Heaven on Clark...

Well, I didn't write anything yesterday because I was dead... but I'm ok now.

We went to see Pedro the Lion & Starflyer 59 on Tuesday night.
The concert started around 8:30 at the Metro, across the street from Wrigley Field, here in Chicago. Our party consisted of Sarah, Me, my best friend Ryan, our good friend Adam, and Sarah's youngest sister Kaitlin (her first concert.)

It was a great show. Starflyer was amazing... very full sound for a guitarist and a drummer. Aside from their set being very short, I couldn't have asked anything more from them. They did a great, upbeat version of the song "I Drive Alot" off of the album "Fashion Focus", otherwise, it seemed that all the rest of the songs were off of their new album "I am the Portugese Blues."

Pedro the Lion performed next, with more people on stage than I've ever seen them have. David Bazan, who for many years, has performed by himself or with the man he now refers to as T. William Walsh. This time, he and T.W. were joined by a fantastic (and balding) bass player, an incredibly skinny sound-guy, and a keyboard player. I couldn't have picked a better group of songs myself, and the first 6 or 7 were back to back with no stopping whatsoever. This was highly unexpected, because of how much David likes to talk to the crowd and answer their questions... after those first 6 or so songs, he opened up to questions to give the band a break and then dove right back in with about 4 more songs. After that, it was introduction time, and more questions... From there on, it was straight music, one broken guitar string, and a few more q and a sements. Very cool. David was so much more on top of his game then when I saw him last. The songs were creatively twisted a bit, and he really jumped around his discography. I think that I heard only 3 songs from any one album. They were pretty spread around. Kaitlin really enjoyed the show, and came up close to the stage with me during the Starflyer 59 set. The rest of our crew hung back, except for Sarah, who came up closer with me during the PTL set. What an enjoyable evening.

We took the CTA "L" trains to and from the concert. Always a blast for me. I really love riding the L's. There is a great deal of fear in the south side suburbs concerning the L's, but I feel it's unwarranted. They are very convenient, and run all over the city.

We got home around 1am, which was unfortunate for me, since I had to be at work to open at 5 am. Needless to say, I went to sleep upon walking in the door. Sarah had to stay up till 3 doing homework, and got up at 6:30, so we were in the same sleepy boat yesterday. I don't work today, so I've been chillin. Watched the movie M.A.S.H. for the first time today, and as a lover of the TV show that followed it, I must say I was incredibly impressed. The only fault I had with the movie was that right at the end, they felt the need for some reason to send Hawkeye Pierce and another doctor "home"... One of the important aspects of the show was the overwhelming sense of "We're never going to get home" that pervaded the attitudes of those at the 4077th. In a movie that short, it seemed like they were implying that you go to war for a couple weeks, play some pranks, some football, and operate on a bunch of wounded soldiers, then go home. Granted, the TV show had a much larger platform (longer run) to communicate what it was like to serve in Korea in an Army hospital, but in the movie I never felt that the 4077th was ever 3 miles from the front lines. It seemed more like a summer camp with a tri-og.

Anyway, that's it for now.
Enjoy your day, and as Jerry Springer says, "Take care of yourselves, and eachother..."

Jim

P.S. It should be noted that this entire post was written while listening to the song "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd... the song is like approximately 14 days long...