Downtown Friday Night

Plans changed, I left an event early, and to kill time so I wouldn't get to Midway and wait 90 minutes for my bus, I went north instead of south at Halsted Street. Might have to check out that jazz bar one day.

Bridges at 16th and at Cermak

I can never remember this top bridge's name, I should probably call it the Canal Street Bridge, because there is another Cermak Avenue bridge for pedestrian travel. One of these days I'm going to take State Street up to 16th, where you can see the RR tracks that eventually lead to my favorite bridge--not sure why the green tarp is up, I might take a few photos before some other hipster building goes up--and I'll walk past that baseball diamond at Clark Street and backtrack a few blocks. I have photos of Chinatown and the old trainyards near 38th and Morgan, but these were stragglers at the beginning of one roll.

End of tThe Double-Aughts

Jethro Bodine called James Bond Double-Aught Seven, so for the past decade, that's what I went by. I mean, not James Bond or Jethro Bodine. I used the double-aughts. I never do anything on NYE. I've told people Hallowe'en is the only holiday that I dig. But when I worked with the Elvis band, it was nuts. We played Laurel & Hardy's on 63rd and St. Louis in 1979 and I honestly was kissed by a hundred drunken women of three generations. I think I might have been kissed by Roy, the owner, but I'm not sure. I do know that the Elvis band brought him a lot of business. I worked the spotlights and handled the mailing lists. There were others, but that was the best NYE memory ever. In the 90s, I had a few parties, Harry & Diana, Jeff Osier & Cathy, Von, Erik Seckar, and my favorite people, Sean & Jessica Doolittle, driving in from Omaha.

Over the past year, I've found obscure stuff I was in, and now have a copy of a mag that I simply reviewed episodes of THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. Yea, its been an odd road I've followed. I bought me a transistor radio for twelve bucks near North and Wolcott. I pretend it is an iPhone to confuse just about everyone. The black helicopters have proven me much enjoyment, and when they come back next week, I've decided to signal them with the flashlight I used at the printing plant. I somewhat solved the mystery of Pete, the handicapped man I've seen for a quarter century. My good friend Jannah made me a wonderful card, and my favorite memory is of getting a ton of swag from Marty Mundt, who was getting rid of about a babillion books. He had this three-fold of Telstar, and even though I wanted it just because it is so damn cool and the song Telstar is one of my favorites, I put the sheet into a Mylar holder and sent it to Jann. I always look back at that, it wasn't a pay it forward thing, more the idea that there was someone who would love this thing much more than I could think that I could. And so it left my hands. Made some new friends liker Greg Tramel down in Houston and Andrew in Santa Monica, TaviAnne Greiner and Louis Suarto with all their wonder photos of the night skies, and Jean Claude Smith and his wife, Sabine Hope, who have a son with cerebral palsy and that always stay in my head. I found myself unemployed for an entire year for the first time since 1978. I'm out of work 17 months, actually. I discovered the insane comic art of Fletcher Hanks via Paul Karasik, as well as THE WALKING DEAD by Robert Kirkman, likely the most incredible comic series I'll ever read. Ten trade pbs now and AMC has picked it up, filming in B&W as the book is, the zombies are the background, the real thing is the human aspects. Things I never would have thought of. A damn good read. Crappy summer, never as warm as it should be, but I kayaked twice with my friend Paul and got to glide under my favorite object in Chicago, the 16th Street Bridge. I'm taking my dog out in a minute, we'll look at the blue moon as I attempt to stop him from pissing on the front lawn, and think of the stars and the International Space Station, all the satellites, and I know the best thing I did this year was to send that three-fold Telstar away to Jannah, where it truly belonged.

The Last of The 16th Street Bridge

A few more shots from the reverse end, this time looking north and east from near the Cermak Bridge. I talked to those geese, sat right up there on the rocks with them. Gave me something to do, the whole trip the only people we passed were a couple of old Chinese guys who were either saying to us that, no, there were no fish, or, no, we don't understand you. My pantomiming using an 8mm camera instead of a fishing rod likely didn't help.

The thing about the photo in last night's post is that any house all lit up like that gives me the willies. I can imagine walking up to the window...and seeing a shivaree of clowns playing Twister. Yes, that image is actually in my. They see me and, really, where the hell can I go? I'm dead.

Finally...The Sixteenth Street Bridge

I'm better today, that video is of me after I type too long and I get all spastic-mental. Here are the bridge shots, I've mixed them up a bit, and I have a ton more that will end up on Flickr. The kayaking started at North Avenue, about three miles north of the bridge, and we ended up near the Cermak bridge. There was a detour to the main entrance to the river, the water changing from black to 7UP bottle green, and a woman in another kayak laughed as I unsuccessfully tried to take a photo of a stuffed pink money that was impaled beneath the Dearborn Street bridge by a rivet gun. Sometimes the current is against you, and I'm not the digital camera guy who tries again and again. Screw it, I know where it is. Maybe one day I'll take the photo from the riverwalk.

I love the 16th Street bridge. The second half of the bridge is always raised, the track on that side abandoned. Years ago I took a bus down Archer to Clark, then walked up to the bridge and walked across it, touching the iron. Its harder to do that now, there's been construction in the area. This was one of those things I've always wanted to do, glide beneath the bridge. Another thing to cross off on the list as I head west into the black...

I Got Nothin'

Long night, up to 23K on the novel. Nightmares last night about Plague Doctors on the 16th Street Bridge. Long story. Heading west into the black...