What's Going Down In The 'Hood?

I'm not certain what is worse, my ten year old niece using that phrase her twin sister singing the Viva Viagra commercial. Well, I suppose that's as good a segue as any for the blog heading, and, you tell me, what exactly is going on the that drawing? No, not the rubber plant, though I'm sure accidents can happen there. And you know something is going on at the 666 Laundromat and its not laundry. I can't figure out if the woman is falling in the bathtub, falling OUT of the bathtub, or if that's even a strange open window and she's trying to sneak in through the fire escape and fell. Regardless, I'm applying for my license tomorrow. It has to be a better job than writing for as living.

Dizz Knee Land

Whenever I hear this song again on a mix CD I have, I feel like posting about it. The song was recorded in 1992 by a band named dada and has lines like I just robbed a grocery story/I'm goin' to Disneyland/I just took out President George/I'm going to Disneyland. It's one of those songs that people dance to, and the first time I heard it I was sitting in Phyllis's Musical Inn at Division & Hermitage, eating a bowl of lemon rice soup and writing in my notebook. I had just started writing "Faded Dreams on Division Street" for Penthouse's Nightlife section, and I had been asked to contribute something and wanted to make it hit on all cylinders. 1992 was my most profitable year as I writer, thanks to my gigs at Penthouse at a buck a word, and I still believe that my article on Phyllis's, Rainbo Room, and The Bop Shop is me at my best talking about the neighborhood I grew up in, and this was years before my bitterness set in as everything turned upscale. I don't have a photo to go with it, but a few years later, I had just gotten some anti-inflammatory shots (which I'm due to get on Monday, and I cannot wait), and I was feeling as good as I can ever feel, even if its only for a few days. I was at the corner of 63rd and Kedzie, across from where the old Marquette Theater stood. The bus stop was in front of one of those nameless electronic shops with stuff piled everywhere in the windows, and all of a sudden I hear "Dizz Knee Land" playing from somewhere in the store. I let one bus go by just so I could hear the song play out. Its below zero again tonight, one of those Sprinsteen song nights I've written about, and whereas I appreciate the song being on the mix CD with the Ides of March and Blues Image and Mason Williams' "Classical Gas," I would much rather hear it the way I would Springsteen as I walked a bitter street. Hear it come out of a nameless storefront or hearing it inside an old polka bar as I sat close enough to the open door to hear the traffic on a late spring evening...

Blue Green Boner Pills

I get maybe three spams a day, I never open them, but I'm often delighted by the subject headings. Case in point, earlier today. Blue Green Boner Pills. Better than the Nigerian lottery any day. I have no real image to post for my spam, so I'll instead go with Batman yet AGAIN finding Robin going too far with his auto-eroticism..

The Shape of Things That Were

Well, I had plans on discussing the latest film with the craziest title--I should write the copy, fer cry-eye, SHE'S UNDERAGE AND UNDEAD!--or exactly why Billy Ray Cyrus had his own Marvel comic in the 1990s. But earlier tonight I heard of yet more lay-offs at the print shop. Everything seemed to go to hell when the place moved from Alsip to Oak Forest. The place ran 24 hours 6 days a week, then slowly everyone saw their hours drop as the place closed at midnight, then 10 PM, and now, evidently, everyone will be gone by 5 or 6 PM. I have fonder memories of the printing plant in its old building, when I never really knew how long my shift would be on a daily basis. When I first started, it was for the 4-midnight shift, and I loved getting home at 1 AM and staying up until 4 or 5 because I knew I could sleep in. But that changed after about a year and, well, working days vs. nights is one thing, but working nights was like me and three other people, tops. And so it is that within the last year, I've seen everyone I once worked the night shift with gone, and it just makes me a bit wistful for 2006 and 2007 again. I add the photo of Wilson my roll of yellow paper at the bottom because the digital press I called my machine was the last one to leave the old building and so I was the last one to leave the old building, for two weeks last March, I was the only one at 128th and LaPorte, twelve hours a day. I needed something to keep me company, so, like Tom Hanks in CASTAWAY, I found me a roll of press paper and spent some lonely hours kicking Wilson around and practicing some skills I'd likely never use again. One of my favorite memories from the old building, it was right next to a small wooded area near the Cal Sag Channel, was when I walked out the back door at 2 AM and saw a deer beneath a full moon. I'll always remember that.

Mystery In Space

Well, since those magenta-hued fellows still can't believe the identity of our newly-elected President, I'll be off in space for the next few years, thanks to the combined power created by placing my Woodstock pendants on my neutron wave reverser. As I'll be travelling through the Earth-14 universe, I should actually be back sometime before the evening rush hour.

Brave New World

Just Plain Creepy

This set of photos I found on flickr, part of an abandoned building set, reminded me of a building I was stuck in, it was a dream I had as a kid, I was lost, lots of stairs with no railings and huge, bloated violet spiders swinging back and forth. At the end of a hallways was that Mr. Salty mascot, the pretzel in the sailor hat. Never knew if he was my ally or foe, as I always woke up when I saw him.