Farewell

I said goodbye to Chicago this weekend.

I moved away from that great City of Big Shoulders about five years ago, choosing to broaden my horizons by living in another city. Chicago had been all I knew as an adult, and I felt Boston would be an interesting contrast. For the three or so years I lived in Boston, I was mostly miserable. Or, rather, I was quite happy, but that had more to do with the friends and family I had living there. The city itself, I found, sucked.

I’m sorry, Boston, but you’re not really a city. You’re a community that used to be a city and now struts around like a skinny 15-year-old boy trying to prove he can take on the big boys at the biker bar. You talk about how tough and great you are, but deep down, you know you have nothing to back it up, and you’d be so screwed if you ever had to deliver on your boasting. Just look at what a dullsville affair you made of the 2004 Democratic Convention. You have no nightlife, little in the way of cuisine or culture, and despite the presence of a large population of young people and college students, you’re remarkably stodgy, prissy, close-minded, and mired in the ways of generations past. There might be a lot of new and good ideas generated in Boston, but not one of them has a chance of being implemented within your boundaries. To put things simply: you offer no fun, you offer no innovation, and you have … no … energy.

For the entire time that I lived in Boston, I rhapsodized about Chicago. The world-class theater. The straightforward, honest, tough people. The 24-hour public transit (and accompanying bars, clubs and nightlife). The plethora of great food of all types, genres, and ethnicities. The influence it has had on world culture. I dreamed about a blessed return to the only real city I’d ever known.

Then, two years ago, my fiancée (now wife) and I made the move to New York. And Chicago, as I discovered this weekend on a return visit, just can’t compare. Yes, the theater scene is just about as vibrant, in its own way, as New York’s. The food is as varied and as delightful (if not, in some cases at least, more so). Yes, you have great bars, new ideas and innovations. And Chicago is grander – cleaner, brighter, more gleaming – than New York. (Chicagoans, at least, have the sense to keep their garbage in dumpsters secreted in alleyways, instead of in leaky garbage bags on the sidewalk where all can take pleasure in the odors.)

But New York has the energy. That sense of being in the center of the universe. Walk out the door, and everyone is going places, doing something, go, go, go, go, GO. The sense is there in Chicago to a limited extent, but it’s more relaxed. In New York, it’s lead, follow, or get out my fucking way before I rip off your head and shit down the stump. And everyone has this attitude. It’s exciting, and it gives you life. And that’s why, although on paper, Chicago has just about as much to offer as New York, it’s been replaced in my heart, and I must bid it a fond farewell.

I’ll always love Chicago. I’ll always miss it. And if I have to live there – well, that would still be pretty cool. But Chicago – you’re no longer real-world representation of the dream of the Great White City in my heart.

Goodbye. Thanks for the great times and for helping me grow up. Let’s keep in touch, huh?

In support of flogging

It might surprise people to know there is still someone out there (me) who believes in the old-fashioned methods of criminal punishment (many of which are still in use in other civilized countries). I think that criminal penalties for felons should always involve public flogging, caning, and other types of painful punishment. I also believe U.S. prisons are far too nice and need to openly be made more unpleasant.

Why am I bringing up this subject? Because of the case of William Crutchfield, who two weeks ago shot his mail carrier seven times. Not because Crutchfield was upset at poor Earl Lazenby or at Lazenby's performance, or because Lazenby kept bringing him bills or because Lazenby had slept with his wife. Nope. Crutchfield was in debt up to his eyeballs and thought that being sent to federal prison for the rest of his life was a pretty square deal -- free food, shelter, and medical care for the rest of his life. And of course, one way to get thrown into federal prison is to kill a federal employee such as a mail carrier.

You know what this says to me? It says to me that our prisons are too damn nice. Or at least, our prisons are perceived as being too damn nice. Now, I know that prison life sucks. Anyone who's ever seen the HBO series "Oz," develops a profound and deep desire to stay the hell out of prison. But clearly, our prisons aren't scary enough to deter men like Mr. Crutchfield from thinking that it might be nice to go to prison.

So here's my idea: every prison sentence includes not an exercise room, or a library, or cable TV, but instead regular corporal punishments that are open to the public. I don't care if it's flogging, or caning, or branding or whatever. As long as it makes the criminal scream in pain and beg to be put to death, and as long as it makes spectators pale and vomit, it works for me.

But prison is a chance to rehabilitate the dregs of society, Drunken Pig, you say. They have no way of bettering themselves in the real world, and prison is a good opportunity to convince criminals to learn a trade, to get a GED, maybe even get a college degree.

Well, trust me, if you make prison unpleasant enough, a criminal will do whatever it takes when he gets out to better his life and make sure he never does anything to even make a cop glance his (or her) way.

Of course, the Eighth Amendment makes my idea completely illegal. Which is why this Amendment should be repealed. Sure, I hear the howls of outrage, but consider the general wording and you can already see why this is a stupid amendment:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Let me ask you something. Isn't punishment, by definition, supposed to suck? A punishment is suppsed to cause hardship, to cause pain, to cause distress -- to provide instant negative feedback to a criminal. "Yo, dickwad," a punishment says. "See what happens when you try to pull that shit? Don't do it again!" A good punishment makes it so the criminal will never want to commit a crime again, and convinces people who hear what happened to him decide to do anything to avoid going to jail.

Since the definition of cruel is "to cause pain or suffering" I think that a punishment, by definition, will always be cruel. But so what? Is anyone out there actually going to tell me that we don't need to punish our criminals? Didn't think so.

And if the punishment is unusual, what of it? Einstein was unusual. So was Picasso, Amadeus, and Gandhi. There's nothing wrong with being unusual, and if we can provide someone out there an outlet for his somewhat alarming creative urges, I think that's just icing on the cake.

I mean, fuck me. I didn't say anything when it was clear that prison didn't necessarily strike fear into the hearts of all Americans. But damnit, when it starts looking like an attractive option, it's clear that our prison system is presenting far too nice of an image to the world.

Boxer Girl

The Los Angeles Times has been running a five-part story this week about a little girl who trains to fulfill her dream about being a boxer. At risk of sounding like a condescending privileged liberal, this is a really fascinating story.

What interests me about the story is what Seniesa, the young girl, is getting out of boxing. According to the writer, it's all about building a better life for herself and giving her troubled but loving father an outlet and distraction from the troubles he's facing.

But what I see is a girl who's learned how to focus and to discipline herself to overcome difficulties -- qualities that have helped her become a top student in school. I also see that Seniesa, who has had many difficulties finding opponents, hasn't learned one of the great lessons that martial arts training teaches -- how to lose.

In the martial arts, you learn by getting hit. You learn how to take pain -- without letting it control you. You find the weakness in your reflexes and your techniques. And, perhaps most importantly, you learn how to come back from a loss.

Seniesa, because she can't find any opponents and thus rarely gets a fight, hasn't really learned that yet. I know that her troubled childhood and dangerous surroundings mean that she's already been exposed to the losing side of life already. But somehow, I don't think she's ever been shown what to do with a loss, and usually, the combative sports are a good avenue for learning this invaluable lesson. Today's installment features her losing a match -- and not in a very gracious manner. It's too bad none of her trainers apparently know how to teach herwhat can be learned from a loss.

I hope that I'll hear about her flourishing -- in whatever field she chooses -- 10 years from now.