Turning the Corner

Friday was a long night, what with the Ham BBQ and then a stop at the First Amendment gallery opening. Anna said that there's a duplicate of her and Shad's house a block north of their place that's for rent but I'm thinking I'll probably try to stay closer to work and Uptown next time back as it'll more than likely be snowing by then. In the morning I realized I still had the Rapid Park card and stopped at Dave's to drop it off, and ended up chatting for an hour or so about Ham.

And here I am again, back in Chicago, covered in cats and typing into a little window on a computer screen, organizing my trip photos and notes. Here's one of the doodles I made while the more dedicated were making their twenty-four page comics:

Love You In The Fall

I don't know if it's just a Minneapolis thing but they're playing "Love You in the Fall" from Paul Westerberg's new soundtrack album quite a bit, and I'm liking it a lot. I also heard a new song from Sonic Youth while driving today and liked it. It seems like my late 80s/early 90s favorites are producing some nice new music.

It was to say the least an interesting night last night. I hung out at the "More Than 23 But Less Than 25 Hour" comic event at Book Arts, then off to Jamey's party which was a very nice party, then around 3 am back to Book Arts. Then back home for a few hours sleep. Then back to the Book Arts - I arrived at about 9:15 and most of the cartoonists had gone off to sleep. Adam and I picked up Rita and had breakfast at Bryant Lake Bowl - delicious potatoes but the Eggsadilla wasn't anything special.

It's been a busy week but this next week looks to have a few late nights at work. I'm seriously thinking about going back to the mac camp after a number of years favoring windows. That'll complete the Beetle/iPod/MacBook trifecta. Probably no more posts for a while, have fun wherever you are.

The Stars of Track and Field

It's one of those clichéd Belle and Sebastian mornings plotting my trip to Minneapolis. With any luck I'll be able to stop frequently on the drive up to take photos. It would be even more super super if the parts to fix my powerbook arrive today or tomorrow so I can bring that along. Hopefully my back will be fine again mid next week and my rusty old knees will be able to handle a bit of running - if I can find a track I'll probably start on that so I can get a sense of where I'm at with my endurance.

I'm Mad As Hell...

Dave from work passed this on: link.

More Songs

Probably shouldn't have started recording again but here are a couple of decent recordings of a couple of standards from the ol' Donn Ha Music Conglomerate catalog:

Nothing
Porn Star

Miss Misery Morning

It's a Miss Misery morning here. Slept a good 11 hours last night - I've been running myself ragged. As I left the Hideout to see if there were a way to sneak into the Smog show (which a little bird said would have Joanna Newsom as a super secret guest) a guy came up and asked if I had a ticket or wristband to give him. I sold it to him for the price of one dreadlock. Other transactions this weekend - three cigarettes to the man who was willing to hop on one leg 50 times.

Got rear ended by a woman, odd experience that. I watched in my rear view mirror as her car skidded a good eighty feet. I even pulled ahead twenty feet and she still wasn't able to stop her car, although as I pulled ahead there was no traction at the start - I put it down to oil slicked rain.

Baby NegaDonn Is Born!

NegaDonn's beautiful son was born on September 7 at 3:32 a.m. He weighed 6 lbs., 12 oz. and measured 22.5 inches long. Of course, this leaves me in the lurch as to whether any of the Negas will be at the Hideout street festival... but now I can shave off my mocking moustache of two days' growth.

Commune

Well, I've just finished Maxeem Konrardy's Commune and it was an excellent read. A little slow in the middle as they're exploring but towards the last third very gripping as the story becomes clearer to the reader. I've been a little slow in finishing as I was anxious to be out and about during the holiday, but tonight's a more mellow night and well suited to some gripping science fiction, which it was. The art style falters here and there with representation of adult faces, pacing is as said excellent except in the middle. This of course is just my perspective as a reader as I can only make a doodle here and there. It's a little pricey due to the printing method: "...the ink is vegetable-based and the energy used in transportation is offset by wind energy investment." So if you want a good read, and are willing to pay a bit of a premium for ecologically aware production, get yourself a copy today.

Three Hundred

Ha ha! Three hundred flickr views! Mwahahahahahahahaha! Dave of course has 700+. Sigh. And by the way have you seen this super cute picture of me I took this morning? heh heh heh...

My neighbor Jacqueline was at the coffee shop so I chatted with her during lunch. She was there with one of her fellow furniture-mongers. During this coffee chat a strange woman came outside with a juice and paper and the manager followed her out and told her they were fifty cents. After some argument the manager took the paper from her and left. "I get treated like dirt 'cause I'm Sicilian," the strange woman muttered. "This place is worse than Starbucks. I'd rather be at Starbucks." I pointed out that there's a Starbucks in the Dominicks on Clark and Howard at which point she said that she hated that place even more than the corner coffee shop, although she did have a favorite Starbucks further north but then she'd need bus fare.

Sleep + Music

Seven hours of glorious uninterrupted sleep, back feeling good, hair full and shiny. Attained a level of proficiency with photography where I'm not totally embarassed. Starting to feel like recording music again - there's many more songs from the 16+ year Donn Ha Music Conglomerate back catalog to record plus the new songs. A couple of the recorded songs that have been sitting on Matt's computer will be posted soon - "Porn Star" and "Some Days".

And So Ends Tuesday

Yawn! What an uneventful day, and now soon to sleep. Reaction to the new photos has been mixed but I'm fairly satisfied with my advances - I'm able to coax decent enough pictures out of my little digital camera. What subject matter should I tackle? Should I go about looking to impose a theme on the world? I dunno. I've got the funny idea to turn the photos into grotesque oil paintings. Painting's one of those areas that I haven't dabbled in for some number of years.

It seems that I am nearing catching the elusive Greenberg - a friend of apparently many friends and a person who has provided music for a number of Ham projects, some of which I worked on.

Oy

This is the longest weekend of my life. It's only Sunday morning and it feels like a week's gone by and there's a month until it's over. Last night I went to the South Union Arts to see a show and got some fairly satisfying pictures.

Sleep

Whatever Charlie did at the Rainbo to my back worked - or at least I'm attributing my five solid hours of sleep to her expert ministrations. I woke up this morning with a diffuse pain and stretched it out side to side. NegaDonn's sister's boyfriend sold his book to Random House and now needs a book cover. He apparently has the right to say "no" to an illustrator/cover but no one was sure if he could suggest a cover/illustrator. I of course suggested the fabulous Kevin Cannon who has in the past ceased to amaze me then amazed me at how I could cease being amazed.

Yesterday on my way to the Hopleaf I stopped at the little used book store on Jarvis and found the perfect book for *******'s photo project - she's going to convert the book into a holder for photographs she's taken.

**** really isn't as inscrutable as I'd thought - he's actually just right up there on the surface as far as I can tell. In any case, I'm going to put on some going outside pants and take some photos of the shoreline.

NegaDonn

NegaDonn is growing a moustache - he's going to let it grow until the baby arrives. I was mocking it at first then I found out it was one day's growth. I've gone a whole month and haven't had whiskers that thick.