January 6, 1993

As U may have noticed, I've changed back 2 my old "fiesta-like" heading.¹ I think it looks better, to tell you the truth. Anyways, New Year's Eve was really cool cuz I went downtown again to Watertower Place. There wasn't really much 2 do in the mall itself besides peeping in Waldenbooks & Musicland 2 see if they had the DEC 26 Year-End Issue of BILLBOARD. Alas, they didn't -- See, I had gone to virtually every book & music store in the entire Chicago area on my conquest to find this issue: Barnes & Noble, Oakbrook; Borders Book Shoppe, Oakbrook; Waldenbooks, Yorkville; Musicland, Yorkville; B. Dalton, Yorkville; Recordtown, Yorkville; Coconuts, Naperville; Musicland, Aurora; Waldenbooks, Aurora; Recordtown, Aurora; Sam Goody, Aurora; and Kroch's & Brentano's, Aurora. None of them had BILLBOARD. I want a subscription so bad (although Mrs. Offerman² would be mad at me for saying "so" because it's a cliche), but U know, it cost $205 - A YEAR, no less. Shit. So I have to travel around the greater Chicago area until finally I come across RIZZOLI BOOKSTORES in Chicago, which *SURPRISE SURPRISE* has the Dec 26 issue! -- Actually, Steve has it right now in Spanish class cuz I bought it for $7.95 and loaned it 2 him 2day. Hmm ... so that was cool. I didn't really do much at nite to welcome the new year except watch Channel 2 with B96 personalities Eddie & Jobo obnoxiously chat with people like ... actually, I don't remember who they chatted w/, but it was really obnoxious -- What kind of a name is Jobo?³ WGCI's morning man is Doug Banks, then Shannon Dell or AJ Parker, then Tom Joyner or LaDonna Tiddle, then Mark Young or Rick Party -- All good, nice Christian names, I suppose -- Jobo is what religion? Hindu? He doesn't look Hindu -- He probably doesn't even know what the Vedas is (the Hindu scriptures) Anyways, on JANUARY 1, I finished up some of my homework and watched (of course) college football as Alabama soundly defeated the MIAMI HURRICANES to win the nat'l championship. -- What? We're done! The whole Christmas vacation summed up in 12 pages -- almost one for each day. Now, I suppose you're dying 2 know what the hell's been going on the past few days -- RYAN still isn't finished with Part IX of A One-Act Play⁴, but it really doesn't matter 2 me cuz I know that he's been under a lot o' stress lately, especially since finals are next week. Speaking of which: This is the schedule: Monday - no finals - regular school day; Tuesday - 1st period final, rest of day pretty much normal; Wednesday - 2nd, 3rd, and 4th period finals then we go home at 12:20; Thursday - 5th, 6th, and 7th period finals then we go home at 12:20. This is cool, though, becuz on Wednesday. I don't think I have 2 come 2 school until like 10:45 becuz I don't have finals in 2nd period (gym) & 3rd period (creative writing) -- Which means that I can come in late on Thursday too w/no final 5th period (lunch/homeroom). Oh well, this is getting boring, so I suppose I should fill U in on some current events. I guess the biggest one is: MIKE DITKA FIRED! Yes, I know, you're probably gasping 4 breath, but it's true, as sure as I am sitting here waching Clarissa glue pictures of her parents as kids to a sheet of notebook paper. Mike McCaskey fired him yesterday at 1:30 pm becuz of the Bears 5-11 record this year. I don't really have very many strong feelings becuz I hate the Bears⁵, but, personally, I think he should have stayed becuz he knows how 2 coach. I mean, he's only had like 4 losing seasons out 11, y'know, with like 5 straight division titles and a Super Bowl win -- U don't just stop doing that -- He tried to win, It's not like he's losing for money or something -- OR IS HE? Maybe Walter Jacobson should dress up as Mike McCaskey and do an investigative reporting⁶ -- I don't know. But c'est la vie -- I am a wizard at French, if U didn't know -- That's one of about 5 -- yes, 5! phrases that I know. And it's only cuz I'm 31/64 French. Anyways, they're looking back at the Jaclyn Dowaliby case -- She was murdered back in 1989 and they still haven't found any evidence of who might have killed here -- The latest suspect is Tim Guess, Jaclyn's uncle, and his many spirits -- He says all this stuff like the light in her closet was on, she had a comforter w/lots of animals on it -- All of which is true, but he sez he's never been to her house and that he gets his information from a spirit that inhabits his mind. He's a diagnosed schizophrenic, but still, I don't believe him. Senator Carol Moseley Braun was sworn in yesterday as America's first black woman senator -- An oil spill in Scotland may become the worst spill in history, even surpassing 1988's Exxon Valdez, led by Capt. Joseph Hazelwood. I suppose that's most of it, -- OH wait, other big news -- Chris T0desc0 is finally going out w/ Becky -- I don't know the details of it, but it had something 2 do w/ New Year's Eve and Kristy R@ven. Play auditions are tomorrow for OLIVER!, but guess what? I'm not trying out, much to the chagrin of my parents (well really only my dad) - but U know, there's a whole slew of people who aren't -- like Sara K0larik, Adam Gyn@c, Steve, Clarissa, Deepa Gupt@, Carrie K0lar, Angela Cutl3r -- AND all of these people were in "Midsummer" -- except Clarissa, of course, but she attended the meeting before break for those people who wanted 2 try out. Her hair is red (or light auburn) anyways, so of course she would be scorned -- I'm kidding -- Have a nice day -- JMC 10:25 am

1 I've written the day of the week (Wednesday) in a stylized font, surrounded by various squiggles and shapes as you might see on a party invitation.

2 9th-grade English teacher. Her voice always reminded me of Eleanor Clift's.

3 For the record, it's a nickname for Joe Bohannon. Side note: I had the pleasure of seeing these perved-out leathery 40-somethings live at B96's Halloween Bash in 2003!

4 A One-Act Play was a project I began in 8th grade, a semi-sci-fi and very meta, inside-jokey script. Its characters were mostly me and my classmates (and an endless parade of celebrities who delivered lines swiped from NBC sitcoms and talk shows), and much of its plot revolved around me actually writing the play as I was going along. (Essentially Pirandello meets Charlie Kaufman and the fourth season of Seinfeld -- witness the scene when Ryan goes on Jay Leno to plug the play itself -- though at the time I thought I was so goddamned clever.*) There's also a gradual joke in the play's title, in that what began as a simple experiment on a single looseleaf page blossomed into a 72-page (typed) rambling, multi-chapter behemoth, with contributions from my friends Steve, Ryan, and Chris, that I eventually wrapped up halfway through 10th grade.

*Although to be fair, I'm rereading it now, and at one point this guy Chris Gandhi, who played Bottom in my high-school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, shows up as that character, who is in turn playing Pyramus in Shakespeare's play-within-a-play "Pyramus and Thisby" and who is then informed that he is simultaneously in another play: the one I'm writing. That totally just blew my mind.

5 Oddly enough, this had nothing to do with a distaste for football. For some reason I think I liked the Green Bay Packers around this time, and before them, the Denver Broncos.

6 A reference to Jacobson's "Mean Street Diary" series for Channel 2 News, in which he disguised himself as a homeless person and lived in a cardboard box on Lower Wacker Drive for 48 hours. It was roundly ridiculed and seen as a low point for the station, the moment when the "line between news and shtick vanished."