Rats Were Comrades

Photo taken July 2004 somewhere between Brussels and Berlin. Being reminded of necessary travels results in:

Just another boy breathing in the gaslife
Living by the bridge, the one with the spraypaint
When I walk through the rain I contemplate a pattern
I'm smiling at the crows
And the blackbirds and the rats they were comrades oh

Arms around my neck and you should know
I'm in control when I'm leaving or letting go

Colored perfect houses, placed into rows
And if the road rose to meet me would I navigate controls

Just an only child choking on some new life
Swallowing aloud, life is intricate in a crowd
When I'm buried under snow, it's quiet like a heartache
I've been feeling young as snow (thanks Lance Walker)
But there's a white light, it's a bloodhound
I'm a thousand years old

Lycka till

I haven't taken a final exam in probably five years now. But tonight, myself and the six other soldiers of svenska that rode out the storm of å's, ä's and ö's will put our learnings of the past fifteen weeks to use. Tonight is the last class of Svenska 1 (beginners Swedish).

Oh, you didn't know I was even taking a Swedish language class? Some of you did. If you didn't, then that's ok, it's the reason I've been unreachable every Tuesday night since January. We started out with probably twelve people on the first night; everyone excited to jump into beautiful Nordic patterns of sound. The teacher went around the room asking why we were all there. One guy was marrying a Swedish girl, another had Swedish heritage and wanted to learn the language to speak to her grandmother and this one girl simply said that she was "in love with The Soundtrack of Our Lives (a Swedish band; they sing in English)." I believe the class is now at six. I'm guessing that relationships died, certain bands became not so cool anymore or, most likely, twisting your lips around words like "sjuksköterska," "snöigt," and "fåtölj" proved to be too much and slowly but surely dropped down their ladders of importance.

Those of us that stuck it out have been introduced to a seriously interesting and amazing language. Swedish is simple and complex all at once. There's no apostrophes; there's three extra letters in the alphabet. As in any language, you'll come to a sound that your English-speaking lips have never even thought about making. What do YOU think an "sj" or a "kö" sounds like? Nope, that's not it. Nah, not that either. Try again but make your lips more round and make the sound come from a the back of your mouth, not the front. Sometimes I get lucky and pronounce something correctly. Stranger things have happened.

The reasons for my involvement in this class are a story for another time. I'll tell you though that I have no Swedish ancestors. And although The Soundtrack of our Lives' song 'Still Aging' that includes the lyrics "Well here's a song I wrote when I was about 144. It was a time when I just couldn't take it anymore. I had to split into pieces to get by. It was a time of delusion to live I'd just rather die" is powerful (not to mention that the melody is perfect), it never made me want to learn their mother tongue.

No matter what happens with all of this I'm happy I chose to take this class. High school Spanish didn't quite do it for me. And that's probably because Francisco (my pal Nate) kept feeding me drugs in-between classes. But that's another story for another time kids. Hej då!

FoodEater

Keanu Reeves was at the same bar as I last night. He had his tongue down this girl's throat. People kept coming up to him and he'd shake their hands and say, "Thanks a lot" and immediately turn back to his female companion and dive back in. He looked really good for his age; young boyish face. I guess he's around forty now? I could google him and get his age but I'm incredibly lazy right now. It's Sunday night and Jeff is cookin' up something fierce in the kitchen. Anyways, I thought he'd be taller. That always happens...you see someone famous and they're really short. Oh, I started thinking about all of the crap movies he's done and was looking at him thinking, "He's famous, but he sucks, this isn't even a big deal." Then, boom, i remembered. I mean, it's not like I crossed paths with Crispin Glover or anything though..sheesh.

Heartbeep

First thing's first. The above drawing was done by Pawl Simmons. I filled in the black one.

I used to watch the live-action 'Batman' series like it was going out of style. At one point WFLD aired two episodes daily. One summer, when I was probably twelve years old, I think I saw every one. Indoor summer! Sad but true. Sure, the Batmobile was the sweetest car ever, the Batboat was ridiculously perfect and Batman's utility belt brought a tear to any wannabe gadget-wielding kid's eye. But nothing compared to the Phone. You know the one. It only rang when there was trouble. It had one button on it. And you know a phone that important needs to be housed in a glass shell. And it was.

Somewhere around, oh, probably, 1997 Pawl Simmons drew a 'heartphone' and showed it to me. I clung to the image. The idea of a phone with only one button dialing direct to that certain someone was easy to make my own. Pawl then added my band's name to it and I brought the drawing to Kinko's and made low-budget stickers. Promotion for the group; promotion for the phone. All copies of this image had since been lost. I had only the memory burned into my head.

For the past year and a half I've been dialing internationally using a calling card to chat up my sweet. First you call the 800 number. Then you enter your pin. And then you dial the actual number you want to call. That's a mess of numerals. Things could be simpler. Couldn't there be a direct communication link available at all times; no fumbling for numbers when time is of the essence? Batman and Pawl Simmons are geniuses of functional design. I just wanted to publicily announce that.

A few weeks ago I tracked down Pawl in the back of one of our usual haunts. He was hunched over the pool table. I had the paper in my coat pocket and he borrowed a pen. We didn't have to say much because we'd already discussed the details. He put the pen to paper and in single simple lines drew heartphone after heartphone, recreating the image for me. I put it in my pocket. We walked home, her and I. She didn't have to leave for another few days and the tangles of wire meandering through cities and buried under oceans didn't even cross my mind. This distance wasn't there anymore. Fingers intertwinded, hearts beeping.

The dark horse will ride

Former Number One Cup drummer Michael Lenzi is easily one of the only Chicago musicians I've followed consistently for the last ten years. He's written some songs that remain really important to me. After Number One Cup's demise he headed up the angular and at times stressful Fire Show. His most recent project, Resplendent, has a new full length that I highly recommend checking entitled 'Am I Free?' In fact, right here you can download every Fire Show and Resplendent release as an MP3 for free. This is a very sweet gift from him to everyone. Of course it's best to just buy the albums to show full support. But, I just wanted to spread the word on an, at times, over-looked songwriter whom I admire and continue to follow.

Just this week I heard that Michael was leaving the Resplendent project behind and moving in a new direction. I have full faith in him. Over the weekend he posted this: "Guided by Voices did their last tour. I am sad. But I re-discovered how much I love the Teenage Fanclub, the Byrds and early 80s hardcore so all is ok in the world." This puts me at ease. And I await the results.

Day(s) off

See kids, I usually work six days a week. I've got my Monday through Friday contract job (which lasts until October) and then there's the old standby weekend job at Land of the Lost. Upon getting my full-time job I kept my one day a week shift at LOTL for a few reasons: the owners are amazing, first dibs on incoming wares, money honey, beachclub. However, this weekend I took off and got (gasp) two days off in a row. And the reason for my lengthy holiday? Oh, well since you asked...

I'm working on my first solo record, under my own name. No monikers this time. It's sort of consuming my life at this point. I think about it constantly. But for the past three weeks I haven't really been able to work on any recordings. See kids, my girlfriend lives in Sweden and when she comes to visit I'm 100 percent focused on her. When she was here the recording/writing processes got put on the back burner. But now that she's back home I feel like I've got a job to do. I need to finish this album. It's been in the works since January; I'm looking at a May completion date. So, I told you all of that so I could tell you this: I took the day off work to well, um, work. You know, slide the faders, saturate some hard drives. And yes! Another song completed. Right now I have seven songs that are finished and making the grade. God, I'd love to just post them all right now and see what everyone thinks but I need to keep them close. They're still babies...still seeing ghosts.

Go for the Chalet

So here you have it: my first blog. To be more exact it's my first post on my first blog. Thanks for being here, whoever you may be or wherever you're coming from. For the past two days I've been screwing with the template in an attempt to make this all look how I wanted that I didn't even think about what I'd blog about. Think, think, think...

Oh yeah, that reminds me, there's a reason for the picture above. Last week I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art here in Chicago. The pic is one I took of an external installation in front of the main entrance to the museum. 'Short Cut' [2003] by Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset set a comedic tone for a mainly serious overall exhibit entitled 'Universal Experience: Art, Life, and the Tourist’s Eye.' I say the exhibit was serious for a reason. And I'm going to tell you why. Because I can. This exhibit is about traveling and leaving home and being removed from your comfort zone. Some jet set; others pack it in a car; I've seen some just walk. Growing up as a kid I'd be taken to Tampa Bay, Florida to visit my grandparents. On these trips I was actually expanding my comfort zone, stretching it from way up here to way down there. These types of getaways are consistent with youth. There's familiar faces waiting, familiar food to be expected, common smells of my grandparents' place. The exhibit I saw didn't take me to that place. And I'm pretty glad it didn't. I've seen Epcot enough. Donald Duck sucks. It's about time. Certain parts of this collection put a pack on my back and sat me down in a lounge in an airport in a country I was not comfortable in. The language was odd. The food didn't look right. I would've been stared at. I would've been asked questions I did not know the answers to. THIS is what traveling is about. Take yourself out of your zone. Just leave. Please do it. I need to do it more and I will, promise.

I used to not understand people who reviewed anything in the art world. I think, in my own way, I just reviewed my first exhibit. Really, it felt good. A fine afternoon at the MCA.