guess how many?

Wednesday, December 08, 2004 thanks, pop 1. so hoobastank a big favorite of my old roommate fat smelly has printed hoodies for people who just don't know better that when unzipped and viewed from the right angle simply announce that they are stank in related news, ben affleck's chin is being shot heroically somewhere in Ontario this week, soundtrack details will come sometime midJanuary 2. in a discussion of ethics v. logic and logistics v. theoretical religious implications of human cloning, a single kid namechecked both Britney Spears' "Crossroads" and Michael Keaton's "Multiplicity" in the span of a half hour. He has no taste and is my new hero 2:22 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Saturday, December 04, 2004 the revolution will not be peer2peered thanks to the magic of the internet I just stole the wonderful Blaxploitation vol. 2 and 4 and ironically it is all the same artists that appeared on Black Panther Soul I now know what the Van Peebles and Hampton families have known for years the only difference between revolution and exploitation is marketing 5:03 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Monday, November 29, 2004 like we always do about this time The Happiest Day in the Year in the life of Eric Strom or the Night of 1000 Pabsts The men on my father's side have a tradition for the day after thanksgiving lovingly referred to as the Happiest Day in the Year (despite being welcomed by only a select few). What it comes down to, essentially, a day where the married men get to spend a day away from their wives spoiling their unmarried sons spending hundreds of dollars at Rolling Stone Records with the holiday coupons placed in the week's Reader, Tribune, and IE and stuffing themselves full of salty meat products, pastries and beer (sorry for not contributing in the well-meaning but completely ineffective national no-buy day but faily first, right? I might need to borrow some kidneys). This year was a bit different as my cousin Josh is now a married man himself at a ripe 30 and his overworked father now relishes a day he can spend shopping with his wife downtown as music, even jazz, becomes a much less important part of his life. Josh's brother, dropped out years ago because of the same diminished interest but they were all there for a breakfast at Manny's deli on Roosevelt, even the women. This would take the place of the hotdog stand at the end of the day, replacing Duks or Flukys with kishkes and pastrami and fist-thick potato latkes. Then Josh's wife and my sister and mother left. Then Uncle Jay and Robbie and we watched our once hearty party of five dwindle to a stalwart three. Rolling Stone Records is more of a disappointment every year, especially as better and better peer-to-peer services develop. They're absolute shit for hiphop, electronic and 'world' and this year failed to hold their own in the world of established, classic punk acts. This did not stop me from finding a handful of keepers, all but one solid, weirdish mainstream releases from the year or older albums long-lost or stolen Saul Williams - saul williams Tom Waits- Real Gone Bjork- Medulla GG Allin - Expose Yourself- the singles 1977-1991 Tool- Aenima Mars Volta- De-Loused in the Comatorium and Spinal Tap on dvd from there we went to a polish bakery and talked about urban sprawl and my sister's choice of colleges over tiramisu and pumpkin pie. It was good but not the same. Then it was time for my party, the second of the two that I've thrown every thanksgiving for the last four years at four of my last five apartments (if you hate reading about other people's parties as much as I do, I suggest you head to another blog). By the numbers, it was a good party (despite being an awful sausage fest): there was a little bit of cocaine squirreled away here and there, Loregasm was tossing out Nitrous balloons with the ease of a five-year headshop veteran and the air was thick with blunt and hookah; some hot boy-on-boy had migrated from a couch to the hall to my sheetless bed, a couple of lesbian exgirlfriends hogtied some guy in my basement and threw him off my porch. It started the way it always does. A few people show up at my house way early and it's just us smalltalking and thumbtwiddling thinking that this'll be the year it just doesn't happen when fortyfive or so minutes after the party's called for a few dozen people arrive en masse. The dj didn't have his shit togethor and I had to tell off one of his idiot friends who thought he was special for 'bein with the dj.' God bless Ukranian Village. We had a little over 200 people and the cops never showed before it petered off to its natural end around four. I found the limits of many of my friends' personal good taste comfort level when I projected John Waters's "Pink Flamingos" on a wall in my basement and most of the party fled upstairs. In a wonderful stupor I became the boxedwine fairy as I ran around the party, nursing fools with my Franzia sangria bladder and followed around Pied-piper style by someone's thirsty jailbait sister (expressly forbidden) when she wasn't showing off her bad tattoos or making out with L___. There was a little blood on my mattress (that might have been there anyway) and nothing was stolen. Huzzah p.s. there weren't really 1000 pabsts. when all was said and stacked there were a mere 8 cases of the dirty thirty variety and one eighteener accounting for a mere 258 PBRs. Next year in Israel 10:29 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Wednesday, November 24, 2004 so lets party like it's 1995 you probably don't know it yet but the 90s are back the flannel hasn't been dusted off yet but as soon as the last of the aerosol retroclash revival cans has wheezed its final breath the roots will start showing i was riding the bus the other day when i saw an abandoned building plastered with the familiar NiN logo alongside Gwen Stefani and Loyd Banks thinking hmm Trent finally got around to making a new album but I was wrong what I was looking for was an ad for Downward Spiral: Redux full of, i assume, remixes from Halos 8 - 14 Nirvana put out two albums this year I haven't been this excited since from the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah they aren't selling as well as Bill Clinton's greatest hits which ain't half as much fun as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which brings to life all of my 8th grade G-Funk fantasies and reimagines Alternative Radio imagine getting to relive sixth wave ska Mustard Plug: Evil Doers Beware...redux Against All Authority: Destroy What Destroys You...studio rarities and b-sides! we'll all be able to follow the Cherry Poppin Daddies reunite for VH1's take on reality even Dirt McGirt, once known as Osiris and ODB died in time to promote the anniversary of his epic Return to the 36 Chambers can you believe it's been all of ten years since tghat magical event where we all forgot our differences and learned to love again... Woodstock 94? don't you want to go back to a simpler time when you could regularly or at least for one magic weekend see such diverse bands as the Cranberrys and the Spin Doctors sharing a stage with collective soul and aerosmith musical geniuses who would not live to see their day like Blind Melon's Shannon Hoon and innovators Salt 'n Pepa only to have your whole concept of fun ripped up and turned around by an irreverent mud tossing Green Day when the children were being regaled with the topical-ish wackery of the Animaniacs and popradio really wanted to fuck you like an animal? ten years as if it was yesterday just remember the next time you read a glowing review in a glossy zine of some new band that fought their way out of some shit town melding punk an good ole amerikan country they probably sound like Seven Mary Three as my favorite reality TV star once said Don't believe the hype 11:43 PM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove character assessment Sarah's friend just came into town for a week from Tulsa with just a bag, a book, and a carton of smokes. The book is Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Hundred Years of Solitude"; the smokes are Oklahoma-based Bronson cigarettes. What can I say? Good people is good people. 8:56 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Tuesday, November 23, 2004 fat girls fuck j*hnny l*ve no one should be famous for partying until they're at least steaming dead of accidental overdose, syphillis, or erotic asphyxiation. Death to self promotion. The following is my letter to L*z Armstrong, party columnist and editor of the politicalish Buddy "Gallery" newsletter Lumpen, who has been drawing my ire for the past two months. It will be sent out tomorrow, when I give a shit about finding her email adress. Tonight is the night for anger. Dear L*z Armstrong, Stop. Your anecdotes are not interesting. Stop. Your stories are not poignant. Stop. The Reader does not need a weekend party wrap up. I've been reading your "Chicago Antisocial" column for about two months now and I'm still not sure why it exists. The only thing less fun than reading about a party is reading about a party that you've missed, and the only thing worse than that is reading about a party that you've made a concerted effort to avoid. In almost every column I've read, the last has been the case. I just don't see the point. You write as if you've found Chicago's seedy underbelly, and uncovered some seething Factory-era Warholian underground utopia full of sweat and hedonism. The truth of the matter is that you're writing about a number of well-advertised shows and parties at places with names, full of the same superficial assholes with the same deconstructed fashion sense on major streets in the same neighborhood. The truth of the matter is that your Wicker Park scene-humping is not only transparent, but years past relevant. Your stories don't seem to aim for that "snapshot of a specific time and place in Chicago" quality that might lend them a bit of credence. They are just braggadacio, masturbation. You are not a hedonist, just a self promoter, just another fun loving drunk like the Lincoln Park moms dancing on tables in Coyote Ugly and the wrinkled cocktail souses staring awkwardly from spreads in CS. I have been reading the Chicago Reader for as long as I can remember and can't conceive of a time when they dedicated a whole page so regularly for so much fluff and I don't think they need to. If you want to tell us how trashed you were this weekend and how great your bar friends are, go work for the Red Eye. Stop. sincerely, Eric lab Rat fuck anyone who gets paid to write and produces absolute horseshit while i'm blogging on myspace (56 and countuing). please tell me if there's anything I've missed, or any glaring spelling/grammar errors. Salud.
[NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: GOD I WAS A RUDE ASSHOLE, SORRY]
7:50 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove gentleman junkman i'd say they were deceptive if they weren't so fulla grey but there were blue skies today, for the first time in weeks an I'll swear they musta been the beautifullest things I seen in weeks what I hadn't pulled outta dumpster an it seems that's all I seem to do these days is grab shit outta trashcans 's if I don't got hands fulla shit an trash I can tell you a lotta things about this neighborhood like furniture is made of wood and doesn't go nowhere til electrical tape don't do the job no more and toys and art don't have much shelf life to em a lot of people are buying colorfully boxed organizers which may very well be why i'm finding so much great old shit that don't fit on shoe trees an messenger bags I can tell you I'm not the only one drinking Albertson's brand vodka and every other brick in the area code's had a Negra Modelo smashed against it and... when the street light catches that glint in your eye that foil really looks like it's gold that's a lie it always looks like foil the gold foil you find on Negra Modelo bottles which sometimes can do a body more good than any brick a gold i walked through alleys for hours yesterday with my roommates but it's standing at a bus stop half an hour today that gets me i need to learn patience or foregive foreget or just plain fuck em but if i die to morrow a one day old hermit they'll be able to say man, this guy had a lot of crap yesterday's finds: a Simpsons dartboard, ottoman, antique ashtray, stack of wildlife encyclopedias and pre-Buddy Lumpens, New Kids on the Block "Hangin Tough (Live)" vhs, leather fannypack [nate], burlap handbag and raw materials for making a loom [tania], sweaters, mirror, rug, frisbees [2], bootleg version of the ABC miniseries version of Homer's classic "Odyssey" vhs copied for some boyscout troop, and emo sweaters out of Mister Rogers wet dreams a couple weeks back in the Onion a joke horoscope told me more than any legitimate picayune ever done: Libra (Sept 24) People might praise the ineffable human qualities of your post-lyric poetry now, but after you're gone, all they'll talk about is your great parties. which is all I've ever really expected 7:07 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Monday, November 22, 2004 ukranian village, 2:00 AM you don't hear very many planes fly overhead on my block but when it's really quiet under Sarah's comforter you can hear a cargo train grunting and chugging along through the salthills on Grand I've heard it but I've never seen it I've heard it but not in my apartment with the cats scratching and pissing and humping each other on every surface cartoon mpegs blasting from across the hall and playstations from below Eastern European domestic disputes and a half dead computer wheezinh a whir from its sad old Pentium i've taken to scrounging the alleys as more and more families flee to the suburbs in fear of a changing climate a revolving door of musicians and mexicans more and more cool shit gets left behind today there were two twin size boxsprings, two twinsie mattresses, a frame, two sets of sheets (one soiled) and two cushions (in four different places) a couple teddy bears, and sleeves to Neil Diamond and Frank Sinatra records what I did find: there's a basement apartment on Walton and Campbell that has a pet rooster a pet rooster who believes the sun rises at 2 in the morning, despite evidence to the contrary and a sign on St. Mark's Cathedral: What is missing from CH CH? UR 1:19 AM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove my life as a moment through nell's peripheral vision it's about midnight we're projecting American Splendor onto a wall in my basement on the couch, kyle is smoking the hookah nate and tania are making out behind the couch, I'm fervent grunting away with a 20 pound weight in the hope that I won't have to live out someone else's depression in an all too familiar body 1:14 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Saturday, November 20, 2004 cta friends vol. 1 as i boarded the 49x northbound this afternoon the first thing i noticed was a man, asleep. He was either homeless or a drug adict but he was sleeping with his head against the window, mouth agape. As I traced his contours I found an uncapped pen connecting his hand to a fully completed crossword puzzle. I looked around. there was a man who looked like Dr. Cornel West if he was a pimp, a Ricardo Mantelban if he was a zombie, the bastard son of James Earl Jones and Ray Charles in front of lane tech, a butchy girl from the basketball team spits through her braces into a cell phone, "We can't fuck this one up! ...You can't fuck this one up" a little Mexican girl from a computer science charter school with a skateboard that stands upright at waist level, half sleeves of cutter bracelets, a backpack covered in white-out graffiti, and knuckles with extensive wallpunch scarring the sleeping man, who is most likely either homeless or a drug adict groggily hits on her when he wakes up, locking on and imprinting like a newborn robin, asking, "have you ever heard of this band 'the Sex Pistols'?" before explaining that he used to play in this little band called Public Image Ltd.