Back in a Chicago Groove

The past four days have been completely insane.

Thursday
I spent the entire day at work listening to three newly acquired albums: (1) Bang Bang Rock & Roll by Art Brut, (2) It's a Bit Complicated by Art Brut, and (3) Ace Frehley by Kiss.

I purchased the two Art Brut albums (their first two) because I should have done so long ago, as I thoroughly enjoyed them when they opened up for The Hold Steady a couple years ago. However, I am going to see them next week at Schuba's, so I figured it's probably a good time to know their songs. I give each Art Brut album 4.5 Handrews.* Their songs are witty, catchy, and British.

You know I love Ace Frehley, so it should, dare I say it, shock you that I haven't purchased his contribution to Kiss's self-aggrandizing experiment whereby each member of Kiss released his own solo album on September 18, 1978. Ace's effort is generally haled as the strongest of the four albums, and I can see why. Just as Kiss was about to turn the corner into disco-rock (see "I Was Made For Lovin' You" off of 1979's Dynasty), Frehley released an album that was harder, darker, and edgier than just about any other Kiss album. There are songs about drug and alcohol abuse ("Snow Blind," "Ozone," "Wiped Out," and the instrumental "Fractured Mirror"), badass guitar-driven songs ("Rip It Out," "Speedin' Back to My Baby," "What's On Your Mind,"), a great rocker with spacey guitars perfectly suited for the Spaceman that he portrayed ("I'm in Need of Love"), and one cheesy but infectious cover song that ended up being a Top 15 hit (Russ Ballard's "New York Groove"). There is not a bad song on this album. I give this one 5 Handrews.

*GMYH CD Review Scale:
-6 Handrews - Buy it now. NOW!!
-5 Handrews - Excellent album that you should seriously consider purchasing in the near future
-4 Handrews - Very good album that you should at least check out on iTunes
-3 Handrews - If you want it, download it illegally
-2 Handrews - Somewhere between Britney Spears and William Hung
-1 Handrew - Ashlee Simpson
-0 Handrews - PopoZao

Beslow, a good friend of mine from law school, was in town from Hoboken for a conference, so after work, Jester and I met up at Piece with him, as well as other fellow law school classmates Drew and Scott and Scott's wife (who is also named Jessie -- what are the chances?!). Pizza was consumed, beer was drunk, motorcycle documentaries were discussed, laughs were had.

Friday
For some reason, I had to work on Friday, so I did, although I spent most of the day banging 28 chicks in succession in my office while listening to W.A.S.P. and huffing glue.

Around 5:13 p.m., I sprinted home wearing nothing but a cod piece with a fully operational (and running) circular saw protruding from it. That was tough, especially corners, although the doctors say the scars on my inner thighs should clear up by the end of next decade.

When I got home, the college kids who live across the street were having a party that was spilling onto the sidewalk and parkway. At one point there was a fight in the middle of the street, which one guy attempted to break up by saying that it was his birthday.

At approximately 7:03, Adam and Jenn (who were in from the burbs) headed up to Lincoln Suqare for MayFest with Jessie and me. For those who don't know, MayFest is probably my favorite street festival of the year, perhaps because it is the closest street fest to Oktoberfest, with it's big beers, various sausages, and overabundance of krauts.

We danced around the maypole and hung out with a nice group of ladies and gentlemen, including, but not limited to, Gregerson, DDT, Tron, Tom, Lill and his wife, Judson and his special ladyfriend, Garfield and his special ladyfriend (who is predictably NOT named Odie), Bapp 5, Grant, Butch Rifle, and some of Butch's friends.

I was appalled to find out that MayFest no longer offers maibock. Whereas in previous years, the two beer options were Hofbrau regular and Hofbrau maibock, the choices this year were Hofbrau regular and PBR. That's like trading out Cerie from 30 Rock for Susan Boyle.

Even though she was not drinking, Jessie made a determined effort to eat in sausage and streusel what she could not drink. I, on the other hand, limited my food intake to several helpings of landjäger (which I believe translates to "dried sausage of the gods"), which I think worked out well for me.

Once MayFest ended, I escorted Jessie back to our abode, as she is pregnant and incapable of loving me when I've consumed any quantity of beer and sausage. Meanwhile, Adam and Jenn took a bike taxi to Brownstone Tavern, and Butch Rifle did the same with some random chick that he met while walking out of MayFest to the bike taxi that would take him and the random chick to Brownstone too.

After I put Jessie to bed (thank God for chloroform), I headed back up north to meet everyone at Brownstone. Most of the next hour was spent cocking a fake rifle and shooting it at Butch Rifle as he macked on, and occasionally made out with, the chick from the bike taxi, who, as it turns out, was a 37-year-old cougar looking to hop on pretty much anything straight or close to straight and greater than three inches in length. All in a day's work for Butch Rifle.

Adam, Jenn, and I left Butch to his own devices and hit up Allende for various delicious Mexican late-night delicacies. At one point, we looked around the restaurant (which was packed) to realize that we were by far the three most attractive people in the restaurant. Look, I'm not saying we're the three most attractive people in the world, but thank God I didn't go to DePaul.

Upon our return back to my place, Jenn went to bed while Adam and I played Game Party 2 on the Wii. Jessie was happy to smell me when I crawled into bed.

Saturday
By the time I woke up Saturday morning, Adam and Jenn were gone, and Jessie was preparing to go to Reed and Sarah's shower, which was at some restaurant just on the edge of city near Park Ridge. Jessie left in what she thought was plenty of time to arrive on time at 12:30. Of course, traffic dictated otherwise, so she arrived in a tizzy around 1, only to realize that the restaurant was closed until 5. Upon further review of the shower invitation, it said "Sunday May 31." Not even my promises of falconry could soothe her anger, most likely because she realizes that I don't have the money to buy her falcons, and she doesn't have the time to train with a master falconer. Her phone was nearly thrown the entire length of Northwest Highway.

After Jessie returned with her phone somehow still intact, we went up to the new apartment of Alex and the Anonymous Wife of Alex for their first post-move cookout. The regular gang of teachers and other friends of Alex and the Anonymous Wife of Alex were there. Alex grilled his patented chicken wings, much to everyone's enjoyment, except Christoff, since he wasn't there. After the cookout, everyone except for Jester and me headed up to MayFest, while we headed back home to walk and feed the dog (which apparently you have to do EVERY day, sometimes more than once).

Soon thereafter, we headed up to Matilda for a much ballyhooed mini law school reunion, prompted by the fact that Beslow and another classmate named Kiwi (who is not a New Zealander) both happened to be in town. With about ten classmates there, I would presume this was the largest gathering of the Class of '03 since graduation. Drinks were consumed, as is the custom with lawyers, people in their early 30s, and IU grads. It was agreed that we were the greatest law school class of all-time, mainly because we were, on the whole, very apathetic and did not succumb to the Paper-Chase-style antics that plagued so many other classes. We didn't have gunners in our class -- just drinkers and the occasional pothead. And that made law school much more enjoyable.

But I digress. We had a good time, as you would expect. In addition to various law school classmates, I saw Butch Rifle at Matilda as well. He now haunts my nights.

To escape Butch Rifle's animal magnetism, I made a quick exit from Matilda, along with Beslow, Scott (last name: not Peterson), Drew (last name: not Peterson), Kiwi, and Kiwi's boyfriend, whose name I may have learned at some point Saturday night. We headed a couple blocks up to Chicago's Pizza for a couple pieces of rallying pizza, and then were trying to figure out a good late-night bar to throw money at. Kiwi's boyfriend suggested Ravens, which I have somehow never been to. Maybe I should have spent more time studying in law school than drinking because I just ended two sentences with prepositions, and a preposition is something you should never end a sentence with. Anyway, because it doesn't suck or charge cover, Ravens seemed like a far better option than the Big Shitty or the reincarnated Vu, so we hopped in two cabs (figuratively) and headed to Ravens.

Soon after we arrived, they started showing The Toxic Avenger on many of their TVs, without the sound, of course. The six of us were captivated nonetheless. I haven't seen it in a long time (probably ten to fifteen years ago in J-Diza's parents' basement, as was the style back then). It's the plausible story of a nerd who is tricked into wearing a tutu by some hot chick, and then when everyone makes fun of him, he falls out a window into some radioactive sludge, thus mutating him and giving him superhuman strength. He then busts some heads, both literally and figuratively. There seemed to be a lot of assholes, guys who shoot seeing-eye dogs with shotguns, and violent criminals in whatever city he lived in. I need to watch this with the sound on again, and so do you.

When I returned home from Ravens at approximately 3 a.m., I decided that I wanted to watch some Metal Mania on VH1 Classic, as rocking out is something I usually do when I return from bars. However, my remote's batteries are low, so sometimes it doesn't cooperate. The numbers were not registering, so I would have had to either get up off the couch to put new batteries in the remote or scroll from channel 2 to channel 337, neither of which I found to be an acceptable proposition. Instead, I started watching the movie that was on channel 2, which was the 1942 Jack Benny and Carole Lombard vehicle, To Be Or Not To Be, a WWII-themed laugh riot about tricking hapless Nazis. I found myself enjoying it and thinking that it was a bit risqué for the time period, but, hey, anything that makes fun of Germans is funny in my book. Then I decided that sitting on the couch was no way to enjoy a movie about krauts, so I decided to lie down on the couch. My eyes close immediately. A few minutes later, I was violently awoken by my the vibrating of my phone. It was Jessie asking, in no uncertain terms, where "the fuck" I was. "Upstairs watching a risqué black and white movie. Fucking Nazis. Nothing changes," I politely explained. I then noticed that the "few minutes" I thought I had been asleep was actually something more like 109. Apparently the fact that it was nearly 5 a.m. and I wasn't lying next to her was an issue for my pregnant wife. I also looked at my phone to realize that there were two equally angry text messages from Jessie that had been sent in the previous hour, both of which included the phrase "where the fuck r u?"

Sunday
Yesterday was slightly tamer. Jester went out to Reed and Sarah's shower, this time without incident or promises of falconry. I hung out on Chandler and Gregerson's roof deck with Chandler and Lisa, and later Jester, Alex, the Anonymous Wife of Alex, Gregerson, and Emily, in that order. Beer was drunk. Potato chips and French onion dip were consumed. Skin was burned. Corn was holed.
I'm pretty sure I gained four pounds this weekend, but I'm pretty sure it was worth it.