Saturday, October 12, 2024
Fall Festival
I have to say, and perhaps have said before, that I have a hard time understanding people who love fall. When they invariably start in right after Labor Day on pumpkin spice and sweater weather, I just want to kick them in the crotch. First of all, pumpkin spice is completely synthetic with no relation to actual pumpkin, so you can pretty much have it any time of year. Second, sweater weather just means that you are cold, so why celebrate that? Also, your sweaters are probably ugly.
I am unabashedly a summer person, as I enjoy long days, sunshine, and drinking out of doors. I can understand enjoying spring, because the weather is nice and everything is blooming. Frankly, spring is just a thing that sort of doesn't exist in Chicago, because winter is roughly six months of the year. And I have yet to meet someone who wants to make the case for winter, unless wanting to die on the way to work every day is your thing. But fall has its partisans, no doubt. They complain about being hot in August and can't wait to go on a hayride and get out their Halloween decorations. This is, of course, morally repugnant.
Everything has its season, as they say, so I accept that fall and winter have a right to exist. I also understand the scientific principle of "different strokes for different folks," so I try my hardest to respect people who get off on having leaves crunch under their feet. But I would love if they could shut up about it a little bit. Pumpkin spice will never love you back, okay?
Sunday, October 06, 2024
Living History
Great news! When I was at my mom's house I discovered I had lovingly preserved several decades-old issues of the now-defunct magazine Entertainment Weekly. Shall we peruse the 100 greatest entertainers 1950-2000 issue from Winter 1999?
As it turns out, most of their calls are not laughable in retrospect. The Beatles at #1? Groundbreaking. Elvis at #2? You're probably not getting any angry letters on that one. But there are some inclusions that perhaps not aged as well. I mean, I enjoyed the X-Files as much as the next person, but not if the next person was on the staff at Entertainment Weekly, because I remember them doing approximately 2700 cover stories on that show. And it comes in at #76 on their list. Just ahead of Diana Ross at #79. Sorry, Ms. Ross, you had some hits, but no Cigarette Smoking Man.
And while we're on the subject, how is a TV show an "entertainer?" People are entertainers. Bands are arguably entertainers, though also arguably groups of entertainers. But shows are shows. And if we're including shows as entertainers, why X-Files, Star Trek, and Saturday Night Live, but not, say, The Dick Van Dyke Show or All in the Family? Or The Single Guy with Jonathan Silverman? Egregious oversights.
The all-new iMac! We had a lab full of them at my college. They looked less cute when you were up all night trying to finish that Major English Authors paper you put off to the last minute. I'm sure now they really brighten up the landfills, though.
Huge boxy TV! And woman who is probably not Julie Bowen but definitely there's a resemblance. Wearing clamdiggers. And a sweater. What a time it was to be alive!
They also did internet polls that they included in the issue, which were definitely very representative of the public at large. What figure loomed larger in '90s television than Seth Green? I mean, perhaps David Spade, but I just don't think he was given the same caliber of material. And this was before James Van der Beek became a meme.
I have no notes on the "Best Musical Group" poll.
Can I add that Meryl Streep (#38) was ranked below both Bill Cosby (#24) and Woody Allen (#26)? I mean, I know none of us were psychic, but did people really love Mighty Aphrodite that much? And Ghost Dad? Okay, that was unfair, Ghost Dad still slaps.
Saturday, September 28, 2024
Into the Woods
I'm at my mom's house in Quincy, which is literally in the middle of a giant woods, such that the threat of a tree falling on us has been a genuine concern for as long as I can remember. Also? Weeds and brush. My father was always fighting weeds and brush, which I felt certain would contain snakes. My mother has continued the battle, but with scrawnier arms she stands less of a chance. I assume the whole house will be reclaimed by nature some day, and this may be for the best.
Before that happens, I'm doing my best to rescue some of the things that are meaningful to me. So I'm taking lots of books and records (not in the corporate sense of books and records, though that one is good too) back to Chicago. I've got a two-volume set of the Folklore of Quincy and Adams County, which my dad worked on with the great folklorist Harry Hyatt (this is a real thing), weighing down the back of the Prius, along with some of my parents' marked-up copies of novels I like (Faulkner, Fielding, Vonnegut). And my grandfather had some pretty great records, at least in my view, since I have the taste of someone who's been deceased for over two decades. But since the CSO performing Charles Ives and Perry Como in Irving Berlin's Mr. President are probably not anyone else's jam, we should probably move along.
I tend to keep a pretty low profile while I'm in town, in the wake of repeatedly being running into people at Wal-Mart while buying Hot Pockets in sweatpants and a "My Other Car is Oprah" t-shirt. But we did get the dog out for not one but two walks and I got a nice run in. Also, I discovered that Uber Eats actually works here, so there was no need to dine publicly for sustenance. (Although I did have a carry-out incident that left me feeling like Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomatoes, but I've vowed never to speak of it again.)
Back to Chicago tomorrow morning, assuming the Prius can bear this load...
Sunday, September 22, 2024
This & That
It's a rainy, gross day in Chicago, perfect for staying home and catching up on the various household tasks I've been neglecting. I have already swapped out the clothes in my closet for the season, changed two lightbulbs, and vacuumed up approximately thirteen tons of dog hair. And -- bonus! -- it turns out the hand vac I thought was dead after I accidentally sucked up a bunch of water has miraculously been revived. This is where never throwing anything away really begins to pay off.
The past week has been pretty glorious weather-wise, though, if you ask me. (And people do tend to frequently talk to me about the weather, so let's just go with it.) I've been out in the hammock a lot, guilt reading New Yorkers and discovering a hidden treasure trove of Ian's Tori Amos tracks in my iTunes. I've gotten some quality runs in, as well as some shitty ones that I was frankly just kind of phoning in. And my plants are thriving, which will no doubt be a nice consolation when Chicago weather throttles them to death in November.
It's been a surprisingly social weekend, too, with an anniversary party Friday, a birthday party yesterday afternoon, and an outdoor movie night last night. So today is about regrouping and resetting before the shock of Monday kicks in. One can never be truly ready, but I find a little bit of Unsolved Mysteries goes a long way.
Friday, September 13, 2024
Ridin' the Rails
I alluded to one part of our Canada trip that was not so great. Now let me be specific: we were stuck on a train from Montreal to Quebec City for 14 hours.
It was supposed to be just over a three hour journey, leaving at 8:30 in the morning and arriving at 11:45. We had heard that Quebec City was beautiful and worth a day trip. We had naively mapped out an itinerary of sights to see in an afternoon before catching a return train at 5:40. None of that was to be.
Instead, about forty minutes from Quebec City, the train stopped, and they announced they had to do "mechanical checks." (Well, they announced it in French first, which became important as time went on and we got to see the anguished reactions of the French speakers before we had any idea of the substance of each announcement.) We sat for probably about an hour before they announced that we would start moving again, but at a reduced speed. Fine.
During the stop, the train attendants had leapt into action, bribing us with disgustingly sticky "oat bars," pretzels, and soft drinks. They continued to charge for alcohol. Later, they would come to regret having gone through the food and drink so quickly, as an attendant roamed the aisle with the sole remaining cup of water on the train, offering it to anyone who was "about to pass out." But at this initial stage, our fellow passengers were obsequiously polite to the staff, repeatedly telling them "you're doing a great job" and "we know this isn't your fault." This, of course, would not last.
I should also add that we had discovered early in the journey that we were seated next to the restroom and that the door did not fully lock unless you really forced it hard, which nobody ever did. So we were presented with a choice between hearing repeated accidental bathroom ambushes go down and taking on the role of telling would-be pee-ers "There's somebody in there." We opted for the latter, which got a bit old over the course of 14 hours.
So as you can already surmise, our reduced speed journey did not last for more than about ten minutes. We stopped again and they did more checks. Ian looked out the window and saw train parts strewn in the grass near the train, which seemed an ill omen. They announced that another train was coming in forty minutes and would push us the rest of the way to Quebec City. This plan was jettisoned several hours later and we were told we were backing up onto some siding so other trains could pass.
At this point pandemonium erupted. A passenger began marching up and down the aisles yelling, "No! They can't do this to us! They're going to let those trains pass and just leave us here! I'm mad and you should be too!"
Perhaps she was part of the group of passengers that had missed the departure of their cruise while sitting on the train and were out several thousand dollars. Perhaps she didn't find the complimentary glass of champagne offered to those passengers sufficient recompense. But regardless, she yelled. And she had supporters, some of whom clapped feebly and another of whom literally said "she's saying what we're all thinking." Another, however, cautioned that "we're not going to get anything by yelling."
Throughout this period, the engineers had been getting on and off the train for their various mechanical checks. Because we weren't getting a ton of information from the staff, some passengers starting asking the engineers. One of whom started screaming in both French and English that everyone needed to sit down. At which point we heard a woman yell "he pushed me!" and "did you see that?" And of course camera phones started to roll. And then the same engineer aggressively snatched the phone out of another passenger's hand. And I turned to Ian and said "We're not involved. We're not involved."
Fortunately an attendant returned the phone and cooled things down a bit. Speaking of which, I should add that whenever the train's engine was off (which was frequent), the air conditioning did not work. And the water did not run, including in the bathrooms. So we had to add "there's no water in there" to our bathroom speech. Without being too gross, let us just say that toilets were reaching concerning levels.
As another aside, Michelle died. We had no idea who that was (I have confirmed that M. Obama and both M. Williamses are well) but an older passenger near us returned to her seat in tears and shared that information with her husband. Apparently Michelle was hit by a car. She was not a train passenger, it seems, but regardless, our condolences.
Regardless, the next plan we heard was that we were all going to be moved to another train that was on the way to Quebec City. But it would not be there for a little while, so we would have to be patient. (!) One lucky diabetic lady got to exit the train, however, when she shared that she was feeling lightheaded. She got an ambulance. Another lady followed behind her, pleading with the staff that she was "having psychosomatic symptoms" herself. No dice.
Anyway, the rescue train eventually got there and we were transferred car by car over to it. There were literally six firefighters (illuminated by a spotlight on what was by now a dark, rainy night) enlisted to help us step down two steps on our train, step over a gap that was about a foot wide, and climb up two steps on the other side. I don't know that I've ever seen a more dramatic scene in real life. I felt like one of the Chilean miners being pulled to safety. And yet, I required no help at all to make what was in fact a fairly unchallenging crossing. Except maybe their moral support, I guess? Anyway, they had better luck with the passenger in front of us, who was in a wheelchair and seemed quite leery of their efforts to heft him and his chair from one train to the other. He was safely delivered, and they literally gave themselves a round of applause.
On the new train, all was not exactly well. Lots of people had to stand in the aisles or sit on the floor, since the rescue train had already had passengers of its own. But the attendants were very excited because the rail company had enlisted the firefighters in delivering pizza to the train. So they marched down the aisles with single slices of pizza stacked between napkins and just randomly handed them to passengers. I was glad not to have any dietary restrictions, even if I didn't exactly love my slice of peppers and mushrooms. It absolutely served the purpose of keeping us from eating one another.
Ultimately, we arrived in Quebec City at about 10:45 PM, or eleven hours late. And our train back to Montreal, which had also been delayed, was now scheduled to depart at 11 PM. We looked for food in the train station, but nothing was open, so we settled for a bag of Miss Vickie's chips each from a vending machine. And we very happily loaded back on to our return train, which would not get back to Montreal until 2:30 in the morning. The crew of that train seemed very stoked to offer us the leftover cold pizza.
Anyway, we did not see Quebec City. Aside from the train station, which we do not recommend. But we made it out alive, and were entertained by the ensuing news coverage. Apparently the Canadian Minister of Rail weighed in and said that passengers deserve better. And we are allegedly to receive a full refund. But of course the real compensation is all of the friends we made along the way.
Saturday, September 07, 2024
Quebecois
And so the Montreal adventures continued, as you knew/feared they would.
At the archaeology and history museum, you were able to walk through all sorts of ruins from Montreal past, including this tricked out sewer tunnel. I never thought I'd see walking in a sewer as a feature rather than a bug, but they had thoughtfully cleared any and all human waste out.
There were so many cute stores in Old Montreal, including this one, where we didn't actually buy anything, but I'm sure they were happy just to have us take pictures there.
At the art museum, they encouraged you to take pictures with these cutouts. I do think I make an excellent severed head, and I shall update my resume accordingly.
I'm trying to figure out who should be most upset about these caricatures, but I'm really struggling. Daniel Craig looks a bit like Woody Allen, and Sean Penn like Einstein. Kirk Douglas should probably just be happy to be included.
I can't take a vacation without photographing churches. This one was across the street from our hotel, so low opportunity cost, as these things go.
Montreal hosted the Olympics in 1976. It left the city with $1.6 billion (Canadian) in debt and a string of corruption scandals, but the buildings still look kind of pretty.
The botanic garden has a variety of different spaces that purport to demonstrate what plants look like in other nations. This is supposed to be China, which checks out from my own very limited experience of that nation of 3.7 million square miles.
Here's a shot of Old Montreal I took from where were were having dinner. Something was dripping down the back of my neck from the umbrella above for the entire meal, but still, poutine is poutine.
Wednesday, September 04, 2024
On the Road Again
We went to Montreal for the holiday weekend! I figured the labor movement would want that. It was a fun trip (with one huge exception that will be the subject of a later post / potential class action). Beautiful city, good friends, excessive amounts of poutine. Four stars, definite recommend.
There was an art museum involved, of course, and this one included this mass of stuffed animals somehow adhered to a wall. (In other words, this does not depict the gift shop.)
I am a sucker for artistic depictions of hell's sufferings. This was by a student of Bosch, who definitely knew how to depict some torture when he felt like it. I'm sure that was fun at parties.
Cheese! So much cheese! We went to one of their traditional open-air markets, and this shows but a tiny sliver of the array of cheeses available. I did not eat them all, but not for lack of trying.
This is the interior of the chateau on Mont Royal. I'm not sure if it is available for weddings, but it seems like it would be a fun choice.
Here's the exterior, just for your records.
This is the Notre Dame Basilica, where Celine Dion got married. Also where she had her husband's funeral. Full service facility.
The interior is really pretty, and (I am not making this up) they host a laser light show there. Definitely worth checking out, if you are into lasers or lights.
I took this picture because of the dog, but only now do I realize it sort of looks like the man is holding the dog hostage. Let's just assume that ended well.
Sunday, August 25, 2024
Treasures From Our Storied Past
I made the shocking and wonderful discovery that the local library in Quincy has a digitized, searchable collection of old editions of our local paper. Join me on a journey into the past, won't you?
I remember going to this writing conference because it meant I got to have McDonald's. Also, note my wildly uneven haircut, which was likely the result of my parents takings us to a beauty college for inexpensive styling. Note also that my sister has essentially the same haircut. The unisex simplicity is beautiful, no?
This was so, so much better than being shortlisted as an "Unamerican Kid." Here I am entering my skeletal phase, and have adopted sort of a K.D. Lang haircut.
How this was not FRONT PAGE news I will never understand. Stupid liberal media.
Looking at this photo now, one does have to wonder what the hell was going on with my arm, and if I ever sought medical attention for it. I did not. But man, did we bring the energy.
My acting style has often been called understated and naturalistic. Only by Raven Symone, but still.
Monday, August 19, 2024
Mystery Man
An unexpected joy of having purchased a Samsung TV is that it comes with a bunch of Samsung channels that just show a single program over and over again. There is a Degrassi channel, a Murder, She Wrote channel, and perhaps most horrifyingly of all, a Drew Barrymore Show channel. Generally, these channels just provide background noise for doing other things, like researching grand jury secrecy rules or performing open heart surgery. But the Unsolved Mysteries channel is perhaps the greatest cultural achievement of our time.
Yes, these are the original Unsolved Mysteries from the '80s and '90s. Yes, the theme song is still creepy as hell. Yes, it still seems at times as though Robert Stack can't believe the shit he is getting paid to say. Yes, I am transfixed.
It is impossible to choose just one favorite. There is the one about the Brazilian guy who claims to be channeling the spirits of great deceased artists who are using them to create new works from the afterlife, except they all kind of look like the pastels our third grade teacher had us do during our unit on Impressionism. (Not a slam, I was an amazing artist.) There is the one positing that the Unabomber was also the Zodiac killer, largely based on presence in California and general craziness. There is the one where one of the New Kids on the Block (Jordan?) is enlisted to try to find a missing girl. And there is a one where a woman claims to have a special touch that allows her to soothe animals, but is instead nearly mauled on camera several times consecutively. All classic television, to be sure.
And these stories have only improved with age, since now we get "updates" that almost invariably indicate how completely off base all of the speculation in the original stories was. Did a Des Moines housewife abandon her children to live a life of luxury in Monaco with a con man? No, she was just murdered by her husband and stowed under the house. Did aliens leave strange graffiti all over a Montana town? No, it was just some guy. Is a Wichita man's bizarre illness that baffled his doctors the result of a gypsy curse? No, it's just a common disorder easily diagnosed by the viewers of Unsolved Mysteries.
Also, they've put together a "documentary" where the makers of Unsolved Mysteries talk about how great and important Unsolved Mysteries has been. Why can't I get that kind of treatment?
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
On With the Show, This is It
I've got another show coming up in October. And so I feel like I must harass everyone about it. Here's a promotional graphic, suitable for sharing in your office break room or church bulletin:
This one is different from my most recent efforts in that it will largely be performed by people who are not me. I've done some writing for it, and I'll be hosting it, but it's not a solid hour of me. Which I view as a plus. I'm bringing in some very talented friends from my amateur theatrical for lawyers, and they shall do their things with limited commercial interruption. In case you prefer a square one:
The theme of the show is our youthful brushes with local fame. Which, as anyone who saw an anti-drug PSA in Quincy, IL circa 1990 can tell you, I am quite familiar with. That's right, I named it, sold it, and left the door open. Still doing it today, in fact.
And yes, it is exhausting to be this entertaining all the time.
Sunday, August 04, 2024
Busy B
It's been kind of a crazy week, in that I have frequently engaged in activities other than working and watching television. Perhaps most notably, a friend invited me to see Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil at the Goodman on Thursday. It was definitely enjoyable, even though I had next to zero familiarity with the source material and frankly kind of don't get its appeal for people. The cast was strong and the score had some bangers in it. I found the structure to be a bit meandering and definitely could have gotten it done in under 2:45 if it were up to me, but obviously the internet has ruined my attention span. Oh, and we had dinner before, so hooray for eating!
After, however, I had forgotten about the menace that is Lollapalooza and ended up not being able to get an uber, waiting twenty minutes for the train, and then having to crowd in next to teenagers who literally seemed to be using lingerie as outerwear. Also it started pouring and I had to run home umbrellaless from the train station. We'll make this exhibit A for why I sometimes don't want to leave the house.
Friday and Saturday we babysat my niece and nephew, which was fun but exhausting. My nephew actually used our Oculus, which was the first time anyone has touched it in over a year, although my niece found it frightening and demanded that it immediately be removed from her head. I lost a Mario Party to my nephew and served as a method of conveyance for my niece. And, for a variety of reasons that I'd rather not relive, I slept on the floor in our guest room. Let's just say I'm unlikely to be forming a Babysitters Club any time soon.
We went and saw friends last night, and tonight I'm off for dinner in the suburbs. Yes, the suburbs. Which suburb and where I dare not disclose, but you can go ahead and assume they are all equally glamorous.
Saturday, July 27, 2024
Ceremonies
So my niece and nephew have gotten very into the Olympics, though they seem to have very little idea of what the Olympics actually are. They wanted to have a party for the opening ceremonies, which consisted largely of them doing things other than actually watching the opening ceremonies. They made us all compete in a bracelet-making contest, or as they kept unironically calling it, a "bead off." (The prize for winning the contest was for some reason being tasked with drawing a picture of Lebron James.) They also conducted an Olympics trivia contest, during which they read questions (and occasionally the answers, by accident) off the internet and heartily enjoyed telling us our answers were wrong. And there was also supposed to be a costume component of the evening, but I think we just ran out of time. There was also pizza to be eaten, after all.
The ceremonies themselves I thought were pretty interesting, even though I got almost none of the audio due to the aforementioned activities. It was nice that they really made use of the city, since it's not exactly hideous, and I liked the balloon torch, once I understood the likelihood of it exploding was actually pretty low. I saw the weirdness of, say, the table runway with drag queens, as a feature rather than a bug. And I am surprised to hear myself say this, but it was genuinely very nice to see Celine Dion performing again, particularly from a mighty perch atop the Eiffel Tower. She does a pretty good Edith Piaf impression, to the extent that's anything anyone should actually do.
All in all, it was a pretty grand affair. And I was still asleep by eleven, which is my new late-forties standard for Friday nights.
Sunday, July 21, 2024
Out & About
Last weekend we went to our friends' lake house in Michigan, which was very nice, aside from a tragic Taco Bell drive through incident on our way back. You see, we decided to forego a long, lingering brunch somewhere so that we could ransom the dog from boarding sooner, and settled instead on the joys of an AM crunchwrap. But we forgot that Michigan was an hour ahead of Chicago, and were thus greeted with only nominally "Mexican" delicacies, many of which involved Frito Lay products, instead of breakfast when we got to the drive through. And normally we'd be down, but it still felt like 10 AM to our stomachs. And the lady in the drive through was super sassy with us and we we couldn't back out because there was already someone behind us so we had to spend ten minutes sitting in line and get the stink eye from the aforementioned sassy lady. And then we were so discombobulated that we made a rushed, misguided decision to get Wendy's. I think it's fair to say that nothing worse has ever happened to anyone, ever.
The rest of the week has been fine. I spent a fair amount of it in the hammock reading, so that's a plus. My new outdoor mold and mildew spray arrived and I went to town on our stonework. I initiated a foot peel. All of this likely to be covered in your next Us Weekly, I am sure.
Sunday, July 07, 2024
Back and Fourth
It's the Fourth of July weekend, or as the Lifetime network calls it, "Fourth of You Lie." I take all my linguistic and cultural cues from them, obviously.
Really an all around amazing time here. Wednesday night we went to a friend's party, with a great view of all the illegal fireworks that obviously don't exist in the state of Illinois, and a lovely spread of foods I should not eat and liquors that probably no one should drink. Thursday we hosted the family for an afternoon of grilling and wishing it wasn't quite so overcast. Fortunately the skies cleared around 3 and we were able to get out the inflatable wading pool that there is really no reason two men in their forties should own. The kids loved it, and then it slowly emptied itself via a leak we could not find over the following three days. Win, win.
Friday brought more family adventures with a trip to the Art Institute for the Georgia O'Keefe show. The kids simply insisted. They got to go to the park afterwards, but Ian and I hightailed it for home and our twin chaises on the garage roof deck. Some quality relaxation, particularly since most of our neighbors seem to have fled for the long weekend. Or for legal reasons, perhaps, I should make no assumptions.
Yesterday we had a pool party in the suburbs, and I've reached the age where that is a phrase that makes sense to me. Everyone was really friendly and the sandwiches were bomb. Yes, that's a Vanderpump Rules reference.
Today the dread of returning to work has definitely set in, but we're still trying to make the most of today. Why, I sprayed the front patio for bugs and the rear sidewalk for mold and mildew. And watered all the plants, which I assume is the reason we had a torrential downpour.
Anyway, happy birthday to America, while it lasts.
