say what?

The good folks at Lake Superior State University each year publish a list of words they claim should be banished due to overuse.

In July on this blog I reprised a newspaper column I first published in February 2010 bashing what I perceived back then as the rampant overuse of the word amazing. As it turns out, amazing tops LSSU's 2012 list of verbi non grata.

A spokesperson for LSSU on CNN recently admitted the list is more about drawing attention to overuse rather than actually removing vocabulary, which is good since no matter how hackneyed, profane, or silly a word is, there may indeed be occasions when it alone seems appropriate to the speaker. In such cases I can only echo that other well trodden verbal path and urge the person with the floor to "go for it."

Living languages, by definition, are constantly evolving. The aggregate of speakers of English will at some point let démodé expressions fall into disuse while embracing the latest neologisms, at least that has been the historical paradigm. It is a pruning process traditionally spearheaded by each generation's articulati, if you will.

Clearly in this modern era, discerning practitioners of our so-called standard American idiom appear in diminishing supply. Still, I have faith in the ever etymological triage that shapes a language. Despite a perceived skewing of our changing vulgate due to a spreading acceptance of familiar yet often inexact words, and the disproportionate emphasis awarded suspect coinages in the media and on the Web, our language survives and thrives in all its blunt power and delicate nuance. Inanity may nibble at the fringes of our contemporary usage, but it will not compromise the essence of human communication.

As I have often explained to language students and teachers alike, it is all one language. That is to say, German, Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, Ukrainian, and yep, even American English, as well as all the other languages of the world are parts of one big language -- like fingers on a hand. Call it the Human language, for it is in the broadest sense the verbal expression of mankind's common existence on this planet.

Artwork courtesy of Bridget Gaynor

Talk may be cheap but language is paramount. As we forge ahead in 2013, let us pledge "Excelsior."

e pluribus unum

Driving across Pennsylvania recently on my way back to Ohio from Long Island, I stopped for a Big Mac and fries. I am not a frequent flyer when it comes to the Golden Arches. But on long road trips that great, greasy fast food, which took our nation by storm during my adolescence, is a favorite indulgence.

It was dark in the no man’s land of western PA when I exited Interstate 80 at Mercer and pulled into the local McDonald’s parking lot. The Mercer McDonald’s was nearly empty. I can report that it is a clean store. The walls above the booths are decorated with a number of framed nature scenes lovingly depicting regional fauna.

On the wall to the left of the counter is a map of the United States. The map was stuck with probably more than two hundred colorful pushpins, each marking the hometown of a recent customer. The manager told me he has to replace the map twice a year because it becomes overpopulated with pushpins.

Pennsylvania and the surrounding states boasted the most markers as you would expect. The East Coast was jammed, too, of course. But there were also pins marking towns all the way from California and Alaska to Texas and south Florida, not to mention a number of pins spanning the lower reaches of Canada. I scanned the map instinctively for my own coordinates to see if I could add anything original to this aleatory depiction of distance and direction, but both the North Fork of Long Island and northwestern Ohio were already pinned down nicely.

At that Mercer McDonald’s the folks working the late shift were pleasant and efficient. I took my order to go. But when I drove away, just another lonely cruiser, I carried with me more than a white bag of fast food. I was filled with e pluribus unum.

Despite a desperate economy and the social troubles facing our nation, I had the sense of being part of something positive, something living and breathing. I had the realization looking at that map on the wall of the Mercer McDonald’s that our national greatness relies not just on the historical geography of 50 discrete states. It comes directly from the individuals who inhabit and crisscross this land with freedom and dignity.

As I drove westward into the American night toward an uncertain personal future, one hand on the wheel, the other dipping into the McDonald’s bag for more fries, I was grateful to be part of this noble experiment.

Cinema 2009: The Gran Torino belongs to a grumpy old man

The overexposed look of the 2009 flick "Gran Torino" serves to accentuate the harshness of the down-at-its-heels Detroit neighborhood where Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) seems determined to make his last stand.

Widowed as the film opens, Kowalski's troubled Korean War vet could have provided a layered, age-appropriate role for the iconic Hollywood tough guy, but Eastwood's character here rarely transcends the caricature of a grumpy old man, albeit with the good guy's requisite soft heart and sense of self-sacrifice. Of course, Eastwood's career has been built on melodrama, even if some of his later work arguably owes its critical acclaim to increased forbearance from the actor/director.

In "Gran Torino," Eastwood's character still plays with guns a half century after his service in Korea, including the rifle he used during that United Nations police action. But in his senior moments Kowalski only pulls a make-believe trigger with an empty hand mimicking a gun; except for once, when the old man trips in his garage while confronting a hapless teenaged neighbor who has been put up to stealing the Gran Torino of the film's title as a gang initiation.

That nocturnal confrontation is one of the movie's most compelling scenes. The action is bathed in intermittent light from a wildly swaying overhead lamp that has been bumped accidentally, heightening the tension as we repeatedly are plunged into darkness during crucial action. That piece of expressionistic filmmaking also emphasizes the post-traumatic stress that has been haunting Kowalski since Korea. The Asian countenance of would-be car thief Thao (Bee Vang), born in Michigan of Hmong parents who emigrated from Vietnam, confronts Kowalski in the dark garage like a hallucination of a young North Korean soldier he killed in the war.

The next day Kowalski parks the Gran Torino, which no one ever drives, on the apron of his driveway, defiantly displaying the mint condition muscle car he himself helped build 36 years earlier while working on the assembly line.

When the gang returns to "give Thao a second chance," Clint's character shuffles across his yard with shouldered rifle to get the interlopers off his lawn, and in the process thwarts the gang's kidnapping of Thao.

The calm, methodical plugging of multiple adversaries, who themselves prove unable to return accurate gunfire in the stress of the moment, is an Eastwood trope. In "Gran Torino," it is alluded to by Kowalski repeatedly.

While Thao expiates his attempted theft through manual labor, Kowalski's bottled-up anger visibly rejuvenates the old warrior, for better or for worse. But whereas Dirty Harry could threaten armed robbers in the midst of their crime with "Go ahead, make my day," a civilian, war veteran or not, can't exactly expect a free pass if he blows away some punks wrestling on his lawn. Kowalski and Eastwood both realize this and as the violence escalates, the filmmaker takes the narrative in another direction.

The real tragedy highlighted in "Gran Torino" is the isolation of individuals within society or families, whether caused by bigotry, selfishness, religious tradition, or post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Gran Torino" is fun, has little and big laughs, and plenty of politically incorrect insults and vintage Eastwood dialog. But despite the realistic themes it dances around and the stark economic reality revealed by Tom Stern's cameras, this movie certainly is not meant to be taken seriously, not from the opening scenes of Kowalski growling at all that displeases him to a later scene where the shuffling septuagenarian lays a brutal beating on a fireplug of a gangbanger without recourse to even a single ampule of nitroglycerin.

Final credits roll over Thao cruising along a pastoral stretch of Lake Erie shorefront. That pacific landscape is anathema to everything we have been shown and while it may imply freedom, it falls short here of providing a liberating coda for troubled Thao.

Cinema 2010: On tracks for disaster

If you like locomotives I hope you find one underneath your Christmas tree. You might also want to screen "Unstoppable" from 2010.

The title of this unimaginatively written action flick turns out to be a somewhat inaccurate description of the massive runaway train the movie is about. In the end, however, perhaps that title alludes to something even greater.

Playing second fiddle to the choo-choo is Oscar winner Denzel Washington, who is Frank, a 28-year veteran of the Pennsylvania railyards assigned here to work with Will (Chris Pine), a well-connected rookie. While Denzel is fun to watch, the star doesn't try to break any new ground here when it comes to acting.

The opening scenes paint a tableau of poorly disciplined workers with even poorer morale. Then there is Frank, a good-humored but demanding senior presence. While Frank lays down his rules for the new guy, in another railroad yard mistakes made and compounded by a hapless worker are setting in motion the impending disaster of a runaway train.

As the ghost train gains momentum with the inevitable smoothness of destiny, elsewhere along the main line Frank and Will get off to a rough start. With the out-of-control train bearing down on them, the protagonists sidetrack their squabble. Later it turns out both Frank and Will are stand-up guys who will respond to an emergency with selfless heroics. By that time it is clear no real harm will come to them as the movie chugs along to its inevitable happy end. Thus the climactic acrobatics and perilous efforts of the heroes atop the speeding train remain devoid of suspense. It is a sharp and disappointing contrast to the latent terror of the opening scenes where an awkward worker tries to climb out of a slowly rolling locomotive to throw a track switch by hand.

In "Unstoppable," reporters and cops swarm the landscape as the mega locomotive smashes its way through rural road crossings like an iron tornado. Director Tony Scott overuses scenes of news reporting to advance and comment on his narrative. Maybe the film's title really refers to a media motormouth who never learned to shut up long enough to let events speak for themselves.

Scott intercuts the action with shots of the heroes' loved ones, but we get it already: the wife wishes she had returned her husband's calls, daughters regret their teenager rebelliousness. Those sappy scenes have their place in such a film but Scott lays it on double-thick.

The only original character in "Unstoppable" is a welder named Ned, played by an original, Lew Temple. (See photo below.) Ned is a blue-collar know-it-all whose diner-counter panacea is precision, and he hammers home that mantra to any waitress in earshot, even while his unabashed enjoyment of the morning's bacon and eggs makes him late for work.

But whenever "Roger that" Ned is onscreen, the audience is being entertained, not least of all by this refreshing performer's ability to steal scenes.

Finally, despite the worn stereotypes offered up here — corporate veeps mismanaging from an isolated boardroom, or the company's owner pausing on the links just long enough to greenlight some cockeyed crisis strategy — "Unstoppable" leaves us with the general impression that beyond the outskirts of Big City America, and in spite of an ever encroaching bureaucratic incompetence and the sad existence of a widely neglected national infrastructure, there still exists a homeland of down-to-earth self-starters.

Though they may be hotheaded and unshaven, those Americans can still answer the call of duty with determination and ingenuity. And no matter how cheesy its ending, this movie would have us go on believing in our American archetypes for one simple reason: they, and by extension we, have hearts big enough to be unstoppable.

Town Hall

There used to be a burlesque theater on St. Clair Street in Toledo, Ohio, called the Town Hall. I remember it from the late 1960s and early 70s, mostly from the daily ads it ran in the newspaper but there was also one particular Saturday matinee that I will never forget.

I used to marvel at the eighth-of-a-page ads for the Town Hall that appeared in the Peach Section of The Toledo Blade, "One of America’s Great Newspapers," as its masthead proclaimed and still does, even if like most papers that broadsheet today is flimsier and not as broad as back then. When I was in high school the Peach Section was printed on soft orange-colored stock and contained the TV listings, movie guide, features and a number of columns.

In one column that I loved to read, the author recounted life's mundane struggles and invariably credited his day-to-day triumphs to sage advice from his wife, referred to only as “Green Eyes.” As a boy I fell in love with Green Eyes. My reader’s imagination created an ideal woman around those emerald windows to the soul. To this day I am weak for women with peepers of that hue.

Other aspects of the female anatomy were alluded to in those Peach Section ads for the Town Hall. The strippers performed under tantalizing stage names and were hawked using impressive sets of measurements. One heralded headliner, for example, -- and the only act I remember by name -- was known simply as Irma the Body.

While I was in high school my best friend Blair had the genius idea of actually going to the burlies. So one Saturday afternoon four of us high school students rode downtown in Blair’s white Camaro. We lived in West Toledo. Before the interstate bypass was completed in the early 1970s, you drove downtown via a venerable artery like Monroe Street, which connected the western burbs with Toledo's historic churches and central city merchants.

I think we parked the car near the theater, possibly in a surface lot by Ted’s Hamburger Shop. Ted’s looked like a miniature White Castle, a small white box on a corner surrounded by parked cars. I think it could seat half a dozen at its counter and there might have been a few booths as well.

As we approached the ticket window beneath the marquee that jutted out over the wide sidewalk, there was a small line of old men purchasing tickets. Having observed this, and even though automobile traffic was sparse on St. Clair, Blair cautioned us to hold back. He didn’t want to be seen standing in line to buy a ticket to the striptease in broad daylight on a Saturday afternoon. A few minutes later, with the ticket booth clear of other patrons we boldly walked up and bought our tickets, not even sure they would sell them to us. But they did and we quickly ducked into the dark lobby. Inside the theater were a couple dozen older guys scattered in seats around that vintage hall. Many held overcoats on their laps. Led by Blair, we took our seats in the second row at center stage.

A comedian came out in a plaid suit and did his shtick, old time vaudeville jokes. We laughed a lot probably more nervous than amused. After about 20 minutes of that corn the real show began. From the wings a woman danced out onto the stage to piped-in music while a real live drummer sat in a cage left of the boards and furnished the beat, the rim shots and high hat flourishes. The woman took her costume off while the old men squirmed. We sat eyes wide open, soon admiring for the first time a real live, nearly naked woman. When she was finished the audience applauded and the stripper dressed only in a g-string and pasties bowed and disappeared behind the curtain.

After a brief pause the next stripper would be introduced and begin her striptease. The women all looked alike to me: curly haired brunettes, in their 30s, kind of plump to be strutting nude on stage I thought. But what did I know. Still, I was secretly disappointed. I had expected to see women like in the movies, only finally without their clothes, stars like Rita Hayworth or that blonde in La Dolce Vita. I still applauded each one as did my friends. Only Blair was too cool to clap.

Then the headliner came on stage. Was it Irma?* I don’t remember. But she was a different class of woman. Her skin was pale, translucent. She had light colored hair, was lithe and pretty and appeared to be a half dozen years younger than the others. That burlesque star made the strippers who came before her look old, flabby and heavy-footed. When she was finished, standing before us in g-string and pasties, the applause was enthusiastic.

While the audience was still making known its collective appreciation she looked down at us from the stage – down at Blair sitting with his hands on his knees – and spoke, “What’s a matter? You didn’t like it?” Immediately flustered, Blair nodded his head and began furiously clapping his hands as the beautiful, nearly naked stripper, standing above us with arms akimbo, smiled and walked off the stage. We all agreed she was our favorite. And we decided to stay for the second show.

After a break, during which time other old men took their seats in the theater, the comedian came back out on stage. We of course remembered all his punch lines and yelled them out loud before he could spring them on the new audience. He soon got mad at us and began to threaten us under his breath, all the while setting up his next joke. But dressed in his silly suit he did not scare us. Besides, we were a gang of four, fearless of adult men, if not women.

The dancers returned in the same order as before and we continued to marvel at their twirling tassles and curvy flesh. When the pale-skinned princess returned on stage before us, no one, not even Blair, needed encouragement to applaud.

* Some Internet research convinces me I did not in fact see Irma the Body that Saturday afternoon. I must even wonder if my memory is accurate regarding the venue because the Town Hall apparently was razed before we ever got our driver's licenses.

Cinema 2009: Action & a figure

"The Wrestler," released in the U.S. in 2009, is a gritty and compelling film about Randy "Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke), a past-his-prime pro wrestler from the hinterlands of New Jersey. On weekends the aging Ram still body slams opponents and "sits on other men's faces," in the mocking words of the manager at the grocery store where Ram keeps a day job offloading trucks.

The feel of the movie is one of raw, one-take filmmaking. But there is nothing amateurish about the result. A torn parka sums up Ram's socioeconomic status in a single shot, while seeing it in scene after scene underlines the inhospitable nature of the world Ram lives in.

Twenty years after his glory days, Ram is stuck doing the thing that feeds his ego and his pride. He still loves the fans, even if by now they are reduced to a sad trickle at autograph signings. But ringside at the makeshift venues inside rented halls and hotel conference rooms in the Garden State, where these wrestlers hold their matches, the crowds are fanatic. Ram works the independent circuits, including Combat Zone Wrestling, where his middle-aged body, propped up by a panoply of prescription drugs — minus the scripts — suffers broken glass and staple gun abuse, in return for an envelope of small bills.

Out of the blue, Ram is offered a chance to relive his earlier triumphs and make a decent payday with an "epic" rematch against his most famous opponent. Ram's redemption may have come too late, however, because his failing health convinces the old wrestler to finally toss out his tights.

Instead, Ram takes on more hours at the grocery store, working the deli counter. He struggles to rebuild a family life and thinks about settling down with Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), an exotic dancer. While Ram embraces his job at the deli counter with all the enthusiasm of the good-natured extrovert that he is, old habits die hard. In Ram's case, they are those of a hard-charger primarily defined by the camaraderie of his calling and a penchant to party.

Rourke and Tomei were both nominated for the Oscar for their acting in this movie. But the Academy overlooked Evan Rachel Wood, who plays Ram’s estranged daughter Stephanie. Rachel Wood absolutely stuns with her performance in this minor role. When Ram reaches out to Stephanie, Wood takes her character in a matter of seconds from surprise at seeing her father to indignant outrage at his having walked out on her life so long ago. In a later scene she conveys her emotions through movement, like a dancer. But when her character needs to go beyond tough, Wood's glowering eyes and trembling lip convey a fragile ferocity that positively leaps off the screen.

As for Tomei, her scenes in Cheeques, a "gentleman's club," may be pathetic, as she portrays an over-the-hill lap dancer begging customers to pay for her private attentions, and torturous as she performs on the main stage like an arthritic gymnast, but the 44-year-old Academy Award winner definitely brings it when it comes to those nude scenes. Viewers who remember her as Mona Lisa Vito in the 1992 film "My Cousin Vinny," will be forced to update that impression, while conceding her biological clock has seemingly ticked quite slowly in the interim. By contrast, in scenes outside the club, Tomei imparts to her character a scrubbed purity that masks world weariness.

Back at the deli counter, a customer recognizes the former wrestler slicing cheese. The spark of shame caused by the collision of those two worlds re-ignites Ram's pride and suddenly he is on his way back into the ring — via an uproarious grocery store exit that many in the audience might envy. Cleanup in aisle three.

Cassidy must also choose between "the life" and real life, and here Tomei achieves a sincerity that balances the melodrama.

Ram's poor health is at the root of the tension as he returns to face an old nemesis. We have already been shown the mutual respect among the wrestlers, all the more remarkable when contrasted against the fervor of the ringside fans who pour out love as easily as they spew hate. We have also seen how, in locker rooms before and after the staged insanity of the bouts, the younger wrestlers defer to Ram, who always responds humbly with kind words. We have listened as the wrestlers plan their bouts beforehand ("You bring the cheap heat") to make sure they are on the same page.

Director Darren Aronofsky pulls away this safety net for the final bout. Ram's opponent remains an enigma so we experience the uncertainty Ram feels, not knowing if he will even survive the athletic exertion of the match. Ram takes that leap of faith, and the film's end is a testimony to the success of Rourke's gut-wrenching and heart-wrenching performance.

Cinema 2012: Killing them brutally

The crime drama “Killing Them Softly” from 2012 offers a jarring look at fringe mobsters and small-time losers. But the story, based on a gritty 1974 crime novel by George V. Higgins, only suffers from its cinematic updating.

While the tale would no doubt work as a fierce period piece from that earlier American recession caused by the oil crisis, the filmmakers have preferred to present a flimsy update to 2008, mainly relying on a grating leitmotif of sound bites from news coverage of that year’s presidential campaign to place the action in time. Unfortunately that technique comes across as obstreperous, especially on the heels of the most recent (and most expensive) presidential race.

Perhaps the producers feared that setting a nearly 40-year-old tale in its proper decade would limit box office. That’s a shame because Higgins’ crime story is the stuff of that era’s best B movies – just add a slutty jazz soundtrack and you could have had a modest gem of a crime flick.*

Instead we get an uneven film marred in spots by four-year-old campaign speech snippets. Despite this thick slathering of time-stamped footage the rest of the movie, minus a few flat screen TVs and a cell phone, still has a deep 1970s feel to it.

The action in “Killing Them Softly” takes place amid the tired precincts surrounding Boston, in drab "old man" bars, an empty relic of a restaurant, and in and around gas guzzlers. Brad Pitt plays Jackie, a soft spoken mob hit man. But Pitt’s portrayal as an aloof enforcer is too elusive to truly connect to the audience. On the other hand, James Gandolfini, in a supporting role as a self-absorbed hit man turned alcoholic, steals the scenes he shares with Pitt. The kicked back cool of Pitt's character is no match for Gandolfini’s “all in” approach when it comes to his juicier role.

Writer/director Andrew Dominik frames the struggles of the small time crooks in this film against a broken-down America. Much of the film is expressionist, from the trope of showing characters walking down a narrow alley (destiny closing in), to using altered imagery to depict a character’s drugged state of mind. Original shot-framing of Jackie and his mob go-between, played by Richard Jenkins, during a front seat tête–à–tête in the latter's car serves to emphasize not only the rift between the two men but also the uncomfortable status of each within an organization that is evolving independently of them.

In an era when audiences have become inured to movie violence, which is so often depicted with cinematic grace, Dominik slaps a mean and startling brutality on the screen. In “Killing Them Softly” Jackie draws a bloody line connecting the choices made by the crooks who steal from the mob to the brutal consequences of those actions.

Director Dominik is also a godfather of suspense. When a caper unfolds too slowly the tension absolutely tortures because we know the robbers to be ill-prepared amateurs. Nor does “Killing Them Softly” always give the audience the expected payoff, instead it repeatedly breaks its own rhythm to keep viewers off-balance, like a small-time criminal living from score to score.

In the final scene, Jackie delivers a historically shallow rant in pundit-speak about “wine snob” Founding Fathers. It is an ill-conceived add-on by Dominik. To its credit that scene does end on a terse point that sums up the tale nicely. But it also tries lamely to link conceptually the narrative with the extra helpings of campaign sound bites used throughout the movie, and that is justed wasted effort.

*For a brilliant film version of an earlier Higgins novel that doesn’t thumb its nose at the book’s original setting, watch “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” from 1973, directed by Peter Yates, starring the great Robert Mitchum, and featuring a fine dramatic performance by Peter Boyle as “Dillon.”

Booze, guns, and off-duty cops

The case last year of an off-duty county cop suspended for pointing his gun at a bartender — apparently in inebriated jest — in a Long Island pub had me wondering just how common that type of thing is.

In the early 1990s I tended bar in the lounge of a hotel in Nassau County, Long Island. The neighborhood could be plenty dangerous. I knew firsthand, having worked nearby as a security guard. (My boss at the security gig survived a particular Saturday morning shift when a shotgun wielded by the bad guy, the so-called "ninja robber," misfired at point blank range.)

The hotel where I worked behind the bar was known as an airline hotel. Commercial flight crews were bused to our location from JFK and LaGuardia aiports. The pilots and flight attendants were a spirited bunch and I was proud to know them. Inevitably, the lounge became a hangout as well for off-duty cops eager to meet flight attendants.

One quiet night a pilot on a lay-over suggested to his friends that they all go across the street to a neighborhood bar. Not really a good idea, I advised him. The pilot was middle-aged but in shape and confident as all pilots. He had learned to fly in the U.S. Marines. He wasn't afraid to go into any bar, he said.

Personally, I had never been inside that particular establishment. I did know a regular hotel guest who frequented it to play pool. He told me once that the locals were convinced he must be insane so they left him alone.

Sandwiched between a check cashing place and a Spanish eatery is a dive bar with a history of dead bodies.

I figured other hotel guests might be able to go into the bar as well, have a drink, and leave without a problem – if they were lucky. But bringing a couple of hot flight attendants in there with you would, in my opinion, change the equation incalcuably. Besides, what was the upside of escorting attractive women into the ghetto to taste the watered-down liquor in a dump where bad things happened with the sad regularity of a video loop?

"Why not ask this gentleman what he thinks," I said to the pilot, pointing to an off-duty police sergeant at the other end of the bar. "He works in the neighborhood." So the pilot asked him. The sergeant, looking unremarkable in street clothes, turned to the group of airline crew members and smiled. "I was only in that hole in the wall on two occasions," he said, "and both times it was because there was a dead body inside." The pilot quietly dropped the idea.

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I was always glad to have off-duty cops in my bar, especially given the neighborhood. On another slow evening, as I was chatting with the same off-duty sergeant, three young males walked in. They were dressed like mopes, to use the vernacular of that time and place – hooded sweatshirts, baggy jeans. One of them sat on a bench near the entrance. Another walked toward the far corner and stood facing the bar. The third came up to the middle of the bar. No words had been spoken.

The sergeant and I exchanged a knowing glance. He casually reached down and unfastened his ankle holster, then moved to a table where he could cover the unfolding scene with his back to the wall. I walked over to the young man at the bar, fully expecting to be looking down the barrel of a handgun. Instead the guy pulled a key from his pocket and asked if he could charge food for himself and his two friends to his room. Sure thing, I exhaled.

And so it was normal for me to greet warmly a group of four off-duty cops who met up in the lounge one night.

They were drinking at the bar next to the floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the entrance to the underground parking garage. One of the cops, John, had parked his motorcycle on the walkway outside where he could keep an eye on it through the vertical blinds. At one point his buddy — all four were white males — slapped him on the arm and said, "John, don't look now but there's a n----- by your bike." We all turned toward the windows. Outside, a black police officer from their department was inspecting the motorcycle. The black cop, tall and lean and sharp-looking in his uniform, stepped to the glass squinting. Apparently he couldn't see into the bar because of the tinted glass. He put his hands to his temples and leaned against the window — peering. John took out his nine millimeter handgun and pointed it between the black cop's eyes, muzzle up against the glass. The cops laughed. I held my breath.

That type of gun was known for firing a round that could go right through a person. Surely if the gun went off by accident that plate glass would not slow it down. There were a few other groups in the lounge at the time but I don't think they saw the gun or knew what was happening. The black cop gave up trying to look through the glass and walked away. John holstered his weapon and the group ordered another round. I believe I poured myself one, too.

The black cop walked into the lounge a minute later to say hi to his colleagues. He figured they were there because he had recognized John's motorcycle. I offered him a drink. He was working and would only take a Coke. The cops shook hands all around and spoke briefly, I didn't hear about what. Then the black officer left.

The off-duty cops stayed for a couple rounds. But flight attendants were scarce that night and the group soon took off, as usual leaving plenty of money on the bar for me. That night, for some reason, it felt like I'd earned it.