We trashed my place pretty good last night.

First party at the new house. Costume mandatory.

Lots of Daisy Dukes, two sets of celebrity couples, a priest, a pirate, and a zombie train wreck.

And a member of Team Zissou, which certainly gets the award for Most Obscure Costume.



We had an extremely hot Wilma Flintstone, a couple of cute witches, a vintage 60s chick, and Dr. Phil Good, who dispensed condoms for all.

We had a complete set of Joker-and-his-leather-clad henchmen from Tim Burton's Batman. They reenacted the trashing of the museum, complete with Prince on the Boombox. They got hysterical laughter from me a a few awkward stares from others.



They were, collectively, "that guy." It was perfect, and they brought down the house.

There was also a lot of booze. A lot.

3 cases of beer, two bottles of wine, a bottle of Jim Beam, a bottle of Bacardi, a bottle of vodka I don't remember, half a bottle of Jager, a lot of Sky Vodka bottles, and some pink Tequila Rose shit.

At one point Duder was drinking Dewar's straight from the bottle.

There were people coming in through the door and out the window, as Daffy Duck once said.

It fucking rocked.

The girls hijacked my stereo, and out came the Clash and in went Britney Spears. It was horrible, but they danced and shook their asses and turned out all the lights and spilled drinks all over the carpet and did shots and had a great time.

Looking through the pictures, everyone is smiling and having a blast. There's something about throwing on a costume that breaks down any social awkwardness you might have amongst friends or strangers.

Best party ever, man.

"One Night Stand! Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club" hints that Cooke still had some musical integration of his own to accomplish. Recorded at the Saturday night late show in a packed Miami club in 1963, it can stand with "Otis Redding Live in Europe" as one of the greatest live albums ever...It's a raw show; Cooke's voice is raspy throughout and the sort of call-and-response interaction between performer and audience marks just how fully Ray Charles and others had succeeded in bringing the fervor of gospel into R&B...you can hear, just by the vocals, what whips the crowd up, why every song is punctuated by shouts of excitement. By the time Cooke and the band reach the closer, an extended "Having a Party," you feel as if you could die from sheer happiness, and as if you're ready to.

--From today's review in Salon of a new biography of Sam Cooke. I just bought that album a couple of weeks ago, after searching for it for months. (It was just reissued on CD this summer.)

Click the link on the sidebar to buy it. Everyone must have this album. It kicks so much ass.

The White Sox win the World Series, Harriet Miers withdraws her nomination to the Supreme Court, and we should find out who got the Golden Indictment Ticket today.

Scooter? Rove? Cheney hisself?

Should be a very interesting news day.

Oh, and now that the World Series is over, my graciousness is done.

The White Sox are so fucking gay.

Being a Cubs Fan in a Sox Town
(Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Enjoy a Baseball Game.)

I first became a real Cub fan in 1983. I think it was 1983. I remember a guy named Dallas Green becoming the General Manager and Jim Frey taking the reins as Manager of the ballclub. I could be mistaken, but I believe that was the first year Harry Caray was in the announcer's booth.

Or maybe it was 1984. Or 1982. I was a kid, so I can't remember everything. Lee Elia and Charlie Fox maybe figure in there as well, but I'll leave those details to others in the comments.

My favorite player was Bill Buckner (yeah, that guy) and all the games were on during the day. Harry Caray would sing "Jodeee....Jody Davis!" to the tune of the Davey Crockett theme song every time the catcher wearing number 7 got up to bat.

My Uncle Bob took me to my first Cub game in the playoff season of 1984, about the only cool thing he ever did, and not to be mistaken with my other Uncle Bob, a righteous dude, even if he is a Sox fan.

The games were always on channel 9, which the rest of you know of as WGN. After a 1:20 game finished we could usually catch episodes of G.I. Joe as we sat around the house after school.

There is a picture of my sister and I on our first days of school. Janie was starting first grade and wore an ugly brown dress. I wore a denim jacket, a Hersheys backpack, and a blue Cubs cap.

Janie went through her Cubs crush just like Mom did in the 1960s. When I had my beer-filled, house-broken, Drone-hitting-the-breakers-homage-to-Airplane! party during my junior year of high school, the rest of my family was at the Cubs Convention in Chicago.

There were wins and losses and a few playoff games. Bill Murray on 8-8-88 yelling out "Hey Rafe!" while the game got rained out and Morganna chasing after Ryno.

On the last day of class, after my last final, in my final year of college, a girl named Maureen and I hopped in my car and drove from Peoria to 1060 W. Addison to catch an early night game in the spring of 1995.

The best game I ever saw was with my fellow Cub fan and dear friend Scott. We sat in the bleachers, it was night, and it was the most glorious thing in the world to see the green field and 40,000 fans with the Chicago skyline as a backdrop.

I am a Cubs fan. I have an occasional affair with an American League team like the Orioles or the Red Sox, but I bleed Cubbie blue and nothing makes me happier than to talk baseball with my mom.



So am I mad and pissed off and dejected now that the South Siders are in the Series and the Cubs are watching it on TV?

Surprisingly, no. I'm fine with it. I've even enjoyed watching the games. Game 2 was one of the best baseball games I've watched since all those Boston games last year.

I have enough things in my life to be mad and depressed about. I wish the White Sox well, and if they win, so be it. They fixed up that damn stadium and they have a nutball as a manager, and it doesn't bother me.

Because come next April, the Cubs will suit up and try again. Perhaps Nomar will be back (I hope so) and perhaps Greg Maddux will have an amazing final year.

And maybe the White Sox fans will rub it in and rag on the Cubs for being a crappy team, but that's how it goes in Chicago. We love the fact that we get to hate each other and shout insults "across town." Half of my family are Sox fans, and it's the one thing we can razz each other about without anger or hurt feelings erupting.

When it comes down to it, I just can't hate the White Sox.

Not like the Cardinals. I hate the fucking Cardinals.

So the talk is starting that Harriet Miers will withdraw her nomination as Supreme Court Justice.

Is anyone really surprised? Miers was meant to fail. She was, as Lee Harvey once shouted, "a patsy." The way I see it, Bush got his nice white male Christian conservative on the court in the personage of John Roberts, and realized he couldn't follow with yet another Far-Right-Wing Christian. The other side of the aisle would go nuts.

So he nominates Miers, who doesn't make the Christian right very happy, because they don't know that she's a super-Christian. They want it telegraphed, tattooed right on their forehead: "I will vote against abortion and help make this country into a Christian theocracy." They want one of them.

So Miers isn't working out so well, so she'll be dumped in favor of someone else, someone who will be a little easier to read, someone who uses all the right code words to make the Religious Right happy. And because we've already gone through one set of hearings with Roberts, and spent a few weeks taking the magnifying glass to Miers, this new person will waltz right in and a bored Congress will get 'em on the bench by Christmas.

Which is just about the best Christmas present the Religious Right could want. Two new justices, all set to make this country an even more conservative and religious place than it already is.

A note to some of my Christian readers: You may be wondering, why do I have such a problem with the Religious Right? Because they have grossly overstepped their bounds in the world of politics. This country was founded on the idea of a separation between church and state, but people like President Bush are erasing that separation and allowing a strict, fundamentalist philosophy seep into every facet of our government. And that is not an America that I want to see exist.

I want to like Christianity, and religion in general, but it is getting harder and harder to do so. When I read a statistic that 53% of Americans believe that the world was created exactly like the Bible says so (meaning that it's only about 5000 years old and that no evolution took place, even though the scientific proof against that theory is overwhelming), I shake my head and wonder what happened.

I think I've developed some strange symbiotic relationship with this house. Like, I won't be a whole person again until every wall is painted, every shelf is organized, and every light is replaced.

No real comments here. I just like Abbey Road homages, imitations, or accidents.

If this one was an accident, then why is the guy in Paul's spot barefoot?

Think about it, won't you?

(Here's a few more of my favorites...)



The hobbits from Premiere magazine...



...and of course the poster from that world-famous theatrical production, The Bonfire.

The New Pornographers
The Metro, Chicago
October 20, 2005

All week I've been trying to explain who I was going to see on Thursday night.

"The New What?"

"I've never heard of them."

"You're going to a show on a Thursday night? And it doesn't start until 9:00? And there's two opening bands?"

Okay, that last part was my internal monologue as I was riding the Red Line down to the Metro. I'm getting old, folks, and I can't do those late-night shows like I used to. But The New Pornographers are one of the best bands around right now, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity.


My buddy Eric and I met up with his cousin Diana and her gay husband Mr. Eccentric at Depaul University and headed off to the show. Eric's girlfriend was supposed to go originally, but couldn't make it, so Di signed up her buddy to go at the last minute.

I think the Metro is just about the best place in Chicago to see a show. It's more intimate than the Riviera and the sound kicks ass. We got there just as the first opening band, The Immaculate Machines, were starting up. A three-piece power pop band with rotating lead singers and a drummer that looks like he's straight out of a Red Hot Chili Peppers diet plan. They play for about 35 minutes and exit quickly. I start to get a little crush on the keyboardist and lead singer.

Next is Destroyer, fronted by a bushy guy that Eric refers to as "Adam Duritz' lazy brother." I keep thinking that he sounds wayyyyy too much like one of the vocalists from the New P's, and much later it is revealed to me that he is in fact one of the vocalists for the New Pornographers, now fronting his own band.

Destroyer kind of sucked and I wandered around the Metro for a while to stretch my legs and grab a drink. I notice that one of the security guys, who has an extreme fighter look about him, has one of those chains that attaches to his keys, on which hangs a Dominick's Fresh Values card.

Carl Newman (lead singer of the NP's) was hanging by the bar talking to two girls about the recent Magnet article that seemed overly fixated on the fact that a) the Porno's are from Canada and b) Neko Case isn't fitting in any more.

Around 11 the headliners took the stage, and they are mostly made up of members of the first two bands. The pretty keyboardist is back, and the flannel-wearing white-rhythm section from Destroyer turn out to be the flannel-wearing white-guy rhythm section for the NPs as well.

They rip right into "Twin Cinema" and "Use It" from the new album and this has immediately become the best show I've seen in at least a year. (Later I will realize that it's the only show I've seen in a year.) The huge wall of pop sound fill the stage and everyone does their little white guy shuffle, nodding our heads and twisting our corduroy-wearing-pseudo-hipster bodies to a bunch of really fucking great songs.

Neko Case sounds great, Carl Newman is a genius, and I am officially in love with the keyboardist named Kathryn. She was of course looking at me during the entire show. Since she's from Canada, I'm sure she really digs fat bald guys with skin that never sees the sun.

They played a great mix from all three of their albums, and there wasn't a bad song in the bunch. Seriously, this is one of the best bands in the world right now, and it's a shame more people don't know about them.

And they played "Miss Teen Word Power," so that made Di happy.

Around 12:30, after their third encore, the band waved good-bye and walked off stage, and we all stumbled out onto Clark Street and began the long journey home.

Considering that I've only had about 4+ hours of sleep, I feel pretty good. Thank Jebus for standardized testing; all my students are back in their classrooms right now, hunched over their desks filling in little ovals that will (in part) determine if they keep coming to see me. Good luck, kids.

Having trouble deciding on a Halloween costume? Then go here.

Speaking of costumes, I'm having trouble coming up with a good one. I've got a big ole party planned, and I need a costume. A great costume. And I haven't had a good costume idea in two years.

A guy at work said he's going as the Short Bus. And yes, he's the one that works with kids that ride the Short Bus.

Please don't make me wind up dressing up as a Hobbit.

In the last six months my CD burner died, the side of the tower broke, and now it's become so cluttered up with viruses and junk that my computer freezes up right after I turn it on.

Normally I'm pretty good about clearing out the bad stuff, but somehow something nasty got in and has made a shit-storm of my hard drive. I was trying to wait until Windows' new OS came out, but yesterday I broke down and bought a new tower.

So now I have this lovely new computer with lots of hard drive space and a faster processor, but all my documents, pictures, and music files are stranded on the old tower. I've got to figure out a way to get all the needed files out of the old man and into the newborn, all without contaminating the Green Zone of my new computer.

Any suggestions?

(Oh, and it's an old friend's birthday today. Happy Birthday, brother.)

Look at that sturdy man taking pictures of covered bridges in Indiana...



Instead of drinking heavily with friends and co-workers this weekend, instead of attempting to finish painting my house this weekend, instead of spending the weekend working out and trying to lose some of this fat that has accumulated around my waist, I went to the heart of Indiana to see bridges and my family.

My sister and her brood are making yet another move, this time to Indianapolis, to hopefully settle down and stay for a while. While Janie and Jason looked at houses and neighborhoods, myself and my parents took care of Owen, my newborn nephew.

Since we needed something to do for several hours, Dave decided we should drive west to Parke County, where there were rumored to be covered bridges in abundance.

(Hey, it's Indiana. You got a better way to kill a Saturday afternoon?)

We didn't have much luck with directions that afternoon, but once I took the navigator reigns we improved and found lots of old bridges in quiet wooded areas. And we got to have the World's Best Behaved Baby with us to boot.

Mom seemed unnaturally obsessed with returning too late; I think she was afraid Dave would get too sidetracked with his covered-bridge-picture-taking excursion, and we would get back "after eight o'clock!!!!!!"

I was just happy to be able to sit in the front passenger seat of a moving car for several hours with my nose in a book. I didn't have to worry about unpainted walls or unsent emails. Just relaxed and read and took pictures of old-timey bridges and held a baby boy every now and then.

I'm still scared to death of babies. I really don't know how they operate, and I'm always worried that something will go horribly wrong while I am taking care of one.

It was a nice trip, and pulled me a bit back from a funk I've been in. Nothing like my sister's kids to brighten my spirits.

Indiana is lovely, by the way. I had only seen the northern section of the state, and I don't remember being impressed by it. (Of course, usually I'm hurtling across it at 80+ miles per hour on an excursion out east.)

The Indianapolis area had plenty of nice neighborhoods and woods full of just-turning yellow trees and the sky had nary a cloud in it.

There's plenty of your usual corporate shopping areas and crappy chain restaurants as well, but you can't escape that anymore.

***

At home my computer is all but dead, if you must know. Somehow it has been swarmed with viruses and nothing I'm doing can fix it. The damn thing freezes up immediately after I turn it on. I need help fast.

So even though I've been bad about posting regularly lately, don't expect real frequent posting for a while.

Namaste.

I somehow wound up in Covered Bridge Country this weekend.

Story to come soon; I'm busy at work and my computer at home is being a bitch.

A few random observations, whilst listening to If You're Feeling Sinister, which I am most definitely am:

BEWARE! Sensitive mopey-boy post is to follow...

No matter what EW says, Police Academy movies suck. But I liked the first one.

My desert island top five foods are: cottage cheese, pepperoni pizza from Gario's, kettle chips, apples, and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches.

Dorito's are a close 6th.

I've been going through old love letters from an old girlfriend tonight; I always love looking back on promises made in the heat of love. Too bad they never work out.

My two best friends are Naperville's Only Child, a girl I used to date and has now become my dearest confidant and favorite co-worker, and who always picks me up when I'm down.

And the Duder, who abides, and throws great parties, and sent me a lovely note today. There's this notebook floating around work, sent hither and yon by those that want to say a kind word or two about people that mean something to someone. Duder (i.e. Eric) said some wonderful things, and they can't leave my brain. Thanks, pal. I feel the same way about you.

Speaking of old friends, I miss the Drone.

I miss a lot of other things as well. I miss Sports Night. I miss looking forward to a new Lord of the Rings movie. I miss Di. I miss riding my bike down familiar streets from a long time ago.

I miss my sister and her two daughters and her son Owen, who I finally get to meet this Saturday in Indianapolis.

Anansi Boys was a great read. #1 on the bestsellers, too, from what I hear.

Janeane Garafolo has been great on the West Wing. Sure, it's not the show it was since Sorkin left, but I've enjoyed the campaign stories for a while. Drone, have you been watching?

Get me away from here, I'm dying.

I bought a house, but all I want to do is escape. One of the most gorgeous gals in the world is in London right now, and I could leave tomorrow to go and hang out with her for a bit.

The U.S. government and military are torturers, and I am ashamed. We have lost what we once were.

Anyone want to run away from everything and get the fuck out of this madness?

One of my favorite stories is about how the Buddha was sitting quietly meditating, and for some reason (I forget now), people came up to him and asked,

"Are you a god?"

The Buddha replied,

"No, I am awake."

Last night the Duders had their annual Oktoberfest party, wherein many peoples gathered to eat brats and drink Berghoff beer around the fire, which was tended to by me, as usual.

I always get Fire Bitch job. Somehow Joe got out of Brat Bitch, but I was the hunter and gatherer of sticks and small logs and pieces of brush to feed the flames. As soon as the fire died down a bit Prince Fan would shout out, "Brian! More wood!" and I would trudge over the brush pile to gather more fuel.

Joe's wife and I had big plans to pose Mr. Oktoberfritz in a variety of compromising positions like we did last year, but somehow we never got around to it.

It took a lot to make me go. Beforehand I was feeling all dark and gloomy and panicky, and didn't much feel like leaving the house and socializing with people. But once I got there it passed and I got to see many friends and eat a lot of good food that was bad for my gut.

And I got the award for Most Inappropriate Comment of the night. I was talking to Lieutenant Cindy and shes says to me she says, "Did you know I'm due on April 20th?"

"No, I didn't! That's great, congratulations!"

A pause, and then I blurt out:

"That's Hitler's birthday, you know."

Thankfully I didn't bother to tell her it's also the anniversary of Columbine.

Still, she might want to opt for a different due date.

The picture to the right is for Ms. Thingk. I know she digs the Bells Oberon. A little piece of the Midwest for you.

And I alphabetized my CDs yesterday, so now I can sleep at night. (If only that was the cure for insomnia, eh?)

Finally, I have decided to have a Halloween party, to break in the new place and to celebrate the ancient pagan ceremony of Samhain!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh yeah, and this blog turned two on Saturday. Happy Birthday blog.

My heart is pounding and I can't breathe.

Is this a panic attack?

Or mabye it's the DT's.

Admir'd Miranda!
Indeed, the top of admiration; worth
What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady
I have ey'd with best regard, and many a time
The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage
Brought my too diligent ear: for several virtues
Have I lik'd several women; never any
With so full soul but some defect in her
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she ow'd,
And put it to the foil: but you, O you!
So perfect and so peerless, are created
Of every creature's best.

--Ferdinand, to Miranda, in The Tempest.

Women. Women. Women.

Sometimes I get them, and sometimes I don't.

What's the secret?

Tom Cruise just knocked up Katie Holmes? Did I just hear that?

And wasn't he as sterile as an OR clamp? Didn't I read that in People magazine back in 1989 or something?

Well, good for him. One more kid in the world with a bat-shit crazy old man.

For the beautiful Bella, and anyone else interested in my painting skills...



More pics can be found by clicking on the images to the left. I was bored.

And Buzznet seems to be all fucked up, so if the captions don't match the pictures, don't blame me.

Go Red Sox.

(It's not the Cubs, but it's something.)