THE GREAT GADFLY:

Get Me Off The Streets, Get Some Protection

Well, what can I say. The world is slowly devolving into a Hieronymous Bosch painting. Yesterday afternoon was surreal enough with lights and air conditioning in tact; I couldn't imagine what it would have been like without the modern things.

I was most put off by the reactions of my co-workers to the blackouts, as they cyberrubbernecked together around computer monitors and clucked and cawed and gasped in amazement to the goings-on, as if watching a very special episode of "Survivor: Manhattan".

"Oooh, it's got to be hard to be a New Yorker, you know?"

"Everything happens to THEM."

Never mind the fact that a massive, hairy claw of blackouts was reaching across the nation and quite literally appearing to pinch the poor little state of Indiana like it was a fat, sweaty grape. Never mind that it seemed that a shadow of powerlessness seemed to be rushing its way to threaten our complacency, desk fans, and vending machines.

That kind of thing could NEVER happen here, you see.

It's as if we've projected the backwash of our denial eastward, and project all the horribleness that could be in this day and age to the only place in the country where anything big and intense ever happens. I mean, after all, that's where all the TV shows and movies are set, right?

Then some fighter-plane-looking things swooshed past our office building. Co-workers pointed out the windows, clucking and laughing some more.

It's all a spectacle, see. Because nobody ever gets hurt out here. Not unless you go to the bad parts of town, that is.

I felt a moment of horror yesterday afternoon. Post-traumatic-sympathetic-stress, I suppose. I wasn't so much horrified that the nation was in the throes of some kind of terrorist hullaballoo (though there was that), and it wasn't so much that I was horrified of all the lights going off in the building (I thrill to that kind of thing - I was raised on stuff like "The Towering Inferno" and the "Airport" movies, after all), and it wasn't even so much that I was afraid of how much worse things could become, or if it would even reach Chicago.

No. Let me tell you my greatest fear yesterday, as I watched the mysterious sleek stealth-blurs zipping past our window.

I was afraid that one horrible day - maybe not yesterday in specific, but one unfortunate day - some sinister fate would arrive in my corpo-serf office job setting, and I would forever be known as one of those office workers who died when the building went down.

This is not to belittle or in any way look down on anybody who has died in a similar way, be they victims of 9-11 or the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (which happened - guess where - in New York City). No, in fact, it only makes their loss all the more bleak. Nobody deserves to go down in history as the casualty of a day job.

I started thinking about all the things I've written, performed, drawn, published - all the people I've known, befriended, fallen in love with, fought with, influenced and been influenced by - all the things I've yet to do, all the people I've yet to meet, all the people I already know with whom I have so much left to explore - and I couldn't help but hear a party conversation that could one day be:

"Remember that Gadfly guy?"

"Oh, yeah. The one who died when the office blew up."

"Yeah, him."

"That was horrible."

"Yeah, let's change the subject."

The moral of the story? Losing one's life for a job that one does not particularly feel an especial kinship toward is the most cosmic, ironic way I can think of getting caught with one's pants down. Note to self: Remember that.

Maybe this is a terribly self-centered way of looking at the bigger picture. I mean, it's not a way I'd wish ANYone to be memorialized, but you know how it is: I can't help thinking about me.

Oh, and the planes turned out to be rehearsals for this weekend's Air and Water Show, a Chicago tradition that for the past two years of my residence here, might as well be called the Loud Sudden Noises and Nerve Damage Show for all I'm concerned.

All the same, the Chicago El was a mess during afternoon rush-hour yesterday. Trains were backed up, the platforms were clotted with throngs of flesh - even the sidewalks were constipated with people clamoring for a bus. And wasn't even a damn thing wrong in Chicago. Just fear.

Never mind the fact that none of the offices downtown held evacuation drills when the news first went down. No. We all waited until 5 p.m., so we could panic at a more appropriate time, like good productive employees.

This morning was like a psychotic episode hangover. On the bus ride to work this morning, we were lucky enough to enjoy a ranter who boarded the #36 somewhere around Broadway and Belmont and proceeded to sit in the middle of the bus and tell it all how it is, how it used to be, and how it was going to be. Much to the chagrin of the grimmacing Trixies sitting at either side of Mr. Ranty, both of whom were clearly working hard on strategies in which they could re-seat without catching his attention and possibly becoming subjects for his bottomless cup of guerrilla vitriol. They eventually figured it out.

After a crescendo or three, Mr. Ranty calmed down and then somewhere around Lincoln Park the bus came to an abrupt halt and a hippie-looking woman boarded who reminded me of a slightly chunky version of Gabe Kaplan's wife on "Welcome Back Kotter" (I think her name was Mrs. Kotter), and she immediately started laying into the female bus driver, and the two started squawking quite violently at each other, and the bus remained at a stand-still as the catfight progressed. The entire bus was silent and thrilled to the drama. Finally, Mrs. Kotter stormed off the bus, all flailing fists and elbows, the lady bus driver yelled out after her "THAT'S RIGHT, YOU BETTAH GET OFF MY BUS!!!" and then Mr. Ranty started back up with a rousing chorus of "CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG??? LET ME TELL YOU HOW THINGS USED TO BE WHEN I WAS COMING UP!!!"

Oh, good grief.

And now here I am at work, which I can hardly define as a comfort by comparison. I guess I should just feel lucky I'm sitting in air conditioning today, though I can't help but let my heart wander out East, where I'd certainly be sitting on a stoop somewhere with my Neeyawker friends, slurping on bomb-pops and talking shit, playing old mix tapes by long lost friends on a battery-powered boombox, and enjoying the City-mandated day of hooky. On a Friday, no less.

Ya lucky bastards.