Sunday, September 21, 2008

So, I see I'll be working until I'm 93, now.

Boy, all this financial trouble sure sounds bad. It's really a good thing I'll only be marginally affected--wait, what is that you say? Goldman Sachs?!?

Shit, you here that screaming whoooshing sound? Yeah, that's the sound of my 401K dropping into an abyss!

Mother-fucker!

Well, let's hope the Sach sacks-up; because, if I have to live much more frugally, I'll be eating dirt and drinking my own pee.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Whiskey and Wage-release*

Drinking fist-fulls of Jameson and paying bills online is probably not the best of combinations, but it takes a bit of the pain out of it.

*"Wage-release" is the new hep way of saying, "paying bills."

Actually, it isn't, but I think it should be the new way. Please start blogging it this way, and linking back to this post: this might gain my some micro-cewebrity LOL.

(and, yes, I'm re-posting this to my Tumblr to expand my Internet-cred... Bah!)

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Yeah, what he said.

Even if you're feeling negative, at least you feel something at all, right?

Or, we could go back to here.

Aw, just feeling a bit tipsy and moody, move along, nothing to see here...

Thursday, September 04, 2008

If the clothes make the man

I just walked by a large mirror in my apartment, and made the mistake of looking into it, at what I am wearing:

  • my old, large black lounging-around-not-leaving-the apartment glasses
  • a spring/summer black robe covered in cat hair (thank you, Lilly)
  • Guinness string sleepwear pants (again, with the cat hair)
  • no socks
  • blue slippers that are falling apart
  • and a white t-shirt with a hole in the collar, with picture of a green iguana crawling across a print of a pocket (bought over a decade ago in some Salvation Army Store)

Apparently, I have given up all hope.

Take a time-out, people!

Seriously: Chicagoist: Summer Gun Violence.

WTF?!?
Enough!
Chill, mutherfuckers, chill!

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

I Believe Elton John Said It Best,

When he sang, "The Bitch is Back"

That's right, ladies and gentleman! The one, the only, the evil, the thieving, the worst manager ever:

BOSS FRANTIC!

[I'll pause while you all catch up on those links to the past.]

---
--- hmm-hmm-hmmmhmm

---

Okay.
As some of you may know, my part time job is closing at its current location near the end of October, and then it'll move a couple of store fronts down to a larger location.
The Company is going for a bit of an overlap process. While the Croatian Gyration Sensation takes over as Closing-the-Store Manager (she's a floor supervisor now), "they're" bringing in Boss Frantic to act as a Guide or some shit while our current cool Store Manager goes off somewhere for Larger Store Training.

Luckily, I only work a couple of nights a week and Sundays; so, maybe I'll not see her. In any event, the two months or so I may have to work with her will just be like living with a two month Bowel Obstruction: livable, a lot of pain in the ass and a horrific yellowy brown smell in the air, but livable.

With my luck, "they'll" bring back Evil Fannie, too.

I mean, really, all I need is an arrest for assault with a deadly weapon to completely make 2008 a total and official Crap Year.

Boss Frantic and Evil Fannie, I, begrudgingly*, dedicate the below video to you:




*begrudgingly because putting this (one of my favorite songs of all times) and their names in the same sentence is like taking one's favorite deserts and shoving it into a large pile of pig shit.
But, the words aptly sum up my feelings for both of them.

Cheers!

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Flashback: around 1987 or 1988

Clock radio

See that clock?
I got it for a birthday in 1984, maybe. That little GE fake wood panel box woke my lanky butt up through some of junior high, all of high school and college, and most of the time I've lived in Chicago.
I still got that little guy. I now listen to WLUW in the kitchen, just did tonight for a bit as a matter of fact.
Still works great, for the most part, except of a missing knob on the front and a SKREEGGRRRCCRUMMPA sound when you adjust the volume.

Love that little brown fucker!

Well, back in high school, I was that regular guy. Sort of lost, geeky and weird, but normal enough to kind of fit in with most of the cliques one encounters in high school.

But I always felt like I wasn't quite in the right spot. I had/have great friends from that time. Best friends, a regular crew of dudes and dudettes who I loved/love. They always had my back against the Shop Rats jerks and the Jock and Jane Preppy crowds.

Even back then I recognized and liked the fact I had such a diverse mix of friends. I could pass a joint with one crowd, and then my buddy would gain me entrance into a football/preppy party the next night. I'd polish up my writing skills with my Journalism buddies (J. Leatherman!) or sneak into Dillion's with my other friends for Alternative "dance" Nights or a gig with Delicious Moss, sneaking beers or blowing a joint in the parking lot across the street. Or many weekends, we'd lower cases of Bud Light or Old Mil that I had hidden in my closet out my bedroom window, and just cruise The Circuit, hang at The Barn, or party with friends at The Abandoned House.

All and all, not a bad high school experience compared to some.

But always a little left of center feeling.

Until, right around this time, I discovered the best radio. Sunday nights, from 6 p.m. to Midnight on the local college radio station 88.3 FM all "alternative" music or "progressive" music (that's what we called it at the time, or punk). It gave me at least an inkling of a direction.

Sunday night of course, I had to go to bed for school the next day. And my parents bedroom door was across the hall from my door (about four feet away), so I couldn't listen on my regular stereo.

And that's where the fine radio pictured above comes in.

I'd shut the main stereo off for the parents, and then snuggle up with the GE one. It sat on the mattress, leaning a bit against the wall, to the left of the pillow. And I would discover an entire world outside my little town.

Of course, being the 80s, cassette tapes were the rage. You could plug the into a car stereo and fly down country roads after midnight, slugging down beers, and screaming about how you hated this shitty town and you couldn't wait to get the hell out; maybe move to New York, write for Rolling Stone, meet artists and musicians, live in a graffiti scrawled walk up loft on the LES, puke on the subway, and fall in love with a model because anything was possible in New York City! You yearned to be one of the Slaves of New York! You were praying and dying for the Bright Lights, Big City! You wanted to see what the hell Lou Reed meant by all the colored girls going doot-de-doot-de-doot!

Goddamn!

So you made a mixed tapes from the Sunday night shows. Hit record, let the tape record through the song, hit stop when the DJ spoke, rewind, hit record when the next song played, if it sucked, hit stop, rewind, play to a stopping point, hit pause, wait for the next song, hit record....repeat repeat repeat.

I think I still have most of those tapes except for one that had the songs "first time played at 88.3" from Nirvana's Bleach and others, eaten in my car stereo around 1997 at The Brickyard.

But on that first tape, ah that first tape, I am hearing some of the songs now in my head, was an amazing mix of punk, thrash, and hard reggae...thank you Mister DJ! And one of my favorite songs on that first one, I present to you below (it's the first 47 seconds of the video).

I'll see you in the cafeteria after fourth period:

Monday, September 01, 2008

"People are afraid to merge..."

But at least Clay and Sean attempted, halfway.
Or is that worse, to only attempt halfway?

"[Chicago] is a Vampire..."

"[Bloc Party] is playing at the Whiskey tonight..."




"Don't you wish you could go back?"
"Go back where?
"I don't know, just back."

All he knew, at that moment, was that he was a 37 year old man, sitting on a stoop, drinking his 3rd beer, and it was dark out. The stoop light stopped working when the neighbors moved in a couple of years ago, and it never started working again after they left. Not after they left, or the Squatters for a few weeks after them left. The bulb is in the socket, but no electricity seems to enter.
In between brick walls, staring out into the street, he watched black boys on bicycles circling the block.
Over and over and over again.

He watched Mexican families walking slowly down the sidewalks, dragging folding chairs and toddler 3-wheelers, going home from a day and evening at the park.
He watched gangs of roving teenagers, all dressed the same in white t-shirts and jeans, roaming the streets, pissing on the lawn in front of him, passing joints, and starting fights.
He watched the police cruisers drving both ways on the one way street. Twerping the siren, and making the blue lights dance in the heavy hot night air.
No one greeted him, and only one out of, like,twenty replied if he greeted first.

He watched.
He watched.
He watched.

And felt nearly nothing.

Maybe a little fear, when the boys grouped up in front of him, asking for a cigarette.
Maybe a little anger, when he heard how all these kids talked to each other. Their voices sounded like violence, even when speaking "sweet nothings" that "hey girl!" they run across on the corner.
Maybe a little nostalgia, when the mind wanders to different times, different places.
Maybe a little regret, when watching the glowing ember flicked down the stairs into the darkness, onto the thin film of sewage on the concrete from the last big rain.
Maybe a little sad yearning, when he sees the couples walking under the streetlights and whispering leaves.
Maybe a little boredom at the way this whole thing turned out.

"The billboard said, 'Disappear Here.'"

Because I am sober and awake during the day,

I've started hanging out over here. I mean, screw it, I'm there Forty Hours A Week with so little to do.
Until I get Dooced, that is; then, who knows?