The Return of Mysterypuss
One more visit and this guy’s gonna earn a new name.
Unless it’s just Catdoor Stevens in disguise…
Antibalas - Beaten Metal
Brooklyn-based worshipers of Fela Kuti dropped this bombastic jam on their 2007 album Security. It opens with the percussion of various found objects and a dramatic warning via brass and then slips into an equally sinister funk groove that draws you in and creeps you out. Fantastic.
Another fucking bird.
Only this time it was a not-even-remotely dead, full-size, adult bird. It flew all over the living room and Weeby kept catching it. I finally got him to take it outside and then naped him to get him to open his mouth and it flew away. He’s been in solitary confinement for 45 minutes now and hasn’t shut up about it for a second.
A sympathetic anecdote for Bruce
Shortly after the movie Risky Business came out, I was talking to a friend about it and he said his favorite line in the movie was “Sometimes you just gotta say ‘Fuck it’.” I was apoplectic. I reminded him that the line was actually “what the fuck”, and that Joel’s father had actually gone with the euphemistic “what the heck” and that “Heck it” is not a common English idiom. He refused to back down. This was an age long before the internet, and in fact, we didn’t even have a VCR yet. So, short of proving him definitively wrong, I had no choice but to quietly hate him forever.
Chicago Day 1
Arrived Friday night and made our way to the best fucking airbnb we’ve ever inhabited. Our own door from the street, own bathroom, a huge closet, a good bed, and hardly any poltergeists. That apparently not being awesome enough, our host, a biologist studying the regenerative properties of zebra fish, made us breakfast each morning. This place was about three blocks from the L, which we took downtown each morning, marveling at how much better it was than BART. Never mind the boring details on that, just take for example that on that first day, the attendant at the first station let us on for free so we could buy a 3 day pass at the next station. Anyone at BART who did that would be subjected to the pudding punishment (don’t ask).
Our first stop was the bean. Well, technically our first stop was Reckless Records, but that was an accident. From the bean we went across the street to the cultural center to see the Tiffany dome. They were setting up for an event and kicked us out, and we decided to go to Willis Tower. The wait for the elevator was 90 minutes so we decided fuck that, but got to take shitty pictures of the flourescent bike installation outside. We then headed to the Field Museum where we saw Sue the T Rex and a bunch of special exhibits of which no photos are allowed. I’m pretty sure I can’t even tell you what they were without subjecting you to the pudding thing that I can’t talk about, so you’ll just have let that one go too.
For dinner, we dropped by Frontera Grill, where we got a couple of seats in only 75 minutes. While we waited for that, we made for the nearest record store, a few blocks away. On the way, we stopped to take a picture of the giant 42 on a fire station door. They let us come in and look at their hoses and junk and the captain waved at me and then we left. I passed up an amazing record at the record store and then, on the way back to the Mexican restaurant, we stopped at a Mexican restaurant for a li’l drinky. We got back to Frontera Grill, ate some amazing food, drank amazing tequila, and topped it off with brown sugar and date cake with a side of Negra Modelo ice cream. Negra. Fucking. Modelo. Ice cream.
At the end of the night, we went to chsh and The Internet was there and I met a bunch of awesome humans, and missed some other awesome humans (we were a little late, but keep in mind: Negra Modelo ice cream), and I managed to take only one horrible picture so here it is for you to look at because memories. It was kind of surreal meeting so many people who do good internet, as well as the many people who apparently love watching random felines sneak into my house. Plus, hardly anyone subjected me to pudding, so all in all, I’d have to say it was a fucking blast.
Chicago day 2
After another awesome homemade breakfast, we made our way downtown at a hungoverly pace and arrived at the Adler Planetarium sometime after 1pm. I saw a rock that was brought back from the moon. The fucking moon! We went to the cafeteria at around 3pm, but it was closing, so all we got was some stale-ass fruit. We headed over to Shedd Aquarium where the wait to get in was absolutely fucked. Thirty minutes later, we found out why. A dolphin would have gotten people their tickets faster than the human failure we encountered at the ticket counter. We grabbed a bite and then saw all manner of marine animal. The lighting and shape of the glass made for sucky photographic conditions, so I mostly just shot video that I’ll never look at. We stayed until they kicked us out, shortly after we discovered the beluga whales. We topped off the evening by going up to the observation deck of Hancock Tower, elevator wait: 1 minute. We watched the sunset, headed back up to our neighborhood, had some delicious Thai and then wobbled home, our bodies sluggish with tofu.
Day 3 - Cats!
We didn’t see a single cat in Chicago, even in the little neighborhood where we stayed, but we kept an eye on ours through the security cam. We were worried because Weeby was only coming in once a day for a minute each time, not long enough to eat. On the flight home, we checked the camera just in time to see neighborhood asshole cat Andy (nobody likes Andy except for the lady who calls him Freddy) sneak in and poke around.
When we got home, Chinaco was waiting for us on the lawn, holding an alert sphinx pose. He was very pleased to see us. We called for Weeby and went inside where we found that one of our smoke alarms had a dying battery and was emitting a high pitched squeak every minute, likely keeping Weeby from coming inside.
After emptying luggage and changing clothes, I went outside to find Weeby. Instead, I found Big Steve, who was in the neighbor’s driveway. I called him out to the sidewalk and he came to me yowling for pets. He was pleased for a while and then looked concerned, and I turned to see Chinaco sitting on the sidewalk behind me, just a few feet away. I’d never seen them interact before. I petted Chinaco, and then Big Steve, and then Chinaco again. Both of these guys are usually quick to hiss, but neither of them so much as postured to one another. They seemed to have already reached an agreement that everything was cool.
I brought Chinaco back in for food, and soon thereafter Weeby finally showed up and was like feline fanboy excited to see us. After dinner, he bounced back and forth between us as I watched TV and my wife sat at the table. Eventually he went outside and Chinaco and I went to bed. I woke up around two hours later to the sound of Weeby excitedly meowing. My wife was still up and yelled that he’d brought something inside just as he dropped an enormous black beetle on the floor. Once she figured out it was only a bug she scooped it up, took its picture and let it go in the yard. I went back to sleep for a whole four hours before waking up to a similarly excited meow, shortly before 6am. This time it was a baby bird, obviously from a nest. My wife was pissed. She hollered at him something awful as I disposed of the corpse. We went back to bed and Weeby went outside and came back less than a minute later with another dead baby bird. My wife was beyond pissed now and confined him to our office. We surmised that either a predator bird had knocked the nest down while attacking, or the stupid bird who built a nest within easy reach of cats was betting its genetic legacy that it would never be found. It was just its tough luck that a certain cat was shopping for a little something to welcome home his human servants.
This is the best tequila list I’ve ever seen. Rick Bayless, you did not fail me.
