Resurrecting Dr. Gonzo for Purely Self-Indulgent Reasons on the Morning of the Fourth and Final Night of the Blackout

The Sad and Tragic Fate of Garage Rock...Liver Detoxification in a Post 9/11 Society...O' Mama! Can This Really Be the End?...Sparks Plus as a Sleep Substitute...We Are the Rats, Indeed...Party With Me, Punker

After three days and nights of savage and brutal brain and organ torture at the hands of these filthy scum who decide every year to put on this atavistic endeavor some half-wit dingbat of a senile ex-punk rocker calls the Blackout, the sight of a beautiful, all-too-rare sunny Chicago morning is almost a miracle to behold. Sprinklers water the grass patches outside, the singing sparrows have overthrown those filthy pigeons, and here, on Cortez Street, on the periphery of the Middle West and the stinking cesspool that has come to be known as the American Dream in 2006, I can safely say that I'm the only one of the garage rock attendees appreciating this fully awake right now.

And so much for that. Sparks Plus makes all things possible, the perfect drug in this foul era of W Bush's sinking second term. In less than two hours, I will leave to do a talk show. After this, I will be playing drums with treacherous lying freaks. The psychic damage of what this portends is not something I can properly sort out yet, at least not without mescaline and a couple Flintstone Vitamins, both of which are nonexistent at this Blackout festival.

How long can we maintain this awful pace? The ugly and undeniable fact facing us today is that May 27, 2006, will go down in history as the End of Garage Punk, Forever. Naturally, there will be a Raging Against the Dying of the Light, but Res Ipsa Loquitor. The riffs are all exhausted, at least until 2020, and I will be too old to enjoy what happens fourteen years from now, so it's time to hunker down like Nixon when the banshees circled overhead as Watergate sent his miserable joke of a Presidency crashing into stinking infamy.

Yes. Get through the day. Put your hope in the Krunchies and Mind Controls. Wear floral printed shirts and act like an ass. Start a new band. Today is the sad end of a happy time, and we well celebrate it's passing in high style. Sleep is for the weak, and we are nothing if not Strong and Decent Americans, even if we're French.

Selah.

Sir Lordshitshisshorts meets William Eggelston

Somehow, in spite of being halfway through the four day debauch of the Blackout, I feel more compelled to write about the documentary I saw yesterday about the photographer William Eggelston...if only because, well, there isn't really anything that newsworthy to report about the Blackout. It's big fun and I'm definitely loving it, but I mean--it's just a whole shitload of drunk people stumbling around...a gaggle of rocknroll geeks having a good time. It's one of the few spectacles out there that doesn't need much thought or reportage. The only somewhat deep thought I've managed in the last two days is the idea that the Clone Defects are easily the best rocknroll band of this decade. For all of Vulgar's mania, there's a Stones vibe underneath it all I've always somehow overlooked. And A-Ron filled in on bass, learning all their songs in a few hours.

I'm purchasing a ticket for tonight's show for $30. The Krunchies are finally playing the Blackout. Doc Filth just called, all wired and insisting we also play the show tonight at the Mutiny. Why? I don't know. Something about making amends for destroying the place the last time we tried to play there. Very diplomatic of ol' Doc Filth, no? A regular Henry Kissinger.

But Eggelston. The photogs among you know him well, as do you college knowledge photogs in training. The glorification of the ordinary. Made it ok to use color in "serious" photography. Vibrancy and beauty in the overlooked. I like it when the artists make me rethink the world. (How much did "American Beauty" steal from Eggelston? Or, is this idea even all that profound or new anyway in art?) The Blackout does this, actually...there comes a point when you think it's always gonna be this way, and this swinging party is just gonna go on forever and ever and nevermind that it doesn't. I would like to just document all the "overlooked" stuff about the Blackout going on in the Empty Bottle. Random objects. That brick wall. The rows of distortion pedals onstage.

I'd like to think I'd do this tomorrow with a couple of disposable cameras, but I'll just end up taking sloppy pics of drunk friends making drunk faces. I love these people. They're part of the reason why my stories aren't about the same workshoppy crap most writers bore me w/....ya know...the classic "new yorker" kind've story about professors and their affairs. I actually sold 5 books yesterday at the show. I can't believe these bastards know how to read. Five of them, anyway.

Going into Day Three of the Blackout, a kind of anti-athleticism emerges, with the same kind of discipline of athletes, only it's applied to abusing the body instead of feeling the pain through pilates or whatever. Because--you're gonna drink at the Blackout--there's just no getting around that li'l quandry. And that's fine. For me, it's probably the last weekend I'll ever do this. I'm kinda glad this is the last Blackout, for all the same reasons Todd and Brett have given about ending it now. Getting debauched gets a bit redundant after awhile. The stories emerging from the debauchery are all the same.

But the bands are still good, as bored as I am with rocknroll right now. Faves so far: Goodnight Loving, Angry Angles, Cloney D's, and Mandy and the Twins. The Worst are playing with us tomorrow. Haven't seen them in ages. But Eggelston, like Nabokov, reminding me to remember and take notice of the details. I'm trying. Or, I'm not trying at all and just having a good time. A bit of both, I guess.

Where I've Been Hiding Lately.

Florida.

I sit in the hottub and stare at the jungle behind the screen of my parents' backyard and think profundities. To whit: "Gee, Florida and Chicago sure are different!"

Yeah, and it's not like anybody's gonna accuse me of not mining that material dry.

I actually kinda like being in Florida now. I like not hearing gunshots at night; I like not hearing the jackhammers of Polish construction workers hired by land-raping scumbags hired to destroy my block in favor of high-density condominiums in the low $500's each weekday. (Why anybody would want to live on my street in a cheaply-built, poorly-constructed building for half a mil is beyond my ken, but then again, I never had much of a head for financial planning.)

I like visiting old friends in their backyards while their children run around. I like Florida supermarkets, especially Publix; such a contrast to the Soviet Union market w/ T.P. vibe you get when you're in a Jewel/Osco.

I like how when I'm in either place, the other place feels like Mars. I like how you can eat out in Central Florida, and see the people and know exactly what they're about (typcially: money), and not have my writerly curiosity poked and prodded like in Chi. There's a cocky and youthful stupidity to Central Florida I like now that I used to despise, a know-it-all self-assuredness like you need to just thank God everyday for being there. A contrast to the gallows humor of Chicagoans--manifested in discussions about the weather, the politics, the crime.

I like eating burritos with friends on the far-reaches of stripmalls where I used to skateboard as a middle schooler. I like the nature the developers will never destroy. I like the feeling of leaving myself behind in Chicago and to take stock of what I've done and if it even remotely matters.

Orlando's getting what it always wanted: Big City Status. Way to go, hayseeds. You always wanted to be Atlanta and Los Angeles...and you've become the worst of both. It's a deal with the devil, as they're starting to realize with the traffic and the crime. Despite the growth, it's still a one-industry town, not unlike Detroit. The traffic is on par with Houston and it's not improving.

I sit in the hottub and sing Steely Dan songs and stare at Constellations, not always buzzed on beer. I miss my Florida friends, and, yes, if prodded, I sometimes miss Florida. Not that I feel like I'm living some "Exile on Division Street" trip by any stretch...I just like that it's someplace I lived and goofed off in until I did as much as could be done for somebody w/ my interests in someplace as geographically isolated as our phallic peninsula.

I accept both places on their own terms now, and that's how it should be.

Rambling On About the Talk Show this Sat and Other Random Spiels

This next talk show should be profoundly humbling, if yesterday's "rehearsal" with one of the musicians involved is any indication.

Not to say it won't be funny, ladies and germs (replete with jokes like "ladies and germs"), but shit, dude: trying to play guitar with a piano prodigy really makes you reassess your gleeful amateurism and your dilletantish tendencies these many years.

Two of the guests, Rick Kogan and Marianne Murciano, are veterans of Chicago journalism, committed to what they do and full of great stories about their careers and the people they've met along the way.

Pearly Sweets is perhaps the most talented musician I've ever tried making music with, and I'd like to think I've played with some talented people over the years. (Christ, shoot me before I start sounding like Ramsey Louis or David Sanborn right about here..."See, Johnny, Brubeck in those days, you never knew who'd show up...") He picked up the song we're going to play in about as much time as it takes most people to chug a dixie cup of water, and I was left holding my guitar like a useless appendage. I know I haven't really played guitar in a number of years, but it's amazing how little I really know about music...the theory of it, when to go "minor," what keys work better for what style of songs...I always thought in my "punk" "aesthetic" that that kind've took the whole fun out of it...and sure...in my case, maybe it did...but damn if sometimes I wish I took better notes while in high school band.

I guess, after awhile, you start to wonder how much longer you want to bother playing for what amounts to just your friends. Is it, like Spinal Tap playing smaller venues, simply a matter of being "more selective about the audiences we play for?" Are all these bands and all these writers and artists and filmmakers I've met just simply too brilliant for the "masses," or do we just suck? Maybe it's both. Maybe it's neither. Is the marketplace which once allowed Little Richard and the Kingsmen room to rock now so conservative that it's a foregone conclusion that the best any of us could hope for is to sell 10,000 copies of our records (the biggest sales figure I've heard of of any band I know personally) or 70,000 copies of our books (the biggest sales figure of any writer I know personally)? Because, while that number is FREAKIN GINORMOUS here, way down in the minor leagues, it's peanuts in the big picture. For example, the first Runaways record sold 75,000 copies in the United States, and was considered a flop. If [insert any band in "the scene"] had just as much media and tour support as [any major/major indie label band currently doing pretty good on the ol' "charts"], would they still be playing for 100-300 people on any given night? Is this the question bands ask themselves when the major labels start sniffing?

There's so little time to do even one thing right, much less 4 or 5. That's probably one of the reasons why a friend of mine quit music upon turning 30 so he could focus solely on the writing.

It takes time, and no, not "making it," because I don't care about that. (What does that even mean?) It takes time for it to get out there--years--and in the meantime, it doesn't matter because it's too much fun. I still have time to a few things at once--not much time, but still, it's there and there's no point in quitting just yet.

That Wacky, Wacky Edward Gibbon!!! (Part Two in an ongoing series.)

In the early years of Christianity, the Christians held their masses in secret locations. Naturally, this aroused curiosity, suspicion and rumor-mongering.

If you're bummed out because the rumor around town is that you're a slutty junkie with bad breath, at least you're not getting talked about like the early Christians (ah-ahem!):

From Edward Gibbon, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Volume Two, page 12:

"There were many who pretended to confess or to relate the ceremonies of this abhorred society. It was asserted, 'that a new-born infant, entirely covered over with flour, was presented like some mystic symbol of initiation, to the knife of the proselyte, who unknowingly inflicted many a secret and mortal wound on the innocent victim of his error; that as soon as the cruel deed was perpetrated, the sectaries drank up the blood, greedily tore asunder the quivering members, and pledged themselves to eternal secrecy, by a mutual consciousness of guilt. It was as confidently affirmed that this inhuman sacrifice was succeeded by a suitable entertainment, in which intemperance served as a provocative to brutal lust; till, at the appointed moment, the lights were suddenly extinguished, shame was banished, nature was forgotten; and, as accident might direct, the darkness of the night was polluted by the incestuous commerce of sisters and brothers, of sons and of mothers.'"

There. Don't you feel much better, victim of rumor? Have a nice day!

Obama or Satan: Who Would the Chicago Tribune Endorse for the Presidency of the United States?

The smart money is on Satan. If history is indication, well, it's Satan for President.

Funfact for those of you on the hunt for liberal biases in the media: The Chicago Tribune has never--not even once--since 1872, endorsed a Democrat for the Presidency. In "Boss," Mike Royko called the Trib "the voice of Middle Western Republicanism," and it's fair to say little has changed.

Think about that, for just a moment. 1872. Goldwater. Harding. A second term for Herbert Hoover.

In a great article in the April 21st Chicago Reader, Michael Miner discusses the Trib's smug celebration of this fact in a recent "lighthearted" editorial about how the Chicago Tribune endorsed a Democratic candidate on "The West Wing," and the justifiable anger they got in return from some perceptive letter writers tying this in to the paper's constant lamentations that "kids just don't read papers anymore cuz they just don't care."

Colleen Fleming in a letter pubished in the Tribune on April 15th wrote: "Forgive me if I can't take seriously a newspaper that is so wrapped up in its Republican bias that is hasn't endorsed a Democratic candidate since 1872. With newspapers like the Tribune wearing their biases on their sleeves and largely ignoring other issues that are important to youth readership, it's no wonder that younger generations look elsewhere for their information."

And Amen to that. This "blaming the victim" is ridiculous, especially for anybody who has taken one look at "Red Eye," the Chicago Tribune's attempt to tap into the youth market with dumber "news," shorter sentences, vapid columns about fashion and celebrity, and basically the kind of corny fawning attempts to "relate" to the under 30 crowd that used to be the domain of guidance counselors and teen church ministers. It's clear from the market research that went into the Red Eye that the Tribune came to the conclusion that all their potential readers from 18-34 are, well, idiots. Idiots with short attention spans, more concerned with Desperate Housewives than Plamegate.

They couldn't even sell the paper for a quarter, and now they can barely even give the damn thing away. If Karl Rove was to be indicted, it's safe to say the Red Eye would be too busy trying to woo "the kids" with glossy covers with headlines like "Kanye West's Bling Bling in the Hizz-ouse!" or something equally and cringeingly hokey. That joke isn't even that far off the mark either for anybody who has noticed what they've chosen to cover these past 3 years since "Mission Accomplished."

Some of us are convinced "Red Eye" is a paper owned and operated by Narks. It just has that feel of the youthful-looking square infiltrating the high school dressed in grungified flannels.

So...don't act surprised that Colbert's caustically brave "comedy act" was pretty much ignored by the Trib and all its media tentacles, or that the Bush Imitator "stole the show," according to their reports (On "Inside Edition" today (fuck off--it was on at the Y while I was working out, okay?) (double fuck off--I work out, okay?), they used the phrase "stole the show" no less than 5 times in 2 minutes). It's a paper owned and operated by Total Squares trying desperately to remain relevant while clinging to their conservative traditions.

Based on history, it's pretty easy to predict that, yes, Satan would win the Chicago Tribune's endorsement for the Presidency of the United States, and while the good folks in Du Page County might be pleased to know that Satan is a solid leader who means what he says and says what he means, the rest of us will be getting our news from the internet, weekly papers, the News Hour, Now, the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, C-Span, and anybody else who doesn't insult our intelligence with narky patronization.