Creepiness in Chez Broad this morning: Last night, I fell asleep on the couch, as is my wont, and was startled awake by my buzzer. Now, as we know, I don’t answer my buzzer after I’ve gone to bed unless I’m expecting company, so naturally I wigged and hit the double bolt, but not before I heard voices downstairs and a whole lot of knocking on one of the downstairs apartment doors. So then, my one downstairs neighbor calls me up and says, “Hey! Did you hear what was going on this morning?” and proceeds to tell me that it was the cops doing a welfare check on one of the other downstairs neighbors—the woman half of the couple—because her sister called the PD and said she hadn’t heard from her in a few days.

Now, none of this would be particularly creepy to me, except that:

1. He told the cops she was there in the house, but she told my landlord last week that they’d broken up and he changed the locks, THEN told her today that she’s in St. Louis;
2. Her name has been taken off the mailbox;
3. One night a couple weeks ago when I was coming in from being out, I was walking up the stairs and heard this huge, sickening “THUD” coming from their apartment. As I was wondering what the hell it was, I heard their door open and then close, as if someone was making sure no one heard it?checking to see what fell;
4. I haven’t seen her van in at least a week, and
5. They had a cat living with them that I also haven’t seen in at least a week.

As they say, developing ...

In the meantime, it’s BUS DEMOLITION! weekend, and after a very rough week with Mother and other things, it’ll be exceptionally lovely to get together to watch things crash and drink mass quantities of alcohol with people who value me. On tonight’s agenda is viewing the Railcats game from the hot tub suite; it has been said that the game announcers always call a shout-out to the group in said suite during each game, so we decided that we had to come up with a disgusting name. My vote was for “NWI Psoriasis and Eczema Support Group” or “NWI Random Boil Support Group,” but our ring leader may just surprise us when we get there.

[UPDATE ass o’clock 7/28: Just got back from the game—and can I just say that all games should be watched from a hot tub?—but I meant to update that one of the cops called me earlier to tell me that the couple downstairs returned home and that they identified her, even going so far as to have her call her sister in front of them. Well, that might be, but I personally won’t feel safe until I physically see her for myself.]

Here’s what it’s played for me so far this morning:

“Johnny Feelgood,” Liz Phair (back when she was badass)
“Shambala," Three Dog Night (No bustin’ on my 70s music love, yo.)
“Radar Gun,” Bottle Rockets
“Kill the DJ,” Peeping Tom (mmmmmm ... Mike Patton and his unit ...)
“Nickelback," Bluetip
“Rod of Iron,” Relaxed Muscle
“New York Groove,” KISS
“Young Folks,” Kanye West
“Drownin’," Shurman
“Walk Right In, Walk Right Out,” Levay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers (from dong resin’s own special blend of tunage that I like to pretend he whipped up just for me but understand that he didn’t because he doesn’t know me to like me in that way)

Could be a good day, y’all.

I drank me some shljivovitca, and holy CRAP! Is that shit strong. Dang. The Hungarians gave it to me at their picnic today, or rather they dared me to throw back a shot which, you know, you gotta do when your hosts are offering. Had my first swig of Hennessy, too, but man! that shljivovitca. Serbian freakin’ moonshine, that shit is. It will definitely be coming with us to BUS DEMOLITION at the end of the month. (Yes, it’s that time of year again, folks!)

Did you guys hear about this? Mike Doughty, former singer for Soul Coughing and rockin’ artist in his own right, had one of his songs off excellent album Haughty Melodic ripped off chord for chord by some French chick singer named Maidi Roth. HIS song is “I Hear the Bells,” which I read somewhere this week is a tribute to the amazing Jeff Buckley, but hers is titled “Apres Toi” which, if I remember right from my piss-poor French skillz, is “With You” or “In You” or something like that. Anyway, this was no “Well, it maybe kinda sounds like it,” either. Observe: This is Mike’s version:



Now, here’s Maidi’s version:



You be de judge.

sometimes, the universe really does pull through and keeps one from diving off the ledge. Thank you, Universe!

Some days more than others, I’m really happy I don’t cover any one particular municipality; I’m quite sure I’d have to be shot with a tranquilizer gun before press conferences such as the following, where this gem came out of Gary’s finest, Mayor Rudy “I pass out business cards the size of bookmarks” Clay. The story, written by Jon Seidel, with the parts of interest emboldened:

By Jon Seidel
Post-Tribune staff writer

GARY—Mayor Rudy Clay and Police Chief Thomas Houston touted the city’s June homicide rate Friday and accused media of ignoring the story.

Since a new police administration took control, Gary’s homicide rate has been cut to a fifth of what it was in May.

Fifteen people were killed in Gary last month, while three people were killed in the city in June as of Friday.

“We couldn’t even get it in the classified ads,” Clay said.

During a news conference held to swear in police reserve officers, Clay told his audience Gary recorded one homicide in June.

“Gary, Indiana, has had less homicides than Munster, Indiana,” Clay said.

According to the Lake County Coroner’s office, though, Gary had three homicides in June. Munster had one.

Later that day, a Gary Police Department spokesman confirmed the coroner’s records.

He said the mayor meant to say Gary had one homicide in 23 days.

On Friday afternoon, Clay emphasized that two of those occurred in domestic situations. A domestic homicide, he said, doesn’t mean the city is violent.

“I have continued to stand up and say to the world that Gary is not a violent city,” Clay said.

At the news conference, Houston said people would not be safe to march in a violent city, making reference to the Gary Catholic Diocese’s Golden Jubilee celebration.

Houston and Deputy Chief Thomas Branson assumed their new roles at the police department last month. ...[snip]

Here’s something special for y’all to ponder, especially if you like your cooters bald as ping-pong balls:

Lookit

Nope, haven’t looked at the illustration and not gonna. Sure makes me glad I feel no particular urgency to rid myself of ALL my Eastern European hair coating, though. Oof.

[Via Gawker]

that the guy I dumped for Shmollis was nicknamed “Zygote” by my friends and me. Dorky though he was, he didn’t particularly LOOK like a zygote, so no, I don’t remember how that came about.

So this Myspace thing has kind of taken off like a cancer for me, like it do—you know, getting all excited about having a shit-ton of “friends” and being all disappointed when someone doesn’t “friend” you back. My biggest disappointment? My junior prom date.

Backstory: Shmollis (not his real name, obviously, but if you look real hard, you can probably figure it out because you’re all smart like that) and I met when we were competing in Speech & Debate; he was a cute little (emphasis on “little,” since he was about 5’7 tops) ginger kid and I—well, I was dating this guy from yet another team who wrote me badly-spelled letters every single day and who was also really dorky looking. Shmollis and I clicked, and he asked me to go to prom. I ditched the other guy, Shmollis and I went, had a fantastic time and ended up going out for about half the summer, as much as you can call liking someone who lives an hour away “going out with” at 17. Had his class ring and the whole 9 yards.  Then, for reasons unclear to me at the time, he asked for his ring back. I of course was rather crushed, but we agreed to be “friends” (as you all nod knowingly).

I might’ve mentioned here a time or two that back in my younger days, I was never known for my tact; that little detail never became more apparent than when one day, I was at a card store and found a card that you send to people you haven’t heard from for awhile. I can’t remember the exact gist, but the punchline was three check-off boxes with answers—the third of which was “Go Fuck Yourself.” At 17, that’s freakin’ hilARIous, so I checked off No. 3 and sent it to him, knowing that he would think it was hilarious, too.

Yeah, I called that one wrong. He spent most of our senior year ignoring me at meets. I know, right?

Well, then a year goes by, and I’ve finished my freshman year at college. I was getting ready for work and the phone rings. I pick it up, and wow! It was Shmollis! I was stunned and happy to hear from him, so I did that nervous talking thing that people sometimes get and blathered on about this, that and the other. And at the end of the conversation, he says, “You haven’t changed a bit.” Huh? What’s that supposed to mean? I thought to myself, but I don’t remember acknowledging it in any way at the time. But never heard from him again.

Ten years later, 1999: I’m at the magazine for which I used to work, and googling people has become my latest obsession. I google our old friend Shmollis and find that he’s at college in state. I’m sure I was depressed at the time, so I send him what I thought was a friendly e-mail with the line, “You know, I never understood what you meant when you said I hadn’t changed until [whenever it was that it occurred to me that, I don’t know, maybe he felt I was self-centered], but now I do ...” blah blah blah, and to e-mail me back sometime. You know, because I’d gained some perspective or some shit. And he never did, but it was easy to pass that off as maybe I sent it to the wrong e-mail address, although with a name like Schmollis, it’s a little hard to get that wrong, even for me.

So now, it’s 2007, and for fun I look up our old pal Schmollis to see if he has a Myspace page. Sure enough, he does—after a stint in the military and graduating from school, he’s back living in his hometown. I debated—It’s been 20 years since we were in high school and since I showed him my ass in that card. Should I “friend” him, thinking that hey! it’s been 20 years, he’ll be amused at the blast from the past; or should I leave it alone because he’s still pissed. I threw caution to the wind. That was about a month ago. No Shmollis.

I mean, seriously, people! I went on a ROLLER COASTER for this guy during the day-after prom at Great America. The LEAST he can do is put me on one of his back pages as a friend.

So Anthony won Shear Genius, beating our intrepid hero by thatmuch, and I have to say, I’m kinda feeling meh about it. I suspected as much when, as I was doing some research for the story I wrote about it today, I noticed Anthony was pictured with Vidal Sassoon doing haircuts for Sassoon’s charity and no one else was, but I was as unsure as anyone and really kinda thought Daisy had it in the bag. Sure, Anthony was good overall, but I think Ben rose to the final challenge beautifully.

Of course, I’ve turned into this total spazz because I know a bonafide D-lister. I swear, I must’ve thrown his name around a thousand times since getting addicted to the show as if knowing him makes me cooler somehow. “Ben this!” and “Ben that!”  

MADE THE TOP THREE ON SHEAR GENIUS!!! HUZZAH, HUZZAH!

You know, I really don’t give a flying fart who’s doing it—the war, the conservatives, the liberals, the Al-Quesadillas, Big Oil, whatever. You CAN STOP ANY TIME NOW.

Yo.

Hats off to P-T reporter Piet Levy: A story he wrote on a lousy con man who bilked people out of a lot of money—Lookit—has gotten him a death threat:

Indiana State Police are investigating threats con man David Sroge allegedly made against a Post-Tribune reporter who exposed his history of theft, fraud and home repair scams.

Sroge, 50, attempted to recruit a gang member to kill a local police officer, a Lake County judge and reporter Piet Levy, state police detective Rick Bonesteel said Thursday.

“Normally we don’t comment on these types of investigations. But since a Post-Tribune employee was one of the targets, we contacted the newspaper,” Bonesteel said.

Sroge’s attorney Richard Maroc refused to comment on the police probe.

His client’s criminal record was documented in an investigative report in the Post-Tribune on Sunday.

Three days later, Sroge was arrested on a new felony theft charge. He is being held without bond at the Lake County Jail.

The Munster businessman will remain in jail until May 22 when Magistrate Kathleen Sullivan is scheduled to hold a hearing to decide if Sroge returns to a state work-release program or remains behind bars.

Before his arrest Wednesday, Sroge was serving time at the Kimbrough Work Program, a state work-release center in Crown Point.

Here’s what the rest of Indiana chose for our new plates next year: