I'm A Low Brow But I Rock a Little Know How

Lollapalooza version 3.0 started about four hours ago.

Three days.

150 bucks.

130 bands.

200,000 people (30,000 of which will be sporting beards or boots, I would wager)

Zero chance in hell of getting me to go.

I'll spend the weekend with friends and pop in a few cds that remind me of my first Lolla, 1992, Alpine Valley (where the falafel was six dollars and the wait for a soda was an hour, and the Ministry mosh pit made a crop circle on the lawn).

And I'll remember this especially:

Letting The Days Go By

This video is from 1980, and even against the digital pyrotechnics, hi-def hijinks, and teensy-tinsy fiber-optic filaments of today, it's arresting.

There's minimal camera tricks, which at the time consisted of the squiggly dissolves, rushing close-ups and split-screen cheesiness found in auto dealer and K-Tel commercials, and no crouching tigers, stomping supermodels, pretend espionage, "concert" sequences, or, actually, any musical instruments at all--not surprising from the Downtown-est of the big Downtown NYC groups that were finally lining their pockets with dead presidents in the 80s.

Just the knife-sharp surprise, needling anxiety, and thrumming regret of a life not-lived channeled only through Byrne's beany body bending and herky-jerking, making the busiest ode to idleness--one of my favorite songs, duh--that much better.

It's The Eye Of The Wiener, It's The Thrill Of The Fight

The Milwaukee Brewers unveiled (unwrapped?) the newest competitor in its beloved Sausage Race, the Chorizo.

Fans were able to meet the meat Saturday night, when he came in a disappointing third place, behind Bratwurst and Italian Sausage. But because the new wiener (yes, I said it) has not yet been fully approved for the home game contest, El Picante (yes, that's his name) has been sent down to the minor leagues for

...wait for it

...wait for it

...seasoning.

Good Times Never Seemed So Good

Milwaukee lost one of its most fortunate sons this week, Lightning of Milwaukee's--well, "America's"--Singing Sweethearts, Lightning and Thunder (check out this website, it's a fussy, antiquated delight. Like divnity fudge).

Lightning was a singer who entertained countless thousands of Wisconsin State Fair munchers and, back in The Day, hundreds of hipster (for Milwaukee) types like myself who'd heard about their jaw-droppingly cheesy and footstomping sets at Alioto's on Jackson downtown. Lightning, in fact, married his partner, Thunder, in a widely-recounted and fondly-remembered ceremony during a set break in front of their fans at the 1994 State Fair. I think I knew someone who knew someone who was there. Hell, everybody did.

Thunder sings the best of Patsy Cline with a sweet, clear treble, and expanded her repetoire to ABBA and some Blondie as more and more chain-smoking, Leinie's-chugging kids showed up to their Saturday (or was it Friday?) Alioto's gigs.

But it was Lightning, short and sequined, voice graveled just so by Pall Malls or Newports (I may be taking bloggers license because my memory is shoddy, but--someone back me up, dude smoked, didn't he?), inhabiting Neil Diamond and his sonorous repetoire so thoroughly that you'd be on your feet, jumping in the air, spilling your vodka-cranberry and shouting TODAY! TODAY! Toooooo-DAAAAAAAAAY! when he'd end the set with "America," stomping his Beatle boots on top of Alioto's formica bar. Lightning always had an endless supply of Bartz's Party Store costume scarves to hand out to all the pretty girls and drunk guys (cause Robert has at least one).

Oh sure, they opened for Urge Overkill at the Metro (which we called "Cabaret Metro" back then) in 1993--and, hey, simmer down, that's no small feat since that was the peak of Saturation's saturation, that "UO" rising like a nefarious spaceship not only over a perfunctory skyline on the album cover, but everywhere--and sang "Forever In Bluejeans" with Eddie Vedder at the Marcus Ampitheatre Pearl Jam show in '95, and--this just in--played to the real hipster kids at Danny's in Bucktown in Chicago. And the Sun-Times paid tribute to the man known on his South-side Milwaukee streets and his Vietnam vet buddies as Mike Sardina. But Lightning and Thunder were, way back then, and, because I felt such a surprising gasp and gloom at the news of Lightning's passing to that great America in the sky, always, ours.

God, next thing you know, the Pepperoni/Cannoli Guy's gonna go.

I'm A Bookkeeper's Son, I Don't Want to Shoot No One

Steely Dan has now shot out of the stratosphere of wit into the cosmos of brilliance.

http://www.steelydan.com/heyluke.html

There Are Different Names For The Same Thing

When You're Back in Your Old Neighborhood

Wilco played at Summerfest two weeks ago, on a Wednesday night. The show was as buoyant as Milwaukee by the lake that night--the air held none of the typically humid secrets of July. Bell-clear and true.

I think some of my weakened heartseams (or, perhaps, there's a "god-shaped hole" there) were cauterized during that show. You know how that coming-full-circle thing works.

And maybe that's because it was as satisfying as the gentle summer collision of two of my favorite things--which is what I heard from the soon-to-be-jazzless WBEZ as I glided up my street at 2am that night after the show, Coltrane's "My Favorite Things"--could possibly be.

The way-past past was verged at that show, too.

In 1991, my first Summerfest (and first summer living on my own), John and Mike and I puttered down Lincoln Memorial Drive to the Fest in Mike's Festiva, a ladybug-sized four-speed that had made the trip from the Minneapple with nary a burble, but probably four tanks of gas (and in which, later that summer, we squeezed seven people--I know, I was in the hatchback with my roommate, God help us--and dragged rusty ass down 94 to Chicago). On that, my first Summerfest Fourth of July, though, XTC's "Earn Enough For Us" thumped from the speakers that probably cost as much as that Ford. I felt shimmeringly happy at that moment, I remember, the lake air coming in the windows, and a twelve-string guitar rolling out, sandwiched with my two best guy friends.

Which is yet another Favorite Thing.

Fifteen (!) years later, reunited with the Smiley-Face Fest under the Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee. And even though that's widely cherished (and ripped) as a bridge to Nowhere, a straight shot that carries traffic aloft over the Lakefront and Port of Milwaukee, and then dumps you into a flicker's nest of off- and on-ramps and dunes by Bayview, I realized that now it formed a circle for me -- still "loving rock n roll," the night, and guy friends.

Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful Boy

Oh my God. Look at the cute baby Beluga whale!

He was born just yesterday at the Shedd Aquarium.

If only we all came into the world with--and kept--big, shy smiles like that.

And a teeny-tiny waterspout to toot when you're especially happy that the sun is warm.

You want to sing like John Lennon to him,

"Life is what happens to you
While you're busy making other plans."

...or busy looking at this cute photo. I can't seem to Step. Away. From. The. Photo.

Hotter Than A Match Head

It's one of the hottest days of the year. I feel slow and beachy, because that's what the weather is. No one should be around this much concrete when it's hot. Sand, salt spray, and shiny lizards--not huffing BMW X5s and waddling tourists sweating in their Crocs. I need a Bahama Mama and a floaty noodle and the Gulf. Pronto.

Instead, here's a photo taken on Virginia Beach from December--New Year's Eve. It was about 60 that evening.

Today's the kind of day you curse the Great Chicago Fire of 1871: brick, true to form, holds heat, as in all day long, resulting in an excruciating night on sweaty sheets. I miss the fake-brick, stapled-on siding and clapboard charm of Milwaukee, where there wasn't a conflagration that decimated some 2,000 acres and 18,000 buildings and attendant paranoia that resulted in a city top-full of brick buildings.

Speaking of paranoia--well, let me first just say that I understand there's a need and we've a right to be concerned when excessive heat invades our typical tundra. I lived just 80 miles cooler than the Great Chicago Heat Wave of 1995, in Milwaukee, so I remember the brutality of the heat/humidity combo those early days in July (and how there wasn't a room in any motel, even flophouses, all the way out to Kenosha and Lake Mills) and how overwhelmingly underprepared the Upper Midwest was for this attack. Author Eric Klinenberg writes that

The heat wave was a particle accelerator for the city: It sped up and made visible the hazardous social conditions that are always present but difficult to perceive.

Huh. That statement could be applicable to events of last year, if you replace the words "heat wave" with "hurricane."

Anyway, the "never again" mentality is of course justified.

But millions of Southerners endure worse heat over more days and months.

So I wear a small smile when I hear local forecasters intone doomsday-ingly about "heat indexes" and "cooling centers," remembering 12-hour days spent outside, playing--biking, trampoline, kick the can, roller skating, swinging, sloshing in the wading pool and ruining a circular patch of backyard grass-- in what were "heat indexes" that would make Tom Skillethead's head explode.

Current temps, July 17, 3:15 pm: Tom Skillethead: 93; Weather.com: 93 ("feels like 103"); Weather Underground: 96.3; Sun-Times: 94 ("RealFeel Temp 104"); NOAA (National Weather Service): 95 (heat index 108).

Mmmm.

Blowing Through the Jasmine In My Mind

I just spent the last fifteen minutes ducking and cursing a giant-ass wasp that flew into my office. Of course it took almost all of that time for the dipshit vespid to locate the fresh breeze and fly out the window I threw open.

Oh, wait.

Not this wasp















This one