Yesterday Tobi took the train  to the Dunes. When she got off of the train the Greek also got off. Although she had planned on walking to the house which is a hilly twenty minute walk, the Greek insisted on giving her a ride. As the people had finally got done cleaning Tobi's house she invited him in. Although I've known the Greek for  over a year and we are neighbors and I've been to his house plenty of  times he'd never been to Tobi's house. After he  told us about a recent health scare he'd had we closed up the windows and drove to Butchovich's place in South Chicago. It takes less time to get from the Dunes to Butchovich's house than it does to get to Butchovich's house to the bar. He's  got a great old place in an almost entirely hispanic neighborhood. There are two blocks which abut Calument park and the beach, and he has one of the nicest houses with a huge yard. He needs the yard because he's got six dogs that he has taken in over the years. For reasons known only to the assholes that abandon their dogs, there are always stray dogs  wondering in the park. Butchovich's  dogs range from tiny a poodle mix to a large shepherd and husky mix.
           Bob Starr is in town and joined us for BBQ ribs. Both Butchovich and Mona are great cooks and the food is always great.  Starr's been driving Madonna around on some strange odyssey. I didn't even know they knew each other. Madonna was married years ago to Benny Harrison, the original Second City bartender. Benny, who is now in his eighties,  married Frenchy's mom and is currently living in Paris. Starr hasn't heard much from his ex-wife , Lou . One of their kids, Jesse James Starr,  became a real outlaw and has been in pretty much every prison in California. I'd love to connect with Lou one of these days. Her current husband used to own a four star hotel in San Francisco, whether he still does I don't know.
          When I finally got to the bar Gracie said earlier in the day she saw Street Jimmy blocking traffic while a goose was leading it's goslings in the general direction of Lake Michigan. Why geese lay their eggs ten blocks away from water in a busy urban neighborhood suggests that some geese are a lot dumber than other geese. Good luck to the geese getting another six blocks through traffic before they reach the park.  Street Jimmy came in and sat down next to me and finagled a beer. After some lady from the board of A Red Orchid Theater asked me to sign a Sara Palin T shirt Jimmy asked me why she wanted my autograph.
         "Because she's smart, she knows someday it's going to be worth a lot of money."
         I went on to tell Jimmy that he should start practicing his autograph for when he becomes famous. "You could easily charge ten bucks for your autograph." This excited Jimmy so I had Timmy give us some paper and a pen and we started working on his autograph. He can spell Jimmy perfectly in cursive, but had a hard time with street even though I printed it in bold letters. After five minutes Jimmy seemed to be getting frustrated so I suggested that we work on it the following day.
         

          This morning I was late. Street Jimmy was waiting patiently. Faggypants was already there and he had already  let Jimmy sweep the cigarette  butts. Jimmy pointed at the Ale House Goose. "Some white boys were fuckin' with it las' night and they busted it up. Rudy saw them, too."
          As I inspected the vandalized goose I asked Jimmy if he knew who the white boys were?
         "They come out of the bar but I never seen 'em before. I was gonna bust the guy but then I didn't  wanna get in no trouble." Jimmy then told me how he saved the baby "ducks."
          Faggypants said that  he had a dreadful afternoon after he left the bar yesterday. Public transportation was all messed up and then he went to a scuzzy suburban movie theater and saw Men In Black which wasn't very good , and then he had to pay seven bucks for a taxi to take him home.
           "I did manage to swipe a pair of 3-D glasses so now I can sneak in 3-D movies."
          Because I wasn't going to get mixed up in Memorial Day traffic I decided to go to Flea Market instead of the Dunes. Faggypants wanted to go so he  could buy a cheap bike. Tobi also wanted to go, and then Gracie decided she wanted to go, too. This is all well and good just so long as we don't buy anything big, such as a bike. When I pointed this out Faggypants said  he'd ride the bike back to the bar. I'll never go to the Flea Market on a holiday again. Hardly any vendors were there. Of course Faggypants was half in the bag and I had to do all of the negotiations for his bike. Even after both Gracie and I told him to keep his mouth shut while I negotiated he invariably chimed in and pissed the vendor off. I told him he was going to get a knife in the gut if he kept annoying everyone. We finally got a bike for thirty dollars. Faggypants loved it. It was an old fashioned white Mercury with a quaint three speed gear shift. The Mexican I bought it from could speak no english so we had to do a lot of adding with our fingers. Of course Faggypants was in no condition to ride a bike from 43 and Ashland back to the North Side so Tobi and he had to squeeze into one of the back seats in order to fit the bike into my Honda. Poor Tobi had  to listen to him all the way back to the bar. After Faggypants locked his  antique bike to the bike rack next to the bar Gracie and Tobi went off to lunch, Faggypants went off to who knows where, and I went home for a nap.