Well he's back jack, smoking crack, find him if you want to get found

I couldn't stop singing that as I was leaving Mandel hall on saturday night. The songs about Jesus and is called "ruling class." Its from the new Loose Fur album horribly named Born again in the USA and to those that don't know that's Jeff Tweedy and Jim Oroarke's side band. Also I was singing the song cause I'd just seen it live and in the front row. Somehow getting to the show an hour and a half before hand got us front row seats. He looked a lot shorter in person and his hair kind of looked like road kill. Dan said its cause he quit smoking cigarettes which I'll have to take his word on. After the Tweedy show we hightailed it out of the depths of the white city to the Logan Square Auditorium for the Animal Collective show. Man over board it was like seeing The Arcade Fire on crack. There's something about a guy gyrating to the music and adjusting levels with a head lamp that just made sense. Then Juli whispered in my ear that he looked like the DJ from Zoolander who relaxed and just did it. Didn't want to hear that. Aside from turning into a killing machine the light show and smoke machine was fun as well. It just seems like they get so much more out of two guitars and drums than I thought was possible. Getting ready for a spike of work headed my way but now its just the calm before the storm. Or maybe I'm in the eye of the tornado since theres a rush of work during midterms and then another rush at the end for finals. I went to a dinner on Sunday night at Bernard Roizmans for another recruiment weekend for new students and he had an entire room full of african masks. It was a bane for getting to know you conversations since every face on the wall scowled at me from a different angle allowing my attention span to get devoured. The place was built around the turn of the century and ever turn in the place was something out of the a James Bond movie complete with little doors, spiral staircases, huge windows, and high ceilings with wood carved designs. Its the last day of February and the month in general was a bit of a "meh". Today as I was walking in to work I felt like maybe I should have worn my bathing suit for a dip in the lake but rapidly forgot thats it was probalby only 40 degrees but I'd be damned if it didn't raise my morale a bit. The 12 noon schedule sounds good on paper but from time to time you'll throw your cell phone in the other room and sleep til 11. Especially when its feels like a siera mist commercial everytime you take the sheets off yourself to get out of bed. Yeah kind of like that. One more quick word, Pip and James, you guys are going to have to start having nightcaps on weekdays or you might as well still be living in the suburbs or your brothers closet respectively. We'll even come to you and your weird bucktown bars.

If I had a second skin I'd probably dress up in you

Naysayers say nay no more, this single line makes up for any faults the new belle and sebastion album may have. I even like the preceder, "I don't want to see you on the list of nearly made its."

A few things I picked on this week outside of listening to music

-We're the only species to experience menopause. The question therein lies: is this natural?

-The Olympics are amazing. The Winter Olympics are so much cooler than the summer Olympics. My pun aside, they're mysterious, tear inducing, and fast. At least figure skating was for that matter. I was really hoping for Irina Slutskaya to win what with her mom having liver failure, her having vasculitis, and both for living through the adversity of her last name. It had all the makings of a disney movie and reminded me of the time when I was watching Armageddon with Tees and nick in our dorm room and tees cried when Bruce Willis was yelling at Ben Affleck about his responsibility back home. I'd be lieing if I didn't have a few goose bumps as well. Then there's the ski jump with moves like the hurricane. That's enough mystery in that event so I'll leave it at that.

-The green eye has climbed to the top as far as bars go. Walkable, a cheap date on the beermue, and a bartender named turbo who is an old pedal steel fan. He even got Adam and I a round which locked it in as my new favorite bar. Plus you can hear the el go by every 12 minutes or so which is friendly reminder that you're living in chicago(if the tamale army weren't enough).

-I'm actually going to see my two favorite bands in one night. This saturday I'm going to see Jeff Tweedy of Wilco at UofC at 6pm and then Animal Collective at the logan square auditorium at around midnight. Talk about your rock block of all rock blocks.

-Roy got all our hopes up for a weekend in chicago and then let the air out of the balloon on Wednesday. I'm not counting on a davis surprise either.

-Bush finally put on the big magic store ear and said, "I'm listening to reason."

Don't give me Heinekin, I WANT PBR!

Its pretty damn cold and my throat feels like someone rototilled it bit and then sprinkled dirt all over the severed skin. I've fallen victim to the plague and its beginning to feel like whooping cough. We had a birthday dinner for Annie on Saturday and everyone was in good spirits. We made a nice lasagna with soy crumbles that even tricked the meat eaters. We had some sideshow wine and even had a double layer chocolate cake which was a bit of belly buster by that point.

nothing like a few dancing giraffes


After dinner Yishai,Rudy, and Fask showed up for some coffeetalk and bishai broke out his new song "In my own way" and wowed the captive audience. High marks for spectacular finger picking/vocal harmonies. Rudy told us about how he had to push his grandma and great uncle around the autoshow all night. That doesn't seem to be too daunting of a task but it turns out the autoshow is pretty terrible place for wheelchair accessibility what with all the fake terrain scenes for the all-terrain vehicles. Lets just say he was happy to be sipping a few cold sodas in his cast-iron chair from margies in our living room. After this we went to Rainbo where we met up with Nick and Kaitlin. Rainbo was on fire with Owen and members from Make Believe and Euphone. Bobby from Make Believe was telling me about the time he and 20 other people were recording with guys from Red Crayola in the studio one door down from Rainbo. He said it didn't make the album but the simple fact that there were 20 imputs for one song was enough to make me go cross eyed. He said that Mayo(lead singer from Red Crayola) kept them up til 7 in the morning with war stories from the road to rock and roll. The one thread that kept this story together was the fact that we played with Red Crayola and Make believe at the bottle ages ago. Rainbo had its standard saturday night mind melt album on which starts comprehendable but turns into static/feedback/robot meltdown. What a concept bar! You don't really care near the end cause your so lit on PBR pints. I felt like Dennis Hopper from Blue Velvet everytime someone asked me if I want something besides PBR. "What the hell is this Heinken, WE DRINK PBR!." After leaving we managed to catch a taxi within seconds which was good cause all our respected genitalia were freezing up quickly. I talked to the cabbie and he said he was from Afghanistan and he was here 6 months a year and over there 6 months a year. I asked him if he was still in love with his wife who was over there and he proclaimed of course he was, he had to be, they were married. Such sanctity in his speech. He told me chicago is nice if you have money but if you don't than its not so nice which made sense in my spoiled mind in theory but I don't think I can actually grasp the concept fully. After we got home we gorged on the remaining lasagna and cake and called it a night. Great seeing ol' be shy and all and all a great night on the town.

The biird flying high tonight at Martyrs. I'm going to tape the wounds from the weekend just enough to get to the show and back and then retire this weekend to the vault.

mind-full of the breaks you take

I was hanging out at a recruitment dinner for future students last night which was held at Janet Rowleys house. She's 90 years old discovered the philadelphia translocation for leukemia and still has a lab, students, and papers hot off the press. I ended up chatting with the a faculty member in my program who also teaches Ulysses on the side for kicks. He told me in order to read James Joyce you have to read slowly, out loud, and preferably with a libation in order to understand it. It was strange cause exactly one year ago I was at this recruitment dinner and my head was in a whole different area, a panicked state of pre-interview meltdown. Things were a little different, darling was kicking and the album was near completion, kids were starting to move back into the city from chambana and awful truth of another 4 years with bush were starting to set in.

Wicked was outstanding only Ana Gasteyer isn't in the cast anymore which was a little bit of letdown but the flying monkeys more than made up for it. They had shirts that said "Defy Gravity" so I asked the lady why and she said when I saw it I would know(man you must work here). I bought a popcorn, twizzlers, and a bottle of water for 9 bucks and I thought I had gotten a great deal.I don't know after selling cotton candy for 3 bucks a pop around the kentucky kangdom I feel I must give back once in a while, carnie code. I don't know they could have been selling scat on a stick and there would have been a que around the block. Well worth a friday night out on the town even if the bread was soggy for the sandwhich ie no dinner before and no drinks afterwards. We did watch the rest of the arrested developments that aired on the ever-so-hot friday night slot. I really wanted to space the episodes out a little as I don't want this part of my life to end. Its not that the episodes are particularly hilarious, just the witty play on words has me reeling about 2.5 seconds after the punchline, enough time for a clear "lets see jeff what the hell did that mean, wait for it, oh thats funny, I like jokes" moment.

On saturday I watched blue velvet finally and am deeper in the mind of david lynch than I've ever been. He has a way of chopping of suspense and sprinkling it on your popcorn so that each moment you catch the wrong kernel and boom you have landshade hands over your eyes. Next stop The Elephant man who Graham, my brothers friend and also his sound engineer, told me is definitely a crier. That brings me to the next slot in the night where annie, dan, graham, and I hungout and listened to cat stevens while I tried as usual to finish the rubix cube and everyone else looked agitatingly at me. I managed to turn it into a transformer decepticon on one side and aubobot on the other side cube which created a few awes but that just spawned a conversation about Mask and little figures, cool cars, and that weird place in there playset where they put all there helmets in a circle like the knights of the round table. After this couch sesh we went to a party a couple of blocks away which was 90% Korean and was complete with a fire-blower. The party was lame outside the pyrotechnics and we went home and called it a weekend.

Good thing most beer only has one heart

I hit a free period from tests/presentations so I've celebrated by going to Robbies 3 times in one week to help finish a keg of Bells two hearted ale. My does she have two hearts! At first you really enjoy yourself and are able to walk around the room with your sifter like james bond. Then there's a scene missing of course and somehow you've managed to cut your palm,skin your knee, get mud all over the back of your pants very similar to the "pudding incident" from Can't Hardly Wait, and fall asleep in your jacket. All and all a very good time indeed. It sort of felt like we were at a speak easy/elite clubhouse. Last night it was just guys and on tuesday it was all guys and emma. I don't know maybe its "lets finish this keg" mentality thats driving the girls away but thats just a theory I'm developing.

The news is depressing as usual what with danish cartoons starting revolutions across the middle east. A fine line between freedom of speech and just doing something stupid. An argument can be made on every side of this issue and I'm happy not to be involved in one at the moment. All I got to say is that such an organized attack on all those embassys must've required government involvement otherwise most of the people would have been caught by now. Then the leader of hezbollah told condy and dubber to shut up. I say that may reside on the 2nd/3rd grade maturity level. I guess we'll need God to step in on this one and tell each side to take a timeout in their respected countries, to think about what each have done.

Holy crap a new species of smoky honeyeater bird

Thats got to be one of the best species names ever. I just finished a midterm this afternoon which means I am going to start showering, going to the bathroom regularly, and looking up when I walk. I have been slam bammed thankyou mammed(may be sexist but David Bowie is both female and male so I'll allow it) for the past 2 weeks which is why I've been living on the moon. Played loaded questions with my folks. Be it as it may a much tamer version of the one played in the bowels of Mauras lakehouse roundtable(blessed be it) it was still good fun. It was funny when my parents both thought of a toy they'd like to throw against the wall being a specific fischer price choo choo charlie record train dan had something like 25 years ago.

My drummer officially ran away from me. Could it be the flower costumes, the music, or my stank I'll never know. It was a good time while it lasted and was a good opportunity to get to know the youngest Dahl outside of playing with an atari system pat and I bought at swap-o-rama around 10 years ago. I believe Pat, Matt, and I licked Indiana Jones that day and moved right on to star wars. The band is not dissolved and even better I have a new recruit that I'll bring out of the woodwork one of these days.

I gave up soda-pop for new years and have been true to my word since Jan one. If only I resolved to stop biting my nails then I'd really have something to cheer about. I'll just add that one on. If only I was brought up in the voss family and had iodine on my fingers so I wouldn't bite them. Man does Nick have great cuticals. Alright might as well go out on top yowzacko. Can't now got zackie in my brain. I'll put a little tazackie on my gyro right before I go to the land of yazacki to visit roy all the while replicating cells using Ozacki fragments. TOPS!