Concert Review

Heavy Trash
Schuba's
Chicago, IL
Sunday, November 15th, 2009

My longtime dreamboat, Jon Spencer, took a lil punk and mixed it up with some rockabilly and a handsome suit and a great band to make room for a new kinda spunk.

But that's all I can say because I am smitten in his presence.

I am awaiting the youtube presentation from the guy who was standing in front of me. Words cannot convey the dreaminess that is Jon Spencer.

I am sorry, they just cannot.

hahahahahahhahahahahaa

oh it's november....

halloween wedding avec grandmere, her tiara i made her wear and her purple cast....

the autumn has been an odd one; the sun wouldn't appear for ten days or more at a time. and then BAM...here comes the sun...a few lil 'buried treasure' kind of days. it actually kinda turned out quite lovely that way. i love a good surprise....

random thoughts:

• i still have not broken ground with any written manuscript. very frustrated with this.
• the Mr. is still working 2nd shift and it's a drag.
• i am hoping his request off for his friday the 13th birthday will be approved so we can orchestrate a fun lil dinner party.
  
• the little nyc frere is coming to visit next week for one month. we are going to decorate my home for christmas and bake cookies. this also means vegetarian meals for a month....
• i long for a home big enough to host a holiday. cramming in a two bedroom apartment just doesn't cut it.
  
• i am carefully planning my travels for the new year. i only have ten days to work with but i hope to squeeze in savannah, nyc, france and perhaps one surprise weekend somewhere. i always like to keep my travel options open. but seriously, america, TEN FRIGGIN VACATION DAYS A YEAR!?!?!?!?!?
  
• i am loving the new Monsters Of Folk (primarily on account of M. Ward's work) and my new bargain bin find: Burl Ives - A Little Bitty Tear
• i am so very tired when i come home from work each night that i have zero energy and hope that these days do not last forever and ever.

bring on december. i've got my mittens out and i'm ready.

Concert Review

Bob Dylan. Aragon Ballroom. Chicago, IL. October 30, 2009.

wllitstrtdoffprttyclevenificouldn'tunderstandonesinglelyrichewassinging.
wentbymyslfcuzjustthoughttwassomethinineededtadointhislifetime.
kndaendedupbeinlikeabigfratpartywithbeercausewheneverhedplayanoldieallthefratboysnsororitygirlswentwild.
raisinbeerglasses'Howdoesitfeel'butibettheywerejus'waitinforEvrybodymustgitSTONED.
bandsoundidgoodbutagincantrillyundahstan'whathesingin.

twaslikewatchinaforeignfilmexcepttherewerenosubtitles.

So I can scratch it off my Things-I-Ought-To-Do-In-Life-Before-I-Die list.

RIP Chicago 2016 Olympic bid....

The only reason I am upset is because my chariot, aka the CTA, will probably not become completely modernized after all.

I was thinking of getting together a little bed and breakfast, hoping business and opportunity would have flocked to the edges of my Lake, friends from afar would come and visit me and vast improvements would be made to this grungy, dirty city.

But come on, the Olympics is about SPORTS, and sports in this city are merely another reason to drink.

(Insert SNL DA BEARS SUPERFANS clip here.)

(Hitch a ride on the #152 Addison bus on a Cubs home game day.)

(Try having a worldly conversation with the owner of Hoagie Hut.)

This is such a strange place to live. It really truly is.

happy autumn/home with the flu

Summer has ended and autumn has arrived in Chicago. Maybe not in reality, as the weather has been rather balmy and about 80 degrees for the last few weeks. But when it finally gets here, boy oh boy, I just love this season. Time for jackets and scarves and my favorite tall boots. (For the closer-to-winter temperature cause those babies are thoroughly insulated.)

Pickin' out a pumpkin with Mr. T. Crunching leaves on my walks to and from the bus stop. Running to the country to visit my parents as we get the first fire going in the fireplace for the year. Work schedules permitting, taking a drive down to my old college town to see the gorgeous surrounding canopies of color all around. And of course, Halloween (in which we are attending a wedding!) and Thanksgiving (complete with my lil bro-bro coming home for three weeks from NYC).

It's also the time of year I usually get a little weathered from the changing climate, the back-to-school germs, the inevitable change that does me in as I battle my customer crowds and germs and viruses incubate. Sigh.

And so I am home-bound for the weekend, stocked up with miscellaneous entertainment from the Chicago Public Library and my own:
Films:
Classe Tous Risques
Taste of Cherry
Disc 2 of We Shall Remain
Northfork
Fight Club, Sense & Sensibility, old stuff to watch before the VHS tapes are gone...
Books:
The Winner Stands Alone
The Death of Bunny Monro (which I'm almost finished with....)
and assorted magazines such as Mojo, Reader's Digest, Chicago, Budget Travel, Time Out Chicago, Midwest Living (for the autumn crafts of COURSE) and this new premier issue of Afar to check out.

Better get busy....


PS UPDATE. Upon reviewing some of the Bloomington/Nashville/Brown County websites for potential weekend getaways, I am sad to announce ....RIP Little Nashville Opry. My poor ma n pa were looking so very much foward to their Asleep At the Wheel concert in a month, and I was even lookin' to join them. RIP you lil hut in the hills of Southern Indiana. Guess this will mean more time at the Gnaw Bone Flea Market....

9/9/09

On this momentous day, I contain no particular musings of any sort of significance.

1. It is my Grandmere's birthday.
2. I do not work today.
3. I plan to do laundry.
4. I spent my extra money for the month shopping on Labor Day.
5. I think I'll do a CrockPot roast today.
6. I have a bit of a sore throat.
7. I slept in until 8:10 today.
8. My calves are achy.
9. I think I'll have some Cinnamon Kashi cereal for breakfast.

9/09/09 shall be remembered as another existential day.

on tenterhooks

Again, falling down on the comedy these past few days! I suppose you can't really go hunting down comedy in the seemingly big bad world. It must come naturally. I'm not there yet.

Sunday marks 33 years on Planet Earth for this female. Has it really been 33 years?

Random thoughts:

1. I am tired of shoplifters.

2. I am really ready for fall and my big black boots again.

3. I enjoyed Audrey Niffenegger's new book so much that I wrote her to thank her for a glorious work of art. She wrote back describing these weeks before its release as being 'on tenterhooks' and thanks for reassuring her.

4. I had to look up the phrase 'on tenterhooks.'

5. I had originally gone to France in 2005 to write for five months and come back with finished rough draft of manuscript in hand. I did not, however, account for the language division when my brain cuts itself in half to speak another language.

6. I have itchy feet to get the heck outta Chicago.

For right now, that's all I've got.

Comedic Revival 2

Boy, I am really falling down on the job with this one. (See previous posting for the challenge to myself.) The public is wearing me out, man! I could re-inact the phone call I took from a man on his phone driving while accessing Google maps with his screaming 2-year-old in the back seat. "I'm sorry, sir, but we do not offer babysitting services at our bookstore location."

But I have a real hard time finding humor in parents-who-don't-really-wanna-be-parents.

Or I could detail the near-brawl that occured on my bus ride home tonight, when an elderly man got on and starting yelling at a guy speaking Spanish on his cell phone. But that wasn't really funny.

Except for the Latina sister.

"Sit your ass down! What are you doing arguing with an 80-year-old Archie Bunker? You ain't gonna get nothin done with this!"

Over shouting matches picking up steam, her voice echoed through, "You don't have to argue with a bigot. You don't have to argue with a bigot, He is Archie Bunker. He is Archie Bunker," over and over again, she kept repeating, as I positioned my bag onto my right side so as to cushion myself should a punch get thrown my way.

It was getting pretty heated for about five minutes there.

Even NOT funnier is that this is about the third time in a one year period on this bus route that I have witnessed these occurences.

So what can I say, humor is a gift. It's a very particular gift. Especially humor writing. I used to be really good at it. Then all this 'big bad life' stuff got in me way and hardened me into serious intensity when I expressively write. I suppose if I didn't do it here, talk the serious smack I mean, then my silly jokester persona with my co-workers would be sacrificed for, you know, something a lil too heavy for the workplace.

It's good to have a variety about oneself, but what happens when one flavor out-spices the rest? It's like that chicken dish I whipped up last month when the French girl was here....Poulet a trop d'epices.

After I finish this awesome ghostly book (an advance copy of Audrey Niffenegger's new otherwordly book due out in September), I am going to throw myself back into some David Sedaris. And I also picked up the literary essay "Everything I Needed to Know About Being A Girl I Learned From Judy Blume." My husband laughed at me last year for grabbing all my old Judy Blume books at my parents' place in Indiana and doing a Judy Blume reading-binge one summer....

Comedic Revival

One who knows life is full of pain, heartache, dolrums, fatigue and dead-ends has every capability of climbing to the funny side of life again. This is necessity. I will eventually revisit the other themes I've brought up in my brainstorms here i.e. visit from the French Cousine, Beautiful Girls/Boys of the Lost Time in a Mental Health Facility, 2005 Escapade to France, various short stories, and other shenanigans of life as they happen to me.

But to have these in any kind of organized artistic platform would be anything but me. As mentioned in the disclaimer, I shall discuss the "contemporary musing on people, the universe and all observations in between."

I operate in brainstorm-format. I sometime plop my head on that pillow at the end of each day and my brain will simply not turn off. This is both a blessing and a curse. I know millions around the world could easily commiserate on that notion. The trick is to join these commiserations into a manmade centrifugal force. And what a powerful centrifugal force humor and laughter is to a group of human beings.

In light of John Hughes' passing, and that unrivaled, intelligent comedy his work left behind, I want to revisit my own comedic energy. Many of us who have lived a little life, experienced a few experiences, traveled to different lands, fallen in and out of love, danced a polka and fallen down flat, stared up at the stars in wonderment...well, there is no better medicine than laughter.

For this week, August 9-15, 2009 I am going to challenge myself to write one comedic anecdote to have taken place on each day. Today is Sunday, our first day of the week, and I am busy in the air-conditioning in our first 97 degree day of the summer pulling together items for a friend's garage sale. Not sure what I will come up with today. But it is only just before 2pm, and I've got the rest of the day ahead of me.

Laughter Centre, activate!

I had no idea John Hughes was missing.

And all this time I thought being a recluse merely meant one was depressed. If I didn't work with 'people' in retail, I'd be considered a recluse. Or perhaps I, too, ran away from a spotlight once or twice in my life. Yeah, that's what I'll pretend.

Speaking of 'people,' what a sweet tale. Fantastic writer.

I hope the world will wake up. I mean FINALLY wake up.