LUDIC LOG

In William Peter Blatty's under-seen psycho-thriller The Ninth Configuration, there's a scene where a waitress in a dive bar, in an attempt to prevent a gang of bikers from destroying the place, picks up the phone to call the police. One of the bikers tears the phone out of the wall, saying gently "I'm on vacation".

License? No, sir. Liberty. "I'm on vacation", meaning, nobody can make you do anything. No one's giving you orders, nothing needs to be done, no one's handing you odd jobs. You can do anything, even if what you want to do is nothing. Don't you have some writing to do? Hey, I'm on vacation. Wanna check out the Flea and Tick Museum? No way, man. I'm on vacation. Can you help me fold this laundry? I'M ON VACATION.

Unfortunately, I'm not on vacation anymore, and it's time to get back to work, which includes the work of writing this log every day. Much thanks to Jon Morris, Andy Knight, Nate Patrin, Liz McKenna, Brent Bozman and Cori Faiella, who filled in for me while I was gone; winners of the big grand prize drawing will be announced Friday. However, I must now retake the reins of this spinning machine and return to the Hardingesque normalcy of Ludic Log entries written by me.

Still, there's time for one more cheap-ass semi-entry before the grind, isn't there? Sure there is. Here's what I learned on my summer vacation to San Francisco.

- I learned that Gate 27, the end-of-the-line of the Southwest Airlines terminal at Midway Airport here in Chicago, has a Cubs theme, including a counter autographed by a bunch of scrubs and a waiting area equipped with uncomfortable Wrigley Field stadium seats. I also learned there is nothing a White Sox fan can do about this but suffer in silence.

- I learned from a drunken teenage girl on shore leave from the U.S. Navy that Illinois is full of communists. I also learned that this girl's mother is so desperate for a decent pizza in her home town of Stockton, CA, that she had the drunken teen carry a Pizzaria Uno pie on the plane all the way from the Midwest.

- I learned that my friend Christian does not, as he had previously claimed, look like Harry Knowles.

- I learned that my friend Christina makes an extremely potent mixed drink. I also learned that she does not seem to partake in these extremely potent mixed drinks herself, which could possibly be part of a nefarious scheme to get me drunk and steal my money. I assume this plan was abandoned when it was learned that I don't have any money.

- I learned that the heart-attack-inducing routine of walking up and down the ridiculously steep hills of San Francisco is slightly preferable to the nausea-inducing routine of being driven up and down said hills at 70 miles per hour by an insane cab driver. I also learned that you can park your car on the sidewalks in San Francisco, and it will not be vandalized, towed or set on fire within five seconds' time the way it would be here in Chic.

- I learned, by going to a game between the Athletics and the Angels at Oakland's Network Associates Colosseum, what a stadium filled with 50,000+ people looks like. I also learned that drunken, obnoxious Yankee fans are the same all over the world.

- I learned that the bathrooms at many restaurants in the city of San Francisco are bigger, cleaner and more nicely appointed than my apartment. I also learned that the bathrooms at other restaurants are not.

- I learned that my friends Cindy and Jane are delightful company (although, actually, I already knew that). I also learned that Cindy intends, some day, to marry San Francisco city supervisor Matt Gonzalez (who may or may not resemble catastrophic film director Michael Cimino) and that Jane's cats are homosexuals.

- I learned that some guy named Gary got the living shit kicked out of him on public access television; that the Planet of the Apes movies are even worse than the Planet of the Apes novelizations; that, although I scarcely thought such a thing possible, club kids are even more vain, self-centered and obnoxious than I previously expected; that Willie Wonka lends itself to a number of fascinating political and economic readings; that Chinese communism retains its vitality through a series of telethons; that you couldn't have picked a better person than Michael Savage to lose his job; and that in San Francisco, it's okay to show nudity on television, as long as it's black people who are naked. I also learned that I watch too much TV when I'm on vacation.

- I learned that some people are man enough for a fireworks fight, and other people are not.

- I learned that it's good to be home, even if you have to ride the train back to your apartment stuck between a small group of white teenagers who are gopped up on speed and a large group of black children who keep spelling things at the top of their lungs.