Empty Blog Of Nothing, Yo

My First Mug, A Coffee Experience

2012-02-07T20:26:00.009-06:00

This was my first coffee mug.

I purchased it through the annual pledge drive for my brother's community radio station. Previous year's swag had been long sleeve t-shirts or sweatshirts. I had just started regularly drinking coffee when i acquired it, driven there for several reasons. One, i discovered i had come around on the taste after quite a few years of rapidly expanding my consumption of strong, dark beer. Two, i found out that, like beer, there are significant quality differences in the type of coffee available to drink. I thought everything was garbage Folgers or something similar - I was terribly naive. Three...well the third reason is that I wasn't sleeping enough, I was often awfully tired, and I got over my belief that i was somehow "superior" to people who needed coffee to function in the morning. I was happy to find a reason to turn to caffeine in the morning.

This was a curious mug. It features a cow that has just been branded with the KBUT call letters, and there are steam lines rising from the hide. They don't appear to be steam lines, it just makes the cow look stinky. It was a strange size, not small enough to be a one cup mug you drink in your kitchen and offer coffee in to your visitors, and not the larger size of a travel mug carrying several servings and keeping the heat. I realized when I would visit Knockbox Cafe, using my cowmug for their bottomless coffee, that i was not getting as much coffee as the other patrons. I apologized to my cowmug, and I stopped taking it along to Knockbox despite the staff there being fans of the curious cowmug.

I visited my brother's apartment in colorado, and i took my mug with me. At the Golden, CO coffeeshop that he visits they asked why i was drinking out of his mug. I would ski in Breckenridge with my father, and our cowmugs would rinse & dry in the kitchen sink next to each other. Taking my mug on a visit to my younger brother for its homecoming further up into the mountains, he poured his french press brew into our matching vessels. United by name, united by blood, united by mugs.

The mug is ceramic, with a rubber lid that doesn't seem like it will safely seal the coffee from spilling. It seals well. The ceramic material alarms TSA agents at the airport, and multiple times my backpack has been chosen for inspection due to the presence of my cowmug. They chuckle at the illustration and send me on my non-threatening, now-delayed, way.

My dad, who has an excel spreadsheet detailing every drive and putt and hole and round of golf he has played for the last 10 years, always said, "drink it black, because it will save you an immeasurable amount of time in preparation over the course of your life." Or something like that.

In the year since purchasing my mug with a charitable donation I became a lover of coffee. I quickly grew away from the overpowering strength offered in the Einstein Brother's neighborhood blends. The scent of a Dunkin Donuts coffee may be pleasant in the air, it's not something I seek out. I try to support my local businesses, and chicago-based coffee companies have gained a solid foothold of my budget. My fine neighbors at Star Lounge offer something different and delicious nearly every morning, and has generally become my first stop on weekday mornings.

When my younger brother visited once years ago, i borrowed (permanently) an instant coffeemaker from a coworker for the week. I was not yet a java colleague but wanted to be accommodating. That coffeemaker was "lost" during my last move, pre-conversion. At a recent company holiday raffle, i spent all of my entry tickets on the coffeemaker, still not owning one after finally committing to the bean. I lost. The next day I bought a french press. That evening I made my first cup at home, and I enjoyed it in the curiously stinky KBUT cowmug.

I enjoyed my weekend cups brewed at home for the next several weeks before making another holy pilgrimage to the Rockies this past weekend. The brothers, dad and I watched the Superbowl together with nonstop eating and a verticle tasting of Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot Barleywine. We did not share coffee, and to my knowledge our four cowmugs have never joined in a toast.
They never will.

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2011-01-31T23:34:00.000-06:00

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2010-12-08T21:59:00.002-06:00

Sunday Mornin', Fryin' Chicken

2010-11-26T20:50:00.005-06:00

We jump right into the 4th Annual Thanksgiving Road Trip Mix Contest.
Rules: My brother and I submit 16 tracks to my older brother to be randomly mixed onto two CDs, and we listen to these 32 songs on the annual family car ride from Indianpolis to Columbus, OH. Our mother ranks every song on a scale of 0-5 (5 being highest). Until the end of the challenge Mom & Dad don't know who chose each song. Highest Average Wins
2 wildcard rules this year:
* 1 Song is scored inversely (mom doesn't know ahead of time). So G and I will submit songs that follow the general theme of songs we choose, but suspecting Mom will score them low. Must be in the spirit of the competition, like I couldn't submit a DMX song.
* 1 Song is a throwaway song - Mom will score it, but it doesn't get added to the final scores. Just a way for us to pick something random and put it on the mix.

Mom's comments in italics
K or G indicates who submitted the song

1. "If She Doesn't Smile" - Fantastic Something - 5 - K
I liked that song! Anything else? I liked that song!
Definitely the first time track one scored a 5. We thought mom was going to be generous this year.

2. "The Birds Were Singing With All Their Might" - Love Is All - 3 - K's Inverse Song, scored as a 2
Just when I thought there were not going to be any words, words came. I didn't particularly like the voice of the singer.

3. "Up From Below" - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - 3 - G
It grew on me after awhile

4. "Devil Knows You're Dead" - Delta Spirit - 4 - K
It sounded like Willie Nelson. Was it? Do you agree it sounds like Willie Nelson?

5. "I Need A Dollar" - Aloe Blacc - 3.5 - K
Did he say dollar? I'm not sure why he needed my dollar.

6. "Unstoppable" - Foxy Shazam - 2.5 - K
That was a very good pasodoble song. It started out angry, but it grew on me.

7. "Firecracker" - Frazey Ford - 2 - G
Not my favorite. I liked the music better than the singer's voice.

8. "A Long Way From Home" - My Cousin, The Emperor - 3 - G
We have more country songs this year. I like the beat, it would've been a good jive song.

9. "Ain't Waitin'" - Justin Townes Earle - 3 - K
Another country song. I liked that one, it was short. I was surprised it was that short. It had a good beat.

10. "You Make Me Blue" - The Living Sisters - 4.5 - K
I liked that song, and I think Grant picked it.

11. "Pumped Up Kicks" - Foster The People - 3 - G's Throwaway Song
That grew on me. At first I didn't like the weirdo voice, but I liked the music and beat even though I didn't understand the words.

12. "Love Is A Dirty Word" - Jason Collett - 2.5 - G
I don't know what to say. I thought it started out good, then I didn't like the singer, then it got better. It was average.

13. "Fruitcake" - The Superions - 3.5 - K's Throwaway Song
By the end I was singing along and I knew the words! Extra 0.5 for the comedic value.
Dad: Good song, Kyle.

14. "For The Price Of A Cup Of Tea" - Belle & Sebastian - 3 - G
Good beat, good music.

15. "She Needs Me" - Fyfe Dangerfield - 3.5 - K
Again, good beat, good music.

16. "Something, Somewhere, Sometime" - Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore - 3 - G
It ended abruptly and surprised me. I liked the music and words.

Disc 2

17. "Take Off Your Sunglasses" - Ezra Furman and the Harpoons - 3 - G
I liked the music and words. I don't like it when guys try to sing high and can't really do it. ::followed by a demonstration of this:: I did know the words by the end of the song, though.

18. "Take Care" - Beach House - 2.5 - K
Too repetitive, too slow, two-and-a-half.

19. "If Loneliness Was Art" - Allo Darlin' - 3.5 - K
I liked the chorus especially well. Three...no! 3.5

20. "The Ills" - Mayer Hawthorne - 4 - G
That sounded like a motown song!

21. "Last Leaf" - OK GO - 3 - K
I liked the music, but I didn't like where he sang "if it takes FUR-ever", I didn't like that.

22. "Breakin' The Chains Of Love" - Fitz & The Tantrums - 4 - G
Good beat, words, rhythm, excellent musicality!

23. "Ma Che Freddo Fa" - Nada - 3 - K
This was hard to sing along with because I couldn't understand the words. I really liked the music though. Who sang that?
K: some Italian woman who is probably dead. (Wikipedia says NO, Nada was born in 1953 and is very much still alive.

24. "The Underdog" - Spoon - 5 - G
That was Billy Joel-esque!

25. "Wasted Hours" - Arcade Fire - 3 - K
I don't like it too much when the tempo changes in the middle of the song. You know when he's going "do-do-do-do" and then it's slower talking.

26. "Give It Back" - Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - 4.5 - G
Motown-ish, good beat, rhythm, excellent musicality.

27. "Release me From Love" - Consequences - 4.5 - K
I enjoyed this song, the words and the music.

28. "Shadowcasting" - Ra Ra Riot - 4 - G
This had easy to understand words, and good music/beat.

29. "No, My Heart Will Go On" - Gigi - 4 - G
yes, a 4!

30. "Glitter" - No Age - 2 - G's Inverse Song, scored as a 3
The screechy noises I didn't like. The music also overwhelmed the words.

31. "Searchlight" - Aloha - 3 - K
Ho-hum. The beat reminded me of something else, but I can't think of what it was.

32. "Shine On" - The Airwaves - 2.5 - G
There was no time for a comment on this, as Adam in the backseat was busy alerting us that after the last 2 scores we ended up with a tie. A TIE?!

Somehow we had never considered that this might happen. Rather than set tiebreaker rules after the fact we just agreed on the tie. Maybe if we had a way to hook our ipods up to the car stereo we could've had a sudden-death song-off. We'll consider that for next year.

Final comments from Mom:
"Fruitcake" was the most memorable song. It was definitely more "country-ish" this year. There were no dirges,, and overall she thought we did a better job this year.

Once again, Grant does not have to create a trophy because technically he hasn't lost yet. Also, there were no instances where both of us chose the same song this year, which was a bit surprising.

When I get a chance I'll post links to download the entire mixes.

11th

2010-11-06T10:26:00.002-05:00

Kyle shouts at the sky, angrily shaking his fist, as if the months of the year were manifested in the heavens and feelings of disdain could be directed at them, “November!”

And Now For Something Completely Different

2010-09-09T20:52:00.003-05:00

Where I suffer for your entertainment. A coworker, with whom I occassionally engage in debate regarding the output of various pop-music starlets (a favorite is the "Rihanna vs Britney" argument), challenged me to listen to the new Katy Perry album, "Teenage Dream". Here goes, track by track.

1. "Teenage Dream" - the first, and title, track on this album full of lackluster vocal prowess and halfed-assery in the studio. When Katy makes an attempt at singing I can handle this, the song is fine until you get to the :51 second mark, where Katy and her handlers decide she'll just forcefully belt out one- and two-syllable words in between what should be a much better beat. This song doesn't do much for me...until she decides to actually sing again. The "i'mma get your heart racing in my skintight jeans..." umptempo bit is by far the best part of the song, and only appears twice, covering probably 20 seconds of the nearly four minute running time on this one. There's a monster-pop hit in here somewhere, and it's missed. Surprised they let this one get radio-play so quickly while California Gurls was exhibiting staying power.

2. "Last Friday Night" - The autotune vocal effects on this song are complete garbage (they appear during what the CD booklet refers to as the Pre-Chorus)...but once the real chorus starts, again, it's possible to find a catchy track in here. The opposite of the previous song, Katy's singing bits are the awful sections on this one and her more casual speaking sections carry the song. 2/3 of the way through you get a beat buildup and the crowd chant-along, begging for a producer/remixer to invest more time on this track than Dr. Luke and Max Martin appear to have spent. One of them slipped on the banana-peel effect button a few times too many in post-production and just gave up.

3. "California Gurls" - should've been a Snoop song feat Katy Perry instead of the other way 'round. Give the Dogfather another verse or two and drop Katy's wailing.

4. "Firework" - When, exactly, is the Firework expected to go off in this song? Get some real instruments in the studio, build a guitar riff, and drop the hollow synth noises. We get what sounds like a sample of the Coldplay string section instead of the bombast we're expecting based on the buildup. Once the "power" part hits, it lasts for maybe 10 seconds, and lacks the punch you'd get from a superior artist like Kelly Clarkson. Producers! Turn the volume up.

5. "Peacock" - This is a rubbish attempt at a Fergie song, which is ill-advised to begin with. Also, Katy namechecks Mystery, yet gives the cold shoulder to Matador and J-Dogg? Really hate the Venga Boy beat here.

6. "Circle The Drain" - another song shouting out for real musicians to play real instruments in a real studio. Katy echoes Billy Joel's "ack-ack-ack-ack" and sings her own terrible echoing. For a song about abandoning someone due to their drug abuse it sure makes me want to abuse drugs. Hilarious attempted drum solo as the song comes down from it's high.

7. "The One That Got Away" - Honestly, this is the best song on the album, and it begs for someone with real vocal chords to belt it out. Rewrite the first verse, get a killer guitar riff (again, see: Kelly Clarkson), give it to one of the talented kids graduating from American Idol, and you've got an actual hit. In Katy's hands, it's middle-album slow down filler. Hearing her attempt to sing the "whoa-oa-oa-oa"s live without a backing track would be torture.

8. "E.T." - No one should ever cram all of the T's and R's of the word "Extraterrestrial" into a chorus. I suggest replacing it with "Gastrointestinal"

9. "Who Am I Living For?" - Where Katy sings over terrible synths and beats, pretends to be Rihanna in parts, and in other parts just tries to sing words as loud as she can. Zzzzzz. I think this might be a 'message' song. The message is "get this crappy album released quickly while people still remember how great 'Hot N Cold' was!"

10. "Pearl" - I don't think I can do this anymore.

11. "Hummingbird Heartbeat" - Ugh. This one is about the birds and the bees. I'm done here.

12. "Not Like The Movies" - I'm sure it isn't. i didn't bother listening to it.

Never Again, this was a terrible idea. How much did the producers on this album get paid?

A rash of absent-mindedness

2010-06-11T20:03:00.002-05:00

Yesterday evening I freaked out a little bit -- I opened up my wallet and noticed my debit card wasn't there. Having recently lost my iPhone this was cause for alarm. I quickly checked my pockets to see if I had misplaced it. Seconds later my $40 withdrawal came out and I remembered I was standing at the ATM...my card was in the machine.

Living "off the grid", sotospeak, after losing one's iPhone has the potential to be liberating. There's only one phone call I am compelled to make weekly, and my parents seem to be surviving so far without hearing my voice the last 2 sundays. I think I'll keep this up for the forseeable future, as my iPhone connectivity addiction was probably becoming bothersome to others.

Maybe in my pretend old age I'm discovering that some things do deserve moderation.

One Moment, of Many (Blackhawks v Sharks, Game 4)

2010-05-24T19:59:00.004-05:00

Rick, Internet Celebrity Baumer, and I were in standing room only at center ice yesterday. Of the many many incredible moments, one of my favorites:

The official review of Seabrook's goal and whether it crossed the line or not. While the official was checking the camera angles, the tvs or jumbotron took forever to show the first replay. Like, a good 25-30 seconds that seemed like minutes. Eventually the graphic for "play under review" gives way to the slo mo instant replays and anticipation washes over the crowd. We see 2 views that don't give us anything definitive. finally, on the 3rd angle, it's clear to us that the puck just barely crossed the line. The place cheers loudly, hoping the powers that be see the same things we saw. The UC is it's usual loud self.

The review goes on. There's a noisy buzz in the air.

The official backs away from the glass. The noisy buzz turns into hushed murmuring, however amplified by volume.

The official opens his mouth to speak; time stops in the united center. extreme suspended animation takes over and hearts stop beating. In movies there's that moment where things move in slow motion, the only sound is silence. If it's possible to register negative decibels, we achieved it. Nothing moves but one man's mouth. He is standing in the center of the arena, the intense focal point of 22,000+. The very definition of rapt. He tells us the entire puck crossed the line.

...

An eruption of emotion and 22,000 roars immediately follow. Cue the Dagger, however delayed it may have been. Delirium overtakes us. Commence with the dancing!

...

Many many hours later, I high-fived Niklas Hjalmarsson at a bar.

Yeah? Well Now This Is Happening.

2010-05-17T22:20:00.006-05:00

30 years ago today, on May 18th, 1980, Mount Saint Helens erupted in Skamania County, Washington, killing 57 people, and Ian Curtis committed suicide in Macclesfield, England, killing, well, 1 person.

Of course, I don't recall either of these things. I turned 2 that day.

My fifteenth birthday is immortalized (probably not the correct word) by this bizarre song from Randan Discotheque released on August 31st (across the pond...I doubt it ever saw the light of day here in the states). It's pretty much an entire song recapping everything that was included in the Daily Record on May 18th, 1993. I suppose this technically makes the song about May 17th, 1993.

May 18th, 2010, LCD Soundsystem, led by Mixed Martial Artist James Murphy, releases their new album This Is Happening.

I'm sure the album, and the live show next Wednesday I'll be attending, will be fantastic. But in the meantime, all I can think about is, "yeah? well now this is happening."

Done With Fish

2010-04-24T08:50:00.004-05:00

On Monday Rick and I ran the Boston Marathon. With considerably less conviction, and replacing "fish" with "marathons", John Laroche sums up our general feeling on marathons for the time being with this (vulgarity laced) clip from a truly great film, Adaptation.

Going into Boston I knew my training was somewhat lackluster compared to what I put together for Chicago in the fall. Ultimately, due to a crisis in confidence of my fitness pre-race, my goal became to finish the marathon without injuring myself. I went by the half in 1:40:00 and that felt perfectly fine. But the first half always does.

Running through Wellesley just prior to the halfway mark, I hugged and kissed about 15 Wellesley girls on the cheek. This was clearly where I first officially abandoned any time goal that was lingering in the back of my mind.

I pulled up my 5k splits post-race, and this offers a comprehensive recap:

24:51 (included a quick bathroom stop) – 8 min pace

23:15 – 7:30 pace

23:21 – 7:31 pace

23:39 – 7:37 pace

25:48 (a second, longer bathroom stop) – 8:19 pace

27:38 – 8:54 pace - probably when I first took some walking & stretching breaks, and around when I decided since I didn't have a time goal it was going to be difficult to push myself to the brink. so I started to slow down and enjoy things a bit more.

30:21 – 9:47 pace - included a walk up heartbreak hill

37:55 – 12:13 pace - where i sat down on a curb and had a few glasses of water while watching runners go by, did more walking & stretching, ate a pretzel stick and a reese's peanut butter cup. someone offered me a drink of their miller lite. had it been a better beer I might've taken a drink.

the last 1.4 was in 15:11, and this included me stopping to talk to my friends for a few minutes, including one of them going into the bar to get me a glass of water. I drank half of it and poured the rest over my head, which felt great.

I’ve definitely been more sore after a marathon, but based on training I was more unprepared for this one, so that’s taken its toll. I’ll estimate at least 15 to 20 minutes of my 3:51 wasn’t spent running (walking, standing, sitting, hugging). I cannot comprehend at all what it must be like to run an entire marathon in over 4 hours, those runners have my utmost respect. The amount of time they are on the marathon course wrangling back demons and fighting the good fight is unfathomable to me. Cheers to them.

I've had 2 very large cheeseburgers since the marathon (one of them the Plague Bringer from Kuma's). Both of my quads were very sore. My right hamstring was tight as well for the first 2 days, and from time to time I noticed my shins are sore and my lower back hurts a bit. None of this pain is out of the ordinary, and it's all muscle pain. My feet, ankles, knees & hips all feel fine.

I sent much of this to my dad and he replied, “I think you’re just getting old.”

By Thursday I felt well enough to play in a softball doubleheader, where (between game 1 last week and the top half of the back-to-backs) I may have set the Chicago Coed Rec Softball League Record for most batters struck out in the first 2 games of a season. Really, people, I'm not throwing Danny Almonte-level filth here, it's just softball. Put it in play already.

Elsewhere, Halljams also ran Boston on Monday and has a short recap. Our good friend Robert is running the London Marathon on Sunday (tomorrow if you're reading this as of this writing), and after spending much of the winter dealing with a stress fracture has put himself into a position to shoot for a 2:45 marathon. Except now he's had to deal with the eruption of that Volcano with all the vowels, and the heat in London is going to be quite a bit higher than what would be ideal. Best of luck, Robert!

The Weight

2010-03-10T07:43:00.004-06:00

Okay, this is 20 minutes long but you should take some time out of your busy busy day to watch it anyway. I fully support the idea of educating our children (well, not ours, you & I don't have any kids. "ours", collectively) on diet, nutrition, and basic cooking skills. Why wouldn't anyone support this? I've read comments about people complaining he has some of his facts not completely accurate. Who cares? Kids are fat and unhealthy. Fix that.

While you're at it, go download the TED (technology, entertainment, design) app for your iPhone or whatever super-mobile device you're carrying around. Watch the videos. Be intrigued. Learn.

Unrelated: EBONY/The 907 survived New Orleans. Some might say New Orleans survived us. Half-marathon & bars in the French Quarter in the books. Next stop: Boston Marathon, 6 weeks from 2 days ago.

Revisiting Birthdays of the Utmost Significance

2010-02-16T08:06:00.004-06:00

Haven't posted in a while...mostly because I was on vacation in the mountains for a week and a half and work was insanely busy pre- and post-vacation. I'll try to get back to it soon.

As an offering, here's a reposting from 2/12/09, where Rick and I celebrating Darwin & Lincoln's birthdays, and came up with the other 12 most influential historical figures of the previous 200 years (in the eyes of EBONY and in the spirit of our mission).
This post also marks a time when we actually posted about the bar-hopping immediately after getting home. Ha! Remember those days?

Original Link

Top 12:
Our Thursday night outing took on a celebratory note this week -- milestone birthdays for Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. If you can't raise a pint to honor these two, well then what good are you? In their honour Rick and I had one incredibly productive Thursday night.

His moniker is Honest Abe, what else do you need? The man is idolized in Illinois and is still a style icon to this day. When you see someone wearing a stove-top hat or sporting the Amish beard, the first reference that comes to mind is this guy. In the words of Sufjan Stevens, "Stephen A. Douglas was the great debater, but Abraham Lincoln was the great emancipator."

Charles Darwin…talk about not being afraid to think outside the box. A hearty 200th birthday to the man behind what is known simply as "The Theory". Months ago Roger Ebert published a journal entry praising the Theory of Evolution and set off a comment war on his webpage. Today he sarcastically tips his hat to those fools with the line, "This is a grand celebration for a man whose Theory of Evolution promoted atheism, inspired Hitler's genocides, and thinks your grandfather was a monkey." Please go read either his original entry HERE or his updated post from today HERE.

We honor Daniel Burnham for setting down the blueprint of our beloved city. I only wish his wisdom were reincarnated and quickly siphoned into City Hall, Chicago Police Department, Chicago School District, the CTA, and all other administrative offices within Cook County. While we're at it lets cut the number of Alderman in half, too.

Jure Robic is the physical everyman of endurance sports. He has no inherent physiological traits that would make him superior to his competitors, it simply comes down to his capacity to mentally separate his muscles from his mind. Robic can push himself past most recognized points of human exhaustion, providing researchers with windows into the link between mental imbalance and physical performance, a relationship embraced by EBONY.

When you think of Milwaukee, the first thing you think of is beer (or in Ricky's case, the Moscow of USA), and not just any beer, but Pabst. In lieu of our journey this year, we salute Frederick Pabst for taking over Phillip Best's (famously or unfamously known for marrying his own daughter) microbrewery and turning it in to the object of our affection.

Justin O. Schmidt suffers for science. If you can't develop a reliable test subject for your wizardry, by all means volunteer yourself. An ethos at the core of the EmptyBlogOfNothing.

Martin Luther King, Jr, a man with a vision of life, an unparalleled faith in humanity, and the fearlessness to speak loudly about it. Religious overtones or not, he's the keynote speaker at our table of 12.

When EBONY finally finishes the screenplay we've been working on for 2 years James Murphy will be tasked with crafting the soundtrack. He's the puppet master in his own play, an underrated wordsmith and a magician behind the boards. Read all the pamphlets, and watch the tapes.

Unless you want mini versions of yourself running around the floor, we all owe a vow of thanks to Margaret Sanger. Her controversial work in the early 1900s has curbed our country from looking like India in terms of population.

From Bottle Rocket to The Royal Tenenbaums (which we both think is the movie we have seen the most of any ever made) to The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson has provided us with a unique perspective which delicately mixes poignancy and dry humor. He has also given EBONY one of our favorite movie quotes of "I know you asshole." Plus he is the only director to get Natalie Portman to take her clothes off on screen -- bravo to you, Wes.

Paavo Nurmi...The Flying Finn could possibly go down as the greatest Olympian ever. In the 1924 games, Paavo won 5 gold medals in the 1500, 5k (on only 26 minutes of rest, in which he broke the world record), 3k, and both cross country events. At one point he held every world record in events between the 1500 and 20k. This man knew dominance and held the running world in check during his prime.

And lastly, Geronimo. Geronimo was generally a badass and he defended his tribe against American and Mexican pressures. He holds the perseverance and womanizing skills (he had wives with names ranging from Azul to Chee-hash-kisk to Ih-tedda to She-gha) that we admire.

Honoroable Mention, but not quite making the cut: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Spencer Pratt, Belinda Carlisle and ALF.

So Quiet...

2010-01-23T13:56:00.009-06:00

So, we actually missed a bar in the recap...Elbo Room, #172. This was on a random wednesday or thursday night (I could look it up, but I don't care to right now).
Our plan was to eat fast food Mexican, hit up the Ole Lounge for a very quick drink (our 2nd attempt at going here), then head up the street to the Elbo Room to be entertained with Open Mic night.
Well, step 1 check. Tortas:

Rick and I then head over to the Ole Lounge. The door on Diversey is locked. The door on Lincoln is locked. Bollocks.
So we went across the street for our second ever visit to Patsy's Place, and we watched some of the Oregon Civil War college football game. Remember when that game was? That was forever ago. That's how long it has taken me to write these terrible recaps.
So after a couple of drinks at Patsy's we head back across the street to Elbo Room, finding the doors unlocked this time - it's probably 8:15...their website says they open at 7. Their website is wrong. Back to the story - the doors are unlocked and we walk in. A guy and a girl are there sitting at the bar together, and we approach as if to order drinks. The guy says, "You guys here for the interview?"
us: No.
him: Oh, you'll have to come back later, we're not open.

Screw this place.
We head on up to The Elbo Room, #172, a local music venue. They used to have the Grolsch pop-top bottles here. I order a couple. They don't have them any longer. The Elbo Room has a stage in the basement, the upstairs is fairly loungey and is advertising an "open mic night" starting at 9pm. The place is empty except for us and a few band members who will be playing later tonight entering and exiting the main room repeatedly. It's freezing outside, a good bar would be crowded right now with people seeking shelter from the cold.

While we wait for something to happen (nothing happens), we note that on the outside it's The Elbo Room, and on the inside it's The Elbow Room. Curious.

Back to waiting around for something to happen...
A handful of what must be close friends of the band about to play downstairs show up. Upstairs there's a tv feed of the band playing downstairs. If they gave out awards to bands who played to empty rooms, well this band would be on the list of bands eligible for those awards.
Upstairs a guy shows up and asks Rick and I if we're here to perform in the Open Mic night, and tells us there's a list to sign up by the microphone. An older man asks him when the open mic night starts. It's 9:05. The website said 9:00. The guy says, I don't know, 10:30?
We finish our beers and walk home. In the cold.

Coming very soon: Kyle and Craig discuss the inevitable downfall of Dubai due to their lack of a middle class. (Bars 177 through The End)

Aint Gonna Save Me

2010-01-15T12:24:00.004-06:00

We're going to Quenchers on Sunday to kick-off the much less ambitious version of EBONY 2010 -- "Bars in Chicago outside of the Mile Radius We Want To Visit for One Reason or Another, and These Reasons Will Be Explain when We Post About Those Bars". (aka BICOOTMRWWTVFOROAATRWBEWWPATB)
Anyway, Quenchers is having a Stout-fest. We'll drink a lot of Stouts.

I promise before next Tuesday that I will write the final two bar recap entries, and by the end of next week you'll also have the final friends rankings posted, and possibly even the Quenchers recap.

Internet Diversions:
*Black & WTF - a fantastic photoblog featuring only old black and white photos that are incredibly WTF.

*Letters from a grown man pretending to be a child, writing letters to famous people (several of them incarcerated), asking for advice. Also following up on their responses many years later -- Charles Manson, Richard Rodriguez, Alan Greenspan, and my favorite response from Clarence Thomas

Lastly, "The flying V never looked more at home than in his hands" - Sly Larkin

RIP Jay Reatard

Political Coverage Take 1: Senate

2010-01-06T15:52:00.008-06:00

My lack of posts recently is a pure mix of laziness and fatigue from our 2009 adventure. For many of the bars at the end, it was difficult enough to get my foot out the door, let alone writing a recap in the days to follow. I plan to pull my weight through 2010 in a different angle to 2009. We may see less writing on bars/drinking excursions (as we have an exclusive list of bars for 2010), than say current event commentary on my part.

This first installment will center on the upcoming elections for us Chicagoans. The expressed views are solely those of my own and do not necessarily reflect everyone associated with EBONY. The 2010 off-cycle primaries offer all the major political seats up for grabs. The most heated and important open positions are those for Senator, Governor, and President of Cook County. We also have other critical openings for Congress, Lt. Governor (thanks to our recent impeachment), Comptroller, Treasurer, along with the numerous less significant seats that I don’t have time to do any research for. Open your calendars as the primary vote is on February 2nd, while early voting begins on January 11th. I also recommend checking out the Chicago Tribunes coverage of each candidate.

SENATE

This is arguably the most important open position, so do your research kids. Thankfully the time for our embarrassment of a senator in Roland Burris is finally over, and we Illinoisans actually have a say in who represents us. Senate elections across the country have an added importance as the Democratic party currently has the magic number of 60 seats to block any filibuster. In my brief voting eligible years, I have voted Democratic more than Republican, but I do believe it is bad for one party to have a major control in the senate or hourse. The Republicans are looking at a strong likelihood to gain 1-3 seats after this whole election cycle is over, especially with the difficulty for the Democrats to keep North Dakota and Delaware, while Nevada, Colorado, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania can be complete toss-ups. A Republican takeover of the Illinois seat also has a decent likelihood. No matter what though, none of these seats will be officially filled until after the general election in November, so until then, the D’s are still holding the magic number for another year (unless of course Scott Brown pulls the upset in the Massachusetts special election, wouldn’t that put an interesting twist on the revised healthcare vote?).

As far as Illinois, everyone out there needs to tune in to ABC next Tuesday the 12th for the first televised debate. On the Democratic side it is a battle between Alexi Giannoulias, David Hoffman, and Cheryle Jackson. In recent polls (these need to be taken with a grain of salt, as primary polls, especially in off-cycle elections carry a large variability) Alexi is the favorite to get on the D ticket. I am very troubled and confused about his popularity. Through Alexi’s young life he has only held two jobs – taking over his family’s bank and being the current Illinois treasurer – and has failed/bankrupted both. I encourage every voter to read The Reader’s investigative reporting on Alexi’s albatross with Broadway Bank. And if that wasn’t bad enough, look at the economic shambles our state has recently suffered. Now yes, I realize that everyone has suffered the last 2 years with the economic landslide, so you can’t completely blame Alexi. But you can and should but blame on him for his lack of responsibility and transparency of his mismanagement of the Bright Star Program. This program allows families across the state to invest now and then use their future pot to pay for their children’s college education completely tax-free. Tens of thousands of families across Illinois take advantage of this program. It was Alexi’s responsibility to make sure these investments carried minimal risk (as we are looking at the long-term success) for the families involved. Unfortunately for the 65,000 families who invested in this program, they now only have 50 cents on the dollar of their investment. The Giannoulias campaign admitted a month ago that they made bad investments and lost over $85M, but reassured the people that they were suing Oppenheimer to recover $77M of that for a net loss of only $8M. The only problem was that the Giannoulias campaign lied about the $85M figure and recent research uncovered shows that they actually lost $150M! To top it off, Alexi is using his near limitless war chest to paint a positive picture of this fiasco in that he is standing up for Illinoisans by suing Oppenheimer. Somehow he forgot to mention that is was his responsibility to choose the risky investments and that the $77M coming back is not even half of what was put in. This was released 2 weeks ago, and the Giannoulias campaign has yet to say one peep about it. From a political standpoint, I don’t blame him. The only reason he is leading on polls is because of name recognition, so they feel it is easier to brush this under the rug and ignore it completely. I challenge anyone from Alexi’s campaign to apologize and explain this mishap. And yet, even with this giant black cloud over Alexi’s head, I still haven’t touched on his suspicious ties to those in the Daley Machine. The last thing we need right now is another financially irresponsible crooked politician.

Jackson and Hoffman are running neck-and-neck on the podium for second place. I personally endorse David Hoffman for senate. I have nothing against Jackson, but I honestly believe that Hoffman is the best candidate out there. I may not agree with all his policies, but I think he is the right man for the job (a la Obama). My personal belief with electing political officials is that I want the most intelligent person representing me. If you are going to hold one of the important jobs in politics, I want you to be in the 95th percentile. This includes IQ, but more importantly I want someone who has willingly showed that he/she will look at both sides of the debate in a fair manor before coming to a conclusion. I am sick of Democrats who only vote for liberal policies and Republicans who only vote on the conservative end of the spectrum. We need politicians down the middle. I believe David Hoffman best holds this criteria and that is why he has my support. I also strongly believe that we need a reformer in DC, and with Hoffman’s background as the Inspector General of Chicago (basically this means he is Daley’s public enemy #1), he is a perfect match. With him being the whistleblower on getting financially hosed in the parking meter privatization deal, he has earned a +1. Hoffman also has the endorsement of Paul Vallas, which may not have the political pull it did 4 years ago; it still is the biggest endorsement any of the candidates have received. The one redeeming factor in having Hoffman lose is that he would most likely be Daley’s biggest challenge in the mayoral election next year, with presumably increased name recognition after this run.

On the Republican side the only real candidate to speak of is Mark Kirk. As long as the recent low-blow and homophobic attacks by Andy Martin (if he hasn’t changed his name again) doesn’t coagulate the conservative base, Kirk should win in a landslide. When Kirk first made his intentions to run for senate, I had high hopes for the socially liberal centrist-republican from the very liberal congressional district in the North Shore. I find him to be a very intelligent individual who sometimes makes some really stupid decisions. He has also decided to take a page out of John McCain’s playbook and flip-flop on some of his liberal leaning objectives to get his base on his side. I’m not sure it makes a difference to the true conservatives in the state as Pat Brady, the Illinois Republican Party Chairmen isn’t even a fan of him. If the R party was smart, they would realize their only chance to win this election is if they pooled all their resources in to Kirk’s campaign. Yet somehow this eludes too many conservatives who refuse to vote for anyone who is pro choice. Being stubborn is not a virtue folks. If it comes down to an Alexi vs. Kirk in the finale, I have no qualms voting for the Republican ticket on this one.

This ended up being a longer post that I originally intended, so my thoughts and feelings on the Governor and Cook County Board President elections will have to come in the near future.

Delia's Gone, One More Round, Delia's Gone

2010-01-04T12:41:00.003-06:00

While you await us putting an end to this period of Holiday-time vacation we’ve taken from updating our Quest (we finished, by the way…posts forthcoming), I’ll just write some random reflections on one of the most interesting resolutions I’ve ever managed to keep for an entire year.

• Over the holiday I told many people that “I’m tired of going to bars.” That’s not entirely true. I’m tired of going to bars that I’m *required* to attend. Several of the last places we visited were venues we held off on going to simply because we didn’t actually want to go there. Our last weekend of bar hopping has been dubbed “The Garbage Weekend” due to the general strangeness of most places we had a drink.
• Our 2010 plans for the Empty Blog of Nothing will be “officially” announced soon. They’re not nearly as ambitious as we were in 2009. Honestly, our 2009 goal at times seemed like one of the worst ideas I’ve ever tried to carry out.
• As proof that I haven’t tired of going to bars…I’ve been to 4 already in 2010. Yikes.
• We will, however, try to keep posting semi-regularly, and hopefully about things that you readers will find interesting. Like, we’re both running the Boston Marathon in April, so maybe there will be training updates. We both go to a lot of concerts (I saw 87 bands in ’09), so maybe we’ll check in from time to time on what we’re listening to. We’ll still write about evenings (or entire days) spent on the bar scene, but not so much that every post reads “We went here, here, and here. They were all terrible.” Basically, there will probably be more variety in these parts than in 2009. Maybe Rick will be nice enough to give us a recap of the shenanigans surrounding the IL Senate Race prior to the primary election on February 2nd.
• We’ve turned into the “go-to” people for determining destinations in our neighborhood. About every Thursday and Friday I get at least one email from someone listing the requirements of the nightspot they want to attend in my neighborhood, hoping I have the perfect buffet list of places for them to visit. I’m not gonna lie…usually I do.
• More so than the specific “place” of drinking, however, this year we discovered (well, not so much “discovered” as “reinforced”) that the most important ingredient to having a good time while carousing through Chicago is the people you surround yourself with. Our friends, new & old, embraced our 2009 mission and offered all kinds of encouragement. We thank you. Everyone from Internet Celebrity Baumer, to the former members of the 907, to our runner friends more dedicated to sport than to drink, and to the girls that I think show up just to laugh at us dancing…Thank You. Your attendance during our year of drinking locally made terrible bars bearable. It made great bars places that show up repeatedly on the lists I produce for the previous bullet point. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.

Lastly, since we’re both voracious consumers of all things internet, maybe we’ll try to post more links to things that people should be reading. Here’s a few, and one of my favorites from this past year:
• FiveThirtyEight.com offers up Onion-worthy satire: Ben Nelson Trails Jesus in Latest Election Polling
• Here’s a great post from Chicago Justice about the local media’s inability to understand or even bother using and reporting on anything other than the yearly homicide rates. Here
• And finally… the Eternal Moonwalk…still Moonwalking (well yeah, it’s Eternal), and most people are still terrible at it. Like playing golf…the great shot from time to time is worth dealing with the terrible ones.

Thanks for reading. Final Bar recaps coming soon. Really! I promise. As soon as I get around to them.

(re: post title. There's a lot of bullets. Using the Smashing Pumpkins song was too easy)

Everytime I See You Falling, I Get Down On My Knees And Pray

2009-12-24T21:16:00.008-06:00

This post covers the events (well, MOST of the events) of 12/5/09.

We begin the night at Rockwood Place, #173, the second time we've been to this address. Previously this year it was known as The Central, sister bar to The Grand Central. For reason unknown to me it has changed names (possibly owners? I don't know. I also don't care.), so we're required to visit it again. We're joined by Tim/Peter/Leroy/Chuck (again, that's just one person). Rockwood Place is very loud. Very Loud. There are a couple of guys watching some UFC or MMA fight at the end of the bar. It's somewhat crowded for being early in the evening, we're here this early so we can catch the Blackhawks game. Also, if I haven't mentioned it already or your intuition hasn't picked up on it, my feelings about this bar are that it's terrible. In the "pros" column, though, the waitresses are, um...busty, and they have Brooklyn Lager on tap.

We debate heading to another bar a few times, but the game is on and it's interesting, enough so to overpower the awful music they're blasting (which is just a playlist on repeat. Stick around here for longer than 40 minutes and you'll hear the same songs again). While hearing David Guetta's "Sexy Bitch" turned up to 11, Tim/Peter/Leroy/Chuck has the line of the night, possibly the line of the year. "I'm tryin to find the words to describe this bar without being disrespectfulllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!" It applies to so many places we've been this year.

Our first 2 orders of the Brooklyn Lager arrive in pint glasses, my third one comes in one of those cheap plastic party cups. Thinking I've been ripped off, I pour the glass into the pint glass I still have because our waitress hasn't taken it away. To all of our amazement we discover it's exactly 1 pint big (i'm sure there's a specific measurement for this, I'm not bothering to look it up. It's 10:15 on xmas eve and I'm trying to spit this entry out so I can go to bed and then fly to Colorado). Again, we're all floored by this discovery. Revelations aren't just in the Bible, folks.

The Blackhawks game is tied through 3 periods, so we decide the lull in the action is our chance to head north on Clark to our next stop, Bernie's, #174. We close out our tab, power walk to Bernie's and discover the game is over. WTF?! The doorman informs us the b'hawks scored like 40 seconds into OT. Nice job Hawks! Bernie's is a good place, at least tonight. It's proximity to Wrigley leaves me unable to fully evaluate it without experiencing the bar during a Cubs game. We have 3 Harpoon IPAs, then continue the crawl.

Continuing our trend, we head north. Eickhoff has now joined us and we're at Rockit, #175 (not the Rockit you're thinking of, they've opened another outpost in the Wrigley neighborhood). I have nothing to write about Rockit, we were in and out as quickly as we could down a beer and hit the bathroom.

North again, this time to the Full Shillling, #176. Morris has now joined us. We order a few drinks and our waitress can't figure out if our total is $14 or $16. She charges us $14, then brings $4 in change back to our table, having determined it was $16 instead. Morris, while she is standing there, loudly wonders "what kind of tip do you give to a liar?"

Last stop of the night, somewhere we've been before, SmartBar. Our travelling tour manager of a friend Craig is in town for the Holidays and we're meeting him there to catch Peter Hook (formerly of New Order. see post title) dj. Last time I saw Peter Hook dj was for the Metro 25th Anniversary Party, where I'm pretty sure I yelled at him about one of his song selections and Joe Shanahan wondered how Rick and I got on the guestlist. Later that night I left at the same time as former Chicago Poet Laureate Thax Douglas and lied to him about what neighborhood I lived in so I wouldn't have to walk the same direction as him. Sorry Thax. Hope you're living it up in your new hometown of Austin, TX.

Anyway, we've all been drinking for a while so our presence on the dance floor is likely a mix of amusing and annoying to other people in attendance. Good night, good job to everyone involved.

You Dissolve, It's Just Another Way You Exist

2009-12-24T16:55:00.002-06:00

EBONY's favorite albums from 2009 (on two separate lists).

Kyle's -
30. Karen O & The Kids - Where the Wild Things Are Soundtrack
29. m. ward - Hold Time
28. Howling Bells - Radio Wars
27. Antony & The Jonstons - The Crying Light
26. Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer
25. Datarock - Red
24. Heartless Bastards - The Mountain
23. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
22. Bertie Blackman - Secrets and Lies
21. The Field - Yesterday & Today
20. The Dream - Love vs Money
19. Weezer - Raditude
18. Girls - Album
17. The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love
16. Dent May - The Good Feeling Music of Dent May
15. Andrew Bird - Noble Beast
14. Converge - Axe to Fall
13. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
12. Annie - Don't Stop
11. AC Newman - Get Guilty
10. The Antlers - Hospice
9. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - s/t
8. The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa
7. Future of the Left - Travels With Myself and Another
6. We Were Promised Jetpacks - These Four Walls
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz
4. The Thermals - Now We Can See
3. Music Go Music - Expressions
2. Generationals - Con Law
1. Handsome Furs - Face Control

In the past I've made lists as long as 50 albums, but...you know, going to like 200 bars this year kinda cut into my music listening time.

Rick's -
15) 'Spirit of Apollo' by N.A.S.A.
14) 'Travels With Myself and Another' by Future of the Left
13) 'Life of Leisure' by Washed Out
12) 'Julian Plenti is Skyscraper' by Julian Plenti
11) 'Fist of God' by MSTRKRFT
10) 'Where Did All My People Go' by The Prairie Cartel
9) 'No Magical' by Worlds Greatest Ghosts
8) 'Beast Rest Fourth Mouth' by Bear in Heaven
7) 'The Love of No Dance' by Jump Clubb
6) 'Gold Country' by Chuck Ragan
5) 'Now We Can See' by The Thermals
4) 'Love Comes Close' by Cold Cave
3) 'Mama, I'm Swollen' by Cursive
2) 'These Four Walls' by We Were Promised Jetpacks
1) 'Exploding Head' by A Place To Bury Strangers

Final bar recaps up pretty soon...

Following the Herd, Down to Greece

2009-12-15T12:04:00.008-06:00

Okay, first we’ll start with my trip to 400 W Superior to close out the final chapter of “the incident”. I’m at the Starbucks on Franklin & Chicago, killing time before my 2:30 hearing, enjoying a hot chocolate and pages 115-135 of David Byrne’s Bicycle Diaries. There’s a tap on my foot, and I look up to see my friend Paul. “Hey Kyle, what are you doing down here today? No work?” I pause, thinking of how to reply, then just say, “yeah, remember reading about Rick and I’s tickets? I’m dealing with that today.” We exchange hearty laughter.
I ended up with the same plea deal as Rick. There were a handful of others also scheduled at the same time, 3 of them with the same citation as me. One of those 3 was a girl. That was suspect. I paid my fine, now it’s over and done with, like the Proclaimers song.
So, yes, I’d like to point out that I fully understand the complete hypocrisy of this situation. I’ve spent many words on this blog this year deriding the inhabitants and drunken revelers of Wrigleyville. I do recognize that my moral high ground is now below sea level. It doesn’t really matter what walk of life you’re from, the phrase “nothing good happens after midnight” applies to everyone. Just ask Tiger. (Also, I don’t fully subscribe to that, there are good things that happen after midnight. It’s more of an equation. The further past midnight you go the more likely you are to experience negativity.)

Onto bar recapping, this covering the evening of 11/28.
Bridget McNeills, #165 is an Irish-named bar that is definitely the most isolated of all the bars within a mile of where we live. How is that possible, you ask? Good thing you asked, I’ll tell you. It’s at Belmont and Lakeshore (err, Sheridan). It’s a good 3-4 blocks from anything else, and surrounded pretty much by high-rise condo buildings, and actually located on the first floor of one of those buildings. So you’d think it’d be crowded, being an oasis in the liquor desert. You’d think that. They do have good nightly food specials on the menu, but I can’t remember what any of them were. Rick thought if he lived in the building it’d be hard for him to avoid having dinner at the bar 3 nights a week. Bud Drinks are on special for $2.50! So we order a couple of New Belgium 2-Belows. I drop some money in the jukebox, playing a few tracks off the criminally fantastic INXS KICK album. Annie joins us, Selfy & Ericka join us, along with her friend Laura. The night is young. Conversation turns to Freakonomics, Super Freakonomics, and In Defense of Food.

We move on, down Belmont, turning North on Broadway, and picking up an aimlessly wandering Morris along the way. The competition for 3rd-6th in the Friends Rankings is beginning to heat up. We arrive at Joe’s on Broadway, #166. This is absolutely 100% a dive bar. The entrance is a screen door that slams shut. A couple of Point Pale Ales are $7. Selfy and Morris claim that they saw The Big Hurt at the Landmark Grill on Halsted a few days earlier. We decide had we visited this bar a few years ago it would’ve been completely filled with smoke. The slamming of the screen door announces Eickhoff's arrival. Everyone seems to have at least one story about running from the police. All of these took place during adolescence.

Again, we travel. F. O’Mahoney’s, #167 starts with too many letters. It’s also known as Finley Mahony’s, so there’s some sort of identity crisis going on here. It’s another Irish bar, also an Ohio St bar. Joe and Casey arrive. Selfy points out that “we’ve got a good group crawlin’ tonight.”
Morris & the bartender have this exchange:
"Are your jager bombs like this |----| or like this |------------------|?" (insinuating size with his thumb and forefinger)
"Like this |----|, i don't want to clean up your puke."

Selfy, Joe and I had all gone roughly 3-4 weeks without shaving. Reasons for growing, or attempting to grow, beards:
Selfy - raising money for prostate cancer
Joe - as a fashion statement
Kyle - because i'm lazy

We move on, time for our whirlwind trip through what remains on our list of Boystown. We head across the street to Charlie’s, #168 where the doorman stops us before entering. “Have you guys ever been here before?” Nope. “Here’s the deal, if you disrupt the dance floor, you WILL be kicked out.” Umm, okay.
Upon entering, we see what he means. Charlie's, several nights a week, is a country line-dancing bar. The dance floor is full with nearly 20 couples, all men. They’re doing line dances, circle dances, things I don’t know what to call because I’m clearly not up to speed on my country dance bar terminology. Anyway, the ENTIRE dance floor moves in complete unison. To say this is a little intimidating to watch is an understatement. There are a lot of men wearing cowboy hats, including the bartenders. I talk to one of them, and explain the purpose of the EmptyBlogOfNothing, “we’re two straight Sox fans visiting every bar in Wrigleyville and Boystown.” He thinks it’s fantastic, is glad we’ve stopped in, and pours us each a shot. For the year, we’re working on a 60-70% success rate of explaining what we’re doing to bartenders and ending up with a free shot.
A few more of Ericka’s friends show up, so our crowd for the evening has swelled to 10+. It’s beginning to get late, the bars are getting more crowded.

Again, moving on. We next travel to North End, #169. This is a karaoke bar. It’s another gay bar. I decide to repeat my performance from Halloween by singing Enrique Iglesias’ “Hero”. Casey joins me on stage, I dropped the microphone at one point, and our rendition was either fantastic or completely terrible. At this point I’ve also started handing over my EBONY notebook to friends. All they’ve written for the Enrique performance, and the entirety of our stay at the North End, is: BOOOO!!!!!!!

We head next door to Bobby Love’s, #170, which is ALSO a karaoke bar. 15 minutes after the first performance of “Hero”, I sing it again. I suppose I'll need to branch out if I'm ever going to moonlight at karaoke lounges. Casey joins me on stage, again. Thankfully I didn’t drop the microphone mid-song this time. This time, in my notebook, written by someone else, is:
“HE WAS AMAZING!!!” (and the “amazing part” has been violently crossed out by someone else). Then, “the whole crowd joined in and sang with kyle. Amazing. Turned straight men gay. Next up, some guy named benji. Wow, val and laura are effing amazing, how do I not love them? Next thing I know, Louie walks on the dance floor and flashed everyone. The crowd went wild. We all cheered, the bar closed. Everyone got herpes. THE END”
I decide I’m never giving my notebook to my friends again.

We head to our last Boystown bar to cross off the list, The Kit Kat Lounge, #171. They’re close to closing (well, the kitchen at least) and aren’t happy a large crew has just showed up hungry. It’s a much quieter and subdued vibe here, but not so much quieter that everyone doesn’t wake up the next morning with severe hangovers.

Next recap up soon...keep checking in! We're almost done with this godforsaken journey.

Final Countdown

2009-12-14T13:58:00.001-06:00

There is finally light at the end of our tunnel. I had my doubts in the last couple of months, but there will soon be a huge weight lifted off our shoulders. We realize that we're still behind in getting past bars updated, but we wanted to get our itinerary for the coming weeks posted to keep everyone in the loop. As of now, this is our plan to visit the final 11 bars we still have remaining:

12/19: Mini barcrawl of Galway Bay -> Mickey's Pub -> Ole Lounge -> Berlin -> somewhere fun
12/20: While watching some football at Tryst -> Purple Haze -> Nisei Lounge
12/22: Schubas Holiday Party
12/23: The finale of Rockhouse -> Las Fuentes -> Kingston Mines

So open up your schedules and keep us in the loop if you want to join.

As I said, we still have two weekends of visitations to recap. At the end of November we hit up bars #165-171 at Bridget McNeills, Joe's on Broadway, F O'Mahoney's, Charlie's, North End, Bobby Love's and Kit Kat Lounge. We thought for sure that we would close Boystown out this night, but Berlin will just have to wait until this coming weekend. We also started December off in style at bars #172-176 at the Elbo Room, Rockwood Place, Bernie's, Rockit, and the Full Schilling before eventually going to SmartBar to see Peter Hook, formerly of New Order spinning. See you soon.

EBONY vs City of Chicago, Day 1

2009-12-10T19:32:00.003-06:00

Even with the delay of officially posting the story of the "incident", word spread fast. Yesterday was my turn to represent myself in day 1 of 2 (hopefully only 2) of EBONY vs the City of Chicago. I didn't really know what to expect going in to this. I had the legal team of Holland & Holland to consult in the leading weeks to the hearing, along with many google searches for any helpful tips in our case. Also, if I had a dollar for every time someone recommended I plead that I have uromysitisis, I'd be able to buy the new $7.99 combo at Sonic. I show up to the hearing 45 minutes early as I took a half-day at work not knowing how long this would last. I check in to court room 101 and walk in to see the honorable Judge Richard Byrne behind the desk. The room is empty and he looks pretty bored. He tells me to check in with the clerk in the side room. The clerk looks over my case and gives me two options: either except a plea, or see the judge and let it be up to him. The plea bargain came with two options. Option one was to pay $100 right now and I'm on my home. Option two was to participate in one day of community service. I asked what the community service consisted of as I feel repaying my debt to society would be a noble cause. He looks confused and says, "no one has ever accepted the community service option, let me look it up." In the end it consisted of picking up trash at a southside park from 7am to 3pm on a weekday. I told him I accepted the payment of $100. I left the clerks office and told the judge my decision. Within 3 minutes of entering court I was on my way home. To top it off, I was allowed to pay my fine with a credit card. So at least I get an extra 100 miles on American Airlines out of this, plus it was easy handing over my American Express knowing that they take the biggest cut out of all major credit cards from the merchant. All-in-all, I'd say this was a victory. I read horror stories of fines being between $200-500 bucks, and even worse stories of things that get put on your criminal record. To top it off, I killed 60 minutes at Macy's beforehand and took advantage of their 1 day 60% off sale and cleaned house with some X-Mas shopping which saved me $160. EBONY 1, City of Chicago 0.

Shopping, an Essay.

2009-12-09T12:10:00.004-06:00

Reprinted with permission of the author (well, duh! the author is me). Written a few years ago, and relevant to what's filling up some of your free time these days.

"I always forget how much I really really really LOVE shopping until the holiday season rolls around. I wouldn't call myself an avid consumer, it's not that often I find myself in the mall. you see, I live with this condition...I guess it's a condition, I don't know what else to call it...where I set off the alarms at 75% of the stores I enter/exit. It's the stupidest hassle in the world. Some places don't really give a damn. Some clerks just brush it off because they heard the bells & whistles when I walked into the store, and I remind them when I'm walking out that I'm *probably* going to set the alarm off. Often after setting them off on my entrance I don't set them when I leave, which is bizarre. Some of the clerks tell me it's probably my cell phone, although I've changed cell phones 3x in the last 7 years and this hasn't gone away. Going to borders or barnes & noble is fun because I need to alert the hired holiday security guard prior to leaving so they don't chase me down. When I alert them and then somehow fail to trigger the noisemakers I become even more of a suspect in their eyes. Clothing stores with diligent customer service employees trying to impress the boss are always great...they want to go through my bags, my pockets, my coats, and run them all over the demagnetizing sensor before I'm allowed to leave. No matter how many times I tell them its just me they don't get it. They are CONVINCED that some subpar employee at some other clothing store forgot to take off a sensor. "I don't think it's anything in that bag. This happened at the Gap, at Restoration Hardware, at Sharper Image, at Old Navy, and at Forever 21 all five times I've been there today." "No, I'm absolutely sure there's something in one of these bags that is setting off the alarms." Often I find myself hovering around the exit waiting to notify someone, it's like I'm trapped inside loitering until I can track down an employee to let me leave. At the thanksgiving day children's table of retail shopping I'm forever waiting for permission from an adult to be excused."

happy holidays. stimulate your local economy, not those garbage stores i mention above.

Breakin' Rocks in the Hot Sun...

2009-12-07T12:52:00.002-06:00

Why does it seem like lately all of my posts begin with an apology for our tardiness?

Today is Monday, 12/7, and this post recaps the events of the night of Thursday, 11/12. Yikes. Best to get on with the postin’…

Our evening begins at The Gaslight (#155), where we are joined by my younger brother as well as Internet Celebrity Baumer. Why Baumer even showed up is beyond me, as he was 9 days away from running his first marathon. Rick and I start off with a couple of 3 Floyds’ Robert The Bruce, Grant orders the New Belgium Fall Wild Ale. The Gaslight is a good bar, they’ve got a great food menu, and the place is often crowded. Our waitress has a script tattoo on her forearm that we spend dinner guessing what it might read. We later find out it’s French for “Live in the Moment.” Not what anyone guessed.
Grant and I enjoy the tilapia fish tacos, Rick ordered the Hickory Burger, as follows:
“I’ll have the Hickory burger, without cheese. I realize that’s why the burger has it’s name, but the thought of cheese spread on a burger sounds horrible to me.”

Internet Celebrity Baumer asks, “Will there be blog updates in 2010?” Wait and see, ICB, wait and see.

We finish our dinner and start the crawling. Next up, Southport City Saloon (#156). This is a local hangout, not the kind of place that’s a destination to get your friends from other neighborhoods to come visit. It has character, and characters. The old men at the bar are all drunk on wine, one of them repeatedly spills his glass on the bar. One girl is here alone waiting on a friend. We decide that she’s right in ICB’s wheelhouse, and we would spend the rest of the evening writing a song dedicated to her. Ask Rick about his freestyle rap section. PBR’s are on special for $2.50, the bears and niners are currently tied at 0. It won’t stay this way.
Friend of my brother and fellow Baby Atlas-devotee Sarah shows up. She’s been reading of our exploits all year and has only now made her first appearance. Sarah was the first to complain that EBONY had no presence on Twitter (we do now if you haven’t been following @emptyblog). Months ago I told her she had exclusive rights to the EBONY Interview. She thought it meant we would be interviewing her, although I can’t for the life of me figure out why we would do that. That she’s expected to interview us comes as a surprise, so we spend the next 2 bars helping her come up with questions for an interview that may or may not ever grace these pages.

Moving on…our second attempt to visit Maeve (#157) is a successful one (it was closed on a previously attempted visit). A round of PBR’s and 1 Hoegaarden are ordered, and someone in attendance has a puppy dog that we’re all pretty shocked I didn’t attempt to steal. Rick, what’s the count now for number of bars we’ve visited this year that had a dog present? “6”
There’s nothing special about this place tonight. I’d recommend it’s less pretentious neighbor Tavish if you’re ever at the intersection of Wrightwood and Wayne.

Heading further east down Wrightwood we stop in what used to be a fantastic neighborhood bar, Wrightwood Tap (#158). I say used to, because sometime in the last 4-5 years they gutted the place and turned it into a copy of everywhere else. They do have complementary pretzel sticks at the bar, so I’ll give them that. The special is $3 import/microbrews. We ask the waitress what our choices are. She looks at the taps…, “Umm…pretty much Sierra.” The idea of an EBONY 12/19 formal holiday bar crawl is discussed. Nothing is set in stone. The music is terrible here (Buckcherry). The conversation briefly turns back to Halloween, and Grant makes the keen observation as to why a lot of people in boystown didn’t get Rick’s costume (roe v wade). I turn my notebook over to Sarah for the official EBONY interview. A sampling of quotes and notes, I’ll attempt to attribute quotes where I know who said them:

“Those bitches are drinking coors light..the mountains aren’t even blue.”
“I’m the middle child who does things for attention.” – Kyle
“You didn’t REALLY meet Baumer on Craigslist, did you?”
“It’s that stupid Black Eyed Peas ‘mazeltov’ song. Is Lenny Kravitz the only black jewish person?” - Rick
“Romance isn’t the purpose of EBONY. At best, it’s the 4th priority of the mission.” - Kyle
“Who’s this Kip Bayless guy?” - Grant

After 25 minutes, during which time Amanda and her GIANT BACKPACK show up, we take off for the Toasted Ox (#159). This is a terrible bar (we’re about to hit a stretch of terrible bars…bear with us). The special here? The sign says it’s $2 you-call-it’s. Apparently the bar isn’t aware of how bar promotions actually work, because the only thing thats $2 is a plastic Dixie cup full of Miller Lite. My brother asks me to order him a gin & tonic, but I mishear what he says. He is confused when I bring him a Guinness. I try explaining our 2009 mission to our waitress, but I’m fairly certain she’s never had a conversation with anyone for longer than 2 sentences. The guy tending bar with her is sporting a ludiculous pompadour.

Again, moving on, as soon as beers are finished but not soon enough. Rick and I head across the street to Clarke Bar, #160. This is the place attached the breakfast joint on Lincoln, and we’ll just go ahead and award it the Grand Prize in the “Never Judge A Book By It’s Cover” category. From the outside, it looks like a bar I’d spend a lot of time at…from the outside you’d guess it has a similar feel and atmosphere to the brand new bar area inside Lincoln Hall. Cozy, enjoyable, good people, good drinks, well decorated and inviting. That’s from the outside. On the inside…on the inside they’re serving $5 plastic pitchers of Miller Lite, roughly half of the population appears underage, and there’s garbage on most of the tables. I feel like we’re at some 18 year old’s basement party. Inexplicably they’re charging an entry fee at the door, I’m still not sure why. Grant and his friends are lagging behind us at this point. He has the following encounter with the doorman:
D: “$10 cover for each of you.”
G: “What?! $10 cover for this place?”
D: “Okay, how about $10 total?”
G: “How about $5 total?
D: “Hmm…okay”.
(Grant then steps away to answer his phone. It was me calling to confirm that, yes, we were inside this bar. He returns to the door with his friends, literally not 30 seconds from the end of the last conversation.)
D: “$10 cover for each of you.”
G: “You just said $5 total!”
D: “I did? Aww, man. I’m sorry…okay $5 total. Here, take a beer bong!”

We leave Clarke Bar shortly after entering. Now, we originally planned on going for the EBONY record for number of bars in one day. This won’t be happening tonight, I'll explain why soon. Next stop is Soiree, #161. This is a bit of a club joint, complete with a line, expensive cover, and a doorman with a clipboard VIP list operating the velvet rope gateway. We’re on a mission, and we’re not waiting in line. Rick walks up to the guy and tells him, “We’re with Dan Marsden.” Wait, who? You may remember Dan Marsden from our trip to Lincoln Hall from 2 weeks prior. Rick has decided that’s a pretty good name to use for getting into bars. The doorman briefly checks his list, gives up looking, and simply lets us into the club completely skipping the lineup. That’s the best part of the entire Soiree experience. I’d never visit this place if I didn’t have to. Next time you're trying to get into a VIP-only event, go with "Dan Marsden".

We leave Soiree, and we’re hungry. We’re not sure which bars we’re going to next, but now is not the time for crossing more bars of the list. Now is the time for what has previously been referred to as “the incident”. Rick, Grant and I are walking down Lincoln, and Rick and I head down the alley behind The Hoagie Hut. I’d estimate 15-20 seconds later a police car with its lights on follows us down the alley. 3 minutes later, we both have received citations for public urination, and our court dates are in December. Grant has fled the scene and we meet him at La Bamba’s for a very late night dinner. I’ve never understood my brother’s affinity for La Bamba’s, since he works at an upscale burrito joint in Colorado. Something about misguided nostalgia for the Big 10 college experience, I guess.
Anyway, we’ll report back after our visits to the courtrooms of city hall. Our motivation having been killed for the evening, we simply retreat home after our terrible burritos.

Coming soon: maybe some beer mile pictures, a recap of 11/29, a November retrospective, and the final EBONY updates as we wrap up our 2009 mission (soon to be accomplished).

The Three Seashells

2009-11-30T16:53:00.005-06:00

A week late, but not a dollar short. Last Tuesday night with everyone in the city having a half-day of work the next morning, we took full advantage of bar specials that were available. The evening started at the DMK Burger Bar, #162. This new burger hotspot brought to you by the proprietors of the MK and Morton’s just opened up down the street. The Internet Celebrity Baumer joined us for the christening of this establishment. The menu includes amazing burgers, tasty sides, and a plethora of American craft beers (sorry for those of you fans of the Holy Trinity in Bud, Coors, or Miller products). The burgers were quite good, not necessarily at Kuma’s level, but definitely above The Counter. Kyle and I both devoured our green chili and fried egg concoction, while Baumer took down the house special. Overall this place is great, but the only downside being the cliental of the bar. This place is a little too scenester for me, as I’d enjoy a more laid back atmosphere. Fortunately we only had a 20 minute wait as I’ve heard available tables can already take 90 minutes on the weekend.

Next on the chopping block for the three of us was Fly Me to the Moon, #163. We get word that Halljams would rather watch Ghost Dad on HBO and New Moon for the fourth time instead of hanging out with us. He has pretty much written himself out of the top 5 leaderboard, and given his extreme lameness in the last two months, he’s going to be lucky if he cracks the top 10. Including the three of us, we made up 50% of people in this piano/wine bar, with the other three being the maître d', the pianoman and the bartender/cook. Baumer and I enjoy a nice chianti, while Kyle for some reason orders a martini. Time went by extremely slow here as our only forms of entertainment were the bickering between the teenage maître d' and the bartender. Baumer gave the pianoman two bucks to play the theme from Chariots of Fire, but he barely spoke a lick of English and we only heard music from Casablanca. This also marks the big 50 of the number bars Baumer has joined us at. Salud.

The third and final destination is the Underground Lounge, #164. Jeremy and Jen meet us for some amazing Tuesday night specials. We enjoy a couple import and craft beers while watching Demolition Man on TV. We failed to use the three seashells and receive no demerits this evening. We debate the hotness of Sandra Bullock and the downward spiral of Wesley Snipes career/life. This is definitely a bar we look forward to come back to in 2010. In order to still make it to work the next morning, we call it an evening here.

More updates are still to come. Kyle still needs to update the evening that included the “incident” when Grant was in town. We also crossed 7 more bars off the list this past weekend, along with some shifting among the podium stand. The current list has 14 bars within the mile radius left, and I’m sure some will conquered this weekend, so keep your ears open about when and where.

I Can Lose the Wings, but I'll Need the Guitar

2009-11-28T11:28:00.008-06:00

The 3rd Annual post-Thanksgiving Road Trip CD-Mix Challenge

Every year my family drives from Indianapolis to Columbus, OH, (and back) on the day after Thanksgiving (while there we celebrate a sort of "extended family Thanksgiving"). 2 years ago my younger brother and I decided we'd like to control the audio selection for the drive, so we came up with the following contest:
He and I each create a cd of music that my mother has never heard before. After each song she has to score the songs from 1-5 (5 is the highest score, half points are allowed). My older brother puts all entries in random order, and replaces any duplicate songs with a track of his choosing. The idea being that when the song is played, neither my younger brother or I will know that the other selected the same song until the entire contest is over and final totals are summed. Duplicated tracks don't count in the final scoring. Highest Average at the end of all tracks is the winner.
This year we added a new rule -- one "throwaway" song that we each include that wouldn't be added to the final scoring...just to mess with mom & dad.

Results from 2009 as follows (K - my songs; G - Grant's songs; G/K - collision songs; A - older brother's replacement tracks), Mom's comments in italics:

1. The Hott Chord Is Struck - Still Flyin - G, 4.5
(during the intro): "I don't like the bass levels up that high...not the song's fault." (levels are adjusted) I enjoyed that song, I'm glad the very 1st song was one I enjoyed. It's such a pressure filled ride."

2. 16th & Valencia Roxy Music - Devendra Banhart - G, 3.5
"Umm...I just can't think up comments for all these songs."
Hilarity follows as this is just the second track and that comment has come out already.

3. Jiggery Pokery - The Duckworth Lewis Method - K's Throwaway Song, 3.5
Mom made a goofy face during the beginning, there was a lot of laughter. "I spent the entire song thinking up comments. I admire the imagination and bravery of whoever picked that song. Was that from a musical?"

4. Five Years Time - Noah and The Whale - K/G - 4
"That was a fun song! I could easily understand the words."

5. Everyday - Vetiver - G - 5
"So far that was my favorite song. I'm giving it a 5! It was enjoyable, and Dad was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel."

6. When They Fight, They Fight - Generationals - K/G - 4.5
"The beat and the rhythm were good, parts sounded like a 50's song."

7. Happy Birthday You - Jay Jay Pistolet - K - 4.5
"I liked the music, the beat, and the words."
At this point I note that this may be the highest scoring CD ever. I spoke far too soon.

8. All The Difference - Red Cortez - G - 3
"This song needed more words besides 'Sittin on a Fence'."

9. Young Adult Friction - Pains of Being Pure at Heart - G - 3
"..." "I'm trying to come up with a word. When loud parts were on I couldn't understand the vocals." Dad: "The music overwhelmed the words."

10. I Can See The Pines Are Dancing - AA Bondy - A - 5
"This might be my new favorite. I'd have to listen to the other 5 again to be sure.

11. French Navy - Camera Obscura - G - 3
"I liked the music more than the singing. There was too much repetition in the lyrics."

12. Girlfriend - Phoenix - G - 3
"It was ok, I liked the rhythm. I have the same comment about the music being better than the singing.

13. Conductor - We Were Promised Jetpacks - K - 2.5
"At first I thought it would be my least favorite, but it grew on me a little bit. I don't like those songs where you think they're going to end. If you're dancing to that, what do you do?" Dad: "It was the song that wouldn't go away."

14. Bandit Queen - Colin Meloy - K - 2.5
"It started out with a lot of promise and went downhill from there. The whistling part was poor. Gauchos in Colorado? I didn't like the part where she had 9 fingers." Kyle: The whistling part was supposed to be poor.

15. Awake My Soul - Mumford & Sons - A - 2
"There's another song I don't like." Dad: "I think that was Grant's pick."
Note: This song was played in last year's CD challenge, as an entry from me. Adam's record keeping isn't the greatest and he chose it as a replacement song for one of the duplicates. Last year, Mom gave it a 3.

16. Old Old Fashioned - Frightened Rabbit - K - 2.5
"Well, that's kind of and old fashioned song. It was OK."

***switch to disk 2***

17. Inspiration Information - Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - K - 2
"I thought I was going to like that song, but I didn't. The words made no sense to me."

18. We'll See The Sun - Houses - K - 2
"Too long, too slow, too moany. Two."

19. Crosshairs - Scott Lucas and the Married Men - K - 3.5
"An improvement! I understood the words and liked the music."

20. Me and the Major - Belle & Sebastian - G - 3
"Too much harmonica near the end. I liked the beginning better."

21. 40 Day Dream - Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - G - 4
"Not sure why I liked that song but I did."

22. Santa Catalina (26 Miles) - Dent May and his Magnificent Ukelele - K - 5
Immediately after the song starts Mom & Dad start singing along to every word. My fault for not doing the research to find out this was a cover of a late 50's song from The Four Preps. The score would be thrown out, but everyone enjoyed it.

23. Lights and Music - Cut Copy - G's Throwaway Song - 3
"That sounded like the 80's, like disco music."

24. Let's Fall Back In Love - Slow Club - K - 3
"How many people are singing that song? It sounds like a Sunday School song."

25. Wait For Me - Jamie Lidell - G - 4
"I liked that song, I liked the rhythm, I liked the words."

26. Dream City - Free Energy - G - 4.5
"I liked both the words and music, I almost started singing along." Dad: "I've heard that song on Grant's radio show before."

27. Hysteric - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - K - 3
"I couldn't tell if the whistling at the end of the song was from the back seat or on the song. I guess it was entertaining."

28. The Privateers - Andrew Bird - K - 2.5
"What was that song about? I don't want your health insurance? I thought he said he didn't want fire insurance either."

29. Never Had Nobody Like You - M. Ward - K/G - 4.5
"That was like a mix of Elvis and the Beatles. That's all I have to say."

30. Your Easy Lovin' Ain't Pleasin' Nothin' - Mayer Hawthorne - G - 5
"Mo-townish song...someone knew I'd love that one."

31. Casanova, Baby! - The Gaslight Anthem - K - 3
"I thought the music overwhelmed the lyrics a little."

32. Oh, Paris! - Dent May and his Magnificent Ukelele - G - 3
"Again, I liked the music more than the singing or the words."

Results:
Grant wins again, continuing his undefeated 3-year streak. He has 12 songs that average 3.79, I have 11 songs averaging a 2.77 (the lowest score ever).
The songs that are thrown out because we both picked them scored 4, 4.5, and 4.5
My Dent May selection, also thrown out because they had heard it before, scored a 5.
Adam's 3 songs score 2, 3, and 5, with the 5 possibly being Mom's favorite.

Notes:
Scottish singers and human dismemberment don't result in good scores. Mom doesn't like false endings, or whimsical subject matters. She also thinks this is the most pressure-filled car ride she takes every year because she has to come up with comments on every song.
My throwaway song outscored Grant's, but we'll have to come up with a new "twist" rule for next year because they'll be expecting throwaways.
After the first year, it was Grant's job to come up with a trophy that would go to the winner. As he hasn't lost yet, he hasn't bothered to create the trophy.