Colloquial Warming

by Geno Petro

Chicago Broker Owner Realtor | RE 2.0 Blogger

Author website

It is my contention that a man has the right to drop an F-bomb in the privacy of his own Bluetooth as long as it is not: sexually suggestive or within 50 yards of an elementary school; in a restaurant within earshot of my wife before coffee and dessert have been served; or, if the suicide F-bomber himself is the Governor of an actual constitutional (not emotional) state and his cell phone has a federal wiretap warrant included in his original Friends and Family package. These are just a few of my personal demilitarized zones, mind you, and shouldn’t be assigned any politically incorrect weight other than already simply stated. No more, and certainly no less, please.

The emails and phone calls began flooding in shortly after the following career shattering announcement hit the national news wires early Tuesday morning: Ill Governor Blago Peddles Senate Seat For Mucho Dinero.  The first to ring me up was fellow midwest blogging Ambassador Chris Lengquist from BBQ Capital in KC who cut straight to the chase and bluntly asked, “Mr. Petro, are you now, or have you ever been, ‘Candidate Number Five’?”

“(Bleep) no,” I replied into my headset as I shredded my 2005, 6 and 7 tax returns. “And if I (bleeping) was, I wouldn’t admit it over a (bleeping) cell phone,” swallowing my SIM card sideways.

“Then you didn’t try to broker President-elect Obama’s vacant Illinois Senate seat to the highest bidder?”

“(Bleep) no,” said I, once again, while simultaneously jiggling loose a paper jam with my toe, slipping the Rolex off my wrist and into a carved-out hardback copy of Dickens’s Great Expectations, and formatting the hard drive of my laptop.  “I can’t even broker a furnished, junior one-bedroom in this heinous market much less a vacant seat of a junior Senator I’ve only met a handful of times…if at all….or ever…allegedly. Besides, downstate Illinois is not in my farming area. I’m a Chicago boy, for crissakes, not (bleeping) Deep Throat,” choking (and doth protesting too much, I suppose).

“So then, you are not trying to ‘parachute’ yourself into the vacant golden chair coveted by so many aspiring politicos?” he pressed.

“This interview is over,” I (bleepity-bleep-bleep-bleeply ) declared.

“Give my regards to the missus…” he tailed off.

“You too, Ambassador” I concluded, as helicopters descended on my front lawn, battering rams hammered all ports of household egress, and stocky men in medium-priced, three-season suits converged upon my home office flashing laminated ‘you’re up (bleep) creek’ credentials. The Press stood attentively in the (bleeping) wings recording history from an arms length transaction.

“I confess! ” I confessed. “I voted Libertarian…” as the G-men led me away in boxer shorts and mental shackles. “But I really thought McKinney was an Irish-American. I never look at the pictures…or read the fine print, or…”

The fact is, I write these ethereal essays from a quiet front room adytum, politically insulated from the mud slinging (if not downright street fighting) Chicago cityscape. Mine is an electoral state where the most recent past Governor is presently serving time in a federal prison, the current Governor was indicted on federal corruption charges earlier this week, and our city Mayor is a second generation Daley. I can’t even count the number of lesser government officials who are currently behind bars or slated for subpoenas according to the back street buzz. Even the garbage collectors in the alleys are said to be on the take and trolling for book deals. And probably the most embarrassing aspect of it all is this—nearly everyone caught on tape, in this otherwise toddlin’ midwest town, has a potty mouth:

“I want to cut his (bleeps *) off,”  I believe were the exact words the Reverend Jessie Jackson (another Chicagoan) muttered on CNN last July when he thought he was off-microphone.  Unfortunately for him, it was one of the few sound bites in his mumbled career that came across crystal clear. Ironically, his son and local politician, JJ Jr, was identified just yesterday as the previously mentioned ‘Candidate Number Five’ under government questioning. Now ain’t that some (bleep) ?

But I don’t despair. I listened to the Nixon tapes back in the day and, even more recently, perused the LBJ White House transcripts (Holy (bleep). Now that Texan could string them together) and came away phonetically unscathed. Like I said, it’s nothing you can’t hear within 50 yards of any elementary school in this country, or on a miscued sound bite from CNN when the tape is secretly rolling (or on Sirius or HBO 24/7) or between the Op-Ed lines of the soon-to-be-bankrupt Chicago Tribune. The way I see it, F is becoming the new darn around here which just means…there’s yet another (bleeping) seat up for grabs.

* nuts