The Pitchfork 500

Ah, Pitchfork. The indie-music site every hipster (myself included) loves to hate. I mean, say what you want about how pretentious or self-aware the writing is, how they tend to use reviews primarily as a platform upon which to display their obscure knowledge of all things underground/pop-culture, or how ass backwards it seems to assign numeric values to one's enjoyment of an art form. Hell, I say that shit all the time.

But we still go back for more, day after day, right? It is the best place I've found for all things indie. I'm also a lot lazier about this stuff than I was in college. Oh man, I used to LOVE Stylus before they went the way of the buffalo a couple years back. And I still remember hitting up about 2 shows every week Freshman year...

Anyway, P4K recently released a monstrosity of a book entitled The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present.

Holy crap.

I'm not going to debate the inclusion/exclusion of songs on this list for several reasons (not the least of which being I can't begin to compete with a collective of music aficionados who do this stuff for a living), but, seriously, Kelly Clarkson? I know Bob Dylan's '80s stuff is, err, questionable, but "Since U Been Gone" over "Love Sick" or "Cold Irons Bound" or "Thunder on the Mountain" or... I don't know, ANYTHING, strikes me as a bit disingenuous.

Anyway, I have little interest in reading the book, but I did manage to get my hands on all 500 mp3s (don't ask: I'm being watched). Divorced from having to read why someone thinks the tracks are great is actually pretty awesome, providing moments of "whoa, nice" and "WTF?!" in equal measure.

Here's the song list from a random blog.

I'm a little over halfway through the 1977-1979 portion right now.

As a curiosity, how many of these songs have you heard? How many of the bands do you know? I'll tell if you do.

The Memory Assassin

Don't drink this. Ever.

I woke up Sunday morning warmly enveloped in that haze. My eyes were closed, and, initially, I felt quite comfortable. There seemed to be a soft, natural light warmly decending upon my eyelids, and I had a blanket and a soft place to lay my head. But something was wrong. It started to come to me, slowly at first: pain which led to mystery; mystery replaced by recognition; recognition fading into a general state of confusion, and all finally blending into an unholy cesspool of everything at once.

The headache and stomach pain were my first clues. Then I forced my eyelids apart and gazed down my right arm to an orange colored paper wristband. "Oh yeah, I went bowling last night..." I then looked to my left to see my glasses on the cushion of my friend's couch. "Wait, why am I on my friend's couch? Who covered me with this blanket? What time is it?"

I felt like Jason Bourne, except instead of inexplicably recalling bits and pieces of how to whup somebody's ass I recounted slurring my way through a transaction at the University Village 7-11. Visions of chocolate-covered strawberries, a table full of shot glasses, a dropped case of 312 Lager in the middle of Halstead Street, and MIA's "Paper Planes" on repeat flirted with legitimate remembrance, though all brutally divorced from chronology and context.

"And why the hell is there blood on my knuckles?!"

I blame the rice wine. It tastes terrible, it smells terrible, and the only Western language characters printed on the bottle are as follows: 67% ABV. I hold this ninja assassin of the grey matter completely responsible for my patchwork memory and the last hour or so before I passed out... of which I remember nothing. We're talking zero Kelvin, folks. As absolute as scientifically possible.

Apperently people went home and cops came knocking, all after I exited stage left. I am told I didn't do anything stupid. My Sunday spent in recovery begs to differ.

Here's to the greatest friends, comfy couches, and never truly growing up.

God, I Love This City...

Parking in Chicago sucks.

A couple of years back, when I was interested in buying a condo here, downtown Chicago introduced me to the wonderful world of the $35,000 parking spot. These babies typically require a separate freaking mortgage on top of the already borderline extortionate dough you put down for the condo itself. I mean, just to park in an attended parking lot, you'll pay anywhere from $165 - $200 minimum. And we're not talking multi-story, valet serviced garages here. We're talking Old Man Jackson packing your car into a sardine can of an open-air gravel lot a few feet from the railroad.

Screw. That.

As an epic cheapass, I find it's more worth my time and effort to park five blocks away on a side-street buttressed by a grocer and a chocolate factory than to actually, you know, pay to park. This outlook has been tested in the past: two slashed tires; an unfortunate incident involving sheet metal and four stories' worth of gravity; a myriad of parking "violations" including what I regard as a monthly, $25 Illegally Tinted Windows recurring charge.

However, nothing compares to this act of douchebaggery:

That's right, I have been robbed. It's actually sort of my fault, if I honestly want to play the "what if" game. I left town for a couple of days on business, and decided against taking my car to the airport. In an effort to save my fiscally concerned employer some Benjamins, I rode the train like any self-respecting Al Gore enthusiast would, leaving my poor little Mazda3 to the mercy of Kinzie Street hooligans.

On top of that, I happened to leave the bracket for my GPS hooked up to my windshield. I suppose that's sort of a dead giveaway that I've got one. You'd think being clever and hiding the device in the last place anyone would look, my center console, would have foiled any actual robbery attempt.

So my GPS is gone, my passenger-side rear window is gone, and they even took my little iPod RF transmitter that lets me listen to static-laced mp3s through the radio! Luckily, a few of my possessions were deemed unworthy of theft. My Dragon frisbee golf disc (it floats!), some Wu-Tang Clan CDs, a basketball, a snow shovel, and my I-Pass all remain.

I guess I have to look at it this way: even if it costs me $200 to replace my defiantly tinted window, and I'm out a $300 GPS device, I would have spent that much on less than 3 months of semi-protected parking.

Chicago, I love you, but you're bringing me down. You know I want your lovin', but honey why are you so hard?

Zombie Apocolypse Responsible for Heavy Traffic?

Growing increasingly weary of the rather pedestrian activities of virus creation/distribution and professional 1337speak, some hackers have added "Public Service Announcer" to their resumés on the computer underground database. An intrepid few hacker-embassadors of safety are responsible for several instances of altered electronic road hazard signs, which cite zombies and raptors as causes for traffic and concern.

Except for the fact that the altered sign typically requires a manufacturer's reset before it can once again intermittently flash an ominous left-arrow, this all seems relatively harmless to me. But potential traffic-control-device-tamperer beware! According to the Associated Press, officials aren't laughing. Be prepared for punishment to the tune of $250...

So, for the cost of a Nintendo Wii I could tell a hundred thousand drivers on the Eisenhower about an undead horde, reverse commuting to the burbs for the blood of Bolingbrook's first born?

I knew I should have paid attention in that Engineering Computing course sophomore year.

Chicago Squish vs. Russian Blue

A few months back I acquired a cat from the Anti-Cruelty Society. They have a shelter a few blocks from my apartment in River North. Why this particular cat was selected (and why I needed a cat, really) is a long story, but suffice it to say that I ended up taking home Kan, a Russian Blue.

This goofy little guy spent the majority of his first two weeks on North Canal St. beneath the bed. Rest assured, however, that not one minute after the lights went out, he could be heard scampering about the place, seemingly taking stock of his new 950 square ft. domain. In time, the shy little bastard would become quite comfortable with the apartment and its human inhabitants. He would also quickly prove to have quite the personality. Honestly, I think he's certifiable. Much of the time, he's just another fluffy fixture in the place, an ornamental still-life inconveniently posted on an armrest or chair. Other times, he's bug eyed, skittish as hell, and spends an exorbitant amount of energy sporadically careening around the hardwood floors, sliding head-first into walls and cupboards, and squeeking (yes, it's more of a squeek than a meow) at anyone who will pay attention. Oddly enough, if you even glance his way during one of these "episodes" he'll flip out, take off, rinse-and-repeat. This can go on for the better part of an evening.

Other times, he likes to play fetch… seriously, "fetch." I mean, he's a goddang ca… whatever. He's actually very particular about which "toys" are allowed in this little game of his. And we're not talking balls or bones or squeeky toys. No, Kan's got a thing for hair ties. You know, those little black, stretchy things chics use to lasso groupings of stray hairs? He freaking loves those things. I mean, look at this guy! That's him snagging one in mid-air... with demon eyes...

Kan goes apeshit every time you fire one of those babies across the room, and he will actually bring it back, though his spacial awareness does need some work. Most of the time he'll drop off his quarry several yards from your comfy perch in the recliner and squeek persistently until you do something about it. He also occasionally decides the hair tie is too dry, and will soak it in his water dish before depositing it on your foot.

He does other things, too, like swan dive off of the shelf/wall around my bedroom, hurtling down at unholy speeds towards my amorphous, slumbering, oblivious, comforter-ensconsed form below. Note: this only occurs between the hours of midnight and 3AM. Fortunately, he can also be insanely adorable. Like when he curls up on my lap while I'm watching The Wire (not so much when he plops down on my open laptop). Or rubs his head against mine and rolls around on his back so I can ruffle his tummy fur. Or when he sits by my pillow at night until I lift the blanket enough for him to scramble underneath to get some shut-eye (this may be a winter phenomenon, since my heater sucks and I'm rocking sub-60 degree temperatures on the regular).

All that craziness adds up to Kan being one unique dude. So, I mean, what do I do if he slams into the front door one too many times or beefs it when misjudging a nocturnal pounce at altitude? I don't want another boringass cat. Too bad Kan came pre-neutered...

Soooooooooperbowl!!

It's nice when a championship game is actually a good one. I always find myself pulling for the underdog when I don't have any real stake in the game, which has led to a long, sad history of disappointing losses by teams I previously cared nothing about. Oh well. At least I had the Giants last year.

Am I the only one who thinks the commercials were certifiably terrible this year? You know the economy is in bad shape when the majority of Superbowl commercials were just ads for the host network's own programs. Luckily, there was a good careerbuilder.com spot and this instant classic from Bud Light:



Conan, may you live long and prosper, sir. Here's hoping that quasi-late night comedy enters a new era come April when you bump The Chin out of position. I eagerly await the day when the Masturbating Bear, the FedEx Pope, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, and Cameltoe Annie can stand hand-in-hand on previously benign, pre-11:30PM televisions across the country, and sing:

"Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

5:18 AM...

...and I've been watching Nadal v. Federer in the Australian Open since about 4 this morning. A couple of things:

1. These guys are good.

2. I wish I could wear shorts and a tee right now.

I'm honestly not certain how I managed to do so in retrospect, but I fell asleep last night with Lil' Wayne's Tha Carter III on my iPod. That man is just... jesus, he's just batshit crazy. I just can't help watching this video without thinking to myself "I hope Weezy doesn't stab Katie Couric off camera."

Mixtapes

I love mixtapes (or mix CDs). I love hearing them, I love making them, and I love movies about guys who obsess about making them (see John Cusack as Rob Gordon in High Fidelity). But no one carries around CDs anymore. We're iPod people now. In The Age of the iPod, mixtapes are something of a lost art.

So why do I care about a medium which limits me to 80 minutes of music when I can put my iTunes on shuffle for over a month before a song repeats?

Well, my rhetorical self, because sometimes the limitations of a medium are essential components of the artform. It's like having an editor, an editor that doesn't give a shit about the quality of your work; he/she just wants to make sure you don't string together two and a half hours of uninterrupted Peter Frampton when 80 minutes of talk box solos will do.

So my extensive mix history includes a collection of counting songs (The Bellybutton Cipher: Volumes I & II), a gypsy music mix, a mix of songs where a gypsy plays a prominent role, a love mix *mee-yow*, a collection of "All Along the Watchtower" covers, dance mixes, summer mixes, birthday mixes, mixes to drive to, you freaking name it.

I've got a couple new ideas I've been mulling over, and I think I'm about ready to move on the simpler one. The harder one is tentatively titled Life, and will chronicle, well, someone's life from womb to tomb. The most difficult thing about it is finding tracks with limited scopes to string together in a chronology that makes sense. Hell, I could make a one track mixtape for this from any number of Biggy Smalls cuts, but that's no fun.

No, the one I'm about ready for is Spanish Mix. It's loosely inspired by the fact that the only foreign countries I've visited are Spanish-speaking, and I don't speak the goddamn language. This mix, like me, is intended to make you think you're going to hear a bunch of Spanish, but, in fact, you will hear very little... if any at all.

Basically, I'm just trying to sequence a bunch of tracks in which the word "Spanish" is thrown about willy nilly. I have also decided songs about Spanish-speaking countries are acceptable. Additionally, I feel that these songs should be, well, good. This is important, as quality was not a prerequisite for some of my earlier mixes (e.g. both volumes of The Bellybutton Cipher).

Here's what I have so far (in no particular order):

The Clash - "Spanish Bombs"
Tom Waits - "Walking Spanish"
Bob Dylan - "Boots of Spanish Leather"
The New Pornographers - "Sing Me Spanish Techno"
The Doors - "Spanish Caravan"
The Decemberists - "Kingdom of Spain"
The Coasters - "Down in Mexico"
Mirah - "The Dogs of Buenos Aires"
Jimi Hendrix - "Spanish Castle Magic"

Some borderline applicable tracks include Leonard Cohen's "Stories of the Street" (The stories of the street are mine, the Spanish voices laugh...), Counting Crows' "Mr. Jones" (...cut up, Maria, show me some of them Spanish dances...), and Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" (...now she's a little boy in Spain playing pianos filled with flames...). These are borderline, because they only reference Spanish/Spain, um, once each. It sort of feels like cheating, you know?

It is readily apparent that my current problem is a dearth of material. I'm not trying to make a mix EP here, but I'm also not looking to stuff this thing to the brim. I would be happy with twelve good tracks or so.

Here's where YOU come in. Any ideas?

Simple Gaming Pleasures - Fun for Everyone

As a rather devoted Bob Dylan fanatic, I have many of his lyrics indelibly seared into my grey matter. One of my favorites is from "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" which goes "he not busy being born is busy dying."

While I like to try and live my life in a constant state of figurative rebirth, there's only so much a man can do to keep from getting bored. Boredom just sort of creeps up on you. The fact that you're actually reading this post indicates you have been in such a state for some time now.

However, fear not, unenthused reader! I bring tidings of effective time wasters, for those "busy dying." My suggestions to you today come in the form of the titular Simple Gaming Pleasures. I will present two items of interest and a fun little website to keep yourself occupied during that slow period at work, or as I like to call it, 6:30 to 2.

My first and most hearty recommendation is World of Goo. You can find the free demo here, for both Windows and Mac OS machines. Woo-hoo!

I think there's a loose narrative structure here, involving some Goo Corporation trying to collect goo for a goo factory or something. Essentially you construct little erector-set styled bridges out of gooey nodules in an attempt to get little globs of goo from the beginning, where goo globs have just sort of collected, to the end, where there's a pipe which sucks up the remaining goo globs once you've reached it. I'm saying "goo" a lot, aren't I?

The catch is, there's a limited amount of goo globs, and you also have to use the globs to create your bridge, so the less globs you use to build your structure, the more goo you collect at the end. Each level has a set minimum goo count you must achieve to complete, so goo frugality is the key. Along the way, you'll run into hazards, like spikes or spinning gears which will destroy any goo unfortunate enough to touch them, forcing you to think. The horror!

Its deceptively complex, highly addictive, and cute and colorful and all that good stuff. Plus, as an engineer, I just eat this puzzle stuff up! For $20 you can download the full game from the aforementioned website, at a brick-and-mortar joint, or even download the Wii-ware version on that little Nintendo-machine-that-could (...could use more quality games, that is).

My second game is called Crayon Physics Deluxe. I have to be honest here: I haven't played this yet. The developer, kloonigames, is hard at work on a Mac version, but right now only PC users can enjoy this one. You guys can get the free demo here. But here's an excerpt from the review from IGN.com that caught my attention:

...On each of the game's 70 levels, you must guide a red ball to touch a yellow star. Aside from being able to give the ball a slight nudge to the left or the right, you can't manipulate it directly. What you must do is draw solutions on the paper so that the ball can reach the star; you might need to draw a rope bridge, create a pulley system, draw a series of ramps, or more to set up interlocking constructions. While many puzzles have easy solutions to them, you can have fun and let your imagination soar...

To play this, I'll have to put it on my work laptop (*shh!*), but I love the crayon-on-construction-paper art style from the videos/pics I've seen, and I can't wait to give it a shot. You can download the full game for $19.95.

Finally, I will leave you with a fun little freeware-full website: http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/. Here you will find incredibly simple, generally slower paced games of the pastel palette variety. You can do things like navigate a deep sea diver to treasure at the bottom of the ocean, or catch an assortment of falling fruit with a trio of monkeys (watch for the bombs!).

You may have noticed that these games are of the more family-friendly variety.

"Squish," you might say. "What about the bored masses who crave explosions, blood, and bloody explosions?!"

Another post for another day, young grasshopper. But have you heard of Chicago Ted?

If you have some other virtual time wasters, let me know! I'm always on the lookout.

Inauguration Day

So the 44th President of the United States of America (or POTUS, as we who enjoy funny sounding acronyms prefer to address this person) was sworn in just a couple of hours ago. I was one of the unfortunate many stuck at the office, forced to follow the proceedings as stealthily as possible throughout the excruciatingly long, morning leg of my work day. That is, until a few of us just gave up on the subterfuge, pulled a "what the hell," and took over a huddle room with a TV. You know, strength in numbers or something.

Honestly, I briefly considered taking the day off, or just "working from home." To clarify, when I get permission to work from home, it's like freaking Christmas. Except I actually get exactly what I want. I conveniently place my BlackBerry on the coffee table where I can quickly react to emails and phone calls, and spend the day in my pajamas eating fruit snacks and pwning n00bs on Xbox Live.

Unfortunately, I actually needed to be here for a couple of things today. Yes, I said "here" because, yes, I am blogging at work.

At any rate, I expected the inauguration would have a significant emotional effect on me. I was in town when Obama won the election last November. I biked through Grant Park with a camera in hand and man-tears streaming down the heroically chiseled features of my normally stoic face. I felt an overwhelming sense of pure joy, like all was right with humanity. Michigan Avenue, from Randolf all the way to Balbo, all 6+ lanes of it were closed to automobile traffic. Why? Because it was packed, curb to curb, and over the curbs, spilling into every alley and bus shelter, over the medians, up walls and lamp posts: the people of Chicago moving as one. Well, two. I was the only idiot trying to bike against that inexorable flow of foot traffic, taking pictures and videos along the way.

I felt like Mufasa getting trampled by the herd of wildebeast in The Lion King. If the wildebeast were moving slower, waving flags and banners, chanting, and singing jubilant songs. I also didn't die. And I've never been mistaken for a great cat of any kind.

It just felt to me like the entire burden that many of us have carried for so long, living and breathing this election cycle, knowing how important this "defining moment" was, almost terrified of what the future would hold if "we" lost, just blew away in the cool, windy city breeze. I feel that I could have walked through Cabrini Green or any south-side slum without fear. Who would dare threaten harm of any kind on the night when change came to America?

Words cannot faithfully express how I truly felt that night. Well, I mean, Chinua Achebe could come much closer than this, but I'm doing the best I can with what I've got, dammit.

The point is, I almost expected a recreation of that moment. That time when simply hearing the pre-acceptance speech performance of "Star-Spangled Banner" on NPR the following morning turned me into a sad, sobbing, patriotic pile of a man. It was like that Flight of the Concords line, "I'm not crying, it's just been raining... on my face..." But, actually, I really was crying.

The ceremony today came and went, POTUS Barack Hussein Obama gave a typically tremendous speech, W looked more pathetic than ever, and Rev. Joseph Lowery gave a stirring benediction which closed with the following:

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right.

Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen. Amen. AMEN.

And I slowly realized that one night in November was special to me, because it was a perfect storm where weeks, months, and years of feelings of frustration and anger and helplessness were fiercely overcome by feelings of relief and hope and progress at a pivotal moment in history (or so it seem(s)ed to me). The intervening months of cabinet nominations and transition committies and W's array of clueless exit speeches have slowly brought me down from that ridiculous high, and made this inauguration, in my eyes, just another formal and expected step.

It's like the enveloping haze of that initial excitement has slowly dissipated and revealed the truly difficult road ahead. And, as much as I'd like to squeeze another freaking sappy-ass cliche in here, I think I'd better stop before my keyboard gets sticky.

...

From sap.

...

Jesus, you people.