In Today's News of the Weird World TodayIn Today's World News of the Wide Today (July 14, 2006)

In today's news of the weird world today, Steve Albini's producing a Steve Dahl song.

http://www.dahl.com/weblog/7_14_06.asp

I’m going to be working on my new White Sox song, Win Or Die Trying with the band Metalhead and legendary producer, Steve Albini most of the day on Saturday. I say my song, even though Bob Fedderson from Metalhead wrote it, because I plan on changing some of the lyrics so that I own a piece of it too. That’s why they call it show business.

Hey Dahl, he prefers to be called "recording engineer." He doesn't like the word "producer," for some reason. But then he's a little bitty twerp, so who cares what he thinks.

PRODUCTION NOTE: I'm thinking I should change the name of this feature, if it becomes a recurring thing, because it sounds too much like "News of the Weird," which everybody knows and loves and/or hates and/or is indifferent about.

Maybe for this post only, I'll change it to "In Today's World News of the Wide Today." It is about Steve Dahl, after all.

Bush Defender Speaks Up Regarding the Previous Post

"It's flawed science," says O.B. of Jersey City. "Millions of monkeys, but only two George Bushes."

I had no idea you were such a fan of the preznit, O.B. of J.C. And his dad.

Monkeys care little for science. Unless it's the science of fun!

Monkeys or George Bush?

We can guess what this drunk monkey thinks. But what does the Internet think?

Monkeys or George Bush?

Here is the number of Google hits for the phrase:

"I love monkeys" -- 70,300

"I love George Bush" -- 18,700

"I hate monkeys" -- 12,500

"I hate George Bush" -- 31,600

"Monkeys rule" -- 34,100

"George Bush rules" -- 15,000

"Monkeys suck" -- 3,730

"George Bush sucks" -- 25,600

"Infinite number of monkeys" -- 91,600

"Infinite number of George Bushes" -- 0

Monkeys or George Bush? The Internet resoundingly says: Monkeys.

I don't drink, therefore I don't blog

Been drying up a little bit this week, due to irrational or not-so-irrational fear of premature death. Hence, no blog posts. It's not so much the lack of sudsy during-writing inspiration that's the problem, as the lack of the promise of a beery after-writing reward. Anyway, sobriety is boring. Boring!

This shall pass, by 'n' by, I'm sure.

French soccerer Roseanne Roseannadanna to join A.J. Pierzynski on the TNA circuit?

I know soccer players are 100 times the athletes that baseball players are. I mean, they have to gambol up and down a "pitch" like petulant forest creatures for 90 minutes, whereas baseball players are routinely injured by sneezing.

But come on. I haven't seen a ridiculously overplayed fall like this outside of cable access semi-pro wrestling. Am I cynical, or was there a litle drama added by the Italian dude?

Or maybe Italian guys just are really bad at staying on their feet.

Oh snap! Yes I did! I worked a subtle dig at Kev into a stupid World Cup throwaway post.

No more blogs about buildings and food

Doesn't it seem like every other blog is all about restaurant reviews and what people made for dinner? I like to eat and I like to cook, and sometimes I enjoy reading people's blogs about food, but ... I think there's more than enough.

And buildings. It seems like at least once a week, all of the major Chicago-oriented blogs and/or online mags degenerate into flame wars over condo conversions and the latest developments in the blandification of the city's architecture. I ... don't even wanna express an opinion. Although I don't make enough money to buy a place in this neighborhood -- whether you call it Andersonville, or Andersonville Terrace, or Andersonville SoFo (South of Foster -- yes, I have heard people call it that), or good old Uptown -- I'm sure I play some role in the gentrification process somehow and can't afford to throw stones about it. And once at the Hopleaf Bar, a German economist pressed a pretty spirited (if, in my opinion, unconvincing) argument that I am, in fact, a "yuppie." So I try not to gripe about the buildings.

But I haven't yet promised that I wouldn't write about any. So here's an attempt at a brief tour of a few of my favorite local landmarks.

Changes are happening fast in Uptown and Edgewater -- not just teardowns but gut rehabs aplenty -- the Goldblatt's Building's conversion into a Borders, for instance. And of course there's the famous old theaters and night spots, some still operating -- like the Riv and the Aragon -- and some not -- like the Uptown. I think the world itself would stop rotating on its axis if the Green Mill went away. And perhaps my favorite Uptown building of all, in terms of sheer good looks, the Uptown National Bank (now Bridgeport Bank) at Broadway and Lawrence, seems like it will last a good while. (If you've never been inside that building, go in. It's beautiful.)

Some places are gone. For example, the Rainbo on Clark Street, which spent its last several years as a seedy roller rink before being razed for a condo development, but lived lives as a nightclub, casino, vaudeville house, and rock venue before that -- nothing but a construction zone now. John Dillinger celebrated his 31st birthday there. And Larry Fine was hired as a member of the Three Stooges there.

Enough said about the famous places. The three buildings I want to blog about now are a little more obscure. Nothing dramatically arcane (if I had the energy and resources, I might do a survey of the locations used in Haskell Wexler's outstanding picture, "Medium Cool," much of which was filmed in Uptown, but that's another post for another time), but maybe you don't know them yet.

1. Essanay Studios

I don't know how famous my first stop on the tour actually is, but to me, it's a major, major landmark. The first stop on the tour is the Essanay Studios building at 1345 W. Argyle Street, just a couple blocks from the CBRAT headquarters. The building houses St. Augustine College now, but for a few years in the nineteen-teens, it was a major motion picture production facility. Wikipedia has a decent entry on Essanay Studios, so I won't go into the basics, but what I can't help but mention is that Charlie Chaplin filmed a few movies there before moving to Hollywood, and he used to hang out at the Green Mill after work. Sometimes when I'm walking to the post office or something, which (if I take a slightly circuitous route, as I usually do) takes me past both Essanay and the Mill, I like to imagine the Little Tramp heading out for a drink after a long day under the lights.

Also, I feel a slight personal connection to Essanay. The studio was started by a man named George Spoor, who used to work in the vaudeville biz at a theater up in Waukegan, my sorta home town. He teamed up with an inventor named Edward Amet to build a device called the Magniscope -- which some say was the first practical 35-millimeter movie projector. I can't find definite evidence, but I've been told that they used to film early Western flicks (Tom Mix movies, allegedly) on the sand dunes at what is now Illinois Beach State Park in nearby Zion. The pair parted company, and Spoor moved to Chicago to start Essanay Studios with Bronco Billy Anderson.

I call it a personal connection, because the Amet and Spoor story was featured heavily in an unfinished novel I worked on between 1994 and 2000, which was set in Waukegan. When I moved to this neighborhood, in 1998, and stumbled on the Essanay building quite by accident, I was thrilled pink. And I'm still excited about it.

Essanay Studios, check it out sometime if you're in the vicinity. There's not much to see anymore, but the historically preserved entryway is kind of neat. I have a foto of it that I took myself someplace in my archives, but for simplicity's sake, here's a similar shot stolen rudely from Wikipedia.



2. Bob Hartley's House

Moving north up Sheridan Road, up at the far end of Kathy Osterman Beach is another of my favorites -- not for its intrinsic beauty, but for its pop-culture geek appeal. The Thorndale Beach Apartments, 5901-5855 N. Sheridan Road, were used in exterior shots to represent Bob & Emily Hartley's apartment building in the old Bob Newhart Show, which aired on CBS from 1972 to 1978, and in reruns forever.

The Bob Newhart Show is probably my favorite TV show, and, for better or worse, watching it as a little kid formed a lot of my ideas about "being an adult." Little did I know that I'd turn out not to be like Bob, but more like Howard Borden, the addle-headed divorced neighbor, but I'll take it. Howard lived here, too!

This is really not a remarkable looking building at all -- there are dozens of high-rises on Sheridan Road that look just like it. But now that I know where it is, I can hardly go anyplace on the Far North Side without thinking about Bob, Emily, and Howard.

I can't find a picture of it right now, so instead here's a picture I took at the dedication ceremony in 2004 for the TV Land Bob Newhart statue (careful CBRAT readers will notice a TV Land statue trend to this blog) downtown, which was held next to the building on "Boule Mich" that they used for the exterior shots for Bob's office building. (Bob's being interviewed by the Today Show in this picture, remotely. By the way, if you don't blink, I'm visible in a few of the crowd shots in the special that TV Land made about the ceremony. Yeah, I know, big deal.)



3. Ken Nordine's House

I don't have a picture of this one either, and if I did, I don't think I'd post it, because I don't think it'd be cool to post a foto of an actual guy's actual house. But, yes, I have found this place, and have made one or two pilgrimages there on marathon walks up to Rogers Park. I include it only because Ken Nordine is one of my favorite artists, and I've always really enjoyed the fact that he lives nearby.

You know Ken Nordine, right? I figure most people reading this blog are familiar with Word Jazz, and anyone who watched TV or listened to radio at any time over about four decades has heard his voice, whether or not they knew it, in about a million commercial voice-overs. Ken Nordine has the best voice on earth. I could listen to the guy read actuarial tables and have a good time. A few years ago I went to see him present some of his short video pieces at the Siskel Center, and while standing in line to get in, I heard a conversation taking place behind me, and shivered at an instantly recognizable tone. Ken Nordine and his wife were waiting in line right behind me. I just about came, I tell you what.

Anyway, Ken Nordine's house is way up on Kenmore Ave. not far from Loyola University, on a stretch of the street that's ceremonially named after Ken (Ken Nordine Place, if I recall correctly). Here's a nice description of the house that I'll just lift (because that's what the Internet is for, dammit) from here http://www.jazzspot.com/jazzspot/reviews/ken_nordine_2.htm

Nordine refers to his home as a "big old yesterday house," and the description is apt. It is three stories tall, 94 years old and very brown. It squats in a block of bland apartments in a working-class section of Edgewater. The front porch reveals a slate of mailboxes and buzzers with all the names removed save two: Ken Nordine and Beryl Vaughan, husband and wife of 50 years. When they were younger, they rented off some of the big old yesterday house to bring in extra money. But Nordine has done well for himself over the years and now the house, all 17 rooms of it, is theirs alone.

So that's my personal tour of some of my very favorite Uptown and Edgewater buildings. If anyone has any more to add, mi comments section es tu comments section. Thanks.

This unhealthy lifestyle can't be healthy for my health

One thing about having a slacky job like I have, and generally few or no entanglements of any kind at all in life, coach, is that the situation has really nurtured my bad habits. Instead of somehow turning into the responsible grown-up I theoretically was supposed to turn into at some point, here I am pushing 40, and I still like to stay up all night and sleep all day ... about four times a week.

By the time I'm done drinking coffee and checking the important spots on the web, it's the middle of the afternoon. And you know what that means -- yep. It's close enough to happy hour to happy it up ... for the next 12 hours.

It's a pathetic and aimless life, but somebody's gotta live it, dammit. Until it kills me. Which I figure could happen at any second now.

ADDENDUM: Welp, I dragged myself outside into the sunshine for a couple hours and took a walk over to Foster Ave. Beach and down to Montrose Harbor and back, for about five miles' worth of strolling in total, so now I feel totally healthy enough for another Saturday night of dumping toxins into my system like it's some kind of New Jersey. Woo hoo!

Chicago, fool!

Conan O'Brien tours the South Side with Mr. T (!), visits Sox Park, takes B.P. with Jermaine "Tito" Dye, and ... just watch it.

In other South Side Chicago news, I pity the fool who still believes the right to free speech exists in this country:

This afternoon, drinking a cup of coffee while sitting in the Jesse Brown V.A. Medical Center on Chicago’s south side, a Veterans Administration cop walked up to me and said, "OK, you’ve had your 15 minutes, it’s time to go."

"Huh?", I asked intelligently, not quite sure what he was talking about.

"You can’t be in here protesting," officer Adkins said, pointing to my Veterans For Peace shirt.

Chicks Dig Scars, Don't They?: GBV-in-Minneapolis-Gate: Conclusion

There we stood on the sidewalk, helpless, stupefied, as Kev spouted crimson from some kind of badly severed forehead artery. None of us had a cell phone, so we couldn't even call the EMTs. And the formerly meek populace of Minneapolis took its opportunity for revenge, mocking us -- mocking us! -- from their passing SUVs.

One yokel in a Hummer passed on some advice while speeding by. "Apply direct pressure!" he shouted. "In bed!!!"

So Kev died. He bled to death in our arms.

No no no. No, that didn't happen.

Actually, a helpful pedestrian gave Kev some Kleenex® brand tissue paper, which I'm sure made all the difference between slow, painful death and sweet, clinically depressed life.

But here's where the controversial part muscles its brawny controversy into the hotly controverted uhh thing. Although Kev clearly needed medical attention, he refused to go to the emergency room. Did we argue with him? Yes. Did we argue hard enough? That's the disputed issue. At any rate, he didn't go.

While Kev may be descended from royalty (I don't have the consanguinity data handy, but I think he's a shirttail relation of Prince), thankfully he's not a hemophiliac, so after a few minutes his head wound did clot, and he decided he just wanted to go home. So that's what we did. The bulk of the party took care of assisting Kev the rest of the way to the car; I took care of supporting Des, who at that point had just about lost all of his sea legs. I'm not a big guy, and 200-odd lbs. of liquid human ... yeah, I know ... poor STDPM.

Sure, we all suffered. Right. Kev suffered a three-inch gash to the forehead, and I suffered a beer headache and a stifling, mostly sleepless night on a futon, involuntarily bunked next to a snoring, night-terror-babbling ... brrr. Still shudder to remember it. I know it's wrong to be self-centered here, but please give me a break -- I'm a trained advocate, after all, and I'm my own best client.

Then the morning came, as such bastard ass fuckers always do (I'm not a morning person by any means), and Patton-slapped us, but hard. Kev, who's made of a lot stronger stuff than Dirt Moss, had to go to work, and put in, I think, about half a day. The rest of us, after coming to terms with our probable deep need for several twelve-step programs, had a pretty, believe it or not, pleasant day in a cafe near the Mississippi River, catching up on Paul Westerberg's doings in alternative newspapers and idle stuff like that. One of the papers had a review of a foreign movie -- it seemed kind of like a goofy Norwegian "Odd Couple" type picture -- that I made a mental note to try and remember to see if and when it came to Chicago -- or, more likely, to look for the DVD when it came out.

Anyway, after work, Kev decided he'd better see a doc after all. By then, of course, it was too late for stitches, and nothing could be done to prevent the inevitable big scar above his eyebrow. Not that it'll hurt his looks, the handsome devil. If anything, it should add some ruggedness to his boyish charm. "This one? This one I got in a duel with a Calabrese countess whose advances I spurned on a moonless night. Little did I know she had such prowess with a saber. Such beauty, so quick to anger," etc.

After we collected Kev from the hospital, we aimed to salvage some good times out of the rest of the visit, and just have a nice, trouble-free evening. But the visit had other ideas. I guess the visit just hated Kev. Maybe fate itself hates Kev -- he sometimes seems to think so. Do you know what Kev's birthday is? It's September 11. I remember talking to him in 2001, and he was pretty sure that the whole burgoo was specifically intended to wreck his birthday forever.

All right, nothing particularly horrible happened -- which is kind of a shame, from the perspective of this narrative, which depends on the "some horrible stuff happened, which we can all laugh about now" technique of storytelling -- but Kev's Girlfriend's car died, which was unpleasant enough. We'd gone out for pizza, which was decent, and a couple of us even had a Grain Belt or two as a hangover remedy. But after dinner ... that damn car ... rr, rr, rr ... rrrrr ... rr, rrrrr, rrr .... that damn car just wouldn't start. Maybe it didn't even make any rr sounds -- I can't remember. Maybe it just sat there like a useless fucker. At any rate, we were more or less stranded, and whatever plans we had (those I can't recall at all) were ruined.

So we took a walk to a nearby business district to look for something to do while maybe the car decided to fix itself by magic. And on the marquee of an old movie theater, there it was -- "Norwegian Comedy -- Elling." It was the movie I'd read about earlier in the day. And nothing could have been more beautifully Minnesota -- no place else in America are they going to pimp a comedy by touting its Norwegianness.

So we caught the flick, and it was great. And we took the bus back to Kev's place, and we all lived happily ever after. If scarred for life.

FIN

We dunnit! We punched A.J.!

Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski makes the 2006 All-Star team as the American League fans' Final Vote choice.

And from the looks of this foto, not only is A.J. the colickyest of all Soxes (which is saying a lot, the Sox being a very colicky team indeed), he is also well on his way to making his transformation into Darth Vader. (Cue ominous John Williams music. Or, even more ominously, Paul Williams music.)

It's OK, Mr. Kotter, I gotta note

Please excuse little Stronger Than Dirt from blogging today. He's having a hard time switching back to a diurnal schedule after the long weekend of all-night beer binges and is much too tired to blog.

signed,

Stronger Than Dirt's mother.

Together, Drinking, and Afraid: Fear and Bleeding in the Twin Cities: GBV-in-Minneapolis-Gate Part Three

Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.

"It's All Right Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" - Bob Dylan

We now return to this GBV concert, already in progress. (Some drinking etc.)

Rock rock rock. Rock rock rock. Rock rock rock. Rock rock rock.

Rockrockrockrockrock! Rockrock rockrock rockrockrock!

I don't know if it was so much the rockrockrock that went to our heads, as the feeling of power that comes from being looked upon with sheer horror and revulsion by a bunch of Minnesotans. Hahaha! You dead-eyed fuckers! This is fucking GBV, not your gramma's birthday party!

All right, you miserable worms, you don't know how to rock? We'll take you to boot camp. We'll drill you good!

Dirty half-dozen, faaaalll iiinn!! Roll call: Kev? Yo! Feral Mom? Yo! STDPM? Yo! Local-Guy Adam? Yo! Des? Des? Des!!! Yo-yo!!! Kev's Girlfriend? Oh, OK, yo. Yo, already, you hopping cretins. Yo if you must.

Sorry, KG. You might be the draftee in this unit, but you're in the army now. The buddy's life you save may be your own.

Company! Drop down and ...

Oh wait. No, you probably shouldn't do that. There seems to be a lot of broken glass on the floor.

Oops. I wonder how that got there.

Well, all right, let's stay on our feet. Let's all link arms and flail around in a circle. Faster ... faster ... The centrifugal force should make it easier to stay upright ...

Or not.

So it's every man and/or woman for his and/or herself, then. Freestyle balance techniques are in order. Establish a beachhead and pogo. Pogo for your life. Only ... watch out, Des, I think that's enemy territory.

Wow, that's a lot of tattoos and piercings on that big guy coming over here. And he's certainly walking with a purpose.

They got Des! Holy fuck! They got Des! And where's Local-Guy Adam? LGA! LGA!!! Oh man, LGA's missing in action! LGA's MIA!

Yeah, we were in the shit.

You know what they say about the fog of war. It's foggy. I headed to the rear to see if I could locate our fallen comrades. For one thing, I would have felt bad going back to Chicago without Des. It would have been a sad scene with the parents. That knock on the door, that solemn-faced messenger. "I regret to inform you ..."

OK ... Des and LGA haven't been killed, just captured. They've been escorted out the door, politely shown the exit ... because even the bouncers are nice guys at this place. I don't think Des had any idea what was going on, so he wasn't even suffering a wound to his pride or dignity (assuming he has any to begin with) ... and LGA could babysit him for a while. Which is good, because I wanted to get back to the front for "Cut-out Witch."

They say that if a fighting force suffers a 25% rate of casualties it inflicts irreversible psychological damage on the survivors. OK, Spalding Gray said that, but I believe him. We had already exceeded that figure, but the show was wrapping up, the war was just about over. But it's another fact of war that the danger doesn't end when the primary hostilities cease.

After the last encore, the rest of us mustered on the sidewalk waiting for our passes to the separation center, where we'd be discharged back to civilian life. Actually, we were waiting for Des and LGA, who were nowhere to be seen. And it was getting quiet out there, which was making me get nervous again. Downtown Minneapolis is a pretty quiet place at night. I was beginning to get the idea that it was going to be a challenge to get back to the car, let alone back to Kev's hotbox of a house. My head was starting to hurt and I wanted a cigarette. I think I forgot to bring any to the show, and had been bumming some from LGA during the course of the evening, or else I had run out. Anyway, where the fuck was LGA? And Des? Des could be halfway to Hong Kong by now, shanghaied by indiscriminate merchant marines. I really didn't enjoy that wait.

But after what was probably only 10 minutes or so, the knuckleheads, both of them, came wobbling from around some corner, and we steeled ourselves for a forced march through the mostly deserted central business district.

It's kind of ironic, given the unfavorable rating I got after all of this was over, but I was feeling pretty much like a mother hen on this walk. Jeezis, don't go through there! That's a construction zone! You'll step on a nail! Etc. Plus, I had a vague but nagging fear of getting arrested. We were making a lot of noise and looking pretty conspicuous, and I kept having to stop Des from hailing cabs, because he clearly thought we were back in Chicago. His reptilian survival instincts were only going to get us into trouble here, I figured. Somehow I didn't think any Minneapolis cops would find it funny that a drunken fool was weaving into the street to catch a ride back to Schiller's place on the North Side of a whole nother city entirely.

But it started to look like everything was gonna be all right, so I started feeling groovy again. And then I saw something that made me very excited and made me make everyone stop for a minute. The Mary Tyler Moore statue. I like that kind of stupid stuff. Mary! Who can turn the world on with her smile!

I didn't know then, but I know now, the giant moose in Black River Falls was not, as FM suggested, the bad omen in this story. That goddamn TV Land Mary Tyler Moore statue, heaving its stupid bronze tam o'shanter into the air -- THAT was the bad omen.

Because about 15 seconds later, after everybody had dragged my silly ass away from the corny pop-culture monument ... oy. Or, in local parlance, uff da. I think the ghost of Ted Knight stuck his foot out or something, because Kev -- the athlete among us, the last guy you'd expect it from -- tripped and tumbled forward, hard. Hard. I didn't see it well, but from the sound of it, I could tell right away that it was not good. You know the sound effect on Gilligan's Island when a coconut would hit the Skipper on the noggin? Same noise. You know that feeling you get when something slapsticky happens, but you know it's not funny? Yeah. That feeling.

Wow. I have known for a long time that even small head wounds bleed a lot, but it never stops being surprising to see it in action. Every wrestler with any proficiency at blade jobs knows it. Head wounds pump gore. And this'n was a doozy. New Jack hardly caused worse punishment to Mass Transit in that infamous ECW show.

...

So there we were, dazed, intoxicated, shards of glass stuck in the soles of our sneakers. Des still thinking we were a short Checker ride from a couch to crash on in Lakeview. Kev sitting on the sidewalk next to a bike rack not oozing but gushing red and wondering why God hates him so, so much.

And I think we'll stop here for today. Resolution, denouement, and epilogue in the next, and last, part. To paraphrase Frank Zappa from "Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch," Do they make it? Boy, we sure hope so!

[Factuality note: I appear to have gotten the date wrong back in part one. According to the GBV database, it appears that the show was on June 27, 2002, not June 28, although asking me to remember is unreasonable. Unreasonable! In case of geeky interest in such things, the setlist is here: http://www.gbvdb.com/album.asp?albumid=891]

Know your rights

You have the right to free speech. As long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it.

Anti-War Activists Arrested At Taste Of Chicago

Activists Were Leafleting Near Military Recruitment Booth

(CBS) CHICAGO Anti-war activists were competing with deep dish pizza and fried catfish at the Taste of Chicago in Grant Park this weekend.

Six people were arrested while trying to pass out leaflets on Sunday near military recruiters.

The flyers were entitled, “Bitter Taste of the Military.”

The activists were part of multiple peace organizations, including Code Pink, the Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism, and the American Friends Service Committee’s Chicago Committee Opposed to the Militarization of Youth and Contra Antimilitaricion, according to a news release.

The activists arrested included one senior citizen and one juvenile. Police arrested them when they refused to leave.

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/local_story_184070041.html

Booze Is All Around: GBV-in-Minneapolis-Gate Part Two

Where were we? Oh yeah, I think I was attempting to displace some generalized nervousness into some kind of giant fiberglass animal. Have I ever mentioned that I don't travel well? It did work, distracting myself with the best product to come out of Black River Falls since Wisconsin Death Trip, and one of The Middle West's finest roadside oddities. And riding shotgun for the rest of the trip didn't hurt either. Have I ever mentioned that I hate to drive?

OK, so the rest of the trip along I-94 was more or less uneventful ... or at least I don't remember much, other than a constant quest for listenable radio. (This will probably be, I'll warn you now, the mild chapter in the saga, but it should contain plenty of dark, dark storm clouds gathering on the horizon. Those of you craving blood and rage will have to wait for the third chapter.) I hadn't been to the Twin Cities since a job interview in St. Paul in the summer of 1993 for a clerkship gig with the Minnesota Supreme Court (which, sadly, I didn't get, probably due to lack of local connections, but also, I think, because Alan Page didn't like me, but I digress).

Anyway, I was happy to see the place. I don't have roots in Minnesota, but my grandfather came from South Dakota, and being a good part-Swede, I find that the whole region feels pretty much naturally like home ground. And of course I was happy to be seeing my old ex-roomie again. I think Des will agree, Kev's the best ex-roomie ever.

And, of course, the main attraction was just a few hours away, the excuse for the journey, the Guided By Voices show at First Avenue.

Unfortunately, as Des reminded me last night, Minneapolis was hot that day. Africa hot. Nobody told me it was gonna be that hot.* Des blames the heat for the immediate headfirst plummet into an Olympic-sized puddle of hard liquor, and I'm not inclined to dispute that.

At any rate, I had gotten too far away from Dr. Big Orangey The Fake Moose Therapist, and was doing laps in my own pool of free-floating anxiety (I should work harder on this metaphor, but screw it), so I didn't drink a lot. I won't get into a full box score of who drank what and how frighteningly fast, but I'm pretty sure I was the second-least drunken in the party (which, I think, worked against me later in the Kev's Girlfriend Court of Justice, but it's skipping ahead in the narrative to mention that, and I don't know if I'm even going to go into that subplot, so never mind).

Actually, this part of the story is in danger of getting pretty fucking dull. Everybody hates "Oh my god we got so drunk" stories. Well, people like to tell them, but they're usually painful to the listener. So I don't want to fixate on that, and I'll just say that there was too much liquor drunk and not enough calzones eaten at the pre-show dinner at Kev's house for people in their mid-30s to be proud about it.

The only noteworthy detail, I think, is that The Des ... The Des. Now, I love The Des like a brother, but on the walk over to the show, I came pretty close to having to put him down. And I don't mean insult him. I mean he was the drunkard equivalent of a racehorse with a broken leg. We hadn't even gotten to the club yet and he was like a sailor on his first shore leave. Although if he had been a sailor, he would probably have been wearing bell bottoms and would have tripped over his pants legs and broken his neck right then. Saving us a lot of trouble.

I wasn't keeping any of this to myself, either. During that long, long walk (I know we drove to the general vicinity of the club, but the walk from the car to First Ave. seemed to take just short of forever) I threatened Des with all sorts of Uday & Qusay treatments if he didn't get hold of himself. (Which he didn't.) And I promised to make him feel it, numb drunk or not. (I don't think he was listening.) Maybe I have some anger and hostility issues, I'll admit that, but bad, bad things had happened to (and by) Des at GBV shows before, and being several hours from home base, I wasn't feeling equipped to deal with any of that. I just wanted to rock, dammit.

Not that I wanted to be a wet blanket, either. Or to endure the show sober. I've sat thru GBV shows sober, and it's not much fun. It's kind of like going to a sex orgy and spending the evening playing Dungeons and Dragons with a bunch of Republicans. Republican dudes. Or something like that. It just ain't right, is what I'm trying to say.

So we got to the club alive and got inside, and the next two items on the agenda were beer buying and pee peeing. I think we peed first, then bought beer. It was cool inside the club and the cool air felt good. (That's the Nick Adams sentence of the story, by the way -- the Hemingway character, not the dead actor.)

And we were pumped, we were hyped, we were feeling great. We were ready for rock. Whether or not rock was ready for us. The P.A. was blasting Who songs and we were into it. (We didn't yet know that John Entwistle had died, and I'm glad for that.)

I already brought up the big glass beer bottles in the first chapter. We had a round of Newcastles or something before the show started, which was innocent enough, and stood around getting acclimated. I was wondering if the GBV fans were all gonna show up late, because everybody in the club so far seemed unusually sedate, more like they were waiting for a Noam Chomsky lecture than a rock show. At GBV shows, I usually had to eyeball the crowd to try to figure out which jamokes were likely to want to punch me in the face for no reason and then make escape plans for avoiding them when things got roiling, but at this show, the crowd seemed to be full of 23-year-old versions of all my Swedish aunts and uncles -- to call them reserved and understated would be too reserved and understated. The type of people who, when you tell them a joke they find really hilarious, let you know by lifting the corners of their mouths slightly for about half a second. It was a rock club full of goddamn Garrison Keillor characters, for crying out loud.

Mind you (and Feral Mom alluded to this in a comment to the first post), our group was not made up of what anybody would call hooligans. Or roustabouts. Or rowdies. Or even lunkheaded, corn-fed frat boys with heads full of baseball caps and rape fantasies -- which is what comprised GBV's standard audience in Chicago. We're all pretty much polite ... nerds. Nice people. (I mean, I'm listening to a Gordon Lightfoot song** right now, for Christ's sake.)

But unlike the fine local people, pink-cheeked with checked emotions, we weren't holding our feelings back. And we were feeling pretty exuberant. Not rude, not crazy, just exuberant. Which was no sin, so far.

Then GBV took the stage, and in line with our surging enthusiasm, three members of our six-person party decided to go on a beer run during about the second or third song without telling anybody else. So we all ended up with not just one, not two, but three sweaty 22-oz beer bottles in our soft uncallused college-educated fists.

And then, we started to dance.

To be continued ...

-------

* Inspirational music suggestion, Alice Cooper's "It's Hot Tonight"

It's hot tonight
Too hot for talkin'
It's hot tonight

I sweat tonight
I sweat, no sleeping
It's too hot tonight

Dogs are barkin'
Cats are screamin'
Streets are steamin'
God's own heat's the devil's demon

My turn tonight
To burn with fever
I burn tonight

I smoke tonight
I'm all on fire
It's damn hot tonight

Summer nights they
Make me crazy
Make me all hazy

It's hot tonight
It's too hot for talkin'
It's hot tonight

I sweat tonight
I sweat, no sleeping
It's too hot tonight

Dogs are barkin'
Cats are screamin'
Streets are steamin'
God's own heat's the devil's demon, yeah

** "Alberta Bound"

There's kerosene around! (Never anything to do in this town ... lived here my whole life)

At Simon's Tavern last week, I mentioned, while discussing among a small group of rock and roll nerds the topic of the constant stream of rock band reunions (e.g., Gang of Four, Blue Cheer, Os Mutantes), that I would like to see Big Black reunite.

I was scoffed at. Scoffed! "Don't hold your breath," I think somebody said.

Ahem.

OK, can you keep a secret? We just found out about more bands playing the Touch and Go 25th Anniversary Celebration. The first? Arcwelder. They never come around any more, so here's your chance. Xerxes, Pull, Everest... they’ll be pulling songs from all the classics. It will be awesome.

But that’s not all. Get a load of this: Big Black is gonna play a couple songs. For real. Big Black. Now, they’re not playing a full set or anything... just a couple songs, but who cares how many they play? This is Big Black, playing live, for the first time in nearly 20 years! And it’s the old school line-up: Albini, Durango, Pezzati.

http://www.hideoutchicago.com/press/blockParty2006.html

Fitz Asks Lisa Madigan to Step Aside for Federal Investigation of Governor Hair

We briefly interrupt the service interruption to bring you this news flash from the Tribune:

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration is the focus of an ongoing federal investigation that has "implicated multiple state agencies" in allegations of corrupt hiring, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has confirmed.

Fitzgerald said his investigation has yielded credible witnesses related to "very serious allegations of endemic hiring fraud."

His comments appear in a letter to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan that Madigan's office released Friday. The letter asks Madigan to halt her investigations into the Blagojevich administration because they might interfere with the federal probe.

This should give Lisa some spare time. Maybe she'd like to come over for a drink? Harveys Bristol Cream, maybe? I'm sure her hubby won't mind.

Service interruption

Due to a busy 4th of July weekend getting underway today with part 2 of the White Sox-Cubs conflict this afternoon, it's not too likely I'll post up any significant material until Monday evening. Just sayin'. Although now that the weather report is forecasting temps in the 90s tomorrow, I might be crapping out on the free Glen Campbell concert in Grant Park and staying indoors with my bestest buddy, Mr. A/C, and some writing might get done tomorrow. Pending any and all hangover conditions.

Tell Your Weird Giant Orange Moose God to Ready for Blood: GBV-in-Minnesota-Gate Part One

Minnesota is so cute. I just gotta say so, right off the bat. The clubs serve beer in big glass bottles, to wretched irresponsible drunkards from Illinois. At a Guided By Voices show. In big sweaty 22 oz. bottles. Made of glass. Did you ever notice that glass breaks? And did I mention the wretched irresponsible Chicagoan drunkards part?

They shouldn't oughta do that. As everybody's attorney, that's just standard advice I would be remiss not to give. Hey, they carded all of us. They saw our driver's licenses. Feral Mom was still a Chicagoan at that time (though she wasn't a mom yet, nor a famous blogger). They knew where we was coming from. They was on notice. But then Feral not-yet Dad didn't make the scene, and K.C., that rambler, probably had an I.D. from Arizona or Provence or goofus knows where, and I guess Des had moved to New Hampshire and probably had a N.H. license (and how can a state with an inordinate level of power over the selection of presidential candidates harbor wretched irresponsible glass-shattering spaz-dancing drunkards?), and the others in the party were bona fide Minnesotans, dontcha know, so maybe there weren't enough Illinois cards presented in enough time to raise the alarm. That's possible. In which case, I suppose the blame lies with ... us.

No ... that's unthinkable.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. On the other hand, I don't wanna reel back too far, either, or else we'll end up in Urbana in 1993 or something ... no, that's too much background.

Let's start here. Black River Falls, Wisconsin. June 28, 2002. Three knuckleheads in a 1997 Toyota Corolla unequipped with CD or tape player, hell bent for perhaps their last seriously stupid arrested-adolescent road trip in advance of various happy and/or sad pathways into actual adulthood. Perhaps the last time we were gonna be young enough to hear the high-pitched squeal of Rock And Roll from across state borders ... or at least the last time we were energetic, aimless, and foolish enough to heed the call.* FM and I left Chicago sometime that morning, making a detour in L-ville to rustle up The Des, and by Black River Falls, it was time for lunch. I was already suffering from my characteristic qualms and anxieties ... which I tend to have about everything and nothing. That is, until I saw this.


I dunno if this Google-snagged foto does this gigantic thing justice, but this monstrous object ... it seems to serve the Rock Gods as a booster siren, a relay tower of irresponsible mayhem-craving havoc-wreakery, because when I saw it from the Taco Bell parking lot, it gave me strength. Bad strength. Well, some. Maybe not enough. But enough to get to Minneapolis without puking from The Fear.

Not that The Fear went away. Oh no. The Fear didn't go away.

Hm.

Maybe this will have to be a multi-part post. Like Feral Mom's multi-part post this week. Only instead of being gripping, inspiring, beautiful, and ultimately joyous, it will be ... colicky as hell.

Come back soon for part two, won't you?

-------

David Foster Wallace Memorial Footnote Section:

*Well, not really my last time. Hell, I still get on planes a couple times a year to chase soul-damaging rock and roll punishment ... but I haven't driven that far to be pummeled by noise and anguish since.

They Don't Call Them Super for Nothing

Super Karaoke Funtime Band - God of Mentos

Here we see Otis trying but sorta failing to put a twist on the famous Mentos-Diet Coke Geyser Phenomenon. Maybe next time!

METADATA: This is post number 101! If things go according to not-so-firm plan, post 102 will tell the story of GBV in Minneapolis-gate, the 4th anniversary of which, Feral Mom reminds me, was yesterday.

In other anniversary news, Wednesday, July 5, will be the 20th anniversary of my first day (the beginning of a four-year hitch) as a Department of Defense Tractor Operator on the Great Lakes Naval Base golf course, which maybe I'll also bloggggg up sumpin about at some point. The life of a golf course tractor operator was always intense.

Blog stalled by flat affect

Sorry. Nothing has happened in the past few days that has angered me, amused me, surprised me, or presented itself as an easy source of jokes to me enough to blog about. As soon as the condition changes, more sparsely read posts will be popping up here like shady ads on a Hungarian porn site.

Or maybe I'll just change the blog into a shady Hungarian porn site.

Hm.

COMING SOON: HOTS-CAKES! GABOR-GY!!! Zsa Zsa, Eva, and Magda compare accents in a pictorial feature that puts the "ooh" back in "goulash" -- and throws a "guh" and a "laash" in for free! We're not in Hootersville anymore, dahling!!!

Maht as wail jump, y'all

Diamond Dave - Bluegrass Jump

The man in the red shirt said to the urinal, "Well, it's nothing two touchdowns couldn't fix."

The man in the red shirt was a good sport. As were pretty much all the people in red shirts I saw last night -- that is, those few who stayed after the third inning.

That's right -- Stronger Than Dirt made the White Sox-Cardinals game last nite! And, in contradiction to all the strange "Grinder Ball" slogans all over the ballpark this year (which I kept reading as "Gender Ball," probably due to ... uh JUST ENOUGH exposure to radical feminism over the last 20 years or so), this game was a slugfest, a laffer, a massa-cree.

Anyway, the score (20-6, ChiSox over St. Louie) isn't the point of the post -- it's the warm and cuddly message that the many, many Cards fans at the sold-out game were very likable, friendly, and cheerful -- and some of them even stayed for the whole thing. So I figure they must have all come up from Missouri. They certainly couldn't have come from Bloomington-Normal, or Champaign-Urbana, or Peoria, or Springfield, or Danville, or Decatur (or Clinton or Monticello or Tuscola or Arcola or Arthur or Charleston or Mattoon or Shelbyville or Mahomet or Rantoul etc. etc. etc. etc.), because every Downstate Illinois-based fan of the St. Louis Baseball Cardinals I ever met while living down there for six years was ... well, none of those nice things I just called the people visiting the ballyard at 35th and Shields last night. No, the Illinois Cards fans I came across were all pretty much jerks. Although hostile racist redneck Chicago-hating dickwads would probably be a more apt descriptor. Apparently those shitfucks all hate Chicago (or at least the South Side) so much that they stayed home. For that, I thank them.

Audio: Larry Bolles Presents: The Long Lost Public Address System Tape Zine: Ballroom Blitz Part One: They Break Butterflies on Wheels, Don't They?

Here now, for the first time in digital format (thanks yet again to the archives of O.O.B.), is a very early Colicky Baby Records and Tapes production, the cassette portion of a zine called "Pub ic Address System 23," originally produced sometime around May 1989. If I ever get around to buying a scanner, I'll post facsimiles of the 11-page xeroxed paper mag that accompanied the cassette, but the tape is the main attraction. It's a sordid tale of deranged youth, obscenity, rock and roll, censorship, and fighting the law and losing. Loving, living, fighting, drinking, drugging, rocking, radioing, and cartooning ... in a very dirty and socially unacceptable way.

I could write a book about the events covered by this zine, but instead of that, here's the gist: We, the publishers, editors, authors, drunkards, and sexual preeverts of Northern Illinois University's finest late-1980s-era amateurish alternative newspaper, "The Public Address System," booked a show in a local church basement to raise money so we could publish the 5th issue of the paper -- which was, all accounts corroborate, was going to be a true milestone in American cheaply produced bathtub journalism. Otis Ball was gonna headline along with one of the all-time classic Chains lineups (Glenn "Killer" Donaldson on bass, Steve Blunt on guitar, and Steve Laux from Kissyfish on drums), sharing the bill with Madison, Wisconsin's Kissyfish (Ryan Jerving, Shalini Chatterjee, John Papageorge, and I'm probably forgetting somebody else) and also various other bands and ... acts. Total rock and roll media circus. Paul Krassner meets Bill Graham, in miniaturized midwestern campus Methodist church basement mufti.

Promotional work was really our forte at the time -- in fact, I think we published the paper just to have a reason to promote stuff -- and this show was no exception. It was going to be our biggest show yet, and we were promoting the hell out of it, day and night.

Unfortunately, the promotion got a little out of hand ... to understate things a little. This audio program (which, incidentally, more or less covers the first act of a soon-to-be-produced motion picture from SMonkey Productions -- working title: "Ballroom Blitz") describes what happened next.

Rapidshare download, zip file, about 58 megs in size and about 50 minutes long in total, 11 separate mp3 files, the track listing for which is as follows:

Part One - WKDI 93.5 FM

1. Intro
2. WKDI News Update with Glen Zip Gun
3. I Don't Make Decisions Well / "Random Notes" Vandalism
4. DeKalb Blues / Unknown Noise in the Studio
5. WKDI Crap News Team Report with Steve and Glen
6. Steve Visits / "Who You Workin' Fo'?"

Part Two - One O Ball

7. (Ain't Got No) Show version 1
8. (Ain't Got No) Show version 2
9. (Ain't Got No) Show version 3
10. Walk on Water
11. Hidden Track (Hey Blues Singer)

Download link here: PAS23.zip

Sweet

Neko Case and Kelly Hogan on Letterman.

And don't even get me started about the screamy birds ...

If my new upstairs neighbor wrote a book called "How to Set Up Your New Apartment," it would consist entirely of the following:

Loudly throw all your shit onto the goddamn floor, over and over, for three fucking days.

I'd jump for joy but I'm afraid I'd break a hip

Hot on the smoldering heels of Tuesday's news reports of a study from U. of Michigan (previously blogged hyah) claiming that people get happier than they think or than anyone else thinks they do as they age, comes a story in today's Sun-Times, with the merry tidings that ages 38 to 55 (aka, "midlife") are, like, the best, and all that kinda stuff. Kick ass! I just got started! So far, I have to say it kinda doesn't live up to the advertising, but then I just learned the other day that I don't know whether (or when or why or how or ... who) I'm happy anyway, so you can't go by me. Seriously. Don't go by me. Keep your distance. I'm feeling reclusive. Definitely call first, or even better, email. Yes, I'm feeling reclusive, but also grateful that I'm only a little over half a year into the awesomest goddamn fantastic phase of my fucking marvelous life. Who's for beer? Fuck yeah!

Free Plugola (Plugilleh?) Post: Let Us All Plotz Together, or We Shall Surely Plotz Separately

Genius cartoonist Drew Friedman has a new book set for release in November, and this is the cover. I can't wait.

Edamame so fat, when the food service industry markets edamame around the country, it markets edamame AROUND the country

Enough of the goddamn edamamezes, I say to McDonalds and Applebee's and various other shitty food purveyors, dammit. The little green soybeans have really hit the middle west with a marketing impact from hell lately. They're everywhere. Apparently if it's a new menu item, it's gotta have em. They're putting them in salsa now! I am more or less indifferent to edamame qua eats, but I am definitely sick of hearing about em. Pretty soon I'll be seeing commercials for the Pizza Hut Edamame Lover's Pizza. Ooh! Edamame! Hell-thheeee! Decadently healthy, in fact! Health to die for! Why don't you kill me how you reeeeeeeally feeel? You and whose army?

Your feelings may tell you you're unhappy, but they're wrong! Old man!

http://www.med.umich.edu/opm/newspage/2006/happiness.htm

[Some crazy-ass study sez] both young people and older people think that young people are happier than older people — when in fact research has shown the opposite.

Am I happier now or was I happier then? Wrong! Survey says: Happier now! Regardless of what bullshit my stupid mood and affect spew! This is good news. I had no idea how goddamn much my life had improved with age and baldness.

OK ...

(EDITOR'S NOTE: I know I'm misreading and misconstruing the press release, but it helps my humorous premise to do so, so bear with me)

... so, according to this study, people are happier when they're older, but they don't know they are, and believe they must have been happier when they were younger? ........... uhh, something seems screwy here. You can be happy without knowing it?

I guess that makes sense. Otherwise, they wouldn't have written that song to go, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands," because it would be redundant if you automatically know it when you're happy. And "If you're happy, clap your hands" fucks up the whole meter and other music-theory shit.

My personal version of the song would go something like,

If you're happy and you don't know it, act depressed
If you're happy and you don't know it, act depressed
If you're happy and you don't know it, then it's damn sure hard to show it
If you're happy and you don't know it, act depressed

Second verse! Stupider than the first!

If you're happy and you don't know it, mope around
If you're happy and you don't know it, mope around
etc. etc. and so forth

Maybe I shouldn't have had that second pot of coffee. I wonder if a third one will help my blogging any. Stupid blog! Be less pointless!

Yawwwwnnnn ... Good morning? What's good about it?

The best thing about morning is its supreme sleep-through-ability.

We here at CBRAT are taking some much-desired if not needed time offa the day job (16 hours to be exact) this week, which so far has been spent mostly sleeping and drinking coffee (not at the same time -- yet). And by "we" I mean "me." Or, "I," depending on the grammar rules in your jurisdiction. (And by "are" I mean "am," etc. Do your own copyediting. Or copy editing. Or copy-editing. I can't even remember which one of those is right ... which goes to show how rusty I've gotten at that ... but I digress.)

I'm feeling a little remorseful about being so slothy, cuz I have some things I really need to get done. Well, they won't kill me if I fail to do them ... except for one or two that might. Such as, I was gonna bring my car in first thing this morning to have the brakes fixed, cuz they don't seem to be working right, but I got too lazy, so I'll have to do that tomorrow.

When I plan a day off, I make all sortsa "job jar" type plans for myself, as if I am a stereotypical comic strip housewife (e.g., Lois from "Hi and Lois") treating my own self as a stereotypical comic strip husband (as in, "You'll be around? Oh good, you can do blah, blah, blah, and blah around the house, and then you can go and buy blah, and fix blah, and blah. Then catch up on laundry. And vacuum the damn floors," etc.), but when the day off happens, the do-nothing urge takes over. And since there is no actual stereotypical comic strip housewife around here, with a stereotypical comic strip rolling pin or other pop-cultural implement of negative reinforcement, Mr. Screw It Why Bother wins about 17 out of 18 times over Mrs. Imaginary Get Up And Justify Your Miserable Existence.

Later tonight, when the imaginary "Lockhorns" self-interactional dual-auto-role-playing begins, followed by a drunken and harrowing solo interpretation of "Andy Capp" ... well, it won't be pretty, I'm sure.

I want more coffee.

Putting the Shun Back in

Recently exhumed from a medical waste dump outside Batavia, Illinois, is this: The only surviving video documentation of one of the early 1980s' ... bands, The Abortions, performing their ... song, "Sex Is No Substitute."

Enjoy ... ?

(Thanks to One O. Brawl for the videoismificationizing.)

For background info, see previous post on these knuckleheads here.

COMING SOON (OR NOT): Dez and the Sappy Tones' blood-rare cover version, "Sex With Your Substitute Is No Substitute For Sex With Your Regular Teacher (Am I Right Kids? Am I RIIIGHT? Anyone? Anyone?)." I, for one, can't wait.

Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon is what you'll drink tonight!

Oh boy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy.

Crain's Shuhcawgo Bezzness reports that "Pabst Brewing to move HQ to Chicago area," thanks, the magazine says, to nearly $1 million in bribes incentives (tax credits) from Gov. Rod "Not the Face! Not the Face!" Blagojevich.

When told of the deal, Mayor Daley was quoted as exclaiming, "That's just swilly! Swilly, swilly, swilly, swilly! I mean, it's swill! No one can tell me that that isn't swilly! It's the epitome of swilliness! How swilly can you get? It's swilly, I tell ya. Swilll-lee! Ho ho ho! Suh-will!"

Curly Howard, Jackie Gleason, Rodney Dangerfield, and Phil Silvers then came back to life and crawled out of their graves for the sole, express purpose of filing suit against Daley for stealing all of their personalities, and wrecking them.

FIFA Foe Fum (and Fall)

All right, listen up, team (that's Colicky FC to you, buddy). The big show starts today. Everybody be sure to put on their World Cup. Because if the world takes a bad hop and hits you in the nutsack, it's going to really fucking hurt if you don't have some protection.

But seriously, folks, who you pulling for? I'm rooting for Côte d'Ivoire, which put its civil war on "pause" for the tournament. Or at least until it gets eliminated.

BONUS FOOTBALL FUN: In case you need a little something to get you into the soccer mood, here's a clip of The Fall's Mark E. Smith reading the daily UK football results.

Also, here's the video to The Fall's evil soccer hooliganism song, Theme From Sparta FC. Hot.

God with Go!

That's what I want! Screw this "go with god" shit! I want a god with Go! Oomph! Zazz!

I want a god with a spring in its step and a yes-we-can! attitude. I want a god with a tiger in its tank, except for the tiger's eye, which I want to be in its ... uhh ... eye.

I want a god that shows enthusiasm when I mount it.

Wait ... that last one was actually sort of a reference to a Chief Dan George line from the movie "Little Big Man" ... I'm not sure why that came to mind. It seems horribly wrong. But I ain't saying it ain't true!

666 backwards is 666

I was kind of hoping, today being 6-6-06 and all, that these Damned Souls (aka, Cubs fans) hideously writhing in bronzy agony on the base of the Harry Caray statue near Addison & Sheffield would come to life and raze Wrigley Field in a cataclysm of hellish justice ... but no luck.

How to fail at quitting smoking, the masochist's way

You won't kick the demon nicotine, but you will ensure maximum suffering if you follow my simple method.

Step one: Quit cold turkey. You'll be doing this many times, so it's a good idea to learn a couple tricks -- First trick: Always waste the maximum amount of cash by buying only single packs (preferably inside the Chicago city limits, where taxes on a pack of smokes are approximately $43,500.77), because each one is "the last one, ever." This accomplishes two things: you won't have a big supply sitting around that you feel obligated to smoke for reasons of frugality, and you will feel extra stupid every time you feed your habit, which will reinforce your desire to constantly torture yourself with the quitting process. Second trick: When you finish the pack, dump out your ashtrays as soon as possible (which will invariably make you gag with disgust at the stink and filth you've been imposing on your poor body, but that's normal). Dump them someplace that's hard or embarrassing to get into, such as your apartment building's dumpster. Because chances are good that in half an hour or so you will have an irrepressible urge to raid the trash for smokeable butts. And that's just pathetic.

Step two: While spending the next two or three days fending off drug-withdrawal-spawned suicidal impulses by yelling at everybody and nobody, breaking things, and sleeping 12 or 14 hours a day to escape the sheer hell that life on earth has become, comfort yourself with the knowledge that these physical and emotional symptoms are temporary. Yes, they go away relatively quickly. However, you can make them come back again by following step three.

Step three: As soon as your bronchial tubes clear up to the point where you no longer feel like you're being strangled to death by a tsunami made of roofing tar, and your emotional status is rehabilitated to the point where you almost feel like doing something other than dying alone, broken and dispirited, go to the bodega and buy a pack of cigs. But just one! It's your last pack ever, after all.

Return to step one, abandon all hope, continue to despise your weak self, repeat. Forever.

By the way, this has been yet another "step two" kind of weekend. Feh.

The Glass Lined Tanks of Old Latrobe can go screw themselves 33 times, tenderly, as a tribute to my premium hairy ass

I don't know if I'm suffering from an even greater case of the self-loathings than usual, but for some reason I decided to drink some Rolling Rock tonight, which is pretty close to the beer equivalent of a hairshirt. Not only does it taste like diluted skunk, the manufacturers seem to have forgotten to put any booze in it. I think there is more alcohol oozing out of my sebaceous glands right now, just from a lifetime of exposure, than there is in this shitty beer. That's right! I'd be better off drinking my own sebum than this asparagus piss! Well, the night is young. It could come to that.

Hey bladder, bladder, bladder

People often ask me -- as well they should -- why I waste so, so much damn time on baseball. There are a lot of reasons that I love the game, but perhaps the biggest single attraction to me is a two-part thing: (1) the fact that they play nearly every day for over six months (and in Chicago, we're lucky enough to have two teams, so that's .. well, 162 times uhh you do the math) and (2) I enjoy the broadcasters. Bouncing around spasmodically, as I do, between radio and TV, and between the Cubs and the Sox, day after day, from April through October, and being a hopeless mass-media nerd ... geh, well, you either get what I mean by now, or you don't.

I love the game a lot, but ultimately the game is kind of an excuse for the real party: the radio and TV shows. And often the best part of the broadcast shenaniganery -- especially in a city known for perennially horrible clubs -- has nothing to do with baseball, or sports, or anything other than goofy middle-aged men filling air time.

I was first hooked sometime in the late 1970s, when Harry Caray and Jimmy "I'm Not Crazy (Yes He Is)" Piersall were announcing White Sox games on WSNS-TV 44 during the pitiful but colorful Bill Veeck era. Harry was not yet the cuddly archetype of senile dementia he was during his long tenure at WGN for the Cubs. No, he was still bitter and angry about being fired by the Cardinals for sleeping with the wrong man's (aka the boss's) wife (and how much I would give to hear some clips of Harry touting Griesedieck beer on KMOX ... OK, I wouldn't pay money, but I'd enjoy hearing it). As a kid at the time, I thought of him as a guy who was like the kind of drunken uncle who might threaten to backhand you if you got smartassy, but he'd also sneak you a can of Bud when your parents weren't looking and teach you a few dirty jokes. And Jimmy Piersall was ... Jimmy Piersall. In. Sane. Koo. Koo. By the time Piersall was suspended for calling the players' wives "horny broads," I was hooked, indeed.

These days, I generally prefer the radio teams for both clubs, but tonight the Cubs TV play-by-play guy, Len Kasper, in his second year in the job, scored some big points with me.

In the top of the 14th inning of what turned out to be a Cubs victory over the Cardinals in St. Louis, Kasper nearly made me fall off the couch with a reference to one of my favorite subjects in any context: peeing.

"I just want to mention that this game is approaching the five-hour mark," he said, "and I have not yet left this booth to ... do ... you know what. And you know me: I drink half a bottle of water, and it's all over."

Bravo, Mr. Kasper. It's not like you said "Dusty Baker is an aficionado of squatting nude with a wide open mouth on the receiving end of day-long sessions of gay Japanese bukkake." But at least I no longer think you suck.

You know what I like? Naps.

I think I'll take one right now, in lieu of writing anything for the blog. Especially since I have nothing today.

White Sox Radio Drinking Game

Here's a fun one for you drunkards out there, and you know who you are -- Every time AM 670 ("The Score") play-by-play announcer Ed Farmer makes reference to his kidney transplant, that's one drink. And every time Ed makes a rambling patriotic statement, that's two. By 7th inning stretch, you won't be able to stand. Which is a good thing, from where I recline, cuz I prefer to stretch while lying down.

If you're keeping score for tonight's game, now underway, in the 2nd inning, Ed, during a digression about how he's dressed like Huey Lewis, said that he needs a new wardrobe, but does not need a new drug, because he has his autoimmune suppressors. So that's one drink.

And now, in the uhh I think 3rd inning (hard to keep track on radio), during a digression about actors-cum-politicians (heh), he threw out some praise for Ronald Reagan, opining that he did a lot of good things for this country. So that's two.

*Hic*

Play along, won't you?

POSTSCRIPT: Cubs fans, I would suggest taking a drink every time Ron Santo wails "AUUGGHHHH!!!" like a refugee from Charlie Brown's baseball team, but it would kill you.

Corporate Communications Corner

My suggestion for effective slide presentations is that the bullet points should be made of real bullets, and they should be pointed at whoever called the goddamn meeting.

Comix Corner: John P

There's a new (to me -- actually, it dates back to February) audio interview with the brilliant cartoonist John Porcellino available for download here ... his work has blown me away for almost 20 years now. I danced in and out of a pretty surprising collection of very talented and creative people floundering around DeKalb, Illinois, in the late 1980s (more on this to come in future posts, you can be sure), and John P is one of the few among the crowd who really has seemed to live up to his potential. And he just keeps going and going, thank goodness. The audio is pretty spotty (seems to be a recording of a phone interview) but I'll post the link in case any of the few regular readers who happen to know the guy from DeKalb days and elsewhere and elsewhen might be interested (Des? Steve? Glen? John, I already told you about it). Anyway, it's less than 7 minutes long, just a 6 meg file and change, so it's worth a shot if you're curious.

And John P has spruced up his website here. If you know him, and it's been a while since you've read King-Cat Comics, it's still happening, and it's still great. Be glad.

Hero and champion of self-publishing, ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it for John Porcellino.

It's summertime summertime sum sum summertime

Whew.

Now that I have completed the annual installation of the air conditioner in the living room window, let the evil hot season do its worst! I laugh derisively at heat and humidity! Or, rather, I cower from it indoors like a ... coward. But a comfortable one.

Now excuse me while I go stand in front of the cold wind for the rest of the afternoon.

It's not today that the sky will fall on my head or that I will run out of alcohol

Comparative lyrics corner time.

Translation from crazy wacked out Belgian French to approximate English here of Plastic Bertrand's spoogetastic "Ca Plane Pour Moi"

here.

I know you got that tune in your musical collection (maybe you have 8 versions, like ... uhh ... I didn't say nuthin). Play it and read along. You'll have fun.

"Shirt them a-tear up, trousers are gone, I don't want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde ... poor me, Israelite"

RIP, Desmond Dekker, 1941-2006.

A.J. fined for hitting Barrett's fist with his face

The Major League Baseball dissssssssciplinarian's office has issued penalties for last weekend's Cubs-Sox brawl, and as usual, neither the Sox fans nor the Cubs fans are happy. The Sox fans think Cubs catcher Michael Barrett should have gotten a 20-game suspension instead of 10, for instigating the whole thing. And the Cubs fans think ... Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski (who was fined, not suspended) is a dick. Also, they think he's smelly and his feet's too big, and his piercing eyes are just captivating, although it's hard to focus on them when his ass is that high and tight. Clearly they have mixed feelings that confuse and confound them.

Sure, A.J. has a 'tude that could choke a donkey. It's called testicles, Cubs fans. Maybe you can pass a hat and see if you can raise enough money to buy a pair for your team.

(Jesus ... I can't tell if I'm writing "in character," or if I mean this crap. Oh well, what's the difference?)

Save the liver!

In a fit of inspired casting, it seems that Joan "Istanbul Not Comiskey Park" Cusack may be playing the part of Julia Child in a movie. Early reviews here at CBRAT are unanimous -- bone appetite!

And, for all you big fans of really early, early, pre-blog Colicky Baby Records and Tapes material ... or the zero to zero-point-five of you with really good memories, anyway ... maybe this will inspire me to finally start work on the long-awaited That Long Newspaper Spoon movie, "The Parsley Garnish Story" ... starring ... ?

POSTSCRIPT: Hey, quelle surprise googale, I'm in a Manuscript Collection. Are you in a Manuscript Collection? Yes? Well, me too!

Check it out.

Right there at teh U of Ioway, in Box 104: That Long Newspaper Spoon. DeKalb, IL. 6-11 (1991-93).

Take that, nonexistence!

Early Warning

David Yow's not dead?

No! David Yow's not dead, you are!

That's right, Scratch Acid are reuniting for the Hideout Block Party later this summer, as part of a 25th anniversary show for Touch & Go Records, which label was definitely one of the worser bad influences on my dumb young life, that's for sure.

Plus, the Didjits. The freakin' Didjits. Does that make you feel oooolllllldddd or what?

So I guess I'll have to start scrounging for victims companions to go to that event with me, cuz I don't wanna go alone.

One thing puzzles me, though. Someone seems missing from the bill. Can you guess who?

That's right -- no Half Slab. The band that David Yow famously declared to be "The worst band in the world" seems to be AWOL. Kevin? What's up? Come on! Make some calls!

Alderman proposes $20,000 pay hike, because he's good enough, he's smart enough, and doggone it, people like him!

I've only lived in this city for about 8 years. How the hell do the lifers put up with this shit?

CHICAGO (CBRAT News)--Aldermen would get a $20,000 pay increase under an ordinance introduced Wednesday by Ald. Stuart Smalley (51st Ward).

"I think we deserve it," asserted Smalley. "At least I know I deserve it ... I think my constituents think I am entitled to it."

Then he sighed that the Ann Sather cinnamon roll he was eating was probably just going to go straight to his hips, and asked the council for a voice vote on whether his ass looked fat in these pants.

The ayes had it.

What fuggin year is it?

Haven't we endured this kind of assholery about a million times already? Do we have to go through this shit over and over and over and over and over and over and over again for the rest of our wretched lives? Can't the prigs just get out of Arlington Heights and move to fucking Indiana or Alabtucky or some other bastion of outdoor plumbing and sister-impregnating? Or at least move to Wheaton? Jesus Hemorrhoidal Christ.

7 deadly books? Talk of ban hits burbs

A northwest suburban high school board member seeks to ban seven books from classroom use because she thinks the profanity, depiction of graphic sex, and drug and abortion references in the literature are inappropriate for teenagers.

Leslie Pinney admits she only read passages of the controversial selections, including Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five and Toni Morrison's Beloved, which were on the American Library Association's 100 most challenged books list between 1990 and 2000.

... Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower ...

... Other books Pinney wants replaced are The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien; The Awakening by Kate Chopin; Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, and Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World.

Now that last one I can sorta understand. Nothing prods the swollen hormonality of teenagers straight over the edge of 17 into glistening, groping, legs-splayed fecundity quite like a tale of hot, steamy vegetable love.

Speaking of which, here's a steamy vegetable recipe you're going to love. Head to the local farmer's market just as soon as it gets going. Buy yourself a big bag of fresh peas. Remove peas from pods, steam for just a little while -- really just warm them up; you don't want to blast out the sweetness. Toss with a little bit of unsalted butter until it melts all over the peas, and, if you want, throw in a little chopped mint. Eat them all. It fuels the body and soul for a hard day of fighting ignorance and jerkitude.

Bugger Oof!

Shame on you, Michael Barrett! The man is 94 years old!

Who's your Tiger?

Welly welly welly. Wellikers wellikers wellikers.

The White Sox have a rival in the Merkin League Central, it seems, and from as unlikely a place as M!ch!gan, no less.

Thanks to the red-hot Reds last night, and the uhh (what color is cold? blue!) Cubby-blue Cubs yesterday afternoon, the Sox and Tigers are knotted at the moment at 27 and 14, dual possessors of that ever-mercurial Best Record In Baseball.

The Deetroit-Cincinnatuh game tonight is up for grabs, I think. Give the Tigers the edge, if only because the Merkin League is generally better than the Nationalist-Imperialists.

But in just a few minutes here, Freddy "Boom Boom" Garcia faces Rich "Yet Another Rookie" Hill (0-3, 7.63 ERA) at the Joan Cusack and Byrne Piven Jr. Memorial Ballyards, so I like the Soxeses' chances. I like them a lot.

So, as Hawk Harrelson says, "Strap it on, grease it up, and hunker in your bunker" ... or something like that.

Never let me review books again

By way of initial disclaimer, let me first say that my capacity for literary criticism does not extend far beyond saying "It's pretty good" or "It sucks." Or the much more frequent, "It's sitting unread somewhere in the Texas A&M bonfire-sized pile of other books I bought and never got around to reading." But, nevertheless, here goes. Because, friends and "next blog" button clickers, I have met my annual fiction-reading quota for 2006. That's right, I read a whole novel -- and not one of the "graphic" variety. All words. And now I'm gonna tell you about it.

In the disturbingly prison-like Terminal Two at Toronto's Hoser G. McToque Intrenatiounal Aeropourt last week, I finally picked up a paperback copy of Kazuo Ishiguro's Booker-Prize-nominated 2005 novel, "Never Let Me Go," about sad British children who were cloned for the purpose of donating their vital organs to rich people.

It's pretty good.

It's Crosstown Classic Time: Two Public Service Announcements

Saving you two or three misguidedly googling Chicago American League Ball Club fans per day some time: This site does not contain an mp3 of the vintage White Sox theme song, "Go, Go-Go White Sox," just some tweaked lyrics in the sidebar. (Bonus time savers: Also, I do not know if Boone Logan has kids, or if Jim Thome is gay. But I'm guessing that if Boone Logan has kids, they are gay, or soon will be if their dad continues to stink up the mound so stinkily. Heh heh, I referred to a stinky mound.)

Saving you generally misguided Chicago National League Ball Club fans even more time: The Cubs suck. Give it up. Walter Matthau is dead, or else I'd suggest hiring him to take over as manager for the rest of the season. He could get Tatum O'Neal to be the fifth starter. But she still ain't wearing no cup.

POSTSCRIPT: I believe I have just set a CBRAT per-post record for rude oblique references to female genitalia (at, by my cunt count, two ... OK, make that three). Feral Mom, I'm taking your advice to heart.

Metadata

Our recent attempt to solicit information on Duane Dow and "Local League Bowling" has been in vain so far, but CBRAT is now on the second google google in your noodle page for a search for "Duane Dow" ... so ... that's affecting the cyberspace for you.

It feels good to exist. When my black sharecropper daddy saw me off those years ago, he told me, "Find things to post about that haven't been covered much but that a few similarly interested people might find via the Google. That way you can drum up some interest."

Then he added, "Don't trust whitey!"

Heh, doing a little "The Jerk" thing there. Next time maybe I'll reference the "He hates these cans!" scene.

If there is a next time. Seriously, people, the hit count here is okay, but a flat growth curve is no good in today's economy.

Maybe I should do a Gene Scott and refuse to post anything new until I get ... money. Pay up, cheapskates! THIS WISDOM AIN'T FREE!!!

No! Not money. I was gonna say information on "Local League Bowling." But thinking about it now, I figure the likelihood of getting either is about the same.

So I'll continue posting whenever I think of anything dumb interesting or amusing to say. Or, failing that, every other day or so. Lord loves a working man!

Whither Duane, who loved bowling?

There must be somebody out there who knows -- is Duane Dow still hosting "Local League Bowling" on Chicago public access cable?

I sure hope so. I haven't caught the show in a couple years, and cable access schedules are ... well, pretty deficient ... and the dang ole Googler is no help either.

If you don't know of Duane, and you live in the Shuhcawguh cable market ... well, you can hardly be blamed. The lack of attention his show has gotten is one of the crying shames of local-TV history.

Because "Local League Bowling" is -- or was -- simply the greatest television show of all time.

Words can't really rise to the challenge of describing it, but the gist is that Duane traveled each week to a different alley and provided sporadic commentary on the goings-on there, peppered with frequent brief interviews and locally produced commercials for south-side beef joints, auto body shops, and shady real estate speculators ("We buy dilapidated properties!") ... which might sound quaintly kitschy, from that tepid synopsis, but I'm telling you, it was THE BEST.

"Oh, now here's a fine bowler! What's your name, darling? Where are you from? What's your average? How are the pins falling tonight? And now a word from Connie's Pizza in Bridgeport."

Duane also hosted -- or, I hope, still hosts -- a local 16-inch softball show, which I also love, but it didn't have quite the charm. Softball is a pretty ... recreational ... game, as well, but it doesn't quite have that ... je ne know what ... aspect that bowling does that suits a show like "Local League Bowling" in a way that nothing else could. That sitting around and drinking beer and laughing at gutter balls aspect. And pretty much every softball diamond looks more or less the same. Neighborhood bowling alleys cannot be beat for sheer beauty and variety.

So ... if anyone knows if the show is still being produced, please pass it on.

And if, God forbid, it is no longer being produced, I'd still like to know, so I can cremate it and, in accordance with what we think its dying wishes might well have been, commit its final mortal remains to the bosom of Lake Michigan, which it loved so well. Good night, sweet prince.

(Photo by Jim Newberry for the Chicago Reader and stolen off the Internet because that's what the Internet is for. If Mr. Newberry objects to my using it, I'll delete it, but it's a great picture, so I hope he doesn't.)

This monkey is not angry, just disappointed

Fuck that. The monkey is angry, very angry. The monkey thinks we are, in fact, doomed, if this is at all accurate:

Poll: Most Americans Support NSA's Efforts

So Seenyore el Commandante Doblay-vay's approval ratings are down to 29 percent, but apparently not because Americans dislike being data-mined into the festering seas ... which they also probably don't mind are festering, and are probably mined, as well, not with data, but with louder forms of razza flazzim securiosity devices aimed more at blowing up vegetarians and other philosophical agents of terra than brothers-in-law of the Exxon Administration's favorite pet sheikhapoos (which is a cross-breed between a sheikh and a poodle, very trendy in certain places, but I digress).

The angry monkey can't even come up with real adjectives to express.

"Ookity ook!" he exclaims. "Yeeping fucking yeep!"

OK ... the monkey is having a hard time hiding the fact that he suspected this all along and is just fighting becoming resigned to the fact that sinking into a twisted Philip K. Dick novella's version of fascist klankaraklonkama is just fine with Average Ordinary Folksy Folks.

And he's only a monkey. His furious rants subside as quickly as they arise. But at least he knows what to get mad at. His human counterparts, on the other hand, are pissed as hell about $3 a gallon gas, and ... who knows what else.

Doblay-vay's bad numbers seem to be based on contemporary attention spans more than any actual rational reason to be unhappy with the administration. Americans are just tired of the guy ... because they tire easily. And, as George C. Scott scenery-chewingly said in Patton, "America will not tolerate a loser," or something like that, and the war blah blah blah .... Judging from how often I hear it said, without irony, "We should just kill em all and take the oil," Americans oppose that for the wrong reasons, too.

So forgive the monkey if he doesn't get much pleasure from The Decider's unpopularity. It doesn't really seem to mean very much.

POSTSCRIPT:

Monkeys drink more alcohol when housed alone, and some like to end a long day in the lab with a boozy cocktail

"Ah, eekity screw it," the monkey says.

"Oop oop. It must be happy eek hour somewhere right oopity now. Let's get yeekity drunk. Yeep yeep."

And We're Back

It's the little things about Canada that are weird. Like they don't call the candy Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, they call it Reese. Simply Reese. And they pronounce Chrysler with a z sound, like "Chryzler." Plus, them Canadians is all goofy, like walking stereotypes. They're all, like, vaguely dorky and goofy talking, like less-funny Kids in the Hall characters. All the men have bushy eyebrows and the women are very serious looking. All that politeness confused me. Aside from one teamster (there's a universality for you), nobody was hostile to me.

And the TV. I never didn't watch so much hockey on TV in my life. And they really have those little documentaries about animals, like "the noble Canadian beavre builds its dam, eh, and pronounces syllables different than beavers in the states. (repeat in French)"

Heh. Do me a favour, any neighbours to the north who read this, and don't take offence. I'm just joking, eh? You all seem very centred up there.

People often compare Toronto to Chicago, but aside from its also being located on a Great Lake, I didn't see it. They don't look or feel similar at all, in my opinion. The differences go both ways -- Toronto seemed a lot smaller and more civil and manageable than Chicago, but also kind of dingy and rinky dinky. That CN tower thing is ugly, and the Rogers Centre is kind of a nasty pile of dull concrete. Not that Chicago isn't filled with all sorts of brutality against aesthetics that I didn't see there. And a place can't possibly be like Chicago without a Walgreens on every goddamn corner. Which ... you decide if that's good or bad.

But mostly my trip was like something I would title, "Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss Stars in 'Elling's Canadian Vacation,'" except that it wasn't a vacation, it was a business trip. But the dialogue would go something like this:

Elling Moss: What's the point of having a hotel room if you have to leave it all the time? Let's just stay here and watch "House" on Buffalo's Fox affiliate. How nice of them to have American network TV!

Djirt Bjarne: But Elling Moss! We have to eat! I'm fucking hungry!

Elling Moss: We can order room service again, Djirt Bjarne. Only you have to call. You know I hate talking into those plastic devices.

Djirt Bjarne: All right, Elling Moss. We'll eat room service again. But I have to tell you, that was not the best fucking steak sandwich I have ever eaten.

Yonge Street!!!

There's a rainbow in Toronto
Where the colicky bloggers are bold
They always get a potfull
But they never get a pot of gold

"Toronto?! Are there jobs there, Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss? Bloggin' jobs?"

"Sure there are, nameless questioner! Lots o' bloggin' jobs! And colicky whinin' jobs too!"

"But ... in your case, that's the same thing, isn't it, eh?"

"Shut up, you straw-man hoser!"

Hey Nicki, get Vickie
You said to call you up
If I was feelin' colllll-icky
Hey little Donna,
Still wanna?
You said to ring you up
If I was in Toronna

That's right, CBRAT is going on a brief hiatus for a few days for a road trip! Wooooo! Garth and Gord and Fiona and Alice and Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss are headed north of the border.

So no posts for about a week. Talk to you hosers then.

I saw the worst minds of chicagoland destroyed by cubsness

Who says poetry sucks is dead? This post from the Cubs fan message board is unparalleled geniosity:

I'm sick of

by "tellthetruthboytellthetruth"

these kool aid drinkers saying ..i can see dusty resting players........it's freaken may 5th.....only player that should need a blow would be your catcher........dusty will do anything to get neifi in..give any excuse and kool aid drinkers will #### it right down......

Preach on, daddyo.

Governor Hair Remains Useless, Fibby

Bob Feder reports in his Sun-Times column today:

Construction could be halted today on Chicago's half-finished Museum of Broadcast Communications because of the state's failure to deliver $3 million in promised funding.

...

Bruce DuMont, founder and president of the museum, blamed the snafu on Gov. Blagojevich for not releasing funds previously budgeted for the fiscal year ending 2006 and approved for the project.

You gotta hand it to our Chief Airhead. He may be as stupid as a shoe tree, but he's managed to break just about every promise he's made in his political career, and to botch every single thing he touches. Except for that coif. Snazzy!

I'll stop short of hoping that he gets convicted of massive criminality like the last goobernur, though, and goes to prison. A better punishment would be to make him live in Springfield for the rest of his life. Ouch!

Hands Across the Water

Today while I was picking up some printouts from the laser printer, a co-worker asked me how good my World War II history knowledge was, which I thought was an interesting question, so I said, "Hit or miss. Why?"

He wanted to know what was the origin of the phrase, "Hands across the water," specifically whether it was a slogan employed during the war, to promote aid for Great Britain during the Blitz, or whether it referred to a post-war economic aid program.

The only thing I knew for sure about the phrase was that I remembered it from the lyrics to "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey," the Paul McCartney song. That song came out in 1971, and my mom bought the 45, and I used to make her play it for me a lot. It might have been the first pop single I was aware of, certainly one of the first. I was 3, going on 4. My mom was 30, which is, of course, 8 years younger than I am now, today. So I didn't know anything about WWII in connection to that phrase, but I knew it made me feel old. Or behind schedule, or something. Pushing 40 and living like a bum, a waggabon, as Krazy Kat would say. At one time of indeterminate protraction in my deluded life, I believed I was on some kind of regular person's trajectory, toward the whole fambly man schmeer ... not that I'd trade places with some parallel-universe self. For one thing, I'd probably (still) have a goatee in that reality. Seriously folks, if this is all there is, I'll take it, and all that stuff. But I can't help wondering sometimes if there aren't some rites of passage I called in sick for at some point.

Or else maybe, like Herriman's "Krazy Kat" supporting character, Bum Bill Bee, I'm just a pilgrim on the road to nowhere. A really lazy and self-obsessed one.

Going on Twenty Years Later, Bill Buckner Still Can't Catch a Break

Which makes sense, given his inability to field routine grounders, heh heh.

This thing is going around the net like things do, so everybody probably knows about it already, but I'm posting about it anyway because I was a big fan of Billy Buckner when he was a Cub, about fifty million years ago. I've always felt somewhat sorry for the guy for making that error and getting so many death threats for it, which is easy for me to say, cuz I am no Boston fan by any means.

So what it is is, some dude used an old Nintendo video game to re-create the 10th inning of Game Six of the 1986 World Series between the Mets and BoSox -- pixelly featuring Buckner's famous klutzery -- which of course was much more significant for East Coast fans than us midwesternators here at CBRAT, but it's pretty entertaining anyway, if you've got broadband and a few spare minutes, and you are a nerd. It also includes the classic Vin Scully play-by-play audio, which is pretty nifty. Or not. I'm a baseball geek, so my judgment is suspect.

Click hyah for YouTube link