Mikkey Halsted: less burdened by “success” than Nas and Jay, dismissive all the same. If you didn’t already know, Fake Shore Drive is the Nah Right of Chicago.
MySpace ripped from left field: more prescient Sconny friends bought up a block of Rock the Bells tickets, since they are $40 solo, but 4 for $100. Hadn’t realized B.O.B., one of my favorite next generation ATLiens, is on the bill. Not thrilled that it’s in Tinley Park, also home to Crüe Fest, but the lineup should at least bury some embarrassing memories of trekking to the Tweeter Center to catch a jam band.
“He’s in on it. He has something for you. Some drugs. I need you to go pick them up. Here’s the address.” He gingerly undid one of the thousands of safety pins on Punk’s jacket and pinned the piece of paper to his front.—Zach Plague, boring boring boring. Out August ‘08 via featherproof; bought early @ The Dollar $tore.
Last Sunday was probably the first time I’ve paid to go to Second City, rather than duck into a free improv set. Yet the performers were such amateurs they had two “ringers” warm up the laugh track—by which I of course mean my friend’s class performed with two others, and the $2 was recouped via some laughs* more sincere than those heard above.
Dunno if this duo’s a pair of instructors or conservatory members, but their subsequent shilling between sets was effective as anti-jesting: never so funny-ha-ha that it eclipsed the previous set, tangential enough to distract from previous misfires—meanderingly downbeat enough to make one yearn for a return to the students’ madcap parade of prosthetics and role-playing Lincoln Logs.
The abrupt ending is not intended as commentary on the relative hilarity of yelling “boys rule!” To that end, someone offered “Sausage Fest” when the audience was asked to prompt a scene with the title of a movie-in-progress. Not coincidentally, the World’s Largest Brat Fest happens this weekend, in the place I’ve fled for the past few weeks.
*Not to mention the swelling pride that can only come from seeing a friend—who, for giggles, once assaulted you with a cordless vacuum—wryly poised on stage.
Last Saturday, after I got my prescriptions filled, I went to Medicine Park. I left with high hopes of adopting a cleft baby, but have been flaking on the screening interviews. The red neon in the pic above? From the adult entertainment center across the street.
THE “PRESS” @ Mario Lopez’s Chicago signing
“I often rank high on those listings you see in supermarkets and on TV—you know, guys with the best bodies in Hollywood… I don’t work out to show off my abs at the beach, although I can’t help it, either, if paparazzi use a zoom lens to shoot me with my shirt off on vacation. What can you do, right?”
—Mario Lopez Jeff O’Connell, Mario Lopez’s Knockout Fitness
This afternoon @ the Borders on State:
Photographer: Did you do a sit-down?
TV newsperson: Yeah, just finished.
Photographer: Did you get him to take his shirt off?
TV newsperson: It wasn’t that serious.
The registration for chi-canery.com lapsed recently—long after any association with “content.” Now that I’m probably moving back, hopefully I’ll make the money to re-up.
