Like, OMG!

This should be a law of pop cultural physics, it holds so true: if somebody says how "punk rock" something is (or, worse, "punk rawk") -- that person is a poseur (and in this day and age, far and away from Punk's unmarked grave, it's even more poseurish to be a poseur that way, like to even feel obligated to observe how "punk rock" something is).

Every time I've seen somebody marvel at something (or someone) and say "Oh, X is SO PUNK ROCK." That person who says it is invariably the most scenesterish, hipsterish poser type. They just are. I've observed it a number of times in the long span of years -- the tendency to observe how "punk rock" something was came about really in the mid-90s; before then, stuff was either good or it sucked -- no punk worth their safety pins would even make that observation, because you'd just know intuitively. There wouldn't be the need to narrate it, couch it, and otherwise claim it like that for some kind of unearned legitimacy. I remember working with a coworker who once exclaimed (without irony, for once, as he was a consummate hipster) "I'm punk rock! I pogoed to Superchunk!" That alone is worth a cockpunch, just on general principles.

There is a Zenlike art to it, to the intuitive knowledge of it and the anarchic spirit of it, and the people who try to lay claim to that are wusses in sheep's clothing. Lead, follow, or get out of the fucking way.

It matters because that fauxthenticity (yeah, another of my words) percolates far beyond Punk's long-dead corpse, and into the realm of proper art.

In other news, I'm very disappointed that The Urban Dictionary didn't accept "Daffodildo" as a new word. Wusses. They would have, back in the day. God, I hope they didn't purge "Cuntquistador" from their dictionary. Whew. No, they didn't. That's one of my greatest additions to the English language (along with "Errorgasm," "Gliberal," "Crapdusting," "Chickchismo" [apparently a UD Word of the day in '06], "Driveshaft," and "Vaginocity," to name just a few -- I have many more in there).

Hemingway on Hyenas

Saw this blurb in a SLATE piece on hyenas, and it made me snicker. Ernest Hemingway on hyenas...

"Hermaphroditic, self-eating devourer of the dead, trailer of calving cows, ham-stringer, potential biter-off of your face at night while you slept, sad yowler, camp-follower, stinking, foul with jaws that crack the bones the lion leaves …"

I love it, especially "potential biter-off of your face at night while you slept" -- bahaha! I imagine him drunkenly penning that, trying to get just the right flow. The above feels like a grumbly trail of invective -- it makes me want to describe various people I know in pithy sequences of description like that.

You Know My Name

My boys aptly demonstrated last night just how much like me they are -- they were bickering through song, after I'd tucked them in, with Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name" as the melody. I sometimes will talk to them in song, like to get a point across -- our own lil' opera! So, it was something like this (I wish I could remember all of their lyrics, because they were so funny, them trying to spot-weld the words to the melody)...

[B1] pushed me, and he knocked me down
I was so mad at him

Then B1 piped up...

I only did it because [B2] punched meeee

They were going back and forth with their bicker-lyrics, which were slaying me. I let them go awhile, before joining in...

Nobody should be punching or pushing the other
you guys are brothers, you love each other

And so on.

PPD: Solder

Broken friendship may be soldered but can never be made sound.

Donuts

Oh, and I forgot to mention -- Exene credited the donuts she ate that morning (ones I'd bought, which she'd nicked, although they were intended for the boys) as crucial in her "triumph" yesterday. Which calls to mind THIS in my head...

This and that

I was busy with the boys all day yesterday, took them to the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI), which they loved. I have to credit the MSI on expanding itself and remodeling itself over the years. It's a far greater place than it was in the 90s. The boys had a blast.

I didn't get to finish my transcription, as I was busy with the kids. I'll try to do that this week, as i want to have it done before the weekend. Although I'm not entirely sure if I'll have ironed out the whole structure by then, on revision. We'll see.

Exene placed first in her division on a 5K she ran, and was exceptionally proud of that, repeatedly recounting at length the minutiae of the race. While I think running is a certainly valid form of fitness, hearing about it at length could be used to torture inmates at a secret prison. Just play that on a continuous loop and they'll break. Okay. You ran. You won in your division. Yay. Good job. I look forward to not having to hear about running again -- one of the bonus fruits of having my own place soon enough. Cure for cancer found? Great artwork created? Masterpiece written? Music composed? No? No? No? No? Look me up when you've done that -- and even then, don't explain the process -- just let me see the handiwork, the accomplishment, the achievement -- and let it create something that wasn't there before, let it in some way make the world a more interesting place. Pretty please? It's all I ask.

When I finish a book, I don't do a play-by-play on it; I just finish it, and move onto the next project. There is satisfaction in the creation of something new, but I don't cluck over it. And even with something that I've won, it's incidental to the process for me. I can imagine me winning the Nobel Prize for Literature (hey, I said IMAGINE) and Exene saying "I won a medal, too -- first place for my age division in a 5K!" with no-doubt superior fervor. Maybe I'm just not enough of a diva. Maybe I need to climb a rampart and toot my own horn, for all to hear?

If I'm able to write fiction full-time, I'll be happy with that. If I'm able to create something beautiful and wonderful, I'll be very pleased with that -- but I won't rest on my laurels, won't pat myself on the back. I'm more process-driven than that. "Look what I did!" is not my style. With me, it's more "Did you enjoy what I created?"

Great Show

Mission of Burma rocked Double Door last night. They did a great job. Probably the best small-venue show I've seen (or at least tied with Buzzcocks, who I also saw at Double Door). They brought it and played amazingly well. Definitely no sense of phoning it in, like with Dinosaur Jr last year (at the Vic). I'm actually sore from all the jumping around I did.

The audience was of mixed aged, since M.O.B.'s early fan base is comfortably middle-aged, now. Lots of indie music geeks (*koff*) and their coolio nerd-girlfriends. But M.O.B. really brought it and had the room thumping. They did two encores, including "Red" (one of my all-time faves of theirs), and finishing with "That's When I Reach for My Revolver" (which Moby covered many years ago).

Red (circa 1983)

Money well-spent. Very glad I caught the show. It was pretty amazing, all the activity out in Wicker Park, at the main intersection -- since the gentrification of that area, it's become quite the dating mecca -- Meatmarket Central! All the gals in their Saturday Night duds, all the tool guys trying to look sharp. It makes me want to bring a camera down there and capture it sometime -- the volume of humanity on the prowl is too amusing.

Mission Statement

I'm going out tonight, going to catch Mission of Burma at Double Door. Some people complain about Double Door, but I think it's a great little venue for seeing bands. I saw the Buzzcocks there a few years ago, and that was a fantastic show.

I'm flying solo, which is often very common for me when I go see one of the rare bands I'm interested in hearing live. I don't bother to ask anybody if they'd like to go, because they've either not heard of the band in question or likely wouldn't like the music if they heard it. And because when I go on my own, I can just focus on the band's music, sans distraction, and soak up their sound. Not that I'd object to taking a date to see a band, but for me, the consummate audiophile, I'm very much there to watch the performance, to hear the performer play, to watch them.

That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate

Anyway, that's what's on my plate tonight. I'm so glad there's the smoking ban in Chicago -- it makes seeing bands so much more pleasant; you don't have to detox after seeing a show.

Dead Pool

Mission of Burma is one of the few active bands out there I'm at all curious about seeing, since so much of their sound was about sound, itself -- like their approach to music is very, I dunno, elemental. It's hard to describe, exactly. They were always in their own space, soundwise -- hard to classify or pigeonhole. There's their songs themselves, and how they present them, sonically -- which sounds maybe stupid, I'm not sure.

It's kind of like when you watch a movie (or when I do, anyway) and pay attention to not just the movie, but how it's shot, the decisions the director makes in the shooting of it. With Mission of Burma, there are the songs themselves, and there is their approach to tackling the "problem" of their songs, themselves -- the aesthetic choices they make. I respect them as musicians, for carving out their own space.

Einstein's Day

They're often a band I listen to when I'm brooding, or driving around, thinking. I look forward to standing there in the little crowd, nursing a beer, just awash in sound, at almost point-blank range.

Tea Baggers

This is kinda amusing, spoofing the 'Baggers and their leaders, by way of Jesus.

Loopy

South Michigan Avenue.

Murderous

Open Minds and Open Hearts

Tucking the boys in, I told B1 next Friday was my birthday, and he had a bit of angst about it. I told him that the key to staying young forever was to keep an open mind and an open heart -- an open mind would keep him free, and an open heart would let him feel the wonder of life wherever he went, and those things would keep him young, and that the key to really savoring life was to pay attention to the world around him, to notice the details, and take delight in them. He took my hand and held it against his face and closed his eyes. My sweet lil' guy. His brother was already asleep the moment I tucked him in. I kissed their foreheads and that was that. Good night, lil' angels.

'Burnin'

I set up a haircut appointment for next Friday (e.g., my birthday), and not a moment too soon! Again, I keep getting acknowledgments from hipsters, who (I gather) appreciate my werewolfesque sideburns at the moment. Like I saw Hipster Moe on the bus yesterday, on the commute home, and he nodded a greeting before putting on his oversized shades. He's wearing his Chuckies, has his ratty plaid shirt, his scruffy jacket, his messenger bag, his stubble, his big shades, and is reading some esoteric book. And there's me, with my messenger bag, my scruffy face and burns, my pewter loafers, my tan jacket with the plaid interior, busy writing longhand in one of my many notebooks. Hipster Moe appeared particularly interested in that -- probably the combination of me writing and writing longhand fit his conception of what one ought to be doing. Not sure. Anyway, I'll keep the 'burns after the haircut, but they'll be less Wolverine-looking, more restrained.

Nothing else jumped out at me yesterday, except that spring is in full flower in Chicagoland, which means women wearing their spring fashions -- the flowers are blooming in the city! There really are two schools of dress in Chicago in spring, among the womenfolk: 1) the Flowers, who defiantly go full-on spring in their attire; and 2) the Diehards, who hew to the more restrained hues of winter, as if they are unsure whether spring is actually here (they can be identified by shades of black, grey, and brown in their attire, usually in jeans). I can't honestly fault either group -- they're both right. Spring IS here, and, it being Chicago, it also means a good snow is likely still around the bend before Winter finally flees.

Today, it's sunny and lovely, although cool. I had the boys so well-dressed yesterday, they looked adorable -- B1 in a white button-down with blue stripes, a navy blue Polo sweater vest, blue jeans, and brown loafers; B2 in a kelly green Polo pullover sweater and jeans with white sneakers. They looked adorable. Both boys are such cuties.

I was tickled -- walking them to their babysitter this morning, B1 was talking to me about bioluminescence. I love to hear my 8-year-old using such big words! He's so sharp! I think he'll likely trend toward engineering or architecture or medicine or something like that when he's older. He just seems to have that blend in him. I try to keep an eye on that, what he enjoys. B2 is a born performer -- I can see him being a natural in almost any sport he wants, because he's naturally athletic, but he's also very smart, loves to cook, and loves singing and acting. He's likely to be an entertainer/performer type in some fashion, although we'll see.