Your Official Laugh of the Day: Shaft Edition

Your Official Laugh of the Day

(I Didn't Door a Pedestrian)

I can't remember what I did yesterday. Today is Tuesday...oh, I went through more edits on my big story. I was sitting in my car, on the passenger side, so I could type on my laptop while on the phone. I'd left the coffee shop because I didn't want everyone overhearing my conversation. So top secret, right.

Then I saw a guy on a bike get doored by a guy wearing a suit, he had a real nice car, on Milwaukee Avenue. I watched the scene, and my editor asked if I needed to go out and help, but everything seemed to be taken care of. He told me to be careful not to door anyone. I told him that I was sitting on the passenger side, so if anything, I might accidentally door a pedestrian.

My Gramma's New Word For "Driveway"

So I was driving Gram back from the ear doctor and she wanted to stop at Jewel, so I attempt this majestically magnificent maneuver from the far right lane to the left-hand turn lane, but alas, the traffic gods were perhaps busy getting people to the hospital instead of the grocery store that day.

No problem. "There's a runway up there," Gram says. A runway? Oh, a driveway.

Maybe one day they'll be called runways, when "Back to the Future" is no longer the stuff of the silver screen. By the way, have you seen this goof in "Back to the Future III"? Of the little kid pointing to his wee-wee in one of the shots?

Hey, we all gotta go sometimes, even pee wee wee-wee-pointing time travelers.



[UPDATE: So I Googled "driveway" and "runway" after posting this (of course) and found this Facebook page titled "I'm from Kilmarnock and I say 'runway' instead of driveway.'" Maybe my gramma is actually Scottish instead of Polish and has been lying to us all these years.]

DEADLINE....I HAVE BEEN ON....

If anyone out there in the blogosphere actually checks in on this blog periodically (without me secretly luring you off Facebook and Twitter), I just want to say that a story I've been working on for almost two years (yes, you read that right) finally got approved for a cover (yip yip!) So I'm working on that. But I'll post something probably later today, or tomorrow.

I don't know why I just thought of this, but the word "deadline" has "dead" in it...ha, because that's kind of how you feel afterward? Because some projects almost kill you it seems? Yeah, it's kind of like that sometimes isn't it.

Glow-in-the-Dark Skeleton Baby

Someone please buy this for your baby. Or for your baby's baby. Or for someone else's baby. Or for me, in case I ever have a baby. (Oh, I saw this at Young Navy Blue.)

Trollin' With Some Halloween Homies...and Snooki as Baby Sinclair from "Dinosaurs"?

So I was watching a little two-year-old girl and playing with her hair, kind of piling it on top of her head, and said, "Ha! You look like a troll doll! Do you know what a troll doll is? You could be one for Halloween!" She hadn't yet been introduced to troll dolls, so we went on the computer so I could change her life. And out of all these images, this was the first one she picked out, ha:



By the way, check out this photo, some of the best Halloween costumes ever. These girls should be the new Kool-Aid mascots.



Oh, also as I was trollin' the Internet on this troll mission, I came across this image — how have I not seen this until now? Snooki being compared to Baby Sinclair from that old sitcom "Dinosaurs"? OMG. By the way, the whole "Not the momma!" Baby Sinclair joke was a long-running joke between me and my mom for a long time (hence my use of "long-running"). Ha, someone should make a video of Baby Sinclair saying, "Not the Snooki!"

Bloody Feet on the Bumper May Appear... At All?

A singular bloody foot protruding from the bumper of a minivan was the last thing I expected to see driving north on Western Ave in Chicago this morn. I tried to get a better picture, but the guy pulled over because he probably realized I was snapping a photo, and — you know — didn't want me to get any incriminating evidence.

Good thing I got a picture of his license plate, phew.

Pancakes "Fluffier Than a Mofo"?

I got a random text from my friend Sara that read: "Pancakes sound so good right now." Followed by the short-but-necessary modifier: "Fluffy ones."

This was not in the morning, or on a Sunday, it was at 3:20 on a Thursday afternoon (if it was an hour later at 4:20 I could understand, zing!). When I talked with her later that night she couldn't stop talking about wanting said griddle circles, and how she and her boyfriend went to a place in New Prague, MN that had ones that were "fluffier than a mofo."

Fluffier than a mofo? Aw, hell no. "What is the name of this place?!" I begged of her.

It's called the Flipside Pub and Grill. The only downside of Flipside, apparently, is that they don't serve alcohol before noon, as to not conflict with wine-sipping Sunday church services. (Maybe that's why New Prague is actually pronounced New "Pray-gue" in that neck of the woods.)

I got off the phone with Sara, who was still talking about pancakes at the end of our 33-minute conversation. "Whenever I make pancakes, they just never come out the same as theirs," she moaned. I recommended adding an egg and buttermilk to the batter. About five minutes later, I get this picture text from her.



Followed by this one, accompanied by the text, "Fucked it up already!!... Ugggh... I need their recipe."



Let us put a pancake on our heads, and pray for the pancake god's blessing to deliver this request.



(BTW, I found this bunny photo on the blog JenCutter.com, which looks delectably phunny. I wonder if that bunny paid for that pancake in Bunny Munny.)

Why I Enjoyed My Recent Visit to Menard's

A photo of a mom showing her daughter how to fix a car in the automotive section? Yippy skippy!!!! I mean, heh heh, that's cool man, real real cool (cracking open a beer, putting hand in pants).

[UPDATE: Now that I think about it, that doesn't necessarily have to be a mom and a daughter, it could just be a woman — an aunt, a neighbor, a local mechanic — showing a little girl what's up... I wish I knew more about fixing cars. Shit, I don't even know how to change a tire, der... please help me woman in Menard's photo...]

Goodbye Snowboard

I traded $150 worth of party favors for you in college, never used you, but I will never forget the good times I had paying you off. You now belong to cool awesome cat-grooming awesome snowboarding girl in the suburbs. Who will maybe invite me along to play on some slippery slopes sometime. Goodbye snowboard, I love you.

Rainbows and Little Fattie, Oops, I Mean Little Debbie

I have a number of friends who I wish were on Twitter because some of the stuff they post on Facebook or text me is so hilarious that I wish I could retweet the twat out of it.

Like today, after a pretty rainy day, my friend Allison posts: "That rainbow is really putting a damper on the crappy mood that took me all day to accumulate." And my friend Sara just texted me: "They should really rename Little Debbie 'Big Fattie Debbie,' to which I replied — "Or Little Fattie."



Okay, so I've indulged in Nutty Bars and Oatmeal Cream Pies, but has anyone even tried "Cloud Cakes"? I wonder how long have these fake-Twinkie-ass suckers have been around. I take that back — I shall not judge, since I have not tried them, my apologies to you Cloud Cakes.

I do have to say, the names are both pretty awesome — Twinkies and Cloud Cakes. Sounds like the food that you eat in heaven or something. Or feed to unicorns so they can fly. And then maybe die, because I don't think you're supposed to feed unicorns Twinkies just like you're not supposed to give dogs chocolate.

It's Princess Shake Weight Time

I think that's supposed to be a can of pop or juice or something, but it looks like a Shake Weight to me. I had Belle do a few reps because, hey, princesses need their beauty exercise too. If you haven't seen the South Park spoof on this, you'll have to look that up on your own, princesses are just not those kind of girls.

Life, Death, and Pea Soup

Gram: What's in that container?
Me: Pea soup.
Gram: Is it still good?
Me: Hm, I don't know.
Gram: Well, I'll eat it, and if I die — well, it's almost my time to go anyway!

[UPDATE: I added this last line in, what do you think? Funnier? Less funny? The same funny?]

Gram: What's in that container?
Me: Pea soup.
Gram: Is it still good?
Me: Hm, I don't know.
Gram: Well, I'll eat it, and if I die — well, it's almost my time to go anyway!
Me: But is that what you really want for your last meal, suspect pea soup?

BTW—I Think Betty White Is Totally Funny Here

The New York Times Won't Print "WTF"? WTF?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!

A writer friend of mine in New York started a high-larious blog writing witty quips about the daily outfit choices of local traffic reporter Jamie Shupak. The blog is appropriately titled, "WTF Is Jamie Shupak Wearing?" ("I know it’s casual Friday, but that doesn’t give you license to wear a baby pink wraparound shirt from Forever 21 circa 2002. TGIF!" and "We all love to be comfortable at work, but puke-colored khaki pajamas? No.")




So Ms. Shupak has been getting quite a bit of press lately — being the hot and single little number that she is — and the WTFIJSW blog is often mentioned in write-ups. Like in the recent New York Times article, "Stuck in Traffic? A Star is Born." Except look at how they how they refer to the "WTF Is Jamie Shupak Wearing?" blog:

"Because fame begets skewering, Ms. Shupak has even inspired a blog whose unprintable name approximates “What is Jamie Shupak Wearing?”

Really? The NYT can't print "WTF"? WTF?!?! I understand that they have a strict policy against profanity — they recently edited an Onion headline about Steve Jobs to edge out the word "fuck":

"The headline, modified here to replace an expletive, said: 'Last American Who Knew What the Heck He Was Doing Dies.'"

But there's no (visible) "fuck" in "WTF"! It's as much a part of the English language as "antiquated," "newspaper" and "ridiculous." I can understand not wanting to have swear words all over your rag, but there's some journalistic principles to uphold here, aren't there — like accuracy?

A recent Chicago Reader blog touches on this topic, and links to a piece the NYT did a piece about how often you hear the word "vagina" on TV these days. The intro? "Forget the singing competitions, cop shows, fairy-tale dramas and the 'Mad Men'-style melodramas. For network television this is the season of the vagina."

Focusing on the word "vagina" for a news piece — using the phrase "this is the season of the vagina" — but not publishing "WTF"? Join the 21st Century NYT! Grow some balls! Or as Betty White would say — grow a vagina! Or as Facebook would have her say, maybe — I guess this balls/vagina posting that was passed around was a hoax and that it wasn't her joke (I am guilty of the passing-around, I admit, I should have known, it was hilarious) — it supposedly belonged to comedian Sheng Wang, who supposedly got it from a California talk radio DJ?

Oh media platforms, how you befuddle me.



[UPDATE: One of my Facebook friends alerted me to the fact that the NYT has published "WTF" in the past, like in this story about comedian Marc Maron, but apparently chose not to in this instance...maybe they considered it slanderous? But then they didn't publish it in a different profile of Marc Maron?! WTF. A Twitter bro @robertloerzel alerted me to the fact that the NYT has published "WTF" 2,460 times (not all of them referring to that phrase). By the way, my favorite definition of "WTF" comes from "Modern Family"—"Why the Face."]

Un-Bummification

Mini-Nugget Reviews of the Three Shows I Saw This Weekend: The Misfits (Danzig Legacy), Wild Flag and Weezer

1) The Misfits (part of Danzig Legacy show/Riot Fest), Congress Theater, Chicago
I will one day have pretend misfit children with guitar puncher/designer Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein. Local music junkie Jake Austen from Rocktober wrote a live review for Time Out Chicago and mentioned that guitar sounded muddier than it should have, but whatevs!, he wrote:

"The Misfits’ 1980s (and Glenn-free 1990s revival) guitarist Doyle took the stage, and while I will never complain about a giant with corpse paint, a devil lock, and gay porn muscles playing buzzsaw punk rock guitar, the fact that Doyle played in addition to the Danzig guitarist rather than instead of him meant the sound was muddier instead of sparer and punkier. Couple that with Glenn’s voice not having the timbre of his younger days, and the songs really didn’t sound much like the Misfits. Which didn’t matter at all! The mass of Misfits-tattooed humanity was almost orgasmic hearing Glenn present these sacred songs."

The pit was a swirling sweat bowl. (I didn't get super-good footage so check out this clip of him playing from 2007.)



2) Wild Flag, Empty Bottle, Chicago
Best cover of "Beast of Burden" that will ever happen in history ever. Unless the Raincoats give it a shot. Here's some decent footage from a show in Philly in March, I like its rawness.

By the way, they had some rad T-shirt designs, like this one — courtesy of director/artist Mike Mills ("Thumbsucker"), who's married to director/artist Miranda July.



3) Weezer/Riot Fest, Congress Theater, Chicago
One of the hardest things for any performer is having to go on stage after the death of a loved one, and Rivers Cuomo opened the show by dedicating the show to former Weezer bass player Mikey Welsh, who was found dead in his Chicago hotel room from a suspected drug overdose the night before. Welsh apparently tweeted “Dreamt I died in Chicago next weekend (heart attack in my sleep),” on Sept. 26, two weeks earlier.

Rivers was obviously pretty distraught. Welsh was working as a painter in Vermont, and from the looks of his stuff, he was pretty damn good. The image below is titled "an incendiary lovechild goes up in flames of its own fire."



On a more musical note, when discussing what band Weezer would cover best, a friend of mine threw out the Pixies — and I had to bow to that suggestion. I realized how much I dislike the song "No One Else": "I want a girl who will laugh for no one else/ When I'm away she puts her make-up on the shelf/ When I'm away she never leaves the house..." Fuck that!

I also danced and screamed to "Undone — The Sweater Song" with a recently-reunited high school girlfriend like we were back in high school, and felt like a total dork in a total good way.

More to come later, probably some crappy iPhone video because I wasn't real close to the stage (if I could get a decent zoom on that thing, and a larger aperture, I might pay with my first-born My Little Pony).

But on a serious note, I need to be thankful that I had an amazing time with good friends. And that a band is mourning the loss of one of theirs.

The Joy of Random Googling, Part 2: "Crazy High Heels"

I'm sitting at a 24-hour diner and this girl clomped by in high heels and a shirt that buttons up the back, and — along with thinking about how difficult it's gonna be to take that shirt off later — I started thinking about high heels and decided to Google "crazy high heels." I found this ebay item page for "Iron Fist Zombie Stomper Green Platform Heel Size 7 Wide."

You're welcome.

The North Coast Music Fest in Pictures — and One Awesome Video Featuring a Squirrel Named Frank

I think I'll just post a bunch of pictures from the North Coast Music Festival in Chicago instead of trying to put the Massive Bass Light Circus Explosion into words — and yes, this post is about a month after the fest took place, but there's a couple related events that are coming up in the next month. And I also included a less-than-five-minute video that I lovingly cobbled together from my time working the Magic Hat Stage beer tent, good times. This was the second year for North Coast, it's more compact Grant Park's Lolla, and more diverse and colorful than Pitchfork (which also takes place in Union Park).

Just as a quick note though, I loved working the Magic Hat side stage because there were more fringe acts, like Six in the Mix, one of the bands out of the youth-oriented Intonation Music Workshop (they're featured at the beginning of the video, and are having a fundraiser on Thursday, October 11, 6-9pm, at Alhambra Palace, 1240 W Randolph). And The Arts of Life Band — a group made up musicians both with and without disabilities (also featured in the video) — run by the Arts of Life, a non-profit that depends heavily on donations to keep their art and music programs going; they're having a (free) fashion show fundraiser on Saturday, October 15 (2010 W. Carroll, 4-8pm) and their 3rd Annual Half Acre Charitable Chili Cook-Off is Saturday, November 5, 5-8pm, register here to buy $10 tickets, or if you want to be a chili-making contestant! Please support these awesome arts programs.

Your attendance at this online viewing is much appreciated, enjoy the ride!



This guy reminded me of what would happen if Robin had turned the Batmobile into a time machine and took off, and then came back. Can I use your mirrored facade for an eye-booger check, would you mind?



Ha, I kept thinking that Homer couldn't be far behind. (Speaking of beer, it was so bass-y that the taps were shaking and jerking like they do when they're about to sputter dead because the beer is gone, it was a par-tay...)



Meet Fred Flintstone!



North Coast is an all ages music fest.



Zebo rode a horsey stick, and the shoulders of some guy too, check out the real footage in my video further down.



The Chicago Reader had a cool live-painting outdoor art gallery.



The coloring of the pieces above and this garbage receptacle at the nearby corner store complemented each other well. That's to say that I think the trash can looks like a work of art, not that the art is garbage.



Speaking of art, I liked this guy's T-shirt. He said it featured a design by Jonathan Zawada. Spooky.



And there were a ton of goofball shirts, I think there was some contest I didn't know about, like who could wear the funniest totally absurd shirt, here are a couple faves.





So the guy below got knocked because he was "talking shit to some guy," he says. "Everyone's been telling me I need stitches, and I'm like, no..." I liked him. He danced with me at the Groupon Noise Refuge Personal Time Disco tent (where you were given headphones and everyone was dancing around listening to the same song for their own "personal time disco" it was awesome, you can see in a short clip in the video at the end).



I saw the hurt-foot guy below hobbling away from the grounds, and he was nice enough to pause for a photo.



This is Frank the Squirrel. You'll also see him in the video.



Here are some cool hats. (I am Ms Pac-Man queen champion btw).





Furry hats, don't leave for North Coast without them.



There were women in mustaches.



And men in dresses.



Lots of dollar bills. (Below is one of the members from The Arts of Life Band, Jean, she sings a song called "Shark Attack," which is so awesome, you can see some footage of it further down.)





And cool jewelry, too! The owner of this zebra ring said that CC Martini gave it to her, who makes music with the trumpet player from No Doubt? I guess they both had lion rings from Chinatown in San Francisco, which started an animal-ring fetish between them.



This owl ring was from the owner's cool gramma.



And cool glowy stuff.





And a lot of consumed beer.



Oh, and there were lots and lots of "shit sticks," as one of my beer-slinging counterparts, Theresa, named them. "They just get a stick and put some shit one it," she said.



Here is that video I keep talking about, I'm kind of proud of it, so if you could watch it all the way through that would be rad! It's under five minutes. And there's a rad Star-Wars-theme-Weezer sample sesh from Team Bayside High that's pretty awesome. Things started a little slow because of the rain, but that certainly didn't stop the party...