Like 3 Centipedes, Bending around Town

I went to Chicago a couple weekends ago to visit some friends from Mizzou, have some laughs, and check out a few concerts. I took Metrolink and Megabus the entire way there to save some dough, but I was surprised that I wasn't even within 10 feet of anybody else on the bus either direction. I rolled into town Saturday afternoon and my buddy Tyler picked me up from the station. After hitting up Borders to use the best public restroom in downtown Chicago, we checked out a couple things off Michigan Ave. We met up with the resident fashionista Angie and the two took me to the giant silver bean shaped monument in the park by Lake Michigan.



Next we walked over to some sort of monument where two giant faces had a staring contest on the sides of black monoliths. But the monoliths were waterfalls spitting water on kids. Uh, ok. haha.



After the emotional shock of this, I needed to sit, so the three of us went to Wicker Park and had some white pizza at a place called Piece. Then we hit up a comic book book store with so much more called Quimby's down the street.



After Wicker Park it was a bus ride back to the Metro and Tyler's pad a little north of Wrigley Field. I liked the place alot, hardwood floors, a nice paint job in each room, portraits and books in the living room. It felt like a cool library as much as a living space.

Tyler showed us some videos, and I'm not going to link to the majority of them here for the sake of decency but the one that kept cracking me up was House of Cosbys. Check this episode out if you want a taste of how we relaxed. (5 mins)



And that's just the first episode. I think there are 5 episodes and a sixth bootleg, controversial episode that is basically just a middle finger to Bill Cosby's lawyers.

On to the show, though. Tyler and I headed down to the Empty Bottle and got there when the place was about 1/10th full. So we played some Centipede until a couple girls came over and talked to us. One of them knew him, it seemed, and the other was her friend from Columbia College. By the time we finished with the niceties, it was time for the opening act.



CX Kidtronik is supposedly better with his partner. But his partner got detained by the police or something. So the whole performance consisted of spoken lines like "these drums are by Trent Reznor" and screams and Kidtronik jumping into strobe lights. He even had a participatory chant that was more complicated that any one I've ever been involved in. Just think the game Simon but a gangster chant version. Oh and his big song was Krak Attak. Check his Myspace(NotSafeForWork) for an explanation on that one.



Then out came Girl Talk, Greg Gillis. Check the last post for a Pitchfork review on this one, complete with video. The man is Clark Kent AND Superman. Bioengineer at Case Western U by day, International Music Superstar by night.

Sunday, well Sunday was football. Tyler had Trent Green on his Fantasy team. Trent Green got creamed on Tyler's fantasy team. Tyler hoped it was just a bad dream.



We also saw Idiocracy Sunday night (see the last post). Which made us feel barbaric for the whole obsession with YouTube and sports injuries. But then we just watched more House of Cosbys.



Monday, everybody was working except me (22 paid vacation days, have to use them sometime!) so I rolled down to the art museum to check out the famous works like American Gothic and Nighthawks. But my personal favorite was Venus de Milo with Drawers by Dali. Lately I've just been picturing people as little lockboxes of hidden emotion, and people just put their worries inside them as if they have drawers.



Monday night was Ratatat at the Empty Bottle and they were ok I guess. They came out, played guitar, and said "This is our last song" repeatedly. I wasn't expecting too much. On the plus side, however, I got a Ratatat #1 foam finger that had been dropped in price because the roadie said "we sleep on them in the bus." Somehow, and it boggles the mind, I was the only person with one. But we had some fun with the finger on the ride back.



Tuesday morning Tyler and I met up with Angie at a place called Toast by Depaul. Great pancakes, great service. The only problem was I had to sprint to catch my bus. You know, like in the movies when somebody is running down the street of a big city so they're not stuck in a big city one more day? Yeah that was me. And my sprinting paid off. I made it by a minute thanks to some dispute with the Megabus people and a customer. The bus left a couple minutes late, and I was a little early. Gorgeous.