Menos El Oso

So, the website says "show starts at 6." Normally on a Friday I gotta work til 8, so I arrange to get off work early and give myself a whole hour and a half to get Racecar over to my ex's and get across town to the show on public transportation (a bus and a train).

Turns out the whole trip only takes like 20 minutes. So I'm like what the hell do I do for an hour? The venue is near the gayborhood, so I go to the only place there might be any patrons at 5 in the evening, Sidetrack. Turns out there's some fellas there and also my friend Norbert is working so we shoot the breeze and Nine Inch Nails is playing so it's pretty OK.

So, about 45 minutes go by and I have a jack and diet so I take off.

Get to the venue and Brian Peterson, the main dude who organizes these show since like forever, is standing in front. There's no one around and he's talking into his cell walkie-talkie like. He goes, "Can I help you?"

I'm already laughing cuz I know he's gonna tell me it's later. "Doors open at 8. Show starts...after that."

OK, so now I have two more hours to kill. I stop by this resale place called Land of the Lost, because I've found out recently that an old high-school friend works there, but she's not there. Then I go to Reckless Records to see if they have the new Sufjan Stevens album used, which they don't. I kinda have to pee at this point so I leave and take a whiz at the Cariboy on Broadway. No one's there that I know. The bathroom has a sign that says the bathroom is for paying customers only, and I think "I'm a paying customer, just not paying today."

After that I decide to walk back to Sidetrack. Only now it's all showtunes and I'm sitting next to this birthday party of total drama nerds with homos and chubby chicks. They're having a really good time, so it was nice to be in such a positive energy environment, but showtunes don't really turn my crank.

1 1/2 hours, three jack and diets and one shot of jack later, Norbert's telling me goodbye and telling me to come back after the show so I can "help out with this guy from Colorado," that's supposed to show up later. Yeah, Norbert's a dirty dude. What a silly.

I get to the venue (Bottom Lounge) and there's a line forming. Fortunately there's a seperate line for will call and it's only about 20 deep. It's all these young kids and I'll tell you, I'm getting tired of thinking about how I'm older than these, literally, teenagers. So weird. They're all being obnoxious and youthful and it's really actually fun to be around them.

It's a pretty rare occasion that a show has four great bands who all put on an excellent show, but that's definitely what happened last night.

First up was City on Film. City on Film features Bob Nanna formerly of Braid and Hey Mercedes (not to mention Friction and a bunch of other short-lived early emo bands). They put on a pretty good show. Backing Nanna up are the three guys from The Felix Culpa. Gosh darnit, Tristan the bassist is super cute!! There's a chick on stage too and she's playing violin, but most of the time I don't hear it too well. I don't know if that's cuz of the sound or because her parts bleed too much.

Next was Thunderbirds Are Now!, about whom I'd heard great things and with whom I was not disappointed. Really good energy, tight, slightly dancey. Me likey.

Third was These Arms Are Snakes about whom I'd only just recently heard there was a, gasp, queer member. I have to say that at this point the drinks must have begun really taking effect because I remember the experience of being in the crowd, rocking out to the music, even going into the pit for part of a song, but I cannot for the life of me remember what any of the guys look like...OK, so, going to their site on Jade Tree records and looking at pictures only slightly jarred my memory. How ridiculous am I? Anyway, they were awesome and I wanted to buy an album of theirs, but Dawn promised me she'd burn me copies of all their albums and I told her I'd get the Thunderbirds CD and burn her a copy of that, so we're (makes square shape with hand) square.

Finally, Minus the Bear. Their set was more energetic than previous shows I've witnessed. I think it was a combination of having the previous bands being kind of heavy and the fact that the venue was pretty full probably upped the ante a bit for them. During most of the show I had remained toward the front with my friend Kris (into whom I ran, which was a most unexpected, yet pleasant, surprise. Kris was my paduon learner when I was in college. A young, budding homo also pursuing a degree in writing. He probably knows more about me than nearly anyone, or at least, knows more specifically unknown information about me than anyone else, as he's read all of my journals from Grade 8 on to nearly present. Weird, huh? Anyway, I stayed back and swayed 50% to the music and 50% to my drunkenness. I ended up buying three CD's, one of which was Minus the Bear's new one and I didn't realize til I was ripping it to my hard drive just an hour ago that it's entitle Menos El Oso. I love that name!

I did make it back to Sidetrack and ran into Norbert. The Coloradoan, though quite handsome, I did not "help out" with. I left Sidetrack and walked toward Belmont and found myself at Berlin. Got to see a bunch of people I haven't seen in a gazillion years. Stayed for a drink. Had a Mind Eraser shot with my friend, the bartender, Gary Gonzalez. The mind eraser shot is our little tradition and it never fails to actually erase my mind. I actually have no recollection of my cab ride home, but I'm pretty sure that's how I got home. Maybe I should call it the "Cab Ride Home Eraser" instead.

Just an update

There are a couple new dreams on the dream blog.

Moto last week

For the first time in a long while, I've posted a new dream in the dream blog. There's two actually. One from last week and one from yesterday's fitful morning.

Last week I went to Moto, this very she-she restaurant here in the city. I've been wanting to go for about a year. It's gotten tons of accolades from the press since it opened. All I knew about it was that the food had a sort of sci-fi flare and that the waiters wore lab coats and walked around with syringes injecting stuff into your food. It combined science and food for unique things, but that the chef was well-trained from a big restaurant, so that the food was also very good. So, my ex, Claude, had asked me if I wanted to go to dinner and I was all like, "sure." Usually when we go to dinner, I'm pretty indifferent to where we go. I'm not much of a food snob and I like everything and I figure whereever we go will be better than the mac and cheese or ramen or even slightly fancier thing I might cook for myself. Moto occured to me, though, so I said, "Have you heard of Moto?"

"That place on Fulton Market?" He said. I didn't even know where it was. I said sure. He's like, "well, call and see if you can get a reservation in twenty minutes." Though it was a Saturday, it was only like 6 o'clock, so I thought it could happen - and it did.

I had expected either an ultra-modern or an industrial motif, but it was surprisingly subdued. Sea-foam green walls with bamboo and candles. It looked like a typical upscale modern restaurant. I did notice that there were like a million waiters and only about 40 seats or so. It was smaller than I'd expected.

So, we sit down and a waiter asks us if we'd dined here before or if we were familiar with how it worked (the woman on the phone when I made the reservation told me that it was price fixe and there was no ala carte ordering). We told him we were new diners and didn't know enough to treat us as though we did. Two menus were set before us. The menus were on plates and decorated with puffed rice, garnish, sprouts, and some chopped nuts. We had three choices: a five, ten, or twenty course meal. Each meal had an item or two that was unique to its meal, I think, which is probably incentive to come back (that, and the fact that their menu changes a bit, since most of what I'd read about was not served to me this evening). I told Claude I'd be fine with any choice, but that it seemed unlikely that we'd ever come back, so we might as well go for it. And we did.

20 courses? Yes. Bear in mind that some of these courses consisted of a single shot glass filled with a liquid, a couple of spoons with something smeared on them, or a single roll of sushi maki (along with a piece of edible flavored rice paper, but I'm getting ahead of myself). Other interesting dishes included a lobster with "champagne grapes," but these grapes derive their name from the carbonation process they use to make them fizzle. Another course was "doughnut soup," which was a white, warm viscous liquid (I know what you're thinking Topher and that's gross, yet somehow appropriate) that tastes exactly like a liquified Crispy Kreme doughnut.

With the 20 courses we took on the Grand Tour of wines, which consisted of 14 different varieties. The pairings were perfect. Needless to say, I was bloated and a little drunk by the end of that meal.

Little did I know that was just the beginning of my night.

I had yet to visit Dee for her birthday. They had planned on going to get Margarita's as big as your head or whatever. I obviously didn't make that, and instead met up with them and the super-fratty bar, Sheffield's. The staff at Sheffield's is really cool. Too bad it's clientele usually isn't. Anyway, I meet up with Frank and Rodney and Dee and some of Dee's other "straight" friends and a couple of the Homo ones. The straight ones seem gay to me but maybe I'm just losing perspective. I have a couple drinks there. Frank suggests Stoli Vanilla and diet, so that's what I have. Dee's pretty trashed and we're all starting to get tired of the breeders, so we tell Dee we're heading out. We head first to The North End, then to Cocktail, then to Buck's (I think?), then to X/O, then to Sidetrack, then to Circuit (Frank leaves between these two I think) then we head to the Closet, where we're supposed to meet John and Jason (I think that's his name...?), but they're just leaving the Closet because John's drink was taken and he didn't like that and felt slighted, but it could've happened to anybody. so we go to Melrose and have breakfast and I think about how different this meal of Chicken fingers is so much different than my 20 course meal from earlier, but no less good.

Well, that was my last saturday. I'm so behind. Ah well, maybe I'll catch up one day.

artyPay

Last night I ended up at going-away party for my buddy Leidy, who's leaving Chicago to make it as a hairdresser in the big apple. The party invite said to bring pictures for new york and featured a drawing of Leidy's boyfriend, Mike. I didn't have any pics of Leidy, so I brought my watercolor set and painted one on the spot. Leidy seemed to like it pretty well. He was wearing the glasses he bought from my shop and loved that he looked "like an old man." Even moreso in the painting.

This party is near to the one I went a few months ago where my skateboard was stolen. That skateboard I had bought while living in France in 1999, so it had sentimental value. My good buddy, Gnat, surprised me last month with a new (refurbished) skateboard with a stencil of my dog, Racecar, on it. So now I have a great new board with even more sentimental value.

Anyway, not ones to just have a party and let it go at that, there was of course a performance to accompany the evening. I guess that Meghan and Bruce (and another girl who's name escapes me) thought about Leidy leaving Chicago and wanted to celebrate staying in Chicago and celebrating the wonderful city in which we all live. The performance involved spoken words about a "pie of yes," "bridges," "golden fingers," and used props like a pie of yes, a shoe, rubber gloves with painted gold fingers and a dental bridge. It was actually kinda gross. Anyway, it was an endearing send-off for Leidy and a re-affirmation that staying in Chicago is as much a "golden" opportunity and leaving to follow your dreams.

There were a bunch of gender-queer people at the party so my dreams this morning seemed to be about gender. Specifically I remember a bunch of people talking about the etymology of the name "Bruce" and sort of talking a lot about gender and stuff. I don't remember details, but it seemed very in-depth. I'm reminded of this excellent book I read called Bee Season, by Maya Goldberg, which was about this young jewish girl who is a spelling protege and her father, who studies the Talmud and kabbalah fuses her spelling training with Jewish mysticism. In my dream, I remember all these words having really profound mystical implications, but after I woke up I couldn't remember any of them. Plus, I had a hangover.

Anyway, fun party.

Firesdie

Last night I went to a show at Fireside Bowl. The fireside is a venerable punk institution and has had shows there since I was a wee lad. I've been going there for more than ten years, now, I think. For a while recently they stopped doing shows, but I guess they're trying out thursdays.

I think the choice for a re-introduction of music there was strange. There were at least 10 bands, each getting like 15 minute slots. I was told that people would all be doing covers from the year 1988. It turned out that the word "cover" was used very loosely and the year "1988" even moreso. Most of the "bands" were experimental/noise. One in particular consisted of three guys in a girl all wearing hawaiian shirts and those cheap plastic leis (sp?). The performed "Babaloo," the old Ricky Ricardo tune and also the brazilian favorite, "The Girl From Ipanema." Basically, they played the original songs on cd players through which they processed the sound with several effects processors and "played" along with the effected music with various noise-making devices as well as by singing. The singing was rather charming and was also processed at times. At the end of the songs (there were two) the girl would be singing by herself with just a slight AM radio effect over her voice which had a somewhat haunting effect.

Another duo created a mix of an INXS song (can't remember which one) and a Whitney Houston song (also can't remember; may have been "Emotional"- I'd had a few jack and cokes at this point) which just played on the P.A. and they sort of sang along and thrashed about. Honestly, they were one of the most entertaining acts and got huge applause. Their mix bordered on abstract at times, with lots of scratching and other weird noises happening. It was awesome.

Princess performed. They played "Get out of my dreams" by Billy Ocean really really slowly and "Never Gonna Give You Up," also by Billy Ocean. Alexis came out into the crowd and I sang along. That was pretty fun.

Tri-State Area consists of Michael from Princess and his boyfriend Leidy, who's moving to New York soon to finish cosmetology school in the most fashion-forward city in the country. Go Leidy!!!

This guy known as "Lord of Yum Yum" performed. He basically uses a loop modeler pedal and his voice and creates weird beat box melanges of classical music and more recent pop songs by like Willie Nelson or some such. His energy was amazing and he was a great beat box. He'd lay loops of classic lines from Bach or Mozart and then add more on top of it with moderns songs in the same key or something. It was really entertaining to watch and I bought his CD, but I haven't listened to it yet.

This guy Dan Deacon creates films set to music. His shit was weird, but also entertaining. I wandered around the bar for a little bit during this, but he used lots of weird psychedic colors and just weird imagery.