Sound Familiar?

I didn’t “get” Radiohead until I spent two weeks touring the United Kingdom by bus with my grandparents and the Smokers. The Smokers were Charismatic Christians. I was seventeen years old and had never heard of Charismatics, but by the time I boarded my plane home I had deducted that they were the type of Christians that tore horoscopes and lingerie ads out of Cosmopolitan and joked about spitting on Darwin’s grave. There were eight Smoker grandkids and they were loud and obnoxious and the only thing we could agree on was that the Lord of the Rings movies were pretty sweet. I barely tolerated them and so as our bus cruised through the English countryside I sat alone, earbuds firmly in place.

A friend had given me burned copies of a few Radiohead albums the summer before but I had dismissed them as chilly and depressing. She continued trying to convince me to give the band a second chance and I finally caved as I prepared for the trip. It seemed only right to listen to a British band while traveling through Britain. Early on I gave OK Computer a listen. I’m not sure if I switched to another record for the rest of the tour.

As a Star Wars geek the song titles appealed to me. Paranoid Android. Subterranean Homesick Alien. Most of the time I wasn’t able to parse Thom Yorke’s lyrics, but I understood what he was singing about all the same. He was singing about me. It was one of those moments that everybody experiences, often in the aftermath of a bad breakup, when you swear that a certain song was written specifically for you. The album evoked, as David Cheal wrote in The Daily Telegraph, “gloom and alienation; but [also] warmth and yearning.” The music was unparalleled in its ability to perfectly complement a solitary walk through downtown Edinburgh on a gunmetal gray afternoon or the long hours spent staring out through the fog at eighty kilometers an hour. I liked the music because it was complex and deep, because it was unlike anything I had listened to before, because I knew, without a doubt, that this was music the Smokers would never understand.

***

This is all to say that I associate certain artists and albums with specific periods in my life, as I imagine most people do. These interconnections between life and music appear most often during periods of upheaval or strife, during long periods away from home and away from the people I’m close to. In some ways the music serves to help define a period of time and in other ways it helps to define me. Whether through my headphones when I’m in a crowd or through tinny laptop speakers when I’m alone in my room, these are the albums that center me, that bring me back, that tell me, no matter what else is going on, I’m going to be okay.

***

In many ways, The Hold Steady is the antithesis of Radiohead. Since 2004, The Hold Steady has released four albums. Radiohead has released one. Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and the rest of the Oxford quintet are driven, compelled even to reinvent themselves with each new record. Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn would likely have no qualms singing about getting high and coming to blows in bars for the rest of his career. Radiohead push the boundaries of rock music, incorporating diverse elements into their music like the ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument. The Hold Steady has probably never even heard of the ondes Martenot. In fact, Tad Kubler, lead guitarist for The Hold Steady, recently criticized Radiohead for “losing the plot.” For me though, what the bands have in common far outweigh the petty differences between them. The Hold Steady, like Radiohead before them, are purveyors of my peace of mind.

Craig Finn, Tad Kubler, Franz Nikolai, Gavin Polivka and Bobby Drake comprise the ostensibly Brooklyn-based The Hold Steady, though it is unmistakeable that their roots lie in Minnesota. Their first three albums in particular, Almost Killed Me, Separation Sunday, and Boys and Girls in America, are crowded with the inclusion of Twin Cities landmarks and are filled with the sense of place that is made possible only by growing up in the area. It is their allegiance to the Twin Cities that initially drew me to the band. I wasn’t an early fan of theirs, I wasn’t there in the beginning. I didn’t hear about the band until Boys and Girls made Pitchfork’s Best of 2006 list, and I didn’t listen to them until a few months later when I was looking for new music to get into. The fact that they had ties to the Cities seemed as good of a reason as any to give them a try. When I heard the refrain:

Gonna walk around, gonna walk around, gonna walk around and drink
Gonna walk around, gonna walk around, gonna walk around and drink
Gonna walk around and drink some more

I thought, “Yes, here is music that I can relate to. Here is music that speaks to me.”

I spent most of that summer with Boys and Girls in America on repeat. The album seemed to be the perfect summer record, a record that was made to be blasted through open windows while speeding down the highway, a final protest as I drove to my low-paying job. “This is what summer should be like,” I thought to myself. 

***

I spent the first half of 2008 studying in Amsterdam. I fell in love with the city the moment I first stepped out of Centraal, the city’s Gothic main station. It was dawn and the sky was a beguiling shade of pink. I couldn’t check into my apartment until later in the morning, and so with hours to kill and no knowledge of anywhere to kill those hours, I decided to walk to my apartment rather than take a taxi like our program had recommended. Wearing my 3000 cubic inch travel backpack, a giant Lands End duffel bag and a messenger bag with my laptop inside, I shuffled down the sidewalk away from Centraal, my resolve to find the apartment based entirely on the fact that I had looked up a Google Map of the area before takeoff. I walked along the IJ, the river that separates the central part of the city from the northern section, my nose running in the brisk morning air. I got turned around in Zeeburg, a neighborhood I would later learn was just down the street from my apartment, and I walked around in circles for an hour or two before arriving at Funenpark, my apartment. By the time I checked in and fell quickly into jet-lagged sleep, I felt a connection with the city, an understanding that develops from wandering lost and unhurried and finally finding your way.

Over the next few weeks I slowly began to meet and make friends with other American kids studying in the city. There were four other Macalester students there also, but I didn’t know them. My slate was blank. My roommate decided at the last moment not to study abroad, so I had the apartment to myself. At first I spent most of my time alone in my room, watching The Wire and Big Love on my laptop and blogging about the ways in which I wasn’t taking advantage of being in Amsterdam. Slowly the people I met began to pull me out of my shell and we began to go out to bars together and get high together. We sat in my room passing around two Euro bottles of Albert Heijn wine and tossing back drinks from the liquor store clearance table. We rode to clubs and coffee shops two-to-a-bike and rode back home again, amazed we hadn’t toppled in our haze. We became a tightly knit group and I spent less and less time watching television alone on my laptop.

Two things about The Hold Steady began to resonate more true for me during those months. First was that the band encapsulated a near-perfect nugget of Americana. Not only could they offer a does of sweet Saint Paul whenever I felt wistful or removed from my people back home, but they provided the whole United States. They reassured me that Virginia really is for lovers and that sometimes it’s best just to hang around the upper Midwest, that Philly’s full of friendly friends that’ll love you like a brother and people are still shakin’ it up in Shaker Heights. As I neurotically cleaned my kitchen and tidied up the rest of the apartment before my friends came over, I would play their music from my laptop’s tiny speakers and they would remind me that I was going to be all right.

The band also does a remarkable job combining a romanticized vision of drug use and drunkenness with the idea that there is so much more the life than getting high. Being in Amsterdam, surrounded by kids on my program who seemed to be high whenever I saw them, this held a special resonance for me. Because getting high was fun. There was ritual in packing a bowl or rolling a joint and passing it around the circle. But as our time in Amsterdam drew to a close, the allure began to wear off. I want to spend time with these people, my friends, rather than sit next to them in silence, staring at my cuticles.

About a month before I was to leave Amsterdam, The Hold Steady’s fourth album, Stay Positive, leaked online. The album’s first song, Constructive Summer, in particular rang with impeccable relevance as I prepared to leave that city and those people that I loved. To me, the song is drenched in a hopeful melancholy. It’s about making the most of the time you have, because you don’t have very long. As my friends and I prepared to say goodbye to each other and to Amsterdam, we were brought together with our sing-along songs. 

I don’t know when I’ll see the friends I met in Amsterdam again. I guess part of the struggle of growing older is saying goodbye to friends with the knowledge that it may be a long while before you see them again. I think The Hold Steady is obsessed with this struggle. And so now another dimension of meaning has been added to my interpretation of Craig Finn’s lyrics: not only will they invoke feelings of Americana and nights spent in Amsterdam clubs, stomachs filled with too many substances, but they will remind me of a time that I long to get back to, a time when we could all be something bigger. I’ll just wait for the time when my friends start getting back in touch. And it’ll be a pretty good feeling, yeah it’ll feel pretty good.

Notice

With the Cubs post I’ve successfully cleared out the backlog of old posts that needed to be written. Seeing as how the game was on August 4th I’m only a month and a half behind schedule.

Anyway, with that out the way, I don’t have any more posts currently that I feel compelled to write. I’ll still try and post silly things that I write for my non-fiction course, along with musings on anything interesting that happens in daily life, but the output will probably slow to even more of a drip than it is now. You should still check back often though since I might surprise you, just don’t get your hopes up.

Also: I wrote that Cubs post (as well as this one, I suppose) slightly buzzed while working at Media Services. Why I thought having a couple of beers before going to work was I good idea I do not know. What I’m saying is that I’m sorry if there are more typos than usual. Now you know why.

Cubs Flood

After hauling my four heavy bags along the CTA and somehow pissing off the bus driver, I walked through downtown Chicago toward Union Station where I was supposed to meet Brendan a few hours later. After killing that time taking advantage of Panera’s free wifi, I met up with Brendan who rode Megabus down from Milwaukee. Around 5pm or so we met up with his friend Danny, who was letting us crash at his place for the night. I checked our tickets for the game: first pitch at 7:05. It was going to be close, but there should be enough time to stop by Danny’s place, drop our bags, get a bite to eat, and get to Wrigley by 7pm.

It was after 6pm by the time we got to the apartment. He lived south of the city in Hyde Park, near the UChicago. We got the grand tour and quickly headed out again after getting CTA directions from Danny. We stopped by a Jimmy John’s across from our bus stop. After my long-awaited reunion with the J.J.’s Gargantuan we crossed the street and waited. We took the bus to a red line metro station and transferred to a train into the city. Wrigley is north of the city so we had a pretty long ride to get there. We watched 7pm come and go and we figured we’d get to the stadium a bit late, probably about 30 minutes or so. That wasn’t too bad, we thought. It’d probably be mid second inning or so. Not ideal, but not awful.

We got there right around 7:30. Got our tickets scanned. Stopped by the ATM. Went to find our seats. The Cubs were playing the Astros that night. They were also in the race for the National League Central Division title with the Milwaukee Brewers, who were just a couple games back at that point. Brendan, of course, being from Milwaukee, is a big Brewers fan. He also, naturally, hates the Cubs. So, while I was being team agnostic by wearing my Atlanta Braves cap, he was being the anti-Cub, wearing a ‘Stros jersey and a Brewers hat. Trailing behind him as he lead the way to our seats, I would hear whispered comments about him as people passed by. Look at him! He’s wearing a Brewers cap AND an Astros jersey!

As we walked to our seats, we were able to catch a glimpse of the scoreboard: Astros up 2-0. Fifth inning. What. The Fuck. Five innings in half an hour? That must be some sort of record. The game was half over already. Goddammit. Some Astro got a hit as we continued to meander through Wrigley. Even then, before we even got to our seats, I could feel the magic in the stadium. There was an energy there unlike any other stadium I had been to before. Turner Field didn’t have it. And for all you hear about the magic there, neither did Yankee Stadium. Fenway probably came the closest, but it still didn’t compare to the electricity in the air at Wrigley. They don’t make stadiums like that anymore.

It was mid-inning by the time we got to our seats. The players had cleared the field. The rows at Wrigley are really tightly packed–not much legroom–so moving down the row was an ordeal. Each of the big, burly Cubs fans with beers in their hands had to stand to let us pass, which they couldn’t have been happy to do, me in a Braves hat and Brendan in his fightin’ words gear. We finally sat down and immediately, immediately, it began to rain. Slowly at first, then quickly turning into a downpour. Soon, the grounds crew came out an pulled the tarp over the infield. Well shit. So, we sat down in our seats, seats that were, by the way, one row down from being as far away from the field as one could possibly be, and waited. We ordered beers from the beerman–$6.25 for an Old Style. A rip-off but oh-so-worth it. Brendan chatted with the guys around us. The guy next to us checked the weather report on his Blackberry. He pulled up a radar image right on the screen. It showed a massive thunderstorm heading right toward Chicago. “It’s gonna be at least a couple of hours,” he informed us. A garbled announcement came over the PA system. We couldn’t understand a word of it.

By this time everybody had cleared out of the box seats closest to the field. Our seats actually had an advantage in that we were under the roof and were therefore not getting rained on. A banner began to scroll across the scoreboard: a severe weather advisory had been issued for the area. Everybody was advised to move down to the concourse on the main floor. We blew that off. We weren’t leaving our seats, it had been hassle enough to get there in the first place. We began to wish we had another beer though. Unfortunately, the beerman didn’t seem keen to brave to torrential rain.

It was a tornado siren that finally got us out of our seats, a clue that perhaps we really should move. We moved out from our seats and to the aisle leading downward. Everybody in our row just stopped there for a while, not willing to move any farther. “We need to get the Cubs back out there now!” Blackberry guy commented, “the wind is blowing out to center!” The siren stopped after a few minutes and we thought about going back to our seats, but instead we moved down to the edge of the upper deck seats and surveyed the field from that vantage point. Blackberry guy checked the weather again. Apparently there was a black spot–meaning serious fucking storm–over O’Hare. It would be on top of us soon.

The tornado siren started up again. We decided that might be a good time to find some more beer and maybe a hotdog or two. The first food stand we passed was just closing up. As we’re walking down the ramp to the concourse, the wind begins to howl and blow. The rain is pushed into the stadium from outside. People huddle together, trying to steady themselves against what feel like gale-force winds.

The closest experience I can compare the rain and wind and storm to is Tropical Storm Gaston which fucked up Richmond in 2004. I was working at the John Kerry campaign office in the city and I heard reports on the radio of massive flooding and could see the rain pounding through the window. My dad didn’t want me to drive home in that, so I stuck around the office, making phone calls on behalf of the campaign until it became clear that post people I was attempted to call had lost their phone service. I remember it being eerie in the office. Everybody had left to get home before the storm except for me and the guy running the campaign in Richmond, Levar Stoney, who was sticking around to make sure I got home safely. After the worst had passed my dad drove down into the city to get me. The main road the office was located on was gridlocked as far as we could see, brake lights casting a red glow through the night. We cut through a neighborhood, and when we came out on the other side, the scene before us was like something out of a disaster movie. Abandoned cars lined the street haphazardly. Lights from ambulances and fire trucks added to the eerie brake light glow. The drive home was treacherous, deep and reaching puddles of water covered the streets and highways. We learned the next morning that two roads near our house had been completely washed away by the overflowing streams that ran under them. According to Wikipedia, Gaston dropped a foot of rain on Hanover County, my county. In downtown Richmond, a full 20 blocks of the city were under water. Anyway, that’s what it reminded me off.

We moved on to an open beer stand. The line crawled forward. A guy in front of us seemed to be having a debate with the guy behind the counter. After he left the counter he moved back in line and came to talk to us. Apparently he could only buy two beers, but he needed to buy three, so he asked us to buy an extra for him. He gave Brendan a twenty and told him to buy one for himself. Brendan misunderstood, so when he got to the counter, he bought one for the guy and nothing for himself. The guy behind the counter muttered something about everybody having twenties. He and the other guy working were just stuffing cash into the popcorn machine. The cash register must have been full. When I got up to order drinks and hot dogs for both of us, the guy said they were out of beer. And hotdogs. I knew he was lying, but he was a cranky old man who obviously didn’t feel like working during a storm, so I left it at that and Brendan and I left to find another place to buy beer from.

We found that place without much trouble. I was finally able to buy our beer and hotdogs. We moved down to much better seats, though still under the roof, to eat and drink. Brendan started talking to the guy sitting behind us. He asked how the Astros scored their first two runs, and made a comment about how fast the game must have gone. The guy said, “Well, you know the game started at 6pm, right? It was broadcast on ESPN, so they moved up the time.” That explained a lot. Instead of missing 30 minutes of baseball we had missed 90. Oh well, there, wasn’t any way we could have made it to the the stadium any faster. We learned that we got the last beer in maybe the whole stadium when a couple down the row asked where we got our beer because every place they had tried was closed, then when they tried the stand we had just visited, they had apparently stopped selling.

By that point, the entire stadium was basically a party atmosphere. We were all comrades in arms, braving the weather to see some baseball. The ground crew played with our emotions, taking the tarp off at one point after the rain had let up a bit, only to put it right back on. Finally, after hours of waiting, an announcement came over the PA: the game will resume at 10:20. Two hours and 45 minutes after play had stopped. But we were going to see some baseball. We moved up to even better seats, a dozen or so rows from the field. At least half the crowd had left so there were plenty of free seats. We enjoyed our new positions until an over-zealous stadium attendant asked us to move. We moved back a few rows, out of his jurisdiction, and watched the game get underway again. We were all hoping for a Cubs comeback, but it wasn’t to be. After three quick innings, it began to rain. Again. Plus, in addition to rain the sky provided one of the more amazing thunderstorms I’ve ever seen. This was capped by the loudest strike of thunder I’ve ever heard. Immediately after the thunder clapped the player deserted the field, running for their dugouts, and the crowd once again rushed for the concourse as the skied once again opened. This ordeal reached a climax when I received a particularly apt text message from Puchie D:

They showed Berkman taking off his metal necklace like a pussy in the dug out. He looks scared out of his mind. You can hear the weather on tv.
<3 Puchie_D

After vacating our seats Brendan and I watched people dash through the pouring rain toward their cars. The intersection of Sheffield and Addison was an absolute lake. Eventually Brendan’s friend Mo arrived to pick us up. The rain had stopped by then so we didn’t get to make our own swim to freedom. The three of us visited a couple of bars after that. One of the bouncers thought my very real VA license was a fake so he made me sign my signature to confirm my identity. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to adequately recreate my scrawl of a signature but it worked out. Back to the apartment to sleep after that.

Interview with Puch

We were driving home from seeing Shaolin Soccer on Halloween night when we passed Faith Landmark Baptist Church, brilliantly lit, its sweeping parking lot filled with cars. Zach, Jane and myself had passed the mega-church many times before; a packed parking lot was no strange occurrence. It was a Sunday night, and the crowds were likely attending their usual Sunday evening service. But we didn’t realize that. As Zach remembers, “we thought, them being Christians, that they were having some sort of anti-Halloween rally.” And so we did the only thing we could do, the only logical course of action for three high school seniors who had themselves long ago ceased to believe. We turned into the parking lot.

After parking what seemed like miles away, we began walking toward the church. We began looking at the license plates on the cars around us. And we began to notice something curious: all the license plates were about God. Or Jesus. The first few plates we noticed were standard religious crazy: PRAZNHM, JCSAVZ, PRA 4U, that sort of thing. Zach started to take pictures of the best plates. Then we spotted two that blew our minds. Parked directly across from each other were B1 FAITH and B1 FA1TH. We spent a long time staring at one, then the other before we were able to figure out the difference. GZUS WIL was one of Zach’s favorites. We all thought HOLY ONE was a bit presumptuous. SRNDR 2M creeps me out to this day. “It was odd to us,” Zach said, “but I’m sure it wasn’t odd to those people.”

The flash from Zach’s camera and our incredulous laughter attracted a crew of security guards hired to protect the lot. Zach talked us out of trouble. He told the guards we were just on our way into church. Mostly the guards wanted to be sure we weren’t posting fliers on the cars. Apparently that’s a problem they had. But we were in a pickle. Now we had to go inside. Bravely, we entered.

The church was huge. Jane nicknamed it the Empire Church Building. It was roughly octagonal, with the sanctuary in the middle, surrounded by an outer perimeter hallway. The doors to the inner sanctum were open. We were reminded of a sports arena. Stadium seating from floor to ceiling, massive video monitors positioned throughout, a speaker system that would be more at home at a Knicks game than a church service. We didn’t dare go inside, preferring to stay in the deserted vestibule. Zach found an application for a secretarial position within the church. After the usual personal information, it asked: HAVE YOU EVER BEEN SAVED? YES______ NO______ IF YES, WHEN? ______ Then it asked if the applicant had experience speaking in tongues. We grabbed the application and left, hurried across the parking lot, and got back into my car. We caught our breath. Heavy stuff. I might have burned rubber pulling out of the parking lot.

When Zach got home, his dad asked him if he had a scary Halloween.

“Terrifying,” Zach replied.

Later, his father saw the photos on Zach’s blog. He understood our terror.

Day Three at Lollapalooza

After waking up on Sunday I use my few remaining minutes of internet time to check the Metra schedule. Ahhh, it comes at 11:43pm. I’ll be able to catch it, but I’ll have to wait for about an hour at the station. Whatever. I wish I had known that last night. It would have saved me $40. Damn.

I get to Grant Park around 1pm, in time to check out the Weakerthans, a band Johnny Elliott of Starbucks fame introduced me to. I give Meg a call but she doesn’t pick up. I make my way to the PlayStation stage where the Weakerthans are supposed to play at 1:15. I get to the stage at 1:10. There’s a band on stage already. I get confused. I assume these must be the Weakerthans and that they must have gone on early. I’m really digging their music. After about one song though, they say “Thanks a lot, we’re White Lies, and this is our last song.” I’m thoroughly confused now. White Lies were supposed to be on a completely different stage. I wandered around the nearby stages for a while before giving up on the Weakerthans.

I head over to give The Whigs a listen. Standard and uninteresting. I hear a guy say that the Brazilian Girls are supposed to be fucking crazy, so I head over to see them. Decidedly not crazy. I wait for Chromeo. I saw them a few summers ago at the Intonation Festival and they were fun, so I have high hopes. I get a text from Meg as I wait, and we decided to meet up later for Iron and Wine. I stay for a couple of Chromeo songs. Not as fun as I remember. I head over to see the Black Kids. Overrated. I head over to the Whole Foods tent and stock up on lots of free food.

I meet up with the Ritchies and we head over to the Bud Light stage for a very relaxing set. Iron and Wine are pretty good, but they sound exactly the same as on record, which kind of defeats the purpose. We meet up with a few more Mac kids and go check out the merch tent. I break down and buy an aluminum Radiohead water bottle. I’d been eyeing them in Barcelona and Amsterdam, but they were too expensive there. €30. Only $25 here. What a steal. Plus, after security took my Nalgene on day one I needed a new water bottle anyway. And I hear this kind won’t give you cancer.

The rest of the crew bought dinner while I munched on my snack stash. After eating Meg and I went to Girl Talk while the others decided to check out Gnarls Barkley. After seeing their costumes–prep school suits–I wasn’t disappointed to miss their act. There was a huge crowd gathered for Girl Talk compared to the size of the stage he was on. He really should have been on a much bigger stage. The crowd were we were was much more of the head bob variety than the rock-the-fuck-out variety as witnessed at the First Ave show last fall. We stayed for a few tracks, put off by the size of the crowd, and went off to see what was maybe my most anticipated show of the entire festival. The National. And what a great fucking show they played.

Meg and Kate took pulls from a fifth of vodka during the show. The band played their big hits from Alligator and Boxer, and, as I expected, closed with Mr. November. Before launching into the final song, Matt Berninger gave a brief intro: “This song is not dedicated to John McCain,” he began. “I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but it’s not, not dedicated to him.” That single song was probably the highlight of the entire festival for me. Matt Berninger screamed into the mic for the song’s anthemic chorus, likely doing permanent damage to his vocal cords. I’ve gotta post this video of the song because I just can’t do it justice with words.

After they finished up the four of us stood around for a while listening to NIN in the distance. I bummed a delicious cigarette from Kate (I’ve quit, for good, as of last Saturday, by the way). We grabbed a beer on the way to see Kanye. It was my first Budweiser ever. It tasted a lot better than it probably was. Meg and I danced along to Kanye for a while before we got tired and left a song or two before the show was over. It was a nice light show, but hip hop concerts are by definition unexciting I think.

After saying goodbye to Meg, I hopped on the trusty blue line and took it out again to Irving Park. Now, starting about the time I saw Chromeo, I really had to take a shit, but I wasn’t about to sit down in one of the festival’s disgusting port-a-potties. Neither station I went through on the blue line had restrooms, and there wasn’t a restroom at the Metra stop either. It’s getting pretty serious at this point, but I still have an hour before the train arrives, so I sit down and wait, keeping an eye on the hoodlums who are also waiting for the train.

The Metra comes right on time. It’s pretty packed, so I sit down at the first seat I find. Sitting down eases the bowels a little. I don’t know how long the ride to Arlington Heights is supposed to be, so I just sit and wait. And wait. I’m not sure if a third “and wait” is truly indicative of the length of time I was on the train, but it sure felt like a long time, so I’ll add it anyway. And wait. Eventually they call out Arlington Heights, so get out of my seat and walk to the door. on my way I pass a bathroom. Of course. I just spent who-knows-how-long trying to hold it in as best I could while all the while I was sitting next to a unisex toilet.

I get off the train at my stop. It seems to be a fairly wealthy, commercial neighborhood, but it’s 12:30am and everything is closed. I feel heavy. I begin the three mile walk back to my hotel. I can feel my insides slosh with each step. I keep my eyes peeled for an open store, but they’re all closed for the night. I think I might burst. I begin looking for a bush I can squat behind. Soon I won’t be able to hold it any longer. Then, a few blocks away, I see God. I can’t make out any features, nothing distinct, just a bright white light. I continue walking forward, and as I move closer, suddenly God’s features become crisp and crystal clear. God’s face is an illuminated 7-11 sign. I waddle across the street, throw open the door, demand the location of the bathroom from the guy stocking the sandwich case, and sprint to the back of the store in the direction he pointed. I lock the door and plop down on the porcelain. And BLAM, it’s instantaneous. I feel pounds lighter in a second. I wait for more to come, but apparently my bladder emptied itself completely the moment I sat down. I wash my hands and buy a Slurpee. If 7-11 had a tip jar, I would have dropped a five. I begin my walk back to the hotel anew. Nothing like clear bowels and a Coca-Cola Slurpee to make a long midnight walk through an unknown neighborhood positively pleasant.

I realize that there’s a young couple dressed in black walking the same direction as me on the other side of the street. I recognize them from the 7-11. They bought bottled water while I poured my Slurpee. They must be other kids from Lolla too cheap for a cab. I feel safer knowing that they’re right across. If something were to happen to me, they would have my back. And I would have theirs. The walk goes surprisingly quickly, about one Okkervil River album. For the first time all weekend I don’t feel defeated and depressed upon arriving back at the Red Roof Inn. Instead, I feel triumphant. I have conquered Chicago, just as I had conquered Barcelona and Paris and Berlin and a host of other European cities. I win. And I was frugal. And the ice machine has even been fixed.

Day Two at Lollapalooza

I woke up feeling pretty good about the upcoming day at Lollapalooza. Before heading off to the festival, I bought 24 hours of T-Mobile wifi time in order to try and figure out the best way to get back to my hotel at night without paying a $23 cab fare. I found a Metra train I could take. It would involve a three mile walk, but I decided I would much rather walk three miles than pay an arm and leg.

I tried to find a grocery store near my hotel in order to pick up a few snacks for the day ahead, but the only two grocers I could find were Korean and Japanese. In searching for a food place I missed my bus, so I ended up waiting over 40 minutes for another bus to show up. Regardless, I still made it to the park much earlier than the day before. I met up with Megan and her siblings Kate and Chris and the four of us soon set out for the MGMT set. Kate, Meg and I left after a few songs, unimpressed and caught a bit of the Booka Shade set at the Citi stage. There we found the most enthusiastic crowd so far.

After that we walked to the other end of the park and took a seat and chilled out during Explosions in the Sky. It was nice to relax and let the ambient post-rock wash over us for a bit after what was already a long day in the sun even though we had only caught a few acts at that point. After Explosions finished, we moved over to the PlayStation stage for Okkervil River, one of my most anticipated sets of the weekend. I had seen them a few months earlier at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, so I knew they could bring it, but I was curious how they would adapt their show from the intimate confines of the Paradiso’s upper room to a giant Grant Park stage. To my relief, they didn’t change much. They again opened up with a rousing rendition of The President’s Dead into (I think) For Real. Will Sheff howled up and down the stage, screaming and spitting into his microphone like a man possessed. And regardless of my own personal preferences, he also delivered the line of the weekend when, introducing a slower ballad, he told the audience: “You have to pretend there are lighters in the air… and not iPhones.” Touché, sir, touché. (Seriously, it seemed like one out of every five phones I saw all weekend was an iPhone, filling me with lust and disgust in equal measure). The band played the highest energy set I saw all weekend, laying everything out on the line. In my mind, these guys put on a show just a notch below the big guys like Arcade Fire and Radiohead. At the end of the show, they had a few extra minutes left, so they launched into Westfall impromptu. I had never heard the song before, but now it’s in heavy rotation on my iPod. Evil don’t look like anything, indeed.

After Okkervil finished up I switched stages again to catch Broken Social Scene. They put on a great show. I kept hoping Feist would magically show up, but no such luck. Amy Milan rocked plenty, though. And they played Shoreline, so I left happy. After grabbing some Whole Foods samples and sitting in the shade for a bit, I made my way to the main stage to grab a spot for Rage Against the Machine. I had spent most of the day trying to decide whether I wanted to see Wilco or Rage, but since I had never listened to Wilco before (even though I have heard uniformly great things about them) and I kind of liked Rage, the choice really wasn’t that hard. I knew the fans would be annoying as fuck, but I still wasn’t quite prepared for the show itself.

During the first song a mosh pit materialized right next to me even though I was pretty far back. Under different circumstances I may have taken part, but not with my pockets filled with expensive gadgets and not not after a long day spent standing in the sun. Mostly it was just irritating. A few songs in Zach de lo Roche stopped mid song to talk to a security guard who had come on stage. After hearing him out, Zach announced to the crowd: “Brothers and sisters, you need to take care of one another.” Apparently the crowd had gotten really rowdy upfront and a few people had gotten crushed or trampled or something. He urged everybody to “please, take five or ten steps back.” The crowd kind of did this, but apparently not well enough because after a few more songs they halted the show again. Zach looked worried on the giant video screens. He knew they would have a riot on their hands if the show was cut short. He again implored the crowd to step back, and told us that the show was not the place for anger, that we needed to take it to the streets, save it for the police and politicians. Nice Zach, encouraging the crowd to rise up against the police, the very people doing their very best to keep the crowd in check. Then the head security guard came on stage to tell the crowd that we had to calm down. The crowd was beginning to get restless. Then the music started up again, and the show was interrupted just once more, briefly, after Guerilla Radio. The show ended with Killing in the Name Of and the crowd began to stream out. I heard reports of minor riots breaking out in the streets, but I didn’t see anything.

I got on my blue line train, ready to take the new way back home and walk the three miles. I got off at Irving Park, where I was supposed to catch the Metra train to Arlington Heights. Unfortunately, I hadn’t checked the Metra schedule, and the stop was deserted except for one guy who looked like the type of guy who might spent all night standing at a train stop. Creeped out and convinced the train had stopped running for the night, I got back on the trusty blue line. This time though, I didn’t get off at the Rosemont stop where I caught the taxi the night before. Thinking I might be able to get a cheaper taxi from O’Hare, I took the train one more stop to the airport.

After winding my way through the bowels of O’Hare, I found the taxis, and after ensuring they would take credit cards, I hopped in. When I told the driver where I wanted to go, he said something to me in broken English. I didn’t understand. He said it again. I asked him to repeat himself. He said it a third time, emphatically. I still didn’t understand, but I said I did. I saw that his cab charged 40 cents less per mile than my cab from the night before. Thinking I was in good shape, I sat down deep in my seat and rested. I began to get worried when I realized that we were retracing roads from the night before. I had thought the airport was closer to the hotel than Rosemont, but that was clearly not the case. Oh well, since this cab was cheaper than the other cab, it would probably come out about the same in the end.

Then we got in line for a toll. Whereas the cabby the previous night had an I-Pass, allowing us to drive straight through, homeboy here had to wait in a long line to pay with cash. The toll only had two booths open, so we sat in traffic for at least ten minutes. I just wanted to get back to the hotel. By the time we pulled into the Red Roof Inn, the fare was a few bucks more than the previous night. Whatever. Then he started making comments about how half of $23 is $16 and add those two together equals $39. Then, all of a sudden, his unintelligible ramblings from the beginning of the ride became clear. For whatever reason, he was charging me time and a half. Fuck. I handed him my credit card and he had a minor fit. I told him the airport attendant assured me I would be able to pay with my card. He grumbles a bit that, yes, I can pay by card, but that his cart reader is broken so he’ll have to fill it out by hand. He pulls a slip of paper from the glove box and stares intently at the numbers on my card. He can’t see for shit, so I ask if he wants me to fill it out for him. He says yes, so I take the slip of paper and the card from him and pull out my Abraxas pen from my pocket and write down my CC number on the slip. I hand it back to him. “If this isn’t right,” he says, “forget about it, man.” He looks it over. Apparently it seems all right to him. I get out of the cab. I don’t tip him, either. I get online and order a pizza from Papa John’s. When the pizza guy hands me a receipt to sign, I realize that somehow the cabby stole my pen. I’m pissed again. I eat half the pizza while watching some shitty movie on HBO before falling asleep.

A Mess

So I had another bike accident today. If nothing else, I’m pleased? to report that I wasn’t in any way under the influence this time.

This comes about four days after I finally got my bike fixed after the last accident. Today’s meeting with the pavement occurred as I was riding with Will to the Electric Fetus, a record store in Minneapolis. We were on our way there and I was wearing Bloc Party hoody and my messenger bag. About half the way there I decided I didn’t want to be wearing BP hoody anymore, so I began to take it off whilst continuing to ride. I removed the jacket without incident, but as I was working to stuff it into by bag, I lost my balance somehow. I didn’t get my hands out in time, so I banged up my chin a bit and cut my bottom lip. Also, I reopened the very nice scab left over from the first crash.

The front wheel got bent a bit and my handlebars became unaligned, but my bike seemed okay after getting the chain back on. Unfortunately, I had just put lube on the chain, so it was really greasy and my hands got gross. We continued on to the Fetus, where I think I got some weird looks because of my red chin and blood soaked shirt sleeve. I bought tickets for of Montreal and the Hold Steady, then we biked back home. After crossing the river back into St. Paul I began to notice that my back tire was getting really flat, but I pushed on and made it back home after a lot of effort.

Did I mention that I ran into a tree over the weekend?

I think somebody is trying to tell me something. My guess? They’re saying I never should have left Amsterdam. Didn’t have any bike accidents in Amsterdam.