Maddancer #7 : Selling Wolf Tickets in Vegas & at the County Jail

This is another story from the time I went to the Banquet of the Golden Plate with Oliver Stone in Las Vegas.  It was a week-long event where the high school students who scored the highest on the SAT came to Vegas to hear lectures from the most successful people in all walks of life.  This included Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf, Bill Gates, Robert Gates, Richard Sessions, Kevin Costner, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton, Edwin Teller and several prominent businessmen, architects, and doctors.

On this particular afternoon Oliver and I had just heard Barbra Streisand talk about knowing when to take advice and knowing when to”stick to your guns”.  She mentioned how, in the early days of her career, everyone told her to “fix her nose, change her name and stop singing those dippy love songs.”  She did not take their advice and became a huge success.   Then
we saw her in the hall.  I had already met Barbra a few times and I knew she had a great sense of humor.  We walked up and said how much we had enjoyed her speech.  Barbra smiled and said,  “Wait until you hear me tonight.  I’m talking about women’s rights.

Oliver nodded and smiled.  I looked at Barbra and said.  “Listen, I popped a button off my shirt a while ago…do you think you might have time later to sew it on for me.”

Oliver glared at me so hard it felt like he was elbowing me in the side. But I had read Barbra correctly.  She burst out laughing and gave me a playful shove, “Yeah, sure,” she said.  “Just drop it by.”

Then we all laughed.  I supposed I could’ve played it safe and not kidded her, but most people in the entertainment
business have a sense of humor and you get to know them a lot better if you make them laugh.

In some circles this kind of joking and false bravado is called selling wolf tickets.  This is actually an old blues term meaning to “put on airs” or “act tough”. Usually it when someone boasts about their fighting skills as in…

Gangbanger Stink: “Give me back my money or I’ll beat you into next week.”

Gangbanger Smudge: “Don’t be selling no wolf tickets here, Stink.”

I have been known to sell a wolf ticket or two in my time.  I think it actually has more to do with my Irish heritage than anything else.  My mom was a Kelly and great grandpa was an O’Riordan.  Growing up Irish, especially blue-collar  Catholic Irish meant you really didn’t back down from a fight.  Most of us figured that even if we got beat up, it couldn’t be any worse than the damage Sister Almira did with a paddle three times a week at school.  We bluffed a lot and we fought a lot. This is how I grew up.

The ability to “throw down,” as it is called in the teen subculture is worth endless street cred.  I used it often when I ran the teen center downtown.  One time I remember two very large black kids coming in and standing around glaring at everyone.  I knew they had the potential to be bad news since they each stood well over six feet and weighed over 250 lbs.   I wanted them to know that I wouldn’t put up with any trouble from them and that I was not afraid of them, but I also wanted them to know that they were welcome to have fun and hang out here if they would not use their considerable size to cause problems.  So I went up to them and said.

“Hi, I’m Jim Riordan and I run this place.  I want to welcome you guys here and…hey I wonder if you’d help me out. See, every once in a while I have problems with fights and big kids throwing their weight around so I was wondering if we could  stage a little something.  In a couple of minutes I’ll come over and act like you guys started some trouble.  I’ll like pick you up or slam you to the ground, smack you around a little, so it looks like I’m hurting you and then everyone else will tow the line.  They’ll figure if I’m not afraid to take a couple of big boys like you on, then they better be cool. Don’t worry, I’ll go easy. Does that sound okay?”

Of course the looks on their faces said it all.  Anyone crazy enough to ask them something like what I’d just said might just be crazy enough to do it. They weren’t sure what to do so they just stood there, kind of frozen.  Then I laughed and told them that I was just kidding around and they laughed as well. But they got both messages I wanted to send.

For the last several years I’ve been visiting prisoners in the county jail.  I started out just seeing kids that I knew from the teen center who had gotten themselves in trouble but over the years I’ve seen a lot of convicts.  Now the jail is probably the place where the most wolf tickets are sold.  Just about everyone acts like they are bad because if they appear soft they’re likely to be taken advantage of in all kinds of undesirable ways.  Well, I’d been going out to the jail for about a year.  I liked to see the guys one-on-one so they could feel free to open up and we could talk and pray without anyone hassling us.  But sometimes the lawyers were using all the private rooms to confer with their clients and the only way to see someone was to go inside the “pod”.  The pod is a large area which houses around fifty men in bunk beds formed around a central area where there is a TV and several tables to play games on or just hang out and talk.  There are no guards inside the pod area.  The guards sit outside the pod and watch the monitors. So I was sitting at one of the tables inside the pod talk-ing with Tony, a guy I’d been seeing for half a year, when a tall, lanky black man (who actually looked a lot like Snoop Dog) came over and asked me what kind of cologne I was wearing.  I told him I wasn’t wearing any cologne and he shuffled off nodding his head.

Now Tony was a good kid. Of course I see them all as good kids.  Tony was a white working class kid whose old man had been a violent alcoholic.  Tony had been getting knocked around since he was about four so…surprise! He was also violent.  I’d met Tony through his younger brother who used to come to the teen center.  Tony was a gangbanger with a swastika tattooed on his chest.  He was in jail for shooting a Mexican gangbanger because one of the guys Tony was selling coke with had told him that the Mexican had stiffed them on their money. This was not actually true.  The Mexican had not stiffed them on the coke deal but he had insulted  the guy’s girlfriend.  The guy knew that if he lied to Tony and made it Tony’s problem then Tony would do something about it.  So Tony and the other guys pull up in their car and the Mexican charges at them. Tony pops him two in the chest.

The fortunate thing and maybe the big break that God gave Tony, was that the Mexican didn’t die.  In fact he totally recovered. So Tony was coping to a manslaughter plea and I’d been seeing him at the jail.  We talked about how he got here, his life and we prayed.  Tony went from barely listening when I prayed, to listening intently, to praying with me, to praying for me, to praying with others guys in his pod.  And finally before he was shipped off he asked me if I could help him get the swastika covered so he wouldn’t have to hang with the white supremacists in the jail. This I did.  But here I was trying to talk with him and this goofy Snoop guy comes up to me again and asks what kind of cologne I’m wearing.  I told him again that I wasn’t wearing any cologne and he goes, “Oh, come on man. What’s the name of it?” Then he went away again.

The third time I saw him approaching us, I decided that this was one of those devil things.  When you’re trying to pray with someone sometimes the devil (or whatever you were taught to call him) sends someone over to hassle you just by planting the thought in the person’s head (if you don’t believe in the devil, that’s fine…but like I wrote in my song “So You Don’t Believe in the Devil” then who stabs a child forty times, who made Hitler so blind and who took Jeff Dalmer’s mind?)  I knew that Tony, being Tony, might react if the guy bothered us again and I wanted to head that off so as soon as the guy came near I stood up. The looked at me and said, “Man I just want to know the name of the cologne you’re wearing.”

And I said, “Okay, it’s called tough guy.  You want to know anything else?”

The guy shook his head and said, “I didn’t mean to start nothing” and he walked away and let us finish praying. I felt relieved that I could stand up to someone and , if need be, still sell a wolf ticket now and then.

Now the funny part is that about a month later I got a letter from another kid I was working with who had gone off to prison.  He had a picture of me in his cell and this tall, lanky black guy saw it one day and said, “Hey, I know that guy.  He wears Tough Guy cologne.”

Apparently he hadn’t really bought the wolf tickets I was trying to sell after all.  But six months later, when he got out of jail, the dude called me and said he was the guy that had asked about my cologne and I remembered him.  I met with him and we prayed together several times.  He said he respected me because of that day and that he knew I was for real.  And he never asked about my cologne again.

IN OVER MY HEAD : Visiting the Son of Sam & Swimming at Streisand’s

I was producing Kankakee Valley Prime Time, my cable access show with Jaymie Simmon, in Kankakee back in 2000 and my wife came out to the staff meeting to give me a letter from David Berkowitz.  The production team all laughed and joked  about how it would be funny if I got a letter from the Son of Sam.  Only it was the Son of Sam.  My good friend and great writer Bill Myers had directed a documentary on him for Christian Television.  During the process Bill decided that Berkowitz was the real deal – Satanist turned genuine Christian.  After all, David wasn’t trying to get paroled early or use his newfound faith for anything except trying to live a good life now (granted, it’s easier behind bars) and was putting all his chips on a new chance in heaven.  Bill had told Berkowitz about the kind of writer I was and recommended me to help David tell his story.  Now David was contacting me to see if I’d come out to the Sullivan Correctional Institute in Fallbrook, New York.  When I told the production team that the letter was from the real David Berkowitz, no one said anything.  They just stared at the letter.  First lesson in dealing with mass murderers and serial killers – your friends don’t wanna know.

So David and I spoke a couple of times on the phone and then I made plans to travel to New York.   About a week before I was supposed to go, I tore my Achilles tendon playing basketball with a bunch of 22 year olds in the league at my church.  It was pretty painful and expensive and the next year when I wanted to play again my wife said I had to put five grand in the bank first to cover the costs of any new injuries.  I told her that my team (me at 51 and four 22 year olds that I knew from my teen center) finished tied for second in an eight team league and I was the high point man.  She said I really wasn’t getting it.  I was too old to play full-court basketball with kids in their early twenties.  I said basketball had been part of my life since I was 9 whereas I’d only been writing since I was 12, but it didn’t seem to matter.

When I boarded the flight to New York to see David I was wearing a boot cast on my right leg and on crutches.  Getting around in the airport and on the plane was hassle enough but what I was really worried about was renting a car in New York and driving the 80 miles to Fallbrook. Actually I was mostly afraid of driving in New York City, especially since my traffic reflexes were going to be slowed by the cast.  Nonetheless, I rented the car, drove through the city and made it to the prison.  Sullivan is a triple max which means intense security precautions because these are the people they never want to get out.  Once there I asked for David Berkowitz and was told. “Does he know you’re coming because people come here all the time to try and see him and he won’t talk to them?” I assured him that David was expecting me and after a couple walks thorough the scanner I was cleared  (although the package of Rolaids I was carrying was confis-cated).

Then I was ushered into this cafeteria like room with lots of vending machines, tables and chairs.  And there was one kind of chubby guard sitting at a desk on the other side of the room.  He assigned me a table which was in the back of the room and way the hell away from him and said, “They’re bringing Berkowitz up now.’  And, even though I’d exchang-ed letters with David and even though I’d talked to him on the phone, I thought to myself.  “Where’s the bulletproof glass?”  Where’s all those barriers where you have to talk on phones?   I mean, I had decided that David was genuine or else I wouldn’t be there.  But, I guess I also thought there would be the thick glass.

About five minutes later, the big iron door clanged as the locks were pulled back and one of the gentlest and most peaceful men I have ever seen entered the room.  We talked for an hour and I had no doubts.  Yep, Berkowitz’s conversion was for real.  He wasn’t trying to get out and he wasn’t trying to make money.  He just wanted to explain how he went from being a Satanist whose specialty was murder to a devout Christian.  I thought it was a great book project.  But after months of trying to get an agent and a publisher for the project, I had to give up on it for awhile.  This is how that went down.  The mainstream agents and publishers didn’t want to hear about Jesus.  They just want the scoop about the Son of Sam murders.  This was the man that held nearly all of New York City at bay by awashing them in fear back in the summer of 1979.  In our country, if you talk about spiri-tual things, it has to be in a very broad “Oprah loves it” sense or else it has to be published by a Christian publisher and sold in Christian bookstores.  There’s even separate organizations and trade shows. ABA is the American Booksellers Association while CBA is the Christian Booksellers Association.  The Christian book publishers were not interested in the story because it was too violent for the sweet Christian housewives and Mom and Pop Christian Bookstores that buy most of the CBA books.  So that meant that what was probably the redemption story of our time was not going to be told.  I was so sure that David’s conversion was real that I would have let him sleep in a room with my kids.

Another time that I knew I was distinctly in over my head was when I was with Oliver Stone in Las Vegas.  We had been talking about doing a book and going through the deal process for months, and we’re going to start working when he invited me to this huge event called the Banquet of the Gold Plate at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas.  It’s really a week long thing where the 500 highest SAT scorers come to Vegas and hear lectures from the most successful people in all walks of life.  This was in 1992 so among the people giving a talk were Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf, Bob Gates (then head of the CIA), Richard Sessions (then head of the FBI), Bill Gates, Kevin Costner, George Lucas, Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton, Edwin Teller (the scientist who discovered Pluto whom it well known that the character of Dr. Strangelove was based upon), some really big deal businessmen, architects, doctors and Oliver Stone.  I met more prominent people in four days than I had met in my entire life up to then…and I’d already met a lot of people.

So this one day on a break, Oliver introduces me to Richard Baskins who is an heir to the Baskin (as in Baskin-Robbins) fortune.   Real  nice guy. And he invites us swimming.  Oliver is in one the Penthouse rooms which is the top floor so he has no pool, but Richard is in a cabana on the first floor. I, however am staying at the Tam O’Shanter, the cheap Irish hotel down the street.  So Oliver asks me if I want to go swimming, hang out by the pool and talk about the book. The first thing I tell him is that I don’t have any trunks.  They’re back at the Tam O’Shantner.  So Richard says he has some shorts at the room that I can borrow.  Richard’s a lot bigger than me but I figure, who cares.  Oliver and I are friends and this guy will  be cool because Oliver likes me.  So what if the trunks are too big.  I don’t need to impress anyone.

So we go to the cabana and Richard gives me these shorts which are so big on me that I have to wear my belt with them.  I put them on and then the three of us are frolicking in the pool, having a good  old time when, all of a sudden, Barbra Streisand walks out wearing this long, flowing white gown.  She looks stunning. I stop frolicking and look at Oliver and ask, “What’s she doing here?”  He gives me this devil grin that he has and says, “Oh, this is her suite.  I forgot to tell you.”   Now, even though it was early on in the writing process, Oliver and I had developed this teasing “screw-with-you” mentality, always playing harmless little practical jokes on each other.  I had to do it to stand up to his powerful personality which basically would’ve run over me like a steamroller unless I pushed back a little.

So I’m in the pool with two guys who are bigger than me.  I look like a wet dog with the big shorts and Barbra Streisand is waving at us from the edge of the pool where the maids have just brought out food and drinks.  I’m trying to be cool but then I remember that my underwear is sitting on her bed where I changed.  I’m hoping she doesn’t hold them up and say, “Whose are these?”

In the end though, it was all great.  Barbra is a really sweet person or at least she was the three or four times I’ve seen her.   There’s just no easy way to do this job.

___

Maddancer Blog #2: The Illinois Winter Olympics

Maddancer Blog #2: The Illinois Winter Olympics

Well, we just concluded the first Illinois Winter Olympics which were held primarily in my front yard. The most popular event was Shoveling the Driveway, the gold medal for which was won by a neighbor from down the street who cleared a vehicle path in 12 minutes, 34 seconds – a new record. I took the silver and had a shot at the gold until I fell down and, knowing I had lost, began practicing for the snow angel event.

My friend F. Johnston was a double winner – taking home the gold for Bradley in two events – Car Jumpstarting (16 vehicles in 42 minutes) and Snow Writing (the entire Declaration of Indepen-dence in one burst — some credit must go to the six beers consumed moments before).

The Sand and Cardboard Under the Tires event went to M. Leppert of Kankakee who managed to get an entire refrigerator box and three buckets of sand under a 1994 Toyota Corolla.

Our only serious injury was to D. Rapier who won the gold in Cold Pole Tongue Sticking, but had to have the paramedics cut him free – yes, the tip of the tongue is still there.

There was quite a controversy over the Scraping a Windshield with a Credit Card event when J. Carter one of the younger contestants was found to be using a CD case.

As always, quite a crowd gathered for the Sidewalk Ice Dancing event, which was a thing of beauty. The winner, B. Rashkin performed to the music of Sade’s Smooth Operator. C. Erickson’s dance to Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love drew rave reviews from some but was too controversial for most judges.

The Icicle Whack was won by J. Simmone who sent a two foot Stalactite soaring fifteen feet over the trashcans and into the neighbor’s yard (actually into the neighbor’s small dog, which recovered once placed in a warm environment).

There were several injuries on the Icy Front Steps Climb but none seriously and three contestants did actually make it to the front door.

There was a touching family story when G. Reynolds won The Trashcan Chase and his wife Cathy took the gold in Snow Angel Making.

Salting the Front Porch was won by R. Denhart who managed to dump seven 30 bags in just under 8 minutes (a new record).

The Giant Snowman event was won by D. Horn whose nine foot in diameter base was an event record. The eventual height of 18 feet, 7 inches was just shy of the all time mark.

Loud cheering accompanied to Getting to the Mailbox without Falling was won by J. Garret who retrieved sixteen loads of mail before biting the ice.

As far as team standings went our home town, Kankakee, won with three gold, two silver and two bronze medals. Bradley was second with two of each category and forty three communities were tied for third with one medal each. The cities of Chicago, Peoria, Rockford and Joliet were not allowed to compete because of the likelihood that they contained citizens who were more skilled than ours. Also, we neglected to inform several other communities for the same reason.

All in all, it was a pretty successful launch, especially considering that most of us would have rather been doing something inside where it was warm.

Crazy Story #2
     This crazy story also happened while I was in Vegas working with Oliver Stone on his biography. It was at a weeklong confer-ence where students with the 500 top SAT scores were invited to hear inspirational talks from leaders in politics, business and the arts. While there I met Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf, Robert Gates (head of the CIA at the time, now the Secretary of Defense), Richard Sessions (head of the FBI at the time), Kevin Costner, Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Barbara Streisand, Bill Gates, Dolly Parton, Tom Selleck, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, a slew of other famous folk and a guy who sold popcorn outside Caesar’s Palace.

     It was the last official night of the conference and, after the last speaker, Kevin Costner came up to me and said, “Hey, I’ve got a blackjack dealer coming up to my room so we can gamble up there instead of going into the casino. You and Oliver are invited. “Great,” I said. “Who else is going to be there?” Kevin began counting, “Let’s see…you, me, Oliver, Barbara (Streisand), Bruce (Willis), Demi (Moore), Tom Selleck and Barry Diller (former CEO of Paramount). Yeah, that’s eight. In like thirty minutes.”

     I told Kevin it sounded good to me but I would have to check with Oliver. Well, it turned out that Oliver had something else he wanted to do so we didn’t go which is probably good because I had been thinking: “What am I going to bet? What if I lose? What if I have to go home and tell my wife that I lost the house to Bruce Willis?”

     Sometimes God keeps me out of trouble.

#1: The Day I Made the Cats Believe the Vacuum Cleaner was God

Maddancer Blog #1
The Day I Made the Cats Believe the Vacuum Cleaner Was God

It’s like that old joke about cats and dogs. Dogs look at you and go, “Wow, you feed me, pet me, love me…You must be God!” And Cats go, “Wow, you feed me, pet me, love me…I must be God.” So, even though I love cats and fawn over them and do all that kitten bull shit, I still will follow about any path that gets them to do something I want. After all, it’s not like you can train them. In short, when I saw the look in Caper and Sweetpea’s eyes when I turned on the vacuum cleaner, I knew what I had to do. And the truth of it is that the vacuum cleaner did most of the training. Anything that large, that noisy, with a weird shape that breathed – that was something to recon with. So the fear part of the training was easy. At first I didn’t chase them with it. At first I cooed and shut it off and then I realized that they were never going to accept the vacuum cleaner, especially as a regular, weekly part of their lives. So why not do something with it? Use that fear to get the cats to obey.
Fear with no love is not any kind of a real God so if I really wanted the cats to be good – especially if I wanted them to be good when the vacuum cleaner was off, then I needed to show them some love – the warm fuzzy God behind the thunderbolt. So I always push the vacuum cleaner away from the cats to minimize the fear – they were already so fucking scared of the thing that they were about to blow up. And then I would sing happy songs or enthusiastically hum rock anthems while I vacuumed and cooed at the cats. Since I’m pretty damn sure they can’t distinguish between me and the vacuum cleaner when I’m running it, I felt I was showing them the loving side of the cleaner. That really didn’t work, but it did calm them somewhat. Slowly, they got used to the terror of the mighty Hoover being coupled with the warmth of an old David Crosby song. It was slowly working. At night, the vacuum cleaner, not just a huge source of power but also now their sort of mutual friend, sat silent vigil over the litter box less anyone but Dad try to change it (don’t worry about that) Then on Saturday when Mom worked and Dad was off because writers who live very long never work on Saturdays, well, especially Irish writers don’t. On Saturdays the old dirt sucker roared to life sending al the nonhumans to another room. But then I would make some vague cat sounds and sing parts of “Almost Cut My Hair” or “Cowboy Movie” and the cats would begin peaking around the corner.
Now, I’m not certain that the litter box is more orderly or that they leave the dog alone more, but they have been going straight into their room at night without slinking under the sofa or some kind of unbelievable chase down. The reason I have to keep them in the room (my home office by the way – that litter box is just fucking great for the computer) is that they race top speed around the house at night. They’ll pounce on you bed, slam each other into walls, knock the damn curtain rod down and scatter the dog’s dry food bowl all over the kitchen in frenzied play. Since they’re locked up, they do less of that shit, too. And they’re trained. At night Caper begs to go in there and Sweetpea moves as soon as the food hits the bowl – food is another great motivator – so it all kind of works. Course I still have to wedge the door and stick my old electric typewriter in front of the door so they can reach under it and open it. Then I wedge this exercise ball that my wife has yet to blow up since Christmas. My wife works so much that she barely has time to do anything. She’s amazing. And I contribute too. I pay big chunks of bills when I get paid which is often but not regular. So money is sort of always a surprise. So I help out doing dishes and vacuuming, especially on Saturday when she has to work and I can stay home and do chores. And I trained the cats.

 

Crazy Story #1

            So I’m in Vegas working with Oliver Stone on his biography.  We’re attending a weeklong conference where students with the 500 top SAT scores have been invited to hear inspirational talks from leaders in politics, business and the arts.  While there I met Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf, Robert Gates (head of the CIA at the time, now the Secretary of Defense), Richard Sessions (head of the FBI at the time), Kevin Costner, Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Barbara Streisand, Bill Gates, Dolly Parton, Tom Selleck, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, a slew of other famous folk and a guy who sold hot dogs outside the Mirage hotel.

            I have a ton of stories from these four days.  One of them involves meeting Bruce and Demi.  It’s Saturday afternoon and the casino in the Mirage is jammed with people.  Here come Bruce and Demi strolling through and Oliver says we should go over and say hello.  So we walk up.  Bruce has his head pretty much shaved for an upcoming role and he is very nice and down to earth saying things like, “I’m gonna change and then see if I can make some dough on one of these crap tables.” A very Bruce Willis type of comment. Demi, on the other hand, is cold and pissed off.  She is wearing a black nylon blouse that is totally see-through with nothing underneath and she’s complaining that people keep staring at her.  I’m thinking, “You’re a huge movie star, you’re with another huge movie star, it’s Saturday afternoon in a crowded Vegas casino and you’re wearing a see-through blouse…and you’re upset that people are staring at you?”

            You gotta forgive celebrities sometimes because they just don’t get much of a clear shot at reality.