Chicago, IL (Tour Diary 2001)
by Big Poppa E    author info

April 4, 2001

I couldn't stop staring at the sign.

"Jerry's Pizza," in blue neon, flashing first "Jerry's" then "Pizza," "Jerry's" then "Pizza."

It wasn't that part of the sign that caught my attention, though, it was the painted part of the sign just beneath the neon, the part that proclaimed that Jerry's Pizza was "home of the world famous Pound of Pepperoni Pizza."

The idea of eating a pizza with a full pound of spiced pork wasn't the part that caught my attention about that part of the sign, either, although I have to admit that the idea of eating that much pepperoni on a pizza is a pretty nasty idea to contemplate.

No, it was the "world famous" part. How does one qualify their pizza, even if it truly is made with a full pound of pepperoni, as "world famous?" Moreover, how would one go about proving that their pizza is indeed world famous? Is there a committee that decides these things, like does one have to submit proof that what you are claiming is world famous is actually world famous?

And what does that mean anyway, "world famous?" Someone like Madonna is easily called world famous, because everyone knows something about Madonna. But, Jerry's Pizza? Like, does that mean that I could find myself in Italy and walk up to someone on the street and ask them if they had ever heard of Jerry's Pizza in Chicago, would they be able to say, "Oh yeah, and they've got this great Pound of Pepperoni Pizza that is just superb?" Does "world famous" mean that there are newspaper clippings from around the world singing the praises of Jerry's Pizza, or does it simply mean that Jerry has had customer from other countries in his establishment, as if having a Belgian or a Pakistani buy a slice of pizza suddenly makes the joint "world famous?"

Is it against the law for a business owner to refer to their business as "world famous" if it is not, indeed, world famous, or can any person simply add those words to the name of their business, like Joey's Espresso, Home of the World Famous Never-Ending Hot Pot of Coffee in Lubbock, Texas, or Melinda's World Famous Pancakes and Waffle Shoppe in Americus, Georgia? Can someone get in trouble for this, or be challenged to prove it?

And so what if something is world famous...that doesn't necessarily mean it's any good. Adolph Hitler was world famous, and so is AIDS.

And I'm standing there looking up at the sign, head cocked, for several minutes, mouth open, wondering...

Like, what about the word "best," as in the sign just down the block and around the corner that trumpets the fact that Java Jungle is the place where one can buy the "world's best latte?" Are there elections for this, I mean, do people actually get a chance to vote on this, or can anyone proclaim such a thing?

And look at all the products that claim to be "45% better!" What does that mean? Better than what? And how does one quantify the betterness, like how do you really measure the betterness of something, like, exactly how much better is 45% better if you are talking about shampoo or a cookie or a slice of pizza?

People just use words without thinking about them, and it saps the meaning of them. Like, if I say that I "love" Jerry's Pizza, what word would I then use to describe the feeling I have for my girlfriend or wife or child? Would you just say, "Well, I love them, too, just in a different way?" If that's the case, should't you simply use a different word?

If I use the word "awesome" to describe the feeling I get when I find out I got a good grade on a paper, then what word would I save for the first time I see the Grand Canyon or the feeling of holding my newly birthed first child? What, "truly awesome," as if all other kinds of awesome pale in comparison to this new kind of awesome? You don't really need an intensifier for the word "awesome;" it is meant to describe something that makes you feel "awe," which is, like, the feeling you get when hearing God's voice or something. I don't know that a simple slice of pizza, no matter how fucking good it is or how much pepperoni you stack on it, could be described as capable of delivering "awe" to someone, and yet...

We've robbed the words in this language of their inherant power, and so we have to put needless intensifiers next to them to drive home the meaning. How many times have you heard someone describe something as "completely destroyed?" I mean, destroyed is destroyed, you can't really get much more destroyed than that, and even if you needed to, you could always use "obliterated" or "vaporized," but the there'd always be someone there to up the ante by saying something was "completely, totally, really, really obliterated, like, from the face of the earth and stuff." You would never describe someone as "kinda dead" or say you "sorta totalled the car a little bit."

It makes me a little sad.

In my press kit, I have clips from newspapers not only in America, but also in Canada, England, and Australia, plus I was in a Voice of America video segment that was aired across Eastern Europe and Asia. Does that mean I can put the words "World Famous" across the cover of my next collection of poetry? And what about the word "best?" Since there doesn't seem to be anyway to qualify the word "best" or any authority monitoring the use of such a word, could I, then, as a "world famous" poet proclaim that my collection of poetry contains "the best performance poetry in the world?" Could I push it further and say that I am known as the "world's funniest poet?" How could anyone prove that I wasn't? And even if someone were to come along that was generally acknowledged to be funnier that me, could I still proclaim myself as "one of the funniest poets in the world," or "one of the most passionate performers in the world?"

I think maybe I will demand to be introduced not simply as "Big Poppa E," but, from now on, I will be referred to as "The Amazing Big Poppa E, the World's Funniest, Most Passionate, and Very Very Best Performance Poet the World Has Ever Known, and I Really, Really Mean It (I Swear To God)."

Could you prove it wasn't true? And if you could, who would you complain to?

Anyway, after standing there looking at the sign blink "Jerry's" then "Pizza" then "Jerry's" then "Pizza" for at least 15 minutes, I decided the only thing to do would be to step into Jerry's Pizza and buy a slice of their world famous Pound of Pepperoni Pizza.

And I have no way of knowing if that slice of pizza was the best slice of pizze in the world or even the best known and most famous slice of pizza in the world, but I can tell you that it was a pretty fucking good slice of pizza.

It made me feel good that Jerry's was at least in the running for the best slice of pizza, and now that I said so on the Internet, maybe they are one step closer to being truly world famous.

The Poetry Flop House Series:
In 1992 I acquired a large, cheap apartment in the weirdly beautiful Uptown neighborhood in Chicago. Dozens of touring artists, mostly poets, crashed there for a night or more. They were on tour, temporarily homeless, too drunk to get home, or had other reasons. When my old place went condo in November 2001, I began soliciting tributes from the talented minds who slept on its beds, couches and floors. A blessing of real estate fate gave me another big Uptown apartment; any poets who flop will pay with poetry.
- Greg Gillam, Fengi editor.

All material copyright the authors, printed with permission.