I wanted to talk about Angelina Jolie’s new thigh tattoo, but I have some more pressing issues. Seriously though, this was one of the headlines on MSN. I know the average shmoe out there gives a shit about every body adornment Angelina J even remotely considers, especially vajazzling (google it), but seriously, a tattoo on her thigh is front page news? At least Harvey Pekar got a picture next to the news that he passed. RIP Harvey. I never read American Splendor, but I saw the movie. I should read the comic, cuz I really liked the movie. I gotta watch that again.
Ok well I know you’re all buzzing about my weekend cuz I had it all laid out and you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men? They oft gang agley. They do. So things didn’t work out quite like I had planned. Friday was easy. I was tired from Thursday, so I just stayed in and crashed. That meant that Saturday was holding all expectations for the weekend. I woke up and worked out, so I got my bs out of the way, then I basically had nothing to do. Well my ps were going to the horse races, kind of on a whim. So, they invited me. And on a whim, I accepted. It was a good time and none on my trifectas came in. The first race had a 35-1 longshot win it. That was a bad miss. I bet a longshot in a later race and you’ll never guess where it came in, dead last as most longshots do. I did pick a winner that paid 9-1. The only race that I didn’t bet across the board was that one. I ended up with a win and a place. $31 on a $4 bet. Not too bad. So my ps decide they want to get some food. Which was good cuz I was starving. My mom, much like moms always do, wanted to eat at the posh spot. Well my dad and I had shorts on and they said no dice. I was on my way down the escalator when my mom says, “let me talk to the manager.” Next thing I know, the maitre’d is handing me a brand new pair of cotton dockers, with tags and everything. So I wore them. With tags and everything. I put them on right over my shorts and I was pleasantly surprised that I could wear 36s over my shorts. Well it was my job to place the bets, so I was traipsing all over the restaurant in my cotton dockers with the tags. People must’ve thought I was brain damaged. Which is fine. I thought it was funny. My dad basically refused to button his pants or zip the fly, so he was walking around like…well you can draw your own conclusion. The best part about it though, is instead of just letting us wear our shorts, they ended up with much more of a spectacle. I guess that’s justice.
Saturday started out pretty good. I was pretty beat when I got back from the track though. I wanted to get downtown and hit the World’s largest block party. Spoon was playing. I got into the car around 548, and I was hoping to be at the blockparty by 645. I figured I’d hit traffic. I called my buddy and said meet me at the block party at 7. The next thing I know I’m driving into Chicago and it’s 615. So I call my buddy to offer to pick him up. So he answers and he sounds groggy. I’m like, “I’ll pick you up.” He’s like, “I’m sleepin.” I said, “I’m coming over.” His response, “Why, to watch me sleep?” So now I’m in a quandary. I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t want to go to the block party alone, I’m hosed. Plan change. I’m like, “Yeah, I guess I’ll watch tv til you get up.” I get to his place, watch a little tv, then run out and get some beer. Sometime around 7, I figured Block party is toast, so I had a beer. It wasn’t all bad. I spun some tunes, watched the white Sox, drank some beer, could be worse. The thing about block party is…it’s expensive. I guess tickets are $50 now. That’s steep. It includes 5 beers, but only bud products. I don’t like bud products, they basically give me an instant headache, and that’s all they serve at BP, along with barefoot wine, which tastes like it got poured over bare feet. So I wasn’t way broken up about not hitting block party. Once we got moving, it was around 10. We ended up at some dive (I guess, it was new though, is that a dive, I’m still torn on this whole dive bar thing, does a dive bar have to be old and dirty?) The place was called Late Nite. This guy does kind of a traveling 80s dj thing and he was there spinning. My bud’s brother met us, and that was cool. It was a good time. Heard some good songs. It was cool hanging out with the guys, I guess I was a little bit of a curmudgeon because there weren’t any hot women there…at all. I think I got a little tired around 2, and we hung there til like 3. It was cool. I gotta get better at just rolling with things, I just wasn’t in a roll with it mood. I was just in a sorta state of uneasiness like, I don’t want to drink, I don’t not want to drink. I wanna go to bed, I wanna go somewhere else. I dunno how to describe it. Anyway, that sorta carried over into Sunday.
On Sunday my brother, his kids, and my other brother were all going to the Sox game. I went. It was fun. The Sox are kicking serious ass, which is fun. They scored 15 runs. That’s nuts. I kept sneaking away to go down to the little sports bar at Sox park to catch the World Cup final. I watched some of it, seemed like a pretty good match, although the guy in the journal didn’t think so. After the Sox game, I busted down to the bar cuz I thought the game was gonna go into penalty kicks. Well no such luck for the Dutch, Spain scored like right when I got there. I watched the end and my bro came down which was cool. We hung out and I drove him home.
It’s always a cool realization when you come to find that you have no friends. Well not that, it’s just that I don’t have enough, or something. I was thinking I should go out and make some more friends. I guess that would require me being friendlier though, and that’s not gonna happen. The point is that, I decided to go see The Life and Times at this fest in Chicago, and I had no one to go with. I don’t know if I’m agoraphobic, or what, but when I go to a fest or a concert alone, I get a weird kind of nervous. I don’t care though. I just wanted to see the band. My plan was to hit the fest, walk around, drink a Gatorade, watch the band, and leave. That’s basically how it happened too. I did slip into a record store called Permanent Records. Clever name. I was wondering if the name is pulled from the Violent Femmes song “Kiss off.” That was probably on my mind cuz I listened to all of Violent Femmes s/t when I was hanging at my bud’s. Maybe it’s just cuz I was feeling blah, or cuz I was alone, or cuz I can’t really spend money on anything, but I wasn’t as geeked as I should’ve been going into a record store. I love record stores, I always wanted to own my own record store, maybe that has something to do with it. I dunno. I just wasn’t that geeked. It also kinda bummed me out that every card for every band I looked at did not have that band there. The Melvins, Motorhead, the misfits, nothing. It was like someone was trying to mess with me, so I looked around the place, and bailed. I would’ve done some damage if I had some money, well if any of the music I wanted was actually where it was supposed to be. I hung around like a wallflower for like a half hour until the band came on. They were really kick ass. I’m glad I went to the show. They didn’t play “A chorus of crickets.” But they did play some other stuff off of Urban Hymns that rocked. Right at the end of their set it started raining, so I didn’t feel bad about bailing, that was a plus.
It was Sunday, and I hadn’t been to church, so I slid over to Old St. Michaels in old town. I was married in that church. It might seem like I’m a glutton for punishment, but I was glad to be at Old St. Mikes. For one, it’s usually packed with cute women. There were definitely some cuties there, there’s also a lack of air conditioning in there. It got a little steamy. No worries. If you haven’t been to Old St. Mikes you should go. There’s this really cool sculpture at the top of the Altar, it’s of St. Michael and some other Angels basically kicking the devil’s butt. There are lights and stuff behind it and it looks pretty dramatic. Worth checking for sure.
Looking back, I didn’t have a bad weekend. I def should’ve been in better spirits, I feel pretty good right now. I think sometimes you get the summer blahs and they kind of suck much worse than the winter blahs. When you’re bummed in Summer, you’re still outside, in the heat, doing things. In the Winter, you can just get in bed or watch TV and there’s nothing wrong with just riding it out alone. Whatever, lots of good stuff on the horizon, Lolla, Taste of Lincoln Ave. And tons of shows.
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