Retail Racism?

Back in the early-nineties, while attempting to nudge a part-time gig in my chosen field (book publishing) into a full-time one, I worked a second part-time job in retail. Fortunately, it didn't demand that I sell Dockers at Sears or patio furniture at Montgomery Wards. 

I worked in a record store.

It was ideal in a way, having a foot in both the book and music worlds. But working six days a week and literally morning, noon and night for two or three days per without health insurance or paid time off was wearying.

But not so wearying that I didn't notice thieves in my record store.

“Teresa? Watch that woman in the jean jacket and long skirt, will you?” I ducked beneath the counter. Despite being an amazingly attractive man, I knew the men and women eying me weren't seeking a hook-up.

Nope. They wanted to know when it would be safe to stuff a CD down their pants. Or under a jacket. Or in a bag suspended between their legs beneath an oversized skirt. At the time, only cosmetics were pilfered more often than CDs in the United States.

“Oh my god!” gasped Teresa. Bingo.

I accosted the woman outside. I took her by the arm and urged her towards the store. Just then an Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight squealed to a stop in front of the store. “LaWanda! Get in!”

Raised in an environment where I was taught it was wrong to manhandle women, I wasn't as forceful as I should have been with LaWanda. She broke free and made it to the car.

I memorized the license plate and called the police.

This scenario played itself out many times. Most-disturbing to me was that the thieves were almost always African-American. And by almost always I mean over ninety-percent of the time.

An idealistic but naive co-worker chastised me for watching African-Americans more-closely than Caucasians. He called me a racist.

I shrugged my shoulders. 

Was I acting on accumulated experience? Or was I profiling? Maybe it's just that African-Americans were really crappy thieves?

I ask because in the wake of the recent brouhaha over a denied restroom visit at a Starbuck's in Philadelphia and the attendant accusations of retail racism, I have to question the M.O. of the offenders.

There exists a persistent and unfortunate ethos in the ghetto that demands that its inhabitants constantly prove their “blackness”. This usually involves acting in such a way that is one-hundred and eighty-degrees removed from the societal norms of white America.

Once upon a time, I had a big, giant chip on my shoulders about employers. After being unjustly removed from a job I loved because I didn't bestow a sufficient number of pliant kisses on a director's ample bottom, I grew my hair and dressed in jeans and inflammatory political t-shirts as I waited for responses to my resume.

I was hurt. I was angry. I was frustrated. I wanted my appearance to scream “I am not a cubicle drone! I am not an office automaton!”

In the words of our greatest president, mission accomplished.

On visits to retail establishments (especially upmarket ones in fancy neighborhoods), I was treated accordingly, no matter how innocent my intent. Since I didn't conform to the norm I was regarded as a threat.

Like all sentient organisms, human beings learn from experience. If a yellow snake with red stripes inflicts us with a painful and life-threatening bite, we will act very, very carefully the next time we encounter one, our motivation being to stay alive.

To that end, one of the men involved in the Philadelphia Starbuck's incident speaks of dressing in hoodies and Timberland boots, the better to prove he is an “authentic” African-American and not some media-manipulated Oreo.

To which I say great. Have at it. Dress like a thug—get treated like a thug.

It's just that simple.

But before you label me as a racist or accuse me of endorsing mindless conformity, read on.

In 2018 America there is a deep and collective sense of angst. We are a society undone by terrorism and random gun violence and the willful chaos of the Trump White House and the seething bipartisanship that underlays every facet of our lives. 

Then there is the looming spectre of climate change and a vague unease about the future and who it will include—and exclude.

None of us know what really happened at the Starbuck's in Philadelphia. We don't know what the manager's frame of reference was. We don't know how she felt. We don't know how the denied men looked at or spoke to her.

There is no complete audio or visual record of the incident.

But I doubt that manager called the police solely because the men were black. She called the police because she felt threatened. And being responsible for the safety of virtually every person in that store, acted in kind.

She is no more a racist than I was, or am.

In addition to being anxious, we are angry. And often seem to view everyone who isn't a clone as a potential enemy. Nurtured by reality TV and the anonymity of the Internet, we confront. As our TV listings confirm, every interaction is a potential 'War'.

So there are African-Americans who refuse to kowtow to any perceived influence or dictate of white America, it being in their minds a symbolic act of surrender. Of giving in. And their defiance has reached epic proportions.

Not that they don't have an abundance of reasons for doing so. Only someone without a soul would deny that African-Americans have been treated with something less than fairness by the citizenry and government of the United States of America.

But in 2018 America we throw accusations around like confetti. We rarely stop and ask is this truly legitimate? Is this going to dilute the pool of genuine grievances?

The shooting of Laquan McDonald by the Chicago Police Department is absolutely worthy of strident and nationwide protest.

Not being able to loiter at a Starbuck's because you're dressed like a thug? Not so much.

When every perceived slight is met with the same towering rage, I hear the rivets on the Titanic popping. I hear the cables on a suspension bridge snapping. I hear the carefully-constructed infrastructure of our civilization giving way.

In our blind, freely-distributed and frequently disproportionate anger I hear the Tower of Babel being built.

A Profound Prescience

The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity does not understand. The largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.

Eric Schmidt

La Piazza Gancio's Guide to Frozen Pizza

At the risk of retaining a portion of The Square Peg's readership, I will forthwith issue a post unconcerned with either the NRA or Donald Trump. So pull out your pizza pans, set your ovens to 450 and wait. (And remember: cooking times may vary.)

The first frozen pizza to pass my lips was John's. Though round and generally pizza-like, it managed to successfully fuse crust, tomato sauce and cheese into an indiscernible mass that tasted like none of them.

However, the outer crust did produce an audible crunch when it encountered my teeth, so John's could technically claim a connection—however tenuous—to actual pizza. Nevertheless, it was entirely appropriate that this pie shared its name with the American slang for toilet.

As the seventies passed, cheese and sausage (the Adam and Eve of pizza) spawned numerous and increasingly sophisticated varieties. Mushrooms began to appear. As did onions. Then green peppers. And red peppers. If nothing else, frozen pizza was at least becoming more colorful. Repeat offenders of the era included Celeste, Red Baron and Totino's.

But taste-wise, they resembled the Republican candidate in a Chicago mayoral election. While officially listed on the ballot, when it came to supplanting pizzeria pizza in the mind of its constituents, they were never a serious consideration.

Undaunted, frozen pizza continued to evolve. By the end of the eighties it actually resembled its namesake. Don't get me wrong—frozen pizza was still hair-metal compared to pizzeria's heavy metal thunder, but at least now it was a mostly-edible substitute.

Tombstone was my favorite. I remember wolfing them down between jobs, followed by a coffee-with-cream chaser. Ugh. No wonder my prospective advertising slogans skewed to the morbid, as in “I've Got Mine Picked Out”.

In the mid-nineties the world of frozen pizza was upended: DiGiorno's was unleashed on an unsuspecting population. I remember my first one with the tenderness and affection we rserve for our first love.

But however much a revelation it was, it couldn't outdistance itself from my recurring food nightmare, in which any brand or variety that I enjoy must immediately be marked for extinction.

In this case, the same smoked mozzarella and red pepper pie that first drew me to the brand was henceforth DiGiorno's first casualty. I survived, and moved on to enjoy the remainder of their largely-successful line.

But I drew (and continue to draw) the line at the blobs-of-dough-as-pizza-appetizer thing.

I mean, really? Isn't that like serving cookie dough and then breaking out the cookies? I thought the desire for dough topped with a red, tomato-y sauce was part of the motivation for having a pizza in the first place, but apparently I'm full of it.

After DiGiorno's raised the bar, several new and highly-worthy entries followed. To the point where in a properly pizza-centric supermarket, one could choose between half-a-dozen brands offering pizza worthy of the name.

I offer my own favorites below. But I must warn you: despite the unpleasant political and religious connotations, I am a pizza fundamentalist. So don't go looking for pizza topped with quail and raspberry compote here.

While my taste buds allow me to consume (and enjoy) my favorite foods almost ad infinitum, they have a strong and clearly-defined list of dos and don'ts.

To wit, little complements a well-grilled hamburger better than a slice of raw onion. But on pizza, onions are a heretical influence that pervert the very notion of a righteous pie topped with God-fearing ingredients like pepperoni and extra cheese.

Onions on pizza is unnatural. It threatens the natural order. So applied, onions are an out-of-tune violin playing Bach's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E major, and cannot—no—must not be tolerated.

Ever.

Regardless, the Godless persist in their ceaseless defamation of pizza: Anchovies. Ham. Pineapple. Barbecue sauce. Broccoli. Chicken. Heresy! A pox on all their houses! Repent ye sinner before thou art cast into the fiery and eternal damnation of hell! (Or pizza topped with egg.)

But not on my watch. And not on my pizza.

Without further delay, here are my five favorite brands, along with a disclaimer: I live in the Chicago-area, so its possible some of the pizza listed here may not be available where you live.

The List:

1. Palermo's   No longer possessed with the metabolism of a nineteen-year-old, thin crust pizza has gained a new appeal for me. And no one does it better than Palermo's.

The Primo Thin is the ideal canvas for their artful offerings.

The Supreme is so good I will manually remove the $#@!* onions just to get at the cracker-thin crust sumptuously crowned with hearty sauce, gooey cheese, red peppers, sausage and pepperoni. Sigh.

(Did you know that in some cultures pizza is a two-syllable word for sex?)

But be advised the Margherita, Sicilian, 5 Cheese and Uncured Pepperoni provide fantastical voyages for your taste buds (and possibly other points) as well.

The pizza-to-pizza consistency is high. Toppings are high-quality and are evenly and generously applied. Availability might be an issue as they originate in Milwaukee and are generally available only in the Midwest and portions of the Southeast.

But the good news is that it's thirty-five degrees out. The wind chill drops that by seven. In other words, good seats are still available on flights bound for the Heartland.

Book now.

2. Home Run Inn   Originally available only in a southside pizzeria near Comiskey Park, HRI has successfully expanded not only its restaurants but the availability of its pizza. And remarkably, the translation found in your supermarket's freezer is utterly faithful.

These are pies made by Chicagoans for Chicagoans. Translated, that means you're unlikely to find pizzas topped with rosemary, salmon or kale. The closest these folk get to foo-foo pizza is an Ultra-Thin crust, all-veggie pie.

This may or may not be the reason I consistently enjoy Home Run Inn's offerings.

I'm partial to the Classic Margherita with Sausage, which brilliantly introduces meat to the classic Italian original. It's nearly enough to make me forgive them for deep-sixing their Plum Tomato pizza.

Toppings are high-quality, generously applied and even. Crusts are flaky and buttery.

If you're as smart as reading The Square Peg indicates you are, you're already reaching for your keys.

3. Bellatoria   This newcomer (at least to the Chicago area) has quickly made a big name for itself and has earned hearty swaths of freezer space in the process. And there's a reason: it's good.

While they aren't afraid to get their foo-foo on (of the finalists, only California Pizza Kitchen lists more pies with—cough—exotic ingredients), they excel at all varieties of classic pizza and deliver them on a delicious, cracker-like crust.

Favorites include the Ultimate 5 Cheese (which claims to contain a half-pound of cheese) and the Ultimate Sausage Italia, which pairs nicely with Bellatoria's peppery tomato sauce. Toppings are again high-quality and generously and evenly distributed.

Like Palermo's, Bellatoria hails from Wisconsin. As with Michelangelo and sculpture, Enzo Ferrari and cars and rock and roll, beer and pizza are one of mankind's great couplings. 

Having mastered the former, we can be grateful the denizens of the Dairy State set about mastering the latter.

4. DiGiornos   The brand has been diluted by a flood of new and often gimmicky product, but if you ignore the distractions and get to the originals, DiGiornos is easy to find and a good bet to satisfy your pizza urges.

(Which are entirely natural and healthy, by the way.)

The premium pies (labelled 'pizzeria!') are also highly-deserving, with the Quattro Formaggi, Primo Pepperoni and Supreme Speciale being the best. They provide a deeply-rewarding pizza experience.

Again, toppings are high-quality and evenly and generously applied. The Rising Crust and Pizzeria! crusts are fairly thick but they're good ones, imbued with a touch of Italian bread-styled chewiness.

It's the brand that raised the bar.

But I won't ever forgive them for killing the elegant Smoked Mozzarella and Red Pepper pie.

5. California Pizza Kitchen   The very name sends my foo-foo meter into overdrive, and deservedly so.

But the good folk at CPK haven't forgotten those of us who enjoy revisiting the varieties of pizza that first inflamed taste buds the world over.

If you pick carefully amongst the chicken and the artichoke and the pineapple, you will be rewarded with a high-quality and highly-enjoyable pizza.

The Sicilian, Four Cheese and Margherita work best for this fundamentalist. (The web site lists what could be a highly-appealing entry—Signature Pepperoni—but I have not seen it in area stores.)

As with the other finalists, toppings are done right. High-quality, plenty of 'em and evenly distributed.

And being a national brand, CPK is easy to find. Which is not to be underestimated when you need to scratch that pizza itch.

So there you have it. One pizza-obsessive's list of his frozen favorites.

May the 'za be with you.

Sudden Loyola-ty

Basketball is a beautiful game made ugly by ego. 

In its purest form, it requires only getting the ball to the guy who's open; the guy with the best shot. Done consistently, this will yield an equal-opportunity offense more difficult to defend than the one commandeered by a single player.

And every once in a while, a team capable of this emerges.

In a game better known for egocentric displays of showmanship comes five players who understand and embrace the beautiful simplicity and inherent wisdom of ball movement and spacing.

Not to mention a coach capable of selling it to them.

There are no stars. No celebrity-based sizzle. No whispers of going high in the draft or of guaranteed contracts. Just five guys who win.

The opposition is forced to defend the entire court as opposed to a five-by-five-foot patch inhabited by a me-first superstar driven to take on three opponents every time down the floor in a gambit the house wins nine times out of ten.

(Think Kobe Bryant or a pre-championship Michael Jordan.)

Sharing the ball might lack the adrenaline-spike of a LeBron James dunk over two hapless defenders. But when that dunk is on the losing end of a final score, who really cares? There is nothing spectacular about ending the day with an 'L'.

It's a joy to watch ball movement. It's a joy to watch the team with the ball make the team without the ball rotate until they miss. Or get picked. Then it's ba-BAM! Two points.

Run 'em til they're ragged, indeed.

And on defense, they rotate. They fight through screens. They keep their hands up. They work. They suffocate the opposition's offense. They are a thick, wet woolen blanket. To their opponents, they are no fun.

Earlier in this century, the NBA ran a series of promotional spots that utilized slow-motion isolation of the routine plays that occur in every game: a perfectly-executed bounce pass. A gorgeous give and go. An ankle-breaking crossover dribble.

And of my turnaround jumper.

(OK. Kidding.)

They were brilliant. They were inspired. They illustrated the abundant and poetic beauty to be found in the most-basic, everyday elements of the game. Of beauty flashed before our eyes and gone before we could fully take it in. 

So before this meandering post goes on any longer, let me say that team ball is beautiful. Team ball has rhythm. And that team ball rocks—and rolls.

Go Ramblers!

The Former Senator from Pennsylvania Speaks

In a better world, Rick Santorum would know firsthand the horror of being trapped in a mass shooting. He would hear the screams and the fatal gunfire. Feel the blind, frantic panic that accompanies the realization that your life could end at any moment.

You would know, Mr. Santorum, what it is to be the target of a psychopathic human being bent on killing. And assisted by the NRA, able to.

It is my hope that this would reduce the likelihood of you accusing the too-young-to-vote survivors of the Parkland, FL. school shooting of “looking to someone else to solve their problem”, and perhaps make you a little more reluctant to suggest that they instead learn how to perform CPR.

(But I'm not holding my breath.)

Forty-eight hours later, public opinion polls—I mean your conscience—have you telling anyone who will listen that you erred in letting such a callous opinion escape the recesses of your oral cavity.

So relieved are you by this truth-telling that afterwards you even found occasion to joke: “I think Sanjay Gupta's job here at CNN is probably safe as being the medical commentator on things.”

Ha. Ha. Ha.

While the gun crowd likes to claim it's the target of derision and disrespect from the gun control crowd even as NRA lead freak Wayne LaPierre rails at liberal “elites” for their supposed monopoly of victimhood, as evidenced by Mr. Santorum and others this is clearly not the case.

I can't get my brain around the fact that we are criticizing our kids for being upset by the carnage that is taking place within their schools. And then for acting on it. Even as we wag our fingers at them for playing violent computer games and dismiss them for being unduly absorbed by their iPhones. 

CPR classes excepted, what would you have them do, Mr. Santorum?

By now, it should be clear that with the gun crowd, nothing is off the table when it comes to defending our constitutional right to die suddenly and for no reason whatsoever at the end of a gun.

Defeating them is going to require sustained and passionate protest. Their guns are the lone source of their strength. Their guns are their esteem. Their guns are their lives.

You can imagine the sea change required to undo their clutching, white-knuckled angst. And then the evolved society that is the result of having done so. 

Money Doesn't Talk. It Runs.

Whenever Illinois leads the nation in something besides population loss or unmet pension obligations, it's something to take note of.  For instance, did you know that Illinois fell for the idea of an elected billionaire two full years before the rest of the nation did?

Yep, we in the Land of Lincoln voted Republican vulture capitalist Bruce Rauner to our state's highest office way back in 2014. And just like our current president's, Rauner's tenure has been a sparkling success.

First and foremost, he has failed to resolve the state's budget impasse, which is the leading cause of our state's population loss and uncertain financial future. In that special way that billionaire businessmen have, Rauner has also failed to forge any kind of working relationship with the powerful speaker of the house, Democrat Mike Madigan.

While I am not a fan of Madigan's in any way, shape or form, Rauner's inability to develop a partnership speaks to his interpersonal ineffectiveness.

Thankfully, his 44 attempts at enacting his toxic Turnaround Agenda have been fruitless. As has his desire to reduce the state's minimum wage to match that of the fed's.

If you haven't already guessed, Bruce is just a real people person. A regular guy. You can tell by the way he rolls up the sleeves of his flannel shirts. And by the way he drops his g's when he says things like this:

“I'm just sayin' you need to get behind what I'm plannin' here, 'cause otherwise y'all are goin' down with the U.S.S. Madigan. I'm talkin' serious change here, folks. I call it the Turnaround Agenda because liberals and Democrats will be so turned around they won't know if they're comin' or goin'! Heh heh heh.”

You suppose he speaks that way at his class reunions at Dartmouth and Harvard?

And despite his family's generous contributions to the city of Chicago, Democratic gubernatorial challenger Jay “J.B.” Pritzker also sports an oily veneer. 

Like Rauner, he is a vulture capitalist. He is a player. He was pragmatic enough to lay with uber sleazeball Rod Blagojevich in an attempt to secure a political position for himself.

Let's face it: Rauner and Pritzker didn't become billionaires by taking the high road. They made deals. They cut corners. They did what they had to do to achieve their goal.

So yes, Illinois will now be the first state to feature two billionaires facing off against each other. Mano a mano. Rauner and Pritzker will throw enormous gobs of money at each other to determine who will call the newly-renovated Governor's mansion home.

So thank you, Citizen's United. Thank you for ensuring that from this point forward we will have the best leadership money can buy. 

And where do we put the statue of Anthony Kennedy, anyway?

In the cynicism which is the unavoidable byproduct of this whoring-out of the electoral process, I propose we who constitute the electorate demand our cut. Instead of billions of dollars going to the production of attack ads, how about the voter getting cash for their vote?

Rauner? Pritzker? How much is my vote worth to you? You're businessmen—I'm sure you appreciate the profit-swelling potential of eliminating middlemen and going straight to the source, which in this case would be me.

Whaddaya think? A grand? Ten? How about fifty?

Sadly, as the distressing figures from Rauner's 2014 campaign make clear, that would be thirty-six. Not grand—bucks. Thirty-six bucks. Yep—that's what each of Rauner's 2014 votes cost.

When you're a billionaire and you can buy a vote for the cost of an oil change and a couple of Italian beef sandwiches at Buona, what's not to like?

As in previous posts, this reminds me of a joke: You know what sucks about being rich?

Nothing.

Punished for Participating?

Shame on you, Downer's Grove North. Feel free to wear a paper bag over your head, Downer's Grove South. Ditto the other high schools who acted to punish students for participating in a nationwide walk-out to protest our wanton gun violence.

As educational institutions, isn't it part of your job to introduce students to various aspects of adult life? To teach them and simultaneously encourage them so that they might be better-informed and consequently better-enabled to make good choices?

Then why are you punishing students for taking part in what is still more or less a participatory democracy? Isn't encouraging involvement in one's community a good thing?

Please tell me that entrusted with the gigantic responsibility of shaping young minds, you don't side with Florida Representative Elizabeth Porter, who sneered at and patronized these students for their involvement in those very same protests.

In her remarkable address to the Florida state legislature, she asked “Do we allow the children to tell us that we should pass a law that says no homework, or do you finish high school at the age of twelve because they want it so? No, the adults make the laws because we has (sic) the age, we has (sic) the wisdom and we have the experience.”

In a perfect world, that last sentence certainly holds true. But we all know the sad reality of adults and politics, don't we?

Given today's social climate, I am positive you have your hands full meeting the demands of a wide-ranging student body and the expectations of their parents. I should add that as educators, you have my unflagging respect and support.

The majority of the time, anyway.

But when your students see a gigantic, festering sore in our culture and call out the adults in charge for letting it happen (or even perpetuating it), why do you punish them? Yes, kids do crazy things—they're kids. (I don't get the appeal of Manga, either.) 

But when they get concerned and act on that concern, should we really be stifling them?

As parents, we like to play the I'm-only-angry-because-I-care card. We use it when we act in a way we're concerned our children might not understand.

I'm pretty sure these kids care, too. Let them.