When in the course of human evenings it becomes necessary to find the answers to the questions in the Ketel One ad on the back of the current New Yorker, and it's after midnight, it is something to know that Seattle Public Library is there for you. In a shifting, stricken, electronically connecting world, www.spl.org is at the ready. It's true that long before midnight the librarians manning the quick information line (whom I love) have gone home, but the library has connections. It knows some people. It's not a problem.

Before we go any further, here is the back of the current New Yorker (at least it's dated this Monday--there's probably an even newer one downstairs in the mail box):

In case you can't see the image, it's an all-white page with text on it. At the top it says "Dear Ketel One Drinker" and continues "Here are the answers to 10 commonly asked questions."

The answers to the 10 commonly asked questions are:

Yes
George Washington
Briefs
Depends on who you ask
Down the hall, second door on your left
District of Columbia
86 Cents
The Nile (if you include the Blue & White)
114 Years, 211 days
93.2 million miles

OK, so I didn't need an answer from Seattle Public Library. I needed a question. I needed the question that "114 Years, 211 days" was the answer to. Because I knew all the other questions.

The first answer, "Yes," is clearly the answer to the question "Do you find Christopher Frizzelle unbelievably attractive?" "George Washington" is "Who was the first president of the United States?" "Briefs," "Depends on who you ask," and "Down the hall, second door on your left" are advertising writers having fun around a conference room table. "District of Columbia" is the answer to "What does the abbreviation in Washington, DC stand for?" "86 cents" is hard, but, with Google's help, I'm guessing it's either "Roughly how much do women make for every dollar a man earns?" (from one website: "Women make 86 cents for every dollar men earn in the District of Columbia"; from another: "Female managers in the communications industry made 86 cents for every dollar"; from another: "Asian Pacific American women earn 86 cents for every dollar") or "How much is an Aussie worth next to a U.S. dollar right now?" The answer "The Nile (if you include the Blue & White)" is clearly the answer to "What's the longest river in the world?" And "93.2 million miles" is "How far is the sun from Earth?"

But this "114 Years, 211 days"--this one isn't easy. When I Googled "114 Years, 211 days" I got tables of numbers, pages of equations, databases full of dates. When I put "114 Years, 211 days" in quotes and Googled that, I got only one page: Some guys on a Google Groups thread talking about the "booze ad on the back of The New Yorker." (I feel so much less alone!)

People weighed in to that Google Group with answers. But the only answer anyone posted--er, question--for "112 Years, 211 days" was: "How long was the 100 Years' War? (Well, actually, someone else did pose another question that "112 Years, 211 days" could answer: "When will the Celtics hang up another championship banner?") But Wikipedia says the 100 Years' War was 116 years. Huh.

I went to the library to see if someone there could help. I went to www.spl.org and clicked on Contact the Library. Then I clicked on Live chat (24/7). Then I typed in my name, my email address, my question, and hit Chat.

Here is what I typed in:

OK. This is a little weird. "114 years, 211 days" is the answer to a question. I need to figure out what the question is. There's an ad on the back of The New Yorker for Ketel One, and they have a list of "the answers to 10 commonly asked questions," and "114 years, 211 days" is the only one I can't figure out the answer to. The question isn't "How long was the Hundred Years' War?" because, according to Wikipedia, the Hundred Years' War lasted 116 years. Is Wikipedia wrong? Or can you think of another question "114 years, 211" days is the answer to? Help me out! thanks, christopher

I hit the button, that went off into space, and a new window opened with instructions to the left and, to the far right, in a vertical column:

Hello, christopher frizzelle
Thank you for your question. There may be a brief delay while we connect you to a librarian. While you wait, can you provide any more information about your question...

Two minutes later, the following text appeared below that:

Jasmine (24/7 Librarian): Librarian 'Jasmine (24/7 Librarian)' has joined the session.

Cool!

christopher frizzelle: Hey Jasmine.
Jasmine (24/7 Librarian): Hi Christopher

It was 12:12 AM, and I had this new friend, Jasmine.

Jasmine (24/7 Librarian): My name is Jasmine, and I'm a reference librarian with the QuestionPoint chat service. Your librarians have asked our librarians to staff this 24-hour service when they are unavailable. I'm reading your question right now to see how I can help you...

Two minutes passed, and she said:

Jasmine (24/7 Librarian): If there are slight delays, it's because I'm assisting other patrons along with you, but I'm right here with you also.

Isn't that sweet?

Another four minutes passed.

Jasmine (24/7 Librarian): Still searching, Wikipedia is not always accurate.

Look at Jasmine and I, in this together. She's so right, Wikipedia isn't always accurate.

christopher frizzelle: great, thanks.
christopher frizzelle: great, thanks.

[I accidentally hit the button twice. Slight delay on the site.]

Rather abruptly, Jasmine dumps me without so much as a personal goodbye. All I get is a message that says:

Librarian: Please wait a moment while I transfer you to another librarian

Jasmine, we coulda had something! We coulda been some people! You and me, baby. Why'd you have to go chang--

Two minutes later:

Raul (24/7 Librarian): Hi

Hey, Raul!

christopher frizzelle: Hey, Raul.

Raul (24/7 Librarian): I'm reading your question.

Raul (24/7 Librarian): I'm now searching.

And then, in a miraculous two minutes flat:

Raul (24/7 Librarian): On March 29, the Guinness Book of World Records certified her as the oldest living woman at 114 years and 211 days

Raul (24/7 Librarian): http://slick.org/deathwatch/mailarchive /msg01378.html

As this link appeared in the far right column, a web page--that very page he's just given me the URL for--opened up automatically in the larger left frame.

christopher frizzelle: oh, awesome.

christopher frizzelle: did you just find that through google?

Raul (24/7 Librarian): Puerto Rican Ramona Iglesias-Jordan died on March 29 aged 114 years and 211 days.

Raul (24/7 Librarian): yes

A minute went by.

Raul (24/7 Librarian): Can I help you with anything else

I kind of wanted to keep talking.

christopher frizzelle: somehow google couldn't find that for me. well, thanks. hey, just curious, where in the world are you? I've never used this service before.

But Raul was all business. A minute went by, and then:

Raul (24/7 Librarian): This service is monitored by librarians across the United States when your local library is not open.

So, like, everyone can see us, Raul, is that what you're saying? They can see what we're saying to one another? Before I could reply--

Raul (24/7 Librarian): Thank you for using our service. Please, contact us again if you need further assistance. Goodbye.

The whole thing took 16 minutes.

Then there was a pop-up survey about my experience. Under "The ease of using this online reference is?" I clicked "Very Easy." Under "Will you use this service again?" I clicked "Very Likely."

But in the "Additional Comments" field, I was honest about my feelings:

This service is excellent.

One thing: I wish I knew where my librarian was. Just for the sake of, I dunno, true global connectivity. It's 12:29 AM in Seattle -- dead of night -- but it is, for example, 9:29 AM in Madrid. I picture the guy who just helped me sitting at a desk and eating a muffin, his blinds open onto a view of Madrid in the morning sun.

He's a librarian, but he's also human, right?

thanks again (whoever's getting this, wherever you are),
christopher

It's only now--now that I'm retyping all this for you--that I see that Raul told me the thing is "monitored by librarians across the United States." So much for Madrid. Or the morning sun. Maybe he was eating a muffin.

Anyway: Raul, ladies and gentlemen.

Fuck—it is hot on the East Coast. But I just got back, and now this. Fuck.

Anyway, while I was there I saw these awesome pieces of graphic activism. Senators and fat cats whisked around Washington, D.C. have to travel in cars donned with these…

What license plate slogan would be most appropriate for politically correct and divided Washington State? Maybe “This space intentionally left blank”?

And next, from the Big Apple – which, when it bakes, smells nothing like apple pie – an agitprop wheat pasting. It’s a little Adbustersy, which can be insufferably pious, but this is a cheeky goad at New York’s starfuckers. (The “T” is missing from the beginning and the “e” is missing from the end. And, yes, the photo sucks.)

This prank was perpetrated, in part, by Seattle's own Reggie Watts.

The premise of the presentation, which included a PowerPoint lecture by "S.K. Wolff," was that as humans begin to die as a result of calamities caused by climate change, their remains could be harvested for an alternative fuel source called "vivoleum" that would eventually replace oil.
Osenberg, supposedly the director of human resources with the vivoleum program, took the stage carrying a lit candle while volunteers handed out candles to the audience.
The approximately 250 assembled guests were told the vivoleum for the candles had been "sourced" from an ExxonMobil maintenance worker who donated it before dying of cancer.
The candles were actually made of wax and human hair gathered from barbershops.
Organizers of GO-Expo were not impressed with the stunt.

The candles were supposedly made of Reggie. Gross!

Last night I posted some photos I took in the spin room after the Democratic debate in New Hampshire. I thought my shot of the nearly-empty and completely ignored Kucinich "spin stand" said something about the loneliness of the second-tier candidate.

But I should also show you what happened next. It may make you feel a little less sorry for Kucinich.

About ten minutes later, the Congressman walked in with his bombshell 29-year-old wife, Elizabeth. (It's been reported, with some glee, that Elizabeth has a tongue piercing and a familiarity with the kama sutra.) Suddenly, the Kucinich stand wasn't so lonely anymore...

A crush of media surrounded the couple, and pushed little old me to the outer edge of their scrum. This morning, a sharp-eyed friend spotted photographic evidence, via the AP, of my lack of sharp enough elbows. I'm not saying which one is me, but suffice to say I'm not in the inner circle.

Sorry, no fisticuffs in the spin room after the Democratic debate tonight in New Hampshire. Instead, I offer this series of photos. They were taken just after the debate ended, when the assembled media rushed in to get "spun" on the candidates they were most interested in.

Oh, the loneliness of the "second tier" candidate...

I'm on a freelance assignment at tonight's Democratic debate in New Hampshire. Glamorous? Not exactly. I'm in the cavernous press filing room, watching the debate on TV, just... like... you?

(One improvement over watching it at home: I get to go to the "Spin Room" afterward. The candidates seem a bit testy tonight, and are confronting each other in this debate much more than in the previous one — if there are fisticuffs in the spin room I'll be sure to snap a pic for Slog.)

Chicago is famous for its architecture. Skyscrapers were invented in Chicago... Louis Sullivan... art deco treasures... blah blah blah. But there are two things I dig about Chicago architecture that you don't hear about on architectural tours.

First, Chicago seems to be doing something we can't do around here: imposing some decent design standards on new condo construction. Real brick is used all the way up and all the way in--not just bricks for the first floor, not just an inch-thin veneer of brick. And no Juliet balconies, ECB. Real ones--big enough to sit on, cook on, get high on.

But what I love most about Chicago vintage architecture is the city's collection of overlooked and sometimes completely crazy commercial buildings. This weekend I stayed with a friend who lives near one of my absolutely favorite buildings in Chicago. Check out this terra cotta riot of eagles...

Click here for a larger, more detailed picture.

Someone needs to let Stephen Colbert know about this building. It ought to be Colbert Nation's world headquarters.

I got up on Sunday morning of Memorial Day Weekend at 4:45 AM, hopped on a rented bike, and met my brother on Chicago's fifteen-mile lake-front bike path, and headed downtown before the sun came up. My brother has to be at the front of the starting line for Bike the Drive--my brother has to be at the front of every line--and cyclists start lining up at the starting line in Chicago's Grant Park at 5 AM.

Bike the Drive is an annual event that draws tens of thousands of Chicagoans to the lakefront--and raises shitloads of money for Chicago's kick-ass bike organization, the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation. The city closes all six lanes of Lake Shore Drive for four and a half hours on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, Chicago shuts down all six lanes of Lake Shore Drive for cyclists. Twenty thousand people show up--racing maniacs, families, little old ladies on tricycles for grownups, paraplegics on arm-pedeled bikes. Despite the fact that it was pouring rain at 5:30 AM for this year's BTD, turnout was as high as its ever been.

It costs $35 to participate--and your money gets you a t-shirt, food-stocked rest stops at both ends of the route and in the mid-way point, and a fleet of roving bike repair men and women in case you get a flat or break a chain. Biking should be like this every day of the year.

Biking the drive with my brother--we did two and half loops of the fifteen-mile drive, clocking in 45 miles before 9 AM--was a delight (even if he did bitch about the rain non-stop). But I couldn't help but think of Joel Connelly's dystopian vision of Seattle in 2077. If we fail to bring the environmental extremists in our midst to heel--particularly one shadowy enviroterrorist who goes by the initials "ECB"--Joel predicted that one day bikes--oh, the horrors!--would rule the streets.

Well, Bike the Drive provided a real-life glimpse of Joel's terrifying vision--here was Joel's dystopian future made manifest! Tens of thousands of bikes! Taking over a six-lane freeway originally built for cars! And riding the length of the city as if they had a right to be there!

You might not want to look at this next picture, Joel, until you're sitting on the toilet. Wouldn't want you to drop a load in your trousers:

I can't figure out the right way to Slog about Bay to Breakers. Words and even pictures hardly do it justice.

This past weekend marked the 97th year the 7.5-mile footrace has been run over the same course through San Francisco, making it the longest consecutively-run race in the world. Every year, some ten thousand competitors register and run the course, starting at the Embarcadero (the Bay), weaving through downtown, the Western Addition, and Golden Gate Park, to finish at Ocean Beach (the Breakers).

Another 70 thousand runners walk the course, mostly in costume, or naked, and in various states of inebriation. It's a block party a hundred blocks long. It's the best San Francisco holiday out of many. Like Burning Man, it's one of those things that everyone should experience once in their lives. Unlike Burning Man, it's something I see myself doing every year for the rest of my life, as long as I'm able.

Bay to Breakers is the most grand expression of civic pride I've ever been a part of. Bands and DJs rock out on street corners, mobile soundsystems cruise the streets, elaborate floats are built and pushed to accommodate bars, kegs, beer pong, dance floors. There are no spectators. Everybody walks, runs, or rolls. You reach the top of Alamo Square--the halfway point, and the only hill on the course--and look down from the peak. In both directions, thousands of people of all stripes are celebrating life for the best of all reasons: Because it's there.

This year was a spectacularly sunny day. Along with 20 or so friends dressed in vintage track suits, I helped pull a granny basket and a tricked-out shopping cart, filled with 14 cases of iced PBR. We made it a few miles before we pulled over in Golden Gate Park and sat in the shade, drinking beer and freaking out with the freaks.

I'm a man of simple pleasures. All it takes to make me happy is 80 thousand costumed revelers drinking cocktails at 9 in the morning, parading through San Francisco on a gorgeous day, listening to a GnR cover band crank out "Paradise City" from a float being pushed by 12 women in bikinis.

More pics after the jump. Like I said, words, pictures, video--its all not even the half of it.

Continue reading "Unreal: Bay to Breakers" »

Texted in by Annie:

I think I have a bruise on my butt. Where I fell on my wooden sword.

I'm hoping that was a kid. Or maybe one of these guys:

I'd never been to Los Angeles until last week, and when I first found out I would be going down there I didn't expect to like it much.

Growing up in Seattle, almost everything I'd heard about L.A. was negative—especially during the 90s, when this city was gripped by nativist resentment and something close to cultural hysteria about all the L.A. people who were moving up here.

The complaint, at the time, was that L.A. people didn't drive like Seattleites, didn't talk like Seattleites, didn't expect housing to be as cheap as Seattleites, and didn't have the crunchy-earthy-earnest Seattle ethos. Back then, people in Seattle talked about L.A. transplants the way some locals now talk about the condo boom—a sign that Seattle is being transformed, and not for the better, into a place the old-timers and professional gripers don't recognize.

Anyway, I landed in L.A. on Wednesday, ready to hate it, ready to look down, like a good Seattleite, on it's car culture, its fakery, and its self-satisfied sprawl.

It was hot, the light was squint-making, and all that I'd been warned about was there: the cars crawling along the 405, the people always talking like pitchmen, the endless streets, the unapologetic strip malls, the skyline-obscuring haze.

Who knows exactly why one falls in love with a city, but I have a theory about why I proceeded to fall in love with L.A. last week, against all advice and all the long odds of a Seattle native feeling such affection for such a place.

My theory is that L.A. was a huge relief. Maybe I'm more vulnerable to this than most people, because of the nature of my job, but when I landed in L.A. I was completely full up on the hectoring tone of Seattle's gripers, finger-waggers, and utopia-demanders. It's unbelievably grating to live in a city where the dominant civic discourse is one of lament about the absence of the perfect (twined with perpetual disagreement about how to get to the perfect, and achingly slow steps toward that end).

L.A., by contrast, is completely fucked up, completely beyond environmental repair, completely imperfect, and completely designed to give tight-assed Seattle people an aneurysm. Granted, I was only there for three days, but it seemed to me that people in L.A. have a sort of wry satisfaction with their state of affairs. I loved that. I drove 20 minutes to get everywhere. I ate in a strip mall. I had superficial conversations. I drove some more. I stopped worrying about sprawl and sprawled out at the beach. (That's not me below, by the way.)

To ask the hot Seattle question of the moment: Is it sustainable? Would it last, my thrill at life in a city that does everything my home city tells me not to?

I don't know. Probably not.

But man, it was nice for a while. On my last day I went up to the Getty, wandered its other-worldly gardens...

...and looked down on the huge, flat metropolis. The sun was warm, as always. The air was striving for opaque, as always. I couldn't quite see downtown Los Angeles to the east and, looking west, I couldn't quite see where the ocean ended and the land began. It was all blurry, messy, resistant to resolution. Everyone I saw seemed happy with this. I didn't want to leave.

(Photos by Corianton Hale, who was also in L.A. recently. And cross-posted.)

...a breakfast with not one, but TWO, count 'em two strips of bacon, two sausage patties, one biscuit, two eggs, a pile of grits, and a cup of coffee for $3.50...

...a barbecue smoker, that smells like hickory wood and pure heaven, in the shape of a giant gun...

...or a strip club filled with gays, straights, oldies and punks, all getting piss-drunk together while aging strippers tell knock-knock jokes and pole dance to 'Rosanna' by Toto...

ATLANTA GEORGIA, I LOVE YEE

Amy has the outdoor drinking question covered. But of more immediate concern: The next eight work hours.

Forecasters predict a high of 76 degrees today. Where can I best position myself to check this prediction?

Location must have: Strong and free wireless signal, available power outlet nearby for recharging laptop, eye-candy, and sun (but not so much glare that I can't see my screen every once in a while).

I'm at Eugene's airport, which is tiny and charming, as airports go. But the "art" in Eugene's airport is almost as annoying/upsetting as those piles of glass bones are at Sea-Tac. (Yeah, that's what I like to think about on my way to the plane, Sea-Tac--bleached bones, violent death, rot, decay.) The long hall that leads to the A Gates here is decorated with... images of people flying! But not in airplanes. They're just, you know, soaring through the air...

Here's a close-up...

Flying. People flying. But not in planes. Flying like Superman! That's cute. But to my eyes--to the eyes of a terrified all-too-frequent flyer--these people don't look like they're flying. They look like they're falling. It looks like the plane they were on split in two, spilling people into the sky a mile up, and now everyone is plummeting toward earth, with their carry-ons, where they'll land with a splat. And die.

Like I said, not as bad as all those "glass art" bones at Sea-Tac. But still not something I wanna see before I board.

Okay, popping a Xanax now.

Rushing out the door to catch a plane to Paris, I realized I forgot to vote. Oh, foie gras… So I grabbed my ballot and planned to fill out and mail it after I arrived.

I figure Paris, which has dealt with transportation woes since it was founded by the all-paving Romans, could provide an example for our fair city.

The banks of the Seine are the closest things Paris has to a waterfront. And three-and-four-lane waterfront roadways lining the river are the closest things Paris has to freeways inside the city. And they get along just fine. Of course, there is a real freeway near Paris, the Périphérique, but it circumnavigates the city like the DC beltway.

Does the lack of freeways – elevated, buried, or otherwise – make the city an unlivable mess? No; it’s Paris. It’s amazing. If it were any more livable they’d ban funerals. People avoid driving when they can, they invest in real public transit solutions, they ride public transit even in bad weather, they enjoy the views from the street, they walk. Any people who dress better, socialize constantly, and eat like kings seven days a week without turning into manatees must be doing something right.

So, I fill out my ballot.

This is one of those big riverside roads, but imagine if instead a double-decker freeway were here. Well, the views of Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower sure would be stunning as you zip by…

Photo courtesy of my father, Ronald, AKA the Cornichon.

Ah... Portland International Airport. Cozy, warm, and, best of all, free Wi-fi. Why can't Sea-Tac have free Wi-fi? How hard is free Wi-fi? Aren't we the tech capital of the whole freakin' world? Wouldn't it make sense from, oh, a marketing perspective for Seattle's airport to have free Wi-fi?

The wireless service at Sea-Tac is buggy and unreliable, to say nothing of expensive. On top of being pricey, every pay wireless system at every airport in the country is also an insult to the intelligence of the average computer user. You can buy 24 hours of unlimited internet access for just $9.95! But who's in one airport for 24 hours? You're in one airport and maybe you need to get online for a few minutes. Then you get on an airplane and fly to some other airport, where you need to get online for a few minutes. But your next airport--surprise!--has a different internet service provider, a different Wi-fi service, and you have to pay another fee for another 24 hours of unlimited internet access. Yippee.

Come on, Port of Seattle. Free Wi-fi at Sea-Tac Airport already. Sheesh.

It’s a place of wicker and mystery…

As anyone who has ever been anywhere near Broadway knows damn good and well, the import store called Africa Mama traffics in gourd rattles, miniature elephants carved of jade, wicker baskets, gargantuan boxes of Nag Champa (which, the last time I checked, was a Hindu sort of thing that comes to us via Mother India, which isn’t Africa, but there you go), and nifty clay jars that are handy for carrying water to your village on your head through fifty or so scorching miles of sweating jungle--if you aren’t eaten by a lion (or “recruited” for pennies a week by Nike) on the way every day. Djembes. Ladysmith Black Mambazo. And so forth.

As far as anyone knows, Africa Mama began life on the ground floor of The Broadway Market. As the old timers tell it, as soon as she opened she was closing again, and the loud red signs went up everywhere to prove it: STOREWIDE SALE! 50-75% OFF!!! Going OUT of BUSINESS, EVERYTHING MUST GO! CLOSING FOREVER! CLEARANCE! Et cetera! Yes sir, those big red signs went up... and stayed up. But Africa Mama stayed put. It just sort of fucking sat there. It didn’t go out of business at all. And the years rolled by.

And then some more years. Rolled by. And then some more. Rolled by.

At this point, or so they say, people began to wonder a thing or two about this strange place called Africa Mama. Clearly, the poor place was going out of business. That much was sure. (Signs never lie.) Yes, it was going--but it never seemed to get there. Was there some strange kind of hoodoo/voodoo thing keeping the old girl alive? Was the place a front for drugs, or thugs, or an underground railroad for illegal Chinese? Or did they just really suck at going out of business?

And then, one fine day, years and years later, it happened, just like that. BOOP! Africa Mama--which had been going and going and going--finally went. Gone at last! All of it! The gourds were retired, Ladysmith Black Mambazoed no more. And that, as they say, was that.

Or was it?

Fuck no.

A few short months later there was as strange stirring in the wind… a strange AFRICAN MAMA sort of stirring. (Hang in there.) And then, there it was again! A stone’s throw from where it had been going out of business for years and years before--AFRICA MAMA! The DRUMS! The CLAY WATER-ON-YOUR-HEAD POTS! The NAG fucking CHAMPA! All of it lifted and moved a mere few blocks from where it began. And as soon as the Nag started Champing, they went up, too: the big red signs in the window screaming STOREWIDE SALE! 50-75% OFF!!! Going OUT of BUSINESS, EVERYTHING MUST GO! CLOSING FOREVER! CLEARANCE! Et cetera! And, again, the months rolled by...

Africa Mama went out of business at its new location for a relatively long, long time. (Going on two years, I reckon.) Then, as suddenly as it had reappeared, it vanished again... for about, oh, maybe four months. Like before, Africa Mama hadn’t gone out of business at all… She had only hoisted up her beaded skirts and tiptoed to the other end of Broadway, across from the Post Office, where the old KINKOS used to be, cattycorner from the Jack in the Box. This is where she sits now, with her djembes and wood zebras, and at this moment, her big red signs are screaming (you guessed it!), STOREWIDE SALE! 50-75% OFF!!! Going OUT of BUSINESS, EVERYTHING MUST GO! CLOSING FOREVER! CLEARANCE!

Et cetera.

Quantum physics, or something freakier, might be involved. What the (BLEEP) Do We Know ? may have to be watched. (Shudder.) Scientists are baffled. Religionists are alarmed. Anabaptists are nonplussed. Mormons are sexy. Can a business really go out of business forever? And if so, how? And if how, why? And if why, when? And in general, what? The? Fuck? The whole issue has me damn rattled, and rather alarmed. How long can this go on before a hole is ripped in our reality? And why can't Africa Mama share some of its remarkable staying power with the thousands of deeply cherished Capitol Hill-ish establishments that are falling to the plague of rabid development, and time? (O, why?!) CAN ANYONE PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS IN A RATIONAL AND COHERENT MANNER?

I didn’t think so. I certainly can’t.

(And did I mention that in all three of its (known) incarnations, nothing, oh but nothing, in Africa Mama's entire inventory ever resembled anything even close to 50-75% off? I guess that goes without saying. )

I had a good time doing Sue Johanson's call-in sex advice program. (And it was great to finally meet Wired's Regina Lynn in person.) There was just one thing weird about the show: the call time. It's a live show, on Oxygen from 11 PM to Midnight, and we asked to be at the studio by 7 PM. That's four whole hours before airtime. Soooo we had lots of time to kill between rehearsals--also weird, as most television shows don't let you rehearse lest you sound rehearsed (the calls were not rehearsed, just the intro and outro)--and getting into makeup. I didn't bring a book so I slipped out of the studio, which is located inside a sports arena, and went for a walk around the Renaissance Hotel next door. (It was too cold to go for a walk outside.) And look what I found...

There's an honor bar on the sixth floor of the Renaissance Hotel! If you take a drink you're supposed to fill out a little form with your room number on it so they can charge you for it. Here's the price list for those of you with any honor. For the rest of us, well, it looks like there's an open bar on the sixth floor of Renaissance Hotel at One Blue Jays Way in the Rogers Centre/SkyDome. Oh, and there's cake too!

And finally, to readers that complain about the names of Seattle's comedy clubs: The names of comedy clubs suck everywhere.

I'm in Toronto to do Sex Talk with Sue Johanson. The topic is technology and its impact on sex and Sue's other guest is Wired's Regina Lynn. I'm excited about meeting Lynn. If you're not reading her blog, Sex Drive Daily, you should be. The show doesn't tape until late tonight, so I had some time to kill today. There was nothing I wanted to see at the movie theater near our hotel, so I got in a cab and headed to a theater where Last King of Scotland was showing. I don't usually take cabs in cities where I can ride buses or trains... but, shit, it's fucking cold in Toronto and I only have a windbreaker with me. And I didn't know if there was a subway stop near the theater.

Twenty bucks later, I was dropped in front of the movie theater--which sits literally on top of a subway station. (I mean "literally" literally, Frizzelle.)

After the movie, I took the subway back downtown. And quickly came down with a bad case of Rapid Transit Envy, a malaise that strikes me whenever I'm in a city with a real rapid transit system. It cost less than $3 Canadian to ride the subway downtown and it got me back to my hotel faster than the cab got me to the movie theater--on a Sunday afternoon! Can you imagine how much faster the subway is than driving on a weekday? Toronto doesn't call its rapid transit system "the red rocket" for nothing, it seems.

But subways can be just as cruel as buses. A little old lady was standing on the platform when we pulled in, and then she waited patiently as people poured off the subway. Just as the last person disembarked and the little old lady took her first step toward the door... slam. So it's not just bus drivers, Charles. I didn't see the front car, so I don't know if the subway had a driver or if Toronto's system is automated, but someone or something cruel slammed the subway doors shut in the face of that little old lady.

Now if only Toronto could do something about the Gardiner Expressway--a.k.a. "the mistake by the lake"--which cuts the city off from its Lake Ontario waterfront.

Take a look at all those bridal magazines. There has to a hundred or more titles. I took this a pic at one of a magazine shop at Boston's airport this morning. Logan International isn't just the leaping-off point of choice for crazed Islamic terrorist motherfuckers, it would appear. Logan is also preferred half-crazed brides-to-be too everywhere--how else to explain all that shelf space devoted to all that wedding porn?

Now looking at this pic you might think the bridal mag market is completely saturated. That’s what I thought. But then I spotted the premiere issue of…

Engagement 101!

And I bought it. Because after three days in airports you pretty much run out of decent magazines to read. So you make do with indecent ones.

Now, the mission of your traditional bridal magazines is making sure that the happy couple is bankrupt after their wedding. Engagement 101--brought to us by the publishers of Wedding Dresses—is dedicated to the proposition that the truly happy couple really ought to go bankrupt before the wedding. Some of the teasers from the cover…

“Over 600 Rings Inside!”

“The Hottest Celebrity Ring Trends!”

“Engagement Party Essentials!”

“Buying Guide—From A to Z!”

Inside there are real life engagement stories (so romantic!), page after page of ads for rings featuring diamonds bigger than my house (so expensive!), and advice about living together before marriage (so depends!). In addition to advice about staging the perfect engagement dinner (do try to keep it to under 100 guests--it's more intimate that way), pricey bridal party fashions (surprise--another dress to buy!), and a bizarre soft-core porn photo spread of a couple rolling around in bed (what the fuck was selling us? romantic pre-honeymoons?), I particularly loved the article about whether a woman should allow her dolt of a husband-to-be to buy her an engagement ring without her supervision.

In this modern day and age, should women be completely surprised by their new ring or should they provide guidance to their guys? Will a few subtle hints work? Can you future husband be trusted with such an important task by himself?

The answer is no. But doesn’t dragging your man down to the jewelers to buy your engagement ring ruin the surprise? Nope, says one of the women who helped pick her own ring, as “the exact day, moment, and location of the official proposal remained a surprise to her.” Here's hoping he surprised her by giving the ring to a woman that isn't so controlling and materialistic.

In the bad-timing department, Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson--appearing now in divorce court--are one of the celeb couples whose choice of engagement ring is written up. (Rock gave Anderson an 18-carat heart-shaped canary yellow diamond.) Nicole Kidman and Tori Spelling, those twin pillars of matrimonial bliss, are also written up. (A three stone diamond ring and a diamond and sapphire ring, respectively.)

But the award for most single hilarious aspect of Engagement 101 goes to…. it’s a tie! The “Editor’s Note” and the “Ring-Buying Guide--For Him” both presume, hilariously enough, that straight men are going to read this magazine. That is not gonna happen. Yet listen as the editor--Severine Ferrari--yammers on...

Love is in the air. You have been dating for more than two years, and you are still gazing at each other like you just met. Even the mess he leaves behind or the hours of shopping you have to endure for her cannot turn you away from the fact that there he/she is: the one… (If you are not sure, check out our quiz on page 26.) A major part of this issue is dedicated to help both of you go through the proposal and ring-buying process…. [and we] round out the issue with all you need to know to prepare for your official engagement party, from tipping on the reception to what you should wear.

Hm… sounds romantic, doesn’t it? Hey, Severine lives in New York City. Anyone care to do a quick records search and see how many times she's been divorced?

I'm in New York to perform at, uh, Avery Fucking Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. In jeans and a T-shirt--sorry, Terry. Tonight's the first date of a six-city This American Life tour. TAL is coming to Seattle, but the show at the Paramount is sold out.

That's Sarah Vowell doing her sound check. The backstage areas at Avery Fisher Hall are hilarious--the doors, the doorknobs, the furniture. It's all sixties, all Jackie O. It's all white marble and gold accents. It's all restrained ritzy/glam opulence. And, sadly, it's all going to go. They're doing renovations and the old dressing rooms and backstage areas are going to be "brought up to date," which is too bad. I took some pictures of the dressing rooms but for some reason they didn't come out, or my phone didn't save them. Or something. But this pic came out fine.

It's the toilet in the biggest dressing room. I'm proud to say that Beverly Sills shat here. And now so have I.

Alongside bumper stickers that read "New Orleans: Proud to Crawl Home" are "New Orleans: Proud to Swim Home" and "FEMA Evacuation Plan: Run, Motherfucker, Run."

Many homes still bear the red spray-painted X and body count next to the front door; a few have spray-painted large red and pink hearts over the top like a bad-tattoo cover-up. I expected to see the droves of FEMA trailers, but not the hundreds of For Rent and For Sale signs.

It's my impression that residents who want to stay are hanging on by their teeth; jobs are still scarce and rents in the undamaged areas are up twofold. We met a thirtysomething couple who are selling their townhouse and moving to Sonoma for a fresh start. The innkeepers where we're staying can no longer employ a staff and are dipping into their retirement to keep the lights on; they're determined to hold out through summer and then are going to have to make a tough decision. Thousands of tourists are here for Mardi Gras, but the hotels aren't full, and most of the people standing next to us at the parades are exuberantly welcoming locals, emphatic that their grand old dame of a city will rise again. Much of the damage has been bulldozed into tidy rubble piles, carpenters and painters are at work everywhere, but real economic recovery is going to take decades.

Still, the spirit of Mardi Gras is robust and the party is in full swing: Half a dozen parades roll through the neighborhoods every day, houses grand and modest are decked out in gold, green, and purple bunting, and pedestrians are festooned with feathered hats, boas, and neckfulls of beads.

Raise a toast to the corpse bride New Orleans and to her stouthearted natives tomorrow.

Confidential to Brian: Cafe Brazil welcomed us with Abitas and the brassy funk of the Soul Rebels, and said to say "Where y'at?"

It's almost over, this month-and-a-half long gallavant across Europe--from Sweden to Italy to Spain to the UK and beyond--with two young, pretty (and by now pretty stinky) rock and roll bands. My fingernails are filthy, I smell like a garbage truck, and I'm sure I've accelerated my hearing loss, but it's been worth it for moments like two nights ago, in the London suburb of Guildford (see below the jump for details on that show) and the thrill of clandestine tourism. At every border, we have to fake not-being-in-a-band beacuse of the work permits (explaining the tons of musical equipment in the back is always an end-run around logic: "we brought all this over to play one free festival in Utrecht... no, seriously"). And our sightseeing is always after dark, usually tipsy, led by some local rocker who is weary of his own city and amused by our interest.

The cathedral at Reims was my favorite. It was this, but menacingly lit from below, seen on a deserted January night, after a couple glasses of pastis:

It's almost over and everyone, I think, is torn between wanting out of this rolling madhouse and not wanting it to end. It is how I imagine a typical small-time rock tour: Did I mention everybody stinks? Everybody got a cold. Nobody was never-drunk and one of us was drunk more often than the rest of us would've liked. Some of us took some drugs, others of us took others, none of us took all the drugs, and a few of us didn't take any. Everybody shared. A few of us cried. One of us drunkenly pissed on my pants. (It wasn't me.) Some of us went home with strangers. Some of us tried to go home with strangers. One of us drunkenly asked our hostess in Logrono, Spain: "I don't want to fuck you, but can I sleep in your bed anyway?" To which she replied: "Everyone here is really hot, but I've made my decision. [Somebody else] is already in my bed."

I don't want to come home. I can't wait to come home.

Continue reading "Europe by Night" »

January 18:

Marseille feels like the platonic ideal of a city--dirty, teeming, ornate, ancient, fecund. Once a resort town, it´s now got a terrible reputation because of the immigrants (Turkish, Algerian, Moroccan) and the poverty and its attendant crime. It looks officially neglected but undeniably alive. The streets are full of people (fashionable French, bearded men in jeballahs, Berber women with chin tattoos and hennah-dyed fingertips) and the walls are full of grafitti and soot.

Our host, Florian, was the platonic ideal of a Frenchman. He had a beautiful, huge apartment--wrought-iron balconies, high coffered ceilings, and an awesome record collection--that was dingy enough to feel comfortable. He spoke excellent English and Spanish and wore black, rectangular spectacles, casually mussed hair, and a hickey, demurely half-hidden by his collar. He was roommates with a half-Algerian man and an all-Moroccan woman. He also cooked the best food of any of the promoters on tour (I know--they cook for the bands here): pasta with garlic and parsley and a perfectly spiced ratatouille.

After the gig and a drink at his apartment, he dug around in the kitchen for some comte cheese and a bottle of bordeaux he had been saving. ("Poh!" said his roommate when Florian pulled out the bottle and was first in line to have a sip.) When he found out it was my birthday, he motioned me into the next room for a celebratory shot of absinthe. He and his girlfriend talked intelligently about immigration, architecture, and rock and roll while she rolled hash cigarettes to pass around. The next morning, he got up before everyone to make coffee and fetch fresh bread and chocolate. He was the soul and flower of grace and hospitality. I left his apartment with the same feeling I always have when confronted with perfection--a little bettered, a little ashamed.

January 23:

Clorox Girls and Holy Ghost Revival have been playing bars and clubs but their squat audience last night, in Logrono (the capital--I think--of La Rioja, which would make it the capital of Spanish wine), was great. So great that the bands got bucky and turned their usual finale (a punked-out group cover of Wooly Booly by Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs) into a tour through rock and roll history, moving from Sam the Sham to the Misfits to the Germs to the Kingsmen to the Troggs and back into Wooly Booly. The crowd went nuts. We went nuts. Despite the dogs and the vegan anarcho-twits and the shitty beer. (Forseeing the latter, we brought five bottles with us into the squat. We should have brought ten.)

(Sorry I´m not slogging more--I´m hardly ever near a computer. I was surprised to see, on our host´s television yesterday morning, that Obama had declared he´s running in ´08.)

I haven't seen anyone famous, it is very cold, the bars are too packed, buses are dead slow, taxis demand a fortune no matter what, and every event comes with a very long line. I really have nothing to report about Sundance except complaint after complaint. It really is too crowded and everything takes forever. I wish I had something more positive to say, but those are my impressions of the most important film festival in the great U.S. of A..

But wait! This conversation just happened in the lobby of my hotel:

Man one: "Yes, I'm journalist. I'm here to review movies."
Man Two: "Cool, I'm from Denver, I'm here to ski, watch a few movies, and party."
Man one: "Have you seen anything?"
Man two: "Yeah, I watched a movie last night. I had a ticket for it but they almost didn't let me in."
Man one: "What did you watch?"
Man two: "Don't remember... But I liked it. Do you have two recommendations for me, as a journalist?"
Man one: "What about I give you three?"
Man two: "No, just give me two."
Man one: "Once and War Dance."
Man two: "Thanks."
Man one: "I got one more."
Man two: "No, thanks. Have a good time."

The journalist didn't recommend ZOO

1. Southwest Airlines boarding procedures turn people into animals—animals.

2. Can I just say how proud I am to have made the McLeod Residence's list of Seattle Notables—along with my colleagues Jen Graves, Christopher Frizzelle, Charles Mudede, and Juan the Frye Apartment Guy. (But someone needs to tell the McLeod Residence that Real World Danny moved away.)

3. On my way to a theater in Chicago on Friday night I called a friend and asked for directions. He said, "It's between a Subway and a Starbucks." I move that the phrase "between a Subway and a Starbucks" be henceforth used in place of the phrase "between a rock and a hard place." For, you know, obvious reasons: All good things in urban areas find themselves squeezed between a Subway franchise and a Starbucks location these days—with many ultimately squeezed out altogether.

4. At Midway Airport, you will be carded at the bars. You can be a million years old and look it (I sure feel it today), but you're going to get carded regardless. But you are allowed to carry your drink with you to the gate. So you can buy a drink for a minor—but only if you're dexterous enough to hand it off to said minor without spilling his drink all over the terrazzo.

5. When I was 15 years-old I was on a high school field trip to I-don't-remember-where. It was far, though, way the fuck out in the 'burbs someplace. An older student that I admired—okay, a senior I desperately wanted to fuck—looked out the window of the bus, sighed, and said, "You couldn't pay me to live out here." I just spent three days in McHenry, Illinois, where I had a nice time—it was actually pretty relaxing. I got some reading done, some writing, and there's an dishonest-to-God faux cafe near walking distance from my mom's house with free wifi. (And far too many people saying grace before they eat their bear claws.) But you couldn't pay me to live out there.

Just got back to mom's place after a wild night on the town. We drank our way up and down McHenry's answer to Pike/Pine. Riverside Drive runs along the Fox River, and it's home to McHenry's not inconsiderable bar scene. There are some nice taverns in this town—the Town Club, the Old Bridge, The Fox Hole, After the Fox, and Bimbo's (yes, Bimbo's). We brought a deck of cards and at the Old Bridge we played a little gin rummy while we watched American Idol on the big screen TV. (No liquor control board to worry about here. "Yeah, you can play cards," the bartender told me when I asked if it was alright to play cards. "So long as you're not gambling—you know, gambling obviously—it's not a problem.") After Idol, we played some Monster Madness, a little pool, ate some popcorn. Then the bar started clearing out—it was almost 10—so we headed back to mom's place.

But then... on my way out the door... I spotted two newspapers... competing... free... newspapers... stacked by the window... just like The Stranger and the Weekly... in the window... back at Linda's.

Ladies and gentleman, I give you Suburban NiteLife...

And Wassup! Local Magazine...

But which is McHenry's Stranger? And which is McHenry's Weekly?

Hard to say. Wassup! has the Wassup! Girls. (They wish you a happy new year, by the way.) The Wassup! Girls serve the same desperate function, presumably, as the Weekly's "street team." But Suburban NiteLife has the "Best of the Burbs" issue. The Weekly,, of course, also runs a "Best of the Burbs" issue. Wassup! has an advice column—"Ask Margarette"—but no horoscope, and Suburban NiteLife has a horoscope—"A Look at the Stars through the Funhouse Mirror"—but no advice column. Wassup! clocks in at 48 pages; Suburban NiteLife blows 'em away with 80 pages.

So I guess it's a draw. Each of these papers is a little bit Weekly, a little bit Stranger—and, hey, without a doubt McHenry is the richer for it. Culturally speaking.

Oh and while Riverside Drive is McHenry's answer to Pike/Pine, my mother actually lives on McHenry's honest-to-God Pine Street. My mom, such a hipster—a replaced hipster, but still.

(And it looks like a smoking ban is coming to Illinois—and not a moment too soon. We've been here a week and we've had to change our clothes twice.)

We're in Imperia (sister city: Newport, Rhode Island), a smallish town on the northern Mediterranean coast of Italy, for a day of laundry, full meals, and rest. We need it.

Best tattoo (Munich): "Long live the dead."

Best vegetarian grafitti (Milan): A long bone, surrounded by elaborate, different-colored circles, with the caption: "Tofu Pax."

Best hater graffiti (Utrecht): "How do you get a goth out of a tree? Cut the rope."

Most intimidating conversation (in an apartment full of loud, aggro, drugged-up rockers, Milan):

Me: What's your name?
Italian #1: El Conquistador.
Me: Why do they call you Conquistador?
Italian #1: Hm?
Me: Your name. Conquistador. Why.
Italian #1: Oh. Ah. Thee-ah Espanish conquistadores.
Me: Yes. But why you. Why is that your name?
Italian #2 (pops out of nowhere, screams): BECAUSE THAT'S EES FAWKING NAME, FAWKER! CONQUISTADOR! STOP ASKING STUPID FAWKING QUESTIONS! One strike. (Makes a chopping gesture.) Strike one.
Me (trying to sound not-intimidated): What happens after three strikes?
Italian #2: I fawking kill you.

I never got strike two.

Best song lyrics (copied from the back of a record by Out With a Bang, Milan):

"Do What My Cock Says"

Right and wrong make no fucking sense,
'Cause I'm here. Fucked up. To do. What my cock says.
-set this fucking night on fire-yeah.
+set this stupid night on fire-
(and he says)
"get laid! get hurt! this is what you gonna do, and
get high! get drunk! fuck control man, ABUSE!"
-set this stupid night on fire-
-set this fucking night on fire-
DO IT AND BE SOMEONE,
DON'T AND BE NOONE!
burn.

Guess who the singer was? Italian #2. (They were nuts, totally wasted, played with tons of feedback, everyone in the crowd seemed to hate them, and when the sound guy at the Milanese punk squat tried to get on stage and turn off the amps, the guitarist just glared, shook his head, and the sound man shrunk back into the crowd. It was great. My brother said it was like seeing an Italian version of the Germs.)

Most disconcerting sight (driving from Munich to Milan): So little snow in the Alps. The fucking ALPS.

Next stop: Marseille.

I'm not sure if a grocery store is supposed to have a "Live Pets" section...

But it's nice to know that when I need a parakeet or a hamster in the middle of the night in McHenry, Illinois, I can just head to the Meier on Route 31. It's by the Starbucks, just past the Subway... across from the Payless Shoe Source... shares a parking lot with the Borders...

Wandering around downtown Chicago Friday afternoon, I walked by the State of Illinois Center—a huge, squat... monstrosity... that was inflicted on the citizens of Chicago in 1985 by the state of Illinois. When I saw it again I thought, "I wonder what the fuck Charles would make of this?" The State of Illinois Center sits across the street from Chicago's City Hall, a much lovelier bit of civic architecture. Unlike every other building in Chicago's loop, the State of Illinois Center is wider than it is tall and it's, well, here it is...

It doesn't have that weird crease down the center—that's just from my two photos pasted together. The exterior of the building is smooth, sloped, and curved. (Click here for a larger image.)

And here's the inevitable bad public art...

And here's the interior of the building—a wide, round space. Very... uh... vaginal, this shaft. Or something.

Anyway, Charles? Your thoughts?

Walking down Valencia Street yesterday, I saw something in a storefront window. I stopped and read it. It happens to be something I've read dozens of times, maybe a hundred. It was photocopied from a book and enlarged into a huge sort of poster, the letters fuzzy and weird. It was the first paragraph of F. Scott Fitzgerald's post-meltdown autobiographical essay "The Crack-Up."

Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work—the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside—the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don't show their effect all at once. There is another sort of blow that comes from within—that you don't feel until it's too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again. The first sort of breakage seems to happen quick—the second kind happens almost without your knowing it but is realized suddenly indeed.

Sorry I didn't think to take a picture. This was in the window of this gallery. The person who just answered the phone there says it was part of a piece by the artist Adam McEwen. Everything you need to know about writing—and everything you need to know about life—is in that paragraph.

In a real city like Chicago you can ride rapid transit...

...and get your picture taken with a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

The gig doesn't start until midnight tonight, so after loading in, I walked around central Berlin (near Hackescher Markt, for anyone who's counting) looking for an old bar I used to go to.

I first found it in 1998, when I was studying in the Czech Republic. I took a short trip to Berlin and was wandering around on my first night, lost and hungry, when I happened into a small, warmly-lit bar. It was empty but for one old man, with a small grey beard and a sweater, reading. In my head, I immediately dubbed it the Argyle Bar--it just felt like would argyle would look like, if argyle was a place. I stammered out my phrasebook German, asking for a whiskey and the old man answered back in perfect English (this was a shock to me, having just come from Prague where, at that time, almost nobody spoke conversational English). We talked, just the two of us, for hours--about my homesickness, about medieval history, about Germany and the Czech Republic and America and Bohumil Hrabal and Kafka, who I had been reading. The warmth and intelligence of the old man, and the pleasure of the evening, is burned on my brain.

Whenever I come back to Berlin (the two or three times since) I have always tried, successfully, to find the bar. I don't know its name or address, but I always manage to find my way to it.

Not this time--the five years since I've been to Berlin has seen a lot of growth--shops and boutique clubs and cafes, which is all well and good, but the small playground and dark street I used as my landmarks were nowhere to be found.

If the rest of the area is any indication, the place is probably closed or renovated now. The old man is probably dead. I'll probably never go to the Argyle Bar again.

But I like to think I passed it somewhere tonight without knowing. Or even that the club the bands are playing in, which is in the same area, is the place and I just don't know it. I'm going to pretend that's the case tonight, while I sit in the back of the club, drinking whiskez, watching the kids rock out, thinking of the old Berliner who was so gentle and kind to me when I was their age.

[Brendan Kiley is on tour in Europe with the Holy Ghost Revival this month.]

A new word for me: Nartards ("anarchist retards"): noun, used to refer to people (70 percent men, 99 percent white) who look like punk rockers from the '70s, minus any variation in their taste in music (all growling hardcore) or the color scheme of their clothes (all black, with the obligatory studs, spikes, and patches of mostly American bands). The aesthetic is a postindustrial apocalyptic yearning. They drink by the gallon, smoke by the pack, rarely laugh, sometimes live in squats, parrot the same empty threats against The Man, but are super-serious about fighting low-level neo-Nazis.

Going to high school in the '90s and being a casual fan of punk rock, I never understood all the "smash Nazis" patches and stickers that the dedicated American punks wore on their clothes. (Where were these phantom Nazis? Shouldn't those punk kids take road trips to throw Molotov cocktails in Idaho or something?) But in a Bremen squat bar, they have collectible cards with the photos and addresses of alleged neo-Nazis and a few paragraphs of text detailing their crimes, so you can look them up and smash their windows or something.

Last night, the bands played in and stayed at a squat in Potsdam. It was an old East German brewery, now a several-stories-tall concrete warren with two stages, two bars (one with an old Chevy wedged into the wall and a morose goth-looking bartender serving beer and absinthe), pungent bathrooms, and around 20 full-time residents. It was a punk-rock time warp from the 1970s: leather, studs, the porcupine hairdos. It was like a cross between a bomb shelter, a castle, and a kids' clubhouse, with graffiti and posters on the walls. The most memorable ones: a vintage Nazi poster with a swastika and the slogan "In the name of the German people," and one of a punk with scales--the lighter one holding a beer, the heavier one holding a bomb and the slogan; "If you do not resist, you are part of the problem."

This squat was nice and clean enough, unlike the horror story we've been hearing in several cities about a Copenhagen squat where a young woman overdosed and either crawled or was shoved under a bed and wasn't found for a month. According to the story, she had to be scraped off the floor by the police. Supposedly it was cold enough and smelled bad enough already (some of these places are truly filthy, with human shit and dog shit and vomit left to shellac the corners) that nobody noticed. Apocryphal, but illustrative.

We've just arrived in Berlin, where the Holy Ghost Revival and Clorox Girls will play a bar called White Trash Fast Food. It looks fairly nice from the outside, with a Chinese look a la Chop Suey. We load in the gear soon (our daily weight lifting routine).

Tonight, the venue will put us up in a hostel, where we’ll have showers and maybe laundry. I can’t even smell myself any more. Which is a good thing.

And enjoy this bit of Swedish culture, courtesy of Kenneth and the Knutters, whose national hits included We Will Keep Our Bikes, I Kiss Betty Without a Helmet On, and Moose Hunt Rap:

1. The buildings: They aren't the spindly, spiraling towers of the southern Gothic, nor the blocky confections of Amsterdam, but something in between. All European cities have architecture from the 14th century rubbing up againt 21st-century post (or post-post?) modern contortions of sheet metal, but in Stockholm, the transitions seem weirdly smooth, as if the medieval Swedish builders already felt IKEA quickening in their designs.

2. The rockers: They really fucking rock. Holy Ghost Revival and Clorox Girls were both well-received (the latter is wonderfully happy, dancey punk music, the former is a bit of a baroque-glam-metal spectacular that somebody here described as "Shakespeare meets Rock & Roll High School") and the club they played, Debaser ( it's Pixies-themed, with heavy emphasis on Doolittle and drink names like "Monkey Gone to Heaven") was hopping.

3. Sticker number one:

More dead cops.

4. Sticker number two:

Missing: Dawit Isaak. Swedish citizen and journalist imprisoned in Eritrea without trial since 2001. Please direct appeals to the Eritrean embassy in Stockholm. +46(0)8 44 17 170.

5. The people: They really are beautiful--all of them. White and black, young and old, Turkish taxi drivers and the lone Asian geezer I saw walking through old town, carrying a shopping bag. Must be the water. That, or they round up the ugly people at night and execute them. This is socialism, after all.

6. Sticker number three:

You are not your job,


Your not how much

money you have

on the bank...

PondeR

There's a whole genre of stickers specifically aimed at tourists--they're in English in all the scenic parts of town and Swedish in all the residential neighborhoods, like where our host, Johan, lives and near his band-practice space, an old bomb shelter with carpeting, recording equipment, and a squeeze-toy of Osama Bin Laden holding a machine gun.

Next stop, Linkøping, sister city of Palo Alto, California.

I'm sitting in a Swedish 7-11, which happens to have internet access. I'm on tour with two young American bands, the Clorox Girls and Holy Ghost Revival, a Seattle group recently signed to a Columbia Records subsidiary and packed off for a shoestring month-and-a-half European tour. My brother Conor is the singer/songwriter/ringmaster for the group, which is how I weasled my way into the tour van, which is roughly the size and shape of a paddy wagon and packed like a clown car--it barely holds nine people, their luggage, amps, drums, music gear, effluvia, etc. We also picked up a German in Hamburg named Jens whose primary contribution has been teaching us macho insults in German, including

warmduscher: taker-of-warm-showers

sitzpinkler: he-who-sits-while-pissing

and my favorite

turnbeutelvergesser: gym-bag-forgetter

And what, exactly, is so un-masculine about forgetting one's gym bag?

"It's stupid to forget a gym bag," he said.

I said I still didn't understand.

"Ach!" he said. "You are weichei. And I don't explain that one."

Last night I went to Harlem to see James Brown's final appearance at the Apollo Theater, where the body of the Godfather of Soul/Edison of Rhythm/Babydaddy-Babymama-Funky Doula of Hiphop was laid out yesterday for a public viewing. I got there around 7:30 pm with my fella Jake, who took the photos above and below. When we arrived, only thirty minutes remained in the scheduled showing time (1-8pm). Still, there was a tremendous crowd—thousands of people—lined up along several long blocks hoping to get in.

As we strolled the six blocks to the end of the line, I tried to guess how the night would play out. Would James Brown—in death as in life—prove himself the hardest working man in showbiz and stay on the Apollo stage until every last fan was satisfied? Or was the 8pm deadline set in stone, and all those cops on hand were here to make sure the disappointed crowd dispersed peacefully?

Whatever the case, the crowd was fascinating—lots of families in fancy funeral dress, a rainbow of hipsters young and old, and numerous crusty old dudes reminiscing about James Brown b-sides. This guy walked along the line showing off his original vinyl pressing of Live at the Apollo signed by the man himself, and reciting a story about producing one of Brown's NY shows in the '70s.

Finally, we came upon someone addressing the crowd: James Brown's sister, whose first name I didn't catch, and who was working her way down the line, addressing groups of 50 or so at a time. The gist of her address: Due to another showing scheduled the next day in Georgia, the Apollo showing would indeed have to cease at 8:00 pm, leaving thousands of people standing on line for naught. "James loves every one of you," she said with tears in her eyes. "The whole family is so grateful to you for coming out tonight."

The crowd of addressees I heard answered back sweetly, calling out, "Don't you worry about it" and "God bless you," and I imagine she found similarly sympathetic audiences as she worked her way down the line. As we left, I bought a bootleg DVD of "James Brown's Greatest TV Performances" from one of the many vendors lining the streets. I haven't watched it yet.

As for the man of the hour (fuck you, Gerald Ford): He's a giant, he knew it, and he had an awesome life. RIP James Brown.

So last night I had the chance to see the much-hyped Dreamgirls and it was...okay. Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy are great, Beyonce barely registers as anything beyond a hairstyle or twelve, and Jamie Foxx continues to gross me out hard.

A lot of what's wrong with the movie is laid out in this hilarious review by Stranger writer Lindy West. (Money quote: "If I were to come across Dreamgirls on TV at 11:00 a.m. on a hung-over Tuesday, I'd be all about it... but to pay cashmoneydollars in an actual theater? It's like ordering some fancy fish at Ponti Seafood Grill and having Pat Cashman show up with a Taco Time burrito.")

One thing West neglects to mention, and which was a much bigger problem for me than the movie's weak-ass attempts at a multi-layered plot, is the music. Simply put, there's not a single song in Dreamgirls that comes close to the excitement or hookiness of even the weakest Motown track. It's all bullshit showtune stuff, and it hobbles the whole movie.

Still, Hudson and Murphy deserve all the gushing in the world, and at least I had the good fortune to see the movie in a super-exciting setting: A packed Christmas-night cinema in Norfolk, VA, in which my mom, my boyfriend, and I were literally the only honkies. It was a blast, and the hilarious, ongoing sass-back to the screen filled up a lot of the dumb holes in the plot.

I'm visiting my brother and his family in Norfolk, VA—a well-timed trip in regard to my current obsession with Clipse (I haven't seen them around anywhere) and a welcome reconnection with my brother's kids, AKA my niece and nephew.

Sarah just turned 16 and is obsessed with punk. (For her birthday, I gave her a signed copy of Courtney Love's diaries, and she wept in appreciation.) If her idolization of Courtney Love isn't scary enough, her celebrity dream date du jour is Pete Doherty. ("He's beautiful!" she says while swooning; next up: crushes on open sores.)

Jake is 12 and loves skateboarding and the Clash. Five minutes ago, he said this about the movie Scarface: "He crams his face in a huge pile of coke, and most people who do that aren't very happy."

Kids these days. At least they haven't mentioned Robotripping or rainbow parties, but the night is young...