Its time to come back to earth

So I've been living on the moon for the past week and have gotten exactly 12 square meals and a few elaborate tours.

Here are some highlights:

*On Thursday night I parked on the street in Evanston and thought I was milhouse but there turned out to a tow away zone(3-6am) sign two blocks down. When I got out of the hotel at 8am my car was gone and I cursed the town, did a few aggravated turns in the lobby, and began interviews. After the interviews I caught a taxi to take me to Lake Shore Towing and the taxi driver just laughed and said "Welcome to Evanston, its a motherfucker." He took me to Lake Shore Towing which so happened to be Lake Shore Used Cars as well and began cursing say that the city was corrupt and the people at this yard have no souls. He then opened the door, spit on the ground, and bid me farewell.

**So that night Northwestern took us to a comedy club(improv olympics) and I was hand-picked to explain my day to the comedy troupe on stage in front of everyone. So I went into detail and told them all that happened and spent the next half hour watching my life being acted out impromptu style. After a week of studying and focusing, it was surreal to see your life played out in front of you, in a comedic fashion. Of course I got the standard glavins science bit as well as the taxi guy.

***UofC's interviews started Saturday night and we went out to a fancy dinner downtown but afterwards some brainchild came up with and idea to have everyone meet at Rock Bottom. If anyone's been there they know its a congregating ground not to different from the crowd partying at whirleyball bar on a Saturday Night. Pretty spooky. So I took other people who were interviewing with me to quenchers for Bells, popcorn, and Weezer. I felt it a travesty to come to chicago and to only see Rock Bottom.

And I've been out to sea for too long...

Losing the will to speak political and don't feel crazy right now to write nonsense. Am I stabilizing at the ripe age of a quarter pounder(1/4 century come june) out of the boozey tobogon slide lifestyle of shampoo banana's wild ride. I've actually cut everything out of my life this week in preparation for interviews from Thursday-Tuesday. In my life I've had a topsy turvy experience with preparing for "the next step" as they so eloquently put in American Pie and I've pysched myself out before(psych psych psych) but I guess that's just human nature to overanalyze. It feels like I'm standing on a boat that just lost its harness to the dock(imagine a slip knot slowly unraveling) and the boat is starting to drift and my bearings are in my heart and my mind is in my head so I've got nothing to worry about right? That wasn't supposed to come off as a question but deciding the next five years of your life through one week can make all of these images align in perfect context. The rushmore quote in the header has begun to make perfect sense to me and I felt it necessary to explain as I so rarely do in this blog, leaving it up to the master decipherers such as Count Vousss and Major D. In any case the line references a section of the movie when Max Fischer is talking to his father about being being out of love for too long and its time for him to come to shore. It feels like I was out to sea for far too long and although I've come to shore, I feel the need to build a house once I'm here and the next week will dictate the construction schedule. My grampa built his own house and some of the other houses in the neighborhood. His story is far greater than mine ever will be so I'll explain:

My Grampa is an immigrant who lost a brother crossing the Italian border from Slovenia(where schneider heritage finds its origin). When he got to the United States he had absolutely nothing. He quickly moved to the midwest, Waukegan to be exact, and became a prizefighter. He was called Waukegan Red due to his red hair and was able to raise enough money to buy a plot of land that he could farm and raise livestock. This is where my father was born although his brothers say they found him underneath a cow as a newborn. That's where my life becomes a faint twinkle.

There you have it. If a time comes in the near future when you think life has rubbed salt in your wounds imagine our grandparents/great grandparents life of hardships and you realize in a few seconds that we're sitting pretty.

The birds are flying north finally

It seems to me in my miniscule amount of time that I've lived in Chicago that rock shows come in waves of migration. As soon as I'm about to hit my shoe against a rickety fence cursing the stars that there aren't any good rock shows going on the fabric of time begins to shine and the world is changed. That's right a rock block is heading our way starting with The Frames/PST on Mar 5th, Yo La Tengo on April 21st, and Animal Collective on April 27th. Lets see four of my favorite bands, yup that's why I live in the city with a baby blue and white city flag. Although I don't claim any affiliation with the downtown sector and can't really claim a neighborhood sector, I was still able to catch the chicago fever. Its like and itch you keep scratching til your whole body is red. Analogous to rock fever would be Bear fever. With Zubaz pants(very bizarre zebra striped pants that went in and out of style in a single season but fans still cling to like the shroud of Teheran), a couple Line 7/Starter jackets layered, a Bear head ski hat with teeth, bear claw mittens, and lets not forget the undies with the bear stuffed animal hanging. Sometimes on a rare occurrence you'll have the double positive rock fan/bear fan like Ward. If you don't know this friend of Gary, he's a really genuinely nice guy once you get past the dip spit. It was a little out of place at the Empty Bottle though. He had just come from a Bears game(one in which they won, "Man they're going to do it this year I just know it." "I've got the 85 feeling, Ditka you should really rest Payton this game, you're 11 and 0 for godsake") and was decked out in "you wouldn't believe it if you didn't see it" zubaz pants.

We spent a while trying to break the ice with iceburgs. Kaitlin kept pointing at Nick's caboose. Thats right I added a bunch more pictures 

...but after captain gives his orders, the rest is history. 

An innocent worker for the handicap by day... 

I couldn't help myself. Kit whereever you are, you're on to something. It almost makes too much sense. AIright maybe I look a little too looney in this picture. Like the looney up in Tocus 

Sunday Mind Melt-Free.99

As GP and I scratched our brains with handrakes, we were totally boggled by the idea of loosing an entire night of work. In November we had spent an entire night working out the picks and humbars of a couple Darling tracks and apparently they vanished off of GPs computer. I remember our mutual mind crunch lucidly as I kind of crashed down into a seat and said holy smokes this might require another bud heavy. In any case we managed to find what we needed amidst each others standard Sunday ramblings.

GP-Sorry ahead of time but I'm kinda crazy today(after third lap around laptop).

JS-3 steps in each direction of Gary's living room looking for a guitar to play on all the while gazing at the broken mini guitar hanging next to the ceiling and contemplating scaling the cd wall. Next thing out of my mouth, do you need another beatle bugler action figure, they have one at the brown elephant.

Chair-has a piece of paper on it with directions for the next day

All in all it was entertaining and relaxing. I had a good conversation with Gary about how entering people into your band/work incorporates them into your life. Its the sad truth that although the friendship won't absolutely go away, everyday hangout is seriously slashed unless compelled to due to forward mind progression. In other words, friendship slashed due to laziness of the mind and weekly routine. Its a sorry, sick, sad part of life that has happened to me about once a year since high-school. Its kind of like the new lineup for the Illa-NOISE. Just when I was getting used to Brian Cook's goofy ears, I don't see him anymore and now he's out doing oops with Kobe. Now I'm having lunch with Ingram and giving Lake Powell a tour of the grand canyon. But who knows how long that will last.

In a cave in my head

As it was ash wednesday yesterday, noted by all the people I saw walking around campus with gray marks on their foreheads. I couldn't help but notice the incessant need to mark yourself for heaven but I guess thats because I'm a savage. In any case I guess my thoughts carried on into my dreams last night. I was in a service at a church but went back behind the altar to a hallway that turned into just jagged rocks and entered into a cave setting much like Zion(minus the sweat-dripping dread locks flying around headbang style) where people were drinking, smoking,and eating pizza(?). The complexities go on from there as my head gets fuzzy from trying to remember everything.

Annual six month molt

Alas because of grad school interviews I've decided to shed the burden of my mop top and dedicate it to cocks of love. Unfortunately my hair was under six inches so it just went to the floor and then to the garbage. I got my hair cut at a place called Big Hair and I was a little afraid that I'd get an afro which at first was a little enervating but turned out to be curiously strong with modern art on the walls and tattooed pink haired attendants. Two more perks were the over head music being boys don't cry and the price being a measley 12 bones. I used my license and a University ID and told the tatooed cutter to give me something in between. While I looked at pictures on the wall next to her mirror I noticed a fine range of 3's company collector card stickers, a meat rocks sticker in a heart, a picture of Bill Curtis, GW is a Punkass..., a picture of Mary(punk yet religious, one of those, tshirt reading "for a real high, read the bible," she ain't no Miss Bdot Haven), a rainbo photobooth(although I can't pinpoint rainbo due to atomix, schubas, empty bottle and many other fine establishments with PBs). She didn't prod into me as most hair cutters do,"what do you do", "well I blah blah blah." She just cut like edward scissorhands leaving me to stare blankly at her decorated wall. There's something about cutting all your hair off at once. At first its like an image of a cleared rainforest, smoking ground without a sight of natural beauty in the perimeter, but almost immediately after that there is a resurgance and a certain eye-opening head-clearing feeling that your finally sailing at full mast(no philips tent jokes please). "Sometimes I feel I could take on the whole empire by myself. "I know what you mean."

Just a couple moments of karma to report as I don't believe in it but like talking about it. play Euchre every Monday night(almost every) and this past Monday during the second set I started gloating that we were up 6 nil. All of a sudden I start getting dealt 3-4 9/10s per hand for the rest of the round and we lost the set. During the final set I started gloating a little and we I got dealt 3 9s a ten and a queen. I shut my yapper right there and we won. On another karma filled morning I studied my world map shower curtain and was fixated on Mongolia not just due to the tuvan throat singers but to the name of the capital city Ulan Bataar. I thought the name was outstanding, later on that night at pub trivia(in a tiny basement bar of a 120 year old building at UofC) a question in the 2nd round was, "What country's capital city is Ulan Bataar." I nearly crapped my pants(sorry kids Grandma can't play tennis today) and shrieked a glorious yi yi yazaki to the skys. Kudos to Gary for answering the question right about the group who has more #1 records(on billboard top one hundred) than the beatles, the rolling stones, and Elvis combined. Thats right, the Funk Brothers, Motowns very own.

Lets not derail the train we're all riding, We're already past the PONR

I had sort of an argument on Saturday night about the point of blogs and why people make them. This one girl said there's no point and that people are just whining. She spoke of some trailer park girls in Texas with blogs talking about sleeping with every man in town. She thought it was trashy but I tried to explain to her that it was a new form of media and that we would have never been able to have such an opinion at our fingertips. Also its an easily accessible recording device for train of thought.

Saturday was a life lesson that although ideas can seem amazing and are amazing while they happen, they usually have disastrous results. As was the case on Saturday when we all decided to have mimosas starting at 5pm. Kaitlin got the fever and lost her balance and Jason was awoken all throughout his sleep with alleged "night terrors." I don't know whether its because mimosas are made from extra-dry champaign but they left me in the desert with a dying camel, a canteen with less than a spiders-spit of water, and a mouth that formed together due to parchness for the rest of my slumber that night.

One perk of Saturday night was the taxi ride home. There have been known "crazy" taxis around chicago and somehow I stumbled upon one Saturday night. The car was decked out from head to toe with valentines decorations and there were 2 not 1 candy dishes at our convenience. Right when I got in he popped in a tape of oldies and started singing. I asked him how he was doing and he said, "I woke up today and I'm happy for that." That comment shot me out the side door of the taxi and out of the fantasy floating bubble that I was dwelling in. It occurred to me as it usually does a couple of times of week that some people have to work the grave yard shift on a saturday night to make ends meet. I was at Osco yesterday and the same scene came over me as I watched a clean cut middle thirties man bagging groceries and getting told that he was doing it wrong. Instantly I began to wonder how he ended up here and where he was going with his life.

dah dah dah da da da da dah!(in bugle)

The days have really been bumper to bumper. Kinda like when you're on zoo-train. Keep your hands in the cart and pay attention! Things have settled down a little bit. I've come to thinking that although laziness is enjoyable, that's what the years at the end of your life are for. So let us all get stroka work mentalities and start chipping away at the sculptures of ourselves. Life can be so disenchanting what with GW and job market. So in the words of Roy in the words of some other dude, "What happens when we fall off the horse." "We get back on!" So lets call in the equestrian society, Gary you can pick up the bugle, I'll come in on a clydesdale harnessed to a skid of dirty thirties(high guys, cold sytles, even PBR, all the colors of the rainbow). Erich you choreograph the *camel parade*, order is essential, and I'm not just talking about progression of age. It must be the sunshine and nicer weather that's leading me into parade/change the world talk. It sure beats darkness/lost feeling in my limbs cold.
With the forward (shameless)progression in mind I invite all to sneak on by the Subterranean this Friday night(feb4). Darling is playing at 9pm and will be Nick's chicago debut. Expect a sneaky pete appearance by GP near the end of the set. Nearly half the set are new songs(3/7).

*I'll explain the camel parade soon*

god bless you! 

caveman making a snowman.