The EGP: The Economic Ghost Post is a weekly article examining economic theories through the invention of ghost stories…a wicked blend of commentary & fiction – phantoms as the allegorical Vanna White of ‘Econ.’

When I pull my shirt off of my head, more often than not, static will spark from the friction of my hair against the fabric. It’s like a lightning show to my drunken eyes. Sometimes the static lingers a bit. In my experience, 64% of all hauntings are of residual form. This means that the energy of an event sticks to a location or overall environment, and repeats, like a movie. It’s a like a tan line almost. Where sharp UV energy leaves the outline of a sandal on a foot, traumatic emotions can leave a similar mark on an environment. An example: at the Warnerbottom’s home in Willowbrook, Pennsylvania, there are many marks left by the underground railroad. The house itself dates back to 1789, erected by Stanley Warnerbottom. Prior to the Civil War, an estimated 76 slaves stopped through the home. The nervousness of their hiding residually lingers. Quiet footsteps are heard in the middle of the night, on their way to certain hiding spots, little cubbies in the wall. Occasionally an apparition appears, synching up to half moons. The ghost shivers, eyes pop wide open, then it disappears as the smell of a fart fades in. Sometimes the energy of an odor is trapped in an environment. Be ware of searching for ghosts in old bean eateries.

I have learned recently, that in the apartment I lived in when I was 24, a ghost urinates in the middle of the night and screams. This is the ghost of my energy from when I had kidney stones. I was not happy. In fact I was quite violent towards the whole experience. It doesn’t surprise me that the kidney stone afflicted me haunts a shitty apartment.

Sometimes objects trap the energy of an event.

When I was 9 I got so angry at my brother that I chucked a baseball at his head. It was a neon pink baseball. My brother was also quite pissed at the incident and chucked it back, striking me directly in the chest plate. When I was 13 I decided that neon baseballs were for girls so we donated it to the church garage sale. I recently learned that Bobby Peters, who purchased the ball for his son, experienced poltergeist activity – the ball ups and throws itself around the garage at night, and has an affinity to hit heads and chest plates.

Bobby Peters has been close, many times, to getting rid of the ball, but it always throws itself back at his head. One time he closed it tight in a box, held down with duct tape several times over, and drove it the town dump. Half way there the ball punctured the box and hit the back of his head and he drove off the road, totally his station wagon. He’s learned to live with. Whenever his kids misbehave he locks them in the garage with it. It seems my pissy energy actually collected interest over the years. I don’t remember being THAT pissed off. Although I was certainly pissed off. It’s become a demon on its own, with the compound interest of childish anger festering and blustering inside a girly baseball that also feeds off the energy of people laughing at its silly color.

Captains Log – GITEM – Ghostly Investigative Team Enticing Manifestation

Jeff’s books are available at WhiskeyPike.com & TurbanTan.com. His shorter works have appeared in Thirteen Pocket’s Seeding Meat series, Bellows, and will appear in an upcoming publication by Trifecta Publishing in NYC.

The EGP: The Economic Ghost Post is a weekly article examining economic theories through the invention of ghost stories…a wicked blend of commentary & fiction – phantoms as the allegorical Vanna White of ‘Econ.’

Forgive the lapse in updates. I just got back from the woods. My ex-brother in law Melvin and his new wife were looking to build a home on some cheap property he just bought up but all of his contractors keep quitting due to weird goings on in the back woods behind his plot. It must be pretty bad if it interferes with their daylight hours. The way the sun hits that valley, it’s pretty much always tinged with a sort dark cast. His first contractor, Leonard, who had gone 6 months without a project, lasted two days before bailing after hearing his name hissed from deep out in the woods. After following the voice for sometime, to a point where he was lost and disoriented, he claims he was chased by a shadow figure. Melvin thought him a madman, or at the very least an over-reactor to a black squirrel. So he hired Franz, who lasted the better part of a week, but claimed the nail that hit him in the eye came from a series of nails that just up and lifted on their own, or by some unseen force. After a similar trend, Melvin, the conservative skeptic gave me a call. I couldn’t charge him for my services since he is former kin, but I did make him pay for my airfare and for a new tent and sleeping bag (since I shat the last one during a ghost related incident). So I camped out there for two weeks. At first I thought all claims bogus, as the first week nothing happened. Sure, it was a bit creepy, but nothing paranormal was occurring. Until I awoke in the middle of the night to the sounds of something walking around my tent. I crept out to see what it was. There was nothing. Then I heard a series of running footsteps encircling my tent. I heard grunts. I asked “who’s there?” Twigs were thrown at my head. Then something kicked the dying embers from my fire at me. My weeklong re-treat of s’mores and hot dogs was getting a bit tragic. The skin of my forehead burned from one of the embers. I’m beyond the point where I’m shy with ghosts. I let them know when I’m pissed. But to be honest, when I try to lash out, or even reason with them, it gets me nowhere. They just keep doing what they want to do. I was chased by a shadow figure out into the deep woods and kind of got lost for awhile. Early the next morning I found my way to a highway and hitched a ride with a guy named Griff, who dropped me off at a diner because I was incredibly hungry after being chased by a ghost all night. Unfortunately my wallet was back in my tent. But I told all my wicked tale and a fellow named Todd bought me biscuits and gravy and a bottomless mug of coffee. It confirmed my sanity when all of the town’s folk pitched in with their versions of the legend of those woods. Back in 1935 a forest fire burned a hobo camp out in the forest. The hobos took to some witchcraft to try and attract good fortune. Some sold their souls to the devil for work to come their way. The devil got the better end of the deal. Legend says soon after souls were sold, that the creeks dried up and thirst drove them all against one another. Two of the hobos had murdered one another. Then the dryness caused friction between two trees during some wind, and a spark set in motion the aforementioned forest fire.

I left my new tent and sleeping bag behind. In my experience, the ghosts of people who were burned in fires are the most stubborn, and most confused to convince to cross over. I relayed my deductions and he sold the property to a paper mill. Oh boy, when they start chopping down those trees, those shadow hobos are gonna go ape shit.

Captains Log – GITEM – Ghostly Investigative Team Enticing Manifestation

Jeff’s books are available at WhiskeyPike.com & TurbanTan.com. His shorter works have appeared in Thirteen Pocket’s Seeding Meat series, Bellows, and will appear in an upcoming publication by Trifecta Publishing in NYC.

The athlete in the modern day sports milieu is accustomed to repetition in order to produce results. Repetition is also a cause for the affected. Consistency is key in the sports arena when it comes to evaluating talent. Any asshole on a dare could dribble penetrate through the paint and reverse dunk on Dwight Howard but only a top line professional jock can do it consistently.

Inconsistency is my wheel house. I sporadically post these sports blogs and only about 10 percent of them are funny. One would argue that I play a statistic-less position in sports, like the football offensive lineman or slump buster (a term for a larger girl you’d sleep with to get out of a funk.)

Since ball hurlers and puck twirlers are given contracts based on previous performance and potential, it’s best to only be inconsistent after you’re locked into a contract. It’s quite risky for myself to be inconsistent at this stage in my career seeing as how the only check I’ve seen from writing is the ones I write to Geek Squad to have them remove viruses from my laptop so I can keep crafting these blogs.

I guess you can say I’ve been incongruent for a while now with out even realizing it. Unlike the sports player, there is not a cable network and countless websites chronicling my failures. In fact, at this point my editor doesn’t even challenge me to write better material, I’m encouraged to write quicker material. Success! Like the player disappointing his coach by his play, I’ve let down reader by reading my stuff.

I postulate that Joe Jerseywearer [Sic] feels rather indifferent regarding his temperamental play. At the professional level in sports how important is actually winning? Sure John Q. Punter has to say the number one goal in team sports is “Bringing home da ‘ship, mo’ fucka”, but does the individual actually care? Nary a one of them communication majors, would trade their first million dollar pay check for a championship ring. The first million is always the hardest to make. I’ve yet to make that million so I, like the athlete who’s gotten paid, will show up when ever I please! You’re welcome reader.

Tune in next week where I sext and send smartphone dong pics to a female who works in the sports biz!

The EGP: The Economic Ghost Post is a weekly article examining economic theories through the invention of ghost stories…a wicked blend of essay & fiction – phantoms as the allegorical Vanna White of ‘Econ.’

If only I had learned a trade more in demand, like fixing garage doors or putting in dry wall. My offering seems to be lowest on the totem as listed by Yelp for Home Services. I can understand why spooks and specters might be low priority. Surely it’s not a tangible problem and many of my clients first consider the possibility that they’ve gone crazy to be the most logical conclusion and thus put off getting to the bottom of a haunting. And it gets worse. And it does drive them crazy. So they don’t think straight when it comes to acting on a cleansing. Or worse, they’re partially possessed and the demons control them. Those are the MOST difficult to work for. In the beginning I delved into paranormal investigations to satisfy a dark curiosity. I did it for the thrill. I opened up shop without real intent for monetary income at the outset, but time and again I realized ghost hunting was A LOT of work. And draining. I have to rearrange my sleep schedule and all. So I thought, why should I treat it like a charity? Like my electrician friends I started to charge by the hour. My going rate, $200 an hour for me and my 3 man team, I think it’s quite fair. But since the goddamn recession, I say that price and backs are turned. I dropped it to a simple hundo and still can’t seem to get the night’s quest put into a contract. Sometimes too the client really did think they were crazy and blew thousands on psychotherapy and hypnosis. I’m a bit of a pussy because I agree to do it as a favor after all. So because GITEM (Ghostly Investigative Team Enticing Manifestation) kind of went under as a business I lost Roy and Frick, my two right hand guys from helping out. They had to turn to real jobs. I did to. At least part time. I mean I still get some jobs that do pay out. Mostly rich assholes whose mansions don’t actually turn out to be haunted. It’s really what the pills are doing to their heads. But I play it off as haunted and I relate countless personal experiences at the end of my investigation and mention that I should really come back and do another round soon. So they pay me again to continue my investigation. It pays the bills I guess, but I can’t afford a team. It pays the bills because I don’t pay rent anymore. Wally Frasciuzidly, a wealthy real estate broker lets me sleep in his second house, because I tell him it is SO haunted and I need to really roll up my sleeves on this one. He says do what you gotta do. He doesn’t want to sell it anytime soon as its worth has really taken it a hit but he says I have a decade to clear those mother fucking phantoms out of the basement. It’ll be a full decade before it creeps back up to where it was in worth. But really it’s just bad plumbing that makes a lot of weird noises. I suppose he’ll learn about it when it’s time to do a home inspection after I tell him it’s ready to sell. But in the meantime I got myself a decade rent free because I showed him “this one is serious.” I painted a pentagram in the basement on the ceiling so he’d believe me when I showed him evidence that the previous owners were Satanists. I’m a little afraid I might have actually stirred some shadow demons by doing this. I woke up a couple of times hearing my name whispered in my ear the other night. But maybe I dreamed that. I mean, who doesn’t dream about work these days? Well I guess those who don’t have jobs don’t, and that’s a lot of peoples…but those who are left in the work force working overtime for no extra pay but fearful that saying no will cause them to join the ranks of their loser friends, really get the work shit sinking into their psyche. A lot of ghost seekers have folded shop. I’m a persever-er though. I’m still kicking around. I’m working more, soaking up all those jobs, but for less. Much much less. I try my best to convince homeowners that my rate really is a better investment. It really is. You can’t sell a haunted house. And if you got some real jerks of demons you can’t live in the house. What’re you gonna do, walk away from a mortgage? And ruin your credit? So you’re stuck renting a HAUNTED apartment somewhere the rest of your life? Paying me two hundo an hour is actually A LOT better in the LONG run. Peace.

Captains Log – GITEM – Ghostly Investigative Team Enticing Manifestation

Jeff’s books are available at WhiskeyPike.com & TurbanTan.com. His shorter works have appeared in Thirteen Pocket’s Seeding Meat series, Bellows, and will appear in an upcoming publication by Trifecta Publishing in NYC.

So Season One of my Method Sports blog Ball Sugars was so moderately successful that the people of Wood Sugars asked me to do another Season. The contract they offered me was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They said that they’ll let me decide my compensation. I was instructed to put whatever two digit number to the left of the period on the check, and as many zeros I would like to the right of it as long there was no other number in front of the zeros. LeBron James got seven zeros on his latest contract, I’m gonna put down ten. Two to the left of the period and eight to the right of it. Boo Ya. I signed the contract before showing it to my literary agent. Subsequently he dropped me as his client. He told me that I was a fucking moron and now I have to write two and a half months of method sports blogs for free.

Fuck. Gotta a Google a way out of this.

Don’t let the local dealership ads and lack of solid pension benefits fool you, the athlete, not the organization is in control. Unhappy with your contract? Then sit out the competition or fake a turf toe injury. There is also another option, demand to be traded. The professional jock in the present day mileu will hit the airwaves, whiney on the sports web page, and tweet until his thumbs disengage, all to get what he wants. In the NBA, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul have asked to be traded. In the NFL Albert Hanyesworth and Vincent Jackson of the San Diego Chargers asked for more money or a trade, and if neither of those demands were met they threaten to sit out the 2010 football season. Well you can add Donny Rodriguez name to the list of people demanding to be traded. What do myself and those gentlemen have in common? We’re not white and we’ve Wiki-ed the word “leverage”.

Time to hold out and get traded!

I’m so excited with the possibility of writing the Ball Sugars sports blog at a different website. I could demand to be traded to the big boys: ESPN.com or Fanhouse.com. But I would just be another staff writer to make the brand better versus making me better. As I see it and Yahoo! I’m the only weekly method sports writer who glibly makes shit up in a sometimes laughable way. Maybe Fox News needs a sports writer? I could asked to be traded to The Onion’s website, but those folks are actually humorous. Urgh, this is a lot tougher than I thought. I mean I don’t hate woodsugars.com, I get to drink on the job, I can miss a deadline and only have to worry about myself bitching at me, and I can say whatever I want because the majority of unique views I get to the site are there because they spelled the name of some boner pill wrong. I guess like the aforementioned ball playaz, I just want love under the guise that I want to “win.” I’m comfortable at woodsugars.com. I mean it makes sense putting my fake sports blog on my comedy groups website. Yeah, and now that I think about it, I would basically have to ask myself to trade myself, which means I would have to email my competitors to inquire if there was any interest in me, and I just hate writing formal emails. You know what I love all my tweeps and facebook friends, I would hate to ask them to follow me at a new web address that would probably ask me to actually promote my blog, which is something I don’t like doing. Yeah, fuck it. Let’s hang out here for Season Two of Ball Sugars here at Wood Sugars dot com. Oh and if you want a good boner pill then you’re probably to old to be banging anyways.

Zing!

Sup, blog bratz and bloggettes? Did you miss my overuse of alliteration and parentheses? Yeah, you did (Needy Nellys)! I took two weeks off from Ball Sugars not because I can’t focus (I use crushed Aderol in my coffee instead of Splenda because I can’t focus), but to take a trip to the center of the Earth. New York City. To cover New York Yankee clubber Alex Rodriguez and his historic chase of home run number 600. Here at Wood Sugars dot com during the summer months we don’t garner a lot of ad revenue. To fly me out to New York on a discount flight via Spirit Airlines and to put me up in at least a half star hotel is going to require some check floating. Or, I could just use my severance package from the new defunct chain of sports bar restaurants that rhymes with “Go unpleasantly do yourself GspnZone”. What a decision, to spend money I’m really working for, to go to New York and get the inside scoop for a piece (contrived blog), or keep it and make shit up in Chicago?

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So what’s the deal with airline food? No, for reals, I’ve never seen an episode of Seinfeld so I never got the answer. How can a company figure out aviation, continually maintain safe aircrafts, but cannot provide an inexpensive meal more eat-a-ble than bland pesto pasta mush they slung at me on my flight to New York? Before leaving for NYC I tried to procure press credentials for the Yankee home games Alex Rodriguez may hit his 600th home run, so I could get some in-depth post game coverage. After several emails and voice mails to the Yankees front offices I received a phone call from an intern who explained that the organization (The Yanks) don’t give out credentials to publications (Ball Sugars Blogs) that are only read by tens of twenties of people, and more importantly that is as they put it “insufferably low-brow.” I countered with “bullshit commie, you guys hook up the NY Post!” Click. My plan B was to just go on StubHub.com and buy an eleven dollar obstructed view bleacher ticket for the Yankees/Angels game July 21st at 1 pm. Yankee Stadium, where you can get obstructed views from the center field bleachers. Only in New York!

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You ever meet an alcoholic from New York City? Of course you haven’t because those gin gophers don’t leave their Burroughs for the day until 1 am. That city can drink. Every female from your barista to your NBA store employee is either a beautiful Australian, a model, or a beautiful Australian model. How does anything ever get accomplished in this city? Sorry Chicago, I love you but most of your women are either frumpy or Wisconsony. Redundant I know, I know. Now that I’m in NYC, I can’t even write about sports in this paragraph. Maybe I’ll just “method sports writer” it and get wasted my whole time here and chase tail like fame New York jocks the likes of Babe Ruth, Darryl Strawberry, or Marv Albert. Yeah maybe I could just change the thesis of this piece mid story. God even tall, muscular, Adam’s appled women asking me to party for “$25 behind that garbage heap”, in this city are gorgeous. Gotta focus.

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Man what a four day bender. Oddly enough I didn’t even see the day. I asked the concierge at my New Jersey motel to point me to the direction of NYC bars where a guy could get into some naughty trouble. So I was a regular at the poorly lit, guy filled bars that former New York Met Mike Piazza would frequent. Fun had by all who were conscience. So here I am at Yankee Stadium on the 21st and um, Alex Rodriguez didn’t hit his 600th home run. So I guess I’ve done my work. So yeah, alright. I’m gonna get back to the night life.

EDITOR’S NOTE (to Donny): Talk about sports, you sexual deviant!!!!

Fine. While I was on Ball Sugar Hiatus, performance enhancing drug junkie and disgraced cyclist Floyd Landis said Lance Armstrong used PEDs. Obvi. LeBron James pissed off a lot of people in Cleveland because he realized he didn’t want to live in Cleveland anymore. I don’t see the issue. Some Mexican team won the World Cup. Glenn Beck erroneously called Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher a “Neo-Nazi.” Sorry Glenn, normally you’re right on the money but Urlacher only fucks black chicks and Paris Hilton. Major League Baseball had an All Star game watched only by the mistresses and wives of 135 players invited to play. 2010 NHL Champions, the Chicago Blackhawks may trade or release the Stanley Cup Trophy to save cap space. I got a 221 on Nintendo’s Wii Bowling game, which makes me the all-time record holder of my apartment! And finally, in UFC 116, MMA brawl out a dude passionately threw a muscular man to the ground and both jockeyed for position behind the other man to wrap his arms around said dude while they both grunted until the other passed out in their arms, all the while whispering into each others ears that they were a “homo.” Live Strong internet peeps.

There is a madness to “method sports writing” (niche blogging). You must love what you’re doing to really capture the objective. But what if you must love, love? The professional jock has been know to love many a woman. What about the lady gym class heroes? They need morning and mourning sex too, from someone they’re dating. I will slip past defenses, slide my tongue in and out of her mouth at her preferred rhythm, and secure my spot as the boyfriend of a Chicago Sky basketball player.

The Chicago Sky is a “Pro”-basketball team , which is part of the all girl league,the WNBA. The WNBA is like that movie “A League of their Own”, except way less entertaining and has way less “hot-Madonna” in it. “Dirt in the skirt Mae!” Which Chicago Sky player should I date? So many to choose from this ten women roster. The obvi choice from the collection of players to be my paramour is team leading scorer and rebounder Sylvia Fowles. What’s sexier than her dominant performance on the court is the fun fact portion from her bio off the Sky’s website. (Because of her six foot, six inch size) Syl says that she “feels she needs to be extra friendly to children because she doesn’t want them to be scared of her.”

That power over children, I find insatiable. I myself don’t scare kids, but rather, am scared by them. They can be dicks to me when I try and make them laugh and they don’t get my multi-layered, articulate jests. Over their lice filled heads every time!

Ms. Fowles is an All-star starter, Gold medal winning Olympian, and most importantly, single. We would make an amazing Chicago power couple. A famous bounce passer, and a double dribbler (back-fat having blogger). The tabloids would have a field day with those headlines. She might be too hot for me though. Could I handle the pressure of getting snuggled by a super-star? She’s so hot, she’s got to be needy or at the least, STDdy. Urgh, don’t think her and I will ever be. I don’t think she belongs with me. Those who get the star jocks wear short skirts, I wear t-shirts. Sometimes, they’re cheer captain, and I’m always on the bleachers. You know they wear high-heels, I wear sneakers. I shall listen to my heart and keep Taylor Swift on repeat, and date someone more my style.

Enter Alon Abisola Arisicate Ajoke Olajuwon, or “born in wealth and loved by all”(Nigerian translation).

Let’s just call her Abi. There are three reasons I instantly fell in love with the six-foot, four-inch daughter of Hall of Famer Hakeem “The Dream” Olajuwon. First, she has a broadcast journalism degree from Oklahoma. I’m working on getting my sports blogger associates certification from the University of Phoenix online college, so we have a few things in common. (Don’t knock Uni of Phoe, it was the only school that would except a 26 year old with no ACT score or records that I went to an American high school.) Reason two: she’s twenty-two years old. I’ve never dated a mature older lady!

And finally, the Chicago Sky just cut her from the team, and she’s sure to be on the rebound. If I learned anything from dating it’s that your best chance at getting your shot with a bird is when she’s bummed about things. She’s unemployed like me, so it’s not like she doesn’t have free time to build a real relationship with me.

What’s the best way to get some helpful information about the girl you would like to hook up with?
Facebook stalk! Since I’m a pro at memorizing ladies profiles this will be a free throw.

FML, her profile is on private. Oh wait, I forgot I’m also taking a hacking course at the University of Phoenix online college. Boomshackalaca! I’ll lacerate my way into her account, add myself as one of her friends, and make my pitch to court her.

So here’s what I posted on her wall after I infiltrated her page. All of her 896 friends will get to see how romantic I am via their feeds:

“Dearest “born in wealth and loved by all”, I’ve gone to great lengths to procure your favor. Though you know nothing about me, I literally know everything about you including your facebook password. That’s how I was able to add myself as one of your friends (“LadyGagaLova34” is a pretty funny password, by the way). I don’t give a shit that your father was a two time NBA champion, or that he was a former MVP of the league, and that he is still a multi-millionaire after his career has ended. I want to give a shit about you. I’ve been fired, dumped, and dunked on just like you have. But I never quit, just like you. No one reads my creative blogs but I keep writing them.(I mean, seriously, I write sports blogs that mention skirts twice in one piece and reference Taylor Swift, Madonna and Lady Gaga throughout. How have they (my Ball Sugars sports blogs) not taken off?”) Anywhos, I think our shared passions and never taking “no” for an answer will make for a strong foundation for a relationship. You have to let me take you out on a date. We can pre-drink at my place and catch a CTA bus to where ever you want to go. I promise you won’t regret this. Take a chance. I did. I can see myself being in love with you forever. Love Donny from Wood Sugars.”

I’m trying to check what her response was, but for some reason facebook is on the fritz and not letting me log on. Is it just my profile, or is yours fucked up too? Well, either way I have butterflies, and dollar signs in my future. I better get my mani-pedi on so I can look good for Abi! Te amo sexy Abi!

The EGP: The Economic Ghost Post is a weekly article examining economic theories through the invention of ghost stories…a wicked blend of essay & fiction – phantoms as the allegorical Vanna White of ‘Econ.’

I sprawl. I sigh. I try to dream. I believe I hear the crinkle of a thick paper beneath my mattress. I get up and look beneath. There is nothing but dust bunnies intertwined with collected cat fur from a season of shedding. Nothing of the like to make this crinkle I hear. As I collapse back down, my head nestles into a flattened pillow. I for some reason begin to think of the smell of a brand new twenty dollar bill.

When the global currency came to be, I attempted to keep one bill of each as a souvenir: a one, a five, a ten, a twenty, a fifty, a hundo, I could not afford any bigger in greenbacks…then a penny, a nickel, a dime, a quarter, a fifty cent piece, a Sacagawean dollar. But I had found myself in need of the transferred points to my account, so I had squeezed every conversion point possible and so squandered this little collectable.

I wake up at night often and think I smell the antiquated scent of paper money. The metal of sweaty coins. The world’s new ticking pulse in transaction has no smell. This measure of means exists only as electronic digits that dance away my funds, fluctuating constantly, dipping down as old creditors come out from the past and nip at specks of interest as mandated by corporate legislation which allows them to collect their due.

I pull up my bank statement online, late at night. The glow of the screen shows me that my financial life is draining…I feel as though I am losing at a video game and I must chase down more coins to get an extra life!

I turn off the light and go to the bathroom to take a piss. In the faded street light that seeps through the gap in my blinds, I can swear I see a dollar bill softly sweeping across the floor in the breeze made by the churn of a ceiling fan. I reach down and the breeze takes it further, where it settles, and I can see, yes, this is a fifty dollar bill. Grant is looking at me, and perhaps it is just this lighting, but he seems to be laughing at me…and fluttering further as I reach again. I blink. It is gone.

I take my piss and lie back down. I turn on my side and through the pocket of my pajamas I feel what I believe to be a wad of cash. I reach in and retrieve, yes, a wad of one hundred dollars. They are crinkled, and some held together by way of tape. I giggle, for this is a wild thing that is happening to me, and in a previous phase of my life would have changed my living situation tremendously. I drop the wad of bills upon my bare chest but nothing makes contact, for as it turns out, I am only letting slip from my hands the dry breeze that comes from my bedroom ceiling fan. Nothing is there.

I dream for a bit. I have one of those claustrophobic dreams, where the vision is not quite clear but there is a lot going on and the brain feels like mush from the process of cranial integration. I am entrapped in small room. The walls are covered with pasted one dollar bills. Every time I touch one of them they turn to dust and I cough in the brittle paper that floats up and into my lungs. I finally wake up from coughing…I’ve been doing this in my sleep, heaving, heaving a dry rasp. I get up to see if I have any cough syrup in the kitchen. As I exit my bedroom I am slightly startled as I see a faint green glow quiver from the kitchen table. I hear the slap of coins. My breathing stops for a moment as I round the corner, and there indeed is some activity around the table. Wavering phantoms of similar folks in appearance to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses Grant, Benjamin Franklin, William McKinley, Grover Cleveland, James Madison, Salmon P. Chase, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, JFK, Susan B. Anthony, Sacagawea all hover around clutching cards, moving piles of pennies into the center, grunting with the spread of agonized defeat upon their faces. The room is cold. It feels like an icy quarter has been pressed flat against my neck, as though from a thin winter pocket. I shudder and stare at the faces of these ghosts of the American dollar as they turn and stare at me with an assortment of green, grey and black eyes. I cough once again – a harsh rasp, this one – and these figures fizzle like melting pieces from a plastic transparent and arbitrary puzzle.

Jeff’s books are available at WhiskeyPike.com & TurbanTan.com. His shorter works have appeared in Thirteen Pocket’s Seeding Meat series, Bellows, and will appear in an upcoming publication by Trifecta Publishing in NYC.

… So I’m an employee of CTTSB (Cable TV Themed Sports Bar) “interning” as a mixologist/waitress. I’ve infiltrated America’s favorite type of bar that isn’t an Irish Pub or an Irish Tavern. It’s time to learn everything of the spectators experience in this environment.

I’m going to share a legion of occurrences I endured during my time at CTTSB. A few things you should know before I impart these instances with you: Though CTTSB is in the cardiac organ of Chicago’s downtown/magnificent mile district, it is not for Chicagoan’s, but for tourists and suburban families. Two, I don’t like being racist (refer to this sentence when I discuss my time working the NBA All-Star Game). Finally, this company recently closed down but is paying me a severance package that I need to fuel my summers day drinking hobby, so I won’t bash them as much as I’d like too, until that package is paid in full this August. Text me if you want the dirt.

My somewhat official title at this joint was bar wench, but I was actually a 1950′s house wife. The man (customer) would come in, present me with a disinterested salutation and immediately ask me to “beer him” and change the channel to the sports game. He would then tell me he’s hungry and I would have to feed him because I know he’s my meal ticket(the leaver of a 13% tip, hopefully.) So inbetwixt his chewing of cow muscle and slurping of macro brews, he’d tell me how his day went. Like any good American ball and chain, I feigned interest and reassured him , that in fact he was right, and that his superior was the “fucking idiot” and not him. Peppered in this inane verbal dance, I would have to laugh at the benign jests, from the bean counting and rates adjusting husband of mine. After these series of moments concluded it was now time for me to offer him sex (ask if we wanted another beer, after I knew he was done, and when he would say no, I would responded with, “are you sure, it’s on the house”, he’d offer “not tonight, I have a headache”). In any given day this occurrence would happen twenty times a shift.

You can’t spell compromised integrity without T I P $.

Another type of clientele that CTTSB would bring in is the “I live in Chicago, but don’t have NBA season pass package,on Direct TV, so I will go down to CTTSB with my brood of 9 children from 8 different mothers, and have my latest “boo” by my side as we dunk our buffalo wings in buttermilk ranch and cheer on Kobe all night long and leave without tipping” type of NBA fan. On a cold night in February, the NBA all star game was on,and all the NBA crowds came out to show their colors(team inspired and gang related) for what would make for the most interesting night of my bartending life.

CTTSB was jammed to capacity on the night of that All-Star game. Not an empty seat in the whole facility. CTTSB had two dining rooms and three bars, so at no point were we going to turn anyone away, but rather invite them all in and frustrate them with time it took to get a drink or their food. A good start for any dining experience! So by the time they manipulated their way to the front of the bar and in my peripheral, they we’re in no mood to hear that our shots of Henny, and out of season Mojitos were priced ten dollars and up. None the less, I made about 10 Armadillo Stone Sours(LaVoni meant Amaretto stone sours, correcting her would force her to beat my ass!). I was asked if I could make a Corona Margarita.(wtf is that?) Strong Island Ice Teas were slung. And a record 800 Grey Goose Voocka-cransburries(Vodka-Cranberries) we’re poured with my own two hands.

These people we’re getting wasted. Their food was taking forever to come out, so they kept drinking. Myself and my fellow bartenders Brad and Dustin were getting stiffed out of a tip for about 60% of each drink dished out. Why was this? I don’t get it, I was rolling my eyes behind the customers backs, not in front of them. Brad, who is a Tall, White, and Handsome, college educated native of Mississippi (the latter not being an oxymoron), and Dustin was a sassy, gay, all-American white male from Jamaica who was an awesome bartender with a flair for class. If I was an NBA fan, I would want us to be my bartenders. But the masses just weren’t having us. And I figured out why, we didn’t have lady tits or that boom boom pow.

Boy this blog is getting Vent-ey, ironically I’m at Starbucks drinking my coffee which is a VEN……, okay I won’t finish the joke, but I will wrap this post up.

So I really didn’t learn much about sports punching my time card at this gin joint. I just learned to openly complain and demand monetary gratuity that is OPTIONAL. I may not make it as a sports journalist(chubby blogger) but I would make a great waitress. Sadly for my landlord CTTSB closed it’s doors June 16th 2010 in Chicago and four other locations. While most people will miss the people they worked with, I will miss the steady income, access to liquor, and all the free sports I got to watch.

(Jokes aside, (I know what you’re think, ‘wait this is supposed to be funny?’) I made some great drinking buddies at this job. And buddies not just in the sense of facebook friends or other bloggers who comment on my posts so that I’ll comment back on theirs, so it looks like we have deep readership, but legit buds. I shared so many laughs and non-sports stories with Horny ‘Los, Long Dave, Jamie “you have to t-bag” Navarro, and Brad. I learned from my female bartending counterparts that women generally don’t like it when you mimic athletes and pat their asses after they did a good job. Thanks for that tip, and the facial smacks Dani, Lindsay, Brittney, Lindsey,Manager Leslie Jess, Kim, Tara, and the lady who showed me the ropes/my fave, Ms. Christine! Some of you were my friends, but all of you we’re my co-workers!)

Method sports writing is harder than I thought, but I will not give up the fight I picked myself, until I am the ultimate method sports writer (cue “Darth Vader’s intro music or David Bowie’s “Young Americans”, b/c that song is fucking sweet!!)….

The EGP: The Economic Ghost Post is a weekly article examining economic theories through the invention of ghost stories…a wicked blend of essay & fiction – phantoms as the allegorical Vanna White of ‘Econ.’

George rolled up the Wall Street Journal and threw it at his cat. “Don’t scratch my leather!” George had just moved in to his new lavish house on the hills. The cat was now hiding behind the leather chair. “Don’t think I feel sorry for you little critter. We’ve only had this chair a day and you’re tearing it up.” George kicked the cat out from beneath the chair. “Get out of there!” George calmed and sat. His chest felt heavy, and his body suddenly chilly. Something pulled at his hair! He stood! George Downs turned and shuddered when he realized no one was actually there.

George didn’t get scared often. And when he did it was usually over dire financial mistakes made by his firm but those worries were washed away when bailout money arrived. When a media man hounded George once on his way out of the office on why did these mega institutions get bail outs instead of the American people, George snapped back “they already do, it’s called welfare.” George was fearless when he plunged into all night poker games during college, betting stipend money to the max. His habits didn’t change much when he found himself knee deep in derivatives, engaging in agreements contingent on future prices. He told his mom at the time that he was no longer entering in risk. He was now just selling risk. He masterminded hedge funds to protect the future price of oil, assuming there would always be some. Again, George didn’t get scared often. When the economy took a turn for the worst, he knew his bets against the future price of gold would hold strong. And no one but his dumb cat knew where he had buried his physical stash of gold in the new backyard.

George turned and shuddered when he realized no one was actually there. Still, his mind was convinced of the presence of something, something dark and unable to be sensed by naked senses. He hissed for its departure. The presence retaliated, and manifested itself as a raucous vibration, ripping apart at the framework of the house, splitting wood, and inducing the roof to collapse and bring the whole down as a pile of useless lumber.

It was when George pulled himself from the pile of wood and continued to be badgered by the angry spirit that George felt the deepest fear possible…no bet nor fund could protect him from some strange force he couldn’t comprehend. Through gut instinct, George unleashed another bet. “You can move a house but I bet you can’t move gold!” With his own hands George dug away in the dirt of his yard, with the intent to grab his stash and high tail it. Aghast, he found nothing in the expected spot! He looked around…yes it lined up with the three sycamores…the marker. Near a panic attack George leaned up against one of the sycamores…he looked up when he heard something fall through the trees. A gold bar descended with high velocity and slipped through his gaped mouth, perfect shot. Something chuckled as George choked. The rest then took a plunge in suite and struck George in not so nice places.

George’s own brother did quite well with his bet against George’s life insurance policy, and didn’t quite mean what he said to himself in the shower, when he muttered that he would cease such devil worship to win his silly bets. He was only processing an idea that he later thought on as not very beneficial to his self interest.

Jeff’s books are available at WhiskeyPike.com & TurbanTan.com. His shorter works have appeared in Thirteen Pocket’s Seeding Meat series, Bellows, and will appear in an upcoming publication by Trifecta Publishing in NYC.