Chili Dawgs Still Bark at Midnight

I don't know if it was the howling mutts wrapped in hot dog buns or the bewildered look on Lewis Grizzard's face as he stares up at that smiling moon, his eyes guarded by those unimaginably dorky glasses band across the top of the frames (my father had a pair), but I was completely fascinated by this dusty pocket-sized paperback my dad had near his military duffel bag. Don't really know why, but I knew that I had to read it- in my eyes it was absolutely adult, without being too academic like the books they forced me to read in school. I took it from my father's room and read the whole damn thing in one sitting.

Looking back, I can only vaguely remember reading it. Only a few of the stories really stood out, one about televangelist and one about Kentucky Fried Chicken, but a the time, it was something special, a foray into a world that I'd known very little about. Grizzard was a southerner through and through, at a time when I was Even without remembering most of the stories, I do remember that I enjoyed his irreverence and his varied sense of humor.

The strange thing is that I'm quite certain that if Grizzard was alive and writing today, I would absolutely despise him. To me, he represents everything that is wrong with old-time sportswriters and conservative southerners, namely, their stubborness and dogmatism, their inability to empathize with anyone, and mostly their hypocrisy. Grizzard was married three times, and yet he was a purported traditionalist when it came to values. He wasn't a religious man per se, instead he was just someone who was incredibly sure that the society he grew up in was right- or if not that, then at least good enough to survive an assault from a more modern world.

I've talked before about cities that represent a specific time and place in America's history. For the 60's, or at very least the late 60's, that city was Haight-Ashbury/Summer of Love San Francisco. The late 70's to early 80's was the Son of Sam's New York. It's a bit tougher to choose for the 1980's, but I think that Lewis Grizzard's Atlanta would be as good a city as any to choose. Atlanta started to flex its muscles in the 1980's- it was still a defiantly Southern town, with Southern sensibilities, but with success comes changes and transplants, and a confrotation between the values of the people who And it was that disappearnce of that old South that Grizard was decrying. A South that didn't take itself too seriously when dealing with each other, but one that also became hyper defensive when their problems were pointed out. A place of purported family values that nonetheless winked, nodded, or turned a blind eye towards the inclination that much of their population had towards the seven deadly sins.

White Southerners have a lot more in common with Black people then they think. Most of their history has been spent feeling or being inferior, at least by the common social and economic metrics we use to measure such things. Sooner or later though, a culture begins to develop around that feeling of inferiority, and while I think it is certainly generalizing, I think white southern culture reveled a bit in its informality, its more overt displays of masculinity and femininity, and its emphasis on a principled value system (no matter how many times those principles were violated). Yeah you Northerners may have more money and better education, but we sure know how to have a good time. A professor of mine in college, during a lecture on the antebellum South, talked about how important the culture of honor was, and I think that it's importance, while not as strong, still lingers to this day. I also think you can see remnants of this in the modern Republican party, both envigorated and imprisoned by its value system. And that's what Grizzard's book, admittedly in hindsight, represents for me. It's probably very hard for people to think of a Lewis Grizzard book as an example of the frustration, anxiety, hatred, and humor with which Southern white people dealt with the makings of the "New South," but for me it definitely is.

New Gotham

Thank God for indigestion- the hamburger crowned America's best burger by "Good Morning America" did not agree with me falling asleep too long and my stomach did all types of somersaults at 3am. Reminds me of that Lewis Grizzard book I found in my dad's room when I was 11; I guess burgers wait a little bit longer before they start to bark (I want to write about that book sometime). But I was fortunate really that I'd woken up when I did. In my pursuit to meet a college classmate for a fine slice of Kobe beef, I'd completely forgotten to pick up some deodarant and a pair of black socks that I needed for the meeting tomorrow. (In my defense, the burger, which was good but far from America's best, was topped with a healthy chunk of brie. The taste of brie and burger is interesting enough to fool someone into thinking that the burger is America's best).

After finding out where the nearest Walgreen's was, I stumbled out of my downtown Chicago hotel onto the quiet streets. A comforting quiet really, not an eery quiet, interrupted by idling municipal trucks parked next to a manhole, men in their white jumpsuits suspended by rope lowered deep into the dark sewer. I love the look of Chicago, I think it does a better job of blending old and new than any other city in the country. Chicago, at least in my mind, doesn't try to escape from its gritty past, in many ways it still looks like a souped-up 1920's gangster film. To this day, Al Capone would not look out of place crossing the river at La Salle. It's probably why Christopher Nolan decided to shoot "The Dark Knight" there rather than in New York. Obviously I wasn't here for New York during it's downtrodden heyday, but from the looks of things, it's far too glamorous, far too safe to be anyone's Gotham. It's commendable that the Dinkins and Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations did such a good job in cleaning up the city, cracking down on crime, destroying the Son of Sam and New Jack City, New York. But a good city for business and families and quality of life makes for a pretty lousy Gotham.

The sounds changed after I crossed the river. More cars, more lights, even the wind picks up its pace slightly. A Black lady walking on my side of the street but in the other direction hugged herself close. Her fingers nervously rubbed the side of her pink tank top. Her legs were long enough to last the whole summer and every nervous and wobbly step they took reminded me of a baby gazelle the moment before it's taken down by a pride of lions. She looked like she'd be tough enough, on her best days, to stand toe-to-toe with any motherfucker that dare cross her path, tonight tears framed the middle of her face. Past her, the unmistakable smell of urine and body odor and alcohol was strong enough to make my eyes water. I found the source when I got to the corner, a man in a dirty white shirt shuffled his way down Ontario, propped up only by the buildings on his left and the occasional wayward trash can on his right. I imagined that the first alley he found was where he'd call it a night.

One Power Vitamin Water, three pairs of black socks, a stick of Mitchum deodarant, six pencils, and two pens later I was on my way back home. On the other street corner, next to a two-story McDonald's I saw a group of maybe eight or nine people having a good time. I went over to get a closer look, maybe McDonald's at damn near 4am was the happenin spot downtown. Turned out to be two crazy guys talking to bronze statues of little kids. I decided to take a different way back, one that was just a little bit darker, to revel in the quiet just a little bit more. No cars at all this time, just the gentle wind, the subtle river, and the sound of my own footsteps. I love Chicago, but there's just no comparison between it and New York. The only way downtown would ever be this quiet, this lazy, was if a nuclear bomb went off on Canal Street. In the city at least, I could never imagine passing no one, on any street, at any time. Don't know if that's a good thing or not. I made it back to my hotel close to 5am, enough time for one hour of sleep and morning full of a whole bunch of coffee.