RAGBAG COMICS

2011-07-25T17:53:00.000-07:00

Just got some swell printed shirts from Charlie Parr that turned out pretty darn nice (if I do say so myself.)http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

You can pick these up directly from Mr. Parr when he's in your town- check out his tour schedule here: www.charlieparr.com

They're available in royal blue art on a yellow shirt, and white art on a royal blue shirt (for you completists out there.)

More freelance skullduggery in the works to be posted here. One of these days I'll finally get around to whippin' up some new COMICS too!

2011-07-25T17:45:00.000-07:00

More free Amazon MP3 sampler goodness!

Here's the latest freebie Bloodshot sampler with artwork by m'self (the fourth so far.)

It's nab-able through the end of July and perfect for any sort of summer shindig you might have planned. Oh... and the artwork is super patriotic. Gotta keep it real (and real cheap) in these times of financial crises and such...

Check out here!

2011-06-16T18:42:00.000-07:00

Need somethin' to keep yr feet movin' through those long summer nights?
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
There's a brand-spankin'-new Bloodshot Records sampler FREE on Amazon thru the month of June with artwork by yours truly...

Nab it here!

2011-06-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

FUNDRAISER FOR DANNY AMIS

Chicago area folks should head out to Fitzgerald's in Berwyn for a good time (and a good cause!)

They're hosting a fundraiser for Danny Amis, better known as Daddy O Grande of instrumental surf-Luchadores LOS STRAITJACKETS THIS THURSDAY (6/9/11.) A year ago, Daddy O was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Unfortunately (like so many of us out there) he is without health insurance. Coming out and supporting the cause will mean a lot.

More details at http://www.daddyogrande.com and at http://www.fitsgeraldsnightclub.com

Here's the poster we put together to get the word out:

2011-06-02T20:33:00.000-07:00

BRAND NEW ROCTOBER!

Hey folks-

Shuffle yrself on down to the nearest hip purveyor of excellent printed materials and snag a copy of the latest Roctober- the finest in hard-hitting comics and music journalism for the last 20+ years!

I did this months cover- an ode to horrible 80's fashions (in keeping with the theme of this month's mag.)

2011-05-28T19:51:00.001-07:00

RECORD STORE DAY 2011

Whulp... it was bound to happen. Last month marked the third annual International Record Store Day, that finest of holidays where tons of limited edition records are released and nearly immediately yanked from the shelves by eager shoppers.

I knocked out a couple of things to help rally the cause this year...

If yr in Salt Lake City, you still might be able to nab this T-Shirt design at the most-excellent Slowtrain Records:

While this image was on all sorts of things for Phono Select Records in Sacramento, CA:

If Record Store Day came and went and you didn't get a chance to sing your Record Store Day carols or eat your Record Store Day figgy pudding, don't worry yrself too thin... just flip on the turntable, make yrself a cocktail and relax, 'cuz it'll be back next year!

2011-03-05T13:44:00.000-08:00

SPRING FEVER

One month later, it's still snowing, and it still roundly sucks an unspecified amount of ass skulking around here in the Midwest.

Ah well.. it's March. How much longer can it be miserable? Very much looking forward to those magical two weeks post-gross-out-winter-melt-off (dog diarrhea AND condoms littering the sidewalk? Yeah, buddy!) where the weather is beautiful and the trees are green before the oppressively hot slog of summer delivers it's seasonal sweaty nut-punch.

Meanwhile, I am toiling away here in the Ragbag Comics HQ (read: my couch and, occasionally, at the drafting table) knocking out some I-think-turned-out-just-fine artwork for the annual Bloodshot Records SXSW showcase in Austin later this month.

Have a peek, and if yr gonna be down that way, for god's sake stop by and check out what's happenin...

Also ended up altering this one for another Amazon sampler...

Ain't it cute?

More to come, soon... so long as the paid work keeps-on-a-comin, I'm gonna keep-on-a-doin'-it. Got some cool t-shirt designs and Record Store Day stuff in the works as we speak.

More to come...

2011-02-03T18:01:00.000-08:00

Still roughin' it through the long winter here in the midwest...

Here's something to help get you through those long nights and provide the appropriate soundtrack to some Valentine's Day lovin' (or lack thereof... we're bipartisan...)

Click here for the rest of the month for a super excellent free Bloodshot Records sampler on Amazon (with artwork by yours' truly...)

Enjoy... back with more as it develops...

2010-12-03T18:52:00.000-08:00

2010 WE HARDLY KNEW YE

Geeze... this shit is stale!

Nothin' thrown up here in months... a shame. But much has happened... wife, house, mortgage... yeesh. Life'll take a bite outta yer ass if you aren't keepin' an eye on it, eh?

Rest assured, there'll be much to come in the future... new projects, new comics, new whole bunch of what have you.

In the meantime, to whet that ol' whistle in these last waning months of 2010. Wanna keep tabs on 2011? Nab as little as $10 worth of stuff at www.bloodshotrecords.com and get this sharp lookin' (if I do say so myself) 2011 calendar designed & illustrated by yours truly:

Get a hand on it fore the whole damn year gets away yet again

2010-03-18T07:41:00.001-07:00

UNEXPECTED HIATUS

If you've been checking this site with even a mild amount of frequency over the last couple of months, you've undoubtedly noticed that not a whole lot has happened.

Whulp- most of the reason for that is the excessive amount of things happening in the day-to-day. My mom always said "Life comes in waves..." with an impending marriage, house-buying, computer problems, and portfolio-assembly (in addition to a slate of recent developments)I've neglected my little website here.

But never-you-worry...once things have comfortable settled down a tad, I'll be back at it. In the meantime, check out the latest issue of ALARM magazine (#37), where you'll find this comic...

Check back here in a couple months!

2010-01-06T19:17:00.000-08:00

(POST) CHRISTMAS TIME

(Ed. note: This post has been sitting on my docket waiting to be published for over a month. Perhaps this lends greater credence to the post overall...)

Over the years I've found myself greeting the holidays with an ever-growing sense of indifference.

That sounds bad. Let me elaborate...

As a kid, you look forward to the presents and the two weeks away from school so you can spend your valuable time building snow-persons, hucking snowballs at cars, and burying younger siblings in the yard. During the budding teenage years, for many of us, the holidays were still a couple weeks off school, but the importance of presents and familial conviviality were less motivational, primarily because teenagers are selfish assholes (prove me wrong, teens!)Watching a 6 year old open that "must-have" gift is a heart warming holiday experience... nobody wants to see a 15 year old open a present.

From there it's a precipitous decline in excitement each year as the holiday season becomes more and more equated with shitty driving, and having lots of stuff to do and trying to find the time to do it all in before going back to work on Monday.

It's a fact that Christmas is not a 20-something person's holiday (unless they have kids.) New Year's is a 20-something person's holiday, but mainly because celebrating it mostly involves staying up late and getting incredibly drunk (find me a holiday special with that as its core value.) But Christmas will forever remain a kids' holiday, and it's not as much fun without kids around. Watching groan-ass people open ironing boards, sensible slacks and file cabinets is no where near as interesting as watching a kid go apeshit over some unpronounceable object made out of colorful non-toxic plastic.

But it's not all "bah-humbug" for me. No- over the last few years I've had a real Ebenezer Scrooge moment and come full circle, realizing that the part of Christmas that warrants looking forward to is spending time with your family and friends, staying inside and not worrying too much about the day-to-day drivel that continuously piles up 'til that aneurysm finally bursts. And truly, with as difficult as it is to buy good gifts for most people (not waffle-of-the-month clubs or 7-11 gift certificates), there's still something to be said for seeing someone, young or old, open a well-selected present. Having a three-year-old niece also helps: she's excited about everything.

So why the growing indifference on my part?

Americans are inundated with holiday bric-a-crap starting as soon as the Jack-O-Lantern candle is blown out- sometimes even before that, with Santa and Dracula rubbing elbows at the big box stores like some bad 80's cartoon special. Stores start stock piling red and green things of varying shapes and textures so early that it all becomes so much background fodder by the time Christmas actually comes around. Plus, the wonder surrounding Christmas decor you might've experienced as a kid is long gone because as a nearly 30-something, you've been seeing that same stuff lining shelves and door steps for a quarter of every year for the last nearly 30-something years. Factor into that the whirlwind speed that daily life seems to ramp up every year, and you don't even have time to process what's happening.

I've been so busy this year (ed. note: you'll notice the post below is from Halloween for christ's sake) I've had nary a moment to digest anything other than the most basic needs and information this season: "It's cold." "I'm hungry." "I sleep now."

Hopefully- one of these years- Christmas will start to feel like Christmas again. But in the meantime, I'll savor the fact that after Christmas is over, it'll be another 9 months before I have to see Santa-crap again.

God bless us- everyone.

2009-10-31T11:47:00.000-07:00

HALLOWEEN-TIME ALL THE TIME

Today is my favorite day of the year- Halloween. Granted, for a grown man, there are an awful lot of Draculas and Frankenstiens and sundry Wolfpeople-related objects in my home and an exorbitant number of horror movies at arm's reach that can be watched at any time, so it's arguable October 31st is really just something of an arbitrary date for me anymore.

But Halloween is more than monsters and make-up and slasher flicks. It's generally the peak of fall(the best three-weeks to live in the Midwest) and, amongst other things, it's the one time of year it's socially acceptable for dentist's offices, car dealerships, and library reading rooms around the country to adorn their coffee tables and waiting areas with mutilated body parts and corpses.

Maybe it's living in the city as opposed to a kid-filled small town, or maybe it's the fact that I'm no longer a kid myself (well... sorta) but it seems like Halloween has become less about kids and trick-or-treating, and more an excuse for adults to put on wigs, get drunk and act like assholes.

Now, a kid in a costume is adorable. Find any second grader, and have them dress up like a potato, a box of cotton swabs, or a velociraptor, and it's gonna be pretty awesome. Do the same thing to an adult, and you have... well, a jackass. Because by the time you're 20 or so, you should not have any interest in dressing up like a potato, or for that matter, any tuberous vegetable, Spiderman, Vasco Da Gamma, or Beethoven. Unless that's your job- say, you work for the Russet Gold Potato company, and your assigned task is to hand out potato-related propaganda while wearing a spud costume- there is absolutely no reason to subject yourself to the well-warranted ridicule that comes with being a grown-ass man in a potato suit.

Another thing about adults in costumes: they act like fucking assholes. When a kid is dressed like a pirate, and they act like a pirate, it's funny and cute. A kid with that fake polka-dot beard painted on in grease pencil talking like a drunken 18th century sea-faring British man? Priceless. But with adults, it's a grating, awful affair that will arouse in the more sensible among us a seemingly insurmountable urge to beat these people about the face and vital organs with a lead pipe. It doesn't matter what they're dressed as- whether some kind of Depp-related pirate, a corn cob, or a sexy pumpkin- they will find a way to take their costume source material and use it as an excuse to act it out in the most infuriating, slappable way possible. Add alcohol to the mix, and that gut instinct to set fire to the slurring, stumbly Ringo Starr standing next to you who keeps sloshing Vodka Cranberry down your front while trying to do a cute impression of one of the oft-maligned Beatle's solo records is truly justified..

Oh, and if you're an adult dressed like a pimp, a "gangsta," or any kind of piratey anything- nice try, but apparently you have been sapped of every last ounce of creativity left in your body. It's been done. And Austin Powers? Really? Still? That was like 15 years ago- give it a rest. When is that gonna die? Hopefully before I do.

I propose we give Halloween back to the kids. Because, if nothing else, the movie "Halloween" should've taught us by now that getting a babysitter for your kids on Halloween night is both a bummer, and a potential path to unadulterated slaughter.

Oh, and if another drunk grown-ass fake pirate shouts "Arr Matey!" at me, I may have to see to it that he actually NEEDS that eye patch.

Happy Halloween, ev'rbuddy!

2009-10-14T17:05:00.000-07:00

MAKIN' THAT DOUGH- Charlie Parr's Too Much Liquor, Not Enough Gasoline

Charlie Parr is a phenomenal storyteller and guitar picker (of the Piedmont tradition) from Duluth, MN. I had the pleasure of putting together the artwork for his Independent Records Ireland debut,
Too Much Liquor, Not Enough Gasoline.

It's a sort of retrospective collecting some truly outstanding gems from Charlie's last handful of self-released records.

Charlie has an off-kilter, laid back and hugely authentic style about him that seems to be lacking in most "revivalist" traditional country blues-types going nowadays. These songs manage to sound modern while inexplicably simultaneously sounding like they could be some long forgotten gem from Blind Willie McTell or Mississippi John Hurt.

If you haven't heard him, I highly suggest doing so, especially if you're at all a fan of country blues or classic folk singer-songwriters of the John Prine/Dave Van Ronk/Kristofferson ilk. Or, hell- just a fan of really fucking good music.

Check out his website:

www.charlieparr.com

Buy a record or two- you'll be damn glad you did. Should he find his way in your town, you'll never find a better reason to get yourself out of the house and watch a master of the form at work.

This record is available from Independent Records Ireland:

www.independentrecords.ie

These are lo-res files, so they're a titch blurry, but you don't mind that now do ya?

It looks a lot better when you order yer own copy and see it in person.

Bottoms up...

Booklet cover:

Inside booklet:

CD face:

CD tray back:

2009-10-06T11:40:00.000-07:00

HIGHWAY TO THE DANGER ZONE

As summer, the (theoretical) season for leisure and relaxation, comes to a close around here, I've come to realize more fully just how utterly taboo a good number of our accepted forms of warm weather entertainments in this country would be in most other parts of the world.

For example... the air show; a time-honored tradition in the cities and suburbs of our fair country since the post-war era. Last month, as the Air & Water show set up shop here on Chicago's lake front, millions (yes millions) of hard working middle class Americans packed up picnic baskets, grabbed the kiddies and the lawn chairs and headed down to hunt out the perfect spot to spend a Sunday afternoon celebrating the end of summer by watching military war craft normally used in carpet bombings and air raids gracefully swoop and twirl around for their entertainment.

Every year it's the same situation: you're going about your business, heading to work or grabbing a sandwich on your lunch break, when super-sonic F-15 Bombers screech over head, bringing everyone on the sidewalk to a halt, hand blocking panicked faces as an unearthly sound-barrier-shattering roar pierces the city. The collective memory kicks in, and fear-grimaces melt into smiles as all remember the air and water show taking place over the weekend. Gotta get out and see that one, kids!

In a country where, moreover, we're fat & happy (or at least fat), screeching war planes dredge up fond memories of summers gone by spent listening to classic rock blasting out of decrepit speakers, knocking back a slurpee and a big soft pretzel while watching death ships perform aerial acrobatics. In innumerable other countries, screeching warplanes send the masses scattering, eliciting fear of being completely obliterated by a cruise missile, which, to be fair, is really the appropriate reaction.

Of course, there are a litany of other forms wholesome American summer funstuffs that really drive home the myriad reasons why other countries aren't always so crazy about us.

Eating contests, anyone?

Giant, mutant vegetables at the County Fair?

Grand Funk Railroad?

Welcome, Fall, I embrace you.... your hay rack rides, haunted houses and apple bobs aren't nearly as middle finger-y to the rest of the world.

2009-09-27T15:34:00.001-07:00

ENTER: THE BATMAN

New business, old business...

For the handful of you checking this site with some regularity, I apologize for my lengthy (and getting lengthier) pauses without any new partially informed rants (and pictures!)

Shockingly, I've been picking up some freelance work recently, which has greatly hampered my comic strip and panel production. Kind of a good problem to have, honestly.

But never-you-fear... said freelance work as well as some new strips and ruminations will be thrown up here (literally) in the coming weeks...

...I'll wait while you get new pants...

Back? Great.

So here's a little story, entirely true, published in the most recent issue of Roctober magazine (#47 for those of you wanting to Collect 'Em All...)

Jake Austin does an excellent job mining the music (and comic) vaults to put out Roctober as he's able- they have a new anthology of comic and musical musings being prepared for a major publisher as we speak, but in the meantime, you can see what they're up to and fill your back-issue stash or pick up a T-Shirt at www.roctober.com . Patronize your indie businesses, folks, because they're becoming further and farther between.

So...without further to do... here's the "Batman" story from this month's Roctober.

2009-08-18T18:52:00.001-07:00

AMERICA: WHERE YOU CAN BEAT YOUR TROUBLES TO DEATH WITH A SHOVEL...

This from WKYC out of Cleveland, OH...

Euclid woman charged with beating fawn to death
Posted By: Kim Wendel Posted: 7/7/2009 7:09:52 PM WWW.WYKC.COM

EUCLID -- Resident Dorothy Richardson, 76, said she was defending herself when she beat to death a 25-pound fawn that was crouched in her flower bed, then stuffed the fawn's body in a cardboard box and put it out on trash day.

A widow, she said she has been defending her garden against deer for years and this time took a shovel and beat the fawn until it died.

She said the fawn's eyes contacted hers, like he was going to jump and bite her head off.

Euclid City Councilman Christopher Gruber says Richardson told him something different.

Gruber says Richardson said she hit it once and, according to her, it screamed and she hit it two more times, then she said that what she wanted to do was put it at the end of the yard so the other deer know not to mess with her.

Gruber is now a witness in the animal abuse case against Richardson. If convicted, she faces up to 60 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.
© 2009 WKYC-TV

Wow. Seriously...what the hell?

I mean... a shark, sure. A bear cub...eh...OK...they at least have sharp teeth and eat meat. A stray dog- still extreme to beat the life out of it with a shovel, but I can see how a stupid person might be of the belief that there's some kind of threat involved. I can even see beating the neighbor's jerk-ass kid to death simply for him being a jerk-ass kid and you being a miserable old woman. But a baby deer? Honestly?

Hasn't she ever seen Bambi? I mean, he wasn't bringing shit to a fight.

Outside of a dove- the eternal symbol for peace, a rabbit- the eternal symbol for magicians, or maybe a butterfly- the eternal symbol for weak-ass wussies, I can't think of an animal more synonymous with gentleness and harmlessness than the deer- let alone its babies(topsoil erosion and crop-eating aside.)

It is horrifying to me that the general public can be this ignorant and hell-bent on "protectin' thar propurtee..." as to beat a baby deer to death with a SHOVEL in front of their neighbors...and THEN to LEAVE ITS LIFELESS BABY DEER BODY AT THE END OF THE DRIVEWAY TO "WARN" OTHER DEER! I have to think that was more to warn away neighbors.

Y'know that guy a few years ago who suffocated to death in elephant shit after giving one an enema and standing right behind it? Not as ignorant as this woman.

What if this lady was your mom? Imagine getting the phone call that your mom will either face a 1,000 fine or two months in jail for beating a baby deer to death with a shovel. There's no way Social Security's gonna cover that one, and good luck finding a Hallmark card to fit the moment. But then, imagine the kind of insane, fucked up shit her kids must have been spoon fed as a baby humans. She probably tried beating her kids to death with a shovel, too, so she could lay their lifeless bodies at the foot of her womb to warn it from getting pregnant again.

But what about the deer? I'm a little befuddled that it just stood there and allowed this old woman to beat it to death. Don't deer startle easy and frolic away at the sound of a twig snapping in the distance?

So was it deaf? Was it just stupid? Did it have some kind of weird baby deer death wish? Maybe it just deserved it. I mean- let's face it; just in general terms, if you are a mammal of any size or strength at all, it's pretty difficult to be beaten to death by an old woman, shovel or no.

Maybe he was ready to start some shit... She'd been startin' up some cheese with his relatives- he didn't like the way she was looking at him. Maybe he should have brought a folding chair. Now that's a headline I want to read: "Baby Deer Beats Ignorant Old Woman To Death With Folding Chair."

As I read article after article, day after day, about gun nuts brandishing automatic weapons and sporting tri-cornered hats at Obama's rather mundane, non-threatening town hall meetings about health care, I can't help but feel there's a similar thread there.

The difference is- I'm thinkin' Obama's remembered his folding chair.

2009-07-28T17:10:00.000-07:00

THE EARTH MOVES UNDER MY FEET...

Most of what I think about is a colossal waste of time... of course, if you've ever seen this website before, you already know that.

I have to assume it has a lot to do with being one of the first wave of the cable TV generation- the first where popular folk heroes weren't Daniel Boone or Johnny Appleseed, but were instead Sgt. Slaughter and The Hamburgler, and instead of idolizing astronauts or the president, we spent time sitting in front of the TV, thinking it would be pretty cool to grow up and be a mutant tortoise who fights ninjas.

So- as an after affect of the brain-sludge I found filling my information-collecting apparatus as a child, I now find that much of my readily accessible knowledge is absolutely and utterly worthless. In fact, most of it was probably originally dreamed up to sell something to somebody... that is, after all, what "pop culture" IS when you get right down to it, isn't it?

As I wander the streets with little aim in particular aside from eventually being at my apartment, I occasionally catch myself thinking about these useless, trivial things.

Meanwhile, on a half-glance at the sidewalk, I have to stop for a second and think of the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of tiny fleeing bugs and creatures I'm inadvertently squashing the life out of as I dopily lope along trying to remember the name of the guy that was on both Bonanza and Battlestar Galactice (it was Lorne Greene. I have his country record!) Refocusing on this for a moment makes me realize how absolutely ridiculous and unfair "life," in all its forms, is. Tiny, harmless bugs go about their short lives with few purposes, but they're damned dedicated to them- collecting and eating food, building intricate dwellings and having sex with other bugs... um... that's kind of it for most of them. Meanwhile, we humans thunder around without a care in the world, undoubtedly destroying countless tiny civilizations on our way to go buy a Jamba Juice because, hell, we thought it sounded good after sitting on the couch watching "Maude" reruns all afternoon.

Humans have all the power in the world. We have the capacity to beat the life out of most of the other creatures on the planet to death. Those we can't pummel, we've been endowed with the ability invent elaborate contraptions to kill them so we can hang their heads in our trophy rooms, devour their bodies, or just because 'fuck 'em. And yet, when finding oneself all wrapped up in the endless layers of bullshit we've created to keep ourselves fat, happy, and entertained, it's easy to forget that, like those little bugs, our main purposes are the same- nourishment, shelter, and procreation.

Suddenly, everything seems like it'll be OK. After all, you should be smiling: You're a human being! You can choose HOW you want to waste your life instead of being a small, nearly unseeable bug smashed to death under the proverbial boot heel of a guy absent mindedly walking down to Ace Hardware to buy a bathtub stopper.

2009-07-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

TAKE IT LIKE A MAN-GOAT

I hate being hot.

But I don't mean like regular kinda hot, I mean like flaming, sticky sweaty, pit-soaked hot. That absolutely god-awful feeling of having every last molecule of moisture squoze from your red, irritated body.

But perhaps more than oppressively humid, swamp-ball heat, I have a strong dislike for the people that seem thoroughly unphased by it. It's as though they are lizards, happily baking themselves on a sandstone outcropping, rollerblading around the city in tiny, upsetting stretchy shorts and those god awful muscle shirts that are held on with two thin straps of poly-cotton. As I slowly lope around, as thoroughly soaked with my own juices as if I had just fallen off a ship, or were in the midst of being hickory-pit roasted, sweat pouring directly into my eyes from the exertion of doing little more than just pointing my body in a certain direction and continuing to pilot it that way, these people are out running, doing jumping jacks, or lifting pallets of bricks up over their heads, looking at me with a face that says "You god damn baby. It's just heat! Enjoy this life while you can, you sad giant man." This, of course, stirs up a stew of emotions in my giant god damn man-baby, human-hating self.

So every summer, I trudge around sweating my balls off in a state of unimaginable discomfort, while the attractive people of the world swish and swirl past me, laughing or looking scornful, enjoying their svelt, athletic selves, while I sweat profusely (mainly from my head) imagining the beer I will be drinking as soon as I'm back in the safety of my own air conditioned home (it's worth every penny.)

But... you know what else is hot, comfortable, attractive people? Hell. Hell is hot.

I will do everything in my power to live a better life from here on out. 'Cause I'm willing to bet Heaven is air conditioned all the time, and nobody has to pick up the check.

2009-07-11T07:23:00.000-07:00

SECOND STAR TO THE RIGHT AND STRAIGHT ON 'TIL MORNING

This week, in an elaborate world-wide televised spectacle, we as a planet said goodbye to Michael Jackson.

Not only did MJ make some damn fine records 25 years ago (and only the records from 25 years ago), but he was one of the world's most incredibly fascinating crackpots, whose fame and fortune drove him to a Willy Wonka-like level of eccentricity we are likely to never see again. Everyone on the face of the planet could point to a picture of Michael Jackson and tell you who it was. Studies have shown people in far-flung secluded villages in South America and Africa with few ties to the outside world knew who Michael Jackson was. I read a study years ago that said the three most recognizable people in the world were Mickey Mouse, Pope John Paul II, and Michael Jackson. Seriously.

I had "Off the Wall," I had "Thriller," and I had "Bad." If you were alive in the 80's, you had one or all of those records- it was practically dogma that you MUST own them. Being a product of 80's and not having Micheal Jackson records was like being a fundamentalist baptist minister and not owning a Bible. Michael Jackson was super-human, sharing a level of fame amongst the youth population on par with Chewbacca, E.T. and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The difference was that MJ was an actual person, though, growing up playing "Moonwalker" at the pizza parlor and waiting in line for Captain EO at Disneyland, you'd never KNOW he was real.

The 90's swept in, we learned it didn't matter if you were black or white, that MJ wanted to own the Elephant Man's bones for some reason, and we patiently watched myriad gags to the point of extreme staleness about him and his pal Bubbles every place imaginable, from late night talk shows and the Simpsons to Full House and Perfect Strangers. Michael responded: "Leave Me Alone." What a sweet video that was.

Time marched on, us 80's kids hit high school, then college, only catching snapshots of MJ on the news here and there, generally capturing something unspeakably weird- oh, he married Elvis' daughter? That makes sense, I guess. Did he molest a kid? Multiple kids? Probably not, but hey... the guy owns several giraffes; by the time you get to that level of fame and wealth it's gotta be hard to find new kicks. Say! There he is hanging Blanket the baby out a window and waving at French people! Why's he wearing an oxygen mask? Ah well- dude can do whatever he wants. He made "Thriller."

Michael Jackson reached a level of crazy super-fame (and super-fame-related craziness) that we will NEVER see again. Ever. It is nigh impossible, lest Jesus himself should return, that our A.D.D. culture will aim the camera at a person long enough for them to hit the super-human Jackson level of fame. And really, if Jesus did come back, he'd probably be bumped off the news after a day or so once the next season of American Idol starts. Then he'd have to try out on the show to get the world's attention back, in what would undoubtedly be the most watched event ever in the history of mankind: Jesus Christ meets Paula Abdul.

Celebrity in the modern age is accessible to all ("Hey man- did you see that wacky cat guy video on YouTube? Aw, he's awesome!" 2 weeks later "What about a cat guy?") which is in and of itself kind of cool, I suppose, but as everybody's 15 minutes of fame gets whittled down 10 minutes, then 5, then 1 minute and 38 seconds, really looking back on Michael Jackson makes a person wish we could go back to the days when people had to EARN their fame and live with it. And we could watch them live with it, front-yard Ferris wheels, wall-sized paintings of themselves as Peter Pan, crazy kid-themed mansions and all.

Let's fast forward 40 years or so, and say Paris Hilton dies. Will there be this level of global outpouring of sympathy? No way in hell. "Who's 'Justin Timberlake'? Hey- check out this new video I found of a dog eating an entire pie! That dog is AWESOME! He's going to be on the news later!"

2009-06-20T17:36:00.000-07:00

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS...

Nobody likes getting yelled at. But there's something extra-humbling when the person who's opted to funnel their verbal violence into your face is a foul-mouthed homeless guy.

Sure, he might be off his meds or completely doped up out of his mind, and yeah he's probably seen shit I can't even begin to imagine, but when you're sitting quietly amongst two dozen total strangers on a city bus, to be particularly singled out to be the recipient of an endless trail of screaming bum spit is a bit humiliating. Because really, nobody, not even this shouting hobo, wants to be on a city bus.

I am of the opinion that waiting for, and then riding public transportation can be equated to being on fire, and then not on fire anymore.

Waiting for public transportation when you need to be somewhere is an excrutiating ordeal, standing there like a helpless chump, thinking about having to potentially rearrange your entire day because there's no bus in sight. Suddenly, you're making phone calls, changing plans, and thinking every 3 to 7 seconds that those underpass lights up there just might be a bus, even though they haven't been for the last 45 minutes. Is that one? No, it's a UPS truck. Fuck, I'm late for work again. I'm going to be fired today. But wait! What's that? Could that be it, or is it another fucking dump truck? How many god damned dump trucks could possibly be needed in this direction on this street anyway? Some of the happiest times in my Chicago life have occured when no, I won't need to alter my entire day's plans, and yes, I will still have a job, because that fucking bus has finally, ever-so-slowly rolled up to the bus stop.

But it's bitersweet.

As soon as you enter, you're smacked upside the sinuses with a fog of funky smells fading in and out of potency as you shuffle down the aisle looking for a seat- wet dog, farts, an actual rank armpit pressed into your nostrils, fried chicken, farts again, rotting trash, a diaper filled with baby poop, chinese food, then finally, hot, rotting luncheon meat. You begin to wonder why you had to have exact change and PAY for the priviledge of riding this slow moving stink tunnel. But at least a seat is open. You quickly snag the seat before someone else notices, but your elation is quickly snuffed by a wave of intense, sharp fear- why wasn't anyone else sitting here? There are four people standing in the aisle. Were they just tired of sitting all day? No- this is America, where everyone absolutely fucking loves to sit. For God's sake- people argue over who has more claim to being the one who should sit. Oh God... did I look at the seat before I sat down? No. Fuck. Why does it reek of cheese vomit? Did I sit in barf? Wait is this seat wet? You reach under where you're sitting. No- it's dry. So why isn't anyone sitting here? What's in that plastic bag on the ground? Uh oh. That's a fucking condom. A used condom, and it's about fur centimeters away from your pant leg. Deciding that's not the way you want to contract A.I.D.S., you jettison yourself from the seat faster than a monkey on fire and join the other brave souls congregating in the aisle. Suddenly, you realize the guy sitting in the seat next to you is muttering racist propaganda to himself with occasional bursts of volume for no apparent reason. And...oh god. Now he's feeling your ass. You move up the aisle. Finally it's your stop- you get off, feeling as though you're a closeted gay in the 1930's who's just survived a police raid. But you paid for a transfer, 'cause you ain't home yet... what new horrors await?

If you're set on fire, you're happy to not be on fire anymore, but the fact of the matter is, you're still burnt and in tremendous amounts of pain.

So maybe that's a loose analogy.

Fact is, boarding a bus and managing to settle into a bodily fluid-free seat is one of city life's happy little miracles. The only way to properly enjoy it is to completely zone out, eyes glazed over, stare out the window, and think of how happy you are that you won't be washing another person's crap off your pants today. To settle into this happy, numb little mental glen only to be screamed at and repeatedly called a "motherfucker" because you HAPPEN to be sitting in some insane bum's seat when there are other seats open (apparently one can claim ownership of a certain spot on a bus they've just boarded) is more than a little discouraging.

Oh, how I constantly wonder what majesty will await me the next time I hear those doors woosh open and catch the pungent stench of human misery blasting out the doors of a CTA bus.

2009-06-18T20:12:00.001-07:00

DON'T FUCK WITH THE ELDERLY...

Back in my day, old ladies said things like "Oh my stars", "Heaven's to Betsy" and "Oh, for land's sake." What does "oh for land's sake" mean? I have no fucking idea. But it was old lady friendly, and that was that.

In my feeble, young, Game Boy-addled brain, I just assumed that old ladies were unaware of the horrors taking place in the outside world- drug addiction, murder, teenage pregnancy, the Maury show. But now that I'm older, I know that old ladies went through all that same stuff, just differently. If you came up in the 40's, that didn't mean there wasn't murder or rape or what-have-you corporate fuckery, it just meant that it was murder and rape that took place in the 40's as opposed to the "new millennium" balls-in-your-face version of the same thing. When it comes down to it, people can only do something so horrible before a person is dead or scarred for life(granted they can do the same horrible thing repeatedly.) The palette of unspeakable horrors hasn't expanded, it's just that people are more cavalier about it now. If someone was murdered in the 30's, it was a big deal. Now you're libel to hear a news report to the tune of:

"A man was found beaten to death, raped, dismembered, defecated upon, and thrown in a dumpster today. After the break, Mary's here with gardening tips!"

Which somehow makes it seem like being beaten, raped, dismembered, shat on and left in a dumpster is somehow at least tangentially related to gardening tips, which are nice.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say.

My point is that at some point, everybody's an old lady (or dude) so all those crazy free-lovin' hippies will be old, the bikers and bitches and pill poppers and partiers and coke snorters and vodka bar-elite will all be old, too. And at the end of the day, there they are, sitting on a park bench with their groceries from the drug store, waiting for a bus. Then I hear the above phrase, and think, "gee- old people are different nowadays."

I can't recall hearing an old person call another person "uptight," or mention eye-stabbings as a child.

Yes, I'm in the city. But, regardless...you gotta watch them old folks. Why, they're libel to stab you in the eyes for looking at 'em.

2009-06-09T18:38:00.000-07:00

THE INNOCENCE OF YOUTH

There's a very good chance the up-and-coming generation is thoroughly and utterly screwed.

I'm not talking about what's been done to the environment, the economy, or any myriad number of other things that are hopelessly and unequivocally fubar at the moment.

No- they might not be able to, y'know, communicate properly, take care of themselves, learn, or clothe themselves without becoming frustrated with the point of it all.

Really, the total and utter dependency on technological bric-a-brac that we've developed might be seriously fucking people up.

How would neurologists and scientists really know what the true consequences are from an entire birth-to-grave lifetime of internet, cell phones, I-Pod's and all the other techno bullshit we stuff into our ears and eyes? They can guess is all. Because only after there is an entire generation of bleary eyed, unmotivated mutants walking the earth can they say that something is a FACT.

The trouble with science is that, generally, things have to go wrong a whole bunch before it knows whether or not something can be called a fact. Does coffee cause cancer? I dunno- hey focus group: you're gonna drink a whole lot of coffee for 30 or 40 years, and then we'll see when you're old and fragile if you start spraying blood from your body's many orifices. Says focus group, "A lifetime's supply of coffee and a sawbuck? Where do I sign up!"

I realize several things:

1.) In 5 or 10 years, saying things like "these kids today with their DSL inter-net, cellular telephones and I-Pod Nanos- they haven't got a clue!" will sound as ridiculous as someone saying "These kids with their game boys and Sega Genesis and Tamagachi's" or "These kids with their type writer ribbons, flapper dresses and auto mobiles." I expect, possibly, 10 people to read this ever, so it doesn't really matter.

2.) Every person thinks these things about the up-and-coming generation; every generation thinks the one behind it is a bunch of worthless, drooling idiots who will lay claim to the end of the world simply by being sheer and unabashed morons.

But when I hear things like the above pictured coming out of an actual human being's mouth, without a shred of irony, three blocks away from the school they've just left, I think that there might be something to it this time around.

Of course- we've managed to jack the planet bad enough it might not matter anyway.

Fiery apocalypse here we come!

When's "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" on anyway? The pizza-blasted microwaveable corn dogs are getting cold.

2009-06-05T18:48:00.000-07:00

KEEPIN' IT REAL

A row of stone faced, hard looking children were standing outside the funeral home on Western and diversey a few weeks back, watching a departed stone faced, hard looking child getting loaded in the back of a hearse.

It was one of the saddest things I've seen in recent memory- each one of those kids looked more ready to cut you and run than the last, hands on whatever's in their waistbands in case they gotta react, while surrounded by crying old women and parents.

That's not a childhood. There's no easy solution, and so much ink has been spilled over the spilled blood that it's not even worth getting into the "how's" and "why's" of the thing. It's just sad to see such a weird, very real facet of it.

They have no emotion. No emotion, that is, except fear: fear those kids have been living with since they first crawled out of the womb. Fear that motivates them to put that fear into everybody else. And anger at whatever circumstance put them in theirs.

Easily one of my favorite things I've seen since moving to Chicago was while walking down the street near Fullerton and Western, maybe two years ago. A gang banger kid, maybe 15 or 16 years old, is walking towards me, scowling and posturing big time, "keepin' it real," looking around and staring down anyone who would dare look at him. He passes a woman with a puppy, which couldn't have been more than a couple months old who, in its excitable puppy way, starts jumping up and down on the kid, yipping. He looks down with ultra tough-guy face as a ridiculous, enormous ear to ear grin breaks out across his face when he sees the puppy. In less than two blinks, he's back to being an emotionless bad ass, looking around to make sure nobody saw him enjoy himself for that less-than-second.

So... if you're a tough guy, you can't even enjoy a fucking puppy?

Apparently not. And you can't be sad at funerals.

Tough way to live, frankly.

2009-06-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

FEAR OF FURNITURE

I heard on the news today that a high percentage of household injuries occur from falling furniture.

Yeah... I had to process that one for a minute, too.

They went on to say that some things you can do to prevent harm from that pesky, dangerous furniture is to strap it to the walls and teach your kids how to behave safely around it, such as having the smaller ones wear protection if near a TV that might be in danger of falling.

OK.

It's fine- you can take a minute to process that. Go grab a beer, re-heat a Hot Pocket, and meet me back here in a few.

Back? Have you come to grips with all that yet?

Good.

So Americans now have so much shit in their house that they work and scrape and scrabble to be able to afford in a quest to make themselves "happier," and are simultaneously SO afraid of everything that they're now AFRAID OF ALL THEIR SHIT!

Seriously- a building, or an elephant, or a god damned grand piano could fall on your kid, too, but if that happens that's just some bizarre, freaky shit. It's not that he shouldn't be able to go outside, should've been wearing a protective helmet and body suit, or should've been taking weird Eastern self defense classes to build up his reflexes so he could just "Spidey Sense" himself out of the way.

And I really don't think the answer lies in nailing all your furniture to the floor. I know that if I see my friend's kid is in a neck brace, and they tell me a china hutch fell on him, I wouldn't assume that it was because the furniture was flawed or unstable, or (god forbid) plotting and insidious. No, I would assume that little Jimmy was acting like a jackass, and ran into said evil piece of shit furniture, and THEN it fell on him.

Unless you live on a sharp incline, have highly volatile floors, or live between two tectonic plates, furniture- especially furniture that can inflict greivous bodily harm when falling- seems to be pretty stable. Now, if you're eight years old and leaping around screaming like a lemur who's just been set on fire, then yes, furniture can no longer held up to the same rules.
I, for one, and...well...every other person I've ever met has spent their entire lives around furniture, and managed to avoid being aggressively beaten by a side table or crushed to death by a bureau.

Why is everything someone or someTHING else's fault? When can we start making ourselves and our offspring own up to their own bullshit?

Seriously... things just aren't all that scary and dangerous.

If you're that afraid of everything, maybe you should keep your child in a nice, safe, soft room. You'll have to bind his hands to his sides so he doesn't accidentally poke an eye out with those darn, dangerous fingers. You should constantly keep an eye on him through security cameras, and meals should be administered through a special slot in the door. The door should only open from the outside- you're in charge here, after all, so you should be able to decide when they can and can't leave the nice safe room. But don't ever let him out! Some furniture might fall on him!

2009-06-01T18:14:00.001-07:00

LEAVE IT TO THE POO-FESSIONALS

I had always been under the assumption that business people know something I don't; that to succeed in their dog-eat-dog, power lunch-and-tie, work-a-day world, they must somehow have a sharper intellect in areas where mine is worn to a dull and useless nub, or have an iron-clad constitution that allows them to deal with the stress and intensity in a way my marshmallow-y insides never could. Or maybe they're just more grown up, whereas I like frosted flakes and cartoons. With this, I assumed that their fat paychecks, private jets and cars named after viscous animals were somehow like a flag flown to show how far they'd come.

But don't take this to mean I have a teary-eyed respect for those hardworking business folk out in the corporations buybuybuy-ing and sellsellsell-ing. I have an evenly mixed feeling of contempt and indifference to the corporate soldiers. If they wanna deal with all that banal and uninteresting claptrap, let 'em. 'Cause I sure as hell don't want to, and as an overgrown boy-man, I like to have options as to what kind of cereal to buy to accompany my cartoon watching. Without those business go-getters, I would be left with one type of dry, cardboard-y flavorless flake to choose from.

But as I get older and meet more people who are out there duking it out in the corporate battlefield, I've realized that it's not generally about who's "smarter" or who works "harder," it's about skillsets and aptitudes and all that stuff High School guidance councelors brow beat you with when you just want to leave so you can go to Taco Johns and do donuts in the parking lot. It also has a lot to do with how much and what kind of crap you can put up with, which is really what a lot of life in general can be chalked up to when it comes right down to it.

Turns out, a lot of these corporate types are, dare I say it, much MORE childish than folks of my ilk. I'd wondered about this for some time- but that image of the steely, serious 1950's businessman had been burned into my brain as the image these people must hold ideal. Then I see a gaggle of office ladies, drunk on apple-tini's stumbling down Damen Ave at 4PM singing "The Diarrhea Song" at the top of their lungs, staggering in and out of traffic as they go.
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So... that MBA? Maybe not as hard to get as I thought.

'Course, if I buckle down and start chasing that almighty buck, I might have to re-learn "The Diarrhea Song" for "casual Fridays."

2009-05-30T13:59:00.000-07:00

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE RECESSION

This recession must be far worse than anyone in the media has led on- just this morning, I spotted the Frankenstein Monster's trademark sports jacket hanging abandoned at the Chicago/Damen bus stop.

Apparently, he's been laid off, left to roam the streets just trying to keep body and soul together

Once financial distress begins affecting classic monsters, who's next?

It's only a matter of time before carelessly shed gnome hats and tree-nymph leggings litter Chicago sidewalks, as fictional creatures left looking for work discard layers of clothing to cool off in the summer sun.

But without new jobs haunting oak trees and frolicking in sun-dappled fields, who's to say how things could go?

Hobgoblins begging for a dime to buy a pint of Jack... werewolves shooting up in the alley... tooth fairies turning tricks under the el stop just to get a couple of molars to hit that fix.

This recession affects us all, friends.

2009-05-30T13:55:00.000-07:00

DEAF AND DRUNK

According to the street signs near Lawrence and Western, there are a notable amount of deaf alcoholics wandering the neighborhood.

Some signs that you may have encountered a wandering deaf lush include elaborate, quick hand gestures, a strong smell of gin, and the inability to speak or hear what you are saying.

Drive with caution: It's not their fault.

2009-05-30T13:49:00.001-07:00

A FIELD GUIDE TO IRONIC MUSTACHES

You may have noticed on your last jaunt around town that there are an alarming amount of people roaming the streets sporting facial hair that serves no purpose other than to illustrate how stupid facial hair can be, with not a hair of sober seriousness or mustache-related respect.

To help you discern just what someone might be growing from their face for the sake of an occasional mild chuckle from a stranger, I present a rough field guide to some of the types of upper-lip irony you might encounter on your travels...

2009-05-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

HIP-HOME-LESS

It seems the unemployment situation has now infiltrated that once-thought un-infiltratable bastion of society: the hipsters.

Yes- hard those working, diligent hipsters are now having to pound the pavement, searching desperately for any kind of work they can find to provide themselves with much needed studded white belts, ironic neon sunglasses and metrosexual hair ungents.

Wait...

What's that you say?
Most hipsters never had jobs in the first place?

Oh. That explains why I frequently see them out riding bikes enjoying the sunshine, being ironic, or getting a lazy afternoon coffee at 1PM on a Wednesday while I'm running across the street to get a ream of printing paper, a banana, or a pen from the local stop n' shop so I can get back to my desk and work more.

Ah well- back at it, you merry life-lovers. Job-shmob... Live that life as carefully ironic as you can; you only get one, man.

2009-05-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

A CLOWN A DAY...

Every day at 3:45 PM, a clown goes past my office.

I am 100% certain it's a clown. No one else would have the same impeccable timing to be by at exactly the same time everyday, nor could anyone else muster the same bubbly bike-horn honking frenzy as this particular clown.

Perhaps he only speaks in horn-honks. Perhaps it's to alert the neighborhood to his hijinx.

Maybe it's not a tangible, flesh and blood clown like most other clowns (actually- I believe most clowns to be hewn from rotted beef and filled with custard.) This could be a poor, free-floating ghost clown, forever wandering the Irving Park corridor, frantically honking his horn in the hopes of finding eternal, clown-y peace.

Whatever the reason- I've yet to see him in person, which is why most of my co-workers are of the belief that the frenetic bike-horning is actually an ice cream man.

But I refuse to believe it... one of these days, I'll see that clown.

And based on how I feel about clowns, depending on how things go, I just might push him off his unicycle into traffic.

Hard to say, really...

2009-05-26T17:53:00.002-07:00

FLUTE SALAD

There are way more annoying instruments than the flute. When one thinks about the flute, one is bound to imagine delicately flowing waterfalls, or infomercials for the Time Life Zamphir: Master of the Pan Flute collection.

But imagine my surprise when a flute player moves in under my girlfriend's apartment, and it's thoroughly irritating. Imagine my further shock to discover that said flutist, when not enjoying a good flute riff, prefers hardcore gangster rap and terrible, shitty dance music to salve her shredded flute-playing nerves. Imagine my further surprise to discover that yet another flute virtuoso has moved in above MY apartment, resulting in a weird "just can't get away from that flute" scenario whether at my house or the lady's.

It's almost too much to bear. Sure, they could be practicing "Sunshine of Your Love" on the tuba, cracking some wicked zither rhythms, or playing off a fallen comrade on with a stirring Scottish bag pipe solo. But somehow, when renting walls from a financially higher power, it seems like instrument practicing should be kept to a minimum. And by minimum, of course I mean sequestered off-site in a government holding facility where bag pipers, flutists, and opera singers can practice to their hearts content and become the world's greatest bag piper/futist/opera singer in a motivational "Fame"-type situation where only the strong survive.

All's I know is... I've had not one, but TWO accordions sitting here, just begging to play "Roll Out the Barrel" for the last two years, and now that I have flute-related competition in two separate dwellings, I finally have the appropriate intestinal gusto to let those damned barrels roll.

Once I fix my "A" button, you flutes are toast.

2009-05-26T17:53:00.001-07:00

INTERNAL DAMNATION

I know when I walk into a room full of near-strangers and face a table full of clear alcohol that I'm in for a night of severely punishing my internal organs to a level of near-masochistic splendor.

My best friend's bachelor party was at his older brother's house. He has two brothers, and I knew both of them in the capacity one can know someone ten years older than themselves when they're 8. So- I remember them mostly as guys who would trudge through the house, "hey" their parents and leave again.

Fast forward, oh, 20 years, and now we're all playing ball on the same field. But a very sizeable part of my better judgment wondered what it would be like seeing and carousing with my friend's relatives who remember me as a nerdy, chunky eight year old. What will happen now that I'm a nerdy, chunky almost-30 year old?

It's good to know time has a tendency to iron out the wrinkles and put everybody at roughly the same level. What's UNfortunate, is being a career steady drinker who can comfortably put away most of a fifth of whiskey throughout the course of a day without so much as a hiccup stuck drinking with folks who mostly socially lubricate themselves in a binge-manner, with shots and beers and tequila and schnapps and open lack of judgment.

I wanna say I've been drunker. I don't honestly remember.

What I do remember is being more hung over than I've been in 5+ years.

But it was a proper send off, so the projectile vomiting and 9+ hours of daytime sleep were theoretically worth it.

2009-05-25T09:40:00.000-07:00

JUST LIKE OLD TIMES

The beautiful and wonderous thing about getting older is that all the trivial bullshit that kept you from enjoying yourself as an awkward, self-conscious high school teenager doesn't seem to matter at all.

For most of us, high school was not at all like High School The Musical, or Rock & Roll High School, or even High School the Musical II. No, for most of us it was an arduous test of your fortitude to force yourself out of bed every morning all chock full o'terrible bitchy moodiness and general unpleasantness to go sit quietly learning about things that don't interest you in the least when you'd much rather be shooting zombies in a video game, watching a zombie movie, or drawing pictures of zombies.

I didn't have any particular issues in high school (other than being a mostly terrible person for adults to be around at all times.) Honestly, it went about as well as it could have. But I would never do it again. In fact, I might rather serve out a four year prison sentence, trading smokes for favors and minding what's near my hinder than go back to Algebra or gym class. Gym class can bite every last inch of my ass.

But I met good people, and with high school politics and bull shit, probably could've met more if I'd let it happen. Regardless, I've been away for ten years now, and have done a piss poor job of keeping in touch with people. So you can imagine my inherent trepidation when my best friend since the age of seven invited me out to his bachelor party.

Admittedly, neither one of us has kept in touch with many people from the "old days," but I knew through the bachelor party and the wedding two weeks later, I'd be laying eyes on a lot of people I haven't laid 'em on in a good decade or so.

Which brings me back to my original point. I go and have a great time because within five minutes, we're all caught up. All the "my life is like this now" fluff is flowing squarely under the bridge, and we're free to talk about movies, swap stories, and drink beer.

Because the funny thing about catching up with people you haven't seen since high school-- nobody really cares. When it gets down to it, your business is your business, you've made a few decisions, been to a few places, and so long as you're keeping things together, all is well. None of it is terribly impressive to anyone unless you're an astronaut or the president or cured AIDS or something.

Life is life- your life is your life, mine is mine, and their life is theirs, and everybody's still waking up every day to shit, shower, shave, and go to work, whatever that might be.

It's good to know it's that easy to knock back a few with friends you haven't seen in ten years. After five minutes it's like you never left.

2009-05-23T07:50:00.000-07:00

Y'ALL COME BACK NOW, Y'HEAR?

I had to take the Amtrak back to Iowa for a friend's bachelor party.

Having not so terribly long ago been dealing with flights and airports and such, train travel suddenly stands in sharp relief as a kind of rolling tenement full of screaming babies, rubber neckers and recently released ex-convicts. And the Amish... yes, the Amish love themselves some trains.

For years now I've been taking the train back and forth to Iowa to visit the folks, and every time I think, "I should take a cross-country train ride," y'know- leisurely soak in the local sights and color, take a lot of grainy snapshots, buy a magazine in Needles...you get the idea.

But it seems as soon as I hit Union Station, with it's even mix of suburban teens heading home from finals week, a mess of carnies, hillbillies, law-flee-ers, and psychopaths, with just the lightest sprinkling of normal folks, I have an abrupt change of heart. The romance of the train doesn't exist anymore. Certainly not on Amtrak.

Everybody settles into their seat after strict security screenings. Actually, they've been warning of increased security on Amtrak since 9/11, but that mostly consisted of making you put tags on your carry on bags (which was only enforced a year or so)and requiring an ID to buy a ticket.

The people behind me are having an intense conversation about D-I-V-O-R-C-E (Tammy Wynette would be proud) as well as domestic disputes, child custody, and NASCAR. Turns out one of the guys is taking the train to go get his truck out of an impound lot in Kansas, because his brother in law stole it...and left it in Kansas. The guy was from Missouri, but just went to Chicago because "Hell, my truck was stolen so why the hell not?"

An announcement comes over the P.A.:

"Attention Amtrak Passengers: Please keep your shoes on at all times on this train."

Um...what? Is this an ongoing problem where people get MORE athlete's foot on the train, combining with the athlete's foot and fungus they were already working on, forming a super-fungus?

A crackle and deafening buzz from the 35 year old speakers...there must be more!

"In addition to hygenic reasons, the plates in between cars are constantly shifting, and can pinch bare feet causing a nasty wound. It's happened before- we'd like to keep it from happening again."

Ah. gotcha.

I throw on my I-Pod and drown out talk of jail stays and bass fishing off the bridge.

Surely things will be more cosmopolitan in Iowa.

2009-05-21T19:13:00.002-07:00

CALL O' THE WILD DOUCHE BAG

It must be spring!

All across Chicagoland, the native Douche Bag have begun to crawl out of their knot holes, dorm rooms, sports bar wingeries, and poorly-lit studio apartments with just a "Bob Marley Smoking Weed" poster on the wall and nothing but a half a case of Corona and moldy lime wedge in the fridge to spread their douche-baggery far and wide. The smell of Patchouli and Axe Body Spray wafts on the cool breezes that ruffle their un-ruffleable gelled-permanently-into-bedhead hair.

I know this for two reasons:

A.) Every four seconds at work today, I could hear their native calls of "DUDE!" and "BRO!" as they migrated past the window

and

B.)It's baseball season.

So get the hose ready, Chicago- there's bound to be some pee and vomit on your porch in the morning! The Wild Douche Bags are on the prowl, shouting their mating calls to and fro (or, date raping calls as it were.)

I, for one, will once again be choosing my time outdoors carefully. Unlike sparrows, the common hummingbird, and tuft-eared North American squirrels, I do not like being around Douche Bags. They are the worst thing nature has to offer. Volcanos? Nope. Pestilence? Nope. High-register Earthquakes? Famine? Poisonous black mamba snakes? Madagascar hissing cockroaches? AIDS? Mexican Bird Eating Tarantulas? Dancing With the Stars? Matthew McConaughay?

No, friends. I'm afraid Douche Bags trump them all. Though- you could call technicality on Matthew McConaughay, because (technically) he IS a Douche Bag.

So make sure to lock up your trash cans and set plenty of traps baited with 3D Dorritos, MAXIM magazine, and the latest Dave Matthews Band CD.

I'm afraid we're in for a long Douche Bag season this year.

2009-05-21T19:13:00.001-07:00

PRIVATE DANCER

I recently went to go see the incomparable Kel Tamashek (also called the Tuareg) band Tinariwen at the Old Town School of Folk Music.

For the uninitiated, Tinariwen sounds like not a whole lot else. Imagine traditional African and Middle Eastern music mixed with American surf guitar and you begin to get the idea. The members of Tinariwen were exiled from Mali for political reasons(my details get fuzzy here)and now play incredible music, along with a handful of other bands from the region- Group Bombino and Group Doueh among them.

Their most recent record, "Aman Iman," is absolutely phenomenal. It had been well over a year since they'd been stateside, so as you can imagine, I was pretty damn well psyched to have a shot at seeing them again. I can only imagine the logistics involved in getting such a band into the states and playing shows has got to be one monstrous pain in the ass (though admittedly, this most recent trip consisted of just four dates in the US.)

Now, the Old Town School of Folk Music is a wonderful place with a rich and fascinating history. John Prine was an early student, as was Steve Goodman (he whose music I was raised on, and who wrote "City of New Orleans" amongst about a billion other chestnuts) and it's about the only place in the world you can take traditional Celtic dance lessons and then learn how to play a zither or traditional Parisian accordion under the same roof.

The show room is fantastic- the acoustics rival any place I've been, and there truly isn't a bad seat in the house.

My only issue, which seems to rear its head nearly every time I visit, is the white people.

There are white people all over the place, which wouldn't be a problem, except that these particular white people always seem to be of either the arts endowment variety, or the trust fund hippie/professional student variety. It never seems to matter what show I visit- the seating is perfect, the sight line to the stage is perfect, the sound is impeccable, and I would be having a life-changing experience...if it weren't for the old dollar bill duffs and hackey sackers clustering about me.

I am the first to admit that I am not a people person. On every other visit, I can mostly ignore my fellow show-goers and become absorbed into the music. But at Tinariwen, what with it being bouncy, danceable music (and with the band more or less insisting they allow people to move as the sounds will them), OTS opted to clear a space for dancing.

It was nice to see people getting into it- for a time. But by the time I spotted a businessman in a three-piece suit and power tie cutting loose with some kind of hippie flag racing around the dance floor, I felt that it should be stopped. Why allow these people to shame themselves so?

Just then I noticed a woman jerking around frenetically to my left. Her motions were not wholly unlike that of the notorious "Elaine dancing" episode of Seinfeld. She had not a care in the world, nor a even the faintest half-note of rhythm. Her perfectly white violent thrusting and convulsing about was jarring and utterly terrifying. But its at these moments, when someone is making a perfect ass of themselves, that pure irony tends to show itself in its most natural state.

The foot-kickin', thumb-jabbing, hair tossing motions were taking place in front of an emergency exit, with a stop sign instructing people to use the next door. From my point of view, in the dimly lit room, all I saw was the picture above. And I laughed. I laughed a whole god damn lot.

Because I concur, irony. White people dancing SHOULD stop.

2009-05-20T16:57:00.001-07:00

NEEW YORK CITTEE??

If absolutely every last decision you have to make as a couple is a drawn out exchange of pro's and cons that isn't exactly an argument, but isn't exactly isn't an argument, perhaps it's time to enter into a NEW relationship with someone altogether different.

If you should enter into said new relationship and still find yourself constantly in heated debates about meaningless, trivial bullshit for upwards of 45 minutes at a go, perhaps you were not meant to BE in a relationship with someone else. Maybe you would be better serving the world as a monk in a devoted live of celibacy, a eunich in a devoted life of asexual ball-lessness, or maybe you have been devoting time to the completely wrong sexual orientation, and you need someone of the same sex to keep you in line. Maybe your constant mind numbing bickering over inconsequential drivel stems from a lack of sexual chemistry.

Whatever the case, hearing a couple bicker back and forth over what kind of salsa to buy at the grocery store for upwards of 25 minutes (I left the aisle and returned no less than 4 times, ultimately leaving salsa-less) is precisely the kind of thing I'm talking about, and it yet again reinforces one of the many reasons why I hate the grocery store.

In this case, I hate it because it drags you into a weirdly personal layer of other people's home lives, and people seem to forget they're in public more often at the grocery store than just about anywhere else. Nowhere else can you hear as many discussions over which shape of sandwich bags a person finds to be the most efficient for sack lunches, or which kind of toilet paper a body finds the most soothing and absorbent.

You wouldn't look through someone's medicine cabinet unless you wanted a sudden potentially scary jolt of what this person needs to maintain themselves. The grocery (and drug) store is pre-medicine cabinet, pre-nightstand drawer, pre-shower shelf. It's the only place a person can openly ruminate in public on which kind of ham gives them less gas, pick up a disposable enema to do a little house cleaning, and decide what kind of condoms they should take home, because they and the missus just aren't ready for another mouth to feed, but still need to get down from time to time. Travel pack or jumbo?

It's really quite gross when you get right down to it. But then, so is the human body. I suppose it only makes sense that the fuel station where a body gets all the crap it needs to keep it going along doing all the gross things it does would have to be a little disconcerting in and of itself.

But above all else, wouldn't our world be much better if people could keep their familial squabbles at home, whether they're at the grocery store, Wal Mart, Fudrucker's, or the Golden Corral? 'Cause I don't really give a shit what kind of salsa they want, or what kind of ham gives them less gas. And if I were wearing headphones, they'd scowl at me.

Damn. Looks like I'm low on milk.

2009-05-19T19:51:00.001-07:00

HIGH-GOD-DAMNED-FALUTIN' SHIT!

Some of the most expensive coffee in the world is made of coffee beans harvested out of wild cat shit.

Kopi Luwak coffee is about $200 a pound.

Now... I've had a lot of coffee that TASTES like cat shit, but I'm pretty sure it was actually made from coffee beans that HAVEN'T been run through a wild animal. Maybe animal shit is what's needed to improve the unequivocal diarrhea known as Folgers.

So how much longer until rich people are actually eating shit? Settling in at high-falutin' cocktail parties, sipping on a tea cup of Llama diarrhea while discussing their yachts and investments?

"Gourmet" may actually be French for "suckers." I'm talking about things like caviar and moldy cheese- an excitement of flavors, to be sure. And please don't assume I haven't experienced these things- and if someone offered me a cup of wild cat shit coffee, I would probably try it (after all- that cup is probably $15.) But the cost, sheer ridiculousness and overt lack of common sense involved in pausing one day, seeing something blast out of a fish's hind end and saying, "Hey- a whole bunch of fish embryos... I think I'll put that on a water wafer and serve it at my high society party!" cannot be overlooked.

Really, high-class food in other countries is even more insane- bugs, snakes, brains... actually, watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to get an idea, just mind the questionable ethnic hokum.

Today I was walking down the sidewalk and saw a bunch of little dog poo nugglets surrounded by an assortment of frilly toothpicks.

Either someone saw a bunch of poo chunks while carrying frilly toothpicks, was alarmed and flung them all about, or, as I believe, this was actually exotic monkey shit that had been set up on a swanky silver serving platter to be taken to a high society party, when someone stumbled and spilled it all over Montrose Ave.

Somewhere out there, I'm certain there's a bunch of rich people eating animal shit right this second.

In fact, after learning about cat poop coffee, I couldn't be MORE certain.

2009-05-19T13:47:00.001-07:00

BUYING PENS WITH THE STARS!

College is all about delusion. Delusion that you're actually an adult, delusion that you're actually learning something useful, and delusion that you'll be using that something to solid ends when you graduate, and not just taking on extra shifts stocking small pants at the Baby Gap down by the mall.

Art school, in particular, is an elaborately delusional experience. Not only is it the teacher's job to lead you to believe that you are learning a useful skill that isn't entirely beholden to your predetermined natural ability for a particular medium (not to mention being able to come up with concepts and ideas worth sharing), but also to delude themselves into believing they are doing the world a service by helping fill it with important, challenging artwork, thereby making you (the student) believe that painting bowls of fruit and sculpting phallices will somehow earn you a steady paycheck when you graduate.

And for every would-be Jackson Pollock out there just waiting for the alcoholism to set in, there's that first, fruitful art store visit- a rite of passage for any would-be art school kid. Sure, buy the $45 "ArtBIN"... it's not exactly the same as a $10 tackle box or anything! And those packages of pencils you buy 10 for $2 at Walgreen's aren't good enough- instead, pick up pencils that cost $3 each and break easily!

It's one big racket, and at least around here- an area where there seem to be very few working artists- nine times out of ten I find during a quick visit to grab more ink or a pen tip, I will undoubtedly be shopping exclusively with sullen teens who aren't good at math, and their hopeful parents- hoping that somehow, some way, they've managed to raise the next Gauguin in their humble Fort Wayne, IN track home.

On this most recent visit, the kids seemed especially disinterested in being anywhere near the shop, shuffling around with pained expressions alongside their beaming parents under a big sign sporting the store's slogan: "You Might be Shopping Next To the Next Van Gogh!"

I have to say... I don't think I was. The next Steve-O, maybe. Possibly the next Fall Out Boy roadie-turned-meth addict-turned-religious zealot, and more likely than not, the next Waukesha, WI Applebee's shift leader.

One thing I do know, however, is that even if one of those kids shows up my jaded ass and turns the art world topsy turvy with their genre-defying, edgy paintings- the people shopping around me were most DEFINITELY not shopping next to the next Van Gogh.

I like having two ears too much.

2009-05-19T12:43:00.001-07:00

ALL IN A DAY'S WORK...

The shop front next to my place of business is undoubtedly home to some kind of shady shenannigans.

First of all, it doesn't have a name. Nowhere on the front or side of the store is anything even closely resembling a title for the "business." Or an address, for that matter. On casual inspection, it is a mostly empty store that manages to pay its bills by selling weird tuberous vegetables out of baskets, and some kind of foreign alcohol. Oh, and "crunch apels," as the sign says (note: they've been marked down from $.50 each to a mere $.25!)

No cigarettes, no soda, no little cans of tuna fish and pinto beans. Just weird fruit and foreign-y alcohol of some kind.

This might seem sad under normal circumstances- in my quest to avoid turning more cash over to the CVS' and 7-11's of the world, I've stopped in many a heart breakingly pathetic "convenience store" staffed by an overly attentive, well meaning clerk that stocks nothing but grape Nehi, generic batteries and one, sad, mostly deflated mylar birthday balloon.

But this particular shop is filled with surly looking old men who seem to be of some kind of non-descript, thickly Eastern European descent. And they stare you down whenever you walk buy.

Any time day or night- whether it's 7AM or 11:30 PM- there they are, sitting near their baskets of rutabegas and "crunch apels," surrounding a table covered in empty vodka bottles, staring at you with death-wish eyes, hoping to God you don't want to stop in for a nice refreshing room temperature bottle of Zomerzitas beer and a crunch apel.

The other day, I must've caught them at trash time, as I turned the corner to find myself face-to-face with a hair-oiled 60-something, overtly scowly European man in a Cabana wear shirt hauling a garbage can overflowing with nothing but generic vodka bottles, weird foreign beer cans and Little Caesar's pizza boxes. It was their entire existence boiled down into one garbage can (though suspiciously free of crunch apel cores and root-based legumes.)

Somehow- I can't believe this is enough to maintain a business. At some point during the day, somebody's coming in there to get instructions on who to whack, or where to take the bundles of unmarked bills, I'm sure of it.

I'm also sure there was probably a a filed down handgun and human arm or two at the bottom of that garbage can.

2009-05-14T17:45:00.001-07:00

UNNECCESSARY RUFFAGE

Touristy parts of town crack my shit up.

Mostly because I never have to go to them.

Back when I was working in one, it was an openly maligned hell hole I couldn't wait to be out of. If you work in one of the Hard Rock Cafe's, Planet Hollywood's, or Rain Forest Cafe's of this world, my hat's off to you. Those places are magnets for all kinds of inanely irritating people from lands far and wide who have chosen to plop themselves at one of your tables and make themselves your problem.

But the difference between, say, a place like Chicago, LA, or New York and, say, Orlando, FL or Pigeon Forge, TN, is that these are big fucking cities: the biggest fucking cities, in fact, that this fine country has to offer. So when people come here to Chicago, which was the murder capital of the country multiple years over, and act like they're ordering themselves up a churro at Busch Gardens, I couldn't be more pleased when something goes amiss and reminds them they're in an actual city and not Frontierland.

I hadn't been down to north Michigan Ave for awhile. But I was within 2 mi walking distance, it was a nice night, and I wanted a laugh.

Not only was I treated to such wonderous delights as advertisements for "Legally Blonde: The Musical," which may be the most despicable thing I can fathom, and a sign that said "Bored with your ice cream? HERSHEY-IZE it!" at a store that ONLY sells Hersheys chocolate-relayed products (while apparently offering Hersheyizing services), but I spotted a mommy-daughter duo out having a nice night on the town watching a carriage horse eat out of the garbage. They probably drove in from Indiana, hoping for some good wholesome fun, getting all dressed up for a nice dinner and carriage ride, and end up watching a horse eat old burrito wrappers while his handler looks on smoking, ignoring the situation almost entirely.

They couldn't have been more disgusted.

Thank god they didn't see the hobo peeing on Borders.

2009-05-13T17:53:00.000-07:00

A PACK A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR IN PAY

I'm not some uptight pain in the ass about smoking. I think smoking is wonderful, actually, health hazzards and all.

I don't smoke often, but when I do- it is thoroughly enjoyed. Every smoky, faintly chemically intake is a wonderful little break from life while simultaneously trimming a bit off the end.

I am, however, in thorough awe of people who smoke like there's no tomorrow as though their favorite daily indulgence were running 10 miles and eating a bunch of kale. It is pretty well established at this point that cigarettes aren't GOOD for you, but neither is refined sugar, alcohol, caffine, or fried cheese. And yet all those things are magically delicious in small doses. Or large doses, if that's the way you choose to kill yourself slowly over time.

Reacting as though smoking is something you're entitled to and just gotta do in the ol' day-to-day is as weird as when I watched a special about the fattest man in the world- coming in at OVER a ton- who's filling up most of a hospital room complaining about being deprived of cheeseburgers and fries, even though it takes a team of six able bodied men to roll him off his bed pan long enough to change it before the next massive evacuation.

If you are an enormous fat pile of flesh and don't give a shit, awesome. It you are an enormous tub and don't give a shit AND are fully open and admitting of the fact that you will probably die young due to years of abusing yourself and yet you continue to do the same? Even better. You get a thumbs up from me, friend.

Same goes for smoking. If you want to smoke a carton a day- please have at it. It's your life: do whatever the hell you want so long as it isn't fucking up somebody else's life. If you can admit it's not a harmless little habit, you're up there even higher- keep on climbing!

Fact is, I'm an overweight occasional smoker who drinks a lot and loves red meat. I know I'm not exactly living the health nut life. And I'm fine with that- because I know I'm not going to be here forever, and what few pleasures this modern world has to offer me I will happily take part in.

But to think I'm ENTITLED to my vices?

I think not.

2009-05-08T17:41:00.000-07:00

HOME, CRAP, HOME

Returning to Chicago from vacation is generally a losing venture.

A body tends to take their vacations when Chicago's weather is absolutely abysmal- late winter/early spring seems to be the sweet spot. But the trouble with that is that you have no idea what it's going to be like when you land back home. Let's say you've spent 7 days in beautiful, sunny Florida weather- you begin to forget (or care) where you came from, and landing in 2 ft of snow on the return home can be enough to reduce a grown man to tears.

This go-round, it was a quick thrust from 70-80 degree clear blue skies to 40 degree spitty shitty snow/rain and bleak, crushing gray as far as the eye can see.

Of course, Chicago is not without its charms, and after coming off of five days of bizarre shit, it was nice to see some bizarre shit here at home- a land with it's own, very specific kind of bizarre shit.

Take for example, a homeless man passed out drunk in a pile of garbage bags being roused into consciousness by his CELL PHONE.

Now my question is not so much where he gets the money to pay the bills- I've seen this guy out asking for cash before. And it's fairly obvious he has a number of things, other than panhandling, generating revenue for him- hence the reason why he might need a cell phone to take care of all those important business calls.

My question is- where do they send the bill? Does he have online bill-pay?

The logistics of not having a house are beyond my comprehension. Guess I better stay employed and sheltered- I don't want to have to figure all that crap out.

2009-05-08T17:38:00.000-07:00

BON VOYAGE-

What better way to bid a fond farewell to Las Vegas than with a cabbie telling us about dead babies being used to smuggle drugs into the country on our way to the airport?

Somehow, it seemed like a fitting hat for the trip..

2009-05-05T18:53:00.000-07:00

HAMMER AND BANG, or...

FREE YOUR PANTS AND THE REST WILL FOLLOW.

Our last full day in Vegas, and I've realized that we have done absolutely nothing close to what most people come here for.

We've spent maybe $60 at the slots. Neither myself, nor my girlfriend knows the first thing about cards (except a couple of cornball card tricks good for entertaining drunk uncles at Christmas) and we've seen nary a strip club nor a brothel. Our trip has been entirely public-vulva free as a matter of fact. We did see an amazing burlesque show (have I mentioned that?) but that was all very tasteful- er, as tasteful as off color jokes and nipple tassels can be.

So, after heading out on the "new" strip for the first real measurable amount of time in five days, we've come to find the true Vegas- the one people fly out to to fritter away their life savings. After three hours or so shuffling around with the fanny pack and camera herds, we decided we needed a breather. So we headed back to the confines of our slightly less austentatious hotel(though- still incredibly austentatious by normal hotel standards. We weren't at the Travelodge or anything, though I'm sure if we were it would be ritzier than, say, the Travelodge in Peoria.)

As we entered the front doors, there on a bench just inside, before entering the droves of people milling about with light beers and miserable expressions, and adjacent to the $10.99 buffet sits a fratty man-boy man shouting into his cell phone to his loved ones back home, recounting the exploits of the night prior.

And what did he do that was worth the public phone call?

Oh, he just "banged the shit out of some prostitutes, bro."

And with that- I realize we've really just been pecking around at the side dishes here in this town, with not a single bite of the steak they accompany.

Yes, a town where you don't just "bang the shit out of" A prostitute. No, you "bang the shit out of" SOME prostitutes, with an "s" on the end. With your friends. And you can recount just "how hard" your best pal "gave it to this one prostitute."

When we get home, our bank accounts will only be short the cost of food, lodging, and airfare. No second mortgage- in fact, no house to take a second mortgage out on. And our naughty bits will be in the same shape they were when we took off from O'Hare.

And y'know? I'm pretty God damn alright with that.

2009-05-03T20:16:00.001-07:00

We got back to the hotel probably 5 hours later and the guy was gone.

But that doesn't mean somebody didn't just come clean up his body.

What happened to that guy in Vegas stayed in Vegas.

2009-05-03T20:15:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY

Sad ol' Las Vegas regulars provide easily as much entertainment as any other inane flashing nonsense going on.

Sure, there are mornings I wake up, look at myself in the mirror and think, "so this is what you've laid out for yourself, huh? Way to go, jagoff." But never, ever, even at the lowest depths of despair can I imagine being one of these sad, prematurely old bastards who roll themselves out of bed in the morning, sidle into the nearest flashing wasteland and set up shop at their favorite slot machine for nine or ten hours at a go. But not just any slot machine... the "lucky one"- the one that's going to pay off big one of these days.

And there are a lot of these little nomads wandering about, drawn to "the lucky one" where they sit, hour upon hour waiting for emblems to line up on a machine designed specifically to NOT have those emblems line up.

Two things immediately cross my mind:

Firstly, they can't ALL possibly be the lucky one. And "luck" is very different than "chance." "Chance" is a real, provable thing. "Luck" is part of the same chapter in the "Life Lessons" book as leprechauns, dragons, and Santa Claus: it's bullshit.

Secondly: What the hell would these people do differently with their lives if they WERE to suddenly hit it rich?

To aid them in their quest to redeem a big payoff ticket, they march out all sorts of "lucky" accouterments- rabbits feet, plush toys, troll dolls, pictures of deceased loved ones, flowers- all to be adjusted in such a way as to make that particular machine pay off big. "If I dance my troll doll with colorful hair two steps to the left, one to the right, a half turn around and blow on his hair, cherries come up on the screen!"

But with all the weird shit being paraded on top of the slot machines lining our hotel, easily the weirdest and most unpleasant luck-finder was the gentleman pictured above, absent-mindedly going about his business playing a slot machine in a lumberjack shirt and no pants. From what I could tell, not even underpants. Just a pantsless old guy at 11:30 AM on a Saturday playing "Gold Mine!" hoping, that having his balls exposed in public will somehow cause the machine to pay off in a major way.

Aghast, we walked to the liquor store, and on the way back passed a group of younger guys coming towards us, one of whom was saying to the others, "Geeze, that dude's gotta wear some underwear or something, bro!"

And sure enough, multiple hours later after hitting a major car show at the Orleans, old Pantsless Jim was still there, rockin' the hot slots.

From then on, every place I sat (and- possibly every place I will EVER sit) I had to wonder if the seat had been kissed with a liberal dose of bare old man ass sweat.

As such, all of the pants from my trip have entirely bleached backsides.

2009-05-01T18:58:00.000-07:00

Vegas is a pretty unreal place. One day in and I've been pretty well buzzed since landing yesterday. This is the tackiest, most hideous thing I've ever seen in daylight, but at night, it's inhumanly beautiful... well, that is if you can look past the drunken frat boys and fanny-packers stumbling around. It's the cubic zirconia of architecture- you can build whatever the hell you want as big as you want and as flashy as you want; reservations be damned! Because in the daylight, fake is fake, and it all looks pretty awful.

But... we're experiencing Vegas slightly differently. We actually came out for the massive Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender festival, which takes over the Orleans Hotel & Casino every spring (actually- it used to take over the Gold Coast. But whatever.)

I love rockabilly music, and I love old stuff- specifically mid-century stuff. I always have. I was obsessed with early Charlie Feathers and Jerry Lee Lewis sides in my early music development period, and have been far too into classic Universal horror flicks, Polynesian restaurants, gangster movies, and 1940's comic strips since I was about 11 years old. It's a fascinating time period to me, most probably because I never lived in it.

But "Rockabilly" now takes a lot of questionable turns. It incorporates punk dudes (which is cool- I used to be one), brawlers, swing kids, tiki philes, motor heads, and everything in between. The "scene" is less about music than ever, and all about the culture- Head to toes in tattoos, decked in vintage clothing, carefully coiffed, and may not know Carl Perkins from Carl Weathers.

But I find it entertaining as hell. I have no interest in meeting much of anyone- most of the folks I've met who are way into "the scene" are wholly self absorbed with very little to say. Of course, maybe my closed mind towards the whole shtick of the thing could stem from the fact that I was pluck bald by the age of 21... And there are nice people into this stuff, for sure. We've just barely started to get out and stretch our legs. That coupled with the fact that midwest+this stuff is a rare equation to come across.

But stereotypes is stereotypes, and it's a gas walking around, crowd watching in between bands and burlesque shows. For example- seeing the above image when entering the bathroom- one old fella who's been around since Elvis first threw on a black leather jumpsuit, surrounded by a bunch of interchangeable so-cal car dudes taking a whiz.

Then there was the fully-loaded cart that went past us, stocked with close to 30 cases of PBR, only to return like this a few minutes later:

Viva, Las Vegas indeed... It looks pretty good from here.

2009-04-30T20:44:00.000-07:00

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS...COMES BACK TO BITE YOU ON THE ASS

Las Vegas is really, really gay.

Immediately after stepping off the plane in Vegas, I realize this, coming face-to-face with billboards for Elton John, Cher, Bette Midler, and a whole assortment of wet tights and pseudo-fellatio Cirque Du Soleil acts. Factor in old standbys like the Liberace Museum and Sigfried & Roy (don't worry- they'll get back up on that white tiger...) and you've got one big crazy gay place.

But then I see a sign with a woman in a bikini and a headband wielding a machine gun that says "LAS VEGAS GUN EMPORIUM: COME IN AND SHOOT A REAL MACHINE GUN!"

So not only is it way, super gay, it's also alarmingly heterosexual, with all the clubbin', bettin', machine gun stores and 'live nude girls' (the dead nude girls are easier to exhibit, FYI.) AND prostitution is legal AND you can drink outside. So in Vegas, if you're one rough and rugged lady-lovin' dude, whilst walking PAST the Cirque du Soleil Tight-Rope Dolphin Humping Spectacular, you can drink scotch on the sidewalk, take a cab over to the Machine Gun Emporium to fire automatic weapons, and top it off with some prostitutes. Now THAT's the Yul Brenner form of heterosexuality right there- no fuckin' around.

I've never been to Vegas, so this is all new to me. I've heard things, so I certainly had an idea what to expect, but- much like my first visit to New Orleans a year ago- I am amazed with how comfortably the incredibly blatant homosexuality rubs elbows and knees and every other bodily protrusion with unspeakably right-up-front heterosexuality all in the same block. And in most cases, you've got a ton of crossover in clientele between the two extremes. Because y'know what? It's all the same urge when you get down to it, it's just a matter of who yer pointing yer unspeakables at at the end of the night.

It's truly amazing, watching people at their most base level...

Come to Vegas- drink a bunch, win a bunch of money (if you can), and (if yer game), fuck a whole bunch, or watch other people fuck a whole bunch. And bring the family!

But even going in with a level headed, logical approach, the whole thing is pretty damn cool by me.

2009-04-30T20:40:00.000-07:00

Of all the things I learn in 2009- and thus far, four months in, it's looking like I'll learn a lot of weird-ass things- perhaps the most shocking will be that there are pirates.

Yes, honest-to-God, swashbuckling pirates.

OK. So, admittedly, these guys don't do as much 'swashbuckling' as they do, say, aim giant rocket-propelled weapons at boats. AND, I knew there were pirates and that pirating has been even more prevalent in recent years than since the days of tri-cornered hats (still trying to bring that one back...) but never before have they been so prominently splashed across our TVs, newspapers and internets.

It's very surreal, hearing about pirates for weeks on end. Because ask any five year old what a pirate looks like, and I'd bet "a 14 year old Somalian boy in an inflatable raft" is not likely to be his description. No, he'll describe a big ol' bearded guy, probably speaking a pretty gnarly form of English with an equally gnarly English accent. He'll probably be dressed not wholly unlike a British revolutionary war soldier, but... y'know... shabbillier. And he'll have a parrot, for-absolute-fucking-sure. AND one or an assortment of the following: peg leg, hook hand, eye patch, scurvy.

AND he'll be on a big ass ship. With skulls and cross bones on the sails.

Now- these guys MAY have had scurvy. It's hard to say.

But what they don't tell you when you're five is that "pirate" just means "guys in a boat who hijack other guys in a boat." And "boat" can also mean "raft," or really "something that floats on water and can hold some dudes." Actually, you wouldn't even necessarily need a boat at all to be a pirate... if you can swim out to a navy vessel with a dagger in your teeth and take the thing over, well.. then I guess you'd be a pirate.

But I'll take what I can get, pirate-wise. It's novel just hearing people say "pirate" a whole lot without it being immediately followed by the word "Depp."

Ed. note: As I transcribe this from my journal from three weeks ago, I can't help but be stricken by the fact that ALL the news has been weird in 2009, as now every other news report is about swine flu.

Of course- by the time I post my comic about swine flu, there will be grasshoppers the size of Saint Bernards, eagles will have taken Southeastern Maine by force, real Leprechauns will be discovered, and Funyuns will have replaced dollar bills as the favored (flavored?) currency.

2009-04-28T21:27:00.000-07:00

WITNESSED TUESDAY APRIL 7, 2009

Yes, that's right.

A man with his wife at the drug store announcing to God and everybody that he's opting to buy napkins in lieu of toilet paper.

Just buy napkins instead of toilet paper! It's all trees!

In fact, just use newspapers, paper plates, typing paper, labels from old canned goods, or rolls of receipt tape. Who gives a shit?! In fact, fuck paper- leaves are free! Just use those!

Keep a shrub in your bathroom- it can be your ass-wiping shrub! That would work great! Actually- naw. Then you gotta water it and stuff.

I did have to fight the urge, however, to ask which room he'd be keeping them in.

The whole walk home I was imagining the guy gnawing on a big drippy plate of hot wings, running to his toilet every couple minutes to get a fresh napkin.

Actually, this guy probably eats hot wings while ON the toilet. Y'know... cuz it's easier.

Actually he and his wife probably both eat hot wings on the toilet. Possibly at the same time.

2009-04-28T21:25:00.000-07:00

WITNESSED MONDAY APRIL 6, 2009

Certain things come about that don't require a lengthy string of explanation.

Henceforth, those will be allowed to stand on their own merit. Otherwise- lengthy string of explanation.

Sew- here's some shit I saw!

2009-04-26T20:44:00.000-07:00

WHAT'D HE SAY?

Recently, I was listening to "Stomp & Swerve," a CD companion to the quite excellent book by one David Wondrich titled, appropriately, "Stomp & Swerve."

It's all about that weird, mystical, racist period in music- y'know, the one before anything had a name? Blues wasn't blues yet, jazz wasn't really jazz either (it was just coming to be called 'jass' which in and of itself sounds explicit. Actually, if you read the book, you'll find out it kind of is!) and country music wasn't called 'country' music- instead, it was called 'cracker music,' or 'hillbilly jass,' that is, when people didn't just call it 'music.'

See- there were a ton of white people around back then. Not that there aren't now- but in terms of ratio, there were just shit loads and bushel fulls of white folks all over the damn place. Hence, the popular music of the time before jazz and blues and country all bust out of the regions they were created in (thanks, almost entirely, to the advent of recorded music and distribution channels) was mostly marches. Oh, and waltzes!

What happened that made music as rich and interesting and as varied as we know it today- from the Halls and Oates and Loggins and Messinas to the Metallicas and the Cannibal Corpses and the Dead Kennedyses, to the Babyfaces and TLCs of the world- was black people. Black people had an interesting, rich musical heritage that white people had been ignoring for years (along with myriad other things) whilst mistreating them and forcing them to build their houses and raise their children. As I understand it, this was so the white folks could sit around in white suits on large southern porches and sip mint juleps. But I'm probably missing something.

To make a long story short, all that African musical heritage started to mix with regional musical styles, and all those crazy, fucked up marches and waltzes, and started to branch into weird, terrifying and (fortunately) short lived, racially ignorant proto-genres, like Cakewalks and Minstrel Shows.

From that odd bunch of stuff came jazz, blues, & country, and from them came rock n' roll, electro, adult contemporary, easy listening, hip hop, and black forest metal.

OK- so this is a rough version of the entire history of music.

Anyway- stuff like minstrelry is so ridiculously ignorant that it is mildly hilarious and quite sad that THAT was what people went out to see. Well- to me anyway. But if you can get past the white gloves and grease paint, the music was revolutionary at the time (and much of it- musically- is still a rousing listen), and in all that goofy hokum were the seeds of jazz and blues and country music as they came to be. So as you can imagine, it is a pretty fascinating time to read into, white folks dressing up like black folks and dancing around assholes or no.

Back to the CD.

It's a very interesting collection of 27 tracks repeatedly mentioned in the book as milestones in terms of what they signified for the future of music, and all the weird turns it was taking.

The problem is that in all that experimentation and change was a prevailing ignorance towards any culture besides white, and specifically, white and European. So... let's just say its not the kind of thing you'd wanna listen to every day. But when held against your run-of-the-mill gangsta rap CD, there are probably less racial epithets per song than what kids are running around listening to today. The difference is in the spirit. Old songs were laughing at. New songs laugh with. Anybody who's been to jr. high while still playing with action figures knows the difference. But I digress...

I could go on. It's an interesting and hot button issue, these old time farts and their shenanigans.

Taking all this into consideration- there is a warning label on the "Stomp & Swerve" CD. Being one to always take heed, and also one who gets a good laugh out of ludicrous warning labels, I read it. And it says:

"Warning: Contains Historical Racially Derogatory Language."

Really? A CD of proto-jazz from 1906? A CD with songs like "Carve Dat Possum" and "Watermelon Party?" A CD that has vastly more openly offensive titles than that?

Is there an old man out there (one who isn't already pretty outwardly racially obtuse, which...may be hard to find) who's gonna pick up this CD and be SURPRISED, let alone OFFENDED?

Hm. Maybe.

If only everything and everyone were so clearly marked, we could save ourselves a lot of trouble.

But then... maybe that keeps things interesting. If everything were clearly labeled, there'd be no risk involved in any interpersonal relationship. It'd be very Metropolis-esque and dull, perhaps.

But who am I to say?

2009-04-24T06:34:00.000-07:00

LET'S DISH

I decided to make some soup. A big decision- I know- so, I grabbed a bowl out of the cupboard. Shockingly- there was a clean bowl to grab. I realized in a "life flashing before your eyes" moment that I have had these bowls since I was probably 6 years old. How many meals have I eaten from these crappy, K-Marty bowls and plates? I'm gonna guess something like 75%.

I got 'em from my parents when I moved away for college because they decided to trade up for something better. I don't blame them- these are ugly. Blue, white and brown. Why they bought them in the first place is beyond me. But here they are, in the cupboard I'm renting (along with the rest of the apartment) waiting for me to pour cereal into them, or fill 'em up with beans n' weenies so I can eat a quick dinner while watching "Incredible Hulk" reruns.

I also still have coffee cups I use on a regular basis that are at least as old as I am (more hand me downs.) Two are from "Mister Donut," which doesn't exist anymore, and another is a boring white mug with an insurance company I've never heard of's logo on it. I remember some customer of my dad's gave him a whole box of them once, and here is one of them sitting in my sink.

So when will I NOT have these dishes?

I'm not exactly a design-y kind of guy who's swapping out a perfectly functional item for a new one every couple months just because the new one looks cooler. But
visually, these things suck- it's a little thrift store stacked in my kitchen. If I had to go out and buy silverware and plates and cups, I'd buy fucking cool ones. But for now, these materials I have in-house do the job bowls and cups are supposed to do. They help me to move foods and beverages around my house without splashing them everywhere. As a means of conveyance, they can't be beat. The plates are flat, and the bowls are concave enough to allow for wet and saucy things to be transported around the apartment easily and mess-free.

The trouble is, I can't imagine when these will not exist and I will be forced to buy new dishes. Pending some kind of mass-disaster, I think one or two of these things will ALWAYS be around, until I forcibly throw them out. I don't know that I can bring myself to do that- they're like a younger step sibling you don't really get along with, but who idolizes you. You can talk some shit about them when prompted, but can't be a complete asshole to them, because deep down inside you have an attachment to them.

And if I donated these to Salvation Army just to spruce things up around here, who would buy them? And if someone actually DID, it would almost seem like rape to have them eating from dishes I've had my casseroles, tacos, and pastas on for the last 27 years.

So I think I'm stuck with these dishes.

Until they finally get fed up and run away with the spoons I've had for just as long.

2009-04-24T06:10:00.000-07:00

GET FUCHED

Everybody's pretty well aware that the economy is circling the bowl at the moment. So I couldn't help but be struck with an overwhelming wave of irony when flipping through TV channels recently. Look- it's Family Feud! THAT'S what America needs in these challenging economic times; a good ol' fashioned game show. And now there's a row of hearty, beaming and hopeful looking Midwestern folks with their family name emblazoned on the wall behind them- "FUCHS."

There's always that hope that you'll hit it rich without having to do much work. With the possible exception of the lottery- perhaps the most futile pursuit of cash imaginable- Game shows are the benchmark for quick n' easy cash. Family Feud, in particular, has a kind of cheesy, homey quality to it that makes me feel like I should be balled up on the couch in Batman pajamas eating a bowl of Frankenberry waiting for it to be over so I can watch the Muppet Show.

Especially at a time when the middle class doesn't exist, people are losing their savings, their pensions, and all seems hopeless. Welcome, Game Show. You can make things better. Watching those Fuchs for a minute, trying to lay their hands on some cash- it was as though they were the shining example of the American middle class getting screwed over (and out of existence.) Maybe Daddy Fuch got laid off from the auto parts factory, so Mama Fuch had to go back to teaching piano lessons to make ends meet. Son Fuch and his wife, the new Mrs. Fuch, had to help pitch in, too, even though they have a baby on the way. Then- a Godsend- a letter from the TV studio asking them to try their hand at Family Feud. "Go ahead, you Fuchs. Try and win some money. Get Fuched, why dontcha?"

Not these Fuchs. These Fuchs will survive.

Don't care for my thin analogy? Fuch off.

2009-04-23T17:14:00.000-07:00

COVERED IN PUPPY BITES

On my way home from work, I saw a guy walking a massive wild beast of a dog. The dog is obviously racist against Belgians, as it is visibly vibrating with seething hatred, growling at me like an outboard motor that doesn't quite catch. The pure viscous anger is pouring from it as I absent-mindedly wander by, wondering what I'm going to feed myself for dinner tonight.

The tiny, fragile, cigarette-like man keeping the hell hound at bay (now hanging on for dear life with both hands, his arms jerking around like over cooked noodles just a-wavin' in the breeze)reassures me that there's nothing to fear from his enormous, spite-fueled dog that probably forgoes Kibbles n' Bits in favor of a plate full of carpet tacks, who shits razor blades and gnaws off orphans' legs just for fun.

"Don't worry" says the waifish, frail man. "He's just a puppy- he's just all excited 'cause he sees a new person!"

I nod slightly and pick up the pace. Much like people with new babies who thrust them at you and say "Here! Hold him!" not taking into consideration the fact that you may very well be an unprecedented clod who will drop little Snoogums on the coffee table, shattering his soft, fragile skull, people with new dogs are likely to say "Go on! Pet him!"

Normally, petting a puppy....well...let's just say it fucking rules. But this was no puppy. And if I ever want to use my hand again, I dared not touch this heaving forest-beast lest I should draw back a bloody stump coated in a thick, gooey layer of wolf spit.

The logic from this man says to me "Yes- I have a big, terrifying fucking dog that hates people. But he's just a puppy, so it's prob'ly fine!" So do puppy bites hurt less because they're from puppies? Even if those same puppies can swallow a baby hippo whole? If a man walks into the room with his nose missing and every visible skin patch a mess of open bleeding wounds, is it OK for him to say "Don't worry about it- they're just puppy bites!"

I think not.

So beware...

Puppies: they're not just for scampering anymore.

2009-04-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

OH- YOU'RE NOT FREE? M'BAD.

So have a go at this: the New Hampshire state motto is "Live Free or Die." Pretty God damned bold for the smallest state in the union, I'd say. But it's undoubtedly rooted in old-timey colonial militant shit dreamt up long ago to get alla them powdered wig guys' pantaloons in a twist (I believe that time period was known as "yore.") So I get that- it's real inspiring. Kinda makes ya wanna go out there and kick up some dust, y'know?

So good. New Hampshireians are right riled up and ready to go poke oppressive British men with their bayonets so they can be free to while away their afternoons tooling around the harbor in their yacht while drinking wine coolers and listening to Michael McDonald before retiring to the Country Club lodge. Go team! I'm for it. Do as you will- LIVE FREE OR DIE!

But there's a sad, disturbing twist to all this. New Hampshire is also one of the last (if not the very last) states that has its prisoners stamping license plates as part of their debt to society. And what's stamped on every license plate for every state in the union? Why, the state motto, of course!

Sure, I'm imagining that prison in New Hampshire isn't exactly like serving your time at, say, Cook County, San Quentin, or Riker's. But if you're a prisoner in the state of New Hampshire, that's some pretty bleak, subversive shit. You could be the hardest gang banger this side of gang bangy town, and if you were told "Son- you're going up the river TO NEW HAMPSHIRE!" that person's only natural reaction would be, "OK. So... I won't have to fashion my shin bone into a shiv so I can stave off randy fellas in the shower? Cool by me." But imagine day after day reading "LIVE FREE OR DIE!" "LIVE FREE OR DIE!" That's gotta take its toll. Like Chinese water torture, maybe it's better to be staveing off would-be rapists with your leg bone shard.

So the lesson here? Don't ever stab a dude in New Hampshire. You will end up making license plates, constantly being reminded that you are not free. And your state motto will be there at every turn, haunting you, reminding you that the only choice besides free livin' is...to die. And God hates a quitter.

2009-04-21T19:27:00.000-07:00

I AM NOT A BLOOD BANK.

Earlier today I answered a very accusatory phone call. Seems the gentleman on the other end of the phone was pretty severely irritated that I was not the blood bank.

Seems he wanted to make an appointment.

Unfortunately, I had to tell him that I have never been the blood bank, nor do I ever intend to trade in other people's bodily fluids, especially not vital ones. AB, O+, HTML, ADHD,- I know nothing about it.

As far as I know you can just walk right into a blood bank and give away some extra blood without an appointment. I also understand that they will then trade you, say $25-$40 for that blood, along with a delicious cookie and a refreshing paper cup full of orange drink.

Unfortunately, I was also fresh out of delicious cookies and am generally free of any drink whose name is also what color it is.

I suppose I could have gone ahead and made an appointment for him. But finding my imaginary blood bank would have undoubtedly proven difficult, seeing as how it doesn't exist, and when he arrived, I wouldn't have had any idea what to do for the duration of his visit. I don't have any bloodletting equipment, though I would've been happy to jam a pie server into his forearm, or maybe a fistful of dull pencil nubs into his upper thigh. I do have an old cottage cheese tub I took my lunch to work in once that I could collect the drippings into. Unfortunately, I've just remembered that I don't actually own a pie server. Pencil nubs it would have to be.

Ah well. Hopefully that guy didn't call fifteen more places, yelling at them for not being the blood bank. I've been yelled at for worse, certainly. But somewhere, deep down, maybe I should've been the blood bank for that guy. Maybe I'm the one at fault, here. Maybe that's what I'm missing in my life: I am not a blood bank.

2009-04-20T17:23:00.000-07:00

THE EYES HAVE IT

Walk into any kind of "Eye Care Pavillion," "Vision Quest" or "Sight Shanty" and you'd think everybody who wears glasses is a chiseled, hunky man-stud or lithe, beautiful model.

As a lifelong glasses-wearer, I can personally attest that the vast majority of people who wear glasses and don't have contacts either (A.)have eyes so screwed they can't wear contacts, or (B.) don't give a shit and just wear glasses because contacts are a pain in the ass.

But upon entering Eyeball Town or whateverthefuck to get some prescription sunglasses made (I am, above all else, a sun child my friends...), I noticed that there among the glasses-sporting Branjolinas deep in ruminative thought was one lone poster with a satisfied looking old fart on it.

Now there's accuracy- that's a company that knows their audience. That's a company I can comfortably support with my hard-earned fistful of warm, wadded-up dollar bills I'll be forking over to pay for the fact that God has screwed me on both my vision and hair genes.

2009-04-19T13:39:00.000-07:00

Music used to have more class. It could be completely ribald and filthy, but nothing was terribly upfront- everything told with a wink through double entendre. Songs like "Mama Keep Your Yes Ma'am Clean" by Walter Cole and "Down in the Alley" from the inimitable Big Bill Broonzy ("If you want somethin'/that smells like fish/ down in the alley/you'll find that dish") or "Don't Give All the Lard Away" by the Dixieland Jug Blowers (which I was listening to today) had some skill to 'em- the filth was there and discernable, but not all laid out plain as day. With the use of some folksy "nudge-nudge" lyricism, musicians could write a bouncy song like "Don't Give All the Lard Away" without calling it "Bitch, Stop Fuckin'."

Popular music today could use a dose of sly innuendo- 'cause honestly, it's mostly all been mostly malnourished down to "eat shit" this and "suck my balls" that.

Fortunately- everything goes full circle, so hopefully one day soon the "Baby Got Back" and "Smell Yo Dick" 's of the world will revert back to "Shine That Bumper" and "A Whiff of the Wand."

I'd prefer it anyway...

2009-04-18T09:18:00.001-07:00

Every neighborhood has that dull, utilitarian place you go to only because you need something and the place to buy it is looking you square in the face. Though it's a nearly featureless box of gray carpeting and white walls, you find yourself there repeatedly, buying the same things over and over again- "Milk, check. Bread, check. Vitamins, check. Do I need booze? Probably. Check."

Only occasionally does your frequenting of such places come into sharp and alarming focus. Suddenly you realize, maybe it's time to move and find a new place you don't like going to over and over again.

2009-04-17T16:38:00.001-07:00

Today I received a flier in the mail advertising half off all American flags.

It was addressed "Attention: Flag Buyer."

What sad commentary on patriotism at present is it that we've taken to hocking the most solemn symbol of what our country was founded on at half price values?

Billy Ray Cyrus would weep openly.

Though I have to say, I've never considered buying an American flag before, but at these prices...

2009-04-16T17:47:00.000-07:00

Today, while passing a school bus, I got a big ol' nostril full of school bus fumes and, sadly, instantly remembered about twenty different field trips on a poorly ventilated bus taken in grade school. The smell of the chalk board green colored seats was as distinctive as anything I've huffed in my life.

Almost as quickly as the wave of flashes from trips to state parks, public zoos, firehouses, and John Adams boyhood home passed through my mind, I realized that this was perhaps the saddest bit of nostalgia I'll ever experience. I don't remember having fun on a field trip once- it was merely less terrible than other things I didn't enjoy in school.

Also- bus fumes=dead brains cells, which should not equal pleasant memories.

Of course, I'm drinking rum as I type this, and I have pleasant memories of drinking that. Does rum kill brain cells? I don't remember. What's on TV?

2009-04-14T18:39:00.001-07:00

SO... NOTHING THEN?

Yup. You saw it right- nothing for five days.

$20-a-day for internet access at the hotel? No thanks, sez I.

But mind you those comics will be right here at regular intervals starting now!

And, in a couple weeks- comics straight from fabulous Las Vegas! We saw hilariously titled slot machines, amateur wrestling (featuring Ted "The Million Dollar Man" Dibiasi), a tricked out hot rod show, about a billion elaborate 50's hairstyles, the best burlesque show I've ever seen, a dozen solid rockabilly bands, and overheard serious conversations about everything from dead babies to kidnapping rich people to layin' it straight with multiple prostitutes at one go.

So keep yr eyes peeled, folks.

2009-04-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

SPORADIC

I'm about to hit the road for a much-needed trip to Vegas.

Depending on internet access and levels of intoxication, I may be a bit spotty with posts thru next Wednesday.

But fear not- there will still be comics for every day I'm away!

Viva Las Vegas.

--Pete

2009-04-08T18:45:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a dream that I was at home and I had to pee.

So I went to the bathroom. As soon as I walked in, I was struck by two things:

1. The bathroom was identical to the bathroom at one of the local music venues/bars.
2. There was a business man sitting on his briefcase in the corner, sobbing deep, baleful moans.

His crying was frighteningly anguished, but the only thing I could think was "don't look at him, or you might have to deal with this."

I peed, and nodded in his direction on my way out.

In real life, I am highly non-confrontational. And it's not that I don't care about people, I just assume its not my business. If it were me with the problem, I wouldn't want somebody bugging me about it.

I think that might make me an asshole.

2009-04-07T17:53:00.000-07:00

ALWAYS THE BRIDESMAID...

Reading article after article about the slow death of recorded music and the printed word, as magazines fold up daily and movies are continually pirated, I've realized that no one wants to pay for art, in any capacity.

As someone hoping, perhaps naively, to scrape together some kind of meager earnings in that field, it is both frustrating, and heartbreaking.

If you're good at sports- paycheck. Good at science? Paycheck. Good at business? Paycheck.

But (with only a very few exceptions) if you do anything of a creative sort- writing, painting, drawing, singing, playing an instrument, acting, etc- you are mostly fucked for any kind of living.

So what does that say? Everybody will tell you how important these things are for enhancing their daily lives. But anymore they're apt to run home and illegally download the new album from their favorite band that supposedly had "such an impact" on them. It sucks.

I don't know what the solution is, but as someone who's not much good at much of anything other than writing inane blurbage and scrawling simplistic black and white pictures, I certainly hope there is one...

2009-04-06T18:05:00.000-07:00

SEALED FOR YOUR PROTECTION

Upon opening my fourth protective seal on something this morning, I came to realize just how ridiculously many of these things there are. I appreciate that each of these little barriers is keeping people out of my food and medicine- the less thumbs pressed into my cottage cheese and snot rockets blasted in my ibuprofen containers the better, and honestly, when I was a young gad-about, I would've thought it was hilarious to fart into a tub of yogurt and put the top back on. But on a certain level, all this protection seems fairly arbitrary. After all, the FDA allows an alarmingly high percentage of rat feces and cockroach parts in our canned goods, and what's to stop the guy who's bored off his tit day-in and day-out on the Claritin packaging line from squashing one in his armpit for an hour or two before sealing its fate inside the little protective package?

Fact is- we don't trust each other anymore. And we shouldn't. Not because of terrorists or anthrax or poisoned Halloween candy (of which there was only one documented case- a shitty father trying to collect his kid's life insurance policy.) We shouldn't trust the public with our food and medicine because people are bored and craving any kind of feeling, no matter how minor, and will screw with something just for that momentary thrill of realizing someone will eat the banana they just had in their butt cheeks (fortunately, nature gives them their own protective seal...)

Once upon a time, you'd go get aspirin from a pharmacist, milk from a milkman (Oberweiss commercials aside) and meat from a butcher. People didn't worry about them screwing with your stuff, because their job description explicitly points out that they shouldn't. That doesn't mean they didn't, but it was understood that that was an unlikely and mostly isolated thing.

But in the age of chain drug and grocery stores, you really can't trust anybody- so little barriers from the public on everything it is.

So the lesson here is that nothing is truly safe until it's hermetically sealed from human contact, and even then there's a government allotment for how many rat feces and cockaroach parts you can have in there.

Now go break the seal off some ibuprofen to stifle that headache that's been mounting. And mind the one with armpit sweat all over it.

2009-04-05T11:34:00.001-07:00

IRONY FINALLY REACHES THE SANDWICH ARTS

In the interest of keeping the day wild and exciting, I went to Subway. I noticed there was a new homemade sign taped to the counter refusing service to anybody using a cell phone while ordering.

After waiting five minutes, the store's lone employee (who'd been talking loudly on the phone in the back) comes stumbling out, pretty obviously as well baked as an oven-toasted sub.

He's on a cellphone, and continues to be on a cell phone all the way through the "sandwich artist" creative process.

I can't help but think maybe the homemade sign taped to the counter was supposed to point the other way.

2009-04-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

BRANDED!

I spotted a cell phone store that was offering free shirts and hats with the company's logo emblazoned across the front to people that open new accounts.

Is this really an incentive to anybody to get a new cell phone? "Wow- I just love that company's logo! I want a baseball jacket with that embroidered on the back!"

Admittedly, this isn't much worse than insurance companies, investment firms, or plumbing fixture manufacturers that do the same thing. Maybe it's time to come up with some other way for these places that deal in unspeakably boring goods and services to get their name out there? 'Cause fashion just doesn't seem like a smooth fit to me.

2009-04-03T17:22:00.001-07:00

RUN FOR THE BORDER: PREDICTED.

When you spot a large, mouth-breathing, possibly stoned Insane Clown Posse/pro-wrestling fan loping along at 4PM on a Friday, is it wrong to assume he's going to Taco Bell and not on his way to take a walk in the park or pick up Mr. Fuzzypants at the cat hospital?

Is it worse when, after tailing him for 10 minutes, that's exactly where he ends up?

2009-04-02T17:41:00.000-07:00

BEAMER UBER ALLES

Without fail, every time I see someone driving like a complete and utter asshole they're piloting a BMW.

Now- I'm not saying EVERYONE who drives a BMW is an asshole. All I'm saying is that it seems to me, after many years of strict scrutiny and careful observation, like they mostly all DRIVE like assholes. They could be perfectly wonderful people on a one-on-one, non-wheeled basis. But when put in a driver's seat, the positraction German engineering takes over their reason center and coerces them into treating the road and all other drivers on it like their own personal shit rag.

Maybe it's like that movie Christine, y'know- the Stephen King classic about the possessed car that treats the road and all other drivers on it like its bitch?

Maybe its like that.

Or maybe it runs deeper...

2009-04-01T17:16:00.000-07:00

A BEACON FOR THE HOPELESS

In these troubling times, what we really need is a sign that there is hope for the up-and-coming generation to be strong and help carry things on. Without youth, there is no future, after all.

With all the stock market tumblings, CEO bonuses and job losings and such in the news, it is imperative to find a glimmer of hope wherever you can to help pick you up by your bootstraps and keep on keepin' on, perhaps a little stronger and a little wiser than you were before.

Today, I saw that beacon. Unfortunately it confirmed every doubt and sour thought clinging to the inside of my skull...

2009-03-31T18:24:00.000-07:00

IN STEREO...

I saw a middle-aged hispanic man today walking two chihuahuas. His eyes said, "I know what this looks like, but just let me explain..."

2009-03-30T17:29:00.000-07:00

BEAT ON THE FRAT

I hate frat boys.

Not for any kind of jealous "gee they look like they're having some kooky, well-balanced fun that I'm missing out on" sort of reason, but mostly because nearly all of them seem to be gape-mouthed morons. But not just regular ol' run-of-the-mill gape-mouthed morons; they are gape-mouthed morons who think they're exceptionally interesting and wacky, when in fact they are neither remotely interesting, nor wacky.

Actual wacky people have just a flicker of terrifying insanity lurking buried under their fun-print clothes, crazy hats and nutty hair styles that lends a palpable air of menace to their antics.Frat boys feature none of that troubling "oh shit" factor that makes the truly eccentric something worth seeking out.

I have never had any interest in being a massive, ripped muscle man, though I would seriously think about swapping out pens and alcoholism for weight benches and squat thrusts if it also came with a license to freely beat the ever-loving shit out of frat boys.

At the moment, that doesn't seem like a terribly likely scenario, so I'll continue to brood silently and add them to the ever-growing list of things that irritate me. It seems with each passing interaction, however, they rise higher and higher on that list.

2009-03-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

"MANIC DEPRESSION"

Abner Jay was a one-man band based in South Georgia from the 1920's all the way up through the 1970's, who billed himself as the "World Famous One Man Minstrel Band and Show."

The fine folks at Portland's Mississippi Records have collected an incredible sampling of Jay's music for public consumption, "True Story of Abner Jay," shining just a bit of light on a guy who's been shunned to near complete obscurity.

The LP-only release comes packed with some excellent ephemera, including a snapshot of a sharp lookin' young Abner Jay, and a copy of one of his "information brochures" he would hand out to promote his shows.

In his words (verbatim):

"Abner Jay is a living art. Plays and sings over 600 Favorite Ole American Classical songs, mostly of the Ole South....Abner is Old, he has been playing and singing these same songs since 1926. And he was wearing a size 12 shoe when he start singing...Abner has raised 16 young'uns ages are from 10 to 40 years of age. And they weigh from 100 to 312 lbs each. Abner is known to be champion of the HAMBONE AND the only JAW BONE PLAYER living to-day."

The picture of Abner Jay playing a jaw bone doesn't do much to clarify how one actually goes about doing it.

I have a real soft spot for "outsider" music, but there's a charm to this compilation that's rare to come by. Sure, they're culling from 40+ years of material, but every track is a gem. And the song introductions are classic vaudeville schtick (and how can ya not like that?)

The first track, "I'm So Depressed," is given substantially more weight- all ghostly wails and deep, baleful moans- by the deletion of its goofy introduction, which is transcribed on an accompanying typewriter-written sheet of paper that accounts each track's introduction as it appeared on Abner's original albums.

Here's the intro for "I'm So Depressed":

"You know they gotta stop makin' them King size cigarettes and start making Queen size... because it's got a bigger butt. Do you know why elephants don't smoke? Because they can't fit their butts in the ashtray. I know an ol' boy who took his girl out on a country road the other day. Stopped his car and took his key out. Says to his gal... 'Now are you gonna be a Camel and walk a mile? Or like a Chesterfield that satisfy?' She said, 'It depends on if it's King size or regular, daddy."

Ah. Just can't find good cigarette slogan humor much anymore.

But all butts aside, "I'm So Depressed" is a beautifully sad and lonesome song. I must have listened to it 6 times in a row, and it's held its sway each time.

2009-03-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

INFINITY CRISIS!

While eating a fantastic pile of Thai food, I can't help but overhear a lengthy, heated conversation about what "infinity" truly means from an adjacent table of old-ish science nerds.

Finally, one steps forward as the bigger man, lets bygones be bygones, and cools things off with a clever retort that puts the other old-ish nerds in stitches...

Indeed! IMAGINE if there were an INFINITE NUMBER of Mr. Gumballs, Puss Puss, and Dr. Jolly Face? Why... that would be MADNESS!

Honestly, it's encouraging to see that all these people found each other.

And somewhere- an astrophysics department sits vacant...

2009-03-27T17:30:00.000-07:00

MO GO DIGGY DIE!

Two random passersby have taught me that it is irresponsible to speak English as a second language, or rather, to "not even speak-like-legible English."

These same two random passersby have also undoubtedly never worked a day's hard labor in their lives.

2009-03-26T17:29:00.000-07:00

TWO WILD AND CRAZY GUYS

It seems the loudest people have the least interesting things to say. Especially on public transportation; a place where no one wants anything to do with the other people they're unpleasantly stuffed into it with.

These loud, uninteresting folks are also likely to look around frequently at their fellow riders, just to see if anyone's hearing all the pithy, insightful things coming out of their noisy head-valve. In the off chance anyone IS paying attention, those persons are more often than not stifling a loud guffaw (at), or wearing a look of severe displeasure.

But sometimes, ineptitude breeds brilliant stupidity (er...)

Hence...

2009-03-25T17:33:00.001-07:00

NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS:

In 1/2 an hour of "news" this morning, there was a spot about a local place that offers tango lessons, an interview with a guy who had a bit part in The Matrix, a report on celebrity Facebook pages, a Lisa Loeb video from 1994, and a "Cutest Baby" contest.

So as banks are melting to their foundations and newly nuclear countries are aiming their weapons at each other, THIS is the most important, breaking news available to share?

Oh- right. This is 'feel good info-tainment." Looks like I'm the idiot for wanting to know things.

2009-03-24T17:51:00.001-07:00

ENGLISH TAKES A SHIT

Sometimes, someone says something so stupid it must be captured for posterity, and to act as an example to anyone else thinking of saying something just as retarded.

I had to fight the urge to interrupt and say, "Excuse me, sir? I can teach you some other words if you find yourself running out of them."

Something tells me that might not've gone over so well.

2009-03-23T16:35:00.000-07:00

"HOT DOG FACTORY SECONDS, ANYONE?"

The Vienna Beef factory is having a sidewalk sale. In a tent. In early March 30 degree-temperatures.

Aren't hot dogs essentially the 'factory seconds' of the slaughter house?

There's something truly sad seeing that tent set up in an empty parking lot. 4th of July cookouts seem a long god damn ways off...

2009-03-22T23:05:00.000-07:00

BEST LAID PLANS...

My original plan with this blog was to post a comic every day.

I've realized that that will never happen if I'm attempting to come up with and draw a full strip every day in addition to all the other humdrum and ragamarolle I've got going on day-to-day.

Fortunately, I also realized that something weird or notable seems to happen just about every day if I look hard enough.

Thus- from here on out, I'll be putting up one panel a day. Kind of a diary, but mostly not.

I've always thought diary comics were kind of self-indulgent. So, instead of drawing myself everyday (which I find wholly unpleasant), I've decided to substitute a cartoon hobo.

Everything will be put together about two weeks out, just to make sure I'm doin' 'em every day. If you've ever tried to do something everyday, you know shit happens,and all of a sudden you're two weeks to a month behind schedule.

If I'm on vacation, away from the internet (God forbid!) or what-have-you, I'll post a bunch of panels on the same day. The idea is to have a comic every day. When they go up is something else entirely.

So keep yr eyes here, and program your blackberrys and boysenberrys and dingleberrys accordingly- I'll be updating much more frequently.

So- without further delay, here's day one....

It occurs to me while shopping for a new pocket sketch book to get this 'daily comic' thing rolling appropriately, that the local CVS stocks their office and 'art' supplies across the aisle from their toy section.

Somehow this makes everything seem futile.

Sure, their stocking pattern was probably just happenstance. But it begs the question:

Is a kid's work play, and toys are their 'office supplies?'

Or are we all big babies?

Also: Barney-shaped chalk is 'executive pen set' adjacent."

2009-03-09T13:53:00.001-07:00

SAVE THE TONGA ROOM!

Everything old is new again- unless it doesn't last that long.

I have a deep-rooted resounding love for the leftover stuff of bygone eras. Perhaps that's not the most productive or encouraging approach to things, suffering blow after blow as you watch the things you love deteriorate or fall under the proverbial (or in most cases literal) wrecking ball, but I am who I am. Certainly, there's not much value in never changing anything, and if something's broke- by all means, fix it or let it die peacefully in its sleep. But if it AIN'T broke...

Thus: San Francisco's Tonga Room- a place on my short-and-ever-shortening list of mid-century Polynesian Pop palaces that I have to visit at least once before I die.

The Tonga Room began life humbly as the indoor swimming pool area for SF's world-famous Fairmont Hotel in the 1920's. As cocktail parties became all the rage in the post-Prohibition era, the pool area was transformed into an ocean-liner themed bar and restaurant offering tropical drinks and then-exotic Cantonese dishes.

Rather quickly, the ship must've landed in it's port-of-call, and the tropical paradise of the Tonga room was born. Visitors sipped Mai Tai's and Zombies and ate pupu platters under grass huts. The pool became a lagoon, complete with floating bandstand. And every hour, there was a tropical thunderstorm, complete with lighting and sound effects.

As the historically-and-politically incorrect concept of "exotica" went out of vogue throughout the late 1970's and 1980's, and corporate board-room blandness became a way of life, numerous tropical wonderlands were converted to average, run-of-the-mill nightclubs and sports bars, or bulldozed all together. After the fracas, few locations remained. The tiki-chic revival of the mid-to-late 90's once again focused the spotlight on these oddball eateries, but it was too little too late to do much about several decades of neglect and a newly hyper-PC mainstream with little interest in experiencing the past.

Tiki fans have suffered innumerable blows in the last few years. Columbus, OH's world-renowned Kahiki, with it's dual Moai doormen and distinctive A-Frame entrance got the bulldozer treatment. Des Plaines, IL's Kona Kai was boarded up and long sat locked and dormant, only to be unceremoniously auctioned off after years of hope that they'd re-open and once again offer up their trademark libations. Then, just a few years ago, San Diego's beautiful Islands restaurant in the then-equally impressive Hanalei Hotel was purchased by the reliably-bland Best Western corporation who, not knowing a good thing when they see it, gut rehabbed the place, tearing out its indoor streams, wooden bridges and bamboo ceilings in favor of a nice, safe, featureless white room with unpleasant salmon-colored furniture offering fried chicken wraps and cheese burgers in lieu of its former Polynesian feasts.

So now- we have the Tonga Room. Perhaps not what it once was, but certainly something distinctive, historical, and an authentic relic of a bygone era. There's no lack of business forcing them to close up shop. If anything, it sounds to me like their business is the same or better than it ever has been.

But rather, an arbitrary decision from the Fairmont's owners has them planning to re-zone the building and it turn into multi-million dollar condos. And the fact of the matter is, anyone wanting to buy a multi-million dollar condo (especially during the worst recession in 60 years) doesn't know a Mai Tai from Shineola.

On a daily basis, our nation's cities are losing their history, charm, and character to the bland whitewashed nothingness favored by the marketing research groups and investment corporations of the world. If you're anything like me, and don't want to spend the rest of your life deciding between TGI Friday's and Applebee's, let's put our money where our mouths are and do whatever we can to keep the Tonga Rooms of the world alive and vivacious.

I don't live in San Francisco, but if I did, I can only imagine how more deplorable this situation would seem to me.

Click the image below, and sign the petition to keep the Tonga Room right where it's been for the last 70 years. And if you live in the area, or are planning a trip- for God's sake, go get yourself hammered on delicious, colorful cocktails and an egg roll or two.

If you want the HTML for this clickable banner to post freely on the internet to rally others to the cause, just make a comment, or send me an email at peterklockau@yahoo.com

2009-03-01T19:29:00.000-08:00

FRIDAY THE 13TH- SPECIAL EDITION

Everybody knows slasher movies are stupid. But as someone who grew up when they were still developing all their now-stereotypical characteristics, an alarming fact only recently dawned on me: most of the maniacal, un-killable killing machines of the 1980s are- in fact- retarded.

By retarded, of course I mean certifiably mentally handicapped. Think about poor old Jason, a deformed, slow kid the other kids openly mocked who couldn't swim turned unstoppable machete wielding murderer. Or Leatherface- undoubtably inbred to the point of simpleton, just longing for another human's touch. How about Michael Myers? OK- so he wasn't retarded (probably- They didn't get into that angle quite as overtly) but it goes without saying he was not all well and good upstairs.

I find this all more than a little disconcerting. What's so scary about retarded people? Or the mentally ill? In my experience, they're nice, friendly folk- not super-human, sharp-implement toting murderers hell-bent on decapitating drunk, nude teens.

Why is this factored into the suspension of disbelief- the "Oh that's just part of the movie" in slasher movies, whereas, say, an entire string of franchises based around mentally deficient superheroes seems ridiculous? It's not so far off- how many people really watch Friday the 13h movies and root for the irritating, vacuous teenagers that are swapped out for fresh every time the movie backers need more quick cash?

Watching the new bloated-budget Michael Bay-produced Friday the 13th re-make, I was amazed at how far we've managed to plunge the horror genre down the ever-circling box-office toilet. Though it's well established that the "villain" of the film was handicapped (I think he's a hero,) I had to wonder if just about every person who agreed to be involved with the movie was as well. It was terrible in a way that should reserved for movies made off-the-cuff, without a script, by bored high school kids in their parents' back yards after splitting a case of Old Milwaukee (of course, I'm not speaking from experience here.)

Of course, this was what I had expected. I have a sick urge to subject myself to terrible movies in the hopes that they will at least be funny. In this case, perhaps the only cathartic purpose in seeing such a colon clensing of a movie is to watch despicable people get arrows shot through their foreheads.

What was most alarming to me was hearing fresh reactions from audience members- screaming when you're supposed to scream, laughing when you're supposed to laugh, even though not a single frame could be described as scary or funny (OK- so some parts that weren't SUPPOSED to be funny were hilarious, but that's more laughing AT than WITH.)At one point, just as the music cues aptly gave away what was about to happen, you could actually hear the entire theater wait to react to what they all knew was coming, in unison- screaming just to scream, but only at the socially-acceptable, designated moment...

Congratulations, America- we've become the robot workers in Metropolis, only none among us has the good sense to revolt.

2009-02-07T10:05:00.001-08:00

HAPPY HORNY WEREWOLF DAY!

Valentine’s Day is stupid.

To support that bold statement are the millions of other people in the world who have said the same thing year-in and year-out.

But when you get right down to it, most holidays are stupid. It just so happens that Valentine’s Day is one of the more arbitrary ones that seems to have little basis in much of anything other than a convenient way to unload expensive dinners, flowers, red things, and condoms (especially red condoms.)

It’s arguable that Valentines Day just might rival Christmas as most commercial.

As a kid, Valentine’s was mostly just a weird, welcomed hiccup for a day from the bleak, wintery, Midwestern miserable norm of mid-February.

It’s odd that we all grow up with certain ideas about holidays, and just trudge on celebrating ‘em the way we always have well into adulthood without really wondering WHY we’re even celebrating them in the first place.

Appropriately, in the true spirit of American capitalism, the reason why most of our holidays are when they are and why we celebrate ‘em at all boils down to good ol’ fashioned marketing.

Y’see- back in the middle ages, the plagues were rough business. The Catholic church was a business, too. It was one of the earliest forms of Christianity, and while its terrified laymen were writhing around covered in boils and rotting skin, they were coming and paying up their church dues in droves.

But as that unfortunate-ness passed, the boils cleared up, and people stopped hucking buckets full of their own waste out onto the sidewalk (OK... maybe that came later) folks started migrating to much more fun pagan religions, fear of God or no. What's sitting quietly and listening to scripture when you have orgies, animal and human sacrifices, and blood drinking rituals? C'mon- it's a no-brainer here, folks.

So the Catholic church employed some good ol' fashioned marketing tactics to bring the people back. One of the first things they did? They scheduled their important religious holidays on the same days as the Pagans- can't do everything at once now can ya? And if you miss mass on Christmas or Easter, it's a hell-worthy offense!

So be gone Winter Solstice and Spring Solstice festivals!

As for Valentine's Day? Look no further than Lupercalia- a weird Roman holiday celebrating Romulus and Remus, traditionally on February 14th, where grown, able-bodied men would dress up like wolves and slap women with strips of a goat they'd just sacrificed. Yes- goat. It was supposed to make all them hot ladies fertile and ready for what most men still expect on Valentine's Day.

Then, everybody put their name in a jug, and people were paired up in lottery weddings. Fun times, huh?

So- next year when that damned red holiday comes around, remember: You can celebrate Valentine's Day, drop $200 on a fancy shmancy dinner, another $200 on flowers, bears, candy, edible underpants and body oils, OR you can go the more frugal route, dress up like a wolf, sacrifice a goat and slap the woman you love with warm strips of it on Horny Werewolf Day.

The choice is yours, friends.

(Thanks to Warren Ellis for the horny werewolf tip...)

2009-02-07T08:47:00.000-08:00

THE TOP TEN THINGS I LEARNED FROM THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G. MOVIE

Biopics are a tough road to hoe.

If the subject is still alive, producers and writers will do whatever they can to avoid offending the person involved- thus, all the sweet stuff like drug addiction, domestic abuse, and even murder are severely downplayed to chalked up to being some kind of misunderstanding or example of human frailty. Jerry Lee Lewis was an advisor on his movie, Great Balls of Fire, and, admittedly, he let a whole lot of things get in there that most would've cringed at or white-washed over. But that makes you wonder how much he left out. And it was still a terrible, terrible movie.

If the subject is dead, there's an urge to make the person seem larger than life. Suddenly they are full of all the sage wisdom they were unable to impart to us in life, so they do it in grandiose biopic death.

Granted every step in the making of the biopic will be scrutinized in a way that, say, a movie about a talking dog, wouldn't. For instance, if you're Joaquin Phoenix and someone says "You should play Johnny Cash," it's gotta be tough to say no, but that doesn't change the fact that he looks and acts nothing like the Man in Black.
I would think the very nature of the biopic beast would mean the makers of the movie would thus be extra careful how the thing comes together. But no. "Hey Lou Diamond Phillips. You're Ritchie Valens, OK?"

When it comes to the script, the fact of the matter is, famous or not, most people aren't that interesting. Whether you're Jim Morrison of the Doors or Jim Morrison the vacuum cleaner salesman, a scrappy enough filmmaker could probably find SOMETHING to make a movie about- One is living the debauched, drug addled, pile-of-naked-girls swingin' 60's lifestyle, while the other deals with mild alcoholism and crippling depression. You decide which is which. At the end of the day, everybody's got their shit, and they still put their pants on one leg at a time. Sure, Bettie Page was a good lookin' broad who most of the world has seen naked in one pose or another (or many), and yet outside of said nudity, The Notorious Bettie Page featured almost nothing worth watching a movie about.

But Hollywood can't stay away from the fast bucks involved in turning the lives of people with a pre-established audience into bloated budget big-screen spectacles, whether the people involved are interesting or not.

Most recently added to that list of famous lives chucked through the Hollywood-filter is Notorious, the story of noted gangster rapper and generally large person The Notorious B.I.G.

Now, I should say I don't really know jack shit about rap music. But, like any other blue-blooded Midwestern white person with eight bucks to rub together, I was intrigued. Any famous person who dies young holds a certain air of mystique around them, and it's curiosity pure and simple that gets you itchin' to find out what all the damn hubub is about.

Turns out, most famous people who die young are not much more interesting than the uninteresting young people you might know who are still alive.

So, even though I thought it was a hi-lariously bad movie, here are 10 Things I Learned From Notorious, the Notorious B.I.G. biopic...

1.)If you need some quick cash, put your hand in a payphone coin return. It will have crack in it that you can then hand to someone standing directly behind you in exchange for a fistful of wadded up money. If that person is a pregnant lady, fuck 'em.

2.)Pure uncut Columbian cocaine is occasionally mistaken for a plate of mashed potatoes.

3.) Need some guidance? Just ask Notorious B.I.G.'s mom! She's just packed to the gills with friendly aphorisms, life-affirming knowledge, and thought provoking quips. If you can't find Biggie's mom, look for Spiderman's Aunt May. Same difference.

4.) If you're living the hard life on the streets in the ghetto, go find Puff Daddy (or whatever the hell he's called now.) Within the span of what seems like about 2 hours of your life on-screen, you will go from abject poverty and a life sentence in jail to lavish record release parties and your very own throne. That P-Diddy is somethin'.

5.) Lil' Kim was once just a lowly, wholesome flight attendant who DIDN'T show her vagina to large groups of strangers.

6.)Whole East Coast/West Coast rap battle? A simple misunderstanding.

7.)If you are about to be murdered by a rival gang, you will have ample opportunity to reconnect with all the people you have abandoned, mistreated, or completely ignored since the beginning of your movie. And said estrangements are sufficiently fixed by making one phone call to the person you've metaphorically pissed on.

8.)I will never let a man call me a bitch.

Let me explain...

Here is an actual scene (as well as I can remember it) between Biggie and his 2 year old daughter:

Biggie (on phone with ex): "You're a motha fuckin' bitch!"
tender music swells as B.I.G. looks down at his daughter, playing on the floor about 3 feet in front of him.
Biggie: Hey CeeCee. C'mere, I gotta teach you somethin'.
CeeCee: A rap song?
Biggie: Nah. Somethin' more important than that.
Daughter climbs on Biggie's knee. They have a touching moment together
Biggie: Whatever happens... don't never, EVER let a man call you a bitch.
CeeCee: OK Daddy.

9.) Apparently Danny Elfman wrote "Hypnotize." According to the "Music by" credit, anyway.

10.) B.I.G. doesn't actually stand for anything. It's just because he was fucking big.

And If you don't know, now you know.

2009-02-04T17:15:00.000-08:00

LUX INTERIOR WE HARDLY KNEW YE

Sadly, it seems the legends and true innovators are dropping much faster than our poor little country can create new ones.

Today, Lux Interior of the Cramps died- one of the greatest suggestive song writing front men of all time, not to mention an outspoken and knowledgeable advocate of many things I hold near and dear- solid old rock n' roll, weird records, b-movies and horror monsters.

Alarmingly, he was 61, which is the same age as my parents. Even more alarmingly, he was also my parents age back when I saw the Cramps as an impressionable youth. I only wish I'd had an opportunity to see 'em again.

By that time, I'd seen Slayer, Gwar, Napalm Death, and Cannibal Corpse. But I'd yet to find a crowd or suggestive stage presence quite as excitingly upsetting as Lux Interior's shirtless gyrations and microphone deep throating. And that was still several years before I'd seen their notorious insane asylum concert video.

For the Cramps, it was just another night and another show. And I'm sure anyone who's ever seen the Cramps would tell a story identical mine.

So may he rest in peace. Let's hope his spirit is somewhere haunting a nice Christian family as we speak, and enjoying every second of it.

Just to sew things up, in the spirit of monsters and a love of 1960's kitsch cheesiness, here's a mostly unentertaining story about a wacky 1960's drag racing monster going to buy a car. I thought it was funny at the time. Most people didn't.

If only I had a nice comic about "Cornfed Dames."

Maybe later.

2009-01-23T16:48:00.000-08:00

OBAMANOMICS- The New Style

You read it here first, folks...I plan to coin the phrase "Obamanomics" and get it into the regular flow of things before some kind of dried up old politico-type potato beats it into repetitious uselessness. If that's already in the circulation of things, let's go for "Barackonomics" or "EconObamics."

Watching last Tuesday's inauguration was a moving thing to see. People of my generation haven't had a whole lot to get excited about politically. We were born in the Regan era, and have only been able to vote in "Dubya" related elections. If you were a person of my generation in Illinois, you had even less to be interested in- obviously, our governor is not the most charismatic guy around at the moment, and he won two elections (but as of yesterday is now "in the private sector"- i.e. just a reg'lar ol shmuck stopping by Dunkin' Donuts this blessed Friday morning.)

But watching all those millions of people out there in the cold in DC, and seeing the Obamas poised to shake things up a bit, my gut was nervous. Don't get me wrong- I think he's the best man for the job by far. Even friends of mine who are fairly staunchly anti-government in general can get excited about him. In fact, about the only bit of election business I had ever gotten even remotely psyched about prior to this presidential bid was Obama's run for the senate.

So what's makin' me nervous? I'm afraid the flea-like attention spans and unrealistic expectations of the American public might not give him a fair shake.

Perhaps my first inkling while watching the inauguration came when Obama and fam were happily waving to the cheering throngs. In a voice over, a round table of fairly typical political nay-sayers and fact checkers were discussing what was happening. Anyone who's ever seen a live news broadcast of just about anything knows that this tends to be a mostly opinionated and dull affair- "Well... we're...we're getting a closer view now. Yes! Yes... the same nothing is happening that was happening five seconds ago when we got in for a closer view."

Suddenly, as Obama walks behind his car waving to a cheering public, one of the political voice over people pipes in: "Well, this honeymoon period isn't going to last forever. He has to get to business" and another "I have to wonder what that swearing in flub will cost him."

It was like listening to golf commentary. He had been president, officially, for all of two hours, and there were already people giving him shit.

But- with the sheer suffocating amount of media coverage involved in the process (and...really every process of note nowadays)people are bound to be disappointed. When the entire world knows what kind of underwear you prefer or what your kid got on their spelling test, you're bound to disappoint someone... "Oooh... that'll cost him. 9 out of 10 polls show that he really should have ordered the soup. Muffin is no good. That'll come back to haunt him- the religious right HATE people who eat muffins."

I for one am glad to have an intelligent, well spoken president I can actually root for. So give him five minutes alone to comfortably shit so he can think properly.

After all- everything is roundly and explicitly fucked at the moment. Perhaps not as much so as your average 10 'o clock newscast would have you believe, but still fucked without question. As a matter of fact, things have been fucked for a long time now, it's just that the pud-pullers and pundits are only now getting around to acknowledging it. Let's hope they don't pin it all squarely on O'bomb. He walked into this stew, after all. The cooks were entirely different folks.

We should all relax: Bush is back home, one of these days he'll settle back in and buy himself a football team to fiddle around with, and all will be right with the world. Something tells me the book tour/motivational speaking Clinton move isn't gonna fly with this one.

2009-01-05T17:49:00.000-08:00

THE 15 BEST ALBUMS I’VE HEARD IN 2008

At the end of a somewhat shaky year of election coverage, economic crises, gubernatorial hyjinx, all-around assholes and hockey moms, it’s nice to sit back and realize that it’s been a damn fine year for music.

Nothing like some good ol’ fashioned misery to get them creative types out there a-stewin’, huh?

This year I’ve yet again managed to, even on my humble income, lay down an embarrassing amount of money on records. There’s still a lot of stuff I haven’t heard yet, because as someone who DOES spend a lot more cash on music than is really even financially reasonable (it's that indoor-type sensibility kicking in again. You don’t have to talk to a record) that musical nerditude is expansive into all sorts of not-new music. For example, I laid down a good chunk this past year on Gun Club reissues, old and very rare NoMeansNo albums, not-as-rare-but-still-not-easy-to-nab Oblivions Lps, and a lot of other shit.

When you spend several days a week puttering around your one room apartment writing and drawing, records are a fantastic way to stave off the demon-voices that would otherwise have you muttering things aloud to yourself or perhaps the urge to murder a small animal or another human being. Who needs friends, huh?

But I digress…

If you don’t care (which- maybe you shouldn’t) then just stop reading. In my defense, there’re plenty of things on the internet far more nerdy than this meager offering. Of course, there’s a lot more interesting things, too. Y’know, like boobs.

Without further farting about- here’s what I HAVE heard and listened to incessantly in 2008 (in alphabetical order…sorry. I don’t have the heart to rank them- it’s like telling your children which one you like best, or which one of them is adopted…)

Matt Bauer- “Island Moved in the Storm” (La Societe Expeditionnaire)
Gorgeous is probably the best word to describe this album- an understated, poetic folk masterpiece that sounds like it was buried in a riverbed 100 years ago, and channeled through a ghost that lives in your attic.

Crooked Fingers- “Forfeit/Fortune” (Foreign Leisure)
Eric Bachman returns to the Crooked Fingers format with a record that moves away from the minimal singer-songwriterliness of his most recent solo endeavor, To The Races (2007 Saddle Creek.) Though 2005’s Dignity & Shame (Merge) was, in my opinion, easily the band’s best record to date, Forfeit/Fortune takes the southwestern elements developed on that record and stirs them with the kind of 80’s dance beat sensibility of Red Devil Dawn (2003 Merge) The result is a solid 1/2 hr of Crooked Fingers music, and a worthy entry to the band’s already formidable canon.

Johnny Dowd- “A Drunkard’s Masterpiece” (Bongo Beat)
Epic and weird, A Drunkard’s Masterpiece blends free jazz, beat poetry, murder balladry, classic rock and roll, and miscellany into an alarming and surprisingly fluid stew that plays like some kind of weird drug-inspired off-off-off-Broadway play. Every new Dowd record is incredibly different than the last- a tough thing to pull off as expertly as he does this far into his thus far illustrious career. Hearing A Drunkard’s Masterpiece, I sincerely wonder where it could go from here.

Dutchess & the Duke- “She’s the Dutchess, He’s the Duke” (Hardly Art)
1960’s bouncy pop, but with a garage-floor kind of feel that is not terribly easy to blend comfortably. But Dutchess & the Duke manage to lay down 10 tracks that feel totally fresh and some hooks that will run laps in your head with little chance of making a pit stop.

Justin Townes Earle- “The Good Life”(Bloodshot)
The son of Steve makes good. Real damn good. So good, in fact, that his lineage is completely irrelevant to the conversation. As a person who listens to a ton of old country and singer/songwriter stuff (y’know- Kristofferson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Billy Joe Shaver, JTE’s middle-namesake Townes Van Zandt) I can say that without a doubt, Justin Townes Earle stands poised to join the best of the Highwaymen of olde.

Firewater “The Golden Hour’ (Bloodshot)
Easily the most infectious album of 2008- the story of the record’s creation is a fascinating one, the hooks are catchy, the lyrics are blatantly insightful- there are no missteps on The Golden Hour. Handily the best album of Firewater’s career- perhaps the best album of Tod A’s formidable career as a whole.

Fucked Up- “The Chemistry of Common Life” (Matador)
Last year, Hidden World (2006 Jade Tree/2007 Deranged) was near the top of my list for
so many reasons Chemistry of Common Life is here now. They’ve taken what they started with a slew of self-released 7” and developed it even further- not every hardcore record can start with a flute solo and make it seem like second nature. If I were to make a “Top Shows I Wish I’d Made it To in 2008” list, Fucked Up would be on it twice.

Kid Dakota- “A Winner’s Shadow” (Graveface)
On first listen, this record plays as an even mix of slow, sad ballads and catchy pop songs. But after repeated listenings and actually hearing the lyrics, one realizes this is a thoroughly well-crafted and earth shakingly sad album, no matter what the music is doing. Songs about drug addiction, failed relationships, and a blood transfusion in Mexico after overdosing make for some heavy and intensely personal listening. Pulling off a deeply sad, troubling, and personal record while still managing to make catchy rock songs is a thin line to walk, but this album pulls it off amiably.

Langhorne Slim- “S/T” (Kemado)
Langhorne Slim’s 2005 Narnack debut, When the Sun’s Gone Down was an infectious record of the highest order, which I still find myself putting on repeatedly 3 years later. After an excrutiatingly long wait (excluding in that his also-excellent 4 song V2 EP from 2006) his latest for Kemado is well worth the wait. And his back-to-back Chicago shows this year stand as two of the finest I saw all year.

Charlie Parr- “Roustabout” (self-released)
A criminally unknown and underappreciated talent, Roustabout is Charlie Parr’s (official) 5th self-released album. His guitar skill is on par (no pun intended) with early Blind Joe Death-era Fahey, and his slice-of-life songwriting is up there with the best of them, reminiscent of John Prine or early Randy Newman. Roustabout is easily his best collection of songs (which include some serious foot-stomping catchiness) since 2005’s Rooster. With so many sub-par and just barely par roots musicians out there churning out of all things “old and timey," choking the life out of traditional music, it is hugely refreshing to hear a genuine talent breathe such life and vitality back into its not-quite dead body, making amends for all the waxed-moustache-and-straw-boater vaudeville schtick around. Charlie is the genuine article, and this record definitely attests to that.

Slim Cessna’s Auto Club- “Cypher” (Alternative Tentacles)
It’s always nice to have a new record from one of your favorite live acts. Slim Cessna’s Auto Club is still (after umpteen viewings) one of the best live shows around, and Cypher collects a lot of songs I’ve been hankering to have on wax for a number of years now. Listen to this record and try not to tap your foot (or all out dance depending on the track and your inclination/state of inebriation.) It’s the Auto Club at their finest. Honestly my only complaint with this band is the wait between new albums.

Thee Oh Sees- “The Master’s Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In” (Tomlab)
One of the best surprises of the year comes from the latest outlet for John Dwyer, formerly of Coachwhips and numerous other projects. It’s hard to even find a reference point- it’s like the finest late 1960’s proto-punk garage, but filtered from a different plane of existence. I can’t wait to run out and find everything else from this band. Like… tomorrow.

Jim White- “Transnormal Skiperoo” (LuakaBop)
Another one for the “I wish they were releasing more music” category- Jim White is a certifiable lyrical and musical anomaly. He’s yet to make a bad record, and it’s been way too long since 2004’s Drill a Hole in That Substrate and Tell Me What You See. Admittedly, this record came out in 2007, but as his live show at the Old Town School of Folk this past year, complete with a string of highly entertaining anecdotes, was one of my personal show highlights for the year (and where I picked up this record) I think it should count.

Andre Williams- “Can You Deal With It?” (Bloodshot)
I’ve followed Andre Williams closely since his return to the recording scene in 1998 with Silky, which stands as one of my all-time favorite sleazy garage-soul platters, and I can say with every ounce of certainty that his latest is the best thing he’s done since that fine surprise. And the story of its creation (see the soon-to-be-released documentary Agile, Mobile and Hostile: A Year With Andre Williams) makes it all the more a milestone in an already illustrious and notorious career.

Wovenhand- “Ten Stones” (Sounds Familyre)
One of the most unsettlingly intense shows I’ve ever experienced, David Eugene Edwards is an unmatched talent. Ten Stones, his fifth album as Wovenhand (after making the transition from 16 Horsepower) is certainly a contender for best album of his already phenomenal recording career. It is in turn delicate and powerful. And it manages take an Antonio Carlos Jobim love song (“Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars”) and (perhaps unintentionally) turn it into something thoroughly upsetting.

RUNNER UPS:
Everyone's a winner! Check 'em, jack...

GIANT SAND- "PRO-visions" (Yep Roc)
EDDY CURRENT SUPRESSION RING- "Primary Colours" (Goner)
RACEBANNON- "Acid or Blood" (Southern)
HAUNTED GEORGE- "Pile O' Meat" (Hook or Crook) (though... this one easily wins for best album name, maybe ever..)
YOUNG WIDOWS- "Old Wounds" (Temporary Residence)

SOME NOTABLE REISSUES:
I’m a dork. I make two categories.

DICTATORS- “Every Day is Saturday” (Norton)
2 LP’s worth of alternate takes, demos, rarities, and even original radio spots (including a ticket giveaway commercial) with exhaustively detailed liner notes from one of the world’s most sadly unknown punk originators

NOMEANSNO “0+2=1” and “Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed” (Wrong)
Yes, they finally had to put them out themselves. But after WAY too long a wait, SOMEONE has finally begun reissuing NoMeansNo’s epic and without parallel back catalog on super deluxe, double gatefold colored vinyl.

VARIOUS ARTISTS- “Fight On Your Time Ain’t Long” (Mississippi)
Another phenomenal collection of classic and rare gospel blues gems from the 1920’s and 30’s from Portland’s Mississippi Records, including obscure sides from such sadly overlooked blues forebears as Bukka White and Blind Mamie Forehand. To be fair, though, really anything Mississippi has released this year (or any year) deserves mention. They’ve yet to release a dud- everything has been phenomenal, from their blues and Afro-beat comps (Love is Love and Last Kind Words are especially great), to their punk, jazz, and soul reissues (check out Irma Thomas Sings, or the Rats’ only ever released LP- they being Dead Moon before there WAS a Dead Moon.)

Just go buy one of ‘em, any of ‘em, and you’ll be hooked for the rest of the catalog. It’s that good.

CHARLIE PICKETT- “Bar Band Americanus” (Bloodshot)
This compilation spans the career of one of southern Florida’s finest career musicians- one Charlie Pickett, who served his time on the tour circuit, cutting several ass-kicking records in the process back in the 1980’s. His coup de grace was a record for TwinTone, Route 33, produced by no less than R.E.M.’s Peter Buck. But, alas. The road is one helluva bitch, and Charlie hung up his axe. But in the course of his short but purposeful career, he single-handedly invented the kind of swampy electric sludge country later made popular by folks like the Gun Club and Violent Femmes (pre-“Blister in the Sun,” natch.) Fortunately, this comp shows us all how much ass Pickett kicked, and with a couple new tracks thrown in, it attests to how much ass he is still currently kicking.

Best Overall Package/Reissue:
Various Artists -“Victrola Favorites” (Dust to Digital)
Two CD’s of unspeakably rare international 78’s from the teens and twenties- all never before released on CD, some tracks recorded from the only known existing copy, and all recorded directly from a Victrola machine. Housed in a hardcover book featuring insightful (but not too insightful) texts, and time period appropriate advertising and ephemera. A fantastic package, and not terribly surprising from the folks who put out the equally-as-gorgeous-and-meticulous “Goodbye Babylon” and “Fonotone” box sets.

I hope you've found something enlightening here. I promise to only complain about things next time 'round.

What hit you this year that I forgot? C'mon- bother me with nerdy nit-picking!

2008-12-14T20:05:00.000-08:00

HO HO HO

I find myself wondering exactly WHY so many people are depressed this time of year.

That is not to question their sanity or judgment- I agree with them. Something about it is thoroughly miserable. My wonder is exactly WHY that is, because, quite frankly, even with the happiest, most stable family, it's depressing.

Perhaps it's that the end of a year is always depressing, for the same reason as birthdays. Another year has run its course. Another arbitrarily organized chunk of time passed to look back and wonder what exactly it was you raced around doing all that time that was of such utmost importance while you were doing it. The result is often a feeling of complete futility, like watching an ant with three legs scurry around in a circle trying to get itself back home.

Another theory is the forced cheer. As anyone not nailing cheerleaders in high school who was forced to attend a pep rally knows, "organized" fun is the worst kind of fun. And the Christmas season nowadays is not wholly unlike one giant forced corporate office holiday mixer for a staple manufacturing company. All is thrust upon you whether you choose to take part or not, and it is thoroughly, bleached-bland corporate. Our cheer is entirely manufactured. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was invented by a marketing person at Sears in the 1950's. Frosty the Snowman gets props solely because of Bing Crosby. When you really think about that, it's kind of like hanging up decorations sporting the Michelein Man or Frankenberry every year to "celebrate" spending time with your family or Jesus or something.

And even with as dismal as that assessment is, the imaginationally-challenged machinations of today can't even come up with any new Christmas characters to market to impressionable children. It's about time Kanye West or Fergie or somebody steps up to the plate to write a bouncy holiday jingle about Gertrude the Christmas Dolphin or Rummy the Holiday Hobo.

And then there's the lowly Jews- celebrating Hannukah peacefully every year with nary a Marty the Matzo or Dennis the Dreidel light up lawn ornament in sight. And perhaps to prove my point here without elaborating further, Blogger's built in spell-check underlined both "Hannukah" and "Dreidel" as unrecognized words. Happy Hannukah, Jewish folks! What, you mean Hannukah existed prior to Christmas, and that Jesus himself was ironically BORN into a JEWISH family ON Christmas?!? Whulp, spell check isn't underlining Christmas, so I guess it wins.

But don't let it all get you down... Before you know it, the beautiful months of January and February will be here, and the dead of winter in the Midwest is truly something to cherish.

2008-11-22T18:44:00.000-08:00

IN CRAP WE TRUST

On my way home from work the other day, I found myself eavesdropping on the two girls behind me. They were in their early 20's, having a heated discussion about the impending holiday, and the undue stress they were having in trying to decide what they "wanted."

"I just don't know. I don't think I NEED anything... I mean, I don't need any clothes. I don't need any technology. But I have to GET SOMETHING!"

"I know. It's the same for me. I just got some really cool I-Pod speakers, so I don't need those. But my mom asked me what I wanted. I don't know!"

I was wholly mentally overthrown that these weren't five year olds talking about the latest Teddy Ruxpin tape (or whatever the fuck they're into these days...) These were(at least physically- apparently not so much in the mental department...) grown ass adult people.

When I pass a strip mall, 9 times out of 10 I can say with every last ounce of sound conviction that there is not one business in it that I would use. With this comes a deeply resounding pang of loss- what've we done to this country? "Marshland? Feh! We need a strip mall that will be the NEW home to a store that only sells socks, a tanning salon, an H&R Block office, and a Hallmark store! And that's ALL too! Make sure there's plenty of parking- that wig shop is gonna blow up big time. Just run the steamroller right over those peaceful ducks, there. Fuck 'em!"

As we approach the "busiest shopping day of the year" (recession be damned) I think now is as good a time as any for us as a collective people to take a look at all the shit we have, realize maybe we don't need any more shit, and that maybe we aren't even using or appreciating most of the shit we do have.

Oh my God! Circuit City is going out of business! I say, who gives a fart. Because you can get all the stuff they sell at a million other places, including numerous featureless nationwide chain-behemoths. If you prefer buying your computer and speaker goods in a vast, depressing warehouse, I'm pretty damned sure Best Buy will still take your nearly maxed out credit card.

And yet- all diabolical diatribes aside- the truly sad thing here, folks, is that... I don't know know what *I* want for Christmas. I don't NEED anything- I don't need any technology. But I HAVE to GET SOMETHING!

Enjoy your families and foodstuffs this week. And maybe, at least for that day, don't buy any shit you don't need.

2008-11-02T10:44:00.000-08:00

BOO....HOO.

I love October.

It's about the one month out of the year here in the weather-ous (yeah that's it) Midwest where we're guaranteed at least a handful of days of non-shitty weather. Of course, that's if it's not raining all the time, or ungodly hot, or snowing. But usually there's at least a couple of gorgeous days where you can actually take a deep breath (mind the plastic grocery bags floating around) and think to yourself how damn nice all this weatherous-ness is for once.

October, as any six-year-old can tell you, is also home to Halloween which is the moon to Christmas' sun in the kid lunar landscape. I loved the crap out of Halloween as a kid- and maybe not even for the right reasons, depending on your perspective. I liked the decorations, I'd spent various times being obsessed with Frankenstein and Dracula (during neighborhoods of the year not even sharing common sidewalks with anything fall-related) and really just liked the whole idea- monsters, bats, ghosts and all that crap.

Now, I appreciate the fact that it's the only time of year it's acceptible (and even encouraged) for doctor's offices, insurance companies, and dentists to put gory rubber body parts and plastic human bones around their waiting areas- something that would be very much frowned upon in any other context- "Here for life insurance, huh? Step into my office. Mind the rubber rotting corpse- and say! My desk is a coffin!"

Wearing costumes was not something I was generally too excited about. I loved costume pieces- for a time when I was about 5 or 6 years old, I wore plastic dracula fangs constantly- even while eating- until my gums bled. When my last pair broke, it wasn't Halloween anymore, they weren't readily available in stores, and frankly, it was getting weird.

But costumes in general were always uncomfortable to me, and the idea of "becoming" someone else wasn't terribly interesting. The fake-ness of the whole thing really bugged the analytical part of my kid-brain. You could go up to your friend and say "Wow! You look EXACTLY like Batman!" and it might be a kick ass costume, but fact of the matter is, Batman is not 8. And there aren't too many popular costuming subjects that fit that sort of scrutiny when applied to a chubby little kid with glasses. I was perfectly content being that kid, watching Scooby Doo and eating macaroni and cheese.

Maybe, though, it was the fact that my mom always kind of half-assed it when it came to our costumes as a kid. She was raised frugally, and as such, so were we. Her Halloween mantra every year was, "why spend a ton of money on something you'll only wear once? This will be fine." This same mindset has since been applied to proms, weddings, and, should it come right down to it, would undoubtedly apply to funerals- "But you'll be DEAD! Just wear the nice B.U.M. Equipment shirt and weight-lifting pants we set out for you!"

As a result my brother and I had some pretty lousy costumes growing up, though we used every fiber of our being to convince ourselves otherwise. And my sister- I have no memory of her being anything but a witch for Halloween the entire time she was growing up.

I could write reams on the failed costuming attempts growing up- my brother's mummy costume that fell apart when he got to school so he ended up being an embarrassed kid in long underwear instead, or Teen Wolf (which he and I both tried on separate occasions. Fake hair from the fabric store and hot glue. You get the idea. The 'Teen' in the title just means you could wear your normal clothes instead of regulatory Wolfman attire.)

Then there was the year I went as "a cartoon character." Not a PARTICULAR cartoon character, just some kind of one, made of parts of other costumes (hobo hat, 'bang' flag gun, mickey mouse gloves, fake nose & glasses- you get the idea...) I was the unlicensed Mexican knock off, available 3 for $1, only in Family Dollar stores, in a plastic bubble that won't even stay glued to my cheap cardboard packaging, which free of any distracting graphics or information about my character- just plain brown carboard on the back for me. I should be happy to get a UPC code. They'll never know the difference. At least we had it better than those kids who had the plastic smock with a picture of who you're supposed to be on it. And a mask-front.

So- while I love the idea of Halloween dearly (I've watched "Mad Monster Party" three times this past month...) I think costumes are fine on other people, but incredibly stupid on me.

On the way to work Halloween morning, fully twice I found myself absent mindedly staring out the bus window, seeing someone in a hoaky getup, and thinking "What a jackass..."

Only the second time did I realize it was Halloween, and they were wearing costumes. Fool me once...

I then saw a group of people I was sure were wearing costumes, who it turned out were merely uber-hipsters wearing their faux-80's neon spandex and checkerboard boat shoes they wear every day, and a man in an awesome Chuck Norris costume, who it turned out was just a guy that looked like Chuck Norris.

Bah Humbug.

2008-10-22T18:07:00.000-07:00

...BUT IF IT'S FREE...

We make some shitty movies in America. I know this horse has been roundly beaten in a public forum, but I just want to get it out there that I'm paying attention, and we make a damned lot of movies that are not as interesting or clever or funny as most things one could experience staring at a dead shrub or standing perfectly stone still in the frozen food section at the grocery store.

I don't have cable- mainly because I don't earn enough money to pay for it, but also because everyone I know who has cable, especially those who pay extra for new movie channels ("new" excluding channels like TCM and such that play "classic" movies) seem to do nothing with their free time but flip through hundreds of channels only to say repeatedly "There's NEVER anything on- I wish I could just find SOMETHING to leave it on!" which seems more like self-inflicted punishment to me than something one would pay a premium for.

On a recent and rare hotel room stay, I found myself doing this exact thing. An abundance of "free" movie channels intrigued me- I hadn't had more than 8 viewing options in a good number of months. This also offered an opportunity to indulge the movie masochist within me.

Some part of me really enjoys terrible movies- obviously simple, old cheese is best. Looking back on a terrible movie from the past, one begins to ruminate on how far Hollywood has come. But this could not be further from the truth. If anything, as movies become yet another disposable product to consume and throw away, more and more studios, directors, actors, and especially writers seem to be sitting back with there legs kicked up, giving the world the collective finger and asking that it sit and spin. If you don't believe me, take a stroll through the used DVD section at your local Blockbuster. You'll be hard pressed to find a movie you remember existing, let alone something you want to buy and watch again and again. But you'll find lots of movies that look like they will suck humungous amounts of shitty, shitty ass.

But like a car wreck, I can't look away, and at times the curiosity is unbearable. I have to see what it's like: For the sake of my ego and my sanity, I have to watch and confirm everything I've thought privately and publicly about a steaming turdfilm.

Thus, on said hotel room excursion, I found myself watching "Mr. Woodcock" starring Billy Bob Thorton. Not for very long, mind you, but long enough to affirm all those bad thoughts I had watching commercials and trailers for it prior to its theatrical release. I'd imagined it was a brainless movie aimed at 6th graders with no hint of the violence or nudity that would make such a movie moderatly tolerable, with "jokes" mostly arranged around the "hilarious" last name of the titular character.

Ha. I said "titular."

The movie starts by asserting the premise that ol' Billy Bob is a ruthless gym teacher. If you think that sounds like a great idea for a movie, please stop reading this, stand up, walk to your kitchen, and repeatedly stab an olive fork into your ear.

We see Billy Bob circling a group of nerdy looking 8th graders holding a basketball. As each kid asks/answers a question, he either tells them to run laps, or chucks the basketball at them and then tells them to give it back to him.

That's about as far as I got. 20 minutes in, I'd yet to see anything that even vaguley resembled what a normal, intelligent person might consider "funny." As I'd expected, there weren't really jokes, so much as a string of mild things that happen, cushioned by wooden delivery of dry, uninteresting dialogue. I really hope ol' BBT was drunk as all fuck. Had *I* been drunk as all fuck, I'm still not sure I could've made it much past 1/2 hr or 45 minutes of the seeping leprosy sore that was Mr. Woodcock.

The next night I managed to stomach exactly 8 full minutes of one of those parody movies with "Movie" in the title (Scary Movie, Super Hero Movie, Not Even Barely Funny Movie, Shitty Movie, et al.) I have no idea which one it was, and it doesn't matter. In 8 minutes there was a Britney Spears "joke" that is already no longer current, a Michael Jackson "joke," and several other examples of dialogue that was the verbal equivalent of fully formed, piping hot poop logs sliding out of the actors mouths and flopping to the floor, which probably would've been a lot more entertaining. After 8 minutes, my seething red veil of dislike for anyone who might consider this "funny" forced me to decide whether it was worst bursting a blood vessel in my brain to continue watching.

But it was free.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and I'm on a bus here in Chicago. Lo and behold, two young, knock-a-round Cubs fans sit having a frank and pithy discussion:

"Hey dude... have you seen Mr. Woodcock?"
"Ha... no, but that sounds awesome!"
"It is! Billy Bob Thorton plays this angry gym teacher"
"Oh man, that sounds cool!"

Seething red hate-veil do your thing...

2008-10-09T16:26:00.000-07:00

OFFICE SUPPLIES OF THE DAMNED

Call me crazy, but I think Office Depot might be the most depressing place in the world.

Sure, there're a lot of sweat shops, gulags, and corpse-filled ditches out there vying for the "most depressing" top spot- an award it can proudly emblazon on the front of a sale-able sweat shirt- but no place else I've been in recent memory can match Office Depot's palpable stew of the forced hopefulness of embarking on a new and exciting career, and the smashed dreams of being fired and thrown off that career track as you slowly dissolve into spousal abuse and severe alchoholism.

I recently ventured into one, ironically to get some color copies made for this cheery poster...

...Now granted, getting copies made anywhere is an incredibly dull task (and there's really no way to change that until someone invents a copy shop that is also a topless whiskey bar) but walking into the deafening, cavernous silence of Office Depot on a rainy Tuesday night, joined only by three other disinterested shoppers and two detached, bored-off-their-tit teenage employees, where you've come only to get your job done for $.35 less per copy, is somehow as sad and shameful as waiting in line to buy porn at Walgreens.

Even with such a small group of lost souls sharing the shelter of Office Depot, there was still someone there shameless enough to argue with a 17 year old girl over a copy job. I didn't bother paying attention to what the guy was saying- the girl said she'd take care of me as soon the other guy was done fighting over a coupon for an additional three cents a copy off or some equal waste of time.

"If you could just hang out, it'll be a couple of minutes."

Hang out.

I really can't imagine a worse place to have to kill an indeterminate amount of time.

I managed to wander through the entire store- paper goods, "garage sale" signs advertising sales that haven't happened yet, fiber board office furniture, a display case featuring pens far too rare and priceless to be out on the floor for the public to experience first hand.

Everything in the place was completely foreign to me. Yes, I know people must get these things somewhere, but (like an auto parts store or some kind of bra shop) I've never needed any of this stuff.

I've had a lot of shitty Joe jobs in my life- bouncing from retail stores to kitchens to record shops, only recently managing to find a job where I even HAVE a desk. The idea that someone would need to go to a specific warehouse store to buy a magazine shelf, desk organizer, or overhead projector is kind of ludicrous to me. Every job where I've had my own specific chair-computer-and-flat-surface to work at, all that stuff has already been there. It never occured to me that an entire cottage industry for this dull shit could warrant not one, not two, but THREE giant nationwide warehouse store chains.

A bland vinyl banner overhead proclaims "CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF MAKING THINGS EASIER." Really? We've been buying all this stupid office shit for 25 years? And making what things easier? Certainly not things like building hospitals and roads or pinpointing the struggle of human existence - those things are still pretty difficult. And until somebody starts "Science Depot," it's still going to be kinda rough to diagnose a degenerative brain disorder.

While wandering around, dumbfounded at the number of dry erase marker-and-board set ups a person could purchase, wondering if buying some correct combination could make me ultra-efficient ("well I BOUGHT the dry ERASE board...") I accidentally bumped into a table that held the saddest thing I'd ever seen in a retail establishment:

A sale on motivational posters.

Here was a pile of glossy, sharp-focus pictures of bald eagles poised mid flight, and one of a cheetah, deep-in-thought, whose picture was snapped in the split section before the noble creature bolted through the tall grass of the savannah, each emblazoned with slogans that seemed to cancel each other out, like "Leadership: It takes only one" and "Teamwork: It takes more than one."

All were framed; ready to hang and inspire confidence.

It nearly brought a tear to my eye- how bad must the economy be that we have to closeout at rock-bottom prices artwork intended to inspire the United States workingperson and make them think about their place in this big, crazy, patriotic cog that is the American work force?

Fortunately I didn't have to think about it long. The argumentative guy at the copy desk had moved along, and I high tailed it over there to get my business taken care of so I could get back to my life.

I got my copies and headed outside, breathing deep. This must be how political prisoners feel as they take their first steps of freedom, I thought.

Well- political prisoners, and people that work at Office Depot.

2008-09-27T12:16:00.000-07:00

WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE

I have been fucking busy.

Which is not really a bad thing, but in the futile pursuit of just trying to hold it together and not haul off and kill somebody, I've found very few moments to rub together to do anything that is not working, eating, sleeping, or sitting perfectly still and staring at something in the hopes that the ceaseless screaming in my head will stop.

But- being fucking busy beats the ever-lovin' blue eyed shit out of being bored.

If I accomplish absolutely nothing else in the middle-of-the-road life I've thus far established for myself, I hope to be able to at LEAST say "I'm not bored." The only time I get bored anymore seems to be when I'm forced to go to something I don't want to go to- like a wedding, or a baby shower, or somone's birthday or some other tedious and supposedly "life affirming" engagement which never seems to be as much life affirming for me as it tends to be something I have to get through before I move on to the other thing.

When I was a scrappy young pup, I could entertain myself with almost nothing. But God damn this retardedly A.D.D. world we've created for ourselves where a day in and day out rat race of trying to remember shit and get things done makes us ever-more susceptible to the dreaded boredom monster in our down time. Remember having an imagination? That was fucking cool.

But alas- now the ol' 'magination is all milky-eyed and senile. It needs to go through intensive physical and mental therapy before it will be of any use to anyone. It has been beaten into submission, soiled its adult undergarments, and is now shivvering in the corner, moaning softly to itself. I find myself thinking of funny scenarios, and they usually end up with a dog farting, or someone falling down.

Clearly, I have a rapier wit.

However- I solider on, typing into this thing to calm the shrieking demons in my brain and to attempt to keep it from hardening into a useless, cantaloupe-like object.

But I digress...

2008-09-07T13:10:00.000-07:00

TO LIVE IS TO FLY...

I have not left the midwest in nearly 6 years.

Or... more correctly, I HADN'T left the midwest for 6 years up until this past month, when I embarked on not one, but two completely different trips in as many weeks- one business, one pleasure. Shaken, not stirred.

Being stuck in the same place...well...it sucks. It sucks a lot. I had no idea just exactly HOW much it sucked until I left. Like a shitty relationship in which neither person involved is willing to admit life has become a daily struggle to NOT drink a bottle of Draino, being stuck in the same place for days and years on end is a recipe for claustophobic, pent-up rage that explodes at completely inopportune times-

"I SAID NO PICKLES MOTHER FUCKER!! Oh... my... I'm sorry. I've been stuck in the midwest for the last 6 years."

Because, really- living in Chicago and driving to Wisconsin (or Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, or Minnesota for that matter) is not so totally unlike Chicago in climate or local personality to elicit an entirely fresh experience. Which is not to detract from any of those places (well... okay. Except Indiana...) I was born and bred in the Midwest- I love the Midwest. But.. I've been here a long time.

So- the miss and I decided to pack up five days worth of shit and fly out to San Diego to visit my brother and his wife. This was slated to coincide with the rum-and tremelo-guitar-soaked bliss that is the Tiki Oasis festival- a weekend of surf bands, costume contests, elaborate rum drinks, and more.

I am a sucker for many things, one of them is tiki bars. I love them. I can't pinpoint why- my first attraction had something to do with the bizarre, wholly un-PC idea of the "exotica" movement of the post-war era that gave birth to most of them. At the time "Exotica" was just a hodge podge of objects from far-flung and completely different locales smashed together into a dark, rummy bar that, when the combination was just right, also served up some type of delicious pineapple-infused form of chinese food. That's why many middle-tier Cantonese Chinese restaurants still offer things like Orange Chicken and Sweet & Sour Pork. This is American ingenuity and incompetence of the world around it at its finest. Suddenly, China and Rapa Nu'i are the same- the same in that they aren't American. To me, Exotica and the Polynesian phenomenon was a way of saying "well, you'll never be able to afford actually going to these places, so here's what we think they should be like." It's like actually going to Borneo, except everyone is white and on the payroll, there's no malaria or giant insects, you can eat fried chicken, and drive home from it in 15 minutes.

I also love surf music. Again- it stems from some long-seated obsession with classic horror films and their weird TV-based resurgence of the 1950's, when horror hosts broadcast everything from "Bride of Frankenstein" to "The Hideous Sun Demon" into people's homes. When Dracula wasn't a bloodsucking demon from hell, as much as he was a guy who wore a cape and evening wear, talked with a funny accent and drove a hot rod. The Munsters and Ed "Big Daddy" Roth (along with Warner Brothers cartoons) probably did more to develop my interests and personality than all of my familial elders combined. Thanks, TV generation. For a brief time, surf music and Mummies rub shoulders. I love them both. If I could hug the shit out of a mummy, I would.

So Tiki Oasis made perfect sense for me and my eternally up-for-anything and easy-going girlfriend (who- for dating someone whose interests in taxedermy, accordion music, and smoked meats are on an even keel- I think you would have to be) to use as fuel to take our collective first vacation in 6 years.

But... more on that later. For now, in the immortal words of the King of Cartoons on Pee Wee's Playhouse, "HERE'S a car -TOON!"

Actually... because I just seriously quoted the unquestionably gay King of Cartoons, I must now make myself another drink at twice its normal potency.

Thanks again, TV brain.

2008-08-08T17:45:00.000-07:00

THE FUTURE OF TOMORROW...TODAY!

What will the old people of tomorrow be like?

Will they have classic old people interests as the old people of today do?

At what point does one make the cross over from mostly aware adult to wearing embroidered vests and giant, head-enveloping space warrior sun glasses?

I'm currently re-reading "Roadside America" in preparation for a long-awaited, much-needed trek out of town. If you haven't read it- do. It should be required reading for school kids. Not because it's in-depth heady reporting, but because much of what's documented there represents a part of America that doesn't really seem to exist in the way it once did. And, two guys have basically made it their job to find odd shit in small town America- a job that I would punch a baby to get if it would help.

But many of the roadside meccas of old- Monkey Jungle, Marineland, the Lawrence Welk museum- are frequented by the elderly mainly because the elderly are the ones who want to keep the torch burning for Liberace enough to dedicate an entire museum to his life.

But who will visit these age-old establishments in the future? The jaded know-it-all old people we are undoubtedly in for down the line probably have very little interest in visiting a tourable missile silo constructed for the cold war.

Or... is it that humans, by nature alone, slowly develop old people interests? I have trouble imagining the club-going young girls of today developing a deep, resounding affinity for basket making, quilts, and Amish fudge. Can the beer swilling meatballs of today's college campuses REALLY enjoy the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame the way their fathers and grandfathers have?

It is an interesting conundrum. Old people things have existed since the dawn of man. I do not doubt for a second that ol' Og and Grog were irritated by their grandparents interest in lacey embroidered mastadon togas as we wild, rebelious youngsters of today are apt to thrust our middle fingers skyward when faced with the teddy bear sweatshirt display at the neighborhood Walgreens. I'm sure the younger generation of Pilgrims found riding in the horse and buggy for seven days to look at the New World's largest pillock as mind numbingly awful as many of today's youth have no interest in preserving giant fiberglass fruit sculptures.

One could go on at a good pace about WHY the differences exist. I don't care about that, as I feel they're pretty darn easy to understand. What I want to know, is at what point in a person's life do their tastes change? Is it a gradual shift? Do they simply wake up one morning in waterproof pants and say "the hell with it?" With the use of said pants is the an overwhelming, gnawing urge to purchase an enormous recreational vehicle and careen it ever so slowly towards a giant rock that looks like a toilet in the middle of the desert?

Perhaps, much like the tootsie roll pop, the world will never know.

2008-08-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

SWEET SWEET IRONY

I was out wandering around earlier today with little or no agenda, as I often do on weekends, when I overheard a very loud conversation coming from some place up ahead of me...

GUY 1: "Yeah, but there's always a bunch of douche bags there, man..."
GUY 2: "Yeah, but whatever. A lot of people think I'm a douche bag, but so what? I am!"

I rounded the bend as this battle of wits was coming to an end, only to discover that guy 2 WAS, in fact, a COMPLETE DOUCHE BAG!

How did I know he was a douche bag, says you, wondering how on sight alone I could see one's very personality?

Let's run through the check list:

-Jamming brightly colored Jeep runabout with multiple cases of Miller Lite? Check.
-Giant, face-obliterating, super-reflective sunglasses shields? Check.
-Retarded plastic visor jammed into poofy hair, cubs logo proudly displayed? Check.
-Cubs logo emblazoned TANK TOP? Check.
-HOME MADE CARGO SHORTS cut from a pair of cargo pants? CHECK!
-MAN-DALS? DOUBLE CHECK!

Perhaps this is superficial. But I feel the decisions a person makes about how they will look when they leave the house speak volumes for character. Some people just don't care- fine. I am apt to align with your worldview (meaning, I barely care.)But certain aesthetic decisions are inexcusable. Perhaps a chief bone of wardrobe contention for me is the man sandal (or "man-dal.") Unless you are Jesus, an apostle, or live in an unbearably hot climate (like- where lizards roam freely and comfortably) there is no excuse for owning a pair. Shoes are readily available. I don't think a man should feel comfortable throwing on a pair of sandals because it's hot anymore than he should be fine with slipping into a breezy sun dress. This goes for tank tops as well. Are you running a 10K? Or are you a beefy overgrown frat boy going out drinking? If the answer is anything but option A, there is again very little excuse.

I think it's the douche bags (along with their compatriots, the meatballs, frat dudes, dipshits, bar slags, and bimbos) who are swiftly removing the classiness from our fair country. If you pop on a movie from any time before the 1960's, is anyone wearing flip-flops? Are there beer-bellied party dudes wearing sports team tank tops? Kegs? Absolutely not. Thanks hippies. Way to fuck everything up.

Yes- the hippies were far-out and way anti-establishment, man. I'm all for revolution, but now we are faced with collections of their shitty offspring running around doing kegstands and tailgating, even though they are well into their 30's. Because those hippies grew up, and got jobs, and started granola companies. Once the "Wavy Gravy Granola Company, Man" had gotten its sea legs, they were raking in major corporate dollars and raising spoiled bastard kids who were not "far-out" at all, but were rather quite terrible, who would grow up lovin' that buck. Or they died of drug overdoses, in which case, good riddance.

Perhaps my chief concern with the situation I witnessed earlier today was that the guy KNEW he was a total D-bag. Seriously, to hell with other people's opinions, I'm with him there. But to KNOW this is what you're like and just let it fester? To let that indifference manifest itself in such a douche-y way? Ouch. Do something about that, guy. Get intelligent. Throw out your "bag board" and get rid of any torso covering that doesn't have sleeves.

The world will thank you- perhaps it will start a revolution, just as the hippies intended. In this day and age, nothing would say "Fuck you, establishment" quite like throwing on a nice pair of slacks, suspenders, and garter belts. Maybe the barbershop quartet look would be the new, en-vogue thing...

Eh... actually... wait- the hell with hippies.

I'm gonna go make a drink.

2008-07-22T17:20:00.000-07:00

GANGSTER'S PARADISE

I was out at the Pitchfork Music Festival here in Chicago this weekend. Unfortunately for me, I hate outdoor festivals. Yes, I'm a loud and proud advocate of experiencing as much good, live music as you can cram into your schedule, and if you live in a place like Chicago the problem is more finding the time to see everything and still be sober enough to get to work the next morning, rather than not having enough to do- a much worse situation, and one which plagued the area I grew up in back when I was lean and mean (Fortunately that situation has been changing as of late- check out what they have going on in the Quad Cities over at Daytrotter )

But my musical tastes are strangely both specific and varied. That doesn't normally jibe very well with the outdoor music festival spirit- y'know, the spirit of not really giving a shit about what bands are playing and being greatly more interested in paying $75 for a ticket to sit in a crowded, sweaty field and get baked with your friends. Usually that means the promoters will squash as many big name acts on the bill as possible, leaving lesser known acts to shiver in the corner where, if they're booked at all, they play for a collection of couples making out, a sleepy hobo and a stray dog on some annex stage.

And these festivals are usually during the summer- the juicy armpit, drenched in flop sweat season. Call me crazy, but the idea of shelling out big bucks (well.. for me anyway) to inject myself into a claustrophobically crowded field, where the ground has usually been tilled to the consistency of thick, lumpy chum, getting stoned strangers' back sweat pressed into me from four or more sides is not terribly pleasant. Add to that shelling out $7 for a nice hot cup of Budweiser or a wholesome steaming turkey leg, and you have an experience not terribly unlike hell. I believe Dante spoke of the armpit sweat, $9 turkey leg hell-level.

The good news for me this time 'round was two fold. Firstly, Pitchfork is generally a good festival. Every year, it manages to strike a balance between great and varied bands with a median level of popularity, and a good number of bands I could give a flying shit about. Perhaps only Bonnaroo is better at this, but since it was started by hippies, is frequented by hippies (despite the recent appearance by such staunch anti-hippies as Charlie Louvin, Ornette Coleman, Steve Earle, and High on Fire)and is in Kentucky, I will leave that for someone else to experience.

Secondly, I was invited to work at a booth with some friends in the record tent, which meant I was paid to see those friends, along with a bunch of folks I hadn't talked to in awhile and generally nerd out about music with people. Not so bad. Plus, should you find yourself at the Pitchfork festival next year, the CHIRP Record Fair tent is a wonderful shade and fan (the kind that blow air on people, not the other kind) filled oasis in the middle of the churning, sweaty bodies that flood the main field.

I didn't see much music. Not because there wasn't much to see (actually, there were only about 5 things I was psyched about) but more because it was ungodly hot all weekend and... y'know, fuck it. I didn't pay to be there. There are a few bands I'm kind of sorry I missed, but the good thing about living in the third largest tour market in North America is that those will be forced to come back.

I did see an amazing performance from the Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestar, a Serbian brass band that brought some serious and authentic Eastern European marching band funk to the proceedings (while it was raining, no less) and 2 separate performances from the mighty and incredible King Khan & The Shrines. Good God were they fun to watch. I'd wanted to see them for a long time- I've seen the King Khan & BBQ Show, and while, it's always a good show, the Shrines have something else entirely going on. It's part Screamin' Jay Hawkins, part James Brown and His Famous Flames, with a hearty dab of modern raunchy sensibility slathered on top. Why they signed to Vice, I'll never know (yeah, yeah, the 'Do's & Don't's' are sometimes funny..aaand sometimes incredibly ignorant.)

So it was a good weekend overall, even if it's Tuesday and I'm still a total space cadet from the weekend. All I can say is, I was out of my house for the better part of three days doing something halfway cool and reasonably interesting, and all I had to spend money on was records. Not too shabby for an outdoor music festival.

Apparently if you're shielded from the sun, have something to do when the bands you don't care about seeing are playing, are paid, and provided with free tickets, free beer, and free food, an outdoor festival can be a fun and enriching experience.

Ha ha. You had to pay.