By now it’s well-documented that I don’t care much for people. I’m kind of like Shrek before he mellowed out faster than REO Speedwagon. Or Bryan Adams. Or Aerosmith. You get the idea. So normally once I leave work my goal is to make it home to the nurturing bosom of the home swamp with the least amount of interaction. I’d probably even walk right past Crystal Bernard.
Speaking of walking right past people, I was at Wrigley Field about a week ago (technically the patio of a bar across the street from Wrigley) before a Friday afternoon game and Denise Richards walked right by on the sidewalk. She was being followed by a camera crew and drew hoots and cheers from the crowd on the patio. The following are my thoughts, in chronological order:
Wow, she’s short.
Wow, she’s wearing a ton of makeup. What’s she hiding? (I learned that from Moist.)
It looks like rain – I really should have brought my slicker.
Wait, why is she famous? Besides having a public divorce from… Charlie Sheen, maybe?
I’m so going to order a hot dog when I get into the stadium.
Why are people cheering for her? Oh, right, I’m at Wrigley Field.
What the hell am I doing at Wrigley Field?
She certainly was short.
But I digress. So I don’t like people, Shrek, getting home…
I live upstairs from my landlords. They’re generally pretty cool, but if I’m walking past Crystal Bernard I’m certainly not in the mood for small talk with them. As I come into our foyer I note that their door is open, which means they are likely on their way out and I need to hustle in my own door to avoid any dreaded interactions. I whip open my door and I’m greeting by their 5 year old and their 3 year old sliding head first down the steps at my feet. Argh! Not only that but their mom is standing at the top of our steps. I briefly considered saying, “Sorry, wrong house,” and then walking around the block until the chaos cleared but I had already been recognized. I tiptoed around the ankle-biters, made pleasantries with their mom, and collapsed upon the couch.
I almost felt bad when I found out the reason they were there was to deliver some fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies. I wonder if some small talk will get me another half dozen.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Ride On
The weather this week finally warmed up and dried up enough to get my pansy ass back on my bicycle. After a few good rides on the weekend I saddled up for a couple commutes to work this week. I love the smell of carbon monoxide in the morning!
While it’s good for my general well-being, the fact that both days were rather uneventful makes for a rather boring post. My closest call was a near sideswipe at the corner of Western and Lawrence on Monday by an asswipe in a Suburban participating in what some of us call a Chicago drag race. It happens when a two-lane road temporarily opens up into four lanes near an intersection to accommodate a bus stop. If no bus is present, certain people who feel their time is much more important than everyone else’s (probably doctors on their way to deliver a baby or some dude racing to get ½ price appetizers at Bennigan’s) will pull into the right lane, wait for the light to turn green, then floor it to get ahead of everyone else and merge back into the left lane before it funnels back down to two lanes. Taxis are most guilty of this practice, but it’s not uncommon for the common asshole to do this as well.
Unfortunately for them, we cyclists tend to hang out in the right lane as well, mostly in an effort to avoid death or serious injury, which is nothing but an annoyance to these jagoffs. Most of the time they have enough brain cells to realize that getting a biker tangled up in their axle will slow them down even more, and they usually capitulate by just squeezing in where they can while yelling something obscene about my pansy ass or my mother as they pass. But the dude in the Suburban took my presence as a challenge and managed to railroad me into the gutter to complete his mission of arriving at the next traffic light ahead of everyone else.
No big deal – I might not have even mentioned it but tonight I was sitting at the same intersection, waiting for the light, and as I’m crossing the intersection another flippin’ Suburban does the same damn thing. Not quite as close as the previous day, but I’m beginning to wonder if I did something to piss off the Piece Of Shit Suburban Owners Association.
I usually ride to work in some baggy mountain bike shorts and a t-shirt and stash my work clothes in a bag on my rear rack. I get to work, cool down and drink a shake, while my personal valet Mr. French lays out my clothes in the storage closet where I change into my generic white businessman uniform.
However, today, Mr. French came out looking very confused as I had apparently forgotten to pack my underwear. Being a good man-servant, he offered me his but there was no way I was going to drop my boys into his generic white boxers from the Sears Roebuck catalog. Instead I would need to go commando. It did not seem like it would be a problem as long as I didn’t split my pants, forget to zip up, or receive a surprise visit from Shania Twain.
It was a little awkward at first, but after a couple hours I had happily settled into my freeballin’ lifestyle. For eight hours I mostly stayed behind my desk, zipped and unzipped with the utmost care during bathroom breaks, and for the most part avoided dirty thoughts. As much as a guy can.
Rain tomorrow, so no bike riding. I’ll probably wear underwear. And Suburban drivers will need to find a new target for the day.
Bonus Feature – Sexist Sid
The only funnier thing than watching a women trying to parallel park is watching a woman trying to parallel park while talking on her cell phone.
Bonus Feature – Sports Night
People who sing the National Anthem are pretty much guaranteed a standing ovation.
While it’s good for my general well-being, the fact that both days were rather uneventful makes for a rather boring post. My closest call was a near sideswipe at the corner of Western and Lawrence on Monday by an asswipe in a Suburban participating in what some of us call a Chicago drag race. It happens when a two-lane road temporarily opens up into four lanes near an intersection to accommodate a bus stop. If no bus is present, certain people who feel their time is much more important than everyone else’s (probably doctors on their way to deliver a baby or some dude racing to get ½ price appetizers at Bennigan’s) will pull into the right lane, wait for the light to turn green, then floor it to get ahead of everyone else and merge back into the left lane before it funnels back down to two lanes. Taxis are most guilty of this practice, but it’s not uncommon for the common asshole to do this as well.
Unfortunately for them, we cyclists tend to hang out in the right lane as well, mostly in an effort to avoid death or serious injury, which is nothing but an annoyance to these jagoffs. Most of the time they have enough brain cells to realize that getting a biker tangled up in their axle will slow them down even more, and they usually capitulate by just squeezing in where they can while yelling something obscene about my pansy ass or my mother as they pass. But the dude in the Suburban took my presence as a challenge and managed to railroad me into the gutter to complete his mission of arriving at the next traffic light ahead of everyone else.
No big deal – I might not have even mentioned it but tonight I was sitting at the same intersection, waiting for the light, and as I’m crossing the intersection another flippin’ Suburban does the same damn thing. Not quite as close as the previous day, but I’m beginning to wonder if I did something to piss off the Piece Of Shit Suburban Owners Association.
I usually ride to work in some baggy mountain bike shorts and a t-shirt and stash my work clothes in a bag on my rear rack. I get to work, cool down and drink a shake, while my personal valet Mr. French lays out my clothes in the storage closet where I change into my generic white businessman uniform.
However, today, Mr. French came out looking very confused as I had apparently forgotten to pack my underwear. Being a good man-servant, he offered me his but there was no way I was going to drop my boys into his generic white boxers from the Sears Roebuck catalog. Instead I would need to go commando. It did not seem like it would be a problem as long as I didn’t split my pants, forget to zip up, or receive a surprise visit from Shania Twain.
It was a little awkward at first, but after a couple hours I had happily settled into my freeballin’ lifestyle. For eight hours I mostly stayed behind my desk, zipped and unzipped with the utmost care during bathroom breaks, and for the most part avoided dirty thoughts. As much as a guy can.
Rain tomorrow, so no bike riding. I’ll probably wear underwear. And Suburban drivers will need to find a new target for the day.
Bonus Feature – Sexist Sid
The only funnier thing than watching a women trying to parallel park is watching a woman trying to parallel park while talking on her cell phone.
Bonus Feature – Sports Night
People who sing the National Anthem are pretty much guaranteed a standing ovation.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Busting A Cap In Your Ass - April '09
Rant #1: Do not be the first one to get out of the elevator or get off the train if you’re going to saunter along at 2 miles per hour in front of me. You should know I’m a fast walker – I’ve painted flames on my shoes to indicate it. So step aside, Slappy, before you get a taste of the pavement.
Rant #2: If you’re under 5 feet tall, you do not have permission to put your seat back on the airplane. It’s unnecessary. And if you let your kid do that, be prepared to donate a kidney to your lil’ munchkin after I rupture his with a sharp blow from my patella.
We lived in Northlake for a couple years when I was a kid and I remember driving past a music club called The Thirsty Whale. They had the coolest sign – a giant bloated whale, and when I reached my teens I’d read about the bands playing there in the free weekly entertainment rag I’d pick up from the record store. I knew it had to be one of the greatest places in the world and I envied all the people old enough to take a Jonah-like journey into the belly of my imagined nirvana. Then finally, one day, in 1990 I had the opportunity. In all honestly I had probably forgotten all about the place, but one of the crazier chicks I worked with was dating a musician, of course, so I would be her date for the evening until Theater finished their set, at which time I would tender her vinyl-clad bod to the nasty bass player in leather pants and mascara. Not only did I seem to be getting the raw end of that deal, but the club was kind of a letdown as well. I never went back and they tore it down in 1996.
The older I get the more I like Steely Dan. It’s something that I’d make fun of someone else for admitting, so go ahead, let me have it. Even worse is that it reminds me of Red Lobster. I bartended there for a few months after college and they played the same damn tape every day, which included Peg. In a desperate move to find relief I eventually let a live lobster from the fish tank in the lobby claw my eyes out. I never said I was smart. There was a reason I was working at Red Lobster after college.
In addition to not posting much lately, I’ve also fallen off on my resolution to catch up on some movies this year. But I did get to watch Dig! which I highly recommend. Just do it. But those numbnuts at Blockbuster kind of screwed it up for me – it’s a two-disc set and they decided to send me Disc 2 of the bonus material first. That’d be like a girl asking you to snuggle before the sex.
Rant #2: If you’re under 5 feet tall, you do not have permission to put your seat back on the airplane. It’s unnecessary. And if you let your kid do that, be prepared to donate a kidney to your lil’ munchkin after I rupture his with a sharp blow from my patella.
We lived in Northlake for a couple years when I was a kid and I remember driving past a music club called The Thirsty Whale. They had the coolest sign – a giant bloated whale, and when I reached my teens I’d read about the bands playing there in the free weekly entertainment rag I’d pick up from the record store. I knew it had to be one of the greatest places in the world and I envied all the people old enough to take a Jonah-like journey into the belly of my imagined nirvana. Then finally, one day, in 1990 I had the opportunity. In all honestly I had probably forgotten all about the place, but one of the crazier chicks I worked with was dating a musician, of course, so I would be her date for the evening until Theater finished their set, at which time I would tender her vinyl-clad bod to the nasty bass player in leather pants and mascara. Not only did I seem to be getting the raw end of that deal, but the club was kind of a letdown as well. I never went back and they tore it down in 1996.
The older I get the more I like Steely Dan. It’s something that I’d make fun of someone else for admitting, so go ahead, let me have it. Even worse is that it reminds me of Red Lobster. I bartended there for a few months after college and they played the same damn tape every day, which included Peg. In a desperate move to find relief I eventually let a live lobster from the fish tank in the lobby claw my eyes out. I never said I was smart. There was a reason I was working at Red Lobster after college.
In addition to not posting much lately, I’ve also fallen off on my resolution to catch up on some movies this year. But I did get to watch Dig! which I highly recommend. Just do it. But those numbnuts at Blockbuster kind of screwed it up for me – it’s a two-disc set and they decided to send me Disc 2 of the bonus material first. That’d be like a girl asking you to snuggle before the sex.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
An Easter Discussion
Jesus did not go get a burrito first thing after coming back from the dead. They didn't have burritos then. He probably had a matza ball and some gebrattens.
He was JESUS. He could turn a pile of camel shit into a burrito if he wanted to.
I don't know. It's not like he could have whipped out a miracle to do anything he wanted to do. They should have cut off his head instead of crucifying him. Apparently, he could rise from the dead, but he couldn't heal his wounds, since he still had the holes in his hands and feet from the nails and the gash in his side when he came back. They could have taken his head and thrown it into the ocean, leaving the rest of him in the tomb.
When he showed up in heaven, god wouldn't have known who he was - "This can't be right, my son had a head the last time I saw him. Are you sure you aren't Holofernes? How did you get out of hell, you bastard?!"
Unless he compared Jesus' footprints to the footprints the manger medical staff took and put on his birth certificate.
Plus, the beheading would have delayed his return to life because he would have had to take some time to find his head. If he didn’t, the disciples would have had the same doubt god would have had - "You're not Jesus! Where's your head? You’re that bastard Holofernes straight from the crags of hell, aren’t you?! If you really are Jesus, turn my wife's foot into a gefilte fish. Go ahead. I dare you."
Instead of three days, maybe we would have a full week of holiday, which means a full week of boozing if you are anything like the Christians I know.
"Drinkin' thy blood" all week long!
It definitely would have thrown a wrench into the entire religion. And the iconography would have been totally different. Instead of a cross, it could have been a decapitation axe, maybe with drips of blood coming off of it. Do you know how cool that would look hanging on a necklace?
Holy heavy metal religiosity, Batman!
Or maybe an octopus beak.
No, that wouldn’t work unless they killed him with an octopus beak.
But, it would look cool on a necklace.
Yeah, it would.
Jesus would have come back and said something like, "Uh, fellas, yo apostles, I would've been back sooner, but I had to wrestle my head from the beak of an octopus. It took me a while to figure out how to get under the water because I kept walking on the surface out of habit. The trick is in weight distribution. And I can't seem to get my head to stay balanced on top of my neck. Anybody got a staple gun? I'm not setting a very good example as a savior here, am I? I thought they were going to hang me on a cross. Who knew Pontius Pilate was so adept at wielding a battle axe. And jeez, was he ever pissed off. As god as my witness, I never saw it coming. Of course, if god was witnessing me, maybe he could have warned me. You know, 'Look out Jesus, axe at 2 o'clock!' or something like that. My father never loved me. I can't believe he put me through this. I think it's because I throw like a girl. I'm the worst messiah, EVER!"
Stupid, incompetent Romans. They ruined everything. No wonder their empire fell apart.
Yeah, I know.
He was JESUS. He could turn a pile of camel shit into a burrito if he wanted to.
I don't know. It's not like he could have whipped out a miracle to do anything he wanted to do. They should have cut off his head instead of crucifying him. Apparently, he could rise from the dead, but he couldn't heal his wounds, since he still had the holes in his hands and feet from the nails and the gash in his side when he came back. They could have taken his head and thrown it into the ocean, leaving the rest of him in the tomb.
When he showed up in heaven, god wouldn't have known who he was - "This can't be right, my son had a head the last time I saw him. Are you sure you aren't Holofernes? How did you get out of hell, you bastard?!"
Unless he compared Jesus' footprints to the footprints the manger medical staff took and put on his birth certificate.
Plus, the beheading would have delayed his return to life because he would have had to take some time to find his head. If he didn’t, the disciples would have had the same doubt god would have had - "You're not Jesus! Where's your head? You’re that bastard Holofernes straight from the crags of hell, aren’t you?! If you really are Jesus, turn my wife's foot into a gefilte fish. Go ahead. I dare you."
Instead of three days, maybe we would have a full week of holiday, which means a full week of boozing if you are anything like the Christians I know.
"Drinkin' thy blood" all week long!
It definitely would have thrown a wrench into the entire religion. And the iconography would have been totally different. Instead of a cross, it could have been a decapitation axe, maybe with drips of blood coming off of it. Do you know how cool that would look hanging on a necklace?
Holy heavy metal religiosity, Batman!
Or maybe an octopus beak.
No, that wouldn’t work unless they killed him with an octopus beak.
But, it would look cool on a necklace.
Yeah, it would.
Jesus would have come back and said something like, "Uh, fellas, yo apostles, I would've been back sooner, but I had to wrestle my head from the beak of an octopus. It took me a while to figure out how to get under the water because I kept walking on the surface out of habit. The trick is in weight distribution. And I can't seem to get my head to stay balanced on top of my neck. Anybody got a staple gun? I'm not setting a very good example as a savior here, am I? I thought they were going to hang me on a cross. Who knew Pontius Pilate was so adept at wielding a battle axe. And jeez, was he ever pissed off. As god as my witness, I never saw it coming. Of course, if god was witnessing me, maybe he could have warned me. You know, 'Look out Jesus, axe at 2 o'clock!' or something like that. My father never loved me. I can't believe he put me through this. I think it's because I throw like a girl. I'm the worst messiah, EVER!"
Stupid, incompetent Romans. They ruined everything. No wonder their empire fell apart.
Yeah, I know.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Scene From An Italian Restaurant
During our first visit to an Italian joint a couple blocks down the street on Sunday evening:
Owner: How-a izza everything tonight?
Sid: Awesome.
Mrs. F’er: This is the best pizza I’ve had since my grandmother died.
Owner: Ah, good – that-a makes us a very happy.
I’m hoping he was referring to the pizza and not her dead grandmother. It's not like she was competing in the same neighborhood.
Owner: How-a izza everything tonight?
Sid: Awesome.
Mrs. F’er: This is the best pizza I’ve had since my grandmother died.
Owner: Ah, good – that-a makes us a very happy.
I’m hoping he was referring to the pizza and not her dead grandmother. It's not like she was competing in the same neighborhood.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
They Never Said It Was A TOP Ten List
Being the pillar of the business community that I am, I was recently perusing Crain’s Chicago Business and their 10 Things To Do This Weekend column. Normally it’s pretty high tone stuff like museum exhibits, ballets, garden tours, charity events, and fox hunts. So I was surprised to see the following:
Besides Crain’s targeting a demographic I never knew existed for them, I was also intrigued by the featured celebrities. Charlene Tilton, probably most famous for providing the cleavage for the television show Dallas, is listed as the headliner. I had big money on her being the trigger chick during the “Who Shot J.R.?” craze, lost my college savings and ended up working as a dishwasher at IHOP for the last twenty years. But I digress. It appears she’s only had a handful of work since her Dallas days, so you may think it odd that she would be headlining the event. Until you realize her co-headliner is Duncan Faure, probably celebrating the 25th anniversary of his last appearance on the cover of Tiger Beat. I was tempted to go, not to see small cars crushed since that is my nightmare as the Mrs. zips around town in her Honda Fit, but I wanted to see how Charlene and Duncan were going to “spice things up” for a crowd showing up to see stuff crushed. Maybe they were offering up their own hopes and dreams of reliving their fame from twenty years ago only to see them crushed along with those damn imports by a crowd wearing “Buy American” t-shirts who drive Chevy pick-ups and could not care less about some rich daddy’s girl from an 80’s TV show or a fancy lad who was famous for his shag haircut and plaid socks in the 70’s.
I also wanted to find out who the “other celebrities” who didn’t make the bill were – I’m thinking Tiffany Brissette or Taffy Nivert.
But if I had gone though you can bet your bottom dollar I would have gone on the 14th – S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night!
Actress Charlene Tilton, former Bay City Rollers lead singer Duncan Faure, and other celebrities will spice things up at the MONSTER TRUCK NATIONALS. The two-day event includes four-wheeled power machines crushing smaller cars in the controlled climate of the Sears Centre Arena. March 13 and March 14, 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $7 - $33. 5333 Prairie Stone Pkwy., Hoffman Estates, (800) 745-3000
Besides Crain’s targeting a demographic I never knew existed for them, I was also intrigued by the featured celebrities. Charlene Tilton, probably most famous for providing the cleavage for the television show Dallas, is listed as the headliner. I had big money on her being the trigger chick during the “Who Shot J.R.?” craze, lost my college savings and ended up working as a dishwasher at IHOP for the last twenty years. But I digress. It appears she’s only had a handful of work since her Dallas days, so you may think it odd that she would be headlining the event. Until you realize her co-headliner is Duncan Faure, probably celebrating the 25th anniversary of his last appearance on the cover of Tiger Beat. I was tempted to go, not to see small cars crushed since that is my nightmare as the Mrs. zips around town in her Honda Fit, but I wanted to see how Charlene and Duncan were going to “spice things up” for a crowd showing up to see stuff crushed. Maybe they were offering up their own hopes and dreams of reliving their fame from twenty years ago only to see them crushed along with those damn imports by a crowd wearing “Buy American” t-shirts who drive Chevy pick-ups and could not care less about some rich daddy’s girl from an 80’s TV show or a fancy lad who was famous for his shag haircut and plaid socks in the 70’s.
I also wanted to find out who the “other celebrities” who didn’t make the bill were – I’m thinking Tiffany Brissette or Taffy Nivert.
But if I had gone though you can bet your bottom dollar I would have gone on the 14th – S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Embrace The Neon Lights
Sure we have the highest sales tax in the nation due to incompetent or corrupt politicians. Probably both. Yeah, parking can suck at times, like when you want to stop driving and park. And it’s late March and there’s three inches of snow on the ground.
But when I left work Friday a week ago I didn’t have to sit in rush hour traffic – I just hopped on the train, worked the crossword puzzle, realized I know nothing about the Bible or rivers outside North America, and was home in 45 minutes.
I then walked to Big Joe’s bar to meet up with Moist Rub, Stiv_OO, and Senor Cojones, and munched on completely unsanitary shared bowls of complimentary generic Cheetos before heading to our next stop.
Which was a brewery a block away that was hosting a play called… Beer. We checked in at the box office, which was a folding table inside the side entrance and at showtime we were escorted through a walk-in fridge into the bowels of the brewery and squeezed into temporary bleachers sitting between large, stainless steel tanks. We then watched the story of Boone, a ten year-old who gets drunk on his step-dad’s cheap beer, wakes up in a brewery, and can only go home by learning how to brew beer with the help of his own puke which has come to life in the form of a puppet named Puke and the help of the “beer geeks”, a live band who explain the brewing process to him in song, often performed by puppets representing the ingredients of beer. Of course, it’s not nearly as easy as it sounds, so the story’s antagonist is none other than Bud Miller, the evil piss-beer brewing founder of Millweiser who sneaks into the beer geek band in disguise in an attempt to sabotage Boone’s efforts to save brewing tradition from the evil corporate overlords. Got it? Like most other of the Neo-Futurist productions I enjoyed it, and Stiv_OO got a souvenir handful of puke when the girl puppeteer in charge of Puke dove into his lap during her big production number. I'm not sure if he's finished his analysis of the very puke-like substance.
After that we returned to Big Joe’s, where we bellied back up to the bar, and I was disappointed to see my cohorts order up an assortment of Miller and Budweiser products. Did they learn nothing? Of course, I was only swilling a diet coke so I let them enjoy their corporate slop. At least they weren’t pretending to like PBR.
The bar was unusually packed for a corner dive, which was explained by the commencement of the weekly turtle races. You buy drinks, you get tickets, if your ticket is called, you get a turtle, if your turtle wins you get a t-shirt, if your turtle loses you get a free drink. Senor Cojones was picked for the second race but finished in the middle of the pack, so we acted like sore losers and left. And I walked home.
Saturday was swell weather so I dusted off the bicycle and took a pleasant ride a few miles north to test out my trusty steed, then came back down Lincoln Avenue and none of the friendly city drivers tried to run me over. We were getting a little hungry so we pulled over and decided to try George’s Pitas. I sent the Mrs. in for a menu while I watched the bikes and within those several seconds a regular came outside to befriend me. He began talking up the merits of the menu items and after I sent the Mrs. back inside with my order for a beef shawarma sandwich, my new buddy stayed behind to keep me company and by the time she returned with our lunch I’m pretty sure I knew more about my new friend than anyone else in his life. I really hope he gets that lump checked out.
That evening, Sr. Cojones came back out and this time brought Sra. Cojones. Yep, I was quite the social butterfly. We went out for Thai food down the street and then continued on to the Old Town School theater since I had picked up some tickets to see Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women. Not Alvin and the Chipmunks as my co-workers were convinced I was going to see. I always thought the Blasters were pretty cool, but was never the huge fan that Sr. Cojones was. But the venue was awesome and I’m always willing to expand my horizons as long as it doesn’t involve peanut butter, gay sex, or the likelihood of ending up in a federal penitentiary. The show seemed to meet that criteria so away we went.
And the verdict…. Wow. It was the most enjoyable show I’ve been to recently. Ol’ Dave is the real deal, a likable sort and a great musician and songwriter. And the Guilty Women – six women he recruited for his latest endeavor – were just as fun to watch as they were to listen to. Everyone was having fun – Dave, the Women, and the crowd.
It also felt very American. There are a lot of people in this country trying to fuck it up for their own gain at the expense of what we’ve built over the last 230 years. I’m not exactly brimming with hope over our chances of getting it back, but this little bastion of Americana made me feel good. A group of solid musicians, performing songs written from the heart, and having fun in a style that is pure U.S. effin'A.
The new CD will be out May 21st. If they come to your town, check them out. Even if you don’t normally listen to dudes who wear cowboy hats, you might be surprised how much you like it. He won’t be selling out stadiums like Kenny Chesney, but I put that in the plus column.
After the show, I walked back to our place happy to know I was taking advantage of all my new neighborhood had to offer. Instead of just complaining about the parking.
But when I left work Friday a week ago I didn’t have to sit in rush hour traffic – I just hopped on the train, worked the crossword puzzle, realized I know nothing about the Bible or rivers outside North America, and was home in 45 minutes.
I then walked to Big Joe’s bar to meet up with Moist Rub, Stiv_OO, and Senor Cojones, and munched on completely unsanitary shared bowls of complimentary generic Cheetos before heading to our next stop.
Which was a brewery a block away that was hosting a play called… Beer. We checked in at the box office, which was a folding table inside the side entrance and at showtime we were escorted through a walk-in fridge into the bowels of the brewery and squeezed into temporary bleachers sitting between large, stainless steel tanks. We then watched the story of Boone, a ten year-old who gets drunk on his step-dad’s cheap beer, wakes up in a brewery, and can only go home by learning how to brew beer with the help of his own puke which has come to life in the form of a puppet named Puke and the help of the “beer geeks”, a live band who explain the brewing process to him in song, often performed by puppets representing the ingredients of beer. Of course, it’s not nearly as easy as it sounds, so the story’s antagonist is none other than Bud Miller, the evil piss-beer brewing founder of Millweiser who sneaks into the beer geek band in disguise in an attempt to sabotage Boone’s efforts to save brewing tradition from the evil corporate overlords. Got it? Like most other of the Neo-Futurist productions I enjoyed it, and Stiv_OO got a souvenir handful of puke when the girl puppeteer in charge of Puke dove into his lap during her big production number. I'm not sure if he's finished his analysis of the very puke-like substance.
After that we returned to Big Joe’s, where we bellied back up to the bar, and I was disappointed to see my cohorts order up an assortment of Miller and Budweiser products. Did they learn nothing? Of course, I was only swilling a diet coke so I let them enjoy their corporate slop. At least they weren’t pretending to like PBR.
The bar was unusually packed for a corner dive, which was explained by the commencement of the weekly turtle races. You buy drinks, you get tickets, if your ticket is called, you get a turtle, if your turtle wins you get a t-shirt, if your turtle loses you get a free drink. Senor Cojones was picked for the second race but finished in the middle of the pack, so we acted like sore losers and left. And I walked home.
Saturday was swell weather so I dusted off the bicycle and took a pleasant ride a few miles north to test out my trusty steed, then came back down Lincoln Avenue and none of the friendly city drivers tried to run me over. We were getting a little hungry so we pulled over and decided to try George’s Pitas. I sent the Mrs. in for a menu while I watched the bikes and within those several seconds a regular came outside to befriend me. He began talking up the merits of the menu items and after I sent the Mrs. back inside with my order for a beef shawarma sandwich, my new buddy stayed behind to keep me company and by the time she returned with our lunch I’m pretty sure I knew more about my new friend than anyone else in his life. I really hope he gets that lump checked out.
That evening, Sr. Cojones came back out and this time brought Sra. Cojones. Yep, I was quite the social butterfly. We went out for Thai food down the street and then continued on to the Old Town School theater since I had picked up some tickets to see Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women. Not Alvin and the Chipmunks as my co-workers were convinced I was going to see. I always thought the Blasters were pretty cool, but was never the huge fan that Sr. Cojones was. But the venue was awesome and I’m always willing to expand my horizons as long as it doesn’t involve peanut butter, gay sex, or the likelihood of ending up in a federal penitentiary. The show seemed to meet that criteria so away we went.
And the verdict…. Wow. It was the most enjoyable show I’ve been to recently. Ol’ Dave is the real deal, a likable sort and a great musician and songwriter. And the Guilty Women – six women he recruited for his latest endeavor – were just as fun to watch as they were to listen to. Everyone was having fun – Dave, the Women, and the crowd.
It also felt very American. There are a lot of people in this country trying to fuck it up for their own gain at the expense of what we’ve built over the last 230 years. I’m not exactly brimming with hope over our chances of getting it back, but this little bastion of Americana made me feel good. A group of solid musicians, performing songs written from the heart, and having fun in a style that is pure U.S. effin'A.
The new CD will be out May 21st. If they come to your town, check them out. Even if you don’t normally listen to dudes who wear cowboy hats, you might be surprised how much you like it. He won’t be selling out stadiums like Kenny Chesney, but I put that in the plus column.
After the show, I walked back to our place happy to know I was taking advantage of all my new neighborhood had to offer. Instead of just complaining about the parking.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
The Balloon Flailer
I'm a wuss. It was confirmed long ago. There is no need for me to flex in front of the mirror each night before bedtime. Nobody has to worry about me asking them to feel my muscle. If a confrontation ensues, don't look to me for help. I'll be hiding behind a girl scout.
I'm lucky. Most guys probably go through life with an inflated impression of their machismo. I don't need to perpetuate that facade. I had a revelation. I have experienced a terror that represents a defining moment in my life. A moment of truth. The truth hurts, sometimes.
One night a while back I was re-reading The Fellowship of the Ring, which is the first book in The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien. The news, at the time, of the filming of its motion picture had sparked my need to delve back into Middle Earth. Right before going to bed, I reached a particularly ghostly passage where a Barrow-wight (a ghost) captured Frodo, our hero, and his traveling mates. I won't describe the whole story, but trust me - it's a scary part. Maybe not as scary as The Exorcist or Nancy Pelosi, but scary enough.
It was late and I was tired, so I decided to wait until the next day to see if Frodo and his gang survived (as this was my fourth reading of the book, I was pretty sure they were going to make it, but you never can be too sure with all those book-changing pranksters out there with their white-out and all). Feeling a little spooked, on my way too bed, as I walked through my dimly moonlit living room, I saw a faint image of something I believed to be a human form. Immediately, I reacted by covering behind my flailing arms and falling into the wall. It's quite an effective defense as it strikes fear into the hearts of perpetrators of all kinds.
Now, I'm not proud of how I responded to the apparent trespasser in my home, but at least I wasn't killed. The shame gets worse. The elapsed time between when I detected the "intruder" and reacted to it was probably less than a second. Within that instant I was able to determine that the suspected human form before me was that of an old woman carrying a bag of groceries and smoking a large pipe made of the bone of a wildebeest and covered in a sheath of octopus leather (I may be exaggerating about the details of the pipe or in the fact that there was a pipe at all, but it definitely looked like a hunched, old woman). My mind, hopped up on adrenaline, was able to perceive that the form before me was a harmless old woman, yet I reacted by cowering, like a..a...a..well, like a harmless old woman.
Obviously, the woman must have lost her way home from the grocery store where she picked up a few essentials and beer munchies, and she needed my assistance to find her way. A brave man, or even just a generally polite man, would have helped her home and took out her garbage. And, what did I do? I flailed and fell. I flailed at an old lady. Do you know what that makes me? That's right, it makes me a mountain nymph. Or do you say oread? No, it makes me a coward. A sniveling, spineless, yellow-bellied, cheek-chewin' chicken. I have always thought the yellow on my belly was from all of the butter. At least I now know who I am and can live the rest of my days with peace of mind (while hiding underneath my bed).
It turned out that my enemy was a gaggle of helium filled balloons my wife at the time had brought home from a baby shower the day before. They were tied to one of my kids' play chairs. I don't know what's worse, cowering to a hunched old woman or to a bunch of baby balloons. Had I known they were balloons, I could have easily popped them with my arm hair that happened to be standing on end at the time of the attack. I'm not sure if you can pop an old woman, and I'm not looking to find out.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Just Check The Deli Case
In keeping with the sandwich theme, recently at work during lunch:
Co-worker #1: Is that salami?
Co-worker #2: No, it's roast beef, it's just very rare.
Sid: I wouldn't say that, I see the stuff everywhere.
Sometimes I think the only reason I go to work is for the joke set-ups.
Co-worker #1: Is that salami?
Co-worker #2: No, it's roast beef, it's just very rare.
Sid: I wouldn't say that, I see the stuff everywhere.
Sometimes I think the only reason I go to work is for the joke set-ups.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
A Very Special Ham Sandwich
Long ago somebody made me a ham sandwich. It was no ordinary ham sandwich. It was the best ham sandwich ever made. That ham sandwich changed my life.
The sandwich was constructed on a bakery fresh roll from Jewel food store. Or it may have been from Dominick’s, but that’s hardly the point, is it? It was bakery fresh, let me tell you. On the roll, she tenderly placed mesmerizing folds of succulent ham, sliced by a deli professional extraordinaire who must have been trained in
By now, you are probably saying to yourself, “So what. Big deal. It’s just a sandwich. You are a monstrous idiot.” Well, friend, you may be correct in your assessment of me, but not the sandwich, which was made with ham that was succulent, by the way. Because - now listen closely - this was a magical ham sandwich, the likes of which this author’s tongue, nor any tongue, has not savored since.
At the time, I was new to that family, and not well known by anybody other than the number one son. Nonetheless, his mother poured her soul into that sandwich for me. After eating it, I thought to myself, “If this kind of excellence can exist in a mere ham sandwich, and people can behave in such a selfless manner as she did in the creation of this sandwich, what else could be out there!” From that day forward, I vowed to dedicate my life to the achievement of selfless excellence. It is that wonderful sandwich, and the effort put into its formation, to which I credit everything I’ve been able to achieve in this world since that day (which isn't much, to no fault of the sandwich or its creator, but it's the thought that counts).
No, really, it was one helluva ham sandwich.
Thank you, Bubba (aka Mrs. Mop).
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