Weekly Wilson

Just letting you know that my review of HELLFIRE AND DMANATION is now up at http://www.fright.com/edge/HellfireAndDamnation.htm

–Best,
Adam Groves
On&off Productions

HELLFIRE & DAMNATION
By CONNIE CONCORAN WILSON (Sam’s Dot Press; 2009)

In horror fiction, as in most any other sort, true originality is an increasingly rare commodity.  But it does exist, as proven by Connie Wilson’s HELLFIRE AND DAMNATION, an anthology that is genuinely, blazingly original.

The collection is rigorously structured around the nine circles of Hell as laid out in Dante’s INFERNO, yet the contents couldn’t be more varied in subject matter.  What unites them is the unerringly rational, straightforward prose, which is unlike anything else in horror fiction (usually typified by subjective “you-are-there” descriptions).  Stylistically it’s not unlike Wilson’s previous book GHOSTLY TALES OF ROUTE 66, a journalistic compendium of American folklore that was likewise distinguished by its novelty.  HELLFIRE AND DAMNATION, however, far outpaces the earlier volume in every respect.

“Hotter Than Hell,” categorized under the Gates of Hell, starts things off.  Inspired by the final words of real death row inmates, it’s a gritty and depressing account of prison life.

From there we move into the first circle of Hell, where Pagan souls reside.  Illustrating this is “Rachel and David,” set in Webster Groves, Missouri, and apparently based on folklore from that region.  It’s about a young couple and their fateful meeting with two odd kids.

In Circle Two, Lust, we have three stories.  The first, “Love Never Dies,” is a strange little number set in ancient Rome and headlined by an undead prostitute!  “Konerak” takes a real-life incident, of the man who almost escaped the clutches of the late Jeffrey Dahmer, and spins a wild tale of Oriental sorcery emerging from the Hmong of Laos, who fought for the United States against the Viet Cong (obviously this is the only place you’ll find Eastern mysticism, Jeffrey Dahmer and the Vietnam War combined).  “Effie, We hardly Knew Ye!” is another folklore-based tale, this one of an Oklahoma City hotel haunted by the spirit of its founder’s wronged mistress.

Circle Three is Gluttony, as represented by “Amazing Andy, the Wonder Chicken.”  In this tale a chicken gets its head cut off and still lives–and I’ll leave you to discover the rest of it on your own.

From there it’s on to the circle of Hoarders and Wasters, with “The Lemp Mansion Curse,” a jaunty account of a family curse, and “Queen Bee,” about an all-too appropriate revenge taken on a woman whose personality and social standing are accurately encompassed by the title.

Circle Five is the Wrathful.  It contains “The Ghost Girl of Howard “Pappy” Litch Park,” set along the author’s favorite highway, Route 66.  Here, in what may or may not be a fact-based tale, a father’s wrath causes his young daughter to be whisked away…but glimpses of the girl can of course still be seen in the area.

Heretics populate the Sixth Circle, containing the quietly unnerving “Hell to Pay.”  It combines a look into Amish life with an intriguing speculation on the origins of schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis.  Also in the Heretics circle is “On Eagles’ Wings,” concerning a weird cultist, a young girl and an unhealthy obsession with birds.

Circle Number Seven is reserved for The Violent.  It begins with “Going Through Hell,” about a serial killer and his woman police officer victim, and continues with “Living in Hell,” about a young boy who visualizes a serial killer’s crimes in nightmares.  This tale is particularly shivery: the concept isn’t terribly original, but the nasty subject matter and clinical prose make for a skin-crawling read.

Circle Eight consists of The Fraudulent, represented by “Confessions of an Apotemnophile.”  That word refers to an person desiring to amputate his own limbs, in this case a man who’s harbored an all-consuming desire to lose his legs ever since conversing with a like-minded individual as a child.

Circle Nine is the final circle, featuring “An American Girl,” the collection’s creepiest story.  Its subject is the factual murder of a teenage girl in snowy Illinois, with the bulk of the tale taken up with a methodical depiction of the pubescent killers’ attempts at disposing of the corpse.

You won’t find another collection like this one.  Some readers, I’m sure, will be put off by its oddness, yet it fulfills most every expectation one might have for a horror anthology, being readable, entertaining and deeply unsettling in a manner unique to itself.

FBI Investigators are looking into the activities of retiring Rock Island County Clerk Richard Leibovitz and his office. Leibovitz has been in office 22 years. A probe of the Rock Island County Clerk’s office is long overdue. The current charges stem from Mr. Leibovitz’s profiting through  companies he founded,   (he  is registered with the Illinois Secretary of State as President of  American Election Systems, Inc.),  but Mr. Leibovitz never disclosed this business on required forms. Brad Ware of the FBI office would neither confirm nor deny reports of the investigation into illegal practices in the Rock Island County Clerk’s office.

Richard Leibovitz didn’t feel it was necessary to help a first-time office aspirant (i.e., me)  in any way, shape or form, either. He gave me inaccurate information about how to challenge a vote I knew to be bogus, a vote after a very close primary election that changed dramatically overnight and was announced as a “fait accompli” for the incumbent in the morning papers.

The incumbent was actually proven to have lost the popular vote during a recount. (It’s never a good sign when you leave your own “victory” party in tears, as Helen Heiland did.) County Clerk Leibovitz did his best to derail the challenge to 1^st Ward incumbent Helen Heiland,  every step of the way.

It was the rigged absentee ballots that tipped the scale in Helen Heiland’s favor, so that she could remain in office to this day, where she has been instrumental in supporting  the ambulance service that East Moline residents do not want and also is a member of the City Council that recently failed to get the downtown area of East Moline placed on “the Loop.” [The Loop is a  recently- announced  new diesel bus service which will  transport tourists around the loop of the Quad Cities…but not to East Moline. ](It’s now accurate to say, of East Moline, “We’re out of the loop.”)

I’m sure the business owners of downtown East Moline are really happy about that development, courtesy of incumbent Mayor John Thodos, 1^st Ward Alderperson Helen Heiland, et. al. Heiland and Thodos ran as a team and spent massive amounts of money with a firm in Iowa that campaigned for George W. Bush, all in the service of a very dirty campaign against popular incumbent Mayor Joe Moreno (who probably was also railroaded, but would have had a harder time  proving it.) Since then, Ms. Heiland has whined in print letters to the editor about not succeeding John Gianulis as County Democratic Chairman, despite the fact that Gianulis retired due to the ravages of old age, and Helen Heiland is not far behind him chronologically.

Now, during the heat of a three-way race for Richard “Dick” Leibovitz’s seat, a race between Larry Toppert, Nick Leibovitz (son of the incumbent), and Karen Kinney (scheduled to go before voters in a February 2^nd primary), comes the news that Liebovitz has been profiting mightily from his position as County Clerk over his 22 years in office. Invoices that bear Chris Leibovitz’s name (his son) have surfaced. Son Nick, who works in the County Clerk’s office  has been using campaign signs with just his surname in his bid to succeed his father. He was featured on tonight’s Channel 6 news reading haltingly from a typed statement about “restoring his good name and reputation.” At least he was reading—partially thanks to me. And one assumes, since he works for his father in the office, that he can also write (more thanks to his English teachers.) Perhaps I should have given the young Leibovitz boys poor instruction,  rather than working hard and honestly as I did for 17 and 1/2 years in the Silvis Public Schools, only to be given  poor and dishonest service (as my reward) by my elected county clerk, their father. (And the public wonders why teachers quit!)

Leibovitz’s company markets an Auto Poll Book, according to a website, and it is described as a computerized tool to make it easier for election officials to look up voters. Whether federal HAVA money was used to develop it will be determined. One thing is for certain:

The voters that were being looked up during my one-time-only run against long-time incumbent Helen Heiland were mostly “the lame, the halt and the blind.” If the voter was near death, someone in the incumbent’s camp raced out to get the nearly-dead to sign an  absentee ballot.  Some of those absentee voters, to whom I personally spoke, (who were undergoing chemotherapy at the time and were not totally “with it.”)  had little or no idea what it was that they had ostensibly signed. The count announced for absentee voters was totally wrong, and I knew this going in, since I was given almost no absentee votes, when my entire family group had voted for me absentee and totaled more than the number the Clerk’s office wished to give me credit for; and there were others, as a door-to-door search with an attorney to notarize their statements later proved. However, when each and every voter, who has signed a notarized statement that they voted for you, is required to show up in a courtroom the very next morning, with no time to subpoena and no time for some to return to town and some too infirm to leave their homes, the deck is stacked.

So, this was your County Clerk’s office in action under incumbent Richard Leibovitz for the last several years, years dating back to 1988. Rock Island County Board Chairman Jim Bohnsack has been subpoenaed to appear in Peoria on February 27th before a Federal Grand Jury to testify in the ongoing investigation.

One area of concern is  the possible  of federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) grant money by Leibovitz to develop computer software which his private company then marketed and sold for a profit, according to assertions made by Larry Toppert, who is currently running for Leibovitz’s seat.

There are invoices bearing Chris Leibovitz’s name and checks written to American Elections, Inc. dated between April and October of 2008, although the company was allegedly dissolved on September 7, 2007. [American Elections Systems, Inc., was incorporated on May 19, 2009.] The HAVA funds were established in 2002 to aid states in improving the running of federal elections. They distribute millions in grant money each year and those funds are distributed to counties for use in improving their election processes. If my experience is typical, the funds were used to keep the rightfully elected out of office and maintain the status quo desired by then-incumbent Democratic County Chairman John Gianulis, now retired.

According to Friday’s Quad City Times, state records list three officers and directors for American Election Systems, Inc.: Richard Leibovitz; his son Christopher of Lenox, Illinois (listed as director); and James Harmening of Orland Park, Illinois, company secretary.  Harmening is also president of a Chicago-based information technology company called Computer Bits, Inc., which has provided “consulting services” to the County Clerk’s office. Computer Bits, Mr. Harmening’s company, was paid $48,969 since 2008 by Rock Island County, including $35,280 in federal grant funds.

When I ran against 1^st Ward (East Moline) Alderperson Helen Heiland, there were numerous documented irregularities in the election. In fact, Democratic insiders (who know the story to be true) told me at the DNC in Denver, on condition of anonymity, that it was quite well-known (behind-the-scenes) that strings were pulled to defeat me when I had actually won.  Absentee votes were the weapon of choice, although there were also irregularities at both polling places, including 3 people entering the voter’s booth together, in one instance.

I had run as a newcomer to politics, a naïve idealistic person who thought that elections in Rock Island County would be run fairly. I soon found out differently, as I went door-to-door speaking with every single absentee vote cast and uncovering fraud at many levels, including a non-existent male voter at one duplex in East Moline where the young girl who answered my question about whether someone with this name had voted absentee from this address told me, “Oh, nobody by that name lives here. Only my mom and I live here, and she wouldn’t vote absentee because she works for John Gianulis at the Courthouse.” (Interesting).

Then there were the people bussed in from the retirement home that is not in my district (two of them the parents of the man who was then Kaplan College’s President) and those voters whose absentee ballots were secured while they were dying or close to death.

When I decided to challenge, I had to work with the County Clerk’s office. First, I was given wrong information about how long I had to file a challenge. I was told in a phone call to come file much later than the deadline. Luckily, I followed my instincts and went down immediately.

When I showed up, in person, to secure the necessary paperwork, the form was mysteriously unavailable and they offered to “mail it” to me. (They said they had to “retype” it).  I asked for the form and told them I’d retype it myself. Ir was after this that I really learned how low the Clerk’s office would really stoop  to defeat someone that then- Democratic County Chairman Gianulis had decided was not going to be allowed to win.  I was given paperwork that contained the wrong statutes. It was by the merest of coincidences that I ran into a lawyer friend on the way home, who, in looking over the challenging petition, informed me that I had been given paperwork with all the wrong statutes. If I had filed them as they were given to me, the challenge would have been thrown out on a technicality.

I was able to file the correct paperwork with the corrected statues but no thanks to the County Clerk of Rock Island County. All election experts in the state told me I must gain access to the absentee ballots because “that’s where they cheat.” Mr. Leibovitz  refused to give me the list of absentee voters (where the cheating mainly took place) and made this verbal refusal while television cameras turned. (I had to ultimately hire Nelson, Keys and Keys Law Firm and get a court order to secure the absentee voters’ names).

I was particularly shocked to be treated so dishonestly and so uncooperatively by the clerk’s office, as I taught at least one of Mr. Leibovitz’s sons in school when a teacher at Silvis Junior High School.

This is your current Rock Island County Clerk’s office in action, Folks. If you want more of the same….(finish that thought).

Today’s Quad City Times front page (January 13, 2010) has a story entitled “Downtown Districts Will Be in the Loop.” The article  touts a fleet of low-emission diesel buses slated to take tourists to all the Quad City downtown districts. The service, using “spiffy, low-floor, low-emission diesel buses” was to be unveiled on Thursday, January 14, at the Quad Cities’ Transportation Advocacy Group’s public forum.

Joe Taylor, President of the Quad Cities’ Convention & Visitors Bureau is quoted as saying, “The Loop will allow the Quad Cities to function as a unit.” That sounds good until the route is released and it specifically excludes downtown East Moline, which is struggling, to be sure, but will not be helped by a bus service that totally bypasses it.

According to the article, the circulator will run between the downtowns of Bettendorf, Davenport, Moline and Rock Island. The Village of East Davenport also will be on the route, says the article, and 2 buses will run in one direction while 2 run the other for a fare of $1 per ride or $3 for an all-day pass.

Becky Passman, Iowa Quad City transit coordinator with the Bi-State Regional Commission of Rock Island is quoted this way: “We really think it is going to be a hit with visitors. If you are from out of town, you don’t need to know anything about how to get there. Just hop on The Loop.”

I applaud the idea, in theory. I simply feel that it is a low blow to exclude East Moline’s downtown area, and I wonder why East Moline’s leadership (Mayor, City Council) have not lobbied harder to make East Moline part of The Loop.  I also wonder(ed) why diesel vehicles were selected,  at a cost of $836,808 received through grant moneys. Why not hybrids, which would seem more progressive in eliminating emissions?

Mayor Richard Daley’s 2010 budget hole is something like $520 million, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune. What to do, given the fact that Chicago already has the highest taxes in the country (10.25%) and experienced a –17% plummeting of hotel tax revenue?

The answer from the Mayor, expected to propose a $6.14 billion budget (up from $5.97 in 2009) is to raise the money from the unpopular parking meter 75-year lease, taking $370 million to shore up the leaking financial situation and (drum roll here, please) to sink the annual Venetian Night Parade that his father established when Mayor in 1959. The annual event only survived this year because it was bailed out, financially, at the last minute by Red Bull. It costs $100,000 for the fireworks and $200,000 for the policement, firemen, porta-potties and other things necessary to control a lakefront crowd of half-a-million people.

Some, like Scott Baumgartner of the Chicago Yachting Association, feel that the Mayor’s proposal is premature. Baumgartner released a statement: “We still feel strongly that we can do this event.  It’s a tradition we would be very reluctant to let go of.” (That’s a Yachting Association guy talking, for you.)

Baumgartner actually had some support for the Alderman of my ward, 2nd Ward Alderman Robert Fioretti who said (in a “Tribune” article), “We shouldn’t cut off our nose to spite our face. (*Don’t blame me for the cliched expression. Fioretti said it) We need to keep attracting people to Chicago.  Wasn’t that the real purpose of the Olympic bid? …It’s clearly a big draw.”

Yes, Venetian Night has been a big FREE draw, with over 500,000 people taking their kids and their lawn chairs to the lakefront to watch the decorated boats float by. This year, my husband and I set up on the hill across from the Shedd Aquarium early, and if the fates allow, you’ll be able to see some photos of what may well be the very last Venetian Night right here on WeeklyWilson.

The current Mayor Daley’s Special Events Director, Megan McDonald, in discussing how the popular regatta that attracted over half a million people this year was targeted for extinction said, “It’s more than just boats and nice fireworks. It’s being able to accommodate half-a-million people on the lakefront.” It should also be noted that the Jazz Festival is being cut from 3 days to 2, and many events are being moved to the Pritzker Pavilion from Grant Park. Also, some local festivals and arts spending will come under fire.

The 52^nd annual Venetian Night was held on July 27^th this year, and I was there.
R.I.P., Venetian Night.

East Moline’s “Fright Night” festivities (4 to 7 p.m., October 23, Friday) were miserable, with a light drizzle and cold temperatures. Fortunately, I was allowed to share the tent that the pumpkin carver set up. He was carving pumpkins and selling chances on them.

I set up my table next to his and decorated with a “Ghostly Welcome” carving, a jar of candy, and a large spider web, complete with spider. The young ghosts and ghouls and goblins of East Moline trickled by our blue tent, which was in danger of blowing down at any minute.  I felt sorry for the event’s organizers, who had to contend with lousy weather.

People who drifted by my table told me they had heard me “live” on WOC-AM and heard the book signing mentioned on WLLR radio. There was a headshot in the events area of the “Quad City Times” calendar, a small two-paragraph article in the Arts & Entertainment section of the Sunday “Dispatch,” and I had a nice tablemate, Dean Klinkenberg from St. Louis, who was selling his two travelogue books on the Quad Cities and LeClaire.

If you came by, thanks. If you bought a book, double thanks. If you WANT to buy a book, go to www.ghostlytalesofroute66.com and use the Pay Pal option or dial the 800 number of Quixote Press (1-800-571-2665). Price of the book is $9.95 (plus postage and handling).

On Thursday, October 15, 2009, humorist/writer David Sedaris visited Davenport, Iowa’s Adler Theater to share his musings on jury trials, breast milk, condoms, and our “God-given right to mimeograph.” He lived up to Toronto Globe & Mail writer Bill Richardson’s assessment: “He’s smart, he’s caustic, he’s mordant, and, somehow, he’s well, nice.”

Sedaris has the unique vocal rendering(s) of Truman Capote before him, and, yes, both were openly gay. Hear Sedaris read just one time on NPR, where his career blossomed, and you won’t forget the tone. It’s one of the lovable eccentricities of the man that you learn to like, just as you learn to make your peace with his aversion to having his picture taken.

Sedaris has a way with words. When he describes his son, Todd, as being “the artistic one in the family” and goes on to describe him as having “a useless degree in dance history,” audience members smile with recognition. Everyone has someone in his or her family with a useless degree in something. We can all relate. Some of Sedaris’ sharing is painful, tinged with a deep pathos that gives his humor greater humanity and, with it, greater emotional weight. Whether it’s the needless cruelty that man inflicts on man or his mother’s drinking problem or his own dalliance with drugs back in the day, Sedaris has suffered and it shows in his writing. His humor is a shield and he wields it with bravado.

This night, Sedaris vamped his way through the acronym A.S.S.H.O.L.E. (don’t ask) and what it stands for in a boundary-pushing way that has garnered him 3 Grammy nominations for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album(s). With 7 million books in print in 25 languages, the 2001 Thurber Prize for American Humor and Time magazine’s anointing him Humorist of the Year, it’s pretty clear, as the San Francisco Chronicle put it, “Sedaris belongs on any list of people writing in English at the moment who are revising our ideas about what’s funny.”

On Thursday night in Davenport, Iowa, the funny bits that amused me were about jury duty, possibly because of my own experiences on several coroners’ juries in Illinois. He describes his late mother, Sharon, saying to him, “How can you not want to sit in judgment of your fellow man?” and “Whoever thought a gun could be so tedious?” Reminiscing about a defendant in the trial he drew who had been knifed three times, the line that resonates is “If you’re the type that everybody stabs, maybe you need to make some fundamental changes.” As a member of a jury himself, Sedaris couldn’t quit fixating on the fact that the defendant was wearing “a cross the size you’d reach for if you wanted to crucify a hamster.” The image is vintage Sedaris.

We were treated to Sedaris’ ramblings about depictions of a soulful Jesus on the cross and how easy that is. He pines for an obese, repulsive, balding, Jesus with “fur-covered man titties”…a vision he ultimately referred to as “comb-over Jesus.”

Sedaris’ irreverent observations had the nearly full house amused and laughing throughout. He was kind enough to not only plug his own books which, this night, were his newest (When You Are Engulfed in Flames), but also his best ones of years past, such as 1997’s Naked, 2000’s Me Talk Pretty One Day, and 2004’s Dress Your Family in Corduroy, but also to plug Our Dumb World from The Onion and a book he is currently reading while on the road for 34 days, Everything Ravaged; Everything Burned. Sedaris says he actually enjoys meeting his fans. He doesn’t get a day off until after Day 33 on the road, tours which he typically does on a certain schedule that takes him away from his home in France, where he lives near Normandy with partner Hugh Hamrick. This day, he praises the Davenport YMCA for its kindness and hospitality in letting him swim laps in its pool, (which he must have done less than four hours before show time, because he had not yet checked in at 3:30 p.m. and the show was at 8 p.m.)

A bit of research into how Sedaris got his start (above and beyond his autobiographical tales in the books) reveals that, while living in Chicago, Ira Glass heard him reading aloud from his diaries at a Chicago club. (*Note to self: find out what Chicago club and go read excerpts from Both Sides Now!)

Sedaris was invited by Glass to read Santaland Diaries on the radio. The humorous essays described his experiences working as an elf at Macy’s at Christmas-time and debuted on NPR on December 23, 1992 on “The Morning Edition.” From that start, he has never looked back. Sedaris himself has said, “I owe everything to Ira…My life just changed completely, like someone waved a magic wand.”

Sedaris typically writes about his family members, one of whom is Amy Sedaris, formerly of Saturday Night Live. Amy and David have worked together writing plays as the Talent Family. This night, however, when an audience member practically cooed, “How cool is Amy, your sister,” David seemed less-than-thrilled with the over-the-top enthusiasm for his sister that the audience member was projecting. He acknowledged the comment without joining the love fest. He also said he was not writing about his brother, currently, because his brother loves being written about and owes him money. He told us that he is writing a book with animals, similar to fables (one was read aloud) and that he was collecting stories about rudeness from his audience.

I wrote Mr. Sedaris a fan letter (only the second of my life) after completing When You Are Engulfed in Flames and he wrote back from France. I don’t think he will consider it a violation of this private (and unexpected) correspondence if I share with you that, on a tour of the Hastings Bookstore chain in the Southwest he was placed in the Christian fiction section for his reading. Anyone who knows of Sedaris’ past brushes with drugs (now, he doesn’t even smoke regular cigarettes) or his open homosexuality has to smile at the thought of him delivering his material in the Christian fiction section of any bookstore, just as the audience this night laughed outright at his tale of wheeling an entire cart full of condoms (to give to his readers as gifts) through the aisles of a CostCo store accompanied by his 59-year-old brother-in-law.

After the evening’s performance, which was a great success, at least 100 of us waited in line patiently for 3 hours to shake David Sedaris’ hand…but only after we were offered hand de-sanitizer (probably not a bad idea in these times of H1N1 flu pandemics). [Let New Yorkers attempt to wait so patiently and so politely for so long!) The evening’s artist seemed in no hurry to brush off any of the hundred or so fans who waited it out until nearly 1:00 A.M.

I heard him ask the young couple ahead of me if they were married. They told him of their plans to marry next October. I turned to my line-mate and said, “Well, I had been married for nearly 42 years before I made my husband wait 3 hours outside in the lobby tonight. But that’s ancient history now.” They laughed. [Maybe some Ira Glass/David Sedaris person will recognize my wit and talent and launch me on a reading career of my own humorous essays (I’m very good at it, after years spent reading to 7^th graders who couldn’t read well for themselves; I always loved performing “The Night the Bed Fell on Father.”) Ah, if life were only so simple, she said to herself with a sigh. Maybe budding humorists like me should sing a chorus of “Put Me In, Coach. I’m Ready to Play. Today.” Or not. One never knows. I did almost perform a limbo along about Hour Two, in an attempt to shimmy under the metal restraining line to give my long-suffering husband the funny Onion book I had bought.

Earlier, the woman from Cedar Falls who gave up and left early tried to give it to him for me. She came back and told me there was no man with a red umbrella sitting in the lobby, which gave me pause. The cab situation in downtown Davenport is not like that in Chicago, and I was across the river from home. (Later, when placated with reading material given him after my daring limbo dance—which, at my age, could be described my as death-defying limbo dance—he lightened up a little, but I kept seeing one man’s angry face, a swarthy fellow, appearing at the door and mouthing the words to his wife in line, “Hurry up!” (How, exactly, was the poor woman supposed to do this, I wondered? Was she to trample us in a mad rush to the front, like Mad Cows set loose in a pasture? At least my husband merely left the building. And me. But he did return.)

When I finally made it to the front of the line to get the author’s autograph on 3 books and to tell him my “rude” story, I was not sure if Mr. Sedaris remembered my letter that prompted his personal response, or if he realized I was the woman who had left him the books at his hotel (difficult to tell whether that was a bad move or a good move, since the novel has, as its protagonist, a time-traveling rock star, for which I will be eternally remorseful, and a cover of a naked couple that generally catches your eye for all the wrong reasons.) He asked my name. Was I a complete mystery, then? There are multiple pictures of me in the books, so he must have already round-filed them. David (if I may use his first name) was friendly, but not effusively so. He offered me hand sanitizer as I went totally blank on my own name, while struggling to open the small bottle of gel. I’ve never used hand sanitizer. Just as I poured a huge glob of this stuff into my open palm (think KY Jelly, with which I am much more familiar), he extended his hand for me to shake. My timing, as usual, stinks.

I began my rude story of being sold out by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who not only lied to me in print (an e-mail of August 25), but also lied to my face, ruining an expensive (over $3,000) trip to the Hawaii Writers’ Conference and destroying my faith in “getting it in writing,” since I had gotten “it” in writing and the man still flat-out lied to my face. For some reason (Nerves? Stress?) I was suddenly overcome with the emotion of retelling the sad episode that still has not resolved itself, financially or emotionally. As I finished my story, I almost choked up at telling it so soon after it had occurred. I felt like a complete dork as I said, “So I don’t like that author any more.” David Sedaris, in his distinctive voice, looking sympathetic, responded, “Well, then, I don’t like him any more, either.”

Now you see where the “nice” comment comes from. Here’s another with which the audience on Thursday night agreed, as articulated by the Chicago Tribune: “Sedaris’ droll assessment of the mundane and the eccentrics who inhabit the world’s crevices make him one of the greatest humorists writing today.”

Amen to that!

Last winter, in North Side Chicago, Republic Windows abruptly closed, leaving its employees in the lurch. The employees, led by their union representatives, refused to leave the premises, demanding that they be paid and saying that they were not given appropriate notice of management’s intent to close the plant. They refused to leave the premises and they refused to let the managers back into their offices.
That last bit of bravado in the case that received national attention is now turning out to be instrumental in what, according to Annie Sweeney and Matthew Walberg of the Chicago Tribune (front page, Friday, September 11, 2009), has turned out to be an unbelievably greedy and self-serving plan by Republic Windows CEO Richard Gillman to take the company’s equipment, transfer it secretly to Red Oak, Iowa, and continue being a window company…just not one that paid its employees for services rendered nor did anything else the “right” way.

Richard Gillman has been arrested and is being held on $10 million bail in the Cook County Jail. Prosecutors say, in a 56-page filing, that Gillman stole the assets of Republic Windows and then secretly trucked the equipment to the rural town of Red Oak, Iowa (population 6,000), where Gillman took over a company that had been in existence since 1986.

Ted Schoonover, the Mayor of Red Oak, whose wife was one of the employees of the window company, said that Gillman and Company then shut plant in Iowa down suddenly in February of 2009, throwing about 100 people in Red Oak out of work, 25% of whom are still unemployed. Said Schoonoever, in the Tribune 9/11 issue, “It was a very viable business. That’s why it was such a shock. It was pretty devastating, especially the way the economy was. To lose 100 some jobs in that economy was pretty tough.”

Gillman had taken over the Red Oak location, which was named Echo, on January 1^st, 2009, and he had promised to keep things running.

If the charges hold up in a court of law, Richard Gillman will not only have defrauded the employees of Republic Windows, but also those of Echo Windows in Red Oak, Iowa. Investigators have credited the Republic Windows employees who occupied the building, drawing national attention to the plight of the workers and those owed money by the company, [which added up to about $10 million to creditors (and employees) and more than $200,000 in cash that management misappropriated] with preventing management from re-entering the building and destroying the evidence that will now be used to (hopefully) convict them.

Management also loaded up 7 trailers and stored them at a secret location on the South Side of Chicago (Republic’s plant is on the North Side). Three of those trailers were driven to Red Oak. (Employees actually followed the trucks removing equipment, to see where it was being taken). Investigators have seized those trailers still at the South Side site as part of a search warrant executed on Wednesday, September 10, 2009.

The lengthy prosecution case rests on internal documents (those that were not able to be destroyed because the workers had taken the plant), including a Power Point presentation entitled, “How do you plug a $4 million hole?”

The sit-in drew national attention. The sit-in had support from politicians and officials from the banks that had lent Republic money to hammer out a solution with its disgruntled (and unpaid) employees. Eventually, the banks agreed to cover the costs of union workers’ severance pay and vacation pay, as well as 2 months’ of insurance for the shafted workers. It is reported that, at those meetings, Richard Gillman asked for a severance package for himself as well as a $90,000 allowance for his automobile.

Gillman’s attorney, Ed Genson, says that Gillman has “nothing to hide” regarding the sudden shuttering of Republic Windows, which makes you wonder how secretly raiding the equipment and till of the now-bankrupt company can be something that will speak in Gillman’s favor? Hiding 7 tractor-trailers of equipment across town and then secretly moving then to a new location to start a similar business (which closed within 2 months) doesn’t seem quite “kosher.” Genes, Gillman’s attorney, maintains, however, that GE (the company that held the plant equipment as collateral) knew the equipment was being removed. Said Genson: “We have the guy who notified GE. They knew the stuff wasn’t being stolen. It wasn’t a diversion of assets. GE knew they were doing it.”

This may be true, but it does not speak to the failure to properly compensate the Republic employees, nor to honor the word given to the city fathers of Red Oak when Gillman launched Echo Windows. Prosecutors have what they refer to as “the smoking gun,” a document that lays out the plan to spirit the equipment away without the knowledge of creditors. The term used by company management in “the smoking gun” plan: “blitz” moves. (Certainly sounds like an up-and-up operation.)

Interestingly enough, Ed Genson, Richard Gillman’s attorney said: “He (former Republic CEO Gillman) gave a statement to the Bankruptcy Court without a lawyer.  He gave a statement to the attorney general without a lawyer, and he gave a statement to state’s attorney without a lawyer. He hasn’t been stonewalling. He did it because he has nothing to hide.” (A cynical reader is tempted to say, “Either that, or he made a very stupid series of statements.”)
(*Stay tuned for further developments as the case moves through the courts. And please feel free to comment.)

Eight of them, silhouetted against the paddlewheel steamboat…four boys, four girls.

They slouch there, ill-at-ease in their unaccustomed finery.

The I74 bridge looms behind them in the distance.

One girl, chilled by the spring breeze, wears her date’s jacket slung casually around her shoulders.  She stares at the ground.  Is she thinking about the night ahead? Is she thinking about the future, as she shivers, clutching her evening bag?

“Are we grown? Are we ready?”

The blond athletic-looking boy in the white Saturday Night Fever suit and white shoes wears a turquoise tie and matching handkerchief.  He coordinates with his date’s turquoise strapless formal.

Willl they always be this in tune with each other, this harmonious?  Are they a couple only for now, only for tonight, only at this moment in time?

He squints, staring at the camera.

“Are we grown? Are we ready? Are we having fun yet?”

What lies across that bridge…across the Mississippi River…across time?

What does the future hold when Prom night ends?

“Are we grown? Are we ready?

In youth, the future stretches out forever, spins on like an endless ribbon, an eternity of time, an infinite river of days and nights and dances and dates.  But this is Prom night, and the end of high school is near.

“Are we grown? Are we ready?”

The sign reads: “Please do not feed the waterfowl.”

If only there were other signs.  Signs to instruct.  Signs to warn about the future.

For now, it is just “Please do not feed the waterfowl.”

(Public reading at either the Midwest Writing Center or in the Rock Island District at 7 p.m. on Thursday, October 22nd. I will be present with copies of 3 of my previous books: “Both Sides Now” (some poetry included); “Ghosts of Route 66″ (Vol I); and “Out of Time,” a novel.)

Some musings from Chicago, where much is happening.
First of all, Harry Belafonte is in town tomorrow night (Saturday, August 1^st) at the Gene Siskel Theater in honor of a Film Noir fifties movie he made many years ago. How cool is that?
Second, the Chicago Cinema is planning a “salute” to Quentin Tarantino for fall. He will bring his misspelled movie (Inglourious Basterds) to Chicago and there will be a film montage of his more famous films. Only problem is the cost, which, at the low end, is $50 for the film alone and at the higher end is about 3 times that for the complete social night out.

Third, a review by Art Winslow of a book entitled Methland by Nick Reding (Bloomsbury, 255 pages, $25) is set in Oelwein, Iowa, 12 miles from my old hometown. The title of the section 3 article on Thursday, July 30 in the Chicago Tribune was “How Drugs Destroyed an American Community.” I’ve ordered the book, so I’ll report more on it in the future.

Fourth, apparently The Dead Weather, the new Jack White (The White Stripes) band, played here at the Vic just a few nights ago. Those who want to know more about this band, made up from members of The Killers, Queens of the Stone Age, and, of course, the White Stripes, can access my comments on their new CD, “Horehound” and on their first ever concert in New York in April by going to it on www.associatedcontent.com.

Four restaurants in 3 hours for $50. Four drinks, four signature dishes. One birthday celebration. No parking woes (a trolley for 30).

Restaurant Number One: Gioco’s in the South Loop at 1312 S. Wabash (Ph 312-939-3870). Check out their sunday brunch and their home-made Italian ices.

Restaurant Number Two: The Red Light (Asian/fusion) at 820 W. Randolph (Ph 312-733-8880). Try the signature martini.

Restaurant Number Three:  Marche (French/American) at 833 W. Randolph (Ph 312-226-8399).

Restaurant Number Four: Opera (Chinese/Asian) at 1301 S. Wabash (Ph 312-461-0161). Try their Italian ices and the crystal prawns. Tonight’s offering: shish-ka-bob of shrimp, beef and chicken with a signature drink.

One well-fed birthday group and no parking woes.