Last night while working the bar, I talked to my coworkers and my favorite regular about writing. I told them I felt that, while I write for one of my two jobs and do a column, I feel completely uninspired and ready to work on something that I really care about. I made excuses as to why I have very little time to write–overworked, underpaid, things of that nature–and went home feeling tired and frustrated with the entire situation. I set my alarm to wake up early and do some writing before work.

At 4 a.m., however, my phone started ringing. It rang every hour until about 11 a.m.

I love my family. I am lucky to have people who love me, support me and make me laugh–most of the time. Unfortunately, my parents have never quite gotten around to growing up.

Talk of jail, bail, and my amazing sister having to talk to the cops at 3 a.m. while her high school friends (having a sleepover) sat terrified in her bedroom filled my early-morning hours.

Aside from the jail, this is nothing new. It’s always something. It always involves drinking. It always leaves my mom sleeping soundly until 5 p.m. the next day while I struggle to work on 3 hours of sleep.

Maybe I can write tomorrow.

summer (over)nights

I cannot stop bitching about the fact that I have to work three overnight shifts this weekend. I am in the midst of my second one now, and I hate it more than words can adequately describe. The biggest problem is the fact that I cannot sleep during the day—especially when it’s sunny, 75 degrees and my lady is waiting for me to wake up and do fun things with her. The second biggest problem is the fact that I operate on a completely opposite schedule all week long.

So, I slept a few hours after work today then made the most of my pre-work evening.

I have been on a mission to buy a decent couch for, well, about four months now. Ok, maybe I want more than decent. I want a vintage, Mid Century modern-style sofa in good condition.  Oh, and I want it to be cheap.

These specifications are why my apartment has yet to be completely unpacked. I am waiting to find the “perfect” everything. And Thursday, I thought I was in luck.

I found a cute, vintage couch—almost exactly what I wanted—for $200 on Craigslist. I called the guy and was shocked to hear it was still available. Ali and I headed to the North Side to look at it today, with my hopes quite high.

We got to the apartment after climbing the five flights of stairs to look at the couch (the whole time thinking, “How the eff are we going to get this thing down?”) We walk into the place and this woman is there, wearing two pairs of eyeglasses. Yes, one on top of the other. She was also holding a bird and had a huge tongue ring.

Weirdest shit ever.

The guy showing the couch was so awkward to us. Ali said it was because he was weirded out by “the lesbian thing” but I just thing he was socially fucked. He then proceeded to tell me that he wanted to sell these two weird chairs with the couch and that he wanted at least $500 for everything. Creature! Who does that?

Anyway, we left and I decided I would rather  be couch-less than buy from that weird beard.

After dinner, we headed to the Musicbox and saw the new Guy Maddin movie, My Winnipeg. It was expectedly weird and really funny. Throughout the film, the words like “Gay Bison” and “Hairless Boner” would flash on the screen. Since I’m 12 years old, I found this extremely amusing. But seriously, it was pretty great and now I need to check out The Saddest Music In the World (Isabella Rossellini with a beer-filled leg?! I’m sold!)

Now I’m at work and whiny but I really shouldn’t be. This summer has been great thus far. For once I feel like I’m taking advantage of the weather and doing things (other than work) that make me happy. Next weekend Ali and I are heading out to Saugatuck to stay in a beach house with her friends Becky and Mike (who are full-blown awesome).

I got really down about work, money, etc. last week but I’m realizing that it’s going to be okay one way or another. I can learn so much from the great reporters here, and despite what all of the Chicago media critics have to say, I have faith that we can turn things around here with a little TLC. Not to say I don’t cringe every so often, but I would like to think every reporter I know gets squeamish about their company’s journalistic choices from time to time.

Ahh, I get to go to the county morgue after I write about two gunshot victims and an extra alarm fire. My job is pretty rad, I suppose.

A.D.D.

I have it!

http://newsandbooze.tumblr.com/

come on, city council!

UPDATE: Promoters law passes committee

After a more than four-hour session Wednesday, the City Council Committee on License and Consumer Protection passed the proposed promoters law written about at length in the preceding post. The ordinance now goes to the full City Council on May 14, and if approved there, the Chicago music scene will once again change for the worse at the hands of city officials.

Of course, the city already has myriad laws on the books dictating proper licensing and safety codes for concerts and clubs — not the least of which is the controversial “anti-rave ordinance” passed in the ’90s, which came on top of police, fire, city building and health department oversight and the always acute watch of aldermen and neighborhood groups.

But suddenly, city officials — chief among them committee chair Ald. Eugene Schulter (ward47@cityofchicago.org) and acting director of the Department of Business Affairs and Licensing Mary Lou Eisenhauer — have an urgent need to create an entirely separate part of the city code tightening the reigns on promoters even more. And this need is so urgent that little effort was made to seek any input from the promoters or the people who work with them.

If approved by the committee and the City Council, the law would require anyone promoting any event drawing more than 100 people to obtain a license — even if they are working with a well-established and already licensed promoter.

Licensees would also have to carry at least $300,000 in commercial liability insurance (even if the venue is insured), and they would have to be at least 21 years old (thereby ruling out enterprising college students, D.I.Y. punk fans and other budding young entrepreneurs from hosting a concert or a legal rave — and if you think that’s not a good idea, you should know that several of the top promoters in Chicago actually started their careers at age 18 or 19).

What all this means is that if, say, a local fanzine wanted to promote a monthly concert featuring the bands in its new issue at a well-established local club of 200 capacity, the editors would have to apply for a promoters’ license and meet all of the requirements and expenses, even if the club already has a license and can boast of a clean record of trouble-free events. The same would hold true of many regular benefit gigs.

As it now stands, the law would only allow venues with “fixed seating” — that is to say, chairs that can’t be removed — to host one-time events by unlicensed promoters like our magazine or benefit in the example above. This requirement rules out the exact sort of clubs that would most benefit from these events, including venues such as the Empty Bottle, Buddy Guy’s Legends and Metro.

One music activist who asked not to be named said that “the net impact of this law is simple: It’s going to make it harder for a lot of people to promote concerts in Chicago, and therefore there’s going to be less music in Chicago.
–Jim DeRogatis

I wrote this letter to Alderman Schulter and Mayor Daley in response to the ordinance:

ward47@cityofchicago.org
mayorDaley@CityofChicago.org

SUBJECT: In opposition to Chapter 4-157, titled “Event Promoters”

Alderman Gene Schulter, Mayor Daley and other city council members,

I am writing in opposition to the proposal that recently passed in City Council regarding new regulations for city event promoters. As someone who helped organize a DIY festival to benefit rape victims in 2007, I know that we would not have been able to raise as much money as we did or generate as much community outreach without the help of small event promoters and clubs who will no longer be able to operate under the expensive and outrageous new regulations proposed in the ordinance that passed Wednesday.

Being a member of the media, I was shocked at how little I heard about this ordinance until it was relatively too late, and when I spoke to friends and colleagues about it, they were as outraged as I am. It was Mayor Daley who said, “It’s the whole idea of what a city should be: the appreciation of the artistic community. That’
s the soul of a city.”

This ordinance shows a complete disregard for the artistic community and appears to be drafted by people who are out of touch with those who stay in this great city because of its thriving independent art and music scene.

Obviously, we all want club and concert-goers to be safe. The E2 incident was a tragic but rare one and there are other ways (come on, city council, you can do better than this) that we can combat ignorant and dangerous club promoters. Most people who promote independent music are tax paying citizens who just love local art, not criminals who need to be fingerprinted.

Please reconsider this ordinance before even more of our artistic community flits off to Brooklyn or LA.

js

yum

I decided I don’t like my blog. I’m starting a food blog, basically to amuse myself. It’s going to be delicious. I’m not deleting this one, even though I want to.

man shot on south side

There is a very good chance that by the end of my shift tonight I will have devoured an entire box of “matzoh crunch” and will feel pretty damn bad about it.

I’m so bored that there also a chance that my head is going to explode.

The past few weeks have been pretty terrible. I could really use a few days to just decompress or get out of town (some place warm and very far from Chicago) but since that won’t happen I figured I would blog. Because, well, I kind of hate writing right now and should force myself (aside from the occasional “man shot on the South Side.” I’m sure I’ll write many more of those before the night is over).

My nana died this week. I am lucky that I have had her in my life until now, but it really doesn’t make it any better. I’ve never really lost anyone that I was terribly close to, and when my aunt died awhile back I was too young for it to really effect me the way it probably should have.

I’m generally sad and have been sad since I found out on Tuesday and saw her lying there in her bed. I didn’t really want to see her like that. I don’t do well with death and it’s hard enough looking at someone in a casket. Fuck.

I just kept thinking about being at her house telling her about my boy troubles and our crazed relatives while we ate chocolate and drank Diet Pepsi. She always had cats and cookies and would make me pour vodka into her 7-Up at family parties.

My heart hurts. I mean, she was nearly 80 and had a rough life. The past couple years have been particularly bad and seeing her deteriorate like that was the worst.

I don’t know. I don’t really want to write about it anymore.

I don’t know what I want to write about anymore.

I sometimes wish I could just work a job, make decent money and have benefits, have 2 days off a week to spend doing anything I wanted. I am tired of this pattern. I’ve been doing this since I was 15, and though I know I’m young I would like to die knowing I spent at least some of my young life enjoying myself. Not constantly stressing about work and having to beg someone to switch with me so I can go to dinner with my dad once a month or see my sister’s softball game.

I just feel like none of this shit even matters. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything with my life that I’m particularly proud of. I’m not inspired, I’m just fucking tired.

I hate having to see my girlfriend at midnight and hang out for an hour before we sleep and for a few hours in the morning before I have to get ready for work and do it again. I guess a lot of people deal with weird hours, but I really don’t want to.

I’m being dramatic. It’s just been a bad week. I really hate blogging and feeling like my blog is stupid and irrelevant and self-involved.

Ugh, whatever.

it’s march.

I’m a blog neglector. Basically because all I talk about lately is my girlfriend (amazing) and my jobs (boring dot com). But today I read some rad stuff because it’s super slow at work:

The New York Times Magazine ran a nice piece on transgender students.

The Trib had some really great stories today as well. One discussed how domestic violence laws only go so far, and even women who get restraining orders and pursue aggressive prosecution for their abusers end up dead far too often.

They also did a story about how college grads aren’t having too hard of a time finding jobs despite the weak economy. Not rocket science: It’s far cheaper to employ the kids.

yeahh.

zig a zig ahh

I’m officially over winter. I am ready for sunshine, baseball games, drinking outdoors and not having to trudge through snow…always. The dreary weather is the least of my problems. In the last two weeks, I lost my wallet (along with hundreds of dollars), my car broke down, I’ve had the flu, missed work twice, alienated a coworker and missed an important deadline.

It’s not that bad, though. I have managed to keep the stupid luck from getting me down for two reasons:

A girl I have swooned over for months finally reciprocated. Making my life complicated for a week but lovely thereafter and so far.

I saw and reviewed the Spice Girls last week.Dream. Come. True.

Which means, despite the drama, two dreams I have had since my teens have come true: Dating a woman and seeing the Spice Girls in concert.

What else?

Leaving for Ann Arbor in two weeks for a weekend out of town, thankfully.

Trying to stay awake at work.

That about brings it up to speed.

the look on your face yanks my neck on the chain

Turns out, nobody wants to commit a crime when it is below zero. Maybe we should create an ice chamber for gang bangers and let them run wild. It might not be so wild after all.

Yesterday at work, I cried. That’s right. After months of reporting on violent crimes and tragic deaths, I finally expressed some sort of remorse for the people I write about. Not that I don’t feel bad about the things that happen on a daily basis, but the fact that someone could shoot a 6-year-old in the head at point-blank range over drug money–or anything for that matter–makes me ill. Anyone who has had the pleasure of hanging out with me this weekend has already heard my rant about gangs in Chicago and how there needs to be so much more community involvement to oust these dirtbags.

I can get into the socioeconomic issues that result in poor teenagers in urban areas joining gangs, but that doesn’t excuse their presence or behavior. People on the South and West sides that deal with the violence daily hold prayer vigils and march in the streets, and once in awhile some big shot like Daley or Dana Starks will show some interest, but the general Chicago population needs to care more.

Less than two years ago, my neighborhood was the main turf for Latin Kings. When all the indie kids moved in and condos went up, they moved west and south–where the little boy was shot yesterday. Just because it is not in front of our face doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care. We are moving into these neighborhoods and should become involved in sustaining them–and not just on our block.

I guess I should practice what I’m preachin’. I shall try.

big wheel keep on turning

I haven’t been much of a blogger lately, probably because it has been a pretty jam-packed few weeks.

I am getting laid off, which really sucks, but at least for now I will keep my column. So that’s good. I’m not really sure when my last day is just yet, but I do know that I am the least productive person ever while here. I can’t get it up, can’t fake it. I know they are letting me go and I find it much more difficult than usual to put up with attitude from police.

On the upside, I am quite happy in my relationship. (One of the most accurate things I have ever heard is the theory that when your love life is going well, your professional life is likely suffering, though in this case I would like to think it is no fault of my own.) Having a boyfriend is not as dreadful as I remember it being, it’s quite nice actually. Hopefully my professional life doesn’t completely crash and burn, but I think much of that is up to me…staying motivated.

A big issue with all this layoff talk has been relocating (hence the last vague post). I was told by a colleague that if I am really serious about this journalism thing I would welcome change and try my luck at a small-town paper elsewhere. That simply is not an option for me.

If I were to leave, I would go to New York. I am in no way prepared to do that yet, and who knows if I will ever be. Kelly and I discussed it this morning: work is work. Yes, I love writing and of course I would like to be successful Of course I want to do a job I love rather than be miserably earning a living. But on the other hand I am not willing to be miserable in some ho-dunk town just to “pay my dues.” My family is here, my friends are here and the thought of not being able to drive to the South Side for my sister’s softball games is something I don’t want to accept. I love this city. I think it has potential, despite the fact that companies like mine are not making the most of that potential.

There is hope here, I would like to think. I don’t think I am weak or a loser for never living elsewhere. I love to travel, which is why it makes more sense for me to live somewhere I can afford rather than barely scrape by and never be able to leave the boroughs.

I feel like I’ve been having this NY v. Chicago struggle since high school. I just don’t want to think about it for awhile. I want to find my place here. I thought I found somewhere I could stay for awhile, but sometimes things don’t work out. It’s the way of the world I suppose.

All I know is that I’m going to finish up the next few weeks, and try to get another journalism job in the meantime.

But for now, I’m going to do some beat checks then go eat nachos and watch 30 Rock with my boy.

(The Jan. 2007 me would have barfed upon the Jan. 2008 me, but she was sort of a bitch, right?)