Last night was my first official Chicagoist outing. Some of us met up at The Map Room for beer, and then popped over to this place right across the street Cleo’s Armitage for some food eating.
A fun bunch of creative folks. Not that I’d expect anything less from a group of talented writers who ‘get’ Chicago. Nobody understands Chicago. But some people get it. And I think I found a few more.
Lucy, I’m home.
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Meo giving himself a bath on my lap. Click for more of my cats.
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The Clark Sisters, a well known Gospel group sings a song called Pure Gold on a DVD that I own. Karen, one of the sisters, takes her solo in the song from ‘We’re dusted’.
From each trial we learn
We learn, we learn
Our foundation becomes firmWe’re dusted and melted
Like brass, tin, and iron
We become like a stone
We’re carved, stripped and shapened
Like rock, wood, and metal
We become like a stone
She growls it out, with so many melismatic runs that the hair on my arms stands up. As a group, these women are powerfully spiritual, and they’ve brought me through many hard times with their music.
My barber, the delightfully gorgeous Sue at Chicago Buzz , has been going through a hard time with some family loss. She’s been on my mind lately, and I made her a CD of this song and many others. I hope somehow she finds comfort in the music.
Though we’re tried in the fire
(We come) Out as pure gold
I don’t know ’bout you, but I’m tried in the fire
(We got to come) Out as pure gold
I wonder, have you ever, have you ever been tried in the fire
(We come) Out as pure gold
I’m so glad I got, I got that fire
Out as pure goldLord, make us whole
Lord, won’t you please
Won’t you please make us whole
Lord, make us whole
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I can’t say goodbye if I never said hello. But I can end a friendship that isn’t really a friendship.
See, here’s the deal. I’m a strong person. I come on strong, I live life in a strong way, I have a big mouth, and I have an even bigger personality. This I know all too well, but it works for me.
Unfortunately, he, and yes this is the mysterious ‘he’ that I’ve been referring to in so many posts, wants to keep me in one column, one parcel, of his life.
That just ain’t cool with me. But I get it. Letting me share in the rest of his world means, to him, that we’re more than friends. Funny thing is that it would have meant ‘just friends’ to me.
The other night our friendship ended. Not under ideal conditions, but under necessary ones. More than anything else, I’m feeling like I have no clue what I’m feeling. I keep trying to roll it around in my head to understand, but it’s just not there.
Happy? Sad? Relieved? Depressed? Angry? Numb? I can’t tell. I feel something, but I don’t know what it is.
It kept me up the last couple nights. I wasn’t lying in my bed thinking about him, but I couldn’t sleep.
The blessing is that I have a million projects to throw myself into right now.
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You know I’m a music guy. And you know I’m a lyrics freak. I was watching an Ella Fitzgerald documentary and she said at one point something along the lines of “I may not be a great speaker, but when I have something to say, I say it with a song.” I’m sure I’m fouling up that quote horribly, but I share that passion. I express myself in song.
Words mean a lot. And in music, they mean even more.
Some of the best songs Shakira ever made are in Spanish. In particular there is a song called “Ciega, Sordomuda” which basically means ‘blind, deaf, and dumb’. It’s about how she is so in love with a man that she’s blind, deaf, and dumb.
The line I love the most, and the line that’s been ringing in my ears and bouncing off the walls of my mind is:
por ti me he convertido
en una cosa que no hace
otra cosa mas que amarte
My poetic translation is as follows:
I’ve been transformed
into something that doesn’t know anything
except how to love you
That’s exactly how I feel. It is blowing my mind. I can barely focus on anything else.
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Very few things on my DVR obtain the high profile “Save Until Manually Erased” status. Let’s review them, shall we?
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Durty. Yes. But it’s incredible. I was so wrapped up in Zelda last night I didn’t realize it was after midnight. I intended to go to Sound Bar to see my friend Chris Eterno spin, but I lost track of time and I was ready for bed, dreaming of monsters, dungeons, and Iron Boots.
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The Wii is nothing short of revolutionary. 宮本さん有り難うございました！(that’s a thank you to Shigeru Miyamoto, Director and General Manager of Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development.)
Within five minutes of getting home I had cracked open the Wii box and began assembling it. Four minutes later my Wii was connected to the internet, and all setup and ready for play. I popped in Wii Sports, poured myself a small glass of sake on the rocks, and soon discovered I suck at tennis, I’m pretty good at baseball, I love the bowling game (you really can hook), boxing makes me sweat, and I L O V E T H E G O L F G A M E!
After a few hours of that, and the nagging cats who were complaining that I was paying zero attention to them, I headed out to the Gamestop where I picked up a used copy of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and an extra Wiimote and nunchuck.
It’s fucking breathtaking.
The game is GORGEOUS. Somehow the Wiimote and nunchuck make you feel so immersed in the environment. I don’t even have a big television and yet I felt so wrapped up in it all. The cut-scenes are so well done, I’m not sure why these designers aren’t making digital movies. Or maybe they are. I need to research that.
After a couple hours of Zelda (and many mundane initial stages), it was perfectly second nature to use the Wiimote to draw my sword and attack. The bokoblins are a hell of a lot scarier than the ones in Wind Waker. As are the deku baba. They grab you in their jaws and munch on you. Scary.
I obviously haven’t gotten very far at all in the game, but I did enter the wolf stage and kept pinching myself every time a new vista opened up. From the sewers to the section where you move from the top of one tower to another, the scenery is so realistic that I was feeling quite a bit of vertigo. And it wasn’t just the sake.
I don’t care if people thing the PS3 graphics are superior, I love Nintendo and I trust that they have a million more adventures in store for us with Wii. Hell, this version of Zelda wasn’t even designed from the ground-up for Wii. Can’t wait to see what some of the newer games that ARE designed for it will be like.
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Ok, so it’s not the greatest picture ever, but it’s Mii. I’ll refine his look some more, but so far, it does kinda favor me.
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So I’ve been staring at this damned Wii console since about 10:30 this morning when it was delivered to my desk. Damn it. I was hoping it wouldn’t come until after lunch, but NO. Damned efficient FedEx.
I swear today couldn’t be any slower. I simply cannot wait to get home, drop everything, and plug this damned gizmo in! IF, and this is a huge IF, I manage to pry myself away from it for a short while, I’ll take some screen shots and post them for your viewing pleasure.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock. When will it be five o’clock.
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OMG, omg, OMG! I managed to win a Wii auction on Ebay. It should be here TOMORROW and I doubt I’ll get much sleep. In the interim, I needs to get my hands on another Wii controller and nunchuck because I want to be able to play with other folks from the get go.
I’ve also read I need to get a memory card, which should be easy peasy as there is a Wolf camera around the corner from my job. According to all sources, the Wii should accept any SD compatible memory card up to 2GB.
Have you seen the Wii videos? I love this one. Her expressions are cute, especially when she thinks she did good near the end, then cocks her head to the side. But my favorite is this one. Seconds 6-8 are THE BEST. I totally want to share a drink with this couple and hang out. They look so fun!
I can’t wait. Maybe I should do a whole videocast with my camera on my TV while I’m Wii-ing. Is that a new verb?
That sounds durty: Wii-ing.
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Ok hold it. Just because you read the subject of this post and instantly began to sharpen your claws doesn’t mean you can’t hear me out. Open your mind for a moment and read on. It won’t be painful, I promise you.
I like Rachael Ray. No, let me take that back, I LOVE Rachael Ray. And while I don’t own any of her cookbooks (yet) I really love her concepts of cooking. She’s perky. She’s bubbly. And she’s influencing a huge slice of American cooks.
And according to Wikipedia, she makes about $6 mil a year. You go gurl.
I always find it interesting to ask the people who say “I HATE Rachael Ray” how often they cook. Over and over again, the haters seem to cook “oh you know, a couple times a week.” Then, when I ask the few people I know who cook frequently about RR, they say “She’s all right. A little perky, but alright.”
You’re damn skippy she’s perky. It’s her schtick and I love it. Julia was crazy. Graham is batty. Hell, even the Frugal Gourmet who I ADORED as a kid (after Julia of course), was looney tunes. But they all taught me good stuff about cooking.
And Rachael Ray has taught me good stuff too.
The thing about her isn’t so much what she cooks, it’s how she cooks. She grabs an armful of stuff, lays it out on the table, and whips up a meal from a few basic ingredients, taking a handful of shortcuts along the way. Not so much measuring, not so much fretting about a teaspoon or two. Really relaxed and fun. Who has beef with that?
Of course she’s not Achatz at Alinea, she’s NOT TRYING TO BE. She doesn’t curl up with Le Guide Culinaire at night. She’s a cook who has fun in the kitchen without a Cordon Bleu cert to prove she knows the difference between a saucer and a saucier.
Trust me, lots of people like her. In fact, $6 mil a year (I’ll say it again, you go gurl) means that lots of people LOVE her.
So all you Rachael Ray haters who cringed at this post, do me a favor. Watch one of her shows and cook that meal. Or better yet, stroll casually into a book store and copy one of her meals onto a notepad. Cook it. Then eat it.
If you can’t pull yourself together to do that, shut ‘cho mouth about my $6mil a year (go ON gurl) Rachael. She’s the bees knees.
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Spring has started to spring into action in Chicagoland. That doesn’t mean we’re going to see blue sunny skies from now until Pride, but it does mean that the temperatures will climb ever-so-slightly.
Except today.
They’re saying it’ll be nearly 70 degrees. I couldn’t be happier to be honest because I love when the seasons change. Even if they change in two days or so. There’s even mutterings about snow this weekend. Gotta love Chicago.
Last night we recorded at Amy’s house alongside her delightfully furry dog named Nilla. After we finished she walked Nilla and I to the train station and the night couldn’t have been more beautiful. 50 degrees or so, a bit of humidity, and the air smelled sweet as it came in off the lake.
It reminded me how much I love this city. Chicago is all at once a comfortable friend and a complete stranger. I’ve been here so long that I feel like I should know every part of the city, but in truth I don’t know every neighborhood. I know quite a few, but not all of them.
So I came up with a plan. I’m going to make it my goal this year to find new restaurants, meet new shop owners, and visit new places around town. There is so much to see and do, I really want to dive into the unknown. And at the end of the day, I’ll always be able to find my way home.
I have to burn three vacation days next week, and I plan to spend them exploring.
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I purchased this painting last week. It’s horribly tacky, but somehow I love it.
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