Narratives should be released, hopefully, this will work out.  I had a  Fin Du Monde beer , sitting in front of the Highdive on Chicago ave, facing East, chair just into the small dot of shade from the tree at my back.  It was hot, but kind of perfect.  103 degrees in Seattle today, we are taking note right?. Crazy town. It was lovely here in Chicago, and the timing of having a day off under the sun was swell as well.  I had to bike over to this  store, and you should check out, Kokorokoko is the jam. Ashland, just south of Dusty Groove, so.. Haddon st.  There was this shirt that I was loving a few months ago, specifically a really nice deep soft blue one. It was a small, I was sad.   So yesterday,  one of the owners, let me know (via secret note style) that there was a nice blue newly arrived shirt for me at the store. So today, I peeped it, tried it on, and now will rock it, most likely little kid new gear style, meaning day one, tomorrow. Teeth kind of freak me out, but the print on the back of the shirt is a spine of teeth, pretty dope. I also got myself a nice Tom Tom Club 12″ of Lorelei. $3.

All About The Roosevelt’s… that shit from Taco Bell… I know its my own fault for even watchin the tele, but come now. Kill that noise, I get parody and the push to drone out the brain with ads, but that song hurts the universe.
Jim Rice went into the hall of fame last weekend, pretty cool. It brought back this really great flood of memories, thoughts and smell recalls from when our family lived in this freaky last neighborhood eat in Urbana Illinois. Washington and 136 if your from the 217. I have a really good instant recall of the field between Carrie Elementary School and our little enclave of cookie cutter cheap houses, that field was where I played baseball with friends and with my favorite Easter present ever, my Jim Rice baseball bat, black with white writing and trim. The model of bat was more recognized with the signature of Reggie Jackson. His bat was an often seen bat in the baseball bat bins at the Zayre, AIr Way (later turned into Target), Goldblatts, and Jerry and Al’s, a super dope old school sporting goods store from Champaign Urbana and… oh, yeah, its not about a list of stores, its about the bat, I loved my Jim Rice bat, it is connected with a the smell of early spring in near rural Urbana. So congrats to Jim Rice, and Ricky Henderson as well, he was strait hood. Lake Side Tarace style.
I just heard a clip of a dude ( not even gonna repeat the fools name, no spread of him here ) calling Obama a racist “who has a chip on his shoulder”. Are things really that way? At least the day was nice and warm.  One a pretty cool last little note, I like the way the Cubs are playing.  I’m thinking this is gonna be a nice run towards the playoffs.  Soriano, Ramirez, Lee, and yep, i’m thinking Bradley is gonna actually heat up.  Kinda offense only?  I’m sure that by the time I hit publish post, that the Cubs could have dropped to 4th place, but as of this second.  First Place baby.

Want to see something from the Father Land that is just so dope.  Cute, Creepy, and Design Forward, a couple words that spring to mind with this German Made White Rabbit Lamp.  Tara came back from Germany speaking about these great lamps that she found, and how they were litte plastic bunny rabbit  lamps.  I pictured crappo Christmas yard lite up baby Jesus, but in the form of a little bunny.   Why did that cause my alams to go off?  what is wrong with plastic?  Ok,  a lot is wrong with plastic, that said, I’m going to get one of these for my spot.  10″ high these Rabbits are,  and when they are turned on in a dark room, I get kinda scared, the kind of scared that movie Watership Down made me (I didn’t read the book, was that kid into sharks and Big Cats, the kid who got his info from heavily  illustrated magazines about Sharks and Big Cats…. wait! What magazines were those?)  But the Rabbit in war kind of vibe got me shook as a 3rd grader at Kenwood Elementary.  So… yeah, check out this lamp.  You can get it here if you like.  Or come visit them in the land of creepy cute.  Oh that German design.

There was a banjo in the house, I kind of hurt my foot when the big organ slid down on it, the neighbors were nice, and again, there was a banjo in the house. Its in my house now, and it has a pick up! low tuned non pick using distortion is at hand. So, i’m gonna go now, and play with the banjo. Look at this word banjo, just look at the letters together. Such a pretty grouping of letters. Like a photo album forgotten and newly found. Ha, just look at that last line… ha! Off to the machines.

I just helped my friend move an organ from his old spot to his new one.  He lived in Garfield Park, on Maple st, between Homan and St. Louis.  Lots of good times at that place, a new kind of deck stylee went down there.  You sometimes would hear the arabic call to prayer when you were going to get beer at the corner spot, the call coming from just behind the beer spot, a building owned by the same Arab cats.  Not going to say anything is even messed up about that, see where you look.  The block is nice, and i’m going to miss it.  The neighbor kids, Kalumda who was going to dinner with a sugar mama tonight, and well.. the vibe of African American life, or a segment of it.  I live on a very mixed block, and I like that much, could go either way.  So yeah, i’ll need to make that block a  part of the bike random rideness that can sometimes happen.  The front porch of that house, on the first weekend that my friend lived there, we were super party time, and the soundtrack was the juke music coming from about a half block away.  That was the only night I heard that music, that loud.  And well.. That was enough, could have had more, but cool with that one night.  No stress, no strain, What i’m really feeling right now is the struggle  on my body from that heavy ass organ.  Cheers to you Garfield Park, Conservatory and People.

you already know that, don’t you? Yeah, sometimes times all the effort of peeling, and well.. that big ass seed. Its worth it, peep one today. I”m sure its hot where your at right? I”m going to have another one. Yep, two in one day, peep game. I just saw some photos of my homie Welby’s kid. Cuteness galore. banter.
Now i’m off to the work, to…. uhm…. work.

I just walked under these, just now.  I was coming in from grabbing my laundry from the basement, fresh from hangin up my shirts when I looked up.  I had kinda forgot about these garlic sprout deals.  I bought them from the GG two weeks ago.  That Sunday for lunch I cut up three of them and put them into a tuna, macaroni, and peas.  It was a pasta salad I hadn’t thought of for years.  Sue Peratt used to make it for her kids, Blaine, Brett, Amy, and Missy Peratt.  They were my posse for a few years and I love them, even with almost 30 years since the first hanging out at their house on Sheridan in southwest Champaign.   a few super dope, learn to steal chrome caps kind of years.   Breaking into concessions stands, we learned how Slim Jims, Chewy Sweet Tarts, and potato chips were fruits of white trash thuggery, yeah I know, that half white side of me was feeling it, along with my brown side, black side… uhm those sides.  We were good kids though, that was an isolated incident, so if you Peratts happen across this, i’m only telling that one.  They were a couple big brothers, and little sisters that I could add to my two younger brother collection of siblings, ha… Ok!  We were on the garlic sprouts that I bought for my salad, ate… Loved.  A very nice soft snap to them, (when the pasta was about two minutes from being done, I dropped the cut green bean sized garlic sprouts in) Yums.

I planned on cooking with the rest of them, and put the first nights unused garlic sprouts into a tall Pom glass, they are all tall right?  love those, you get a vase with your overpriced drink.  Kept them in the fridge for a day, then looked at them in the blasting white light of the refrigerator and realized I should put them on the box shelf in my room.   They lived there for about a week, that is how long it took me to think of giving them a fresh cut, and fresh water… Seems like it would be kinda gross, or super rotted at least at the ends in the water, no.  None of that, they look just like when I put them in the water that first day.  So that day, the day of discovery of how design cool these things were, I placed them onto a high shelf in the kitchen, this is where they are now.  I”m thinking a couple more days.  The bulb at the end of two of them are a freaky white color, maybe close to some kind of powder mold, The stems are still nice and dark green.  So what I’m trying to get at here is check em out.  I’m sure they would look pretty great with about anything,  single stem, gaudy, rocks, whatever…  they look hella  good by themselves, or am I trippin?   And they taste great.   I really like the fact that I went into Green Grocer to get some pasta salad ingredients, and got visually caught up in how good they looked, bought them to cook and eat, did that, forgot about how good they looked, and stumbled back onto that vibe at the end.  That would be the funny thing to me.

floating through the day of free association yesterday, now that was something. Every little topic went on and on and on and on….
I loved it, and i’m thinking today might be the same. The small fire is under control. And the leaps from word to words is good for the soul.
thanks Nata

The Green Grocer is the bomb ya’ll. I just finished a pecan square, an organic banana, and a great deli sandwich. I could only be happier if it were the weekends, and I could have got a cup of the amazing drip coffee they have on weekends only. Organic, Slow Food, to the max. They also have a bunch of good booze. Its like a better, nicer, quainter version of Trader Joes and Whole Foods rolled into one. The staff is great, Cassie is great, the Green Grocer is Great! The fruit and veggies are organic of course, and the taste tell the rest of the story. I”m glad i’m close enough to have it be a part of my dog walks, so many impromptu treats… They are at Grand and Noble. So lovely, and the samples seem to always be out.   There are always just freshly picked  seasonal fruits and veggies strait from the farm, sitting there staring at you, whispering “take me home, eat me”.  Listen to the food.

See for yourself

Science

Ninja

Team

Gotchaman

Anybody out there? Just nod if you can hear me….  Yeah, this is just a little flyer for a super cool event at Sprout Home next Tuesday July 21st at 6:30.  Should be squiggly.  This is a lecture by Chicago’s  very own URBAN WORM GIRL, they rock.  Its about putting your food scraps into a nice neat contained ecosytem, and getting great compost and plant tea for your green friends.  This keeps certain sludges from rearing their ugly heads in landfills, and keeping things green and simple.  If your interested call the store, or me and i’ll sign you up on the sign up list.  Its free, and well… at least come through for a look at worm composting actions and some wine.  Funny, I just typed out the flyer… Keep It Simple Stupid.

Another one that went the way All Star games in baseball have gone lately, the way of the American League.  Lame… Even as a helpless glass half full kind of Cubs fan, I would want the Cubs to have home field advantage over say the White Sox.  Ok, I might be kind of wizard friendly with the match up, so sure.  But to see the AL peeps act like they have been there before and perform better at the end of the game, and the NL was classic non clutch, it just gets tiring. Carl Crawford had an amazing home run saving catch, and well… a couple hits, for as close as the score 4-3 is, it was kind of a snooze train for a chunk of the game.  Oh well,  on to the second half.  Go Cubs Oh… Row Cubs Row, Hey Shecky.  Oh man, (that is part of my constant war on the go cubs go song, i’m about singing it out of tune, and way off time, join  me)

We were talking about how the Lame looking 3D flick G Force, and how that title was some crazy Japanese kids show that made it over to the us, and how they were not only wore capes and were the Guardians of Space, but that they were also a spin off of a show called Science Ninja Team _______…. oh I’m forgetting the last word.. i’ll post it tomorrow?  But yeah, maybe that is why the game seemed boring, we were clearly talking about more important things.

Just peeped her whoopin’ some serious butt on youtube.  She is no Anna Kournakova, no… She has skills, Anna doesn’t.  Table Tennis just got a new fan. Peep Game, and heres the kicker for a dirt farmer like me, she lives here in Chicago.  I love this city….

Holy declaration there, or a scramble of words to work around.  Different looks at those words from different people, folks with meandering agendas.  We know we don’t have time for all the divisions, all the barriers of thought wrapped up in clannish phobia.  The water and air, stuff like that… things that we all have and take for granted.  At some time, those things could bought and sold?  The poor get fucked now, the poor most likely will be getting it the same in the future.  No need to take it to the battle point, after the uhm… tipping point thingy.  It feels like grains of sand being tossed into a big bucket, the measurement in my mind sometimes,  when i’m biking the recycling to the blue bins on the way to work.  When you see all the trash in so many of the blocks here in Chicago, the cars that fly by tossing shit out the window, or the cowardly, stoplight, open door, dump ashtry and old frosty cup from Wendy’s onto the road.  Yeah, all of that accumulates inside sometimes, and just makes me want to buy a Muscle Car, and just waste and ride in ignorant bliss.  I won’t.  I did rock a nice vintage car for a sec, it was beyond dope.  Oh well, that was then, and im falling off the course of this writing.  Its not just the ramblings of a blazer patrolman, its noting like that.  It is just the silently typed out loud plea type action.  Lets talk shit to folks who do the little things wrong, try to get the vibe of social planet awareness going.  So yeah, you know were gonna need pretty cool rock poster deal, and some nice cloudy words to work with.  The Incredible Shrinking Lady wasn’t some kind silly movie, it was a sign, a street sign even.  It read, don’t use a bunch of products that are chalked full of chemicals, and I mean… The combining of so many complex agents has to add up to some kind of hot spot happening.  So lets pick up stuff around our houses, or back of the alleys.  Its not your stuff, yeah yeah, just show people around you how to do things.  Most people do this, I know, but some don’t, maybe some of those some will read this and get some kind of click moment.  I have this habit of saying “litter bug”, nice and clear, but in no direction.  Ok in the direction kind of away from the person I see littering.  But they always hear it, and they always look around and at me at some point, but they never say anything.   In one occasion, the person picked up the litter, that felt cool.  So maybe the one chances are what its about.  There is more to do than I can conceive while writing this down.  But the little things that we can almost stumble into doing.  Peep your animals that are not just around you, but that are in the debates of space just outside your cities.  Those animals are surely under attack in some kind of general bad way.  Get all of your….. totally lame no kind of recycling friends, to enjoy drinking more canned beer, and to enjoy giving the cans to the alley dwellin’ folk who dig through all the garbage looking for cans.  While were on that, Its very ok to tell the people who rip through the garbage and spill some out onto the ground while they dig deeper for cans, that your going to always have what cans you have from the household put out in a bag off to the side when there are enough to make it a nice size bag.  That did it for me when I live on Potomac.  Pretty street, nice and tree lined.  The trees reached over the street and touched hands often.  Oh yeah urban ecology.

Animals i’m thinking about right now:

Red Tail Hawk, Crabs, Squid, Ants, Yellow Coated Dogs, Zebras, Ant Eaters, Deer, Fox, Turtles