Steve Arney's Open Salon Blog

The last First Tuesday

Mon, 2 Nov 2009 18:11:16 -0500

Dangerous idea: Getting nuked on the first Tuesday

By Steve Arney
A nuclear attack could occur at precisely 10 a.m. on the first Tuesday of the month. Our alert officials would not be able to warn us, because the alarm would already be going off during the routine test of the emergency siren.

People would hear the alarm. Look up. Think a second. They would say to themselves, Oh, 10 a.m. first Tuesday. They would walk on, oblivious to the danger. They wouldn't know to get to a shelter, or a home or a school or some other safe place. They wouldn't think about ducking under a table or desk and covering themselves to prevent injury.

They might see a bright flash and it wouldn't occur to them that an atomic bomb had exploded, because the routine emergency warning -- and the bombing -- both would be occurring at 10 a.m. on the first Tuesday of a month.

No one would duck and cover. No one would remember to put a coat or a newspaper over his head to protect himself from a bad burn -- worse than a sunburn -- from the atomic bomb. Kids wouldn't shield themselves by scrunching their heads against brick walls.

The unprotected people would get hurt. Some of them would get burned. Worse than a sunburn. Some of them would get cut by flying glass because they did not duck and cover.

In life, I'm `all in'

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:08:15 -0400

Gary Justis drawing, 2009 (used with permission)

By Steve Arney
OS Health Correspondent

I first learned about the Contour abs-sculpting device while waiting for the 2:05 a.m. airing of Poker After Dark. (Note: I am not a paid endorser of any product or show.)

I had long ago quit those painful crunches. In fact, my exercise regimen comprised walking down the block once daily for a fresh pack of cigarettes.

So, my eyes perked up at Contour. It looks like a belt a professional wrestler would wear, except not with the flashy faux gold in front. The belt sends pulses into the body to stimulate abs muscles. Once I learned that Contour was developed by Swiss medical professionals, I knew it would enhance my core.

Subsequently, I used Poker After Dark as a queue to work my abs while absorbing a game -- a sport -- that the cynics long ago had crazily dismissed as a fad in television viewing. My life never gets more exciting than, say, watching Mike "The Mouth" Matusow taking a big chance on a possible gut-shot straight or Phil Ivey slow-playing with pocket aces. Or dreaming about Lacey Jones -- if only she would look my way.

And ever notice how Erick Lindgren resembles Boomer Esiason? Bet the Bengals would have won the 1989 Super Bowl had Erick been quarterbacking.

More exciting than a Super Bowl play is seeing someone bet his entire pile of chips, going "All In," during one of these sports events. It seems to give my Contour-powered abs an extra twitch when one of the poker athletes says "All In." Do they practice saying it? I do, usually while watching myself in a mirror to detect the tells I'm exuding -- sometimes deliberately as a bluff.

I say it coyly, a nonchalant "all in" to convey that it's no big deal that I'm putting my life on the line on a cold bluff. Or an exuberant, terse "I'm All In," to say, "Do it. Call me. I'm tempting you, sucker." Or the somber "Allll Innn," a remark implying desperation having drawn queen-seven off-suit and not having enough chips left to compete without a little magic.

Magic.

Like the six-pack abs I've developed in the past half-year of poker spectatorship. The drawback is that Contour doesn't make a full-body vibrating belt. The rest of me remains a little flabby, although I've increased my exercise regimen by increasing my smoking hobby to two packs a day, requiring two walks to the gas station.

So far, I've only managed to sculpt my abs but I plan to bulk up my lower region after learning about the wonder of ExtenZe.

Becoming: A reinvention of self

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 01:03:50 -0400

This video is from "The Sunshine Underground," an art installation that explored the micro and the macro -- from a single cell to the universe. Posted with permission of artist Kasey Wells.

(Note to readers: This is a reposting, with edits and imbedded video.)

By Steve Arney

I am trying to be inconspicuous as I glance toward a young lady in my English class.

She is tiny and cute and beautiful. She looks really smart, and I bet she's funny once you get to know her. Maybe she is 20.

I remember thinking: I wish I had a daughter -- and one as cool as this kid.

Later that day, the first day of my return to college, I call my buddy Mary, a fellow laid-off journalist who helped inspire me to return to college to become a schoolteacher.

"How did I become 46?" I say with protest.

"I know," she said, laughing.

---

All day, I am living a recurring dream -- everything a surreal swirl. I take notes in class, but other than that it barely seems like I am there.

At 9:45 a.m., I had emerged from my house in time to see the city bus, about two blocks away, streaming toward its destination without me.

It produced one of those sinking feelings so familiar to me in my dreams: I am back in college and something is wrong. I can’t find my class. I can’t get to it. I’ve forgotten I’ve taken it. I am living in a dorm, and I can’t find my room. I am drunk. I have a final and I didn't study.

Having missed my bus in real life, I jump in my car and pop in the The Chemical Brothers CD with the song “The Sunshine Underground.” The song has been a life theme since it was incorporated into an art installation by the same name at the campus art gallery last summer.

The installation explored the vastness of the universe, the minuteness of its parts and all connections in between. After crawling inside of it, the cares and concerns of that which is outside dissolved, and time and reality were reshaped.

The installation signified the end of my journalism career. My write-up on it was the last major spread I did for the newspaper before I was laid off on July 1. But after that, I kept going back to "The Sunshine Underground," and it came to mean new beginnings.

---
I wait in line at a pay lot at Illinois State University; I nearly run out of gas. I am late and unsure of my class location, even though I have looked it up at least six times.

But I have arrived. The Chemical Brothers' song is pulsating in my Honda, reminding me that this is real. I am a college student, age 46, studying to become a teacher.
---
One morning a few weeks later, on my way to class, I run into an old colleague from the paper. On this morning, he was a guest speaker in a communications class.

We talk about how things are at the paper. Pay freezes, the defeat of the union drive, suspended 401k contributions, mandatory unpaid furloughs. I don't miss being there. And this is what the conversation means to me: It feels like he was on my territory. He is a visitor; I am not.

That day in class, the professor mentions that he wakes up at 4 in the morning, every day, by choice. "Weirdo," I say under my breath. My neighbor gives a nod. "I went to sleep at 2." Another knowing nod. I kinda fit.

---

Favorite thing I've learned: After Cherokee men abandoned the fur trade, they tried "raising" livestock. (Cherokee women farmed.) The men would buy livestock and turn them loose.

When they needed meat, they'd get out their guns and hunt their livestock. Hunting cattle in the forest.

(Perdue, Theda. Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835. Lincoln. University of Nebraska Press, 1998.)

---

Last night I worked on my friend's mayoral campaign. Then I did homework until 1:30 a.m. today. Slept until 7.

I hurry to uptown Normal for an open house. My congresswoman has opened an office.

The place is packed and I know most in the room: Sources from my newspaper days, labor leaders from my Newspaper Guild organizing days, McLean County Democrats from my new political activism days and a handful of fellow College Democrats from my new Illinois State University days.

I thank U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson for voting for the stimulus package. Then to campus, playing The Chemical Brothers CD.

Four classes make Wednesdays burdensome, but on my way to the last one the thought occurs: This doesn't feel surreal anymore.

I go home and take a five-hour nap -- from 5 to 10. Wake up and make coffee.

Finish the blog I started a month ago, with "The Sunshine Underground" playing in the backdrop of my laptop; everyone has laptops now. Still time for a couple hours of homework.

It feels strangely normal.

Hobby of a lifetime

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:03:31 -0400

I visited my doctor last week to talk to him about my smoking. After our heart to heart, I decided to switch to Lucky Strike. The toasted taste really enhances the pleasure I get from my hobby. It's less irritating than the non-toasted tobaccos.

---

My ex used to poke fun at my hobby. "Sitting and smoking ain't a hobby," she'd say. There's a lot more to it. Like this image. I studied computer-manipulated imagery to create it. I made it into a blacklight poster and sell it from a kiosk at the mall, along with belt buckles with tobacco leaf designs.

---

Smoking is a very social hobby. Met these three guys outside the gas station. They'd forgotten their IDs, so I had to make the purchase.

My hobby allows me to get out of the office on those cabin-fever days and catch up with my buddy Forrest. We communicate with nature on our breaks.

---

Forrest still smokes filtered cigarettes. I told him what my doctor said about Lucky Strike, but he's not budging.

---

The anti-smoking crowd says cigarettes take away from intimacy. Untrue. Forrest seems to be getting along great with his wife, Beatrice.

---

Now if only I find a woman like Beatrice, my life will be complete. I can see us on a beach, like these happy hobbyists.

The unforgettable Roland Burris

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 01:02:39 -0500

I met Roland Burris one day back in the 1990s. I did a story on some grant he was doling out to a service agency in downtown Bloomington, Ill.

It was a forgettable event -- so much so that I can't approximate the year, don't remember the agency, don't remember the grant. So forgettable that I didn't remember whether Burris was the comptroller or the attorney general at the time. (The New York Times biography on him tells me he was AG.)

What I remembered was: He was early and he did his little spiel early.

I was writing for the local paper, and I came on time. So I missed his forgettable talk. I grabbed a press release and caught him on his way out for a comment or two. He seemed anxious to leave. I filed a forgettable, short story for the next day's paper.

Here's why the memory is so vivid, even though the specifics aren't: It was the most politically inept showing by a statewide officeholder that I'd ever witnessed. On time is fine. A few minutes late is standard. A lot late is obnoxious.

But starting and finishing an event early -- an event for which the press is invited -- is politically unforgivable. I predicted then that the guy would not rise higher. He ran for senator, governor and mayor of Chicago. He kept losing. I didn't wonder.

Roland Burris' ambitions exceed his abilities. Our new senator is soft-spoken; kinda boring to be honest. But his ego and ambition, we see, are immense, and the result is that he's another national embarrassment for my state.

He told us he had nothing to do with the scandals of our Governor Blago. Then he admitted, yeah, Gov. Rod's brother the bagman had contacted him. Then he admitted, yeah, he was asked to raise money and, okay, he tried to raise money for our governor at a time when he sought a senate appointment from the governor.

In Illinois, we're pretty far beyond shockable when it comes to our politicians. For me, here's the least surprising part of Roland's story: He says he failed to raise any money for Gov. Rod.