Bostworld

I actually worked at the Luhrs Building on Central and Jefferson several years ago. During the lowest point of my last bout with unemployment, I spent a couple of weeks at ten dollars an hour cleaning out the office of a guy who worked behind the main building in the Annex. In addition to my hourly rate, I also got a ladder and a carpenter’s level in a swell case, as well as a handful of empty jewel cases. I also got a tour of a piece of Phoenix history that up until then, I’d never really explored.

Erected the 1920s, the Luhrs Office Buidling and Tower were Phoenix’s very first skyscrapers. The two-story 1914 Luhrs Central Building that separates them served as Phoenix’s first post office. The top four floors of the office building originally housed something called “The Arizona Club,” a hale institution that continues to this day under different haunts. But by the time I came to work there, both buildings and their annex offered nothing but seedy office space. But the charm that remained was undeniable. From the funky parking lot ramp-ways and the brass mail schutes to the marble walls in the lobby and the barber shop by the elevators, the place threw off some serious ambiance. I was badly smitten.

Since everything else downtown is being demolished, gutted or re-purposed, I knew it was only a matter of time for the Luhrs collection. Recently, I was summoned to the area for jury duty. I spent a relaxing afternoon away from work, dozing, listening to music, and stumbling from courtroom to courtroom before I was finally released. That evening, as I walked from the courthouse back to my car, I noticed that the windows on the Luhrs Office Building were all boarded up.

The renovation of the two main historic buildings is being carried out by new owners with the approval of the Office of Historic Preservation. However, it sacrifices the connecting arcade, the southern annex and the Luhrs Central Building, as well as the fifties-era parking structure in the back. According to one city official, plans include “a full-service, AAA, well-branded hotel; some historic office buildings; a contemporary high-rise building in the center; and then another building over where the parking garage is.”

Given the direction the economy’s moving — with condo developers backing out of projects up and down the central corridor to the tune of over a thousand units at last count — who knows, we may have the boards in place of the historic window glass for many months to come. But I like the boarded-up aesthetic, so I grabbed my camera and my walking around lens and went on a commando mission. Unfortunately, my low light stealth shots from inside the gutted structure didn’t come out so good, but I got decent coverage of the outside:



My wife leaves her instant messaging client on all day while she’s working. No wonder it takes her 60 hours a week to get anything done. It doesn’t help matters that her ten-year-old niece periodically bombards her with interruptions. On the other hand, some of the transcripts are good enough to withstand the test of time:

Niece (3:57:23 PM): I have a question.
Wife (3:57:42 PM): k
Niece (3:58:38 PM): How come you are coming Christmas Eve instead of a day earlier or something?????
Wife (3:58:46 PM): because uncle derrick has to work
Niece (3:58:52 PM): why?
Wife (3:58:58 PM): he can’t leave until Christmas eve
Wife (3:59:12 PM): he works at a retail store, and during Christmas retail stores are filled with busy shoppers
Niece (3:59:14 PM): he can work at our store
Wife (3:59:20 PM): that isn’t how it works
Wife (3:59:27 PM): he supports his store only
Niece (3:59:35 PM): poopie
Wife (3:59:57 PM): well, in these troubling economic times, one wants to make sure they keep their employer happy
Niece (4:00:00 PM): they’re the same. aren’t they
Wife (4:00:05 PM): no, not at all
Niece (4:00:10 PM): howcome
Wife (4:00:36 PM): well, for one thing, your store already has someone doing uncle derrick’s job
Niece (4:01:13 PM): can’t they both work?
Wife (4:01:21 PM): the company can only pay one of them at a time
Niece (4:01:34 PM): o
Wife (4:01:06 PM): and then who would do uncle derrick’s job at his store?
Wife (4:01:44 PM): plus it wouldn’t be fair to all the people who depend on him at his own store
Wife (4:02:04 PM): if there were problems, they’d be in trouble right before the holiday
Niece (4:02:06 PM): how would they depend on him
Wife (4:02:24 PM): he keeps the computers working, makes sure all the prices are right, and makes sure the cash registers work
Niece (4:02:34 PM): o
Wife (4:02:53 PM): so you see, it’s very important for him to be there on such busy shopping days
Niece (4:02:59 PM): why
Niece (4:03:14 PM): hmmmm?
Wife (4:03:19 PM): imagine if you went to the store and they said “sorry, we can’t sell you these things that you need because the computers aren’t working right now”
Wife (4:03:30 PM): because Derrick decided to abandon us and go see his niece a day early
Niece (4:03:31 PM): sooo
Niece (4:03:49 PM): i would go to a different store
Wife (4:04:06 PM): and then all the people who worked at his store would lose money because you bought things somewhere else
Wife (4:04:15 PM): that’s not fair to his co-workers
Niece (4:04:52 PM): why
Wife (4:04:55 PM): they might get sent home early and not get paid since they couldn’t sell anything
Wife (4:05:16 PM): and then they’d have to take back the Christmas presents they bought for their kids because they had no money
Niece (4:05:27 PM): no they wouldn’t
Wife (4:05:31 PM): yes, they would
Wife (4:05:47 PM): they count on the money they get at Christmas time to make up for days that aren’t as busy
Wife (4:05:55 PM): some day you’ll have a job, then you’ll understand
Niece (4:06:04 PM): no I won’t
Niece (4:06:16 PM): i am going to be a astronaut
Wife (4:06:32 PM): an astronaut - so what would happen if one person didn’t show up for a launch?
Wife (4:06:36 PM): the rest of them couldn’t go
Niece (4:06:47 PM): yes they could
Wife (4:06:59 PM): no, they couldn’t because each of them has a very important job to do
Niece (4:07:02 PM): yes they could
Wife (4:07:52 PM): not really - you need people to be able to help each other.
Niece (4:08:04 PM): what?
Wife (4:08:16 PM): each person has their own skills and training. They work together and help each other
Niece (4:08:26 PM): no
Wife (4:08:32 PM): it’s called teamwork
Wife (4:08:56 PM): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teamwork
Niece (4:09:19 PM): ok
Wife (4:09:24 PM): A general dictionary defines teamwork as a “Cooperative or coordinated effort on the part of a group of persons acting together as a team or in the interests of a common cause, unison for a higher cause, people working together for a selfless purpose, and so on.” Applied to workplaces teamwork is a method that aligns employee mindsets in a cooperative and usually selfless manner, towards a specific business purpose. Today there is no business or organization that does not talk about the need and value of teamwork in the workplace.
Wife (4:09:56 PM): In order for teamwork to succeed one must be a team player. A team player is one who subordinates personal aspirations and works in a coordinated effort with other members of a group, or team, in striving for a common goal. Businesses and other organizations often go to the effort of coordinating team building events in an attempt to get people to work as a team rather than as individuals
Niece (4:10:51 PM): 0123456789
Wife (4:11:41 PM): ok i have to go now, one of my teammates needs my help

Like so many guys my age, I made my first connection with male sexual identity in the back of mass-market magazines like “True Detective” and “Man’s Adventure.” Naturally, I was drawn to the so-called “adult” content in these tiny sidebar ads, but what strikes me now is how juvenile they are, and how devoid of any actual females. They almost seem to suggest that pictures, films or stories about women are much better than the real thing.

When I got older, I began to experience the “skin trade” up close. I remember visiting my first downtown adult theater when I was eighteen or nineteen. This place was different from the “peep show” places that offered curtained smut loops for a quarter. This was an real “theater” that showed full-length films. It shared a strip of commercial property with a pawn shop, a liquor store and an anonymous storage facility. It had no lobby or backstage — just a screen and a low platform at one end of a small room and a 16mm film projector at the other end.

I have no memory of the films I saw that day. What I do remember was how after the first movie, a woman came out on the stage. To a soundtrack of the current disco hits, she removed her clothing, lay down on her back and and spread her legs. She lay there for a few minutes, then got up and left.

This was a surprise. The theater had not advertised live entertainment. A few minutes into the next film, I noticed someone coming towards me down the aisle. Before I could make out the figure clearly, I heard a woman’s voice. “Can you give me some money for my dance?”

I quickly fished out whatever was in my pocket and gave her what she wanted. She rubbed the bills against her chest, moaned a little, and slid the money into a pocket. Then she moved on to the next patron. I watched the movie for a little while longer, but I knew I’d have to leave soon. I didn’t have enough cash left for any more tips.

Up until that day, I had always assumed the “adult entertainment” business to be entirely one-sided and exploitative. It now occurred to me that the woman had actually derived some pleasure from the transaction, albeit second-hand, and not of a perverse nor prurient nature. It was the pleasure she got from keeping a roof over her head and providing food for her family. As I drove home, my guilt feelings in no way assuaged by the insight, I wondered which one of us had gotten the better end of the deal.



I didn’t vote in the first presidential election I was eligible for. It was 1980, and my attention was elsewhere. I was right on the precipice of a fifteen-year hole that was to be my career as a rock and roller. Little did I know that America was poised on a precipice of its own.

I never made the mistake of not voting again. Even at my most fogbound, I would manage to do my research and get myself to the polls. But I never actually participated in a campaign until this year. I not only donated actual money to the Obama campaign, but I guilted my wife into doing the same. And then on election day, we both took off work and spent the day calling folks in New Mexico.

Most of the people we called weren’t home, but we were told not to leave messages; just keep going through the lists as quickly as we could. The folks who did answer were pretty evenly split between those who had already voted for Obama and parents of newly registered kids. “She’s at school,” they would tell me, “But I’m pretty sure she voted for Obama last week.”

Continue reading ‘Your Favorite Little Podcast: Episode Fourteen’

Happy Voting Day, America!

No matter what your race, no matter your creed
It’s justice for all that we want and need
United in brotherhood, we will succeed

All together , all together, we are stronger every way
We will build together, work together for a better day


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About a year ago, when national treasure Merlin Mann took a brief hiatus from his blog, 43 Folders, he recruited a selection of substitutes to post in his absence. Much to my amazement, I was one of his recruits (due no doubt to Merlin’s love of the Meat Puppets and not anything he might have encountered in these pages). Time permitted the completion of only two pieces, and I fear neither revealed much in the way of useful tips and tricks for his life-hacking hungry readers. I was more interested in poking fun at the whole idea of “productivity strategy” than I was in actually being “productive.”

Continue reading ‘Taming The Beast Inside Of Me’

I haven’t been to Chicago in over a dozen years, but I still have my memories. Unfortunately, most of them involve trying driving around the club trying to find safe legal parking for two vans and a trailer. So the next best thing for me are these postcards from my grandfather’s collection, some of which date back a hundred years, to the 1893 World’s Exposition.

Continue reading ‘Postcard Collection: Chicago’