by Jeff Hart

I imagined my insides to be as roughly calloused as a day laborer’s thumbs. In my line of work, you develop a certain tolerance for the unexpected gut-punch. Even a blow delivered by a master of casual brutality like Bo Harkins couldn’t slow me down for long. It was more the whole getting tossed in the trash thing that I was sore about. That, and, even after nosing around the Unfettered Souls Wellness Center, still not having a clue how to find my client Paul Fennel’s indentured soul mate. I’d returned to Ahmet’s bodega to figure out my next move. It was to call Dot, my exotic guide on the creepy back-roads that spider off the information superhighway.

“You’re making some interesting friends,” began Dot, dispensing with the formality of a greeting as she resumed our conversation from hours ago.

“I’ve hit a wall with Maker.”

“Did it hit back?”

“Just a love-tap. Tell me you’ve got something.”

“The Chief Motivationalist, he’s exactly what you’d expect. He self helps himself, but that’s capitalism, baby. Nothing wrong with that.”

“So he’s dirty?”

“You think a guy with a smile like that would be clean?”

“My client’s got him running whores out of Midtown. You turn up anything that filthy?”

“I think the exalted Maker would cringe to hear you describe his Virtues as whores, Royce. You need to expand that narrow mind.”

“What’s your point?”

“The point is that this isn’t a brothel you’re dealing with. These aren’t hey-sailor whores. You can’t approach Unfettered like you’re freeing the sweet immigrant girls from the exploitative grip of the pimp in the whalebone Rolls. These are kool-aid drinking converts. Maker might put a high price on the service of servicing each other, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re willing participants.”

“My client’s got the feeling they maybe aren’t so willing.”

“And you believe him?”

I hadn’t considered this. A sad sack like Fennel shows up on my doorstep with a work order from God and a forensic curiosity scalded into his chest, and I hadn’t thought to question if he might be playing me. My gut, that well-exercised and observant muscle of mine, told me it wasn’t necessary.

“Yeah. I believe him.”

“Fennel’s a person of interest. Bright red flag.”

“Him? Come on.”

“The less you know, the better.”

“Don’t stonewall me. He’s a rube.”

“Maybe you’re the rube.”

“Maybe your intel is for shit.”

Dot pointed an exhale right at my inner ear. Over the years I’d developed a keen sense of how exasperated a woman had become by the force and mass of her sighs. It was unusual to have Dot this ruffled.

“As a friend,” she began, her words suddenly measured, “I think you’ve made a bad read on this one. Your instincts-maybe they aren’t so sharp lately.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You botched that job for John the Bulldog, Royce. That’s common knowledge.”

“John and I worked that out.”

“I bet. You barely got clear of that one, and now you’re jumping into a job for this kid with nobody to vouch for him-”

“God vouched for him.”

“This Fennel kid, you might think he’s a lamb, but he’s put you in the mix with some bad ingredients. If I was you, and even granting that hypothetical puts me at a sudden intellectual disadvantage, I’d sit this one out. And for the record? My intel is never for shit.”

“Thanks for the unsolicited advice, but the kid’s deposit is nonrefundable.”

“Royce-”

“I’ll be in touch.”

I thought that I’d burned through my reserves of macho pride back when I started sleeping on a futon, but here was that old bar-fight feeling cracking its knuckles, all because one woman with barely a supporting role in my life had questioned my priorities and worried for my safety. Unacceptable. The Fennel job still seemed simple enough to me and whatever static Dot had tuned into wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. And as for bringing up John the Bulldog, well, that was a low blow. My instincts weren’t failing me. I was just on a bad run.

Ahmet’s phone rang, probably Dot calling back.

“What I don’t understand,” I began, trying to resume our usual breezy rapport, “is why you don’t think I can handle a simple puppy-love case.”

“I think you can handle it,” stammered the quavering male voice on the phone. “I’m sorry if I gave you a different impression.”

“Paul?”

“Hello, Mr. Mullins,” replied Paul Fennel, sounding at any moment like he might vomit on the receiver.

“Paul, how did you get this number?”

“The phonebook,” he said, sincere.

“But how did you know I was here?”

“I wanted to ask you to breakfast tomorrow, Mr. Mullins. I think by then we might have plenty to talk about.”

“Why don’t you just stop by my office?”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Your office is actually the other reason why I’m calling. There are some men in there. I thought you should know. I don’t think they mean you immediate harm, but I wouldn’t make any sudden movements, all the same.”

“Men? What are you talking about, Paul?”

“They’ve likely already found your gun.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I have to go. We’ll talk at breakfast.”

“Paul?”

“Mr. Mullins,” he said, and hesitated. “I think you’re doing a good job.”

He hung up. As I walked out of Ahmet’s my stomach turned over. Maybe not as cast-iron as I believed.

Now I had some idea of what might have gotten Dot spooked. Only Dot ever called me at Ahmet’s. How Fennel had tracked me down so easily was a concern. He was nervous on the phone, that didn’t seem like a put-on, but I couldn’t help but feel like I was being handled. Fennel’s sweaty fingertips were pushing me, I just wasn’t sure where.

The more pressing concern was the intruders. I could see them from the street. They’d turned my office lights on, making no effort to conceal themselves. That was a good sign. It meant they didn’t plan to loop piano wire around my throat the moment I walked through the door. However, Paul had indicated they might be prone to violence.

Mood I was in, that sounded alright.

Jeff Hart lives in Brooklyn. His other writing can be found over at Culture Blues.

Photo by Fabio, from Flickr.

Does this mean we have finally heard the end of the tired old “they promised us jetpacks” line? Because, if so, YAY. Also, I’m not sure who would drop 100k to strap a highly incendiary device on their back, but I guess those are probably the people you want wearing these thing.

by Abe Sauer

18) Akron Pros
17) Louisville Breckenridges
16) Brooklyn Lions
15) New York Yanks
14) Louisville Colonels
13) St. Louis Gunners
12) Canton Bulldogs
11) Buffalo All Americans
10) Columbus Panhandles
9) Dayton Triangles
8) Washington Senators
7) Racine Legion
6) Newark Tornadoes
5) Providence Steam Roller
4) Tonawanda Kardex
3) Youngstown Patricians
2) Duluth Kelley-Duluths
1) Pottsville Maroons

Abe Sauer has opinions.

Even though he’s running as an outsider, New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino certainly knows how the system works: “For a guy who professes to despise politicians, Carl P. Paladino sure likes to shower them with money…. Paladino and 20 of the companies he owns have contributed since 1999 to 156 candidates and 15 other campaign committees, most of them linked to the Republican and Democratic parties, a Buffalo News analysis shows. Those contributions total $468,787.”

by Colin Sweeney

You’d never expect a guy like Republican message-man Frank Luntz to really have to work hard at anything. After all, this is the very fellow who successfully advised Republicans to cast consumer protection as government interference. That’s an easy paycheck! But that’s not Luntz’s bread butter. That would be the Fox News Focus Group, into which I happened to stumble into yesterday. And it’s hard work.

My current job mostly involves driving around Los Angeles from bar to bar and dropping off my resume hoping for the off chance that there might be an opening and that they’d be impressed enough to give me a gig, cause I got none. But fate had other plans, as I walked dejected through the (fully staffed) Beverly Hilton. At the entry to the International Ballroom, I saw a sign, and that sign said Frank Luntz Focus Group. And so I went in.

I quickly moved to a dark, distant table to avoid the guy in the red sweater with a list I knew I wasn’t on. Who should find me hiding in the shadows other than, of course, Frank Luntz himself.

“Are you participating in the focus group?” he asked.

“Well, no, I just saw the sign and I’ve seen you on Bill Maher and-”

“So you’re from the left.”

“You can say that,” I whimpered. Then, offering a truce, I said, “It looks like you two have fun together.”

“It’s fun for him. It’s a pain in the ass for me,” he said.

To be fair, it can’t be easy hocking books with Republican talking points on Bill Maher’s show. I’m impressed that he pulls it off without a sweat.

“I tell you what,” he said. “If we have space you can sit in on the focus group.”

The next thing I know, I’m front center being broadcast live to four million+ Fox News viewers on Hannity’s America, twisting my reaction dial hard while viewing Christine O’ Donnell’s “I’m Not a Witch” spot. But once we were set to talking about our opinions, the experience wasn’t like what was later shown on TV, which was: every-day Americans spouting boilerplate and me rocking like a mute Rain Man from my hyperactivity and Hannity-hathos.

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

Also, I realize I need a haircut.

The real show, though, was just off camera, in the form of Frank Luntz conducting this orchestra of ideas.

This is the Frank Luntz no one gets to see. This is the man at work. With the camera turned away, silhouetted by the TV lights in his suit and tennis shoes, he would hop, dance and thrust his arms about. As the group got rowdy, he settled his hands to silence the mob so the camera could zero in on a speaker. As the energy died, he would plead, point and coax the crowd until someone picked up the ball. This is what it takes to fill six minutes of television with an untrained, uncoached focus group. At the end of his symphony, there was no applause for Dr. Luntz.

As the beads of sweat formed on his brow, the only send-off he received was a “See you next time,” from Hannity and the flashing of a red light. At least there’s a paycheck two weeks down the line for all his hustle. Even those of us in the focus group walked out with a crisp hundred-dollar bill in our pocket.

As I left, rich enough to afford two more tanks of gas, I took one last look at Frank. I wondered what he must be scheming next as the crew packed up the cameras and hardware. Or was he just exhausted? How many more memos? How many more dials? How many more dances?

Colin Sweeney is figuring out how to set up his website.

“With all do respect to you all, Nas is NOBODY’s slave. This is not the 1800′s, respect me and I will respect you. I won’t even tap dance around in an email, I will get right into it. People connect to the Artist @ the end of the day, they don’t connect with the executives. Honestly, nobody even cares what label puts out a great record, they care about who recorded it. Yet time and time again its the executives who always stand in the way of a creative artist’s dream and aspirations. You don’t help draw the truth from my deepest and most inner soul, you don’t even do a great job @ selling it. The #1 problem with DEF JAM is pretty simple and obvious, the executives think they are the stars. You aren’t…. not even close. As a matter of fact, you wish you were, but it didn’t work out so you took a desk job. To the consumer, I COME FIRST. Stop trying to deprive them! I have a fan base that dies for my music and a RAP label that doesn’t understand RAP. Pretty fucked up situation…”
–Wow! Rap legend Nas writes an angry letter to LA Reid and other top brass at Def Jam Records, demanding that the label put out his album The Lost Tapes, Vol. 2, which he apparently feels they’re stalling. “Stop throwing dog shit on a MAGICAL moment,” he says.

If there is not already a band called Sexy Chewbacca then there is something very wrong with this country.

“In a final coda to one of literature’s great doomed romances, a previously unseen poem by Ted Hughes was published Thursday in which he describes the dark last days leading up to Sylvia Plath’s suicide.” And here’s a dramatic reading!

Jim Behrle recently changed his name to American Poetry.

The neural mechanism for déjà vu: “All theories of memory acknowledge that remembering requires two cooperating processes: familiarity and recollection. Familiarity occurs quickly, before the brain can recall the source of the feeling. Conscious recollection depends on the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, whereas familiarity depends on regions of the medial temporal cortex. When these cooperating processes get out of sync, we can experience déjà vu, the intense and often disconcerting feeling that a situation is familiar even though it has never happened before.”

“The [Miami Police] department’s website is currently featuring a large mural-esque banner depicting five tough-looking characters, including one holding a bat and one throwing up a gang sign, and the plea: ‘Report Gang Activity’.

By our estimation, forty percent of the gang’s population is Jay-Z.”