Letter from the Recently Indoctrinated, Part I

Dear Grandma Moses--

Summer bookstore camp is going great! The six corners (Milwaukee, Damen, North) are awash in art-school thunder. On Sunday night, Jon and I heard an advance recon of the Flat Iron Building Hair Cavalry banging on pots and pans and shouting slogans about their culturally isolated critical responses re: consumerism and low-wattage energy alternatives (we think) through old traffic cones. It lasted several hours, wafting into our open front door for a timeframe the stoned organ grinder drone kidz next door to Swank Frank (working the fertile fields for Sister Ray and Waldo Jeffers) can't usually muster, at least when it comes to the copious enthusiasm blasts needed for truly convincing bouts of on-the-street-freakery.

Regardless, we fought back with barrage after roaring barrage of the 1975 vintage John Tchicai/ Irene Schweizer Group Willie the Pig jazz missle system, but for naught. They out-hippied us by ,frankly, a rather daunting margin. They were probably drugged, and we were "working", making do with cans of Safeway Strawberry Pop and self-administered Cream Soda enemas. Summit meetings are being arranged via backchannel with Gene Gene the Dancing/Performance Art Machine (surprisingly normal and far less than annoying in one on one conversation than presupposed, star of Time Out: Chicago article a few weeks ago, drinks gallons of our iced coffee in the early evening, self-admittedly "obsessed" with some orange Calvin Klein boat shoes he saw at some dept. store downtown) in order to establish effective counter-insurgency techniques. Dean Rusk has the point on that one, as soon as we can agree on the table shape. Anyway, I spent most of the rest of the shift oogling a new book we just got about Winslow Homer, thinking that his sea scapes and studies of fishermen and duck hunters are incredibly boss. And his mother? I'd do her.

Next, I'll be picking my fire targets by throwing darts blindfolded at Frederic Remington prints clipped from Old West books, trying to hit the extremities of the cowpokes and ranch hands he painted incidentally, pointing toward lightning forks splitting seaweed green skies over the rained out Colorado plains, cattle spooked by mother nature running hither-skither akimbo. Art that serves the national design hasn't always been so manifestly destined. Although Aaron Copeland IS a ham, and Van Cliburn, after 1960, sounds like he has icicles for fingers.

I think I'll walk many blocks to a mediocre thrift store now.

Yours (hopefully) beneficially,
The Greasy Eminence




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Crucial point one day becomes a crime

Yesterday, at the end of my post, I asked if I had turned into "David Debby", which I'm sure led to some head scratching out there. I meant David Denby, the New Yorker film critic, but this seems like a fruitful mistake. Maybe I'll become a cross-dressing Pauline Kael of the oughts, with a name that means nothing to noone. Worth about half of one of Roger Ebert's tumors.

And then I'll join Robin Williams in rehab. He will coat me in his glistening fur.

uhhhhhhh It is really pretty outside. 84 degrees and Sunny like Cher's dick. Last night I finished Guns of August. World War I was, like, dumb and stuff. I don't have much for you today, sorry. Obsessed with our steady descent into global conflict? Check. Needing some Lupe Fiasco jamz? Check. Still in lust with Eleanor from Fiery Furnaces? Check. White boat shoes? Blazow!

I bought a little miniature Shortwave Radio at Walgreens the other day for 9.99 or so. Total impulse buy 9000. Now I can listen to German news broadcasts and Radio Portugal. My co-workers hate me. Even the dude from the Kills was bummed as I flicked through blizzards of satellite wash and airline beacons. Hotel represent! ULTIMATE AM GEEK.




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They were going to make me a major for this and I wasn't even in their fucking army anymore

Since seeing it in the theatre Friday night (before World Trade Center....after Talladegah Nights), I've been mildly obsessed with the teaser trailer for Marie Antoinette. Certainly New Order's "Age of Consent" has something to do with it. The full trailer ups the ante with Gang of Four's "Natural's Not In It", which is rather odd to hear pouring out of a Dolby Surround Sound system at a huge multi-plex, especially in a preview for what initially looks to be a piece of French royalist apologia. Of course, I haven't seen it yet (comes out later this fall sometime), but that would fit the usual S. Coppola profile.

My main problem with her films is not that they aspire primarily to the look and emotional content of a music video landscape, but that I am pretty cashed out when it comes to laying out 10 bucks so I can sit in the jury box for the exquisitly patterned bum-outs of the rich and existential chores of the idle. Whether your setting is Grosse Pointe or Versailles or a Japanese luxury hotel, the point of cinema should not be to elicit sympathy for characters who are quite fine without it. Miss Coppola seems not to have taken that under advisement. While some of her imagery is quite lovely (I'm thinking of a particular actress in sheer panties, but fill in your own here), and she does a good job of letting actors sort themselves out (Josh Hartnett strutting down the high school hall in stud mode, Bill Murray being Bill Murray and playing Bill Murray into the ground; neither characterization is so disagreeable), this doesn't seem enough framework to tell a historically important story. Maybe she'll surprise us.

Did I just turn into fucking David Denby?



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A squat black telephone, I mean an octopus

New killer bookstore prank, as perfected last night by Jon...Near the bike racks on sidewalk at the front of the store, place a perfectly mint box for recent-era iMac G4 laptop contaning, in fact, one new Chicago phonebook, the big fat yellow pages one, securely within foam packaging so it does not jiggle around, emblazoned with a post-it note advising "SUCKER" in big black magic marker. The amount of people that will check the box...just kind of touch it or knock it over, is astounding. The amount of people that will actually take the box around the corner and check it's contents and then look around sheepishly, laughing at the note, is higher still.

Until 12:35 AM, when the post-grunge Nirvana t-shirt wearing kids executed a perfect, and I mean perfect, walk around the block to case the score then hustle and slip n' grab the iMac box without bokstore staff *hardly noticing* at all...that gives me hope for your young American criminals of the future. Say hello.....to my little friend!

Ummmmmm White Sox got edged by the Yanks last night (Randy Johnson you old fuck! Hate the unit! Hate the unit!), but conquered 175 more pages of the Vollmann (Europe Central, which won the National Book Award, you know. Holds up extremely well when compared to, say, Gravity's Rainbow) and am feeling heartened for the final push to the summit.



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Chicken and chips and cider bread, Silicon Chips inside her head

16 minutes remaining on the library computer, so I'll make this snappy.

Scott C., booking magnate and fellow baseball freak, told me the other night at the Bottle (Headache City killed it, Ponys brought some dece clatter and by Art Brut it was so hot the spaces inbetween fingers were sweating) that OGFP has sounded "too angry" lately. Sorry. Now that the weather in Chi-Boggie permits a semblance normal human activity by it's residents, I'll try and get more "friendly" on you. No more ranting about crazy bums for a while.

Our top story today...the record shelf collapsed. After promising to anchor the damn thing to the wall for over ten months, and noticing a distinct list to the left for a few days, this last mighty memorial to my fallacy gave way at approx. 4:10 AM CST Wednesday morning. 25 U-Haul record boxes full of wax were spewed across the hall between kitchen and living room. I moved it immediately so that Miles would not be trapped in his room for the rest of eternity, a'la an Edgar Allan Poe short story.

In other news, drank my Ginger Ale at the Bottle bar last night next to a rotund, familiar looking man I later learned from doorman/neighbor's boyfriend Bob was none other than Horatio Sanz. He drank many Amstel Lights and seemed to enjoy A Silver Mount Zion. I, alas, did not, and not indulging in drink either, went upstairs and tackled some Vollmann.



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Who hid in traitor grass their cunning cord may catch me as I pass.

I can't believe I was up before 9:30 AM today. My mouth still has that sour Lunesta taste. Welcome to the world of the (not so) heavily medicated!

Last night on Coast To Coast AM With George Noory was a real doozy, folks. Majestic 12 documents....greys and yellows....alien autopsies at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Air Force Colonels under suicide watch. Pretty amazing.

We have little other news to report.

1) The new white boat shoes are working out quite nicely, thanks. Today's mission is to see if we can't find a special electrically colored t-shirt to wear with said boat shoes and our dirty white pants. To a show tonight! Like actually going out in public!

2) Jimmy the extreme nut job neighborhood weirdo is now officially obsessed with me. Very regularly in the past he tried to sell me cheap plastic lighters and other...things. He raved at me for a full 25 minutes on the bus the other day about Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and various Hot Dog Carts he used to work for along Chicago Ave. Eating a slice of pizza at Bacci last night, Jimmy decided to come over for an unwelcome visit. A visit with Jimmy involves enduring an odd St. Vitus dance of shaking and physical tics, suffused with broken shouts about sales currently at Tower Records. On a more personal note, last night included some genuine-seeming confessions that he, Jimmy, might soon stop freebasing various hard street drugs. Then he went and peed on the door of the Library in full view of the Bacci patrons.

Summer 2006! Have fun at Pitchfork you pussies.




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In the Sky, Lord, In The Sky

I know you hate me for never updating this thing. Sorry. Really. It's just....it's nice outside. Deep breath. Go get an iced tea and leave the internet to the deep hornballs. Stay up 'til 4 AM so you can listen to BBC Morning Update every night like I do, and get your news that way. Who needs email? I don't. The only email I've gotten in the last two weeks is junk mail from JennysoHORNY2008 about selling house pets for obscure sexual purposes I don't understand. Lots of exclamation points at the end. I noticed that, although I was shuddering uncontrollably.

*******>>>>>>>> SUMMER UPDATE <<<<<<<*******

The White Sox right now are like the bad news bears without Walter Matthau and his ever-replenished bucket of beers. NO FUN. I think Ozzie's gay-bashing comments last month are now karmically destroying the team. It could also be that the pitching staff is serving them up there for opposing hitters like a platter of Onion Rings at the fucking Steak N' Shake. If you've never been to a Steak N' Shake, I weep for you.

In other news, Wicker Park Summer 2006 officially sucks your trouser donkey. Last weekend was the whole "shut down Damen between Division and North and have a street fest" debacle. Sure, I bet Dead Meadow and Make Believe and Gris Gris were good. I even heard some of Kinsella and the boys when I was alphabetizing the Nature section Sunday night. (Yes, my life IS that sexy on the day-to-day).

Anyway, the streets were filled all weekend with insanity on a scale hithero known only to Bacchus, and perhaps Robert Evans. I went down to the Food Mart to get a Choco-Taco just after midnight and it was like Milwaukee Ave was the set of a really bad Fellini movie. Ambulances every thirty feet, carting sweaty fatsos away to the morgue...all the coked-up little gay hustler boys sassing around in their short-shorts and love beads (a look I secretly wish I still had the legs to pull off)... ladies falling from not being able to drunkenly navigate on heels, frat boys a' raging, crackheads a' weirding, and that baffling Asian guy who does his strange exercises on the six corners traffic triangle or in the park, wearing far too little clothing, and making most passers by VERY uncomfy.

Why Time/Out Chicago did a story on this bozo is far beyond the scope of human faculty. Then again, so is the Pissed Jeans record, and I love it to death. I'm just a grouchy old man who really likes songs based on single tone feedback. Just like Steve Albini! The circle is unbroken, dun! Like Too Short, I'm out.




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"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but 44% of marriages end in divorce. And they're the lucky ones."

Your host just ordered a pair of "ice" colored Sperry Top Siders from an internet firm, due to arrive later this week from a warehouse in Kentucky. I am stoked and impatient for them to arrive.

White non-sneakered shoes are worn by either preachers and pimps, and not many in betweeen. People feel free to comment often about white shitkickers. Rock a pair of gleaming tooth-hued 100% fake snakeskin loafers for a few months, and you'll figure this out the hard way. Boat shoes, on the other hand, are in like flynn and the "ice" is going to be nice. No more socks for the rest of the summer.




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Direction: Pleiades

At the bookstore tonight we had the All-Star Game on the radio, and it was very hard to concentrate on the mundane bookstore tasks (overstock) when Paul Konerko and the American League stars were rallying to an inevitable 3-2 victory over the Nationals in the late innings at PNC in Pittsburg. I'm always proud when White Stockings are heavy repping in the midsummer classic. 2nd half of the 2006 Whtie Sox campaign starts Friday at Yankee Stadium, where we usually play pretty well against the hated Bronx Bombers.

Greatly anticipating a visit from a representative of Corwood Industries at the Empty Bottle in September during the upcoming Wire magazine festival (esp. after last year's heartbreaking hurricane-related last minute cancellation) (not to mention this year's other stellar attendees...OM! William Parker/Hamid Drake Duo! Coughs! Steinski! Edan!), finally broke down and saw the Jandek documentary. A little heavy-handed in spots, and maybe a bit too respectful of the legendary recluse, it was also a splendid glimpse into the warped views of his fervent fanbase. Of which your host is an enthusiasticly recovering member, natch. I don't even bother trying to explain Jandek to folks anymore, though, so I'll save the prosthelatizing until after your 2nd briss. Don't bother trying to listen to his records 'cause you'll hate them, and then me for getting you at all associated with his bleak broken-chord meltdowns. Musically, it's all part of our new SLOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW program around here. If you like your songs benzidrine psych ward dripped onto your flaming brain pan by a cruel, lamenting God, then by all means we have xxxtra space on the trampoline. Or, go buy the new Lupe Fiasco instead. Same diff.

Another (unintended) side-effect of the Jandek viewing is that it has helped propel me further into a medium-serious jazz phase. The kind where I start whipping out the Marzette Watts ESP-Disks and fretting over the acres of Sonny Sharrock um.....fret discharge therein. Did you know that I own a shitload of bad early 70s Herbie Mann LPs just for the weird Sonny gtr soloz they flaunt? Mustachioed buttfuck flute hound is bopping along on the neutral bad cover-version highway in a peach convertible and suddenly Sonny jumps in from the back of a passing truck, turning things upside down and shaking the change from everybody's pockets, saying hurried, nasty things as he does so, stinking of gasoline and three dollar a pint gin. Sonny Sharrock's guitar playing is untoward. Why Herbie invited him on board in the first place is sheer jazz lunacy. He hijacks the musical scheme and in seconds you are snacking on your brains like Swedish Fish. Lovely circles turn into terrifying dive bombs, runs up and down the strings like knives against bone and then peace, solitude, reflection. Before you've picked up your hat up off the floor, the wheels of time have grown tongues like long, wet ribbons and a tawdry moon is rising over the dashboard. And only good jazz musicos will show you that barrage of explosive heat they have tamed. From Sidney Bechet to Illinois Jacquet to David S. Ware, the universe, I am happy to report, is still exploding three times every second.

In other news, favorite OGFP dad and east-coast academic type Ian sent us even more Bob Dylan Theme Radio Hour episodes. Ian is the cotton balls. Seriously, the Coffee episode is stellar. The Divorce episode starts off with the Tammy Wynette killer and then it gets HEAVIER.

Hold on, Famoudou Don Moye is in the middle of a six minute solo on duck whistles. I'll be right back.




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That buck that bought a bottle could've struck the lotto

Ukranian Village no longer sounds like Beirut circa 1983. Last night it still smelled like a wet Wisconsin fireworks emporium, but the automatic weapon pop-pop-pops were all gone, as were the stumbling drunken burn-unit victims to be. Thank goodness. Five days in a row of low-grade munitions displays and the weird Eastern Euro/Puerto Rico fashion diaspora had me sitting in a corner of Casa Borracho feeling like Martin Sheen in the first 20 minutes of Apocalypse Now. Every second Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger. My only friend, the end. This Fourth of July "holiday" was the first one in more than a decade that I didn't spend in an absolute drunken stupor, trying to rub up on strangers and destroy any remaining shreds of my humanity, waking up on the Sunday after (or Monday, or Tuesday) with a nosebleed and a few open mystery sores. Mom is so proud of my newly emerging social anxiety disorder. My current version of "bar close" is Book 8 of The Preacher and either Coast To Coast AM or a career retro of Josef K I bought years ago and never bothered listening to. If only she could see her Diet Rite guzzling, Seymour Hersh article reading man-child now!

Actually, she can see me. She and Mom #2 are just too busy retiring and moving all their shit to Kentucky right now. I guess we're all going to have lunch on July 21 downtown. That should be fun, considering the last conversation we had turned into a three-way shout fest about the new Superman movie and how the script pointedly had a major character avoid mentioning "the American way" after "truth and justice" when re: Superman...when my Mom brought up that little nugget I just kind of casually mentioned that since, oh... around 8 PM EST December 12, 2000 or so, 90% of the world's population outside of our borders and a good 45% within them views "the American Way" as a morally vacuous floorshow combining the very worst ideals of faith-based cornpone hatred for the proverbial other and a series of corporate-buttfuck shenanigans that have turned most Americans into little more than pallbearers at their own economic funeral. This particular point did not go over like the proverbial "gangbusters". How very "blue state" of me.

So what. Last night I was the recipient of some truly excellent vegan vittles, courtesy of Erika, AKA the World's Best Cook. Seitan roast with yummable veggies and tasty hummus and amazing choco-banana pudding that brought tears to my eyes. It was like that. Then we watched Globe Trekker or whatever that youth oriented BBC travel show is. All about the Pacific Northwest, including PDX. Which is actually one of the only parts of the world besides the great state of Illinois that I have visiited at any length whatsoever. So that had some useful metatext for me. Traveling is for hussies. PBS is for hessians. The sexy flatscreen in Casa Borracho needs some Rabbit Ears. Miles threatens to get cable fairly often, but I feel like the sedentary lifestyle we currently rock like a sweatervest (I'm mostly speaking for myself, here...my roommate actually still has a life) will engorge to truly Jabba The Hut-esque proportions. Soon I'll be eating frogs from a converted toilet on the side of the couch, threating to throw my enemies into a huge mouth-pit where they will be digested for thousands of years. Then Luke Skywalker will kill me.

I'm also looking for some jewelry that features likenesses of Abraham Lincoln. Saved the union and freed the slaves? Yeah that guy. If you see some, holla. Warren G. Harding, too. And Harry S. Truman. One love, Harry!

Peace out, Kenny Boy! Hold on! I'm comin'!





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