Ah the beauty that once was Chicago during its period as an island. 

Y3K and next week

This week has been building in my head like a time bomb car driven by Stuart Little that's driving around a model roller coaster in and out of my grey matter. I'll leave that right there.

On to something unrelated this Thursday is the first time we get to see George W square off against Kerry as opposed to them squabbling behind each others backs on waffling in the wind and making the wrong decision to go to war respectively. I'm reading a book called BushWorld right now and it shows George W. going against his Dad and Dick planning this middle east restructure since George Sr term. It was a nice change of pace from Michael Moore's books as the author actually served first hand in George Sr's administration. She even makes the whole Godfather analogy for the bush family with George as the hothead Sonny.

All this makes one think, When will all the evidence of George rigging the election, exemption of Saudi's from the 911 report, and most importantly the country 's validation for going to war be put on display as crimes against humanity. It feels like a joke going to the polls as the GOP funds Ralph Nader's defense team in order to get him on the ballet. Its like when Monty Burns calls to order the GOP, "Oh Nader you've done enough."

Enough politics and on to sunshine. Animal Collective is beginning to get ingrained into my head. I was a little hesitant at first but the DS was right on this one. Although there pretty much aren't any lyrics that I can understand the harmonies and sounds created make up for it much like people without one sense become overly resilient in the others. Good thing I didn't have a life long aspiration to write for Rolling Stone because this tastes terrible.

While in Rockford I found sanctuary at The Anderson Gardens. Its the number one japanese garden in the United States and although I'm quite ignorant in the ways of the East it still brought me inner peace. 

Monday Morning Mixtape

This thing was supposed to be a conversation stimulator...

I saw Miyazaki's Spirited Away which was probably the best anime I've ever seen and as many of you know I'm pretty reserved on that stuff. This movie blew me away and I definitely recommend it. Its a bit strange these days as censors are going crazy with what America's children can watch and what is deemed appropriate. This movie definitely wouldn't get mainstream acceptance because its a little scary at parts(parents getting turned into pigs) but its my belief that there is an overkill of censorship since columbine. We turned out fine and we had such scary movies as the Black Cauldren and Dumbo(parent stuffed in a tiny cage/dumbo getting wasted). The censorship game is just another way for parents to take the blame off themselves.

On a saturday I thought of a great beginning for a movie about a super intelligent 35 year old man. This could also fit as an extra in Heat Vision and Jack. But I was thinking that it would go "He's even smarter than child geniuses" and it would flash to a scene of him beating bobby fisher in chess "rook takes king you son of a..." The next scene he would say "agh" and more child geniuses would run away. This seemed funny in my head on saturday night but I should probably elaborate on it a bit more.

This looks like it should be part of the fast forward section of the movie Rules of Attraction. So I dropped into London...swung on through Barcelona... 

Swirls Circles and the Assent

Its the first day of Fall. It still feels like summer. JC told me that today you can balance an egg on its end today and it will stand up. Either he was messing with me or you need the magic touch because my egg kept falling over. I saw a show on 60 min that said that strep is evolving and changing in a way to become resistant to our drugs. It was a study done at UofC and I knew one of the girls on camera(who suprisingly was at the Frames show at the Hideout).

I guess I should explain the last two pictures. It may look like Harry Potter magic now but at the time it was really fun. Being in Will's old place made me feel the same way I felt about the softball game. Somehow Champaign contiues and remains to be an excellent source of pilgrimage for me. By all means I never thought I would ever be back in that place running around the rickety dance floor to bicycle ride and fat bottom girls but there it happened and is now written in time. Followed by nick lifting me high in the air ballerina style all the while rotating.

Kit with hat on 

Kit without hat on 

From Softball to Tanks

Champaign was everything I wanted it to be. It really felt that during our softball game on Sunday it could have been any of the 8 games we've played over the past 3 years. The feeling was there and so were the people. It really makes you think how long is this going to last?

My brother recently started a blog as well so go here to read. Although we have similar genes he does have much better grammar than I do and is a hell of a lot more organized. Judge it yourself. Nothing like a little schneider invasion to brainwash the nation. Maybe that's a little extreme. Some would we say we ate Utter and he is in our stomachs right now.

My mom is growing concerned by the day that I'm going to be shipped to Iraq. She keeps sending me emails that say the draft is getting pushed through congress right now and it could be instituted as early as Spring 05'. The bill is titled "HR 163" and if you paste it into any search engine you will find a two page bill that shows the mandatory military service for people 18-26 regardless of sex and school. I'd be eaten alive out there. I haven't even punched someone in the face let alone ride around in tank screaming burn motherfucker burn. I know that's not how everything is over there but that scene from Fahrenheit 911 is really playing with my head these days. How can one man cause so much pain and not be put away for life. There is no exit strategy. As soon as we leave there is going to be civil war and genocide or at least thats what the acting iraqi government stated yesterday on 60 min.

The minutes feel like fireballs in my undies

Staying at work late on a Friday can only be attributed to two things. 1.) your die hard and working equals breathing or 2.) You didn't plan your day like you should have and now you walk down the hallway cursing the tiles on the floor. I'd like to say that I'm a little from column A and column B but I tend to slide towards one of the options more than a sailor says "why don't you go down below and bring me up a fresh apple, I think I'm getting scurvy."

On a completely different note, my brother and Gary have finished up another album for there other band Sainte Chapelle. Talk about superheros. If work and PST isn't enough how about we add a whole separate band. I too am interested in Donnie Darko worm holes. You can hear a few tracks here.

I'm going back to the homeland this weekend. Champaign is a magical fantasyland that although filled with frosh/soph's running around drunk with neon orange on and screaming either Budweiser or Dave Chapelle lines to the ever listening quad will always have a little tree house in my heart. Complete with a Zip line to take me from the top of Presidential towers to centaur in Allerton park. Even the fun-loving kit is back for another weekend even though I gave him the plague(don't worry I won't get sick, you don't have to be left out) last weekend. Maybe we can all count on REVENGE this weekend if we see fireworks in the background and Kit coming down a stairway ever so slowly with his hands in the air and dressed to the nines. While I'm on the note, Bravo Kit for quitting your job and pursuing something that will make you happy.

oreooreooreooreooreooreooreooreooreooreo

It does seem like the days are blending together a bit. All I see now is a big mass of cream filling trapped between the oreo cookie memories of last weekend along with the anticipated next weekend. The cream filling is relaxing though. Its nice to grab the remote and put things on slow-mo for a change. For example the last three days I've had three well made dinners and three bottles of wine. Doctors say have two but that's all I can do. In any case while I was shopping for dinner groceries, a mentally disabled lady with her child came up behind me. All she was buying were bananas and a donut. She kept yelling at her kid saying she was really annoying and that when she was her age she had nothing. All the while the little pixie was running around grabbing candy to put on the check-out conveyer belt. It was pretty depressing but by the end it seems that they were a functioning duo as the girl would explain stuff to her mom slowly and gave me so much respect for someone so young. The only thing different at the university is you have big kids walking around in circles with stink lines coming from there body's because of their fourth all nighter in a row. All the while speaking in glavins and pickle ratios. On the brighter side each place is springboard for hope and change in the world. It makes me happy not to have leapt into the abyss of corporations right out of college. It has so many soul/dream crushing devices that I'm surprised people can bare it. Not to mention having to tote around the fax machine anklet-3000 and the "I'm having a case of the Mondays t-shirt".

Chopper sic...

The empty bottle was everything I thought it would be. Perfect Sound, Cheap Drinks, and ghosts of old bands filling every crevice. Meeting Red Crayola was kinda like the part of Stand By Me when Gordy is learning the difference of urban legend and reality minus the chopper sick balls stuff. They've been playing new material since the 60's and pretty much just wanted to have a good time and play with nice bands(Tom quote). I didn't know what to expect but they put on a great show and it was like watching the retired 94' Bulls coming back to show the 2004 Bulls how to play roundball. Although that never happened its about as close as I could get for an analogy.

On a sidenote I watched Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi this weekend. It was long overdue. "Sometimes I feel like I could take on the whole empire by myself" "I know what you mean" Do you think that is what John Kerry is thinking right now? Or maybe he's Lando Calrizion and this is all a ruse. John Edwards does look a little like Lobot if he didn't have any hair. I pretty much lost all cool points for playing at the bottle with the last two lines but that's the price you pay to have hippy parents who sit you down in front of Star Wars at an early developmental age with nothing but a spinny circular baby carriage eating station and chicken nuggets as ammunition for a jedi soul. Too much or not enough?

BOTTLE!

So it feels like I've been turning dreams into reality these days or possibly turning reality into dreams. I'm playing the Empty Bottle this Saturday night(9/11) and its critics choice in the reader thanks in no small part to Red Crayola and Make Believe. I'm not sure why the booking agent picked us for openers but I'm not gonna question it.

I had an elaborate scheme last night to make us light people(kinda like the dog in gremlins hanging from the porch in Christmas lights) on stage complete with a dimmer and red bulb hearts but I cut my finger and blew a fuse in the house. I can rebuild.

I've been reading my journal from Italy and realized I did nothing but lay around and eat there. Viva Italia. I did have a job however. I taught advanced english and as many of you know my grammar is pretty close to 3rd grade level. In any case I made my Italian students learn Bob Dylan songs and not only translate them but explain the metaphors that caused solace in Robert Zimmerman's life. "I came out of the wilderness a creature void of form" That's right he began a new relationship over again. "Beauty walks on razor's edge some day I'll make her mine" that's correct Fabio love is so fragile that its like trapeze walking on a fine line. Yeah I wouldn't trade those days in Italy for anything. Maybe for a show at the bottle though.

Is Will a buried centaur or a half-man?  

hands around the world! 

Next stop Fifth Avenue

After the show on Saturday Night I picked up a dirty and went over to Nicks. People slowly trickled in from the Rainbo and Dannys. For the next 4 hours I didn't move from the seat on the rickety table. It really was like that part in Garden State minus the spin the bottle/grope session. It was replaced with Tommy and will whacking each other in the back with a giant wooden rod and Dan and Emmett doing JC Superstar to a capital T. Nick set everything to the anthem of a Night at the Opera and danced around in circles that became so infectious that people began to spin on his cartoon shadows. The night came to a close at around 4:45 and the sky was getting light.

When I woke up I had a drive to make everyone banana pancakes. Only I didn't get the memo and everyone ate already at Leo's. I still made BP's and people ate them with a combination of sympathy and laser beams. I was really in the mood of flipping BP's long distant in a 500 fashion so I began throwing them out the window to everyone outside. I tried to throw one through the fan and my thinking was that it would go up and down without getting hit like a magic BP but really it just splattered everywhere. Linx ate a few nanners from the floor.

We went up to Will's new Lakehouse and had one of those days at the beach that you don't get back. Times like that can only be described as Tectonica. We may not have gotten all the way down to Hans Moleman but the five founders shed a tear when hands we're held subterranean style under the city of dreams.

As a wind down we went to Quenchers on the night of Labor Day and started out normal but we ended up splitting pitches and before I knew it we were watching Dark Crystal and eating stale plain gold fish. I remember walking outside on the porch to find Nick,Will, and Mari standing like bean-poles in a competing of who could stay planted on two feet. Times like that you have to take a step back and say "Yup quarter past two, I think we're coming into the train station about now"

Lets not do jumping jacks on card castles

Last night I listened to the Presidents speech on NPR on a trip down to Chicago and couldn't help but feel scared. He really is leading our country forward on a foundation of a card castle. He resorted to slandering Kerry first for being rich and from Massachusetts, not like we need a little rivalry between the south or the north or anything but then told half a story about Kerry not agreeing with a bill for body armor and helmets. This 87 billion dollar request was agreed by Kerry when the tax cuts were cut but when it was put forward with no backing Kerry didn't agree. It is rather confusing and Bush made fun of him for it. Maybe if we hadn't gone to war under false assumptions we wouldn't need so much military spending. The speech last night was very hypnotyzing and was filled with god schmod this and god schmod that. It really is ritual suicide. In any case we really need a restart key to push at election day. It feels like the country has turned into a giant escher picture. The onion really had it right the other day when it said "small group of dedicated rich people change the world."

Leave it up to Elliott Smith's posthumous release to help create an outlet for this reality-"I can deal with the psychic pain as long as it slows down my higher brain" My dad really liked Elliott Smith and after his suicide didn't want me to mention his name again. "how could someone with such a voice do something so shallow" is all he would say about that. I can understand raising a family and trying to instill values and hope for the future and then your son's rolemodel kills himself. I'm not saying that Elliott Smith was my rolemodel but he definitely had a voice.

As for this weekend, my band Darling is playing Gunther Murphy's. Thats at 1638 W. Belmont. We go on at 11pm.