Friday, July 27, 2018

Bebel Gilberto

After a really busy and stressful week, I was glad to sit down and enjoy a performance by Bebel Gilberto last night at Space in Evanston. I'd had tickets to see Bebel a year or so ago, but her travel to Chicago was delayed and, hence, the show was delayed and I didn't get to see her. Thankfully, her travel wasn't deterred this time around. The show was excellent and just the soothing music I needed to finish off a week filled with a lot of running around and personal disappointments. If you like Brazilian music and Bebel comes to your town, do yourself a favor and see her.

Sunday, July 22, 2018

Rat Capital?

I saw an article (and heard on the news) that Chicago is now the nation's rat capital. How is this possible? Does Chicago have more of a rat problem than New York? Not bloody likely. Now there are a lot of things to criticize Chicago for: an awful mayor, high crime, ridiculous taxes, etc., but I find it hard to believe that the Windy City has more rats than New York. Every time I'm in New York and ride the subway (which I do pretty much every time I'm there for a visit), I see rats on the tracks. Granted, Chicago's L system is largely elevated, so I doubt rats are climbing the rails in the city and I only recently started working downtown in the city, so maybe the rats are there and I just haven't seen them in full force yet. Still, given the populations and the housing in New York versus Chicago, I still believe the Big Apple is chock-full of rodents. I read a book years ago called Rats and it was about the rat epidemic in New York and I also recently saw a documentary about rats in New York and both the book and the documentary were fascinating. You learn the habits of the rats and come to understand why they do what they do. In the book, the author wrote about an Irish pub somewhere in New York and how the rats seemed to know when it was pot pie night because they showed up in droves to get to the garbage the put out that night. Gross.

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Collusion Has Two L's, Donny

As the author of a book titled Collusion, I think I know how to spell the word properly. Sadly, Donny T. does not. If you look at his handwritten note on his "sorry, not sorry" speech today, you'll see, in big black bold print that collusion is spelled with one L. But he's a stable genius, right? Too bad he can't write or spell or lead or govern or care about anything or anyone other than himself. When will the nightmare end???? I'm beyond being ashamed. I'm beyond being surprised. Now I'm in the stage where I just recognize and accept the stupidity before me.

Monday, July 16, 2018

Yes, Sir. May I Have Another?

Is anyone really surprised by Donny T's ass kissing today? I wasn't. What were people expecting him to do ? Call Vlad out for being the real-life Bond villain that he is? Dream on, dreamers because that was never going to happen. If Vlad doesn't have something on Donny, then Donny is dumber than I thought. What person would just roll over,  discredit his own government intelligence agencies, and suck up to a foreign leader (again, against his own government)? And, given Donny's huge ego, seeing him fawn over someone like Vlad is so out of the norm that you know there's something else going on here. All signs point to extortion. Remember, folks, Donny would never even have passed the highest level of the government's security clearance had he not been elected POTUS. Hell, I doubt he could have gotten a job in a government mail room let alone in the White House with all of his conflicts and shady real estate deals. I'm surprised Vlad didn't tell him to go get his shine box during the press conference today. If he had, I'm sure Donny would have run and gotten it too.

Friday, July 13, 2018

The Roommate

It's been a long week filled with a new work schedule and a new commute and I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend to, hopefully, do some writing. Last weekend, I did see the play The Roommate at the Steppenwolf Theatre and I'm finally getting around to blogging about it. The play was about two middle-aged women who ended up sharing a house together. One was a divorcee who lived in Iowa and the other was a lesbian from New York. The New Yorker had secrets about her past that eventually came out as the two women grew closer. The women's roles also reversed as the play went on. I won't spoil any of the details, but I left the performance wondering what the takeaway was supposed to be here. That people who live together eventually morph into each other? I don't know. Great performances by the actors though.


Saturday, July 7, 2018

Music

When I traveled recently, I realized just how sick I was of the music I currently have loaded on my cell phone. I was stuck listening to the same music I'd been listening to for far too long during my flight. So when I got home, I added some new music to my rotation. I heard "One Fine Thing" by Harry Connick, Jr. on the radio and wondered, Why don't I have this? Well, I have it now. It's a great song. I also recently downloaded some songs by Weezer, OMD, the Bee Gees, and Beck. If you read my blog with any frequency, you'll know that I'm a fan of older music. Speaking of Weezer, their version of Toto's "Africa" is great.

In other music news, I argued with a rep from Sirius earlier this week. Their customer service is truly awful. I complained, but I doubt anything comes from it.

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

The Green Bay Tree and Beach Rats

First and foremost, Happy Independence Day to those of us here in the States. Independence seems pretty fragile right now with Donny T. and his minions at the helm, but I'm trying to focus on the freedoms we have rather than dwell on the awfulness of the government right now.

In other news, I saw a performance of The Green Bay Tree recently and found it...interesting. The play is about an older man who has a younger man as his ward and he raises the younger man from, I believe, around age 11. When the younger man is an adult, he meets a woman he wants to marry, but the older man convinces him not to marry because doing so would cause his ward to give up the comforts of the luxurious life the older man has given him. Although it's never stated, the implication is that the older and younger man have a relationship beyond that of a guardian and his ward. And the jealousy shown by the older man towards the woman the younger man plans to marry furthers that assumption. The play takes place in the 1930's, but the theme could still be relevant today. Would you be willing to give up a life of luxury for love? If you've grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle with a person who took care of you, would you chuck all of that to live a life of near poverty with someone else?

I also saw the film Beach Rats last weekend and an entirely different side of male relationships was explored there. The main character was a working class white guy in Brooklyn who, basically, did nothing but smoke weed and go to the beach with his equally useless friends while living at home with his mother and younger sister. (His father dies early on in the film.) But the guy has a secret life as a hustler who meets up with men (usually older men) online. Even though the guy has a girlfriend and seems like a heterosexual guy, he hooks up with men on the side. I couldn't figure out if he was gay for pay or really gay and the main character seemed confused as well about his own sexuality. The film provided an interesting take on male sexuality.

Have a great Fourth of July holiday!