PM
Write "03/04/1837" on a scrap of paper and slide it in the credit card slot. Turns the pay box into a sweet fucking riverboat slot machine. 9/25/11 9:05:26 PMI mostly ignored the practical concerns of being stranded in an alternate universe. (How is @MayorEmanuel tweeting all of this? Did he make it through the vortex with his phone?) I tried to address a few of them, like how he has money so he doesn't starve to death. March 4, 1837 is the date Chicago was incorporated as a city. I wanted @MayorEmanuel to be able to punch the date into a keypad, but then I looked at a picture of one of the infamous pay boxes and they have credit card slots but no keypads. I couldn't think of a way around this; my solution was not terribly elegant. Oh well.
Just make sure you have an empty fuck-it bucket of chicken to catch all the quarters. 9/25/11 9:07:21 PM
No fucking idea who ended up mayor over here. I fucking pray it isn't Chico. City hasn't burned to the ground again, so probably not. 9/25/11 9:09:25 PM
Walked by City Hall a few times. When I'm close, all I can hear is this roaring buzz saw. Won't fucking stop until I get to South La Salle. 9/25/11 9:14:17 PM
I miss my goddamn friends. That part chokes balls. It helps to think of them happy, on the other side of the fucking time vortex. 9/25/11 9:19:08 PM
A sweet crony appointment for Quaxelrod to the Park District Board of Commissioners. Carl the Intern sneaking Hambone into Bulls games. 9/25/11 9:27:40 PM
Axelrod's mustache already writing the shit out of Barack's second inaugural. 9/25/11 9:35:06 PMHopefully this is the first indication that all is not as @MayorEmanuel believes. Back in our universe, Carl the Intern will not be able to sneak Hambone into any Bulls games before Christmas, and Barack Obama is not exactly cruising to re-election.
As long as they're happy there, it doesn't matter so much that I'm fucking stuck here. Shit fuck, I'm turning into a fucking Hallmark card. 9/25/11 9:38:01 PM
Chico better not be the fucking mayor. I would rather castrate myself with safety scissors than live in a universe with Mayor Dong Choke. 9/25/11 9:42:51 PM
*
I still want to fuck Chris Spencer in his face mask, but I leave the train at Washington/Wells and cross over to exit onto Madison. 9/25/11 11:47:38 PMChris Spencer is a Bears player who committed a holding penalty at the end of the game, hampering the Bears' chances of making any kind of comeback. Here's something amazing: Dan Sinker writes in his book that he isn't a football fan and never watched Bears games; for most of the season he relied on Twitter to give him material for @MayorEmanuel. I watch a lot of NFL, but not a lot of the Bears, so I mostly relied on ESPN game recaps and my morning gym hour of Sports Center.
Let me tell you a secret: there's a glitch in the time vortex. On the corner of La Salle and Madison. It's a fucking fax machine at Kinko's. 9/25/11 11:56:25 PM
Taped to the fax machine is a sign that says OUT OF ORDER - SERVICE REQUESTED 11/5/02. But some of Plouffe's faxes manage to get through. 9/25/11 11:58:52 PMThere isn't a Kinko's on the corner of LaSalle and Madison, there's a FedEx Office. But hasn't Kino's become the Kleenex brand facial tissue of print and copy stores? Nobody actually says they're going to FedEx Office, right? Also, November 5, 2002 was the date of the 2002 mid-term election, which was the term Rahm Emanuel was elected to the House of Representatives. I was going to do something with November 5, 2002 being the date that @MayorEmanuel unknowingly switched universes, but that got lost in the shuffle.
Fax from Plouffe: "Need to talk NATO/G8 plans, less than 9 months to go." Hope the other me faxed back a cock shot with double birds. 9/26/11 12:05:18 AM
Here's a theory: the time vortex was caused by an implosion of infinite Plouffes constantly time traveling from 1991 to send fucking FAXES. 9/26/11 12:11:27 AM
Fucking seriously, sometimes I miss my fucking friends so much it feels like I slammed my cock in the door of the Civic. 9/26/11 12:29:43 AM
***
MGD and an entire fucking plate of hash browns at Schaller's, just all that's fucking left for me at this point. 9/26/11 11:33:46 PMSchaller's Pump is the oldest bar in Chicago. It's one of the few bars that can believably be called "near" Cellular Field (which is what I was looking for) and it was also apparently known for being the second office of both Mayor Daleys. One of the two Chicago residents who graciously betaed this story for me pointed out that Rahm Emanuel is all North Side and would never go to Schaller's. My thoughts were that he's melancholy and wants to go somewhere where he can pretend to feel like the mayor, and also that no one will recognize him anyway, but that would have been a tangent of introspection. Also, I know that @MayorEmanuel has historically favored obscure Chicago microbrews, but my impression of Schaller's is that they have MGD on tap and … not much else. Yelp reviews reveal the food to be either authentic or terrible (it's probably both) but many mentioned the hash browns.
Axelrod used to say Daley once tried to fuck a Schaller's butt steak sandwich. I always called bullshit. Now I just wish Axelrod was here. 9/26/11 11:47:03 PM
Next table over, guy says, "I don't fucking know, what's on tap for someone who shitcanned himself on TV tonight?" Hey, it's Ozzie Guillen. 9/26/11 11:49:27 PM
Ozzie takes my advice. Hash browns and MGD: The "My Life's in the Shitcan" Special. His goatee's trembling, guy looks fucking miserable. 9/26/11 11:58:01 PMOzzie Guillen was the manager of the White Sox from 2004 to 2011. Throughout the 2011 season, he publicly agitated with White Sox ownership about a new contract. With two games left in the season, he asked to be released from his contract, and effectively fired himself. If you don't follow baseball: managers occasionally get fired throughout the season (regardless of many years are left on their contracts) and very occasionally a manager will quit, but pseudo-quitting with only two games left in the season? That doesn't happen. If anyone was going to do it, though, it would be Ozzie, he's fucking crazy.
So, look, I could give a shit about baseball, but Barack fucking loved those fucking White Sox. 9/27/11 12:01:56 AM
The whole first week of April, if you wanted to get his attention you had to start all your sentences with "Mark Buehrle's fastball ..." 9/27/11 12:03:47 AM
Mark Buehrle's fastball has more velocity than this G-20 summit itinerary. Mark Buehrle's fastball wants to talk nuclear disarmament. 9/27/11 12:06:21 AM
Mark Buehrle's fastball has been up in the zone but not like these fucking 8.5% unemployment numbers, don't you agree? 9/27/11 12:08:44 AM
So I tell Ozzie that Mark Buehrle's fastball, we should fucking jam it up Kenny Williams' uretha. Ozzie finally cracks a smile. 9/27/11 12:11:25 AM
We're doing shots of Johhnie Walker and Ozzie's teaching me how to swear in Venezuelan! 9/27/11 12:47:38 AM
Hey Jerry Reinsdorf: ¡Coño de la madre! Pa el chivo que más mea, tienes güevo pequeñito. Also motherfuck you in your motherfucking facehole. 9/27/11 12:59:58 AMOzzie Guillen is from Venezuela. Colloquial translation: "Oh my fucking God! For the big boss in charge, you have a really small dick." Literal translation: "Mother's cunt! For the goat who pisses the most, you have a really small egg." Kenny Williams and Jerry Reinsdorf are the general manager and owner of the White Sox, respectively.
*
Got kicked out of Schaller's, but Ozzie took the bottle of Johnny Walker and we're sitting next to the Dan Ryan, passing it back and forth. 9/27/11 2:52:29 AMLike I said before, two very kind Chicago residents betaed this story with very short turnaround time and were incredibly helpful, and they both said "Uh, you can't sit UNDER the Dan Ryan." When I wrote this part, I looked on Google Maps to see what freeways were nearby but didn't bother to figure out whether they were ground-level or not (this was before I fell down the rabbit hole of research-as-writing-avoidance-technique and read an entire CTA Orange Line Extension Power Point presentation to figure out whether the hypothetical Ford City stop would cross 63rd Street). One of them told me I could get away with saying "next to the Dan Ryan" (in a ditch!) so I did.
Listening to Ozzie just fucking go off on the White Sox is like listening to Mozart compose Symphony No. 40: a motherfucking master at work. 9/27/11 3:26:11 AM
"Fuck them, fuck their mothers, fuck their sisters, fuck their mothers' sisters. I hope they get fucked by their mothers' sisters' dogs." 9/27/11 3:34:29 AM
"Fuck 'em in their mother-fucked faces, and then fuck 'em again in the motherfucking ear." Sing it, Ozzie, you fucking beautiful bastard. 9/27/11 3:42:31 AM
Oh, fuck no, now Ozzie's crying. "They shit on you, do you get to shit back? No, you say, 'Thank you, thank you for this shit sandwich.'" 9/27/11 4:00:02 AM
"They love you, then they fuck you. Get fucked for a living but it's not about the money? That is some fucking Pretty Woman bullshit." 9/27/11 4:02:24 AMOzzie makes @MayorEmanuel look like your Sunday School teacher.
Holy shit, Ozzie's got a Bic lighter and his World Series ring. Says he's going to melt it down for gold and sell it like a tooth filling. 9/27/11 4:05:19 AM
"Go to Miami. Buy a fucking boat. Those assholes, they'll shit on me, too. But I'll have fucking four million dollars and a fucking boat." 9/27/11 4:10:44 AMThe next day, Ozzie was announced as the new manager of the (then-Florida-soon-to-be-known-as-Miami) Marlins. In a newspaper interview, he was very honest and came off kind of a dick (depending on whether or not you think people who play and coach sports for a living are allowed admit that they care about money), basically saying: I wanted more money, I want to buy a boat.
Ozzie grabs me by the chin so we're eye to eye. There's a red-hot half-melted World Series ring dangerously close to my fucking eye socket. 9/27/11 4:12:35 AM
"Fuck this city. Chicago wants to fuck you? Don't fucking take it, get the fuck out of town. Fuck Chicago." 9/27/11 4:15:56 AM
And it's hard to believe he means it. With our faces smashed together, I can see his eyes are wet. But one more "fuck it" and Ozzie's gone. 9/27/11 4:18:05 AM
*
Mark Buehrle's fastball, it breaks your heart. It is designed to break your motherfucking heart. 9/27/11 5:31:00 AM
You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive. 9/27/11 5:34:48 AM
Then just when the days are all twilight, when you fucking need it most, it stops. And you're alone next to the Dan Ryan with the rats. 9/27/11 5:37:23 AM From the opening paragraph of the essay "Green Fields of the Mind" by A. Bartlett Giamatti, oft-quoted but originally published in the Yale Alumi Magazine in 1977: It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.
And, yeah, sometimes I think about leaving Chicago, but what the fuck am I going to do? Crawl back into the shit-smeared sewer system of DC? 9/27/11 5:39:11 AM
Buena suerte, Ozzie. Chicago may be a shitfest, but it's my fucking shitfest. There just isn't anywhere else for me. 9/27/11 5:58:42 AM
Make no mistake, though, I will burn this entire fucking shitfest to the ground if I don't get some coffee right this fucking minute. 9/27/11 6:31:47 AM
***
Looks like that fucking douche canoe Blago put his house on the market. 10/4/11 4:49:45 PM
Who needs a house in Ravenswood Manor when you're locking down a ten-year lease on a fucking federal prison cell in Terra Haute, right? 10/4/11 5:01:34 PMIt was reported that Rod Blagojevich's house was on the market on October 3 in anticipation that he was finally going to receive a prison sentence; his sentencing still somehow managed to drag on until December of this year. Raise your hand if you live outside the state of Illinois and you had ANY idea the Blago trial was still dragging on in late 2011. I definitely did not.
New theory: the time vortex was caused by Blago trying to shake down an alternate version of himself, imploding the fucking multiverse. 10/4/11 5:03:11 PM
Fuck these Dan Ryan rats, I'm going to crash at Blago's empty house for a couple days. Not like that shithouse rat doesn't fucking owe me. 10/4/11 5:46:23 PM
Pat Quinn should have used that one: "Elect me and every resident of Illinois will get to take a free shit on Rod Blagojevich's house." 10/4/11 6:13:33 PM
*
Every stupid fucker in Ravenswood Manor thinks it's safe to leave the back door unlocked, like high property values are a magic force field. 10/4/11 7:37:38 PM
This place is about as fucking creepy as you'd expect. There's a triptych of those knock-off Warhol portraits over the mantle. 10/4/11 7:49:54 PM
Of course the knock-off Warhol portraits are all Blago. Who'd you fucking expect, fucking Phil Jackson? Shit is going to give me nightmares. 10/4/11 7:52:58 PMBefore he took the triangle offense to Los Angeles, Phil Jackson was the coach of the 90s era Bulls, which will be important in a second.
*
I'm so hungry I could eat a bowl of dicks, but there's no food in the cupboards, the pantry's empty, just fucking nothing. 10/4/11 8:36:24 PM
The only thing in the fridge is a Waterford crystal cake stand. Under the dome, there's a single unwrapped Beef Wennington. 10/4/11 8:38:04 PMBill Wennington was the center for the Chicago Bulls between 1993 and 1999. During the spring of 1998, the Chicago-area McDonalds restaurants sold a "Beef Wennington" burger. Why? Because the Chicago Bulls. Thanks here goes to The Basketball Jones for mentioning the legend of the Beef Wennington when its namesake was the guest at their Chicago stop on their No Season Required tour.
Either that's a 13-year-old burger or Blago has a racket on discontinued McDonald's menu items. I'm fucking starving, so I'm about find out. 10/4/11 8:40:31 PM
Pickles, onions, mustard, barbecue sauce. American cheese, sweet fucking Canadian bacon. Damn, they don't make 'em like this anymore. 10/4/11 9:00:52 PMForeshadowing Kanye West lyric! The Beef Wennington had Canadian bacon because Bill Wennington was Canadian.
Fucking delicious, but I'd bet the other half of my finger stump this ground beef is from the second term of the Clinton administration. 10/4/11 9:17:56 PMI wanted to make a better "Rahm Emanuel lost half his middle finger in a meat grinder accident at Arby's" joke here, but I couldn't quite get the bat off my shoulder.
The Blago portraits are smirking at me like dong-stomping Playboy Bunny triplets, with massive domes of hair in DayGlo neon. 10/4/11 9:22:38 PM
Okay, I might have food poisoning, but that's just how they fucking look. Pop art is such a shit smear on the history of postmodernism. 10/4/11 9:40:29 PM
*
Wake up on the couch and I feel like I got fucked in the colon. The room is dark except for the soft glow of the television. 10/5/11 12:46:29 AM
I don't remember turning on the TV, but I know exactly what I'm watching. It's the 1998 NBA Finals. Game 6 in fucking Salt Lake. 10/5/11 12:49:14 AM
I try to sit up. My colon tries to shit itself. Start of the fourth, Jazz are up five. The picture is fuzzy, Costas' voice is like AM radio. 10/5/11 12:59:55 AM
The rotten beef sinks like a brick in my stomach. What if this is the parallel dimension where Stockton makes that fucking three? 10/5/11 1:06:45 AM
Then, there's a voice in the darkness. "Stockton never makes that fucking three. Not ever. Some things are fucking universal constants." 10/5/11 1:17:44 AM
HOLY FUCKING THREE-PEAT, IT'S MICHAEL FUCKING JORDAN. 10/5/11 1:23:23 AMAll the time stamps in this story are completely random, except for this one. (Michael Jordan's jersey number was 23.)
MJ sits down on the couch. He's wearing a sweat-soaked jersey and Hanes jockey shorts. He points at the TV. "This was the perfect ending." 10/5/11 1:25:47 AMRe-reading this, I'm realizing how many parts of it probably seem bizarre and random if you don't have at least a casual interest in professional sports. Anyway: MJ is a longtime Hanes spokesperson.
"This is how they want to remember me. If this was a movie, you'd roll the fucking credits right here." MJ stops talking and we both watch. 10/5/11 1:28:21 AM
On the screen, it's all just like I remember: the steal, the cross-over, that beautiful fucking wide-open jumper, slow-mo even in real time. 10/5/11 1:31:56 AMThe whole sequence is pretty amazing. You've probably seen the post-game celebration grand jeté in a shoe commercial about 800 times in your life.
I've got chills. MJ shakes his head. "There's no such thing as a perfect ending. If something was perfect, why the fuck would it ever end?" 10/5/11 1:33:01 AM
On the screen, Michael's celebrating, and when he jumps in the air it's as good as any grand jeté you'd ever see at the Joffrey Ballet. 10/5/11 1:37:12 AM
"Fade to black is just a way to close your eyes and pretend. I came back and played two more seasons with the Wizards. So fucking what?" 10/5/11 1:39:22 AM
"Little bitches who say they went out on a high note are kidding themselves. I went out kicking and screaming. I didn't fucking want to go." 10/5/11 1:42:37 AM
I turn on the couch to look at MJ. I look right at him and he fucking looks right back at me and we both know exactly what I want to ask. 10/5/11 1:45:32 AM
"Of course the push-off on Russell was a foul. I told you, this isn't a fucking movie." The TV goes snowy, and then it just goes dark. 10/5/11 1:47:58 AMJordan stole the ball, crossed over on his defender and possibly fouled him but it wasn't called because mid-nineties NBA referees had a separate set of rules for Michael Jordan.
A couple years ago, Joe Posnanski wrote an amazing essay about Brett Favre and whether it's possible to ruin a sports legacy. Posnanski believed all the things that make transcendently memorable and competitive athletes great (and, hah, I see now that he included Wizards-era Michael Jordan in his list of supporting examples) are all the same things that will make those athletes want to play too long and refuse to make a graceful exit. It's one of my favorite insights about professional athletes, and it shaped the role the Michael Jordan character plays in this story.
*
Sweet motherfucking fuck do I need some fucking coffee right the motherfuck now. 10/5/11 8:38:27 AM
I know last night was just a dream but then why is there barbecue sauce all over my shirt? Only the three Blagos know. 10/5/11 9:20:43 AM
I can't stay here. This house smells like a Vegas all-you-can-eat buffet: hustled money and fucking loneliness. 10/5/11 10:35:56 AM
***
Beloved fucking coffee, it is not even motherfucking hyperbole to say you are the only fucking friend I have in this world. 10/11/11 10:11:47 AM
WAIT, THE FIRST TWO WEEKS OF THE BASKETBALL SEASON ARE ALREADY FUCKING CANCELLED? 10/11/11 12:41:23 PM
David Stern, you are such a fucking incompetent cockhole I can't believe I never had to run against you in a mayoral election. 10/11/11 12:50:22 PM
Oh yeah, Stern's already the mayor of New Fucking Ruining Everything City. Probably a fucking residency conflict. 10/11/11 12:58:43 PMDavid Stern, the long-suffering commissioner of the NBA. The NBA season was scheduled to start on November 1. The lockout eventually ended on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and the first games were played on Christmas Day. I tried to use @MayorEmanuel's awareness of the lockout as a bench march throughout the story, but this may not have worked if the reader was not aware of the lockout when it was happening in real life.
Fax from Plouffe at Kinko's: Other me is "studying the water tax"? Fucking sweet, finally turning Michigan Ave into a giant water slide. 10/11/11 1:09:56 PM
Probably needs the water slide for the Bulls championship parade route in June. Double birds to this universe. This entire fucking UNIVERSE. 10/11/11 1:17:28 PM
*
Been camping out in Grant Park since I left Blago's house. Your fucking tax dollars at work, bitches. 10/11/11 6:26:10 PM
Got a satellite TV so I can flip back and forth between the Republican debate and WWE Raw re-runs on cable. Basically the same fucking show. 10/11/11 6:30:19 PMConfession: this was my biggest reality cheat. The debate was on Wednesday, WWE Raw is on Tuesdays. I fudged it by saying it was a re-run but I have absolutely no idea if WWE Raw re-runs. Probably not. I wouldn't feel bad about it, except Dan Sinker wants you to know that when @MayorEmanuel was flipping back and forth between the State of the Union address and a "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" marathon, there was ACTUALLY AN I DIDN'T KNOW I WAS PREGNANT MARATHON ON TV THAT NIGHT. That man is some kind of mad fucking genius.
Let me get this straight: Cain's fucking serious about this 9-9-9 bullshit but fucking ROMNEY's unelectable because he's in a cult? 10/11/11 7:02:45 PM
Triple H in his fucking undies says he'll wrestle a broomstick to get a decent match. Mitt, you try this. Bachmann's basically a broomstick. 10/11/11 7:15:16 PM
Huntsman says "Washington DC is the gas capital of the country." You crazy beautiful bastard, what are you doing with these morons? 10/11/11 7:21:56 PM
Huntsman fucking confuses me, because he keeps saying things that aren't batshit crazy. When does Vince McMahon make him switch sides? 10/11/11 7:26:33 PM
Bachmann's pretty fucking concerned about health care rationing for someone who was clearly born during a fucking brains rationing. 10/11/11 7:39:09 PM
I could debate these fuck faces with my cock hanging out. Clothesline Mitt, sleeper hold for Cain, folding chair Perry the fuck out of here. 10/11/11 7:49:10 PM
SUPRISE! 9-9-9 isn't the price of a pizza, it's not 666 upside down, it's the number of reasons fucking none of you are electable. 10/11/11 7:58:23 PM
That was fun, but everyone knows that shit's staged. It LOOKS like Bachmann's a presidential candidate on TV, but it's totally fake. Right? 10/11/11 9:02:13 PM
***
I'd say instant coffee is worse than no coffee at all, but I'd be lying, because absolutely fucking nothing is worse than no coffee at all. 10/15/11 10:02:33 AM
*
Where are all these people and their fucking tents coming from? Don't these assclowns realize the marathon was last week? What the hell? 10/15/11 7:32:47 PM
This fucking guy starts setting up my tent crammed in close so he's halfway up my fucking colon. 10/15/11 7:45:12 PM
"Hi, I'm Hayden! I'm here because I'm really concerned about accountability and the federal bank bailouts." 10/15/11 7:46:02 PM
Hi Hayden, I'm Decatur Staley, I like long walks on the beach, piña coladas, and fucking the eye sockets of my motherfucking enemies. 10/15/11 7:51:34 PMHayden is named after Tom Hayden of the Chicago Eight. The Decatur Staleys football team was established by the Decatur-based A.E. Staley food starch company in 1919; in 1921 they relocated to Chicago and renamed themselves the Bears.
Hayden also supports: net neutrality, Monsanto divestment, justice for Bradley Manning. Dumb fucker didn't bring enough tent stakes. 10/15/11 8:14:12 PMI fucking agonized over this part of the story (leading me to add the over-compensatory disclaimer at the beginning). Basically, I wanted to involve @MayorEmanuel in the Occupy Chicago movement, but I didn't know how to reconcile 1) How the character @MayorEmanuel would react and what would make for a funny story, 2) How that reaction would conflict with the reaction that we know actual Mayor Emanuel had in real life, and 3) How neither of those reactions are the same as my own personal reaction.
One of my favorite parts of the @MayorEmanuel narrative was when @MayorEmanuel and Axelrod went to Rockford to party with the Wisconsin state senators. Do I think @MayorEmanuel would support the Occupy movement? Yes. Do I know in reality that Mayor Rahm Emanuel was at odds with the Occupy movement? Also yes. (For what it's worth, I don't totally blame him for this: Boston's own beloved Democratic mayor-for-life Mumbles Menino also handled the Occupy movement badly, at one point saying "civil disobedience doesn't work in Boston." No municipal official anywhere came out of that one looking great.) So I think @MayorEmanuel would take some soft shots at Occupy (net neutrality, Monsanto divestment, justice for Bradley Manning) but embrace its spirit. I'm still not sure I got this quite right.
Hayden didn't realize about the stakes because he bought his tent on Craigslist. The story is about as fucking fascinating as it sounds. 10/15/11 8:23:41 PM
Now Hayden's got a Sharpie and he's trying to write his fucking phone number on my arm. Shit is awkward. Sorry, Hayden, I'm not bipartisan. 10/15/11 8:47:12 PMWe'll learn later that Hayden is in some type of communication with Carl the Intern, but he's obviously Carl the Intern's boyfriend.
"It's the ACLU phone number for when we get arrested." Why the fuck would we get arrested? I haven't keyed Dart's car ONCE in this universe. 10/15/11 8:59:12 PM
*
Hayden and his friends are explaining the reasons why camping out in Grant Park is occupying Wall Street. 10/15/11 9:11:09 PM
Top three reasons: 1) the mayor 2) the fucking mayor 3) the motherfucking mayor. 10/15/11 9:20:57 PM
Whenever they talk about the mayor it's never by name, always "Mayor 1%", so I still don't know who's in charge of this fucking shit show. 10/15/11 9:44:39 PMChicago never had a permanent Occupy encampment the way New York, Boston or other cities did, for a bunch of reasons including that the natural spot for an encampment was a public sidewalk. The Occupy activists do call him "Mayor 1% Emanuel" and I … can't really blame them. Yuck.
A sea of people is filling Grant Park, singing and chanting and waving their signs, and I can feel the pulsing bloody heart of democracy. 10/15/11 10:08:24 PM
I see all fucking kinds of people: college kids, union members, grandmothers. They're bigger than themselves and I want to be one of them. 10/15/11 10:09:35 PM
Maybe I raked in a swimming pool of money on the board at Freddy Mac. Maybe my campaign war chest was bigger than the GDP of Slovakia. 10/15/11 10:11:33 PM
But those are the problems of a me who's actually the mayor, in some other fucking parallel dimension. OCCUPY ALL STREETS, MOTHERFUCKERS! 10/15/11 10:13:45 PM
WE! ARE! THE NINETY-NINE PERCENT! WE! ARE! THE NINETY-NINE PERCENT! WE! ARE! THE MOTHERFUCKING NINETY-NINE PERCENT! 10/15/11 11:45:12 PM
The cops are here, but we are fucking unstoppable. We stand together, arms linked, and we are one. 10/16/11 12:40:37 AMOccupy Chicago activists led a march of about 2,000 people through the streets on October 16. The march ended in Grant Park where they attempted to set up tents to create a permanent encampment. The Chicago police showed up after the park officially closed at 11 o'clock and arrested about 175 people by 1 o'clock in the morning. They did the exact same thing with the same results about a week later.
***
What the fuck do you mean no fucking coffee in the holding cell? You might as well take a fucking shit on the Geneva Convention. 10/16/11 10:03:45 AM
Got caught in a pepper spray bukkake when CPD was hustling us into the wagons last night so I can't see a fucking thing. 10/16/11 10:09:17 AM
I get my one phone call. I don't know who to call, so I dial Ari's number, just in case this has all been a bad fucking dream. 10/16/11 10:11:23 AM
But the person who picks up on the other end of the line says "Mr. Gold's office" so I just fucking disconnect. 10/16/11 10:13:41 AMAri Gold being the character from Entourage based on Ari Emanuel. At one point I thought about putting @MayorEmanuel in a universe where all the fictional characters from our universe were real, and he interacted with Ari Gold and Josh Lyman (the West Wing character Rahm supposedly inspired, although I don't really see it) and characters from well-known movies and TV shows set in Chicago, but that would have been … a lot of work.
I got separated from Hayden last night when we got zip-tied. All the guys in this cell are batshit LaRouchers, which is fucking awkward. 10/16/11 11:45:06 AM
Stand up for the 99 percent! But get the entire fuck out of here with that poster of Obama with a Hitler mustache. No one wants to see that. 10/16/11 11:56:25 AMLyndon LaRouche is like a ten-times-more-extreme Ralph Nader. He gets lumped in with liberal extremists, but he's just kind of … extreme (and possibly racist and anti-Semitic). The omnipresent LaRouche canvassers in Downtown Boston went straight from "Indict George W. Bush for war crimes" to "Obama with a Hitler mustache" without missing a beat. I'm totally not kidding about this Obama with a Hitler mustache sign! I see it everywhere.
*
I hear a guard's voice: "Hey, Decatur Staley, it's your lucky day, some asshole's here to bail you out." I still can't see a fucking thing. 10/16/11 2:34:49 PM
The guard takes me to processing. I hear a sound like heavy jewelry hitting a counter. "This should cover bail." I swear I know that voice. 10/16/11 2:41:39 PM
A hand on my arm guides me out of the station. At my ear, the voice says, "You look like shit, let's get you some green bean casserole." 10/16/11 3:01:56 PM
KANYE? KANYE, IS THAT YOU? KANYE, WAIT. I CAN'T SEE, PAL. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? 10/16/11 3:04:22 PM
Kanye knows me. Who I am. Where I'm from. Why Kanye West is the only person in this universe who recognizes me, I don't have a fucking clue. 10/16/11 3:13:40 PM
New theory: the time vortex was caused by infinite fucking universes but only one Yeezy. That makes sense. It would actually explain a lot. 10/16/11 3:22:47 PM
Kanye says that Carl the Intern sent him. "He's going to rescue you. He taught me those crazy ass Jedi mind tricks to use on the cops." 3:27:03 PM
Carl? Carl's crazy, he can't even take care of himself, much less rescue anybody. A fucking Jedi Knight? 10/16/11 3:28:56 PM
I'm out of it for a little while, my friends re-watch too many fucking Star Wars movies and everybody gets delusions of fucking grandeur. 10/16/11 3:31:22 PMSo these are, obviously, Han Solo's lines in his conversation with Chewbacca when they're reunited at Jabba the Hutt's palace in Return of the Jedi. After the original @MayorEmanuel narrative reenacted a scene from The Empire Strikes Back, I had to go Return of the Jedi.
Kanye takes me back to his place. "Sorry, I need to stay close to home, I've got these leopard print ottomans I'm selling on Craigslist." 10/16/11 4:01:43 PM
*
Pounding Hennessy with Kanye, just fucking laying it down. He's letting me take Jay-Z's verses. Fucking glorious bastard. 10/16/11 10:12:46 PM
"I'm losing myself / I'm stuck in the moment / I look in the mirror / my only opponent ..." 10/16/11 11:02:44 PMFrom the Kanye West/Jay Z collaboration Watch the Throne. There's a running theme involving My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in the @MayorEmanuel narrative that I wanted to riff on, not totally sure how well this worked. What kills me is that Jay Z has a line on this record that name-checks Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, but it's one of those that works really well as a rhyme but not quoted in print ("I'm liable to go Michael / take your pick / Jackson, Tyson, Jordan, Game 6").
Hayden just showed up at Kanye's penthouse! Hayden's here to buy Kanye's leopard print ottomans? That's a crazy fucking coincidence. 10/17/11 12:08:42 AM
Apologize to Hayden about getting split up when we got arrested, but he says it's cool, his friend's stepmother bailed him out this morning. 10/17/11 12:12:03 AM
Kanye has to go. I'm pretty out of it and I still can't really see, but I hear Hayden say, "Hurry. The Alliance should be assembled by now." 10/17/11 1:46:38 AM
Hey, Kanye, thanks. Thanks for fucking coming after me. Now I owe you one. 10/17/11 1:51:22 AMLeia and Han's lines from when they split up with Luke after escaping from Tantooine.
***
Oh my God, continued here because it's too fucking long for one LJ post.