The week ahead

Music

Obviously, I’ve been too busy to post because I’ve been doing some consulting for the Trib’s Steve Johnson.

Just kidding, TOC bosses! Not getting any on the side! Love my job, please don’t fire me!

I’m rocking a new laptop, but the fried motherboard on the old machine has prevented me from pulling my old hard drive data, which had some planned post ideas on it. So things will continue to be a bit spare here, but I encourage you to check out the TOC blog over the next week, as I’ll be posting reviews of tonight’s Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings show tomorrow, as well as a review next Wednesday of a solo show by Dan Wilson, formerly of Semisonic (or perhaps the review I turned in last week of the Bobby Bare Jr./Lucero show).

It’s interesting: I still really love Semisonic, but when I listen to their early albums, they sound a little dated. I don’t mean that as a slam – I feel the same way about Material Issue’s International Pop Overthrow – but it’s hard to divorce that music from its time, even if Wilson’s way with a lyric and a hook comes through loud and clear on the song he co-wrote for the Dixie Chicks (“Not Ready to Make Nice”).

Finally – last plug* for the 9-to-5, I swear – if you’re at all interested in the Chicago theater scene, you really ought to check out the writing that the TOC staff has been doing on our blog. The work they’ve been doing there has been heartily embraced by the local community, in large part because they’re willing to write honestly about what’s going on locally, even if it means catching flack from the 800 pound gorillas that are some of the major theater producers in town.

* Last plug today, that is.

Pizza'd out

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Due to a fried motherboard on my home machine, I haven’t been posting here. But even if things were A-OK on that front, I’ve been busy with a work project to go along with this week’s Time Out Chicago pizza issue, so I doubt I’d have been all that active anyway.

This is the first time we’ve ever done a pizza issue, in part because it seemed a little obvious. But I think we did a solid job with this, and we will no doubt cause a little controversy with our pick of Coal Fire’s Margherita pizza as the best in the city, along with the whole deep-dish vs. thin crust debate (I’m on the deep-dish side a.k.a. “the side of the angels.”)

In addition to all the kinds of things you’d expect from TOC on a topic like this, I put together a video of local chefs from some of the city’s best pizza joints talking about how to make a Margherita pizza. The reporting and camera work were done by freelancers but it was up to me to edit down five hours of video into some snappy video clips. You can see the results here.

Goulet!

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I posted something about the death of Robert Goulet on the TOC blog yesterday. I don’t have much more to add to that, except to point you to this 1993 story in the NY Times that fellow TOC‘er Tim Lowery hipped me to that tells you everything about the way Goulet crafted his persona. Plus, here’s a little lounge action for you with the near-definitive version (apologies to Sammy Davis Jr.) of “What Kind of Fool Am I?”

MP3 – Robert Goulet “What Kind of Fool Am I”

Bitchin’ in the kitchen

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I’m no Grant Achatz in the kitchen, but I do have occasional moments of brilliance. Case in point: last week, when I whipped up some salmon burgers for the lady and myself (recipe at the end of this post). Just the same, when I’m making dinner for myself, I tend to do something that isn’t so much cooking as it is – in the words of my college girlfriend – heating. A Man, a Can and A Plan isn’t just a book, it’s a lifestyle choice.

But there’s simple, and then there’s stupid.

This evening, I was cooking up another masterpiece when I saw this on the back of a package of brown rice:

Chef’s Tips
Quick meal ideas to make your life easier
For a Quick Delicious Meal in Minutes:
Star with READY WHOLE GRAIN RICE Whole Grain Brown. Pick up a Rotisserie (or other cooked favorite) add a bagged salad and you have a quick, complete meal in minutes.

Let’s ignore, for a moment, the massive copy editing problems with this “tip.” I don’t care who you are, this is information that is so basic as to be useless. They might as well just say:

For a quick and delicious mean in minutes:
Go to the store and buy some groceries. Put a package of our rice in there, too.

Now for those salmon burgers…

2 lbs fresh salmon, do not buy the canned stuff, you’ve been working hard, you deserve the finer things
1 cup bread crumbs
2 eggs
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon soy sauce
4 wheat buns, toasted
Olive oil
Parmesan cheese

Remove the skin from the salmon. This is the hardest part of this recipe. In fact, it is at this point that you will regret attempting this recipe. But it’s totally worth it. Place the salmon in a plastic bag, and pound the hell out of it. This will help get out some of your frustrations over removing the salmon skin. Dump the salmon into a bowl and add the rest of the ingredients. Mix them thoroughly, then form the mixture into equally sized burgers, or a couple of big ones and a couple of small ones if you preparing dinner for a light eater. Grill the burgers for about 5 minutes per side, or five minutes total if you rock the Foreman.

Toast the buns then pour some olive oil into a small dish, and add some Parmesan cheese, until it forms a liquidy paste. Spread the Parmesan paste on the top bun. Add lettuce and tomato for garnish, if you like, but it is only going to get in the way of the awesomeness.

Reflections on years of collecting pieces of plastic

Music

I’m on vacation this week, and I fully expected it to lead to more blog posts here, but that hasn’t happened since I’ve been spending as much time as possible away from the computer so I’m not tempted to check and see how things are going at TOC in my absence. Instead, I’ve been knocking off some long-overdue projects around the house.

Today, for instance, I tackled a project that’s been hanging over my head for months: re-organizing my CDs. I’ve been dividing things into three piles: discs that I’ve loaded into iTunes and can be put into storage; discs that I don’t want in iTunes for space reasons, but still want easy access to; and the stuff I’m selling off. So for example: the double-disc version of The Very Best of Elvis Costello is in the first category, my copy of his Get Happy! album is in the second, and the single-disc version of Very Best that came out several years ago is in the sell pile. (I’m assuming Reckless still buys CDs. It’s been so long since I’ve sold CDs, Sean Fanning was still in high school.)

I’ve said before that it’s important to me to have a visual representation of this part of who I am in my home, and the piece I wrote a while back was pretty clear on how important it is to me that the records I share with others are reflective of my personal taste. Unfortunately, this plan means the discs on my shelves don’t necessarily reflect that. For example, I’d be mightily confused if I looked at someone’s collection of CDs and saw that the only Clash disc they have is Combat Rock, which is one of the lousiest “classic” albums you’ll ever encounter. I’d also wonder about the kind of person who only owns one James Brown album (James Brown’s Funky Christmas), but saw fit to purchase all three Sheryl Crow albums. Obviously, this means I can never have anyone over to the apartment.

Most of these CDs have been in boxes for the better part of a year and a half, and looking at them is like seeing old friends, particularly the numerous mix CDs my college friends I were trading for a year or so back in the early aughts. This probably explains why I’m having trouble parting with some discs, but does not explain why I am hanging onto that one Nikka Costa album, though I am sure it is the same reason why that Lisa Stansfield album isn’t going anywhere either. I am such a sucker for a pretty face and a little R&B street cred, no matter how long past its sell-by date it is.

There’s a lot of personal history here, like the time I went out and bought three (!!!) Don Henley solo albums because I was in a really big Eagles phase. I still remember my friend Rick asking “Why don’t you just buy more Eagles albums?” I didn’t have an answer for him then, and still don’t. I’ve also got mixes I made for when my friends and I drove to South Carolina for a friend’s wedding, for parties I threw, and to mark the holidays, among other occasions. And I still have the Ultradisc gold CD version of Queen’s A Night At The Opera (yes, you can tell the difference in sound quality) I bought in high school. It was $27. I was a huge fan, I did not have a girlfriend, and i had little else to do with the money I made at Bakers Square.

Speaking of, I was talking with a friend from high school this week about albums that are tough for me to listen to, even though they’re really great. I was listening to Art Brut’s first album and Tralala’s self-titled a lot when my ex- and I broke up in 2006, but I tend to avoid both of those now. Thanks to a breakup in college, I have a similar reaction when I hear No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak” or Sheryl Crow’s “My Favorite Mistake” though both of those songs are kind of crap, so no great loss there. But man I miss hearing Art Brut and Tralala, devoid of personal context. I carry those with me on my iPod, perhaps hoping that one day I will.

On the other hand, that really shitty Nina Gordon record went on the sell pile. You know how when you’re depressed, you start doing all kinds of things that are really bad for you? I can tell how unhappy I was in my life by the records I was buying. I had two rough patches in 2000 and in 1997, two years in which I purchased that Nina Gordon album and – I kid you not – the soundtrack to Ally McBeal, respectively. I enjoyed those records like someone who convinces themselves that they are in love with someone who treats them like shit. If you ever see me buy a Celine Dion record, please know that this is a silent cry for help.

Overall, the sell pile is pretty small. I know there are some people who wouldn’t understand why I don’t just burn everything onto an MP3, and toss the lot of it. But I don’t have a lot of pictures of the people I’m close to, or the important times we shared together.

But it’s pretty likely I remember what CD we were listening to at the time. And it’s nice to pull it out and look at it, now and again.

* Can someone explain to me why this album is still in print, but the version of the English Beat’s I Can’t Stop It** with “Tears of a Clown” on it, is not?
** My copy is safely ensconced in the storage pile, and loaded into iTunes.

TOC wants to sex you up

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I’m sorry to say I didn’t write any of the articles in TOC‘s sex issue, now on newsstands and online. But it doesn’t mean I’m not proud of what we put out there. I’ve liked the magazine since before I worked there, but I think we’ve been on a streak of excellent issues lately.

While we don’t shy away from the TOC voice, we still managed to write about an adult topic for adults, rather than layering the whole thing with innuendo and suggestion and robbing it of any weight and information. The whole thing is a great read, particularly our sex survey of Chicago (or rather the TOC readership) that was the result of a bunch of work on the online side.

As I said, I didn’t write any of this but I did enjoy putting together this morning’s sexed-up home page. Wednesday is usually my roughest day at work because we’re there late putting up the new pages. One of the highlights of my day is writing the dek for that week’s In & Out column (by our sex and relationships columnist Debby Herbenick who wrote the lion’s share of our feature package). So getting to write an entire page full of things like “Furries, age play and clown sex. Or as we like to call it: a TOC staff meeting” was a nice way to break up the day.

Visually speaking, there’s not too much in the package that’s NSFW. I’d suggest you wait until you get home before curling up with the public sex stories though.

Coming soon: "My Tube Socks (Remix)" by K-Fed

Music,

MP3 – “My Bra” (excerpt) – Mya
Lyrics – See below

Last week, the big new music release was Radiohead’s In Rainbows. I am predicting that this week’s big talker will be “My Bra” by Mya.

Okay, perhaps this song won’t have people chattering about the end of the music industry business model, but it makes up for it with Devin Hester levels of ridiculousness.

The verses of the song are pretty unremarkable by themselves; they’re the kind of non-specific, meaningless I-am-dealing-with-adversity-but-will-persevere-by- staying-strong lyrics you hear in the trailers of movies featuring single women who have to deal with tragedy of some kind, be it death, divorce or public speaking engagements. In this case, the song comes from the upcoming Lifetime movie The Matters of Life and Dating, a title that conveniently omits the major plot point of the movie: that Ricki Lake’s single (see?) character undergoes a mastectomy and has to learn how to live life again.

(Sidebar: To my mind, the definitive life-after-mastectomy tele-film is The Ann Jillian Story, and nothing you say will convince me otherwise.)

So on its face, writing a song called “My Bra” for a film like this makes a lot of sense. But instead of an introspective exploration of how items we take for granted are recast in a different paradigm after a major life change, you get lyrics like “You’re my legs when I start to stumble/My strength, my sun, my heart.”

But once you get to the chorus, the song becomes unintentionally hilarious.

I don’t mean to take away from the very real problem of breast cancer, which directly or indirectly affects anybody on the planet who isn’t a clone, but even if you’re not a 14 year-old boy, how do you not laugh at lines like:

When it’s just too hard to make it through another day
You’re lifting me up
My bra, my bra, my bra

After some further research, it turns out that “my bra” is slang in the breast cancer community for “my friend.” In that context, it’s cute and….well, supportive (pardon the pun). But hearing it over and over as a stand-in for an actual person just conjures up images of some woman cozying up to her underwires.

Perhaps if the verses weren’t of the Dr. Seuss school of rhyming (little surprise that Mya says “I literally wrote the song in five minutes”), I might have a different opinion.

In the meantime, I’ll take solace in the notion that my 99 cents contributed to breast cancer research, while I busily compose a Weird Al style ode to bro-mance titled “My Bro.” At first, I thought I could use the vernacular “bra” as a stand-in for “bro” but as Barney said in last night’s How I Met Your Mother, that word should be stricken from the lexicon. “It was fun for a week…now it’s over.”

You can find out how to do more to stop breast cancer without hurting your ears at Lifetime’s site.

“My Bra” by Mya

You never know….you’re my bra
You never know what you’re gonna get from day to day
I was sitting on top of the world never thought that would change
Had a life that dreams are made of and everything
And in a moment it all came crashing down and I’ll never be the same

Thought I was safe
I had it made
It couldn’t happen to me

Chorus:
You’re my bra, my bra, my bra
You’re my light at the end of the tunnel
You’re my bra, my bra, my bra
You’re my legs when I start to stumble
My strength, my sun, my heart
When it’s just too hard to take it
When it’s just too hard to make it through another day
You’re lifting me up
My bra, my bra, my bra

When the going got tough, you were there by my side
Telling me the things I needed to hear
You went the extra mile
I thank the heavens above
For your grace
‘Cause when I couldn’t find my courage (yeah)
You gave me your face

Your endless calls
Breaking down my walls
Getting down on your knees and breaking with me

Chorus

I’m fighting, fighting
Facing all of my fears
I’m surviving, I’m surviving
I keep on
Fighting, fighting
Taking it one day at a time
I keep
Trying, Trying

Gonna make it, gonna make it
Nothing’s gonna stop me from going on
So many reasons I gotta stay strong

Chorus (x2)
Fade out

Bio-rhythms

Music


While the week’s writing has waned, I have been busy. Dick Prall is a local musician I met when he asked me to moderate a political debate, hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He’s on staff there, and apparently thought I’d be good for the gig after someone there saw me read the Richard Marx letters. No, I’m not sure I see the connection either, but I guess they were looking for someone who’s comfortable on stage with a beer in his hand and let’s face it: I can hit that mark as easy as dropping a tennis ball on the floor.

In any case, we’ve been friendly since then and recently he asked me to write a bio to accompany his new album, Weightless. You’ll find that here.

I’ve never taken on an assignment like this before, and probably wouldn’t have if Prall hadn’t been a musician I enjoy or if he’d been looking for me to write the kind of fawning, lots-of-words-here-but-nothing’s-being-said bio that I see countless examples of in promotional one-sheets. He said he wanted something straight-ahead and journalistic, so I ended up approaching it like most of the other band profiles I’ve done.

Like everyone with access to electricity and a guitar, Dick’s got a MySpace page and I’d encourage you to check it out. Seriously, have I ever steered you wrong on music?

Scarlett Johansson is….Wonder Woman?

Comics

I was mildly disappointed when Jessica Biel, who had been in talks to play Wonder Woman in an rumored Justice League of America film, turned down the role (this should not be confused with the Wonder Woman film that Joss Whedon had been helming until this year). I think it’s a bad idea to make a JLA film as it’ll just confuse the non-geeks out there, and superhero flicks work best when there’s a limit on the number of heroes and villains (compare and contrast Time Burton’s first Batman flick with his second). So anything that makes this film harder to make is fine with me (bad superhero flicks that tank make it that much harder for the good ones to make it to the screen and I’m kinda hoping someone figures out a way to get Ryan Reynolds in the ol’ red boots). But, you know, seeing Jessica Biel in the WW gear…wouldn’t have been terrible.

Ahem.

As I’ve said, I would like to see a Wonder Woman flick get made, and I think Gary Frank, one of DC’s artists, has his own ideas about who should play her. Check out this frame from Wonder Woman Annual #1 which hit stores this month.


Remind you of anyone?

Giving you something you can feel/read

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As is obvious, I’m not always able to throw down substantial posts daily. But I was inspired by Whitney’s Lolla updates at Pop Candy and Matt’s recent addition at Wood-Tang to add Twitter updates to the OMIC blog. You’ll see them in the right rail under “I just thought of something…” which is a quite accurate way of describing those mini-brain explosions. Hopefully, it will give you daily readers of this blog (Hi, Marg Hicks!) a reason to continue checking in.