How Bizzah!

***PICTURE SURPRISE POST***

I think this is the first time, in a long time, that I'm posting outside office hours! Woweewhoaweewow, you may be saying, and also, This is gonna be good. Real good.

Well, you're right. It is. It is.

And weird. Weird occurrences/sightings (starting at #2).

#1 - I GOT A BIKE!!! (A bike!! A bike!!) It's called a SPRITE, that's right!! It's a li'l bronze Raleigh Cruiser from the early 70s - awlriiiiiight. I'm gonna get a basket put on it tomorrah, and I'll need some lights, too. But, ooooohhhhhh, not a lock. Nooooo, I won't be needing a lock. Because I've got the fuckin' lock of locks, only magic and fire can take my bike from me now!!! This. is the lock. Yes. Of locks.

--OKAY, SIDE NOTE!!! MUSIC CHOICE, ON MY TV!!!

#1 CONT'D - Lock. Of Steel. The Bulldog STD. Yeah, I tittered a bit at the name, too. Oh. You didn't? Haha. Right. Anyway, I stopped laughing when I checked out their website to register my 4 - oh, wait - 5 keys (and one of 'em is humungo and has a bright LED in it!) and I think it's gonna take a lot to kill a four-headed bulldog. So yeah, it's super strong, and apparently Chicago is the Theft Capital of the Country. Really? That's what the bikeman said. Nope, that's NY for a few years, then Philly. We're #2. Yeaaaaah! Bike's protected! This is basically it, bronze and everything. I think I'll call it Brown Lightning. What do you think? True, and slightly amusing. A diarrheal double entendre, if you didn't get that. Hah.

#2 - Walking up Michigan after work, there was a woman with a surgical mask on. I was very puzzled. I probably stared. A surgical mask. She didn't look like a surgeon. Half between a stressed out cat lady and bag lady - pretty crazy. Maybe that explains the mask. Or, the germs!! (Like cats and babies have, because there are so many downtown!) Then I imagined what it would be like if everyone were wearing surgical masks, and some of us chose to get designed ones because we wore them so much. A - that'd be creepy walking, and being, a masked person - or, if everyone else was masked and you weren't. Basically zombies. B - scary potential future vision that I can thank Al Gore for bringing to the forefront in all speeches, nightmares. What bad air! My lungs can't even stand to take in directly. So, that's LA, huh? Maybe winters aren't so bad? Hmm? Hmm.

#3 - CSI: Chicago. At the shop, after the really rickety bus ride - boy, oh boy! Again, I'm talking with the dude who's fixing my bike up ah-real nice. Two serious men in navy jumpsuits and latex gloves approach, I am notified by the dude; Here comes the morgue. I'm puzzled, he explains. Three people are dead upstairs. Overdose. They got into some bad stuff, they took too much. The needles were still in their arms. The morgue's been in, out and around all day. I'm shocked and all I can say is, That's too bad, and shake my head. Then, It's like something out of CSI. My Mom would've loved that! And then the dude starts talking about his daughter wanting to get into that line of work. He's not too happy about it, but if it makes her happy. It's a pretty horrific and depressing career we decided. Handling dead bodies who were living people sometime recently, figuring out the reasons. I couldn't stomach the initial shock, let alone the science! But y'know, if someone can and they're happy, alright. That's what I always say - maybe just to myself - if you're happy and not hurting anyone or yourself, then, alright. Yeah. Anyway, by the time the dude finished sprucing it up: adding new brake pads, cables, wrenching and stuff; I took a few spins around the park; I ran across the street to the Liquor Store's ATM to get dollars; lock installed/explained, there was no sign of a body bag sighting, though the escalation built considerably with each white van addition to the crew.

The ride home was a dream. Beautiful night. Don't even get me started on the debate.

Oh yeah, so the bikeshop (ONEWORD cause I say it so fast) is: Nearly New and it's at: 3826 N. Broadway. Friendly, helpful, blast sweet tunes, knowledgeable, fast, expert, rockin' goodness.

Brown Lightning: $165
Lock of Locks: $25

OH, yeah, and a 60 day supreme warranty, and awesomeness to provide quality affordably in the future post-60. Sweetness.

Nail Gnawer

That's me. Sitting in my li'l cube, gnawing on my nails, which, to the passing observer probably looks like I'm gnawing on my entire hand.

Shnawr, shnawr, shnawr, shnawr.

Yes, that's the sound of me gnawing away.

It's a nervous habit. Sometimes it goes away, sometimes it comes back and makes my fingertips bleed (well, wait. Not my fingertips, per se, rather the top of the nail bed? Sure. We'll go with that), but not really. My best friend in elementary school used to literally chew her nails down to bloody stumps. Gross. My father and step-mother still remind me to keep my fingers out of my mouth. I'm 23. Sometimes my older brother chimes in, and then I cut him with a jagged - half-filed by mouth - nail. That's what ye get! Yes, I'm a cockney-ed scaliwag!

Also, whenever I do manage to get some suckers growing, I get hangnails. My toenails grow faster than my fingernails. (I almost wrote "handnails" -what?! A disturbing image if you can imagine nails on your knuckles, not necessarily sticking up like Wolverine, but covering the knuckle, protectively, as only a nail can do.)

I like having long-ish nails, though for aforementioned reasons this is hard for me to attain.

Also, I play guitar. This requires my left fingernails to be shorter than average so I can zip and zoom (or rather fumble) along the frets and notes.

When I was a little girl, my Grandma Dorothy (Dad's Mom) - we called her Dot - would pay me $5 if I had nails when I saw her. I never got those $5 bills... if I did, I can't remember, and I probably spent it on candy. (I LOVE CANDY!) This is the same Grandma who lived in California, loved bowling and Boston Terriers.

She loved those little Terriers so much in fact that she had one after another (no, she didn't give birth to them, but bought) and named them all "Boots" I-VI - sequentially - (she was a knitter, too, and had little knit portraits of them on her wall - she was a widow) I think it got up to 6, yeah... and then there was "Terry" the Boston Terrier, too. Towards the end, "Boots VI" developed a cataract, which made it hard for him to play catch. One Christmas he ran straight into the sliding glass door - hilarious! This was the same Christmas he knocked down my li'l baby brother and humped the hell out of him. My older brother and I thought this was the funniest thing we'd ever seen - so did everyone else in the fam - but my step-mother freaked the fuck out, and was nooooooooot happy. She screamed, "Get off my baby! Get off my baby!" As she ran to shoo Boots off of a gigglin' and confused baby, causing everyone to clutch their sides. She collected her baby and shot us all a look that said, "This is not funny." After the laughing subsided and Boots roamed outside to eat butterflies, we all breathed a sigh of relief as we wiped the happy tears out of our eyes. FAMILY!!!

Grandma Dot also took me and my brother to see "A League of Their Own" (I think I cried and didn't know why I was so sad, ahhh the emotional capacity of a 7-year old, and then I wished Madonna was my aunt, if not my cool babysitter) when I was a small girl, and I remember she sat on a phone book as she drove us to the theater and could barely see over the wheel, let alone through the haze of cigarette smoke that circled around the maroon crushed velvet interior - she shouldn't have been driving. She also drank a tall glass of iced buttermilk every morning, paired with a cigarette, while she helped us pick the best oranges to juice - OH, CALIFORNIA!!! What fond memories I have of you during Christmas-time. She also had a slug problem in her garden, so, sometimes after lunch, she would set us loose in her yard with salt shakers. It was fun watching 'em squirm around.

There are many more stories I have of the funny things Grandma Dot did, and I've seriously thought about attempting to write a book of short stories about the people and places that've influenced me over my short 23 years on this planet. For Grandma Dot I would do a comparison/contrast storytelling-style paired up with my Grandma Arlene (Mom's Mom). Arlene & Dot it would be called. The name of the collective work? I don't know yet. Both of my awesome, and very different, Grandmas died before the turn of this century. Yeah, it's sad, but not as sad as it is for my parents. How horrible would it be to lose a parent, let alone both. Grandma Arlene died in '97, '98?, I can't even remember, but occasionally my Mom still cries about missing her - I probably would, too, Grandma Arlene was incredible and the best storyteller! Luckily, my Momma still has my Grandpa Bill. My parents are never going to die, ever. I keep them in Foreverware (from "Eerie, Indiana" - doiy!!) to keep 'em fresh.

Oh yeah, so I started this post around pre-lunch and still had a thumbnail... but I gnawed it off. No nail tapping in boredom for me!!

Modest Mouse's "One Chance" is a pretty song. It always makes me want to live a better life, and it reminds me of my family, and my friends, and my habits, but mostly my family, and ships. I like it. Prolific description, huh? Eyeaaaaaaaah.

Really, Donald Trump? Really!?!

The Donald is at it again. Always stirring up some sort of scene, doing the wrong thing. Trump was on Larry King Live last night and voiced his endorsement of Presidential nominee John McCain.

Why, Donald? Why do you endorse this man?

Because he's my friend. He's a really great guy. I call him tremendous. Great. Really great. He's not going to make me pay more money, either. Even if I make more money, and by if, I mean when. He's great. Makes life easy on me.

What about his age and his politics?

Yes, he may have one foot in the grave, with Palin behind him holding a shotgun, and he may be a puppet for people like me - with money - but he's great. A truly great, tremendous, engaging, wonderful man. He's very funny. He tells the best jokes at Cindy's dinner parties. There was this one where -

What's your problem with Obama?

He's not a great man. He's going to make me pay the people who work for me, and take account of my expenditures. And I don't know him. I haven't had dinner with him. I invited Barack and Michelle over but they were too busy volunteering. He wants to raise my taxes.

Well, actually he....

My money is mine, Larry. I'm great and I own my money! And your money, and America's, and the world's. MWHAHAHAHAHAHAH! I AM DONALD TRUMP!!! [Shakes his fists in the air triumphantly]

The Music World Mourns

The Great Gig in the Sky

Richard Wright of Pink Floyd lost his battle with cancer today, he was 65.

Robin Hilton of NPR's All Songs Considered wrote a beautiful remembrance and you can read it here.

[More tuneage] And, of course, Wish You Were Here is an incredible album, and is bookended by two of my favorite songs, both exemplfying Wright's awesome talent: Shine On You Crazy Diamond (I-V) and Shine On You Crazy Diamond (VI-IX).

Laser Beams & Anchors

Thursday night I went to the Walter Meego/Ra Ra Riot show at the Subterranean with my good friend, and college old roomie, Maggie “A-Hi!” D.! Great performances from both bands, though I was very disappointed in the lack of dancey enthusiasm that Walter Meego deserved and did not receive. They are super dance-tastic, and the crowd wasn’t digging them for whatever reason. Like I’m talking dance-tastic to the utmost degree; so dancey you’d expect lasers and smoke to come forth from of their instruments! There were several times I was all fast fisting the air, and dancing feet rotations on the ground. The lack of crowd awesomeness induced several moments of me yearning to clap my hands and make them disappear so I had more room to groove and get down. Alas, this was not possible, but I managed to dance myself a pretty decent-sized space in the mid-back.
Luckily, after Walter Meego finished my complaints of crowd location was overheard by these two awesome dudes that instructed Maggie and myself to follow them forward. We got right up next to the stage, on the left side. Amazing! Ra Ra Riot was full of energy and sounded incredible – despite what seemed like the sound dude’s attempts to thwart them with slow response on the band’s requests to “up the mics” for certain members and their instruments (“Too Too Fast” was slightly ruined in that the cellist’s mic wasn’t working for her vocal chorus addition). The ladies of RRR had the raddest instruments, as both the violin and cello were basically invisible, only constructed of a wire frame and stem (I don’t know the technical term for that which holds the strings… uh, the, um, frets? No… that’s not it. Whatever, you get it.). They played every song off The Rhumb Line and delivered immensely on matching and surpassing the album’s production quality. I was very impressed and upon leaving the show, wanted more, more, more! I like that all the members dig each other and really seemed to enjoy themselves. I mean, how could you not?! I even found myself growing slightly jealous of their fabulosity, wishing that I, too, was “living the dream”. But kudos and props to them for dreaming it and doing it! It’s also a good thing the crowd was much more into RRR, or at least if they weren’t I couldn’t see ‘em from my awesome spot, because I would’ve had to lay the smack down more seriously. I do slightly recall accosting a couple attendees for not digging the scene and standing with the arms folded across their chests. “Why do you even waste your money? Can’t you just bop your head to the beat? Really, nothing?! You’re just going to stand there? Okay. I hate you.”

Rockin' South of the 38th Parallel

NPR and Rolling Stone are my musical bibles, just so you know. Y'know?

The latest awesome audio adventure brought to us from NPR is an Oriental journey into 60s psychedelia. I dig this Shin Jung Hyun. Trippy beauty. The Pearl Sisters version of "Don't You Want Somebody to Love" is right on and they are able to effortlessly infuse their own style into the song, besides singing in Korean. I feel like they should have a music video where they're playing the song riding an electric wave. That'd be groovy! "In A Kadda Da Vida" is whoa, 16 minutes of pure electricity, and he riffs off of Mr. Pickett's Funky Broadway in the middle. The "Sound Vol. 3" makes me wish I was sitting in a smoky, lounge - groovin' and swayin'. I'm just sayin'. "The Exciting" gets me excited. I like the name of this group, too, The Yip Juns!! How fun!!

If you're interested in the Korean psychedelic and acid folk movement in the late 50s/early 60s, you can check out more here. I love seeing influences cross waters and language barriers.

Art is awesome.

Aluminium Inflatables!?!!

I visited the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) on Target's free Tuesday this week to check out the Jeff Koons exhibit - it only lasts until the 21, so go see it while you still can!! - and wow, awesomely bizarre. Incredibly so. Mind-blowing!

#1- I'm going back next week, because apparently I can get a one-tracked mind and totally block a huge hanging metallic heart out of eyesight. So, I want to see that. Also, I was tired, so I only walked through the 2 rooms on the first floor and didn't go upstairs to see the Jeff Koons Chicago Experience rooms.

#2- Jeff Koons. You're something else, sir.

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#3- I'm not a huge contemporary art fan, but I can appreciate what they're doing(?) sometimes. I don't like being confused. I think that's my foremost qualm with it. And I don't like thinking to myself, "This is art? Really?" Occasionally I "get" it, but sometimes I just say, "hmph!" and move on to early to mid-20th century painters - not so much an option at the MCA.

Alright, so look at this:These seemingly "inflatable" objects are actually aluminium (say it like an English person, "ah-loo-min-ee-um" - hilarious!)!! I know, right?! I had to do everything to restrain myself from reaching out for a touch. And I still can't believe about this one: I mean, really? My mind was - is - blown. The whole exhibit was a wonder! So many different styles of art through use of various mediums. I wasn't a huge fan of the "PreNew" and "New" collections, or the "Elvis" either, but I did really like the "Statuary" installation and the "Banality" wood statues, like this Buster Keaton one, or the Stacked one, too.
And look at this insane Play-Doh painting!!! Yeah, a painting!! It looks like a photograph, but it's not. Let your eyes be not deceived:

Alright, so it's awesome, and you should go check it out if you have not. FREE Tuesday!! How 'bout that?!?! But yes, I digress.

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Why I write is because in addition to all the family-friendly fun art there was a pornographic Adult section. I was warned about this from a friend before entering the exhibit, and I had a slight idea of what to expect, but it was still... breath-taking? Hmm. Yes. In a perplexing sort of way. And I was lucky enough to get to experience it the same time as this old couple that had been going through the exhibit at about the same pace as me. They were real cute. The woman was small and slightly hunched; her brown-toned librarian-esque skirt, jacket and ruffled cream shirt complemented her snow white hair, and she had large rose-framed glasses on as well. She pushed her husband in his wheelchair. The weight of the years beared down on his shoulders, too. Through most of the exhibit his hands were complacent in his lap. I imagined him as a retired scientist. He also wore glasses [Glasses make everyone look smarter! 'Tis true.] and a green-beige suit with a light button-down shirt, topped off with gray-white thinning hair. Again, adorable. Their comments matched them well. A lot of "hmm"s and "ah-ha"s, "Oh, well, that's interesting." Now, upon entering this pornographic partition, "Oh. My! This is pornographic. This is very illicit." - that was the woman. The man replied with contemplative silence, and then, pointed to the painting(?) with Jeff inside Ilona, "What's this one called?" My eyes darted to the placard - I imagined it in a movie, starting with the shot of me on the left of the large sexual engaging position image and the couple on the right, all looking small in comparison to the lovers, with a stark white background behind it all, then the camera panned from the couple slowing moving closer to get a good read of the small letters to a staggering Hitchcockian zoom-in of the placard reading, "Ilona's Asshole" and back to my look of excited/slightly embarrassed anticipation.

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"Ilona's Asshole." Said the woman, "hmm." She pulled the wheelchair out from the wall so they could get a better look. "Well, yeah. That's what it is."

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"Hmm!" Replied the man, nodding slowly and thoughtfully.

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"Okay." And they moved on.

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I caught the glance of a little family composed of a twenty something daughter and her parents. (I thought I caught some European language, maybe Dutch, sprinkled in their conversation, or maybe they were mumblers, but we'll go with Dutch because that makes the story better in my mind because humor and art have no language barrier.) We chuckled to each other about the old couples' response to the works, and smiled lovingly at their backs as the shuffled back into the main show. The other two pictures included a close up on Jeff orally pleasuring Ilona and the other one was a wide zoom of ecstasy.

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Fun times at the MCA!