Current obsession.

Current obsession.

Blowing off "important" reading and impulsively ordering one 33 1/3 book after another. I'm finding the earlier ones are far more boring / formulaic / not really offering anything I didn't already know. The later ones are less hit or miss, though you can definitely see the influx of "Pitchforkian writing standards" less than subtly creeping in. The high-water mark of the series that I've encountered thus far is certainly Carl Wilson's Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste -- something I'd recommend to EVERYONE whether you are a music fan or not -- but the one deconstructing Public Enemy's It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back is probably my second favorite, if for no other reason than a single paragraph explains why live hip-hop is different than live rock and/or roll at its very base and shouldn't be judged by the same standards because it's not trying to accomplish the same thing.

Should you have the time, and the money, I would also recommend picking up Zaireeka because it's a great look into a band struggling with very fundamental changes (though if you read DeRo's Lips biography it's handled better there so you can skip it unless (like me) you're super into track by track notes) and the study of Pavement's Wowee Zowee isn't perfect (skip the last ten pages or so, seriously) but it does a GREAT job of capturing the feel of the era and peeling back much of the mystique that's settled on that time period in subsequent years.

Anyway, I'm late to this series because I'm old and honestly have been pretty burned out on the "band bio" genre for the last decade or so after gorging myself on 'em for the previous fifteen years, but I'm finding these such quick and delightful little reads right now.

Living in the Stone Age!

Living in the Stone Age!

Our internet at home has been down since Saturday and the earliest Comcast can get out to fix it when I can actually be there is late tomorrow. Thank god I have an iPhone or I'd be going crazy! (Though checking work email on that teensy screen via web browser is a bit taxing, and let's not even talk about trying to edit Chicagoist entries in Movable Type via mobile device!)

I think I'm still in stage four.

In which a grumpy old man tells some kids to get off his lawn.

In which a grumpy old man tells some kids to get off his lawn.

This may be slightly disjointed because I’m still trying to collect all my thoughts on the subject, but I feel like I need to get some of this out now in order to allow everything to percolate a bit.

Creativity in the internet age ain’t what it used to be.

I’ve been thinking a lot about art lately. And people that consider themselves cultured. And people that create and others that consume and the symbiosis between the two. And while there is still some great art out there, I feel most of what we’re seeing is merely whimsical and ultimately shallow. We remix and mash-up cute, yet “inspirational,” phrases. Much of what is lauded as forward thinking is in fact the rear view of someone trying to climb back into their inner childhood. And not even their actual childhood; instead it’s some heavily romanticized, perpetually ironic, 1970s sitcom version of a childhood.

Do I think that, especially now, everyone with the tools and the platform and the audience should share whatever creative vision they have? Of course I do. I’m just getting sick of cruising through Tumblr feeds full of what people consider to deep thoughts and imagery when they are in fact reflecting pools exposing the mediocrity they are constructed from. I’m tired of seeing cheeky guerrilla installations that are hugely entertaining but ultimately devoid of any lasting meaning being held up as iconic happenings. And while I am a great fan of deft wordplay I am truly sick of people accepting sloganeering as life principles.

Is the internet to blame for all of this? No, ultimately it’s not. One of the reasons I dropped my art major in college was because much of this bullshit existed back then, as I suspect it did twenty years before that and twenty years before that and, you get the idea. The difference this time around is scope. And it’s that scope that is beginning to erode actual deep and meaningful creativity.

We’re surrounded by amazing stuff but we’re no longer demanding that stuff be amazing for more than the few seconds it takes us to process it and move on.

Talk about the weather.

Talk about the weather.

Recently I've noticed a disturbing trend of people talking / blogging / etc. about how much they can't wait for summer to be over and for fall to start. To the people I say; are you frickin' crazy?!

Listen, we suffer through eight months of miserable weather to enjoy our all too brief summers. Fall lasts, and I'm not kidding, a scant few weeks before winter swoops in. I could almost understand people looking forward to a seasonal change had summer been brutal, but this year the weather was glorious in Chicago! When it got HOT it rarely lasted more than a few days. And the usual Midwestern humidity largely gave us a break. Now, after last year's miserable summer that never quite shook off the fall / spring feeling this was the least the elements could do for us this time around, and if you are anxious for it to end so you can break out your coats and boots I'm prone to think there's something wrong with you.

Now look, I like wearing my cool leather jacket as much as anyone else, but I'm not looking forward to HAVING to wear it. To all of you complaining about summer and looking forward to fall I suggest you rethink your position, envision how your month of fall weather will quickly give way to ice and snow and sheets of freezing wind that keep you from venturing more than a block or two from your abode at a time, and then tell me how much you've hated this summer.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Summer jam of 2010 ... where did you go?

Summer jam of 2010 ... where did you go?


On Chicagoist today we asked the all important question of the year: Where is this summer's jam? Do you know? I sure as hell can't find it.

Mondays are blah blah blah, blergh.

Mondays are blah blah blah, blergh.

Mondays really blow, lately. I don’t know what it is but both GalPal and I have woken up absolutely drained the last few Mondays even if we’ve done absolutely nothing the day before.

Is it the abrupt switch from weekend to weekday? Is it because our weekends are generally jam-packed with activities or errands so we don’t actually get any real time to recharge and refuel our internal batteries? Or is it just that we’ve grown susceptible to “catching a case of the Mondays?”

For instance yesterday I just couldn’t even muster the energy to make it to the gym before work, and leaving the house was nigh impossible, but once I got to work I was totally fine. Better than fine, even. It was a super busy day and I just powered right through it with zero problem, finding myself so revved up that my post work trip to the gym was an unusually powerful one, given the time of day. Even GalPal was looking pretty charged up as we shared the bus home together … until we crossed the threshold of our coach house and all the energy drained right out of us. We both made dinner in a sullen silence, and ate it in front of the TV like a duo of zombies. In fact I was pretty much out of commission by 10 p.m., an unbelievably early time for me to retire for the evening.

So maybe it’s a location based Monday malaise?

Yesterday we had cupcakes!

Yesterday we had cupcakes!

This morning my tongue is STILL BLUE!


What was in that frosting? Super-duper strength food coloring?!

PMA! PMA!

PMA! PMA!

Woke up this morning to find GalPal had disappeared! I found her sleeping on the couch downstairs. Our house has central air but for some reason the upstairs is always a handful of degrees warmer than the other floors so GalPal and I tboth migrate to the cooler lower environs from evening to evening. Still, it's slightly unnerving to wake up and find yourself alone in a big bed.

I'm up incredibly early -- couldn't get back to sleep I guess -- and already the day has a weird feel to it. We're moving to a different office today at the 9-to-5 so we're shutting everything down early which already gives the day a combination of "hustle and bustle" and "early holiday" vibes. This afternoon is GalPal's company outing, and they kindly invited me, so I'll be catching the Cubs game, giving the day an even more surreal tinge. And later tonight Keep and his lady are hosting a small get-together which means I'll get to catch up with some of my favorite people in the world.

Can this day get any more stuffed?

So, um, yeah, that's what I got. What've YOU got on tap today / this weekend?

Don't blink!

Don't blink!

Ladies and gentlemen, proof of the Do312 Lollapalooza celebrity kickball game...


I'm the only person in a red t-shirt.

A shout out to my lady.

A shout out to my lady.


Look, dating me IS NOT ALWAYS EASY. I’m a loving boyfriend but I can also be a complete idiot. So let’s take a moment to reflect on just how awesome GalPal is for putting up with me!

And no, I haven’t done anything REALLY stupid at the moment to warrant this, I just thought it’s one of those things that should be out there.

I am totally buying her an ice cream cone tonight.

That picture is over a year old. Man have I lost a lot of weight!

Gone fishin'.

Gone fishin'.

Be back tomorrow!

The metal is oddly cool against our feet.

The metal is oddly cool against our feet.

When Betty the Beagle walks down our stairs it sounds like a herd of beagles are slowly making their way down some steep metallic hill. Our interior stairway was actually designed for outdoor use; it's made of metal and I bet it could withstand the elements better than our non-weatherproofed wooden front porch. As a result unless you have feet sans any sort of claw (read: GalPal or Tankboy) you're going to make a ruckus. Heck, even the cats make a healthy amount of noise running up and down those stairs and they're supposed to be all lithe and quiet and shit, right?

Why would you put an outside stairway inside? I kind of like its quirkiness though I admit there has been once or twice where an unsteady step upward resulted in a bump that could've broken or at least split open a shin. I wouldn't recommend letting your kids using it as a jungle gym. But I like things that are slightly off so it suits me. The house we rent is old and has lots of little idiosyncrasies that I or GalPal would happily change or update, but our outdoor stairway that's inside is the one I'd probably just leave as-is.

Pushing myself outta the comfort zone.

Pushing myself outta the comfort zone.

GalPal left town this weekend to head south and visit her family then head out with her sister to get drunk on a friend’s really big boat at some place called Party Cove. I was extended a last minute invite but turned it down because, let’s be honest here, putting me on a boat in “Party Cove” surrounded by a bunch of hard partying early twenty-somethings would probably lead to me getting smart-alecky and end in some sort of drunken altercation with some super tan guy named Biff. Or something like that. So I opted to stay home.

Usually when GalPal leaves town I tend to stick to the familiar: this includes lounging around the couch watching lots of DVDs, maybe having a couple early evening beers, and then heading off to The Burlington or something close to home. This time around I decided to mix it up a bit. I tend to be – and this may surprise most – a little less comfortable in social situations than you might expect. Maybe that’s why I DJ, or started putting on shows, or feel I need a reason to be somewhere. It affords me an excuse to be busy when I want to sort of fade into the background for a bit. So I went to meet friends at a bar I never hang out with and ended up having a really great time. It certainly helped that the company was stellar, but I also found I couldn’t rely on talking to the bartender or disappearing to escape a lull in a conversation I didn’t want to deal with. It was actually rather nice.

Saturday I went a step further and met some friends I almost never see for dinner. Now, this is something I NEVER do … I eat with GalPal and, every once in a great while, with Keep and his lady or one of GalPal’s old friends. And you know what? Great time again! The I head to a surprise party where I was unfamiliar with, oh, 80% of the attendees and, again!, a great time! A bit more bar hopping followed, hitting up establishments I do not regularly patronize, and I found I was really enjoying myself. Apparently you can teach n old dog new tricks, or at least this old one.

So what’s the upswing of this? Well, I think GalPal will be pleased when I suggest we go out in the evening she won’t hear me reading off the same five possible destinations; instead I intend to try and mix it up more. Y’know, I tease my Wrigleyville and Lincoln Park friends for never leaving their neighborhood, and I have a certain right to since I DO make it to those neighborhoods on a semi-regular basis, but maybe it’s time to start venturing even further north, further south, and maybe ringing up people I know that I rarely see in order to reconnect somewhere new.

At least it’s worth a try, huh?

Top Photo: Within minutes of GalPal leaving town I return to the eating habits of a 12-year-old

Bottom Photo: Pickle the Kitten asks, “Is she back yet? Is it safe to come out? The boy is stinky!”

She's a sneak!

She's a sneak!

Pickle the Kitten has grown a lone dreadlock on her back. In college, when I had long hair and people would mistake me for a hippie I'd tell them it was just a ruse to draw in the patchouli crowd and then lob nitroglycerin filled hackey sacks their way. I can only assume Pickle's taking after her dad and sporting the dread to draw hippies in and give 'em a good swipe of her paw!

The automatic shut-off is broken.

The automatic shut-off is broken.

I sit here at my desk surrounded by CD cases -- it seems all my desks are decorated thusly -- and find I am once again awake at an ungodly hour. Part of that has to do with the fact I fell asleep slightly earlier than I usually do but the primary reason would have to do with my brain. It just won't shut down lately. Now I've always been the sort who is happiest with an occupied mind but as I'm getting older I find I'm beginning to have to prioritize where I allow my thoughts to coalesce. Information keeps rushing in and I have to admit sometimes it's getting harder to know where to file it.

I no longer have the musical memory I once did, the storage lockers in my head that handle that vast library are stuffed full and exploded into such a disarray years ago that it's often difficult for me to even answer the question, "What are you listening to right now?" Things are in order enough that when I write down to write a piece of musical criticism I can sort through the stacks and all the information I need is still there, I'm just finding snap responses to be more difficult.

Sometimes it takes me forever to read a book. To someone that used to be able to blow through a 500-pager in a few days (sometimes a single day when I was younger and between jobs) this is distressing. Granted, occasionally I still do breeze through a book, but I think it takes more effort than it used to. Some of this obviously has to do with time constraints, and some has to do with the fact that through RSS feeds, daily news and other media sources biting into my book time, but I again find myself realizing it's due to my realization that as time passes prioritization becomes more necessary.

My brain is a fertile ground. Over the years my creative powers have deepened, and I've found getting older has made me both more curious and more pragmatic. I think this prioritization I keep thinking about is the result of learning that simply sucking information in at every level isn't enough. I mean, it never was, but it's easy to forget that in a time where the flow all around us has picked up into what basically amounts to a non-stop flash flood of stimulus.

I realize I'm never going to be the person who can just unplug and slow down. My brain will always hunt for something to amuse or challenge it. Even on a vacation where I had nothing to do but sit on a beach and sip fruity drinks I found my thoughts simply wouldn't slow down. But that's O.K. That's who I am. The thing that makes me work well is that I've learned how to process this stuff, analyze and understand (or giggle or hum along to or be moved by) it, and then decide what's important and what isn't. I've learned to prioritize and it has served me well.

But sometimes, every once in a while, I over think my over thinking and find myself writing a blog post about the shut-off valve in my brain being broken just before 5 a.m. on a weekday morning.

Investing in karma.

Investing in karma.

So yesterday I’m at Au Bon Pain, rubbing my high falutin’ ways in front of anyone and everyone walking through the underground walkway, getting some lunch. I purchase said lunch, decline my receipt like I always do, and headed back to the office. A few minutes later I get a call from my bank saying something or other about suspicious activity on my account so I call them back. Turn out my attempts to withdraw money to pay my rent from an ATM the day before had tripped their system so they wanted to make sure it was me and no hank-ypanky was involved. I assured them all was well, thanked them for their diligence and as I was about to hang up the phone the voice on the other end said, “That’s great news we’ll reinstate your account immediately.

It didn’t hit me at that second but about an hour later I realized that if my account had been frozen there was a good chance I walked out of Au Bon Pain without paying for my food! I checked my bank account, saw there was no charge for a sandwich, and ran downstairs to rectify the situation.

I explained myself to the manager on duty, but she had just come on and the day manager had left. (Obviously it is here you may correctly infer that I tend to eat my lunch very late in the day. What can I say, I’m busy!) She said if I really wanted I could talk to the day manager the next morning, so I set off agreeing to do just that.

So, I arrive bright and early this morning, head straight to Au Bon Pain, hunt out the manager, tell her what happened, apologize, and pull out my money to settle my unintended debt. She looked at me stunned.

“They never come back!” she said.

She explained to me what happened was commonplace and more often than not an honest mistake, but that she was kind of touched by my honesty and I felt al warm and fuzzy and was pleased that deep down I really am the guy who wants to do the right thing, even if every time I don’t actually do so. In this instance my ethics steered me the right way and I felt good about it.

So I walked out and gave GalPal a call to bring her up to speed since she had seen how distressed I was at inadvertently “dining and ditching” only to find my phone wouldn’t work. So I get to my computer, check my account … and find my service has been cut due to a billing error.

Sigh.

Hey you!

Hey you!

Don't forget tonight is TankBird Tuesday at The Burlington!

Lollapalooza-ed.

Lollapalooza-ed.


It was pretty epic and I'm not sure I ever want to push my body that way again (not so much the boozing as the booking from one end of Grant Park to the absolute other side almost 5 times in an hour ... my legs hate me) but it was definitely worth it. Next year I have to take it a little bit easier! I'll go into more detail later, but just wanted to let everyone know I survived!

Photo of Billie Joe giving Mike advice on running the bases is by me!

Lollapalooza-ing it.

Lollapalooza-ing it.

Please hold for future transmissions.

So there’s this thing happening this weekend…

So there’s this thing happening this weekend…

Lollapalooza is upon us. Already. GalPal and I went to a small media mixer thrown by the organizers to grab our press passes early so we wouldn’t have to do it Friday morning. We met up with a friend and proceeded to stay out late into the night, jawing about music writing, the state of the industry and just how delicious the drinks at The Whistler are. Tonight I have an invite to some Perez Hilton party and while I’m not a fan of the dude it sounds like there’s gonna be some cool musical guests. Plus, you know, free booze. Beyond that point we have no concrete plans.

This is the first year GalPal and I both have press passes but it’s also the first year I don’t have VIP, so I guess I’ll probably be a bit more sober than usual.* It’ll be nice for both of us to have access to the press area since that means I may get to see her a bit more than I usually do at these types of events. Usually we lose each other because there’s no cell signal, but this year the park is blanketed in WiFi and the Lolla app has a chat option so we’ll always be able to figure out where the other is. Yay!

So yeah, there you have it. Lollapalooza will dominate my life until sometime early Monday morning when I finally fall asleep...

*The only year I didn’t cover the fest was it’s first as a destination festival n Chicago, but my friend won free passes to the Lolla Lounge that year for herself and ten of her friends, one of whom was me.

Rally the troops, it's a new day and we're on the march!

Rally the troops, it's a new day and we're on the march!

Man, I did not sleep well last night. I'm juggling a couple big things mentally -- all positive, don't worry, they're just time consuming and somewhat pressing time-wise -- so I found I kept waking up every 15 or 20 minutes because I was trying to work on this stuff even in my sleep. It's funny, usually my summers are slow, or at least not mentally draining, but this year has been unusually busy on all fronts. That's a good thing since it means I'm being challenged and engaged and feeling appreciated for my talents. It's an excellent place to be right now.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have a day to conquer!

The storm approaches...

The storm approaches...

Two more days ... and then Lollapalooza swirls in to take over my like 72+ hours...

In which our hero admits that, perhaps, he might actually be human.

In which our hero admits that, perhaps, he might actually be human.

Yesterday was one of those daze where my antics probably entertained a good number of my friends, annoyed a few others, and caused GalPal to want to shove me in a garbage can and walk as far away as her legs could carry her. Much of this can be attributed to my thinking it was a good idea to a) start drinking at 8 a.m. and b) actually drink multiple shots of whiskey at Mars Cheese Castle (who knew they even had a bar in there?!) and then continue drinking at Wicker Park Fest whilst waiting to watch fun. So if you ran into my yesterday and I amused you, did not try and steal your drink or hand you an empty cup to hold for me, congratulations, you were one of the lucky ones!

Everyone else? I again thank you for putting up with me acting a fool.