“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”The greatest lecture hall performance (by Lucifer)Preface and Part One

Preface

So the other day I was at the local bodega after work, waiting in line at the register to pay for some beer, when I caught the news on the TV that’s always turned on in that place. As I was leaving work about 75 minutes earlier, I had heard a little something about someone getting shot at Northern Illinois University, but I didn’t pay much attention. DeKalb isn’t a rough burg, too much, but people shoot people sometimes there, I think. Once in a while. Pretty sure it happens. So I forgot all about it during the drive home. The local college radio stations were under programming routines as per standard usual normal.

So it startled me at the bodega when I heard the Channel 7 reporter say that at least 17 people had been wounded. Then I looked up at the screen and saw a familiar building, looking exactly the same as it did the last time I was inside it, in May of 1990. And I felt a little weak in the knees.

See, I’m an old man now. I don’t even think any of my old professors are still at NIU, and I certainly don’t have any personal connections to any undergrads there. Nor any grad students anymore, I guess. But college kids in 2008 don’t really look all that different from college kids 20 years ago. They probably wouldn’t want to hear that … but they don’t. They have more gadgets. But they look about the same.

Well, there is one big difference, in terms of language. They seem to be much more fluent in the idioms of crisis, insecurity, chaos, mayhem, and terror than many, if any, of us were in the late 1980s. They’ve grown up in a world that has kept shattering over and over again. This is an era when candlelight vigils and campus-wide lockdowns seem to be almost as common as illicit keggers in dorm rooms (assuming they still have illicit keggers in dorm rooms – someone please tell me they do). When I was a student at NIU, I think the worst thing that happened to shock the consciousnesses of the student body was that, one time, a few miscreants plastered the campus with posters for a rock show that had some dirty cartoons on them. (Which those of us who were damaged by it attempted to express ourselves … uh. Never mind. That’s another whole set of posts.)

Pre-9/11, pre-Virginia Tech, pre-everything like that, people used to get away with all kinds of shit that would probably earn you a tasing now, or worse. Climbing onto the roof of Altgeld Hall for a puff. Sneaking up to the 16th floor balcony of the student center for a few tokes with a panoramic view of Corn Country. Breaking into the steam tunnels and roaming around … while stoned. Slipping into the power plant and shutting off the lights in the library at 8 p.m. one night for a weed-fueled laugh. Getting high in the arboretum. Getting high behind some bushes in the Mall. Getting high in the bathroom at Cole Hall.

Yeah. The days of that last one are most likely over, permanently.

Which makes me kind of sad, even though it isn’t like I was going to re-matriculate and do everything all over again – despite the fact that I have frequently recurring dreams about doing just that.

OK. This is getting raggedy. I should try to focus. All right, campers, what I think I’m going to focus on is Cole Hall itself. Since I don’t know any current students at NIU, or teachers, or anyone (except Bobbo at Record Rev – woot!), I’m finding myself fixated on the location itself. I spent a lot of time in that building, and in that specific room, and it’s very easy to place myself there in my mind. I can pretty much picture exactly what the whole horrorshow looked like.

So. I’m going to do three posts about specific memories from my ancient times at NIU – (shortish) anecdotes – set in the exact room where Mr. Dweeb-ass Jerk With the Unspellable Name did you know what last Thursday. These pieces will be titled “Performance,” “Exidor,” and “Graduation.” And after the anecdotes … we’ll see. I have some other things to say, I think.


Part One – Performance

This first one maybe isn’t that much of an anecdote, but it has audiovisual aids. And I never said this exercise wouldn’t involve some rocking.

Anyway, the Cine Club used to screen movies in Cole Hall – foreign pictures, art house flicks, etc. – and I used to catch one once in a while. One Friday, Zippy Squeak-Gun and I caught a talkie from 1970 called “Performance,” starring Mick Jagger. Here's the synopsis:

Chas, a violent and psychotic East London gangster needs a place to lie low after a hit that should never have been carried out. He finds the perfect cover in the form of guest house run by the mysterious Mr. Turner, a one-time rock superstar, who is looking for the right spark to rekindle his faded talent.

And here's the trailer:



This movie freaked me out (in a good way) -- one reason being that the song "E=MC²" by Big Audio Dynamite used a bunch of samples from it, and I had played that song about a million times, so when the lines were spoken in the movie, it was like something falling into place backwards through time ... or something.



Also, I was getting pretty heavily into William Burroughs at the time, and the movie features a line (spoken by Jagger's character) that Burroughs, in Cities of the Red Night, attributed to Hassan i Sabbah (leader of the Assassins):

Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.

Which, at the time, was a fascinating concept to me. Although I never could defend it against anyone who pointed out that it's complete bullshit.

Also in the movie, this kickass song, with slide guitar by Ry Cooder:

Memo From Turner



Not much of an anecdote, I guess. Zipka and I saw a movie, which tied in with a bunch of the farkakta "counter-cultural" mishegoss I was deeply interested in at the time. And it was a movie with all sorts of violent acts and themes exploring violence, etc., that I watched in a room that, 20 years later, was the scene of a mass murder. Ooy ... it might be kind of a crummy anecdote, but I can't quite shake the weird feeling that it's all connected.

So long, Chief

This is a little belated, but here's a flashback post from April 2006 as a way to say goodbye to Roy Scheider, who died last week:


"Hello. This is Chief Brody of the Amity Police Department with a public service announcement about childhood obesity.

"Folks, if kids in this country get any fatter ... we're gonna need a bigger boat.

"Ha ha! See what I did there? That was my line from Jaws 1. 'We're gonna need a bigger boat.'

"Seriously, kids, try to slim down a little."

(References to and/or fake quotes by any person or persons real or imaginary are completely noncommercial, satiric, and parodic in nature, and are not meant to convey or imply any connection, endorsement, affiliation, or relationship between this blog and said person or persons, because there isn't any. This blog is in full compliance with Title 15 of the United States Code, Title 17 of the United States Code, Title 18 of the United States Code, Title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations, the Paris Convention, the Berne Convention, the Berne Identity, the Berne Supremacy, the Madrid Protocol, the Sigma Protocol, the WIPO Treaty, the Nice Agreement, the Nasty Agreement, the Nasty Disagreement, and the laws and regulations of the 50 United States, a variable number of member countries of the European Union, and a handful of provinces of Canada. Folks, if intellectual property law gets any more complicated, we're gonna need a bigger boat. Love, the legal department.)

Cole Hall

I'm going to write some stuff about what happened today at my alma mater, Northern Illinois University. I've already started writing it. But for the rest of tonight, I just want to take a breath and sit still for a while. In that connection, here's a reminder that joy and beauty also exist.



Charles Mingus - Goodbye Pork Pie Hat

"The true harbinger of spring is not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of the bat on the ball." -- Bill Veeck

We now interrupt our wildcat strike against Mother Nature to mark a very important date: Bill Veeck's birthday. "Sport Shirt Bill" would have been 94.

Here at CBRAT Headquarters, Bill Veeck's birthday is a major holiday. Although we prefer to observe another of Bill's wise sayings: "Every day a Holiday; Every fan -- Supreme!"



This is perhaps the earliest image of Veeck that I can personally remember -- Opening Day at Comiskey Park, 1976, with Bicentennial Fever heavy on the hypothalamuses of all red-blooded American boys, a young Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss being no exception.

Also seen, and also noteworthy, in this photo is Veeck's right-hand man, Rudie Schaffer, playing the drum. Rudie died last November 27 at the age of 96.

So. Happy Bill Veeck's Birthday to you and yours. The groundhog might have let us down again this year, but Bill's birthday is an irrefutable sign that spring is on the way. Because, as Bill said, "There are only two seasons -- Winter and Baseball." And -- finally -- here comes Baseball.

Just six days to go till White Sox pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training. The Cubs start two days earlier, because ... they need all the time they can get.

POSTSCRIPT:

In other birthday news of today's birthdays, it's Joe Ely's birthday today! It's a double holiday!



Well All Right



She Never Spoke Spanish to Me



Carnival Bum

STDPM to Planet Earth: Fuck You

I am officially on strike from everything -- including blogging -- until this goddamned winter stops trying to kill me to death.

Also. All computers in my life: Fuck you, too, and fuck your goddamned hourglasses that I spend half my waking hours staring at.

Guest Commentary: The Return of Bob Greene

We knew this day would come. We knew that, eventually, disgraced ex-newspaper-columnist and serial Nightline appearer Bob "Bob" Greene would live down the ignominy of his being forced from the words-for-pay business due to his long history of obnoxious horndoggin' catching up with him. We knew that, someday, Bob Greene would be back.

That day has, in fact, as we knew it would, finally, at last, at this time, as of now, come. In response thereto, we have a guest review of the first installment of Bob Greene's "Bob Greene Across America" (featuring Bob Greene, as told to Bob Greene, to be filed in the index of posterity under "Greene, Bob"), courtesy of CBRAT's official mascot, Des "Dez" Desmodeus, in the form of a short series of excerpts from an email conversation between Dez and yours "STDPM" truly.

STDPM writes:

I just learned that Bob Greene is back in print ... or web ... or something:

Dez replies:

...and still rehashing the same column he's been recycling for 60 years. The old chestnut "Oh, it's that evil FM radio, uh I mean boomboxes, uh I mean cassette playing Walkmans, uh I mean I-pods, uh I mean (insert new technology) that's keeping each of us in a cocoon." And are you trying to share that cocoon with an unsuspecting college intern, Mr. Bob Greene? I particularly enjoyed his line, "And she departed without saying a word of farewell. And why should she? We didn't exist." Maybe it's just you that's dead to her, Bob, not everyone in the universe. How do you get paid to project being ignored on an elevator into an indictment on 21st century America? Maybe she was able to read you as transparently as one of your worthless columns and could actually see you burning the comment "I told Curtis to bring some alcohol" into your memory cells and already scheming to somehow work your way into whatever shenanigans she had planned.

But he wasn't done yet ...

Dez replies some more:

Okay, I re-read the article again and can't believe I missed Bob's signature, "and, me, your humble reporter from the Midwest." Bob, you're 96 fucking years old! How can you still walk around with your "Well, I'm just a simple Midwestern boy who doesn't understand this high-falutin' 'technology' or people from 'the city', 'cause I come from an overgrown cow town where people used to be simple and would bowl together before things slightly changed in society 212 years ago." Ugh.

Welcome back, Bob. Good luck.

Controversial Stance Against Gentrification Taken by Aging Punk Pioneer

Happy fuckn birfday to Handsome Dick Manitoba.




The Dictators - Avenue A (Live in Chicago at Empty Bottle, 1999)

New Feature: Answering the Unanswered Questions in SiteMeter Stats, Episode Number One

Yeah, what the title of the post says. We'll start with an easy one from today's SiteMeter stats -- the Yahoo search query, "What year did Bill Veeck install the exploding scoreboard at comiskey park?" — which led one visitor to an old CBRAT post that did not, sadly, answer the question.

Well, curious Yahoo search referral visitor person, I'm here to solve that oversight right now. Because I have done the research for you, personally, and am pleased to supply the following information —

Drum roll, please.

The answer is: 1960. Bill Veeck installed the exploding scoreboard at Comiskey Park in 1960. You can quote me on it.

As a bonus, here's a site with some nifty pix of said scoreboard.

Next question?

Bud Selig Does the Impossible and Redeems Self

Those of you who follow the baseballs probably heard that Bud Selig has signed on to remain as Commissioner of MLB until 2012. The news elicited the usual series of groans and curses from yours truly, although a piece over at Slate covers it from an unusually cheery angle:

Bush just lost the job he has always wanted much more than the one he's in.

Hah!!! Yeah, that hadn't occurred to me, but it is frickin' hilarious. The scuttlebutt about Dubya since before he was Preznit has always been that his chief ambition in life was to be Commissioner of Baseball.

I didn't realize, though, just how far back that ambition went. Apparently it was a lifelong thing. Which raises the question, What kind of fucking nerdlinger has the childhood ambition of being Commissioner of Baseball? Sheesh. I mean, I gave up on the idea of playing baseball very early in life, but then I started fantasizing about being a broadcaster. Fantasizing about being the asswipe in charge of the front office bullshit? Jesus, he should have been wedgied for eternity for that.

There are other problems with Dubya's dream. For instance, there will never be a commissioner named "George." They all have goofy first names:

• Kenesaw Mountain Landis
• Happy Chandler
• Ford Frick
• Bowie Kuhn
• Fay Vincent
• Bud Selig

OK, there are a few normal names in the bunch, a "William," a "Peter," and a "Bart," but mostly you gotta be a freakishly named eejit to be commissioner of baseball.

One of Bush's close childhood friends, Doug Hannah, told Vanity Fair's Gail Sheehy ... in 2000: "He wanted to be Kenesaw Mountain Landis,” America's first baseball commissioner, legendary for his power and dictatorial style.

Yeah ... Judge Landis ... there's a hero for every red-blooded boy in America. A tyrannical, egomaniacal, racist fuckhead. If you're not familiar with the story of Judge Landis, here's a well-worn factoid (this iteration of it from Wikipedia):

Club owner Bill Veeck claimed Landis prevented him from purchasing the Phillies when Landis learned of Veeck's plan to integrate the team.

Sounds like Gee Dub to me.

I'm not sure I have ever seen a Commissioner I liked. I'm not an appreciator of authority figures in general. I gotta say, though, that my admiration for the fish-lipped, corrupt, charisma-less mummy, Bud Selig, has just risen above zero for the first time.

Marching Band Music Strikes Back

This morning on the way to work, for no particular reason at all, a one-syllable word popped into my head, and all the assumptions and assertions of the previous few weeks, vis a vis marching bands, was called into controversy, doubt, and confusion. That word was, "Tusk."

When this video first aired on "Solid Gold," I definitely thought the Trojan marching band was hella cool. Of course, I was a complete geekun dorkmus at the time, but I think I was in sixth or seventh grade. Give me a break. I got worse later.



Nice old footage of Dodger Stadium, by the way, with the original yellow seats, before they switched to blue seats ... and then back to yellow seats in the last couple of years. But I digress.

Oh yeah, and then a little farther up the Edens Expressway this morning, I remembered an even shorter word in favor of marching bands, in terms of personal code words -- "Bud." That one isn't as self-explanatory.

When I was a kid in my frickin' wholesome Illinois small town, parades were a big deal. There wasn't really a lot of spectacle going on most of the time, so the occasional long line of fire trucks, clowns, soldiers, baton twirlers, and candy-throwing politicians winding down the main street was pretty exciting. An added attraction was the fact that our street lay along the set-up zone -- or whatever the hell I should call it -- for all the parades, so the different units would be gathering and lining up all over the neighborhood early in the morning on parade days. I love to get the backstage, behind-the-scenes perspective whenever I can ... I guess that's where I developed that affinity.

Anyway, marching band music was, of course, a big part of the whole parade burgoo. My favorite part of the marching band segment of the parade was the drum cadence they'd march to when they weren't playing a song. I'd feel the rumble of the beat in my chest before I could really hear it, as they approached from the left (parades always went east to west in my home town, and I always stood on the north side of the main street ... I guess because that was the side we lived on).

I wasn't so in love with the music itself, which they'd fire up when they got to the reviewing stand by the park in what passed for "downtown." Except I did love -- and in fact considered it the highlight of the parade -- to listen to the junior high (Viking School, yes, home of the Viking Vikings, I shit you not) band during the three or so years in the mid-1970s when they were run by a particular band director with a pretty good sense of humor. Viking School's colors were (and still are) red and white -- which happen to be the colors featured in Anheuser-Busch's trade dress for its Budweiser® brand beer-like-beverage-product. So, this band director adopted, as a band theme song, Budweiser's theme song, "Here Comes the King," also popularly known as "When You Say Bud."



I vaguely recall that a few eyebrows were raised at the band director's putting up a bunch of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders to playing a beer company's commercial jingle on their dewy, tender, practically virginal musical instruments, but if the owners of those eyebrows said anything, they were brushed off. I'm pretty sure the song remained the Viking School Marching Band theme song until that particular band diretor retired, which unfortunately happened a year or two before I got to junior high age, so that era was strickly an awe from below deal, a young punk admiring the older kids thing.

Just as well. I quit band after about four weeks of struggling with a french horn in 4th grade. I never have quite gotten over it. Goddamn french horn. Pretty sure it's still back at the old house -- it was my mom's horn from her school days in the 1950s. Next time I go home, I'm gonna find it, and kick it right in the back end of the case. That'll teach it to reveal my lack of musical aptitude!

POSTSCRIPT: Apparently it's a marching band tradition at Georgia Tech games to play the Budweiser song at some point in the Saturday stupidity. Marching bands might be OK in some contexts, but in college, they are evil. Eeeeville.

Muhammad Ali -- The Greatest of All Time

Happy birthday, Champ.



Johnny Wakelin and the Kinshasa Band - Black Superman

The 2007 CBRAT YouTube Veddeo Awards -- Best Song

The CBRAT YouTube Veddeo Award for best song of 2007 ... is a tie. I just can't pick between these two, from the outstanding album, "We'll Never Turn Back." So they both win.



Mavis Staples - Down in Mississippi



Mavis Staples - 99 and 1/2

Happy birthday, Elvis, wherever you are

Friends, I don't care who you are or what you may be, but if you can't agree that the world would be at least a little bit more fun of a place to live in today if we'd have been blessed to have a 73-year-old Elvis Presley alive among us on Earth right now and blowing out some candles on a big old birthday cake, well, then I don't know what.



Polk Salad Annie

Seventy-six trombones ... would be seventy-five more than it would take to make me jump off a cliff

It seems like the hideous, tedious, seemingly endless college bowl season is going to come to a close, at long last, after tonight's championship game ... please, God. The BCS system has more bowls than the world's biggest head shop. And, this season, despite a few half-hearted attempts, I have succeeded in watching more than two minutes of none. Nor did I watch more than a few minutes of any college football game during the regular season. So, tonight's my last chance until autumn to do something I really hate doing -- watch college football!

I don't think I'll last more than another few seconds. The pre-game show itself, obnoxiously bleating in the background, made me finally realize why I can't get into college football, even slightly.

It's because I fucking hate marching band music. I never quite realized how much I hated it before now, but the urge to throw myself outside into the thunderstorming night and under a lightning bolt is giving me a clue as to how deep and broad my despisementition of this awful noise goes. I apologize to anyone who was a band nerd ... Wait. No. No, I don't. YOU apologize to ME.

Jesus Christ, it sounds like a column of fascists torturing cats. Farting cats. And farting fascists. With farting cats in their assholes. Actually, I take that back. What I've just described would probably sound pretty damn cool. Marching band music, on the other hand, is just bombastic, shrill, assaultive, and ugly.

Ach. It almost makes me wish they'd start running that goddamn They Might Be Giants "That's FrItalian" Dunkin Donuts commercial again during every break (sometimes twice in a row), just to wash the stink of brass and valve-drained spit out of my brain. Almost.

If Ken Williams can wake up long enough to make a trade, I guess I can wake up long enough to blog about it

I like the Nick Swisher trade. Prospects be fucked. Prospects are like the first pancake in a batch -- you never know how they're gonna turn out -- fluffy, delicious, and VORPy, or torn, overcooked, and disgusting. Swisher is going to work out well for the Sox. Hey, I'm the guy who correctly predicted how much the Sox would suck last season, so you can trust me. Yes! I know everything before it's gonna happen! Spooky, huh?

Jesus Christ, a lot of Sox fans are whiny ass titty babies. You'd think they were Cubs fans, for crying out loud.

"Boo hoo! Kenny traded De los dos del los las dis dat deez doze Santos! He traded Geo Metro ... or whatever his name is!"

Yup, two minor league pitchers in their early 20s who may or may not end up being any good at all. (Also traded: a minor league outfielder whom we already know is for crap.) Two days ago they were kvetching about how he hadn't made enough deals this off-season.

"But we meant that he should get somebody awesome without giving up anybody at all!!! WAAAHHH!!! We got pwnzored by Billy Beane again!!!!!!"

Uh ... I think you got off the Red Line at the wrong stop. I think you meant to exit at Addison. You whining pussy of a straw-man pretend fan.

Granted, Kenny has been assfucked in the ass time and again by Beane, anorectally in the butt. And this deal, by itself, does not put the White Sox in a position where they're going to do better than 4th place in 2008 (you heard it here, folks -- the Sox are going to stink to high heaven again) -- nor does it do anything to improve their future outlook.

But ... and here comes one more crazy prediction, folks ... after the creaky and aging Paulie Konerko gets traded along with with injury- and Boras-representation-plagued Joe Crede to the O.C. Angels of Anaheim, Aztlan, y California (or whatever their name is this year) for Chone Figgins and a mint-condition Farrah Fawcett poster, Kenny and the White Sox are going to look much better.

After, that is, torch-and-pitchfork-wielding South Siders tantrum themselves out and collapse into an "Oh, aren't they cute when they sleep?" state of exhaustion due to what will surely be a highly unpopular move, Paulie being as irrationally beloved as he is among the White Sox District. (No "Nation" for you, small-market fans!)

Yeah. So the followings are goings to happens: Nick Swisher is going to get on base a lot, hit a respectable number of home runs in home-run-friendly Sox Park, and get a nice tally of RBIs and runs scored and OBP and yippa yappa, etc. He will be serviceable at first base -- which position will be open because Paulie will be outta hyah. And Chone Figgins is going to kick ass at shortstop after -- thank yeeee, Baby Jesus -- Juan Uribe is fie-nuh-lee gotten rid of (for a can of wasabi peanuts and a half-hearted neck rub, I'm guessing). And Josh Fields is gonna be decent at third base and people are gonna like him.

And the White Sox will be lucky to finish in third place.

Meanwhile, on the North Side, the Cubs will look like strong contenders for at least three days this season, before they fold like skillfully prepared omelets that are much less delicious than actual non-baseball-team versions of said breakfast treats and ... win the division anyway, cuz their division looks like it's gonna suck. But they will lose dismally in the playoffs again. Granted, that's a blue chip prediction, but I don't have any outlandish ones to make about the Cubbies. Except that Mark Cuban will not be buying them ... which, come to think of it, is not exactly going out on a limb either.

In other (i.e., non-baseball) news, here we are in 2008. I hope it doesn't suck as much as 2007 did, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be even worse. Much, much worse. My crystal ball contains images of health worries, professional miseries, and continued increases in extreme alienation levels dominating the timescape this year -- and those are the good things in store. And 2009? Good God, I don't even wanna think about it. If I'm still alive, ask me then.

But on the bright side, it's only 40 days till pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training.

And YouTube Xmas comes early for STDPM

I've been waiting for someone to repost the higher-rez version of this rare vocal performance by Link Wray, and finally somebody did.



Trying to Find Your Love

BONUS:



LINCOLN HIGHWAY DEKALB illinois: Link Wray High Way

"Isn't there ANYONE who knows what Christmas is all ABOUT!?!"

Hey, this is pretty damn fancy, and kudos to the dude that frickita frakked that thing together, but ... something doesn't seem right.



"I have over 45,000 lights synchronized to music using 216 channels of Light-O-Rama [and synched to Linus and Lucy, man ... can you feel my might?]"

Compare and contrast.



Colicky Christmas, everyone!

"And on the continent of North America, winter became very, very unhappy. Decided to stay."-- Gil Scott-Heron

Winter in America (1990)



Winter in America & Whitey on the Moon (vintage unknown)



A Lovely Day (SNL, December 13, 1975)

David Eckstein is not scrappy -- but I am

While whiling away these gray and wintry days of winter, I have been enjoying the multi-post discourse about the alleged and vaunted, and allegedly vaunted, and vauntedly alleged "scrappiness" of Mr. David Eckstein (most notably in recent years, the very short shortstop for the St Louis base-ball Cardinals of Missouri, and next season to be a hyperbolically overpaid [and still underheighted] shortstop for the Toronto base-ball Blue Jays of Oh, Canada, blah blah blah, true patriot love in all thy sons command [repeat en français, s'il vous plait]) at the most excellent and hilarious skewerer of bad sports journalism (and particularly bad baseball journalism), Fire Joe Morgan.

Over there lately there has some good fun made of a crappy sportswriter's ado-making about a Google search on the assertion, "David Eckstein is scrappy," and the gnipgnopulously huge number of hits that result from that string. (Subsequently, a reader pointed out that many hits also result from googling "David Eckstein is crappy," which amused me a great deal ... so now you know just how easy to amuse I am.)

In connection with all of that, there's a thing I have just discovered that could be relevant to the analysis (but probably not). To wit:

If you Google the string, in quotes, "David Eckstein is not scrappy", you get ZERO hits. None. Nada. Bupkis, non-etc.

Therefore, there is nobody in the Internet that affirmatively affirms that this particular itty bitty ball player is "not scrappy." They either think he's scrappy, or they have held their tongues ... er, keyboard fingers.

What that means is nobody's guess, because nobody cares. Not that I'm letting that stop me. Because this is a scrappy blog, and I am a scrappy blogger. Scrappier than Dirt, even. Too small for the game, but scrappy to the finish.

Ess ayy tee yoo arr, dee ayy why ... NIGHT! YouTube Veddeos -- "Work Song" Edition

Music by Nat Adderley; lyrics by Oscar Brown, Jr.



Bobby Darin



Nina Simone



Ventures - Medley



Abluesados



Good Wood plays at The Coast Bastion Hotel in Nanaimo British Columbia



Shuffle Republic playing Work Song live at the Coogee Bay Hotel



Some dude wailing on a harp doing something along the lines of the Paul Butterfield version, which I can't find a better rendition of on these damns YouTubes, but I kind of like this one, and he sings the words, so it's copacetic, baby



Some other dude wailing on a harp and explaining himself



How many dudes wailing on a harp to "Work Song" are there on the Internet?



Cannonball Adderley

Just needs to work on the jowlage a little bit

In this pic cribbed from the NY Post, here's one David Letterman doing a pretty good impersonation of yours truly, Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss. Welcome to the fraternity of the weird beards, Dave.

In other news, the electric baseboard heater in the war room here at CBRAT Central shorted out last night -- with a very loud buzz and a pop, sparks, burning wire insulation, acrid smoke -- all very adrenaline-pumping excitement indeed. I've shut off the relevant circuit breaker to keep the fire risk at CBRAT Central down to a minimum, but that means the other, nonbroken heater is also out of commission -- so it's cold in here. Colder than a witch's saline implant. Which, due to the salt content, has a freezing point well below 32 Fahrenheit, so you know that can get pretty cold. It's the same basic principle employed in yer old-fashioned ice cream makers. Yup.

Typing is not facilitated by these conditions. In a couple hours, when crocktrail hour rolls around, maybe that'll help. It won't hurt, I don't think. Later on, maybe I'll pretend I'm in an episode of my new favorite show, "Everest: Beyond The Limits," bloggically. So stay tuned, fellow Eskimos and Eskimixes. Frostbite and cerebral edema reports to follow.

UPDATE: The building manager came and fixed the heater, so now the only reason it's cold in here is because of my usual crazy old-man miserliness. Huzzah.

Karlheinz Stockhausen

The composer Karlheinz Stockhausen has died. I would be completely out of my league to try to talk about him. I don't really know anything about music. Or art, for that matter.

But back in 2000, I gave it a shot and tried to say something about that stuff in a piece for my old xerox zine, HUBRIS, and here are some jpegs comprising a piece I did for that zine using some Stockhausen polemics as text, superimposed over flatbed scans of a kitchen mishap involving hard boiled eggs that boiled to depravity during a absent-mindedness-inducing binge of the game "Sims," which I was into at the time.

"People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." -- Rogers Hornsby

Tommy Skilling didn't lie. He said, chance of precipitation, 100%. And here it is, a goddamn veritable winter wonderland.

In anticipation thereof, yesterday, my hoarding instinct kicked in full-force and I collected enough food at "The Jewel's" (over by dere) to make myself spherical. My little fridge, she is full to overflowing. I did venture out into the "winter cocktail" this afternoon to get beer ... and that was enough for me. I think I'll skip the Iditarod® training yet again this year. Ribbie and Roobarb nod their inanimate stuffed agreements.

Hey, how many days till pitchers and catchers report?



Harry Caray



"Fear Strikes Out" (Jimmy Piersall Story) - Breakdown Scene



Bill Veeck Interview

POSTSCRIPT: To those who periodically chastise me for refusing to admire one Chicago major league ballclub to the exclusion of the other, I have a two-word reply: Bill Veeck. You can hardly get more iconographically "White Sox" than Bill Veeck. Yet, here he is in this video hoisting a beer cup adorned with a Cubs logo, apparently voluntarily. He planted the fucking ivy at Wrigley Field, for crying out loud. I'm sick of this shit where it's a mandatory Manichean duality. That horseshit is fucking bush league. Yeah, I know, why don't I tell you how I reeeeeeeally feeel??

Let's have an asynchronous cosmic moment together

Oh. This is good.



Rahsaan Roland Kirk - Volunteered Slavery

Uptown, Chicago is where I live

I love this neighborhood.



Visions of Uptown, featuring The Uptown Broadway Building

Fri Nit Veds: What’s round on the ends, high in the middle? The Oh!o Take

The McCoys – Hang on Sloopy



Joe Walsh’s Barnstorm – Turn to Stone



Raspberries – Tonight



Tin Huey – Man Don’t Come



Dead Boys – Sonic Reducer



Pere Ubu – Breath



Ohio Players – Love Rollercoaster




DEVO - Girl U Want / Gates of Steel (Fridays 1980)



Pretenders – Tattooed Love Boys



Brainiac – Hot Metal Dobermans



GBV (reunited) - Cut-Out Witch




Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – Ole Man River

Tuesday Nite Veddeos: WLUP Nostalgia Edition

For a brief time in Chicagoland, ranging from about 1978 to, depending on varying opinions, 1981 or 1983, WLUP FM 98 was a damn good radio station. I don't know what the official jargon term for its format would be -- album oriented rock, with a fist-full of hard new wave and pop metal, I guess. Plus, they had really cool t-shirts, which a newly enfathered Bob Greene fretted in his Trib column about seeing on the nubile bodies of underaged girls at Navy Pier's Chicagofest, drinking beer and being so unlike the perfect infant his wife had just spewed out of her. Anyway, to cut to the chase, here is a veddeo juke box of hot hits from that phase of The Loop.



Flash & The Pan - Hey St. Peter



Sparks - Something For The Girl With Everything



Donnie Iris - Ah Leah

By the early 1980s, after the infamous Steve Dahl era, The Loop was, in the parlance of our times, a "classic rock" station. Dahl's replacement, Jonathon Brandmeier gets promoted in the following TV commercial. (These days, The Loop is, I think, a hard rock oldies station. And Brandmeier is back hosting the a.m. drive-time slot. Mornings remain not fun.)

This spot makes me nostalgic for the days of raging hormones. (That's what she said.) ("She" is my dry cleaner.) Yeah, what commercial terrestrial radio lacks today is that je ne sais quoi ... by which I mean, harlots. Ah Lorelei. Catchphrase: "Pow!" Pow, indeed.



The Loop FM 98 - "Lorelei Exercising" (Commercial, 1983?)

Sadly, Lorelei was truly a wanton hussy and "Powed" for other men, er, stations. In the following case, an Amplitude Modulation powerhouse in Indianapolis.



WNDE Windy AM 1260 - 'Lorelei Lip-Sync' (Commercial, 1979)

Well, that was okay. When you truck with harlots, you don't expect to be the only hemorrhoid pillow in the cab ... or something like that.

Now here's one from the dang ole Loop's late-70s playlist that I didn't analyze too closely, lyrically, at the time (which was, I think, somewhere between 6th and 7th grades), but it seemed kind of dirty and it had a bitchin' guitar solo. This song was stuck in my head forever.



The Knack - My Sharona

And here's a number they still play regularly.



UFO - Lights Out In London

Finally, this next and last one is my favorite of the program, and one of my favorite all-time songs of all time. The first verse contains one of the awesomest oblong enhanced-reticulated couplets in rock history: "Hey little Donna ... ahnhnhhh ... Still wanna? You said to ring you up when I was in Toronna." Now that is a slant rhyme with a purpose.



The Kings - This Beat Goes On/Switchin' to Glide

Ho ho holy mackerel, no doubt about it

On tonight’s four-blocks-and-back trip to the beer store, I noticed that the Andersonville®-branded faux-vintage lampposts and many of the storefronts are fully decorated for the looming holiday season. I have to admit that I don’t hate the lights. It’s foggier than a witch’s tit today (huh?) and I’ll take whatever I can get to cut through some of the gloom.

I’m definitely not ready to think about shopping yet, although I had better get going, I guess. Time to Amazon it up. And time to update the Amazon wish list. Because getting is a form of giving, right?

I won’t publicize that list in this forum, for multifarious reasons, but in connection with holiday wishes, if anybody wanted to buy me that pop-art painting of Charlie Manson wearing the Sno-Caps baseball hat that is currently hanging in the frame shop at the corner of Clark and Carmen, I would accept it.

If language pet peeves were actual pets, I would be the crazy cat lady on your block

Item 1. To the people of Earth -- "bemused" is not a slightly more highbrow synonym for "amused." It means confused, or lost in thought. This is your final warning.

Item 2. This one is particularly directed toward the sports "journalists" of America. The expression is not "mano y mano." That means "hand and hand," which is goddamned nonsense, you fucks. I'm not even going to tell you the correct phrase. Fuck you. Fuck you to hell.

Item 3. OK, it's kind of a stretch, as complaininism goes. I just heard this cough medicine commercial on TV, with a shtick about "Why does cough medicine have to taste so bad?" and touting a product that is "virtually tasteless."

Does that mean, like, it farts at the dinner table or something? It wears striped pants with a checked shirt? It is really into Thomas Kinkade paintings?

I guess "flavorless" is too pointy-headed a word for the American buying public.

Promises, promises

Hey, I'm on vacation this week, with no particular plans other than Thanksgiving with the folks up in the far north burbs, so I should be writing and writing. No excuse. And maybe this week, I'll do some stuff I've teased doing, like maybe the post about the 1960s-1970s Chicago folk scene.

In further teasery of that, here's this. It also ties in with the post before last, because this is what I remember our neighbor Dan looking like, like John Prine in this video.



Angel From Montgomery

In memory of John R.

Yesterday was the first anniversary of the death of my friend John R.

I was planning to blog about it yesterday, but I was badly hung over, barely ambulatory, and in no state to navigate Blogger, let alone write anything. Which ... considering, well, John R., is kind of fitting.

The following video turned up last month in a comment to this post. I have it on VHS and have watched it numerous times, but thanks to Dominique for digitizing and posting it.

It's a showing of John's masterwork, his scroll. Music by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The scroll lived here in my apartment for a while, while John was working through some shit. I think I still have the wooden easel-like device he used to use to display portions of it, in case anybody's looking for it.

George S. Halas Disapproves of You and Your Lack of Social Mores

Hey, wow, holy shit, I guess it’s about 30 years since the day I saw my first Bears game in person. I don’t remember the exact date, but it was late Fall 1977. I suppose I could look up the exact date somewhere, but I don’t feel like it right now. Anyway, let’s pretend it was 30 years ago, this Sunday (tomorrow).

I was 10 years old, and I was hanging out in the kitchen one Sunday afternoon, when the phone rang. It was Dan, I heard my mom yelling to my dad, who was in the living room. Dan was our next door neighbor, and he had an extra ticket to the Bears game that day. Oh man I wanted to go.

My dad, on the other hand, didn’t want to go, didn’t care, so my mom hung up. Wait! Wait! Wait! I started to yell like a 10-year-old STDPM – who was a loud and demanding little fucker, at that time. I want to go! Give me the ticket! Call him back!

I threw an unholy tantrum with success, because my dad called Dan and set me up. And it was proved once again for me, in clear terms – if you want something, ask for it. And don’t take no for an answer.

Looking back on it now, it’s obvious to me that part of my parents’ lack of enthusiasm about the whole thing was … Dan, our next-door neighbor. Specifically, sending off their 10-year-old idiotic insane son with Dan, the next-door neighbor, to choogle down 50 or so miles to Chicago for a Bears game. It seemed reasonable to me, at the time – I would get to go to the Bears game, was the bottom line for me – but 30 years later, I can see my folks’ point of view, a little bit.

See, next door to us was a rental house, and it domiciled a rotating roster of young families alternated by hairy bachelors with muscly cars and intermittently visible means of support. During the latter times, that house was a real fascination for me. Or the driveway, anyway, where I could hang out without bothering anyone. I had the heavily precedent-protected common-law right to use the basketball hoop on the garage anytime I wanted, so I shot a lot of free throws there.

That was where I lustfully fondled the fenders of my first silver metal-flake Corvette Stingray … and my last, as it turns out. Corvettes just seem lame to me, for about the last … 20 years, but that was a great day, nonetheless.

There was also the time this one dude’s Chevelle – oh man. That was fucked up. The way I remember it is, early one weekend morning I woke up and dragged the damn basketball over next door to the initial disappointment of seeing a car parked under the damn basket. Which was replaced immediately by awe and complete rapture. The car was charred and black all over, and the tires were melted into the goddamn asphalt. I spent several highly excited minutes circling the hulk and inspecting every surface at about two inches’ distance. Then I ran back to my mom’s kitchen and hyperventilated at everyone about what I had seen. My mom turned from the stove and gave me her best deadpan look (she is the #1 deadpan looker-at-er of all time) and said, “Did you sleep through the firetrucks?”

That might’ve even been Dan’s car. I don’t remember. I know he didn’t drive the Corvette, because if I’d have been driven to a Bears game in a Corvette in 1977, at the age of 10, I would have exploded into a fine mist of pre-adolescent particles, and I wouldn’t be writing this now. I don’t think it was the burny-uppy Chevelle, though – I think he drove a Dodge Dart or something otherwise extremely cool and rock and roll.

Dan, the next-door neighbor. Dan was a Vietnam vet, long straight brown hair, mustache, about 5 foot 10, medium build. Smoked cigarettes. Drank. Yes. I think my parents used to worry about him a little, or try to play the role of somewhat older, more stable polite people for him. Well, OK, I’m not so sure about that, 100 percent. My parents were sort of on the periphery of that game then, in terms of various forms of “adult alcoholic” enablement, the warm compassion that is shared by fellow boozers of all ages, the kind hand of helping offered by the young and the aged in turn to one another in condescending drunken sweetitude.

Which explains why, one time, when Dan came home either too drunk to get his keys in the keyhole or too drunk to have remembered to bring his housekeys home with him, my parents gathered his wobbly self up and hoisted him back to my house, and sat him at the kitchen table for a cup of coffee.

Of course, being the little hyperaware hellion that I was, I was on top of all this hubbub, and digging it to death. So of course I plopped my own self at the kitchen table and shortly found myself shooting the shit alone in the room with Dan.

Then Dan started ranting, and ranting in a slurred way that I recognized as the voice of drunk men. Which, I had learned a bunch of times, could mean danger. Then I realized that Dan was ranting about the Vietnam War. Which I had learned about, too, having seen it on TV and also having heard such things as young men yelling stuff about it before picking up a pool cue to swing at somebody while my mom was grabbing me and pulling me to a quieter part of the bar.

Which means that I was in a sensitized state when Dan unloaded on me and said this – “Every generation gets its war. They all get em. Our parents got theirs, we got ours. You’ll get your war, too. You’ll get your war.”

Freaked me right out.

So, anyway, that’s Dan. So anyway I put that dimwitted foot of mine down, and Dan took me to the Bears game. At Soldier Field, we met up with a girlfriend of his, who I remember being a very nice woman. It was cold. Dan had a flask of hooch, but he wouldn’t let me have a taste. The Bears won. I brought my binoculars to the game, and Dan made fun of me over and over for watching the Honey Bears cheerleaders through them instead of the game. He caught me, what can I say? And I got to see Walter Payton play, and everyone was all excited about Vince Evans getting some snaps instead of Bob Avellini,and everything was totally awesome about that day.

Commute Music Report #3

As the last living consumer of terrestrial radio, I feel doody-bound to occasionally mention a few of the surprises that pop up while I'm compulsively switching stations during the tortoise-crawl home. Today, on the utterly constipated Edens Expressway, somewhere near Old Orchard, I ran into this particular number on "9 FM" or whatever it's called ... whatever that station is that's two clicks left of WXRT -- a sweet little pop song from 1981.

The lyrics -- about driving through California in a dodgy old Nash (sans Crosby, Stills, or Young) -- are pretty great, so I'm posting them below. You might as well scroll down and sing along with the audio because the video has nothing to do with the song ... unless you like looking at superfluous footage of barely dressed models. Your call.



Diesel -- Sausalito Summernight

We left for Frisco in your Rambler
The radiator running dry
I've never been much of a gambler
and had a preference to fly
You said "forget about the airline,
let's take the car and save the fare."
We blew a gasket on the Grapevine
And eighty dollars on repairs

All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard

Hot summer night in Sausalito
Can't stand the heat another mile
Let's drop a quarter in the meter
And hit the sidewalk for a while
I'll have a burger and a root beer
You feed the heap some multi-grade
A shot of premium to boot, dear
We'll get across the Golden Gate

All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard

Another mile or two to Frisco
200 gallons from L.A.
The engine's thumpin' like a disco
We ought to dump her in the bay

All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard

Cashin' all my checks
Scrapin' out my bank
Spend it on a Rambler
Wth a whirlpool in the tank
Look out over here
Watch out over there
Can't afford a blowout
'Cause we haven't got a spare

(solos)

(chorus)
All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard

Hot summer night in Sausalito
(Sausalito summer night)
Hot summer night in Sausalito
(Sausalito summer night)
Hot summer night in Sausalito
(Sausalito summer night)
Hot summer night in Sausalito
(Sausalito summer night)
Hot summer night in Sausalito
(Sausalito summer night)
Hot summer night in Sausalito
(Sausalito summer night)

Rare Positive Moments on the Commute Reminisced in YouTube Embedded Video Format: Issue Number Two

This past Tuesday afternoon I listened to this song on WLUW while driving in no traffic at maximum sustainable speed through the twisty "ravine-go-round" on Sheridan Road in Winnekta, and enjoyed the hell out of myself for about 120 seconds.



Roxy Music - Remake/Remodel

Most Obscure Blade Runner Trivia of All Time

Me and Squeaky Zip and Rappsta caught the latest release of "Blade Runner" at the Music Box tonight, and it reminded me of the following.

When I was in high school, in 1985, I wrote a computer game with my friend Payman as a project for a programming class. I say I wrote it, because I made up the story and all the "concept" shit, and Payman did about 90% of the actual programming (if not 100%). So I kind of cheated on the programming class a little bit, because we had conned the teacher into letting us make this game instead of doing all the regular class assignments. I guess that's why I only got a 2 out of 5 on the PASCAL Advanced Placement test (3 being the minimum for getting college credit).

Anyway, the game was a Zork-type "text adventure" takeoff on Blade Runner, heavy on the "film noir" schtick. You played a private detective who works as a contractor for a secret government agency, in the year 2167, in a post-apocalyptic colony on a moon of Jupiter, in a decrepit and crime-ridden domed city. The game starts with you getting called into the office to receive an assignment. The assignment is, of course, to find and kill an escaped android. But the twist was, this android had just attempted a full-scale Marxist revolt of all the other androids -- of which there were thousands, but they weren't advanced enough technologically to understand what he meant when he was entreating them to "Revolt!" So the android had run off on his own and was trying to get in touch with the city's cadre of underground Communists, so they could work together to destroy the "American" society in the domed city.

And the other twist was, the android had such amazing "self healing" technology (OK, I ripped off "Terminator," too, a little bit) that he could purposely damage himself and then regenerate himself into the appearance of any person. Which gave it its title: "Doppleganger" (sic).

So you roam around this city and gather clues, and various goofy computer game vignettes happen, with a couple attempted assassination attempts on you, a trip to "the hood" where you dodge getting mugged in order to get information from a source, problems that ensue when the android decides to make himself look like various people you know -- and at one point like you, etc. Eventually you find and break into the Communist headquarters, and discover who the real villain is. The real villain -- whom, to win the game, you have to do away with -- is the cyborg-supported head of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Which was extra-pungent because Payman was a Baha'i refugee from Iran, who fled with his family after the revolution and moved to the Chicago area because of the House of Worship in Wilmette. So he had a pretty amazing thing happen to him, but he couldn't make up stories. He was a genius programmer, but he seemed to be amazed that I could make up all these puzzles and jokes, so he was willing to go along with the class project wangle (especially since it saved him from doing a bunch of boring assignments).

I learned one thing from the project that has stuck with me, though -- programmers are wrong when they tell you things cannot be done. Payman was always telling me that some idea could not be executed, that it would be "impossible." I would tell him to think about it for a while. Always, he'd tell me the next morning, "I figured it out!" Sometimes he claimed to arrive at solutions in dreams. Programmers are helped by some outside pressure, is my firm conviction as a result.

Last I checked (which was about a month ago), the game was still available on the Internet at a website that archives amateur computer games. I haven't tried to play it in more than 10 years ... it's kind of crappily designed, I'm sorry to say, and is unfortunately harder to play than it should be -- and it was never fully polished, so there are some bugs and some text that should have been revised.

For for the meager resources we had -- and the fact that we were 17 -- it had some pretty good features. There were several scenes of dialog with other characters, which was a lot of fun to make up, including the various things that would happen depending on what you said. There was a time aspect to it, in that each "turn" advanced a clock, and you would get hungry and tired and have to eat and sleep at intervals. Which broke the game into three "days," and you had to accomplish certain tasks by the end of a certain day, or else it was too late, and the end of the world happened. There was even some combat -- a gunfight (all in text, but the trick was in getting the timing of your actions right). We also were able to make it so that the android would be in different places at different times -- which is harder than it sounds, because then you have to engineer different possible encounters depending on how the particular game is going. Fun stuff. Not really computer programming, in terms of what I did, but it was fun anyway.

I worked on another computer game by myself after that, using Payman's code. I even figured out how to put some innovations in, such as coming up (on my damn own, I'm geeky proud to say) with a method of making the game bigger by putting it on multiple floppy discs. That one was called "The Stream of Unconsciousness," and was a takeoff on "Time Bandits" and various other fantastical crap. In that one, the game begins with you witnessing the constellation Pleiades fall from the sky, and then finding out that it is up to you to save the cosmos from ... whatever threat I don't quite remember. The usual, evil is afoot etc. And you jump around from place to place using some kind of metaphysical passageway called The Stream of Unconsciousness.

It had a bunch of loosely connected genre-crossing segments -- or it would have, if I'd have finished it. I think the only ones I completed were the "Godfather" gangster plot and the wizard's castle plot, and maybe a couple more I don't remember. It's gone now, forever. The discs are toast, and I don't have a computer that could read them anyway. By the time I stopped working on it, I had three discs' worth of material, which made it three times as big as the last game.

I worked on that game in a feverish fit of creative frenzy for about three weeks between the time I quit my job at Six Flags and started my gig at the Great Lakes Naval Base golf course, during that crazy, crazy summer of 1986 (and that it was). Everyone in the house (OK, I figure my sister probably didn't give a shit, but all the authority figures anyway) was pissed off at me for being unemployed -- my dad, my mom, The Stickler -- but I was totally flying in a world of my own for a while. I have never been able to quite reproduce it. Not only was I making up all this science fiction bullshit, I was actually coming up with the programming code to make it happen.

Fuck, though, that was a sustained high ... not putting energy into much of anything but this crazy open-ended story that was shoooosting out of me. I wanna do that again someday.

This is my last blog post in my 30s

Yep. Just a few hours left before the odometer rolls over again. At this point, I'm glad to be getting it over with. Maybe tomorrow I can dispense with the "Oh man ... where am I? What the hell am I doing?" crap I've been obsessed with for the last year.

I know that if I look back at my 30s, I can find plenty of positive things about them, things to be happy about. Such as, I maintained and strengthened some old friendships, I hung onto the same job for the whole decade, and I traveled to some interesting places for the first time – New York, New England, New Mexico, Colorado, Southern California, Canada. Not to mention that I moved to a big new city and learned to do a halfway decent job of getting by on my own there.

And I also know that if I look back at my 20s – which I generally regard as my peak years – I can find a lot to feel crummy about. I floundered as a lawyer for a while after getting out of school and bailed on that career after about a year. I got divorced. And I was broke most of the time. Especially that last one. I can definitely say one thing for sure about my 30s that I can’t say about my 20s – I have been solvent. Not rich, but solvent.

Sure, I have a lot of the same furniture I had when I was 20, and I seem to be kind of stalled somewhere in the mid-1990s in a lot of ways. Plus, I tend toward bitterness, self-loathing, and social withdrawal. But at least I ain’t broke!

Let’s see, what else? During my 30s, I co-authored two books, I had several of my zines displayed in a couple of gallery shows in Chicago, and, in the earlier part of the decade, I even wrote about a hundred pages of fiction that isn’t all horrible, even if I do say so myself. I finally got to see Roky Erickson play, along with a whole bunch of other great shows. I did a lot of cooking, and got better at it. I got to see Harry Shearer and Ken Nordine at video showings, and literally bumped into both of them. I even found Ken Nordine’s house, and the apartment building where Bob Newhart and Suzanne Pleshette lived on TV. And I saw Bob Newhart unveil his bronze “Dr. Hartley” statue, and was briefly visible in the cable TV special filmed there.

Oh yeah, and the White Sox won the World Series.

I have lived the whole time within spitting distance of the studio where Charlie Chaplin made shorts in the 19-teens, and almost as close to the site where the Three Stooges hired Larry Fine, which are only two notable examples of showbiz history this neighborhood can boast.

Speaking of this neighborhood, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the food here. I can walk two blocks in one direction to enter a wonderland of pho, banh mi, and Chinese barbecue ... and walk two blocks the other way to reach smelling range of an amazing mix of Scandinavian and Middle Eastern groceries, bakeries, and restaurants.

If I get thirsty, I got the Hopleaf, the Edgewater, and good old Simon's right here. (My first drink at Simon's Tavern was about 9 years and 11 months ago, by the way. Barely - barely into my 30s.) And Carol's Pub is a short ways down the pike if I need it. Until recently, the Lakeview Lounge gave me all the David Lynch moments I could handle.

Elsewhere in Chicago during my 30s, I have gotten stoned on a rooftop in Ukrainian Village and watched the sunset bounce off the onion domes of the cathedral, I have drunkenly watched the traffic on Lake Shore Drive from a rooftop in Lakeview, and I have drunkenly attempted (unsuccessfully) to score coke while simultaneously hitting on (also unsuccessfully) a stripper at (this one was in Lincoln Park, I think, but I am not 100% sure) Thurston's (hey, you gotta TRY, once in a while, even schlubbs like me, I mean, come on -- DISCLAIMER: this one might be semi-fictionalized ... but my story and I'm sticking to it is that it's merely slightly exaggerated for fun purposes, although I'm honestly not certain exactly where reality segues into fantasy, which is, you could say, another sign that my 30s weren't all bad. You could. Say.).

I have also drunkenly danced in a roomful of people on New Year’s Eve in a flannel sack – twice.

And - sometimes drunkenly and/or stonedly but not always - I have been privileged to watch some of my friends raise their kids, which is something I never would have imagined would be so fun and rewarding to see.

Yeah, so, the material’s there, if I want to be positive about it. I guess it wasn’t all a waste. Plus, as my little sister jotted on a birthday card I received today, “At least you aren’t 50!”

World-record delayed-reaction laff

Here's how dumb I am sometimes -- I have watched the movie "This Is Spinal Tap" probably a dozen times, at least, and I only just recently finally got the joke from when they mention playing at the "Isle of Lucy." I always just thought it was a kind of obtuse goof on the Isle of Wight. Sheez. Hah!

Isle of Lucy, I get it! Only 23 years later!

"Ahn dass whyee joo no can bee een da cho', Loosie!"

"Ohh, Rickyyy!"

"Ajaja! Joo stoopee cont!"

"WAAAAHHHH!!!"

I believe I can listen to this man play flute all day

Rahsaan Roland Kirk.



"Seasons" in Montreux 1972

Teresa Brewer, 1931-2007

Such a voice. Rest in peace.

Rocktober: The M!ch!gan Ed!t!on

Electrophonic Tonic as covered by Alvin Youngblood Hart, Gary Rasmussen(original bassist of Sonic's Rendezvous Band), Ed Michaels-Drums



Sonics Rendezvous Band - City Slang



The Solution - I Have to Quit You



Detroit Cobras - Shout Bama Lama (Live Tampa Nov 06)



Bob Seger System - Lucifer



Grand Funk Railroad - Are You Ready (live 8/31/69)



MC5 - Lookin At You (live) 1970



20 To Life: The Life And Times Of John Sinclair

Stronger Than Nemo in Slumberland

Last night around midnight (I know what time it was because I woke up and saw the clock afterwards) I dreamed that I was body surfing in Hawaii and having a lot of fun at it, and when I finally got tired and went back up on the beach, Al Gore was standing there in the sand, wearing a big gaudy pair of JAMS shorts and holding my glasses for me, his arm extended out past his huge white hairy gut, gripping the bridge of the frames between his thumb and forefinger, with an aloof expression on his face like a slightly disaffected butler.

UNRELATED BUT PRETTY GOOD NONETHELESS:

It's several months late to commemorate Hoyt Axton's birthday, and a couple weeks early to commemorate his death (and that would be kind of morbid anyway), so I don't have an angle for posting these, but the whim strikes anyway.



Hoyt Axton and Jerry Jeff Walker - Joy to the World



Hoyt Axton - Rusty Old Halo



Hoyt Axton and John Inmon - Della and the Dealer

"Let's root, root, root for the Cubbies! If they don't win, it's business as usual!"

Here I am, as promised, taking credit for being right about one of the immutable laws of nature. There are small number of sure things. I can think of two off the top of my head. Charlie Brown will never succeed at kicking the damn football. And the Cubs will never fail to suck. This game isn't even over yet ... but, seriously, dudes, it's over. As always, and ever.

Today in YouTube as a Remedy to the "Damn I missed it" Syndrome Today

Damn, I missed this bit of last years Touch & Go Records anniversary party over by The Hideout, but, at least there's a video, hey? (Undergoing a bit of a Quasi revival in Chez Stdpm, for some reason, lately.)

Anyway, although I wasn't actually there at the time this was digifotomagooed, I was there for a lot of the rest of it, and I think the spiel the guy delivers at the beginning, the guy who looks like Howie Mandel's nephew, is pretty accurate, in a sort of ... "ahh jesus, what the fuck is wrong with my generation" (but in a sort of semi-affectionate, almost non-self-hating sort of kidding kind of fake-but-painful sock in the puss) way. Yeah, like that.



Quasi

Pay No Attention to That Cubs Losing Behind the Curtain

Watch this instead:



Monkees - Randy Scouse Git

Kick Ass

This is the first video for this song I've yet seen ... this one from some French TV show in 1980, allegedly ...



Captain Beefheart - Safe As Milk

Let's Go Driving in the Car, Car: A YouTube Posting

Heard this on the commute to work yesterday morning on WLUW, in the lentil soup fog at about 7 a.m., on Sheridan Road up by Winnetka near Tower Road shortly before the segue into the ravine-go-round:



Can - Vitamin C

Today in "One Year Ago Today" Today: October 2006 Sports Predictions for 2007: How'd I Doin'?

Not so good.

On October 2, 2006, in a post charmingly titled, "Cubs fans finally complete transformation into walking rectums with dumb blue caps," I spazblogged as follows:

The fact that there are any Cubs fans at all is bewildering enough. The fact that in 2006, more than 3.12 million tickets were sold for the last place team's 81 home games is a mystery for the ages. But the fact that an apparent majority of these people paid among the highest prices in professional baseball to show up and boo, cuss, and whine like ... well, like little Bostonians -- that's just something else.

Well, now they don't have Dusty Baker to kick around anymore. Unfortunately, there's about zero chance that the Cubs won't suck hard again next season. And three million people will show up to complain about it.

But that's an easy prediction to make, even on the first day of the off-season. Yes, the 2007 Cubs will stink to high heaven. Unfortunately, I have a bad feeling -- supported by nothing other than intuition -- that the White Sox are going to be stuck in 3rd place all next year, and by July, a large and loud contingent of fans will be screaming for Ozzie Guillen's head on a plate.

(emphases added)

Hm. In my defense, I was almost right about the White Sox, except they ended up in 4th and were in last for a large part of the year. And instead of Ozzie getting decapitated, he got a contract extension.

But I was right about the Cubs stinking, right?! Right???

Sigh.

OK, well, I'll check back here Saturday -- after they get a few actual playoff games under their girdles -- and we'll see just how much they don't suck then.

RIP Osterizer 1995 - 2007

Hudson County, New Jersey, Correspondent One O Ball writes:

She was an excellent blender. Served well and often for well over a decade, used daily during spring and summer. She started life on The Cardigans tour bus and probably got the workout of her life there. Retired to the House O' Ball and lived out her years making whiskey slushes. An inadvertent loose replacement of the blade fixture after a washing, unfortunately, caused her internal injuries beyond repair. She will be missed.