drunkenbee

Girl Gets Hit on Head By Pickle at Local Eatery

We're off to Chicago tonight. I'll be there for a week, first bachelorette partying it up, and then subsequently pretending at the wedding that neither I nor the bride saw any strange gay penises a mere 6 days before the very classy, very understated, very awesomely-themed (1920s garden party!) event. We'll look like well-mannered and well-groomed young married women on the outside, but on the inside we'll still be sweaty animals wearing push-up bras and low-cut tops, totally peeking inside that guy's banana sack.

In honor of another triumphant return to the city that has witnessed many drunken Drunken Bee antics, I offer you a classic. This story's so classic, it made it into Roger's best man speech at our wedding (thanks Rog, for outing us as the dirtbags we are to all the old folk).

Cue the brick wall, and get this lady a wacky tie, she's gonna do a bit!

There's this place in Chicago called the Weiner Circle. It's this little shack, staffed by one white guy and a number of sassy black women. As you may have gathered from its name, it specializes in hot dogs. Mmmmm, hot dogs.

Anyway, it is located in Chicago's own local seventh circle of hell: Lincoln Park. This is an area of town populated by ex-frat guys/current stock brokers who have decided to finally fulfill their genetic alcoholic destiny and the desperate, yet very trim and black-panted, young female gallery assistants who accompany them each evening in order to get either date-raped or one step closer to being engaged. The Weiner Circle: Circle of Hell, has a prime location, just stumbling distance from a number of clubs that double as hospice centers for Terminally Ill Jock Jams.

The thing is, though, the hot dogs in this Circle of Hell are a little slice of heaven.

So here's the way it works: First, you get totally and irretrievably sloshed, blotto, or as my Uncle Pete would mime to you, head tilted back, fingers in hang ten position, hand shuttling back and forth toward your mouth. Then you make your way, like the blind mole that you are, to the Weiner Circle to gorge on some nitrates. But there's a catch.

The catch is that the whole appeal of the Weiner Circle to most people (who aren't nitrate freaks like me) is that when you go, you pile into a crowd in front of the raised counter like you're at a Hives show or something. You make eye contact with one of the ample women, who yell at you "Whatchoo want, motherfucker?" and if you hesitate, or are unsure of what you want, that lady will tell you exactly what size your dick is, and furthermore, where you can stick that appendage to which she has just referred. And other variations on that theme.

It's kind of fun in a "God we're just like rats" kind of way. But also it's kind of disturbing, because of the clientele, sloppy ass white crackers yelling back at the black ladies like they are enacting some sort of nasty plantation porno fantasy. If you aren't interested in hearing Steve the Broker's opinion about female parts, you probably don't need to make the trip.

But when you're drunk, sometimes the voice inside your head whispering "Char-dog! With tomatoes and onions and pickles" is just a tad bit louder than "Structural racism and sexism suck balls, man."

And that is how we got there one night, smushed into the crowd, waiting for our turn to be verbally brutalized with the force of centuries of disfranchisement. Me, Ed, Roger, drunk as skunks, communicating in grunts and giggles.

When there it came, flying through the air in all its dripping phallic glory, turning end over end, in slow motion, cutting its way through the thick air created by the exhalations of a horde of inebriated twenty-somethings; if you listened closely, over the din, you could have heard the whistling of the pickled missile, making its way toward our group of wimpy, politically-correct-yet-hungry, indie-rock-listening foot shufflers as we stood unaware of how soon our lives would change forever.

THWAP!!

The pickle makes contact with the back of my head, and I am rocketed out of my Miller-Lite-and-Who-Knows-What-Kind-of-Pills-induced bliss, and I yell (in a very convincing warble, I'm sure) "HEY!?!?"

Ed, caveman switch immediately flipped to the ON position, breathes in real deep in order to expand his puny chest and does that Macho Looking From Side to Side Who The Fuck Did This To My Girfriend thing. Dude is ready to rumble!

I'm ready to be defended and Ed's ready to defend, when we notice a quiet, high-pitched sound coming from our left. The sound gets louder and louder, until we realize that it is Roger, giggling and snorting, eyeing the pickle juice dripping down my head, pointing and laughing, beginning to double over, and I turn my head slowly to my right to see that Ed's chest has deflated and is starting to shimmy and shake with mirth and now he TOO is beginning to laugh, and that, alas, I would get no restitution, no resolving, no defending, no righting of the wrong that had been done.

I got hit on the head with a pickle, and all I got was this lousy hot dog.

So like I said, I'll be in Chicago for a little over a week. I probably won't update from there, because that's just not something I envision myself doing. Plenty of reading material here for now, though. Special Ed's got a new entry over there in the Straight Up section, and it's pretty hilarious, if I do say so myself. Otherwise, see you on the flipside, pals.

The Road to Well...Somethingby Special Ed

When Sarah wrote about how she tried to scald and kill me in the shower, Leo commented that he thought of me as a "never nude," meaning, he assumed I walk around swaddled in multiple layers of clothing at all times, perhaps even while in the shower. I can't discount Leo's impression.

Is it Just Me Or Does Everyone Feel Like...

Cutting off a pair of jeans into short shorts, with white cotton pocket squares hanging out the bottom?

Eating deviled eggs, fried chicken, German potato salad, and frosty beer all summer long?

Waging guerrilla warfare on ants with a kettle of boiling water, potholders, a flashlight, and a fat joint?

Doing gymnastics in the front yard?

Wearing high heels with shorts around the house?

Going out to pick berries and coming home empty-handed but full-bellied?

Making t-shirts that say "I Kept My Last Name" and "Obey the Eames" and "Bologna"?

Reading Infinite Jest?

Punching someone in the face, just to see what that feels like?

Never wearing a bra again?

Rolling your eyes at something someone older than you says?

Having babies and turning your family into a traveling cabaret act?

Applying for Survivor?

Having to sneak liquor from a liquor cabinet instead of being able to buy it all the time?

Initiating some sort of artistic/literary/cinematic Movement with your friends?

Being "discovered"?

Enlarging your penis naturally?

From the Department of Leo K. Sends Me The Best Links:

Kinda makes me want to be a soccer mom. If I can name my kid's team "Talib Kweli" and teach my daughter mad ice grill skills.

Hassel the Hoff!!!

---

Bee Notified!

Finally, please notice that I've added a "Notify" button on the sidebar. If you want to be added to my Notify List, just drop me a line, answering the following the questions:

1. In what musical does Caroline's-- from Caroline in the City-- brash next door neighbor perform?


2. In what novel does Henry James refer to his heroine as having "a fine freedom?"


3. What item of furniture once made me cry?


4. How many pictures of Emily Dickinson exist?


5. Please provide me with the correct definition of "ice grill"


6. True or false: Deep dish pizza is delicious.


7. I have a birthmark somewhere on my body. Where is it?

Disclaimer: You obviously do not have to answer any of these questions to be added to my Notify List. You may even demand that I answer a set of your own questions because just like Jeff Probst says, none of this happens without an audience. And like Ryan Seacrest says "I owe it all to my hair."  But that's another story altogether.

Ramble On

The other day, I pulled into our driveway and stayed in the car for a few minutes before getting out. I did this because Blur's "Coffee and TV" was on the radio. On the radio! It didn't matter that I could have gotten out of my ghetto cruiser, walked upstairs, put the CD on, and rocked the song out surround-sound style. Nope, I stuck it out in the tinny Mazda because, like I said, the song was on the radio! The radio never plays good songs, and by god, I wasn't going to walk out on this one, leaving it to the mercy of an unappreciative audience, a bunch of yahoos who are totally talking loudly over the music, because they came to hear Maroon 5 or Jonathan Mraz or some shit. (And I don't wanna hear about how Maroon 5 is a pretty good band and at least their one song is pretty catchy (yeah, I'm looking at you Special Ed) because ain't nothing going to convince me that they aren't some lame Jamiroquai rip-off, and Jamiroquai was pretty lame to begin with, so adding guitar riffs to his crap is really just like serving rancid meat with a side of strong mint jelly.)

Anyway. I love that Blur song. Which made me start thinking about how there are a number of Blur songs that I like a whole lot, but that I don't really love any Blur albums (Parklife being the only one that comes close). Which made me think about how songs and albums are two totally different animals (arp! meow! rraawwrr!). (And I know you love how I keep you updated on my every little vagary of thought.)

If I were an asshole, someone who loves to use phrases like "I'm the type of person that . . ." or "No offense, but . . ." I could make some sort of observation that there are two types of people, those who listen to playlists and mixes, and those who listen to whole albums. I could spin that out and hypothesize certain personal attributes to go along with these symptoms.

But I won't do that, because I hate that shit.

(And here I pause, because I've sort of sent myself into a ridiculous philosophical crisis because while it is true that I do hate the idea that people "have" selves that one can type and describe and summarize and say things like "Well, I'm really creative, but unfocused" or "I learned so much about myself from this experience" (as if there were anything MORE boring than learning something about oneself), while all of that is true, what could participate in that nonsense more than this blog/journal/whatever right here? As in, what am I doing but writing one long-ass letter that begins "Well, I'm the type of person who....." and asking you to smile politely and dig in to the big steaming pile of shit I've just served up? On nice dinnerware, of course, because I am the type of person who has nice dinnerware.)

Um, so I was talking about music? Right. I have the capacity to obsess over certain albums, playing them over and over and over and over and, well you get the point. I haven't had that experience in quite some time. And while I usually prefer to listen to playlists rather than whole albums (given my penchant for novelty hip-hop songs, I think it's a good thing that I don't try to slog through entire Beyonce albums), it is the experience of listening to albums in their entirety that creates vivid synesthetic memories in my mind:

Living alone for the first time in my life, broke and lonely and excited in the Midwest: Mercury Rev Deserter's Songs.

Common, Resurrection: Spine stiffening cold winter in Champaign, IL, having a reckless and aimless affair with Ed, two dollar pitchers at The Brass Rail, driving the desolate streets of an abadoned downtown.

The Led Zeppelin Remasters Box Set on the car stereo in 1994, being "bad," looking for parties in the dark fields of Western New Jersey or driving to the shore with long, teenaged, brown legs propped on the dash.

A rainy day late in fourth grade, bored and alone in my room, putting a tape of Born in the U.S.A. into my boom box, getting out all my My Little Ponies and constructing a stage by scissoring the fourth wall off an old shoebox and draping Xmas tree icicles down the back, and having the ponies perform the album on stage for an adoring audience. Putting those My Little Ponies in the attic a few short months later, trading that sort of play for notes and boyfriends and the mall and getting questions wrong on tests so I wouldn't be teased for being smart.

Falling in deep love with the concrete heat of Chicago once we knew we'd be moving to Louisiana for a year: Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in the car, windows down, the incomparable pleasure of being able to drive through the sprawling city at substantial speeds. The El running over Grand Avenue west of the river, Western Avenue's sheer breadth, an asphalt prairie, the neon glory of that tire shop on Ashland Avenue, just south of Division.

High on a variety of substances, dressed as a puppy for Halloween, dancing to the entire Strokes Is This It? album in Mary's living room as the party cleared out around us. I had a Polaroid camera around my neck and had been taking pictures of other people all night, when a kindly stranger came up to me and said he wanted to take a picture of me for me. I look like the most psychotically happy person to ever start the night dressed as a puppy; the kohl-lined whiskers on my cheeks and blackened nose half rubbed out, the picture perfectly out of focus.

Being in college, smoking pot, kissing a lot of boys, not washing my hair for days on end. Shotgunning beers, reading Foucault, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes: Liz Phair Exile in Guyville.

Falling in love with Ed: The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs, Yo La Tengo And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, Will Oldham Viva Last Blues. Our legs dangling over the balcony at the Double Door at The Magnetic Fields show. Roger taking this incredible picture of Stephen Merritt. Our first dance at our wedding to Oldham's "New Partner," driving through the Rockies to "Work Hard/Play Hard."

---

I haven't had one of these experiences in quite a while. I feel like all the music I've been listening to lately has been sort of derivative; The Secret Machines sound like, but just can't touch, Sonic Youth, Franz Ferdinand sounds like Radio 4 sounds like Gang of Four, The Fiery Furnaces remind me (in a weird and bad way) of Ben Folds Five, and God strike me down if those critical darlings My Morning Jacket don't sound just like Blues Traveler. All these bands' sounds are running together like their names-- "Article Adjective Noun." Just like that weird collective decision to title all movies aiming at quirky eccentricity "Gerund Proper Name" (Chasing Amy, Saving Silverman, Being John Malkovich, Finding Forrester).

And my point here is? Who the hell knows. This entry's schizophrenia may be chalked up to the fact that my brain is fried after spending all last week finalizing my dissertation prospectus and the fact that I'm sort of moody.

So to sum up, class, apparently when it comes to music (and to writing about music) I am philosophically tortured, romantic, nostalgic, and cranky. One thing I am not, however, is economical with my language. Looks like me and all the other music journalists of the world have something in common! (And, yeah, I'm peering up at you from my Strunk and White, you Pitchfork ramrods).

Elixir

The Secret Machines -
Now Here is Nowhere

What the Rain Reminds Me Of (Or, If I Was Feeling All Oprah-Book Club and Grammatically-Correct: "Of What the Rain Reminds Me")

It's just biblical out this week. One thing nobody told me about Louisiana is that it rains here, a lot. I guess nobody really told me anything about Louisiana before we moved here, other than asking "aren't they racist down there?" Because of course we're so "anti-racist" by going to shows at the lily-white Empty Bottle.

But that's not my point here (though it is a favorite rant). The point I want to address here is that I haven't seen rain like this since the first few days of our honeymoon in Costa Rica. It's no Texas downpour—5 inches in an hour—nor is it the steady all-day patter I grew up with in New Jersey. It's both of those things together, hard and steady all day long. My nasturtiums are bent at the waist under the rains, while the fennel and mint have gotten so strong and bold, they're walking through the house taking beers out of the fridge. Without even asking.

When it rained like this on our honeymoon, we were stuck on the Caribbean coast in a remote jungle area. To get to this place, called Tortuguero, we had to take a tiny bus full of Italians (and the only thing I hate more than hippies is Italian tourists from Italy) that at first lulled us into complacency by winding through the spectacular mountains. Just when we were thinking, ah! romance! nature! love!, that bus screeched around a right angle turn and we were bouncing over two-foot deep ruts cutting their way through the banana farms. And then we thought, ouch! eep! ugh! as our innards knocked against themselves. Sweet relief when the bus stopped? Sure, until the skies opened up and we still had a 2 hour boat trip to our cabin to endure.

A brief pause here to justify myself. I'm no wimp when it comes to the outdoors. I've camped all my life; in Big Bend, Texas, Southern Utah, Northern Maine, Nova Scotia, high in the Rockies. I can build a fire, fillet a just-caught fish, fry it up, and sop the juices from the pan with corn pone. OK, maybe that last bit is more Cormac McCarthy than truth, but whatever. Point is, I'm not a mincing city girl ALL the time. But this here was my honeymoon. More importantly, at this particular point in time, I hadn't eaten in about three days (we've been over me and my nervous stomach, I believe) and hadn't slept much in four. I was not the wedding-ist girl in the world, and that shit took it out of me, I have to say. Who wants everyone looking at them all day long? I sure didn't.

So it rains. Without ceasing. We go out on boats to traverse the jungle canals, looking for wildlife but the animals know what's up; they're all tucked away someplace dry while a bunch of us drooling humanoids crane our necks and peer through fogged-up binoculars at those rustling leaves-- what are those? huh? huh? that could be a monkey up there! Oh it's just a damn crow. I should clarify; many passengers in that boat were peering and craning. I, on the other hand, was sleeping, sitting bolt upright in a leaky poncho, while the boat sped back down the river at at least 80 mph. This honeymoon was rapidly assuming detention camp proportions; I wouldn't have been surprised if they had set us at digging ditches when we got back.

It's how they get you; they soak you, strand you, and make you eat dinner with Italians. Then they ask you, "Do you want to pay $20 to participate in a death march on the beach at midnight looking for nesting turtles?" And you stare off into the middle distance and reply in a monotone "Yes, of course I do. Thank you."

So you go at midnight and they motor you down river and drop you off in the middle of a town the likes of which you've never seen. Feral dogs, standing pools of mud and water, temporary shelters that've turned permanent. They herd you and the Italians through the town-- which is lit by harsh overhead "street" lamps scattered haphazardly throughout the open muddy spaces--out onto the beach the town butts up against. And just as you tromp over the dunes-- your whitebread guilt over walking on dunes lodged in your throat-- the sky illuminates, bright as an examining light, and the clouds open up again.

So there we were, walking in single file through the middle of a raging lightening storm. This beach is the type that Beach Public Relations Departments try to pretend doesn't exist; the water froths rabidly, the sand is lumpy and brown and there is trash-- organic and inorganic-- mounded up all over the place. It's pouring, pitch black alternating with blinding white, and our guide isn't finding any turtles. I'm thinking What the hell are we doing anyway, going to peer at some turtles on a beach? I grew up in a rural area; we had turtles in our damn backyard. What crazy ass travel agent would send us on this godforsaken journey; we're sleep-deprived and starving, we're basically Prisoners of Honeymoon.

And then the tour guide scrambles up toward the treeline, sweeping the sand with his red pen light, the only light allowed on the beach during turtle nesting season. And he shouts for us to come up there. Like a herd of stupid heifers, we all lurch up and crowd in near where he stands. At first it looks like he's pointing out a mound of sand, but then that mound of sand moves in an unusual way, and I realize HOLY SHIT THERE'S A HUGE TURTLE RIGHT THERE!!! This thing was at least as wide as I am tall, five or six feet across. She's finished laying her eggs and is slowly trying to lumber her way out of the hole she's dug. These creatures are not made for land, I'll tell you. She moves the way I'm doomed to move during a scary dream, wildly flapping my limbs but going nowhere.

The Italians are, of course, crowding the turtle. This makes me upset, so to make my environmentalist (emphasis on "mental") point, I give her a wide, wide berth. Finally she gets pointed at the ocean and slowly scrapes her way toward the water. The process is painfully slow. I start to get this full feeling in my chest; I'm anxious and excited and horrified and pissed off at the people crowding her movements.

Finally, the turtle makes it to a point where the water laps up around her fins/feet. A wave comes and buoys her heavy body up. The feeling in my chest surges. But the water recedes out from under her, and she is left pressing heavily onto the spongy sand. I begin to feel desperate. Why does she have to go through this? Why doesn't she just say, "No, not this time. Not me, and not this year." Another wave comes, moves her toward the sea just a tiny bit more, but again drops her back onto this foreign ground she's found herself on. I'm sobbing at this point. And just then the sea heaves toward us, and a deep, fast moving wave approaches the shoreline. This time, the turtle is ready; the moment the wave wraps her in its arms, she starts swimming, those clumsy feet turn to elegant fins and she picks up speed as the water finally keeps its promise, holding her up safely and tightly, finally sending her on her way back home.

What I Learned During My Weekend in New Orleans, Visiting Our Friend Greg S. Who Wanted Me To Mention His Name Here, Hi, Greg!

1. The mascot for Franklin Parish, LA is a catfish, standing upright, wearing a cowboy hat.
2. I have a new definitive multi-part friendship litmus test. It goes something like this:
1. Does he or she enjoy watching TV's Most Outrageous Game Show Moments (I, II, and III)? If yes, move on to the next question. If not, it's off the Buddy List for you, pal.
2. Does he or she enjoy watching TV's Most Outrageous Game Show Moments (I, II, and III) multiple times over a two day period? If yes, move on to the next question. If not, then, oh no, that shirt doesn't at all make you look like a reject from clown college.
3. Does he or she not only enjoy the above activities, but understand how not even Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?," Richard Pryor's "Live on the Sunset Strip," or Donald Rumsfeld's "Known knowns, unknown unknowns, and unknown knowns" even approaches the subtle comedic brilliance of that one time on British Family Feud (please read in a British accent):

Name something you take to the beach.
Turkey?
The first thing you get at a grocery store.
Turkey?
Name a food you stuff.
TURKEY!!!!!

4. If he or she fulfills all of the above qualities, his name is either Greg S., Leo K., or Special Ed. And we are all totally BFF.
3. Natural boobs on an overweight woman look about a million times more appetizing than fake melon tits on a skinny bitch. It's all in the way they move, ladies. If a boob don't move, I don't approve.
4. The etymology of the word "Dixie." It's really very interesting. Wait, you think I'm going to tell you? You who didn't bother paying 10 bucks to shuffle around the French Quarter in the blistering midday sun listening to a guy who couldn't remember the correct century Spain took New Orleans over from France, even though he was a goddamned tour guide whose sole job is to know shit like that? Look it up your damn self, lard ass.
5. One perfectly acceptable reason to get a dog is so that you can sing songs and substitute the dog's name for the regular words. For example, "I like to Zooey Zooey. I like to Zooey Zooey. I like to Zooey Zooey. I like to, uh, Zooey" or "When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that's a-Zooey."
6. Need to spice up your lovely, New Orleans courtyard-style backyard? Just add a double decker bus!
7. A marriage that can survive two five-hour drives in an unairconditioned car through the heart of Louisiana with only one thirty minute strech of passive aggressive silence and one argument over an Icee, is a strong marriage indeed.
8. A sure tonic for an easily-nauseated nervous stomach is a gastronomic tour of the Big Easy that includes:
1. Migas at Surrey's.
2. A shrimp po' boy at Liuzza's.
3. Approximately 4 pounds of the magical, spectacular, Siegfried-and-Roy-awesome, fried chicken at Jacques-Imo's.
4. All in one day. (No wonder I've barely eaten since Saturday night)
9. There is no drink in the world better than a dirty vodka martini. But, I guess I already knew that.

Elixir

The Constantines -
Shine a Light

The First Time by Special Ed

My first experience online was a catastrophe. This was back when the internet was a vague misunderstanding between idealists and perverts. Oh wait, it still is.

Cinco de Lincoln

One hundred and thirty-nine years ago yesterday, Abraham Lincoln was buried in Springfield, Illinois. I always get sad thinking about that black train chugging across the midwestern plains, spewing black smoke behind it, taking him back home for the last time. I have this problem with Abraham Lincoln where, really, I feel like he's my dad. My real dad is also tall, lanky, with a craggy, aggressively bone-structured face. My real dad is also soft-spoken and awkward at times. My real dad does not, however, regularly churn out world-changing political speeches, nor has he (to my knowledge) decreed any sort of Emancipation Proclamation. But really, when I think about Abraham Lincoln's "useless, useless" death I feel sort of orphaned. I'm not sure if this is an unmediated sort of emotion, or if it is a wide-ranging public school/National Park Service conspiracy. A while ago, I was reading Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot (and you should, too) and was heartened to find that she has also had experience with this problem: "The teachers taught us to like Washington and to respect Jefferson. But Lincoln—him they taught us to love."

Maybe there are Lincoln Lover support groups out there to help me through my obsession. Maybe the ghost of Walt Whitman presides over these groups. But maybe, just maybe, if loving Abraham Lincoln makes me wrong, I don't wanna be right.

(I just had a bolt of pure glee run through my body, writing that last sentence, wrapping Lincoln up like a helpless burrito inside that ridiculous internet non-phrase. (Totally "BWAH!" and "Best. President. Evah!") Abraham Lincoln is the guacamole in our national enchilada.)

And speaking of burritos and enchiladas, today is Cinco de Mayo! Celebrate with your friends by making margaritas for dinner, getting out the microphone (what? you don't have one in your home for impromptu  spelling bees?) and challenging one another to a Sad for Abraham Lincoln/Happy the Mexicans Kicked French Ass spoken word event. Suggested inspirational items: Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," a discussion of the legacy of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and a reading of Andre Breton's Nadja (because it's a premier example of French silliness).

You'll just have to excuse me, because whenever I read that Whitman poem, I cry.

……
I cease from my song for thee,
From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,
O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.
Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe,
With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.

Paean to That Blockbuster Guy

Do you think about me as much as I think about you? Blockbuster Guy, ever since I walked into your store at the intersection of North Avenue and 90/94, I knew my life in Chicago would never be the same. You were solicitous and helpful. Somehow you managed to not be intrusive or annoying. If I had a question, you'd answer it. If I didn't have a question, it was just a pleasant "Have a good night" as I left with Julia Roberts' latest confection. And don't think I didn't notice how you stood out from the others. Blockbuster Guy, you were on your way up. You had your hipster hair, but it was shy hipster hair, not as aggressively bed-headed as most. The very fact that you were working at Blockbuster—the enemy to so many reactionary hipsters—showed me right off that you were just trying to make it in the big city. On your own. No $4.75 an hour at the trendy post-production studio coupled with a monthly stipend from your parents. Nope, you were doing it all on your own, and I RESPECTED that, Blockbuster Guy.

Blockbuster Guy, I have to tell you, I've met a New Blockbuster Guy down here in Louisiana. During our first trip to the Blockbuster in our new town, we caught our first glimpse of NBG: wearing a non-regulation tie, he sat jauntily on the counter lecturing his slack-jawed floppy-haired coworkers on proper shelving techniques. As we left the store, we looked at one another and solemnly said, "Yup, that guy's going somewhere." Since then, I've watched him move from his measly hourly position during the exhaustingly busy night shift all the way to his current plumb Day Management position. Sure, NBG looks a bit like the child molester from Happiness, but he's the only guy in the place who understands that just because Ed's last name comes first on his Illinois driver's license doesn't mean his last name is "Ed." No matter what we're renting that night—which, due to our classic-and-foreign-heavy Netflix list, tends to be of the cotton candy ilk—NBG strikes just the right note in his comments on our choice: "Oh, Mona Lisa Smile? Those girls just look SO cute in their cinched-waist sweater sets!" or "Whale Rider? It's a little slow, but Keisha Castle-Hughes' performance is remarkable."

But Chicago Blockbuster Guy? You will always be my first. It was quite a blow when you stopped working there. I FELT that loss. I missed having my picks confirmed by you, a twenty-something urban peer. I noticed that all of a sudden, my checkout experience with your pimply-faced teenaged replacement wasn't nearly as satisfying. So imagine my extreme elation when I went to pick up a pizza one night at Piece—world-famous for its proximity to The Real World Chicago house. There you were CBG, all fresh-facedly scenesterish serving beer and pizza to the Wicker Park indie-rati. Do you know how hard it was for me to restrain myself from giving you a big hug? And though I missed you at Blockbuster, I was happy you had made the move to Piece. It was a logical step. And so I wonder, when I come back to Chicago in September where will I find you next? Will you have continued your honest climb up the ladder of hipster success? Will you be bartending at the Rainbo or Gold Star or Club Foot? Will you be working at Facets Video? Will you be, (gasp!), working at the Chicago Reader?

But mainly, Chicago Blockbuster Guy, what I want to ask you is: "How's your band doing?"

Straight Up

"I hope R. Kelly sings about steppin' forever!"