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...

To All Tupperware Lovers Out There, With Love

When I googled "to tup" one definition read "to have carnal knowledge of a woman," while another cited that it meant to copulate with a ewe. But I have much better definitions for the betterment of the English language.

"To tup":

1. to hold Tupperware parties with pride
2. to excitedly attend Tupperware parties
3. to overzealously store non-food items in Tupperware.

Try it today! (Ex. "Where did Connie go tonight? She gone tuppin'!")



Oh, and here are some possible alternative definitions:

1. to collect way too many Tupperware containers in a way that inspires a new spin-off of Hoarders, "Hoarding: Buried Alive in Tupperware."
2. To donate pieces of Tupperware to places like thrift stores, even though you know they don't have lids and should throw that shit out already.

—

UPDATE: A friend of mine has suggested that this license plate was intended to read "I LOVE TO TEE UP." This, as we all know, is a *ridiculous* observation, but I am an open-minded individual and like to encourage different opinions and points of view on Planet Leah, so I am making a mention of it. (Isn't it much more fun to imagine the trunk of that car packed with Tupperware instead of golf clubs?!) By the way, I used to caddy but really sucked at it cause I needed glasses at the time, and as most of you you know that's pretty much the main duty of a caddy — to watch the ball — in addition to carrying the bag of course. And looking the other way when your golfer kicks the ball or pees in the water.

Win a Surf Lesson With the Editor of Transworld Surf, He Vewwy Funny. So Is This Green Day Tour Documentary.

There is a man, he's a surfing kind of man, and he's the editor of a surfing kind of magazine called Transworld Surf. This man in also in a band. And that band is KUT U UP. And though they haven't recorded in a while, they'd like to again.

And if dishing out any cash to this Kickstarter project will secure the production of anything like the documentary "Riding In Vans With Boys" that the band shot in 2002 while on the "Pop Disaster" tour with Green Day, blink-182 and Jimmy Eats World — then I would say throw your dollars at their project like it's the most delicious piece of stripper ass you've even seen. (Mom, Dad, Gramma or any other sensitive family members or current/potential employers — pink bunny rabbits bouncing high in the sky surfing rainbows wheeeee!!!)

Donate a few bucks on their Kickstarter page and get sweet prizes ranging from a picture of your name (in Sharpie) on a band member body part — and a TWO-HOUR SURF LESSON with Chris Cote (in the San Diego area). Some highlights from the video — which is basically like a Jackass-goes-on-tour-with-Green-Day doc — include: sandwiches that eat weed, milk fights, birthday hats, birthday suits, bird poop cocktails, a game called gay chicken, "slow" and "soft" band member holding in hut tubs, grass skateboarding, chandelier swinging, a drum kit that rotates 360 degrees, a natural whippet factory, hot wax, snot, farts, poop in an ice bucket, farts, live cricket placement on sleeping mall patrons, and Chris kissing Billie Joe Armstrong and then letting him brand his butt with a pool cue. And rock, of course. (Don't worry, I hate my life too right now.)

So if you like to laugh, take a good gander — Cote and his KUT U UP bros really know how to tear shizzit up! It starts strong but starts gettin' real good at about... 4:20. No jokey. (I posted this blog later than I wanted to, the Kickstarter campaign ends today at 11:30am CST, der, let us bow our heads in a puddle on a miniature golf course.)

Dear Lord, Bless This Parking Ticket

So, my gramma is a total stickler for paying bills on time — bills are in and out of this house faster than a lubed-up credit card through a swiper thingy.

So I totally goofed and forgot to hang the handicapped sign when I parked my gram's car in her handicapped spot. And the next morning we walked out to a ticket-decorated window display. Bitches!

So we decided to dispute them, of course. We checked the box for "Request an In-Person Hearing," and as I was getting ready to leave to mail them, my gramma — who was watching a televised Mass — laughed, "Oh, we should put them in front of the TV first. Have the priest bless them for good luck."

Billy Corgan Sat in With Peter Hook (from Joy Division/New Order). I Didn't Drop My Phone Filming in the Mini Mosh.

This was how my Friday night was supposed to go: Go to a panel about new media at the Tribune Tower, and then sit at my new home — the 24-hour Clarke's on Damen in Chicago — and write more on this bloggy thing.

But I got a call from my girl Traci, who said there was a +1 available for the Peter Hook show at Metro, and would I like to go? Sure! I said. Even though I couldn't remember who Peter Hook was at that moment, honestly, but I love hanging with her and usually it's something interesting. So then I retreat to my cellular Internets and realize that Peter Hook was the bassist from Joy Division and New Order, oops, right.

And then I hear that Billy Corgan is supposed to sit in on a song at some point during the show. Which I guess wasn't last-minute news because Miles Raymer from the Chicago Reader wrote something about it earlier in the day, which I saw later — talking about the controversy/unrest regarding Hook touring with these Joy Division songs (he played the 1980 hit album "Closer") and touting merch featuring new designs. The latter inspired Raymer to use phrases such as "explosive diarrhea," ha, when comparing them to the classic designs of Joy Division (like the cover art for the "Unknown Pleasures" album, pictured on this kid's forearm, an album that Hook played at The Double Door last year). The Chicago Sun-Times has another background-y article here.



I did think it was weird that Hook seemed to have a songbook up there that he'd flip through occasionally, and it was not the tightest set by any means. But I liked watching this guy play bass, a hollow body electric one, that was like a cross he would maneuver around the stage.

Corgan was of course going to come on for "Love Will Tear Us Apart (which Hook dedicated to Metro owner Joe Shanahan who was DJ-ing that night, and then Corgan goofed the timing on a lyric one time, it was rather cute). But Corgan first came in for "Transmission," and inspired a mini mosh, as odd — and at times painful — a musical match-up as it was. I screamed a lot. Getting knocked and filming. There were Hook-aged bros in the audience who knew every word and were psyched (Joy Division never made it to play the States, Ian Curtis committed suicide right before a scheduled tour in 1980). And there were college-age kids who knew every word and were psyched (they weren't even born before Curtis died). Sometimes it's just nice to hear your favorite music played live by someone who once played it, I guess.

[UPDATE: Here's a good review I found in F News, the School of the Art Institute newspaper by Brandon Goei.]

Goodbye "All My Children," My Mommy Loved You

So my mom was over the other day and announced, "Well, Friday is the last day for 'All My Children.'" To which my gramma replied, "Aw, you gonna cry?"

My mom watched All My Children — hereafter referred to as "AMC" or "All My Kids" — from the beginning, as it aired around a time that she breastfed my 41-year-old sis (when she was still a baby, of course). It replaced the game show "Dream House" where contestants would win room furnishings, and sometimes an actual house, a mix of "The Price Is Right" and "Extreme Home Makeover."

"I'd never seen a soap opera, and I wanted to watch it from the beginning to find out if everyone was sane — and then they started sleeping with each other and killing and lying? Or if they start out at different stages of nuttyhood," my mom said.

Apparently Erica Kane — played by Susan Lucci, who finally won an Emmy in 1999 on her 19th nomination — was an evil wench right from the start. One of her first orders of business was trying to break up a young couple Phillip and Tara. (Phillip, the heartthrob of Pine Valley — later replaced by Tad — was the adopted son of Ruth and Joe Martin, which he didn't realize at the time, of course. FYI the actress who played Ruth, Mary Fickett, died last week at the age of 83.)



While my mom was working at Public Aid, she'd watch "All My Kids"on her lunch break — in the electronics department at Montgomery Ward in downtown Chicago. "[The employees] got tired of seeing everybody standing there, so they just put in these pew-like benches and we would just sit there and eat our lunch and watch." This was a cutting-edge show: Erica Kane was the first TV character to have an abortion, and they dealt with issues of homosexuality, spousal abuse of women, and pregnancy after 40. By the time I came around, my mom was staying at home, and her third child didn't quell her addiction to the daytime serial.

"All My Children" came on at noon. It was my mom's "show" and we weren't allowed to watch anything else during that time, or bother her (though she disputes this). So I would inevitably end up watching it sometimes, during the summer or if we'd come home for lunch. And I fell in love, too, I guess. The evil twins on this show were branded on my little brain, it introduced me to insane, maybe — to characters like Natalie and her evil twin "Crazy Janet" (who threw her into a well), and vindictive Adam Chandler and his child-like other half Stuart. (And it introduced me to Kelly Ripa too — don't forget that she got her start on this show as Hayley! And Carol Burnett played a character named Verla! Oh, I also got the autograph of Taylor Miller — aka "Nina Cortlandt" — when she was filming a movie near my childhood house in Oak Park.)



My mom, who hasn't watched in over 10 years, said that she's watched the show the last couple days and reported: "Tad and Dixie are getting married for like the third time, Angie got her sight back, and they brought Stuart back from the dead." (Oh, Dixie came back from the dead too at one point — Adam had stashed her away in a mental institution.)





In the last episode that aired today, Erica — who's married Jackson like three times already — tells Jackson that she doesn't want to get married again, so Jackson tells her that he's had enough (channeling Rhett Butler) and that she can go to LA by herself. Erica chases after him to get him back. But JR — the crazy drunk son of Adam and Dixie, who hates his father Adam (who is in the room) — is hiding in another room with a gun. Then JR then fires, and the scene ends on Erica reacting as the gun goes off, and then fades to black. What really happened we may never know.



"I thought JR would set off a bomb, blow everything up — bye Pine Valley!" my mom said.

Aw Pine Valley, we shall miss you. And now I will leave you with the poem that "All My Children" creator Agnes Nixon wrote that appears in the title credits' photo album:

The Great and the Least,
The Rich and the Poor,
The Weak and the Strong,
In Sickness and in Health,
In Joy and Sorrow,
In Tragedy and Triumph,
You are ALL MY CHILDREN