so last night teddy & i trekked all the way out to west dundee, near his parents' house, to the clearwater theater...my friend david bruce was playing a show there...it was a nice little venue...the only venue in that neck of the woods i understand...teddy took drum lessons down the street for 4 years, and back then that place was used as a theater, and he had thought it would make a great venue...well, he was right...even the empty bottle's putting on shows there...here are photos from the show...



anyways, it was good to finally see dave perform live...for someone who's just started writing songs recently, he's doing pretty good...i mean, he gets to make music for a LIVING...yes, that's what he does...he plays shows and gets paid for it...imagine that...he plays a really mean guitar, i gotta say...i've been meaning to catch a show of his for the last 4 months...ironically, last saturday when i was in lake zurich (which is where dave plays often), dave played in wrigleyville in the city...so i really HAD to trek it to west dundee for this show...it was a solo acoustic set, but he got to play for a good hour or so...all the folks who showed up were there to see dave, and he was happy about that...granted, the headlining band was an unknown from richmond, VA...dave's best friend scott p. whom i met through chris langill and tim @ bill mallonee's show a year ago was there as well...we told him about our seattle trip and how we almost hooked up w/ his sister, who's friends w/ teddy's brother charles & his wife ali...scott gave me a heads up on the taste of randolph street fest this weekend...evan dando of the lemon heads will be performing friday @ 6:30 and spoon will be headlining saturday @ 8pm...i don't know if i can make evan dando, but i definitely wanna see spoon!



i am going to attempt church again this sunday...i think i'll try good old hyde park vineyard this time...we shall see...i definitely wanna see pete & amy & little elliot (who's not going to be so little any more before ya know it)...



tonight the nerves are playing the double door...i had no idea they were one of teddy's favorite bands...it's a good thing i keep on top of this stuff...when he mentioned this to me last night, my brain immediately pulled up the entry i'd seen on the double door webpage that the nerves were playing in the near distant future...well that near distant future is tonight...so i think i'm gonna go if teddy's up to it...i WAS gonna go see the children's hour, derek's newest band that he's booking for, who toured w/ zwan and are getting really good reviews...but they're playing again @ schubas in july so i think i'll see them then...there are so many great shows coming up i can't even tell ya...



been listening to--

odessey & oracle--the zombies

universal truths & cycles--guided by voices

more motion--trenchmouth

execution of all things--rilo kiley

waters ave south--damien jurado

isn't anything--my bloody valentine

summerteeth--wilco

i have a goal...it's a really simple goal...i want to take the train to work at least 3 times a week...it sounds so simple...and it would be if i wouldn't turn my alarm off before falling back into bed in the morning...hitting the snooze button is one thing...turning the alarm off entirely is leaving yourself at the mercy of your body to get itself up without help from some noisy radio morning talk show...



...yes, i missed the train this morning...by like over an hour...i am so sick of driving...and i'm actually getting disgusted by the exhaust fumes on the highway...and that's w/ my windows rolled up...this morning, i looked in the rearview mirror at the reflection of the downtown skyline, and i was horrified at the haze of smog...ugh! people have to breathe that, ya know! add to that a mercedes benz crushed from both ends on the edens and construction on the tri-state and what you've got is a morning rush nightmare...



i was having a discussion earlier w/ ted's brother dave about how things like the industrial revolution, science and technology have affected human behavior and thought...we're so consumed with these things that we hardly have any free time at all...i just can't imagine what it would be like to live in an agrarian society or a hunter/gatherer society with no cars, trains, planes, boats, computers, tv, electricity, telephones, cell phones, stoves, microwaves, running water, toilets, melon balls, cd players, music, paper, writing instruments, books...i mean, what kind of thoughts would you even have? then dave & i were talking about practicing boredom...meaning practicing doing nothing...that's so hard to do for most folks i would imagine...i think it's a good idea though...to just sit still and not do anything for a few moments of the day...instead of just going w/ the crazy current of everyday life and being swept away...



been listening to--

dust--screaming trees

pink heart yellow moon--dressy bessy

PL--BM

warning: listening to cat power's moon pix and the mountain goat's tallahassee in succession can result in a melancholy that can only be remedied by a visit to the local used record store...



...and so i found myself walking to reckless records at 9:10 pm to get over a music-induced funk...well, i'm sure it wasn't ALL music induced, but i tend to be higly susceptible to emotional sabotage launched by dumb playlist choices on my jukebox...



...warm summer night...cig tin nowhere in sight...means a trip to the burning leaf conveniently on the way to reckless...bars and bars overflowing with humans crowding my parade route...the white noise of the small talk of beautiful strangers invading my bubble of discontent...export-a my friend...short like me but can get me high in a few short puffs...esp on an empty stomach...criss cross over north damen milwaukee intersection...past the noisy din of the double door's raucous tuesday night lineup...walking as slowly as possible...and still outside the reckless entrance, a 3/4 quarters new canadian stoke is prematurely crushed without so much as an apology...



...within 2 minutes of entering reckless, a few bars of the cure's 'boys don't cry' over the store speakers are enough to lift the fog, and i am happily flipping the familiar plastic sleeves of info looking for a used rilo kiley...SCORE...and on to a night of quality loot, all used...here's the inventory:

disintegration (the cure)--ever since i lost my copy last december, i've been looking for a used copy every time i go to reckless, and finally they had one today...i'm listening to it right now, getting my fix...

execution of all things (rilo kiley)--because brandon told me i need to listen to rilo kiley

1000 hurts (shellac)--it was cheap

more motions (trenchmouth)--like how often do you run into a used trenchmouth cd? like hardly ever...oh, if you don't know who trenchmouth is, you know fred armisen of saturday night live? also the dude who "interviewed" jeff tweedy on the "i am trying to break your heart" wilcomentary...he's the drummer, and damon locks & wayne montana of the eternals are in it too...

the embassy tapes (the nation of ulysses)--rawk 'n' roll dude

lucky shoe (september 67)--ah, the pop bliss of shannon worrell and kristin ashbury...my friends jen sampson & john roberts let me kidnap their copy for almost a year, but i just gave it back when i saw john a month ago...i consider myself quite lucky to have found a copy...

isn't anything (my bloody valentine)--do i need an excuse to buy a used mbv album? no, i didn't think so...



...tonight i called caleb and we had a long talk about some questions rattling around in my head...the rattling hasn't stopped, but talking to caleb always calms me down and gives me a nice friendly shove in the right direction...poor caleb...spending his summer deciphering centuries old chicken scratch...i really wish he could be at bill's schuba show in a couple weeks...it would be a few days shy of being a year from the VoL cd release party there last year when kevin (the drummer) threw out a tambourine into the crowd and caleb caught it and got to play along w/ kevin, jake and bill...that was such a fun show...UHQ rocked prior to bill...all these memories...a summer spent with folks who normally reside in other states and time zones results in a hazy magical pop-up picture book of memories that you peruse wondering if it was real or a product of your imagination...



there is something inherently nostalgic about summer for me...the long long hot days and warm nights are thick with sentimental tendencies...the summer solstice will be here in a few short days...and what will this summer hold for me? even now, i have that same feeling i have had at the beginning of summers past...the feeling of not wanting the summer to end before it's even had a chance to begin...because having lived through my fair share of summers, i know how i miss the summer when autumn takes over, how i long for the summer when winter bites out of the blue arriving as always much too soon...



been listening to--

moon pix--cat power

tallahassee--the mountain goats

electric version--the new pornographers

disintegration--the cure

ok...so i'm going to be entering show mode...or so i think i am...i need more sleep these days than i'm willing to admit...i think i'm getting at least 6 hours every night...that's about a 50% increase from past months...am i getting old or am i wising up? who knows...anyways, here are the shows i WANT to see...what i'll have the time & money for is another story...if i didn't work but still got paid the same amount i do now, i would be at every single one of these shows...and more...



ah, what else...nothing else i guess...

well, i survived another father's day without my dad...this year was different from last year's though...totally different...



teddy & i went to our friend christina's church yesterday...it was a small congregation affiliated w/ the presbyterian church in america (PCA)...they're called grace church of chicago, and they meet in the chicago dramatists' building on chicago & milwaukee...they serve intelligentsia coffee (chicago's own roast) and letizia's bakery muffins...the people were very nice and welcoming...my friend nanette who's doing the wicker park spirituality discussion group went with us...for someone like me who's worked hard at erasing memories of church services prior to joining the vineyard in evanston, the liturgical format at this church was somewhat foreign...i thought it was a lovely service, and the pastor didn't bullshit the congregation...but i'm slowly coming to the realization that after all i've experienced in the vineyard, it's going to be really really hard for me to find a church where i feel at home...and i'm not TRYING to be a spoiled brat about it, but if i'm going to subject myself to a structured environment for spiritual edification for 90 or so minutes on a sunday MORNING (quite likely after being at a show or party until 2am the previous night), then i would prefer it to be in a setting i would enjoy being in on a semi-regular basis (which for me would be like once a month)...*sigh*...but i kinda do want to be in some sort of a group...does anybody know of a church in chicago where i can show up late or on time or get up and walk around and sit or stand or kneel or raise my hands or whatever and not feel like a weirdo? where at least some of the leaders are NOT wearing dockers and boat shoes or penny loafers...where the music sounds more like pedro the lion or idlewild or u2 or VoL than maranatha or bill gaither...where your worth is not measured in what you own or your job or even what you can *do for god* or in the visible maturity of your faith...where your worth is not measured, period, but considered a given based on your being human...where a good percentage of the members, if you looked through the stuff they carried around, you'd find a pair of ear plugs...where service begins at a time later than 11 am...where a total outsider can sit through the sermon and announcements and minglings and be able to understand 80% of what's said without referring to an evangelical jargon dictionary...if you know of such a church, please let me know...



after church, nanette & teddy & i had brunch @ this place that christina recommended called flo's on chicago ave...it was awesome food...we had a good talk about churches in general, about the matrix, about heaven, about angels, etc...before we knew it i had to run to meet my mom & bro in the burbs...



my mom had wanted to get together for father's day to talk about our dad...it was an obvious attempt to get either jim or me to talk...i don't think we're there yet though...for some reason, i can't talk about my feelings regarding my dad with the ones who were also closest to him...i don't know why...in some ways, my dad was the unifier in our family, and i think without him around, i just don't know how to relate...i feel so disconnected from them...i realized that i dislike going to my mom's house or even calling my mom or bro because i can't do these things without being painfully reminded how much my dad is missing from our lives...i'm fine when i'm on my own for the most part, but whenever i see my mom or my bro, it's like there's this dotted-line figure hovering next to us where my dad should be...so many blank lines in our conversations where my dad would have had something to say...and his laugh...i miss that crazy laugh of my dad's...and his toothy smile...his corny jokes and stories...boy, could my dad be CORNY...and he loved laughing at his own jokes and stories...



we went to the cemetery to visit his gravesite...i noticed a lot of folks visiting gravesites...i saw a young woman and a young man standing quietly just staring at the grave marker of someone i assume was their dad...at the restaurant eating dessert, i noticed all the families, esp. the dads...



and although i feel the pain of not having my dad with me for father's day, i do have sources of comfort as well...for example, seeing tim again on saturday reminded me how much i love seeing him with his boys...and he was definitely there during those first weeks after losing my dad...and when i was at his house, i saw a family photo of bill mallonee with his wife brenda and his boys josh & joe...it really touched me to see that photo and to be reminded of how much bill has comforted me this past year, not only through his songs, but on a personal level as well in the time we've spent at various festivals and through his wisdom and encouragement and prayers in email...not only that, i know he's had a deep impact on the lives of my friends caleb and brandon...where would i have been without caleb on so many occasions this past year? he's been a friend, brother, mentor, sanity saver, fellow rocker...



the web of friends that magically seemed to build itself during the past year in which i almost started my life over from scratch never fails to amaze me...the garden lounge's miranda stone concert which led me to pastemusic.com which led me to denison witmer, pedro the lion, damien jurado and bill mallonee among others, shooting denny's show which got me hooked on concert photography which led me to shoot bill's show where i met tim white and through which caleb stumbled on my website and meeting megan through tim and all the lovely wildwood artists including mikey bales and meeting ryan & jesse of serene @ cornerstone & running into rand at just the right time to give me a bit of guidance which months later would lead to pete & amy & sam and meeting derek who tipped me off on watchers and running into matt dobschuetz who tipped me off on duvall which was the reason i went to the watchers show in the first place and to be taking photos at that show which caused michael to introduce himself to me which led to meeting the rest of watchers which led to meeting teddy which led to a million other things...even seemingly accidental things leading to significant relationships...like when that band what's their name didn't show up at the fireside so i went to schubas instead and met ian moore...or responding to one little question on the VoL grouplist which led to my friendship w/ brandon...and the list goes on and on...



life is incomprehensibly beautiful in the midst of the pain and the brokenness...



been listening to--

quiet is the new loud--kings of convenience

PL--BM

i break chairs--damien jurado

achtung baby--u2