June 30th, 2001

Ok, so I'm totally going through girl withdrawal. Kate called me up to go clubbing, and I just freaked. I was so glad that someone besides me needs to go out and shake a tail feather. I went to Penny's first to meet up with Christian, Lindsey, and Pat, who is going to be the bass player for the Pharmaceuticals. I went to pick up Kate to meet up with Dilts to go see this porn flick at the Music Box theater that was being shown in 3D. Can you believe that shit? 3D porn!!! Well, as it turns out, 3D works about as well as it did when it first came out. And that's to say, it works pretty damn badly. And as 70's porn flicks go, this one was on the bottom. It was fucking terrible. And the fucking was terrible too. We were all laughing at the fact that this wasn't a porn that you "learned technique from" in anyway, shape, or form. The Music Box theater is pretty damn cool though. Ha ha ha.

Dilts was too tired from having an all night coding run and the fact that the 3D glasses really messed him up didn't help either. So he opted to cancel on the clubbing. Kate and I went to Neo, had a few drinks and danced a bit. Then we realized that there really wasn't anybody cool to approach, so we went to Berlin, which is a gay bar near boystown. This was way too much of a male meat market, so we took off after about 10 minutes. We tried to check out Spin, but they closed at 3. So, we ended up driving through Wicker Park because Kate wanted to see it, and by then sleep was starting to take over. So, no booty for either of us. But I'm psyched at the fact that I have a new club buddy. And a absolutely gorgeous one at that.

June 26th, 2001

Had a great night last night. I was over at the House of Chris's and an old friend of mine, Kate, called. She was in the middle of her 2nd day in Chicago now attending Columbia University. Dilts, Jones, and Kate and I went to the California Clipper for drinks. Dilts would NOT stop talking. It was so funny. Jones looked like he was ready to explode, having to listen to Dilts flirt with Kate the whole time. I got a kick out of it. Once the booze set it, we all started telling stories about puke. If I ever see Jones's twin brother again, I have to make fun of him for drinking an entire handle of piss. We're all camp kids too. That got into even more stories. It was a really good time. Then we went over to Pick Me Up for some late night food. They have the cutest waitresses in all of Chicago. I need to go there more often. They have a pretty good jukebox over there too. I played a Hooverphonic song and a classic Smith's tune; "William, It Was Really Nothing." Good stuff.

June 24th, 2001

Had a great day yesterday. Spoke with Kim in the morning. Jeff is coming back tonight. He's been gone on business trips for Getty Images for like, 2 months now. We need to have a get together to welcome the poor boy back to the city of Chicago.

More updates on Puppettropolis: my friend Natalie called me up saying that she had two tickets to the film screening at the Gene Siskle theater downtown for 4:00 and wasn't going to make it. I couldn't find anybody to go either, but I went anyway. I liked the first three films. Very odd and dark. And the 4th was the best ever. It was my favorite Brothers Quay film, The Street Of Crocodiles. I LOVE that one. The rest really sucked, so I buggered out before the final film.

I went to the Fireside Bowl last night to see my friend Ben Adrian play bass in a band called Reactor. Ben had moved to Oakland about the time I moved to Chicago, and I hadn't seen him since. To my pleasant surprise, Matt Chandler and his girlfriend showed up. It was a fucking blast. Matt makes me laugh like crazy. And I made a new friend as well by the name of Marissa. She swore she had met me before at Ben's house, but I was drawing a complete blank. Then I remembered why. I had been seeing this girl by the name of Emily for a few weeks, and my "friend" Heath completely moved in on her that night. Granted, this takes two people to do, but it effectively ended my friendship with Heath, and sure as hell didn't improve my relationship with Emily either. I was so damn close to falling for her too. Oh well. Her loss. I got some pictures of the show. Reactor 1, Reactor 2, Reactor 3, Reactor 4, Reactor 5. One of those shots of Ben is him actually on the other end of the venue with a wireless unit on for his bass. It was so damn funny. He just suddenly ran out into the audience.

On the way home I called my long lost friend Dee Dee. I miss her to death. I woke her up, but she didn't mind. And I met this really cute couple who stopped me to compliment me on my redmoon theater t-shirt that I was sporting. She was the stage manager for the top row of puppeteers during Galaway's Shadow. It was a pretty cool evening.

June 21st, 2001

Last night was fucking cool. I went to see the Redmoon Theaters' latest work, "Galaway's Shadow". It was part of Puppettropolis, which is an anual puppetry festival here in Chicago. This took place at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) downtown on Chicago and Michigan. I also met up with Karnisa, who I met through MOC, as well as two of her friends. We had a blast. Redmoon rocks my freakin world. The format was shadow puppets, and they used the windows of the MCA as their stage. pic #1, and pic #2. They had a pit band close to the doors, and what they did for us to hear them was really cool. Picture a 4 feet high Eiffel Tower, with only 3 legs instead of 4. Then shafted onto the spike was an old vintage looking radio. They seeded the crowd with these. I made a joke about how they were seeding us with lightning rods for audience participation. These were used to broadcast the radio transmission from the pit band. It was like being in a drive-in theater. pic #3. Unforuntaley, I still don't have a feel for the different flash settings on my digital camera, so a lot of the pictures came out too dark. 3 times during the show, they interrupted things to do a live action, world II style commercial. This first picture, was for the lemon drop girls. I thought they they were little elementary school girls, but I was wrong. It was adorable nonetheless.

In other news, I've started a new website for my Dad's OBGYN group call Aegis Women's' Health Care. It will be nice to have a paycheck again since Insight Consulting basically forgot about me. Fuck you Ed.

Also, Lucy gave me some crazy news yesterday. Tom Cruise and Steven Spileberg are in her neighborhood until the end of the week filming a movie. She met both of them, and told me that Spielberg filmed her for a while. *sigh* She's gonna run away and be a big star and forget all about me.

Christian Ryan, from Ivystone and I are forming a new band called The Pharmaceuticals. It's going to be more rock oriented, ala The Jesus & Mary Chain and The Dandy Warhols. We've been dying to rock out lately. We placed an add for a drummer, and already have one very good candidate. We need to find a rehearsal space though.

June 18th, 2001

It had been a LONG weekend. The family called me at various times last night that they arrived home safely. It was a great time having them up here. I've been writing these summaries to people all weekend, and this should be the definitive one. I totally pissed right now. Due to and exhaustive evening (*wink*) I overslept and now I have a $50 ticket on my car for not moving it during a street cleaning. I wrote myself tons of notes last night saying "move your car!". oh well.

*Friday* David and Rusty and I walked around the Lakeview area where their Bed and Breakfast was. Not much was open, but we got breakfast at this really great place that I cannot remember the name of. It was on Halstead close to Belmont. We went over to Chicago Comix and I bought two cute little Edward Gorey cardboard stand up characters. One is the Skeleton guy in the top hat from the Gashlycrumb Tinies, and the other is the vampire guy from the cover of The World of Edward Gorey. I finally got to visit The Alley, which is this crazy bunch of shops smooshed together into one area. I need to go back there when I actually have money. From there we went to the area east of Wicker Park to check out Crate and Barrel, The Container Store, and all those other expensive places that they wanted to visit. We had lunch at a really cool Mexican place called Hacienda. Then we went down to The Palmer House to meet up with Mom and Dad.

there was a bit of confusion at the hotel. Mom had made the reservations and even had a confirmation number. This insolent little shit named Jeffery insisted that she had called the wrong hotel because he wasn't finding a reservation under our name. Dad got super pissed and at least they refunded the valet parking payment. We drove six blocks to the the Hilton Towers, where my friend Emily stayed when she was up here a few weeks ago. When they arrived, the woman at the desk, Katherine, said there wasn't a reservation here either. She looked up the confirmation number and said "it's as clear as day. you have two rooms over at the Palmer House". Jeffery lied. He didn't even look up the confirmation number. Had he done that, none of this would have happened. Katherine called his supervisor and, get this, he was fired on the spot! I couldn't believe it, but apparently he had it coming. So, the fam went to their rooms while I got my bike out of Dad's car and put it into mine. We then met up for dinner at Club Lucky. It's this super Italian joint in Wicker Park. I've been on a diet for the last three or four weeks, but I considered this a vacation and ALL DIETS ARE RESCINDED WHILE ON VACATION. I had that Lasagna there that kicks a lot of ass.

*Saturday* I took the trains down to their hotel and then we took a bus to the Museum of Science and Industry. I haven't been there since I was a tike. It was fun. Weird, but fun. We took the tour of the captured German u-boat, and went to an omnimax show called Fantastic Caves. Cool stuff. Then we took a long bus ride back up to Michigan Ave. so they could all walk around and look at shops. I went back home because I was pooped. And I needed a shower before we went to dinner. I drove down there to pick them up and we went to Bandera. They flipped over this place. I had this BBQ glazed salmon steak that was fantastic. I have a bunch of leftovers in my fridge right now. Including the jalapeno corn bread they make there. We walked across the street to the big Virgin Mega store and I bought two VHS tapes. A live show of Rowan Atkinson's stand up sketches and Delicatessen. Delicatessen was done by the same guy that did City of Lost Children, one of my favorite movies of all time.

*Sunday* The fam picked me up and I took them to Wishbone for breakfast. We then drove down Lincoln to the Magnificent Mile of Michigan Ave to do the tourist/shopping thing. I bought two pairs of shorts. woo hoo. We then made it back over to Logan Square and had lunch at Lula Cafe. They liked it, but David hated the menu. He said that almost every dish had something in it that would make him sick. I think he's just a picky little shit. He ordered my favorite turkey sandwich with nothing but lettuce on it. Embarrassing. The parents took off after that, and David and Rusty and I watched my Clue DVD in the air conditioning. I drove them up to the airport for their 7:45 flight. All in all, a fun weekend. I'm still tired.

June 14th, 2001

The Red House Painters show was fantastic. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures. I did sneak my camera in, but they were checking for them at the door, and I didn't want to get busted during the show. Gaberdine opened up. They're from Chicago. Good band, but they had the worst onstage mix I'd ever heard. The sound guy must have not liked them. Red House played song after song of beautiful melodic goodness. Mark has a fantastic voice. I didn't see the movie, but apparently he played the bass player in "Almost Famous". So there you have it.

I cleaned the hell out of my apartment yesterday. I'm not done either. Still have the dining room and kitchen to do. I have to go pick up my brother and his partner from O'Hare this evening. I might miss the Redmoon Theater's opening show for Puppettroplis because of that. I was supposed to meet Karinsa today from MOC. Rats. We'll see what happens I guess. Man, they've been together for over 7 years. I'm so proud of them. By brother can be a tough person to live with. Luckily Rusty is the nicest guy on the entire planet, and puts up with his shit every single day. And slaps it right back in his face, every single day. Ah, love 'em.

(later that night) I picked up the boys from O'Hare around 7:30. They're doing well. Rusty said I look like I've lost a ton of weight. I gave him this huge kiss and yelled thank you over and over. We took the train back to my place and then I drove them to this cute bed and breakfast in the middle of boystown. Go figure. We had dinner right next door due to the downpour. But that wasn't the cool part of the night.....

I witnessed a bicycle cop get hit by a car! Two bike cops were riding north on Halstead. They were hugging the parked cars on the right side because they had a car right behind them which was about to pass them when this woman parked on the right side suddenly pulled out, causing the first cop to veer left quickly and get hit by the car passing from behind. The cop got up right away and they both went ape shit on the woman who had tried to pull out. The people in the car that hit the cop got out and were freaking out, asking if he was ok over and over again. I was jogging when this all happened because we had just been hit by a storm front that brought a ton of rain and wind, so I was trying to get to the restaurant. Crazy, no?

June 13th, 2001

AIM is taking over my life........ and I'm loving every damn second of it, baby.

June 10th, 2001

***note to self: BUY TICKETS IN ADVANCE, YOU IDIOT!!!***

I went out last night (looking pretty sharp, I might add) to see the Blake Babies. I foolishly didn't buy tickets in advance, because I didn't think the double door would sell out a show like that. I guess I misjudged the popularity of the babies. So, I went home and watched some back to back anime dvd's. English dialog with Japanese subtitles of course.

I did get to hang out with Vanessa though, before the show (or lack thereof). She's rad. She's (supposedly) helping out the sound guys over at Shubas every Friday and Saturday night. She got me a free Bass Ale on tap. Awwwww. Made some french toast this morning and the damn power went out again. This time the things plugged into the the right outlets stayed on. This clinches it. Today is the day that I go buy that big-ass extension cord for the air conditioner in the living room that's causing these blackouts. I'm taking my apartment back by force damnit!!

Laureen from Evil Star wrote in my guestbook, so now I'm all smiles (and a sugar high that's freaking me out). Thanks Laureen. You made my morning.

(later in the day...) When I arrived back at my apartment from getting extension cords and tickets to see the Red House Painters this Wednesday, I ran into the biggest turtle ever. My neighbor from across the hall, Lisette, has this turtle named Morison. pic #1, pic #2, pic #3. Crazy, huh?

June 8th, 2001

***happy birthday Lucy!!!!!!***

Ok, so I'm completely shit-faced right now. Yet, oddly coherent enough to edit html and upload this damn thing. I've been on a diet for a couple of weeks now and have had no alcohol the entire time. Well, I went to the Double Door tonight to see some bands. I'll have picture up LATER. Anyway, I had two beers while I was there from 9:15 - 11:50. I didn't chug the first one like I normally do. I nursed these things pretty slowly. I got up to pee during the third band and realized that I was completely hammered. I said "fuck it" and missed Novasonic Down Hyperspace, who was 1/2 the reason I was there, and just wondered off to the train. That thing strangely full too. Tons of people going home at midnight I guess. Weird. I'll write more in the morning.<

>>

(the morning after) Ok. I'm more able-minded now. Phew. Last night was weird. The review of the show: Olo was as good as I've ever seen them. Airiel played it's last ever Bloomington show with them at Second Story about 9 months ago. I bumped into Corey, the guitar player on North Ave. before the show and talked with him a bit. He came over to me after the show and we chatted still. I guess they're moving up here by August and he wants to get together to do some improv guitar work. Sounds cool to me. The second band I still can't remember the name of, but they had their good moments. They had two girls in the band, which is way cool to me. Girls need to rock more. Not only that, but the girl playing drums was also the lead singer!! Very cool. The third band was called "Self-destruct Sequence" which to me, suggests high-school mentality in the naming department. These guys looked like a bunch of jack offs, and acted like it when they took 8 hours between every song. Their music was surprisingly reverb heavy, but came off just like they looked. A bunch of fat guys that used to play metal, and then heard the Verve's first album and thought "hmmm, they may have something here. Let's all get reverb pedals and be cool". This is where I realized I was drunk and went home. I do remember calling Vanessa and apologizing for not meeting up with her at Shubas. There was no way I could get into my car and drive, and riding a bus after already taking the El would have been puke inducing. Oh yeah, I remember this girl coming up to me and saying "you're the guy who helped me with my car!" I figured out what this was after a while. Before the show I went to Reckless Records and then to Quimby's, like I normally do. There was this girl trying to parallel park with this aircraft carrier of a car. She leaned over and asked me if she was gonna fit. I said "hell, yeah" and directed her into the spot, and then I just kept walking. I guess I'm a cheap date now that I get blitzed off of two beers. strange.

And then, to top things off, when I was sitting at the El stop, I noticed the moon was really amazing. So, I tried taking a few pictures. Operative word being "tried". Check these out. moon blur #1, moon blur #2, and then and actual picture of the moon.

June 3rd, 2001

I put up some brand spankin' new mp3 files on the airiel site. I'm so happy!!!! These are the first songs that I've written since I moved to Chicago.

I'm having a blast with all of the people I'm meeting at MOC. I've never done ICQ before, but I'm getting into the idea of entering chat rooms again. Haven't done that since my naive days of being an AOL subscriber back in 1994.

I saw a burning car on the corner of Diversey and California yesterday. Well, not completely ablaze, but had huge amounts of thick, brown smoke erupting from underneath the hood. Fire seemed to be dripping from the bottom too. I have no idea what that could have been. I don't know cars at all. I should ask Jonesy. He's a car freak.

June 1st, 2001

This week has gone by so fast. I can't believe today is Friday. I've had two people visiting Chicago in the last 5 days, and now my best friend Kim is coming up tonight. Next weekend are a couple of shows at the Double Door, and then the weekend after that, my parents and brothers are coming up. Good grief.