The Moose in the Closet: The King of Chicago and 5 Nights at Jillian's: Bad Feet

Back from Chicago, had a great time. Met a bunch of cool people but nowhere near as much as I should have – my cell phone died on Saturday. It’s funny; you never realize how something like a cell phone, which you purchase because it’s a convenience, becomes a necessity after you structure your entire life around it. I swear to you, I had the shakes at times on Saturday because I knew there were people that were going to call and I could do nothing about it.

Anyway, I wanted to dedicate this week to some of the books I found during Chicago that I really dug for one reason or another. Top Shelf came out as the winner this show, for me, with Rich Koslowski’s “The King” (tones by Adam Wallenta) being the best book I picked up not just in Chicago but in quite some time (The Surrogates, which I’ll talk about tomorrow, was easily the second best book I purchased this weekend).

This is more of a mini-analysis than a review – if you just want the recommendation and would rather skip ahead to today’s story: Buy it.

Koslowski’s art in “The King” was gorgeous and the story itself was completely engrossing. It follows washed-up journalist Paul Erfurt as he covers a story about an Elvis impersonator that has the world believing he’s the real King while he claims to be the God of Music. It’s a great Jesus parallel. You have The King that never says he’s Elvis, much like Jesus always said he was “The Son of Man” and never the “The Son of God”. You have the apostles in the “Memphis Mafia”, souls saved by The King. Paul Erfurt plays the roll of Peter, once blind but healed by the divine grace of The King, carries on to write letters to His disciples. To an extent you even see a little Pilate in Paul, the inquisitor of The King, finding out the truth and deciding whether to believe the Pharisees (the non-Elvis loving public, his editor for one) or the followers when he writes his article that will essentially kill a God or let him live. You even have a Judas.

I love a good Jesus parallel (provided it isn’t Melville’s Billy Bud – God that book was awful) and I love me some Elvis. Also love a good mystery with a little humor thrown in. You combine all of that and you get one hell of an intriguing story. I suggest you buy this book as soon as you get the chance and share it with your friends that are too cheap to buy their own. This book should be read.

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Last week I talked a little about Jillian’s and how they unknowingly supplied my nicotine habit for several months. As I said I was a game tech there, when I saw a posting for the job I figured that my crazy-insane scientific mind would make me the ideal candidate. The interview lasted a whole five minutes and I was asked to start that night since they were a man short and it was a Friday. I agreed, got my Jillian’s shirt and went home to rest up before my first day at work.

I show up at around six, a little earlier than I normally would so that my boss can show me the ropes. I had the shirt on, the black pants – but I didn’t get the chance to buy black shoes yet. I figured the grays were enough. Not true, but luckily for me they had a pair of shoes I could wear to get me through the night.

Now, I have all kinds of foot problems. I had to wear these corrective shoes as a kid that straightened them out enough to function as an adult. I’m also flat-footed; I wear special insoles so that my feet don’t kill me when I walk around. I have this thing where my knees bend out slightly, putting more pressure on the inside of my feet which isn’t bad by itself but when you combine it with my flat-feet and ridiculously large bunions (which I got to a podiatrist yearly to see if I can put off surgery on them for another year), you can see why I need to be careful about what goes on my feet.

If I were to rank the footwear that would do the most damage to my feet, on the top of that list would be a pair of crusty old Dr. Martens combat boots that are a size too small, which, in case you’re really bad at figuring things out, is exactly what Jillian’s gave me that night.

Five minutes into wearing those beasts and I was in excruciating pain. Whenever I was in the back room I would take them off and massage my feet but, being my first day on the job and all, I spent most of my time on the floor, learning the ropes and crying because my feet have never hurt this bad.

It was really hard to communicate to my new coworkers exactly why I was limping around and the reason behind the constant flow of “ows”. I told them about the flat feet and the bent knees and the bunions of death and the crooked ankles and how the huge arch and ill-fitting steel-toed boot was the sole reason I winced every step I took but they just didn’t seem to get it.

None of them did. Not my boss, my fellow game techs or the burly bouncers. Not the extremely fly yet coked out waitresses nor the managers that wore the Italian suits that fucked the waitresses on the pool tables every night while doing lines of coke off their stomachs.

No one understood – until I decided to show them my feet. My bruised, bleeding, swollen and blistered feet. The managers freaked out the moment they saw my sock, soaked in blood from ruptured blisters that was stretching at the seams trying to contain my swollen foot. I got half of my sock off before they sent me home.

I went shoe shopping the next day, got some nice flat black shoes and purchased a brand new pair of insoles for them and some bunion gel pads since they were blown up and extremely sensitive. Although they didn’t fully heal by that night I still worked my shift like a trooper, trying to prove to the boss, game techs, bouncers, waitresses and managers that I was indeed Jillian’s material and I wouldn’t be lurching around like some freak every night.

I wasn’t fired; the whole shoe fiasco was forgotten rather quickly. My Jillian’s experience was filled with many embarrassments, either me doing something retarded or being witnessed to retardism. When your first day is cut short because your foot swelled to double its normal size – you know that job is going to be a winner.

We’ll continue Jillian’s week tomorrow and I’ll be a bit sharper in the delivery since I won’t be half asleep and beat to hell from Chicago Con. And once again, please read "The King" and join the Comic Book Death Pool.

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The King of Chicago and 5 Nights at Jillian's: Bad Feet

Sunday, August 07, 2005

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