rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

holy fucking shit.

so I’m back in Valparaiso.
I realized something on the way home. I hate truckers. yeah, I know, they’re an integral part of the domestic economy; we owe a lot to teamsters and the like. but they drive like assholes, they make the road dangerous, and they’re fucking everywhere. there’s nothing more infuriating than waiting for one semi going 60.1 mph to pass another going 60 mph on a two-lane interstate. you want to flip the guy the bird by the time you get around him, but they have CB radios, and I bet they’re a vengeful bunch.

so I got home at six.
apparently, we haven’t had the dog’s nails clipped in a few years. god damned animal has talons on its paws. I’m already ripped to shit.

Uncle Bill came by with his main man Larry. together, I’d say about 550, 600 lbs. easy. and let me be clear here; nothing but nothing says northwest Indiana like Uncle Bill and Larry.

the initial exchange
me: “hi, Uncle Bill. what’s up, Larry.”
Larry: “howyadoin.”
Bill: “hi, nephew. put ‘er there.” (shakes my hand) ” I’d hug you, but I’m ain’t no homo.”

they told me to come over later; they’re taking the boat out and going fishing. Bill recently bought his first home, small place, right on a local lake.
so mom and I went over there. that ruled out reefer, but that’s okay. had a good time. we screwed around on the boat, fished. had to go in early, cause Uncle Bill had forgotten to buy his Pick 4 for the week, and he had to run to the gas station.

tomorrow morning’s the interview.
tomorrow morning’s the interview.
I don’t much care which way it goes. at the very least, I hope to interview well. I’d like to know that I can interview, if nothing else. I think that’s the priority.

I just saw a massive bug fly across the room. and now I don’t know where it is. I’m talking silver dollar size, here…
okay, that’s not a bug. that’s a mouse.
and that means it wasn’t flying. mice don’t fly, do they?
gonna be an interesting night…

as soon as I decide to go out and get drunk on cheap beer, that’s when the employers call. the next morning, I mean.
I applied for an editor’s position with the Philadelphia Tribune (oh yes, it’s very true) yesterday or Monday, I don’t remember, and they called at about 9 am this morning.
you know how hard it is to sound awake and sober with about ten seconds notice? it’s hard, man.

I gotta pick up my dry cleaning and drive back in a couple hours. haven’t been to Valparaiso since early January. it’ll be about time, I’m sure. all I gotta say: potato. salad. going home rocks.

I bought a re-release of “over the James” by Avail today. also, “blood on the tracks.”
so far, Bob Dylan is winning. but he’s a heavyweight, and it’s almost not fair.

tomorrow, I’m going back north. I’ve got the interview Thursday.
I’m not nervous at all, but I imagine that will change by the time I go in for the sitdown. as of right now, if I had to be honest, I’d rather have the Erie job. they’ll be calling sometime in the next few days.
that one scares me. the Erie job. I’d really like it, and I’ve convinced myself that I’ll fuck somethine up during the phone call. which isn’t a good way to go into it, but here we are.

I need to reiterate how good “blood on the tracks” is.
it’s good. do you follow me?

if I get hired at MarketSense, will that mean that I’m doomed to a housing development along I-55 in Illinois for the next few years? will I shift, become some faceless drone, with faceless friends, shopping at some Trader Joe’s look-a-like, missing the past years of my life?
this is it. this is the beginning of my mark. this will define me for my early twenties, if only for a little while.
I’m scared.

am I settling?

so let’s assume I interview well and I get the Erie job.
what do I know about Erie?

1. okay, you know that movie about the 1960s one-hit-wonders directed by Tom Hanks? yeah, they were supposedly from Erie.
2. Erie is located on beautiful Lake Erie. (it’s the one second from the right)
3. a couple of years ago, somebody ordered a pizza to the middle of nowhere, and when the middle-aged delivery guy came back to town, that somebody had strapped a booby-trapped bomb collar to his neck with instructions to rob a bank or they’d blow his head off by remote control. he died. that was in Erie.
4. they got a women’s football team. the Erie Illusion. what a delicious pun.

well. if you can think of four better reasons to move to northwestern Pennsylvania, you can eat my fucking lunch.

I’ve kind of come to a realization. I may have come to this realization long ago; matter of fact, I think I actually wrote this post a few months ago, and I’m walking over the same ground.
no amount of self-medication, fucking, distraction, television, or recreational drug use will make you happy. happiness comes from somewhere else.
not that I partake in any of the above, no.

UPDATE: I burned my fucking tongue on a frozen pizza yesterday. if you can think of anything nearly as irritating as numbing the tastebuds on the tip of your tongue for 24 hours, I’d love to hear it. try me.

got a call back from Marketsense. advertising agency in the Chicago burbs. I’m trying to hire on as a copywriter.
interview is next Thursday. gotta work on tying the ol’ tie.
a copywriter basically writes up advertisements for clients. like, I convince you to buy their underdeveloped, overmarketed product that you don’t need. you thank me later.
the woman from HR called me on the phone this morning and suggested I bring writing samples. so I’m gonna select some choice reviews. way I see it, reviews are basically a buy-or-sell kind of business. kind of the same thing. right?
right.

Nacho Libre
Futureheads

two in one issue. it only took this long.

good lord, is it hot out today. gotta be in the 90s. I wanna go outside, but I’ll wait for the temperature to drop about five degrees. it’s all the same, but I’ll take my chances later.

I’m reviewing “Married… with Children: the complete 5th season” this week.
oh, fuck. yeah. I love that show.

I’m sitting here, waiting for the Netherlands-Argentina game to start. 30 minutes. until then, Maury is interviewing parents who don’t have the fucking sense enough to not feed their overweight children.
I’m looking at a four-year-old that weighs 120 lbs.
the mother is saying, “it’s my baby, I’ma feed her what I want. stay out my bidness.”

Ozzie Guillen called Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti a fag.
fuck it. he is. I hate that guy.

they had to carry a man to his execution in Texas last night.
“I want everyone to know I did not walk to this, because this is straight-up murder,” he said. “I am not going to play a part in my own murder. No one should have to do that.”
then, when they were giving him the juice, his last words were “this is some nasty.”
his mother, who was in the viewing room, kicked holes in the wall.

got my first response yesterday.
year-long, paid internship in Erie, Pennsylvania. city newspaper’s copy desk. imagine that.

if Mar were the subject of a basketball movie, it would probably be called “The Mar Up There.”

so I wanted to play basketball tonight.
instead, all my suckass friends were off doing stupid bullshit for losers, so instead of basketball I’m sitting here, posting on my stupid blog and eating store-bought potato salad. gotta love the single life.

I’ve got an opinion on a lot of the World Cup teams by now.
let’s do a few.
I don’t like Spain, cause while Tunisia is scrappy and has heart, the Spanish will tie up a ticket to the second round and squander it. so unless you came to play, motherfuckers, go home.
I like the US, cause I can’t stand smarmy Europeans.
I like Ghana, cause they beat the team that beat the US.
I like Trinidad and Tobago, cause they’re just so adorable.
I like Ecuador because I have my reasons.

I don’t like the Argentina, cause watching Argentina pound their competition is about as inspiring as watching Mike Tyson stomp a cripple.
I don’t like Brazil for the same reason.
I really don’t like Argentina, cause they helped eliminate Ivory Coast.

I liked Ivory Coast (even though I never saw them play) because of all the teams in the fucking tournament, that team had something to play for.
they made the Cup, and it stopped a civil war.
fuck, if you ask me, the group should have rolled over for them. football pride or ceasefire?
it’s fair to think of the teams in these ways, cause the Cup, by and large, is political. it’s good press to get your team here and participate on the world stage. fuck, Iran sent a team. Iran is trying to enrich Uranium and is ruled by a government that denies the Holocaust, and they sent a team to play football in fucking Germany.
Saudi Arabia is an oppressive Wahhabist state that sits on oil reserves, so the rest of us have to act like they make positive contributions to the human condition.
I say fuck that. if you don’t allow half your population to vote and religious freedom is a joke, or if you’re suspected of human rights abuses and your country fosters violent fanaticism, then go home. I don’t feel like seeing your national heroes on ESPN2.

man, that irks me. and I didn’t even explain myself clearly.

I don’t know what the fuck “pop rock” is.
I’m trying to write a review of “news and tributes” by the Futureheads, and one of my first draft lines is, “not enough pop sensibility.”
and I believe that, I really do. but I’m sitting here, trying to make msyelf rephrase in layman’s terms, and I got nothing.
to be a music critic, like a film critic, takes a certain snobbishness that we shouldn’t aspire to. I keep thinking about how restaurant critics make me cringe. I mean, fuck. your job is to bitch about food. so you invent problems with flavor synergy and texture and presentation.
but it’s just fucking food.
so maybe you can say the same things about film and music. maybe it’s just an album. maybe there’s no point in being vicious towards something that doesn’t move you.
well, that can’t be true. otherwise, I wouldn’t be much of a movie critic.

I’ve listened to this album quite a few times over the last few days, and all I can think about is how it doesn’t make me tap my foot like their last one did.
no, that’s not true. it does, just in the wrong ways. it’s not paced very well, and it’s a lot more melancholy than the the debut. and I kind of expected more of the same, because I think that their style leans that way. so when they channel slower beats and more hopeless lyrics, the harmonizing they’re known for doesn’t punch. just sounds disjointed.
however.
“favours for favours” is a helluva song. I’d put it in the “such great heights” by the Postal Service category. standout track on an otherwise mediocre album.


was playing basketball today when the storm decided to show. we kept playing, cause we’re stupid, in the driving rain. when the thunder sounded directly overhead, we cut it off. but that was after we were drenched, and my phone had been sitting on the blacktop for a good three minutes of downpour.
now it sounds funny when it rings.
now it finally has fucking character.

favours for favours
futureheads

many times we’d help each other out. favours for favours is nothing new. you’re asking me to use my fingertips, but what I’m sculpting and moulding isn’t you.
these may seem like stupid words, only two more that you’ve heard. everybody’s looking for their saving grace in their race to find a place.
I was watching through the window, you were going through the dances. I’ve been writing all of it down, I’ll be taking all my chances.
this always seems to happen.

but there’s something that you do, I just can’t help myself. I wish that I could move more in time with you. I’ve watched you step and I’ve watched you turn. I’ve watched you move like a knife in the water. watched you move across the floor, over to me for all to see.

now you’re asking me what it is I want? half a chance to dance with you. with a little time to work it out, I know the results could astonish you.