I want to dance with you.

Ah yes, tonight is an evening filled with possibilities. Well, two main possibilities, as far as IÂ?m concerned. As I'm sure everyone on the planet knows by now, tonight is the evening of my weekly residency at The Pontiac. Tonight's special guest DJ is, in fact, truly special. Tonight's guest is Kip from America's #1 Sweetheart which is, as long-time readers are no doubt aware, the band I theoretically play drums with. Now, we haven't actually practiced yet, but that's because Kip has been hunkered down in his underground laboratory for months as he crafts the shining gems that will then be translated into the musical notes and thumping sounds that fill out the A#1S song catalog. Don't ask me how, but I've been able to drag him out of the lab for a rare public appearance and hope to hear him play some of his favorite tunes so I know what's currently influencing him.

Plus, it'll be nice to hear another DJ besides my unironically play some Erasure. I'm holding out hope for The Worm tonight as well.

Possibility number two is coming though town in the form of rock band Earl Greyhound. They hail from the exotic climes of Brooklyn, NYC, NY and make an appearance at Double Door later this evening. A preview of the show that I wrote is scheduled to go live over at Chicagoist later this morning here. I will be sneaking out of The Pontiac for a brief spell to check them out (though I will make Kip recreate his portion of his set that I miss later tonight when we retire to hisheavilyy pillowed Den o' Love) and I encourage you to do the same. Here, I will quote myself from the Chicagoist piece I did:

Earl Greyhound is one of those genre-busting bands that do it without being forced to leap into eccentricity. The trio fashions mega-rocking '70s-style smears of noise that sound fresh and exciting despite some of the retro trappings.

C'mon, doesn't that make you want to go see them?

Speaking of exuberant pieces of music crit publicly peeped recently, I have to give large kudos to Hopzilla for her terrific piece on TV On The Radio that appeared in this weekend's Chicago Tribune. It's nice to finally see a well-written piece by a freelancer appear in that paper.

__________ Hammerhead.

Check out the rough 'n tumble picture of my nephew to the left. Doesn't he look tough with that bruise? Yeah, he does. That bruise sort of reminded me of that time, just after my Senior year of high school I decided toaccidentallyy pound a nail into myfriendn Mike's wall with my forehead. And how I totally thought I was fine until we went over to my friend Dave's house for second opinionstitchese-wise and she turned white, and I realized my eighteen-year run of avoiding needle and thread was over. And the I went to a Midnight Oil concert straight from getting stitches, and people thought I had dyed my hair pinkbecausee I didn't even have time to wash out the blood.

I thought about this while looking at this photo of my nephew and realized that when I / we / everyone was younger, physical trauma was no big thing. Jesus, I put my arm through a window a couple years later and took the time out to make sure myroommatee a) had a video camera (he was taking a film class that summer and the school had lent him one) and b) had charged the battery before I allowed him to take my to the hospital.

I thought about all of this and started to become awfully jealous of my nephew because now, when I, for instance, bruise a shoulder or crack a collarbone, or get any other sort of owie, it seems to take forever to heal.

I'm jealous because he has no idea how good he has it, and I'm sorry that he won't realized it until it's too late. Untill then, I hope he has fun while his bones are still rubber. And I hope he knows how terrific it is to make a boo-boo go away with something as simple and tender as a kiss.