Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Club Kids

circa 1992

 

Future Mrs. S and I were living on one floor of a Wicker Park rowhouse down the street from the Opus Dei church:
Opus Dei Church

A couple of blocks away, there was a bar called the Artful Dodger:

Artful Dodger

There was a bar in the front room and a dance floor in the back. The well drinks from the bar came with glow sticks in them.

Aqua Velva

and the back room had black lights and trippy graffitti on the walls. Usually something like this was playing:


The Artful Dodger stayed open until 2. If you weren't ready to go home yet (remember the glow sticks?) you could walk up to Blue Note on Armitage, which was a super smoky basement bar that stayed open until 4. The jukebox was good, filled with Blue Note jazz records as well as classic Chicago blues:


If you still weren't ready to go home (some of those *glow sticks* lasted longer than others) you could walk across the Cortland bridge

Chicago from Cortland St bridge

past the Finkl factory

A Finkl & Sons Steel

and over to Old Town, where you could get a greasy breakfast at Nookie's Diner.

Nookies

I had a friend who lived in a coach house/studio above a garage in Old Town. She tended bar and kept strange hours but she was usually good for some French press coffee, a couple of bowls and some chill music:


Then on Monday morning, load up the Walkman with appropriate tapes for the ride in to work:



Good times, back in the day.

Untitled

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Just One More (For The End Of The Road)

The ring of success
Remains highly elusive
You find happiness
In the daily quotidian
Forget all the diamonds
Mine for obsidian
The resort of your life
Is not that exclusive

Tierra del Fuego
Is the ends of the earth
Where the mountains collapse
Into archipelago
Our guide is Chilean
The storm Argentinian
And none of us know
What any of this is worth

So pour me another
And make it a double
Pour me one more
For the end of the road

We did take the acid
And yes it was brown
Just like the music
In the quickening mud
Just like the swan dive
And the sickening thud
The car's in the ditch
Shall we hitch
Back to town?

So pour me another
And make it a double
Pour me one more
For the end of the road

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Double A Blues

My shoulder is in shreds
My elbow is hanging by a thread
But you don't need a slurve
To live a suburban life

It got me some girls
And put me through school
And showed me which diners
Are open all night

And you still love the game
But the game don't love you back
So they put you off the bus
And you have to find another track

I keep working out
Cause it's just what you do
And I keep going to rehab
While the insurance comes through

I know what it's like
To be the king of the hill
To be a man amoung boys
To give a giant crowd thrills

But now I'm just a guy
With a bad arm
And a pile
Of bills

Thursday, May 02, 2013

In A Nutshell

Thank you.
I’m sorry.
Please?
You’re welcome.

:)