AKA - I need a weekend to recover from my weekend.

Friday: Saw Public Enemy perform "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back." This was hip-hop history, living legends on stage. I have so much respect for Chuck D, so seeing him live was pretty phenomenal. And Flavor Flav...the man's a hoot. He said something about his reality show and when patches of the crowd booed, he told them off. He also gave the most ridonkulous uplifting message at the end of the set. DJ Lloyd (replacement for Terminator X) got a solo bit during the encore and holy fuck it was scratching and syncing and I have no idea what the technical terms are for the things he did to that record but damn it was good. Post-show went to Erin and Nickd's place for fancy beer. Had creme brulee beer. Must acquire that.

Saturday: Got drenched in the three blocks between my apartment and the bus stop. D'oh. Heard some of Fuck Buttons, but left to go hear Dizzee Rascal. I have a soft spot for British rappers (well, The Streets at least). I love the accent of course, but the whole manner of delivery and approach towards beats is different. Dizzee was really on and the crowd loved it. Must acquire his albums. Then we had the fantastic dance party one-two punch of !!! and The Hold Steady. Got to rock out and be that obnoxious flailing dancer for the latter show with Austin. Must acquire The Hold Steady albums. I left the park right after their set to go home and recover before going downtown to see The Dark Knight. I wouldn't have gone of my own accord, but my friend Chez and already seen it and insisted. It might be the first Batman movie I've seen in full. It was good. I love watching movies filmed in Chicago. They showed a nighttime skyline shot and Nikki and I looked at each other and smiled. Unfortunately it was mid-downpour when the film let out. We waited for awhile, and then Nikki and I broke into "Eye of the Tiger" to hype ourselves up for braving the rain. It had mostly let up but I decided I was too tired to hike to the blue line and hailed a cab. As we were just leaving the River North area this dude walked up to the cab, opened the passenger side door and sat down. He didn't say anything. The cab driver told him to get out, first civilly and then aggressively. I swear they were this close to a fistfight. Finally the douchebag left the cab and walked away, flipping off the driver. That was interesting. Was too wired to sleep and finished off "Anna Karenina."

Sunday: Slept in. Camped out for Les Savy Fav, sharing an umbrella, hand-held fan, and small-town stories with a couple of strangers. Rocked out to Les Savy Fav. I'm getting better at seeing bands I'm completely unfamiliar with live and still having a blast. Saw Ghostface Killah and Raekwon. Again, I'm not at all familiar with the Wu-Tang or any of Ghostface Killah's solo work, but the rest of the crowd was. It's not so much my style of hip-hop: they favor heavy thumping bass with little to no melodic line. But it was a pretty solid show. I had hoped to see some of Cut Copy but they were still setting up at quarter to nine, and I decided that Spoon was more important. They are. I love Britt Daniels' voice and he's just as good live as on record. Their set seemed way too short (curse you, noise ordinances!) but it was just exciting to hear a great band live. Must acquire their earlier albums. Walked home at record speed for a cold shower and cold water.

And now, sleep.

I went to Whole Foods on my lunch break today to get some fruit and something calorific to boost my mood. On the way back as I crossed the street, I heard a voice call out "Good afternoon!" I looked up from the midpoint of the street and saw a round-faced man smiling from the seat of a tall white van.
"Hi." I said with a small smile.
"Have a good day!"
I looked back down and reached the other side of the sidewalk. As I walked back to the office, my first thought was, "Aww, random act of kindness." My second thought was, "Fuck I still hate everything."
This is not good.

I won't bother you with my whining. But things aren't looking so hot in my little world right now. Except for dancing. Dancing makes everything better, and at this point, I will gladly sacrifice my coherence on Tuesday mornings to go out for swing and lindy til the wee hours of Monday nights. Although I did kind of badly with a few people, I also danced really, really well with several. One guy asked me if I did ballet, and I found a couple new favorite partners to look for next week. Damn, even just writing about it makes me feel better. Between that and some Ghirardelli, I think I can survive the day.

Tonight's tale of the single life takes us to Lincoln Park, where Nikki and I met for a night of 'trolling for dudes.' We do that occasionally, usually only half-seriously. We went to Ja' Grill, a Jamaican restaurant that I'd heard had a killer rum punch. It was delicious and I want to go back soon for the spicy-smelling food (and more drinks, because the whole menu looked pretty damn tasty). We then walked along Halsted and wound up at Glascott's. Within minutes of the first sips of our drinks, we were approached by a John Cusack lookalike. I kid you not, they are practically identical. Nikki asked if anyone had ever told him about the uncanny resemblance, and apparently he's been called on it as far away as Turkey. Our gent is a first-year student at Kellogg, and at first glance, he seemed kind of interesting. He told us about meeting with a high-powered finance man in Turkey and how "Ankara is the most boring city in all of Europe and Asia". And then he wouldn't shut up. After a very long-winded and one-sided discussion about Dubai (apparently India is a "police state" and "they need smart people" to "get things done") he finally took his leave. Nikki and I immediately burst out laughing and declared it our new favorite bar. However, we had not yet escaped Mr. Cusack. When we left the bar shortly thereafter, he was standing on the corner.
"I realized," he said to us, "That I forgot to invite you back to my place."
We demur. He persists. I tell him, "You talk too much."
"I'd talk a lot less at my place."
We give him a final no and, arm in arm, set off down Halsted, laughing all the way.

1) The first time I've been to the Aragon Ballroom. It's really pretty and I kind of want to reproduce their nighttime sky ceiling mural in my apartment, complete with a disco ball.

2) The first time seeing M.I.A. live. Amanda had an extra ticket and offered it to me. Sweet! But to start from the beginning, I actually enjoyed the opener, the catchily-named Holy Fuck. They consist of a very enthusiastic drummer, a very enthusiastic bassist, and two very enthusiastic guys bent over tables carrying some combination of keyboards and tech equipment. The funny thing is, I'm not sure I would like them as much on a record. They do very scientific-looking songs of loops and, I guess I'd call it modulations. It was really catchy and dance-able. When they were done, M.I.A.'s DJ came out and did a short  house/dance set. Another break, and then the party returned. I had no idea that she had this level of cult following, or that they were so young. Over half the crowd looked like college and even high school students. I'll save my thoughts on the fashion statements displayed for another time; suffice to say they were very colorful and largely unflattering. But hey, I was just there to dance. M.I.A. herself looked a little like a Christmas disco ball, and even without all the glitter, she is quite lovely. She mostly did new songs, and had a couple dancers onstage with her. They also had horns (just plastic cones, I think) that they threw into the audience periodically and honked on between numbers. With the horns, the heavy bass and shrill screams, the sound level in that pretty old castle was through the roof. It was a lot of fun, if short. She played a two-song encore that put her portion at an hour fifteen minutes. We would have danced and screamed for at least two hours. But yes, a good time, capped off by:

3) The first time getting picked up on public transit. I still can't quite believe it happened. I was waiting for the bus (#72 if you're interested), arms crossed over my chest because I wasn't wearing a coat. I was looking down the street for the bus lights when suddenly there's a guy at my elbow asking if I'm cold. (Why do they always pop up when I'm looking the other way?) I explain that I was at a show and we have a sort of stilted conversation about music. It's stilted because I'm tired and he doesn't seem to hear me well. The bus finally shows and I make a point to not sit by him. I like talking to strangers, but this one just isn't jiving. But just as the bus comes up to my stop, he stands up, comes over to me, and says he's getting off at the street after mine. I decide to get off at the one after he leaves and just walk the extra two blocks back. Then he asks me if I'm in the neighborhood if he can meet up with me for coffee sometime. I tell him I have a boyfriend. Yes, I appreciate the irony of this happening right after writing about my botched online dating foray. No, it probably wouldn't have hurt to say yes just for the hell of it. But answer me this: would you go out with a stranger you met at the bus stop?

I just passed an old woman on my street. She was wearing a bright blue coat and her white hair was mostly covered by a floral kerchief. I smiled at her and she walked up to me.
"I brought an umbrella but with this wind I'd be like Mary Poppins!"

Speaking of which, I'm leaving for the airport in two hours. Oh my.

I took a cab home from the bar (but only because the east-west buses had stopped running and Ashland was too far to walk). I asked the driver what the strangest conversation he'd overheard in a taxi was. It was hard to hear him, but he did say that he once drove Michael Douglas, although he didn't offer my driver a movie deal. He was Romanian. He said that  in both Romania and America people were flocking to the cities. He didn't quite seem to know why. He asked me what Americans in small cities were like, but I didn't really have a good answer. He said "young people, they think in the big city the sky will open for them."
I said, "Maybe it will."