My sunburn is itching and peeling and I can't transfer the photos to my desktop. At least my memories of the Labor Day weekend trip to the Indiana Dunes are durable. My friend Katie organized this trip with friends, one she'd make every few summers growing up.
(here's where I'd have put the photo of Katie sporting the trend setting sunglasses / eyeglasses look which is dorky now but will someday rock the fashion world... it's inconsiderately trapped on the memory card)
The Dunes Natl Lakeshore stretches 15 miles down Lake Michigan, a plot of land famous for its beaches and sandy hills, famous to the scientific community for its biological diversity, wetlands, species variation and other such things that didn't register on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.
The view from the top of Mt. Baldy (arrrgh! damn camera! the program should automatically open when I press "on") is spectacular, about as spectacular as you can get in the otherwise flatish Great Lakes region. Unlike Chicago's beaches, this one had seashells, grass, and random detrius which reminded me of Florida. What I hadn't seen before was the nuclear power plant on the eastern horizon.
Here's where I snag a photo from the tourism bureau's site, just so you know I'm not making this up:
Didn't think I'd dive in, but I did. With the nuclear activity down the block and BP's state-sanctioned discharge flowing into our regional treasure, I'm expecting that second head to start sprouting from my neck any day. Blaming BP for my blotchy red spots would be convenient and potentially lucrative, but I can't hold them responsible any more than I can blame them for my stupid non-functioning camera.
Internet access was spotty all weekend so my enthralling stories about the street vendor tour and Japanese dancing will have to wait. In the meantime, here's something to ease you into the work week (trust me, it's funny):
August: Osage County is the biggest show in Chicago right
now and I saw it last weekend. The run
is sold out, so I got a standby ticket (#27 on line) and nabbed a seat in the
back corner.
It’s fantastic of course. It's a dysfunctional family drama with that brutal, drag down type of script the Steppenwolf tends to do so well. It's been compared to O'Neill and Albee, but it's not… it’s Tracy Letts. R-rated, heart rending, and utterly hilarious at the least expected moments.
We got a few bonus laughs Friday night during an irreplicable, live theater moment:
A perverted uncle has been trying to get into his 14-year old niece’s pants (told you this was R-rated). By Act III, he’s gotten her high and is getting aggressive.
He: come on, I'll show you mine if you show me yours
(Audience gasps)
She: I don't want to see yours.
(Light audience laughter)
He: Well…
Then someone in the last row finally gets the joke and bursts in hysterics.
Then the rest of the audience laughs at her.
Then the actors start laughing at her.
Then the audience laughts.
Then the actors can’t control themselves.
Now the audience can’t control themselves, cheering ensues.
Then we calmed down.
And the show went on.
Haven't had much time to post this summer. But a summery summer it's been. Chicago summers are basically over by Labor Day, so with 3 weeks left, it's checklist time:
Bike through the forest preserve, get swarmed by cicadas - check
See over the top shows at massive music fest - check, check, and check
See even-more-bizarre set at neighborhood fest - check
Theater on the Lake - check!
Strolling by the Lake at dusk - check
Movie in Grant Park - check, though I zoned out here and there
Classical music at Millennium Park - big ol' check for Mahler's Fifth
Break for occasional YouTube fun - he he he... yeah
See photography show, remain obsessed with it weeks later - hmmm, check
And it's not on the list, but tonight I ate Korean food for only the 3rd or 4th time in my life. I manned the grill for a few rounds of beef and spareribs. This after our more knowledgeable hosts worked out the meal package. "Does the family-style order include meat and seafood? Just one? No substitutions? We need portions for 12, 1 of us is vegetarian. Yeah, she'll eat eggs... Yes, we can read the menu but what we'd really like is..."
I sense the Yalta Accords went smoother than this. Then our 'negotiator' started conversing in Korean and everything was alright. As far as I could tell. I mean, the next 2 hours was a procession of veggies, starches, BBQing and chowing on the aforementioned meat, and downing a sake car bomb (gotta make my inner Korean frat boy happy).
Now I smell like meat.
They've been swarming around the North Shore and western suburbs 24/7 since May and will likely stick around a few more weeks. Two or three months of trauma is, perhaps, a small price to pay for a Tudor home in Winnetka by the forest preserve.
This is the kind of story I love. A cell phone salesman from Cardiff reveals his undiscovered talent for opera, stunned the audience and judges (including Simon Cowell), then goes on to win Britain's Got Talent. Paul's an eminently likable guy and his tenor is simply beautiful, but the clip's inspiring (1) because he's modest about his talent but determined to compete and (2) the audience, fed a diet largely of gimmicks and worse, was genuinely moved.
Could a guy like this win in America? Hard to say really.
I’m on YouTube, it was only a matter of time. I've posted my dubious return to the stage in the videos section.
Two weeks ago, I represented Chicagoist in a Slam-Put-Down-Insult-Local-Alternative-Media-Tournament. Whatever the hell you want to call it, it was comedy troupe Schadenfreude’s excuse for bloggers and journalists to artfully insult each other, kind of like a schoolyard fight or that MTV show with Wilmer Valderamma.
Background on the players, for our non-Chicago readers:
Chicagoist: a blog, to which I contribute, publishing Chicago centric news, events and interviews. Our food writer Caroline and I, their culture writer, represented them.
Time Out Chicago: weekly entertainment magazine spun off of Time Out London and Time Out New York. Motto: “If you're bored, it's not our fault.”
Gapers Block: a web publication “providing information on news and events around town.” The name is a regional term for rubbernecking.
Chicago Reader: granddaddy of local alternative publications, a weekly broadsheet established in the early 70s. They also have a large staff and, bureaucratically, resemble an old media outlet.
My recap in Chicagoist covers the basics—we beat Timeout, then lost to The Reader in the final round. A few other notes:
Schadenfreude’s Justin K. talked me into this. I was apprehensive at first and didn't have a partner until the night before. I wrote our material and handed the funniest lines off to Caroline, who has great comic timing and is the queen of “your mom” jokes.
Word around the bar was that The Reader brought a ringer. Where other teams sent prominent representatives, The Reader sent a marketing staffer and a freelancer who happens to be an actor. I’d seen him play God in a Neo-Futurist show. Lots of Reader staffers showed up, one carrying a company banner. That said, the crowd applause was closely split between us and them. Watch the video and decide for yourself.
The video makes me seem angry, but that’s for show. I was having a lot of fun. And I’m not bitter about losing. We overachieved, people liked us… they really, really liked us!! Some of them thought we were robbed.
Team Chicagoist went to an after party with Team Time Out Chicago, Andrew from Gapers Block, and mutual friends. Team Reader declined the invitation. Read into that as you will.
The 4-minute version leaves out so much and I’ve promised to post our putdowns, so here they are:
Time Out
Our opponents were Comedy Editor Steve Heisler and Web Editor Scott Smith. The second joke bombed, but we ended with a bang.
Caroline: You’ve gotta admire Time Out’s marketing. We’ve seen their ads everywhere: on billboards, city buses, on taxi cabs… it’s pretty remarkable.
Justin: But it’s
false advertising, Steve—‘cause when I read the Comedy section, my boredom is your fault.
You guys think you’re
pretty great? I guess any magazine that
uses a six star rating scale instead of four must have an inflated sense of
itself.
Timeout built its
subscription base by giving away magazines: 4 free issues, then they gave away
a year’s free subscription, then that wasn’t enough so they offered 2 years
free subscriptions. Damn Scott, even your mom’s not that easy!
Reader
If you think these sound mean, you should’ve heard what they said about us.
Justin: Any
Reader staff here? Yes? OK. We’ll have to speak slowly.
Caroline: (Spoken very slowly) After all, it took
you guys 3 or 4 years to figure out how a blog works.
Justin: You
know, I don’t always ‘get’ The Reader. I don’t always feel like they’re
speaking to me.
Caroline:
That’s ok, eventually you’ll be in their core demographic.
Justin: True, true… Of course by then I’ll be collecting Social Security!
We really
appreciate the Reader’s Missed Connections (I Saw You) section. It helps get people back together. In fact, we think you should take out a
Missed Connections (I Saw You) ad to win back your declining readership.
And because our mic screwed up, we got to go again…
Your insults are like your cover stories: ten times longer than they need to be and only a fifth as informative.
I pledge to you, fair reader, that I will make this blog fun, interesting and worth visiting. Yes, 'personal blog' are two of the most feared words in the English language, but I'll avoid navel gazing. I realize you have many choices in online entertainment and thank you for choosing to spend a few moments with this blog.
If you're here via a search engine or random link, thanks for reading this far. Won't you put up a pot of tea and stay a while?
That said, on to the first post....
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What I learned roaming last weekend's Ravenswood Manor Garage Sale, a few-dozen rummage sales squished into a leafy square mile of northwest Chicago:
- Buyers have more leverage on cooler, grayer days. By noon or 1, the thrill is gone and sellers are itching to get back to the Cubs-Sox game.
- If you don't have kids in your life and don't expect them anytime soon, avoid lingering at the garages where booties, PJs, and stuffed animals are prominent. What you see upfront is only a hint of all that teeny-tiny merchandise jamming the rafters and spilling out into the seller's yard.
- Purchases that are quickly regretted and recycled on the yard sale circuit-- Trump: The Game, Members Only apparel, and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
