There's a right way and a wrong way to do something, so let's allow the former to correct the latter.

I had the misfortune of hearing the latest William Shatner album and it spreads snippets of the song below amongst its (what feels like 1,860) tracks. So let's clear my aural palate while tickling my and your ocular intake.

OoooOOOOOooo!

Halloween is exactly one week away but the costume parties already began over the last weekend. I know the holiday is basically the "adult sexy Christmas at this point," and I enjoy it and all, but stretching it out to over a week seems excessive, no?

However, since 'tis the season to be spooky peep this photo I took over the weekend. Boo!

The Rally Squirrel.

So, in case you didn't know, GalPal is St. Louis born and bred. She bleeds Cardinal blood. I have no idea how I ended up dating such a sports fan (or how she puts up with me) but hoo boy does she love her home team. Right down to wearing Cards underwear when she thinks they might need an extra boost.

So because of her I'm obviously paying attention to the MLB right now. i even went to a playoff game in STL (that's St. Lois to those of you not in the know of that region's gegraphical shorthand) last weekend. And it's because of her I have learned of THE RALLY SQUIRREL.

Cards fans are nuts (seriously, I just typed that and meant no pun bit there it is) for this squirrel. So much so I serioulsy thought it was some time honored tradition. But it's not! It's ike three weeks old! A squirrel ran onto the field and since then the cards have done well so everyone is giving this squirrel all the credit! Not the batters. Not the pitchers. Not the seemingly inexhaustible bullpen (see, I don't watch sports, I don't like sports, but I have to admit I do know how they all work and am more than familiar with 97% of sports terminology though I will NEVER understand the American League's reliance on the wuss out position of the designated hitter). No, it's this squirrel. Which, if you ask for my vote on mascots, I'm gonna say a squirrel is pretty cute.

Here, however, is an example of someone who doesn't quite get the rally squirrel.




And here is someone in Busch Stadium wearing a t-shirt with a picture of his teammate on it, thus totaly fucking up that whole "you don't wear a band's t-shirt to the show" rule. Oh, and hey offer some background to at least help explain the point La Russa (the unsmiling gentleman in the video above) is trying to make:



And there you have it. The rally squirrel. And now, for the first time ever in print in this space, please peep the following:

#GoCards

Inspiring.

Fripp's guitar line in this song remains (and may possibly never be unseated) one of the most unwittingly epic sounds ever layered onto a pop record.

Oh, the early '90s...

I am not gonna lie, I owned EMF's debut on cassette AND compact disc (once I could afford one of those fancy newfangled CD players). Any time I want to delude myself into thinking I was cool for wearing big jeans and stripe-y, baggy shirts with hoods all I have to do is take a gander at this.


E. Ecstacy. M. Motherfucker, motherfucker. F. From Us to you. Indeed.

FUN FACT: The band's website, est. 1996, is actually kept up to date?!

[via The Subversive Sounds]

PHOTOBOMB!

So I have shared this in various other online outposts, but I'm also sharing it with you here on the off chance you haven't seen it yet. Last night I was taking a picture of Pickle the Kitten because she was looking exceptionally cute. When I framed the photo she was the only one in it. Once I snapped the shot and looked at the result, this is what I saw...

Tell me that's not awesome. Way to go, Betty the Beagle!

Wandering.

We have no agenda today as we wind our way north through Illinois on our way home, so here's what we saw on our first random detour...

Mister sports!

Let's see, this weekend I'm attending a Major League Baseball playoff game AND a college homecoming football game (including tailgating)! I predict this will be similar to what astronauts will eventually feel like upon encountering their first alien life forms. But who, in that analogy, will be the alien life form this weekend?

Slow start.

Since GalPal and I don't work tomorrow I kinda expected to be at a show or something by now, but since the Cards (her hometown team) lost tonight she went straight to bed and, thus far, the below is as nutso crazy as I've gotten. Blerg.

My friends all love this band, see...

Photo by PhotographicKris

 Judging by the various social media channels my friends use it would appear almost everyone I know is either at the Portishead show tonight or really wishes they were at the Portishead show tonight (and two friends are apparently at some private Weezer show here in Chicago I knew nothing about (what?!)).

So I get that Portishead never tours and that they have no problem making fans wait near Chinese Democracy lengths of time between releasing new music and both those things have created a mystique around the duo.And I dig their music and respect that in that whole "trip hop" thing they were at least the most consistent when it came to output (though I still think Tricky's highs beat Portishead's for sheer ambition though his output is far more uneven). But judging by the near orgiastic responses I've gotten in even casual conversation about Portishead since it was announced the band would not only be touring but had deigned to include Chicago as one of its stops I am missing some basic chemical in my brain necessary to trigger off the mixture of adulation and spiritual awe that has my friends in its grip.

So I hope y'all enjoyed the show but stop asking me if I'm jealous / bummed that I missed it because -- to be absolutely honest -- I probably would have been really, really bored. I'm sure they were awesome, but that's under the domain of individual experience and I simply don't think I'm wired to appreciate Portishead as a superfan.

Then again, what do I know? I'm the guy who got all teary-eyed watching Weezer play last Sunday.

=\/\/=!!!

Lasy Sunday, I finally saw Weezer. It took me long enough, huh?! Head over to Chicagoist and check out my review of the show and a whole bunch of photos I shot.

When a network trieds to get you to tone it down, THIS is how you should start a season.

I was just reading a nice little piece about Parks & Recreation's recent sad mainstreaming and at the end it contrasted it with the end result of a (possibly) similar request from the network to Community's showrunner to also try and make things a little more, um, accesible. So I present to you the season three opening , wherein Community says "fuck you" to NBC.

Rocktober. In full effect.

If I survive this weekend it'll be a miracle. Wish me luck!

Conan O'Fallon? Jimmy O'Brien

The absolute best bit is when Conan O'Brien says hi to "Max." Dig it.

Did you know every college has a party street?

I was in Tucson last week, getting directions from one big box retail store to another big box retail store in order to pick up some last minute gear I needed for a video shoot, and I realized that familiarity can breed a certain kind of blindness. The clerk helping me could not for the life of him remember the names of the streets I needed to take and ended up having to stand next to me and draw out the map of the right while verbally describing the route. And I'll tell you, he was dead on and as I drove through the stretches and turns laid out for me on that piece of paper I could almost feel the clerk's muscle memory deep within my tissues helping me to follow the route as if I'd driven it for years.

It made me think though. If the story that clerk told me -- the directions -- was so realistic and compelling when he was simply sketching it out and narrating it as best he could, how much more powerful and precise could it have been if he'd drawn me a detailed map outlining each and every minute step on that piece of paper? My guess? Maybe not as powerful. His words filled in the picture, so the storytelling was there, so he didn't have to waste my time or distract me with a complicated visual. I wish more people that put PowerPoint presentations together would learn that simple lesson.

Tell me a great story, pare down the distractions while doing so, and your point will be indelibly made.

It's all in how you interpret it.

My uncle got this hand carved out of wood during his travels as a merchant marine. When he bought it from a local vendor in a far off locale they assured him that the gesture being displayed was how people wished each other good luck in their particular culture.

To this day I don't know if that's true. Was some dude having fun at my uncle's expense? Maybe. Does this particular little wood carving actually mean "good luck?" Possibly. Above, is Pickle the Kitten wishing me luck? I highly doubt it!

Rocktober.

Three shows just this week and I've already turned down invites to two more. Part of me is STOKED, and part of me is SUPER tuckered. Spoof mich going on...

Brief respite.

This trip has kept all of us SUPER busy, but at least we've had a few seconds here and there to briefly appreciate something pretty.

It's a dry heat.

I'm in Tucson for work and palm trees abound. They always remind me of my south Texas childhood. Oddly, the terrain here -- palm trees, mountains, lots and lots of space -- also reminds me of mainland China outside of Hong Kong. Go figure.

The Rapture came!

Now THAT was a show.