new dreams, crowding out old realities

classic, indecisive kimmy.

not sure if i will abandon this blog and continue with my tumblr account, or perhaps i can keep both, in some sort of jekyll-and-hyde fashion of duality (staying true to my recent-but-always-known diagnosis of bipolar deux - thousands of dollars to tell me something i've always known, thank you so much).

who knows. who cares. does anyone even read this?



i'm performing our one and noble function of our time: MOVE

but i'm still fond of you, oh-oh-a-oh

sam cooke. you send me. bee-yoo-ti-ful (if i were andy warhol, oooooh)



sometimes, certain songs can stir such emotions in me, such strong emotions, that i literally have to stop listening.

it's not always sadness, either. sometimes i just get so overwhelmed with fondness for certain people, certain situations, i guess it would be love? but love isn't an emotion, maybe it's happiness...? the giddy, full, warm feeling, knowing that you have these amazing people in your life. people that, no matter how bad it gets, they just have that capability to make everything tolerable, even enjoyable.



it makes me smile to the point of exhaustion, makes me brim with silly tears. bee-yoo-ti-ful.

tragedy plus time...

so, happy 2011???

i tell you, i slept right through it.

sometimes i feel like pulling an anna karenina.

but enough of the maudlin. really. i did recently watch get him to the greek, and not two days later, my favorite year, and really, aren't they quite similar? russell brand playing the inebriated, washed up rockstar, peter otoole playing the inebriated, washed up screen idol. that jonah hill guy's character, no different really from the guy from perfect strangers whose name i can't recall at the moment...

ghttg doesn't hold a candle to my favorite year though. watching peter otoole leap onto the policeman's horse in the park, or swinging down from the balcony at 30 rock... really, just wonderful performances. why can't they seem to make movies like they used to? have they really run out of ideas?

BUT OH MY GOD. OMYEFFINGGOD. Sam Riley as SAL PARADISE. I cannot fucking wait.

i've been staying in quite a bit. i also was able to catch scott pilgrim vs. the world (decent), 500 days of summer (sad), singin' in the rain (can you believe i've never seen it before? oh, gene kelly, how have i never appreciated your beauty?!), and this wonderful movie with cary grant and his at-the-time wife, where they adopted two children, in addition to the three they already had... can't remember the name but it was really quite sweet. also roman holiday, for the hundredth time, and walk the line... i tell you, some movies are just like comfort food to me.

i also just finished honey, by honey bruce... the sordid story of lenny's 'shady lady'... it's really sad, what did you expect? i think lenny had a lot in common with another lonely junkie soul, johnny thunders. incapable of coping neither with real life, or with the stratospheres of success, they chose to selfdestruct, leaving behind snippets of brilliance in their wake. its unfortunate, the pull of the old push-and-pull, what the fuck makes people think it's something to be glamorized or sugarcoated? have you not SEEN, i mean REALLY TAKEN A GOOD LOOK at keith richards lately??? if you want to know the true ravages of narcotics, LOOK AT HIS FACE.

oy vey. there's your antidrug.

ones that love us least, the ones we'll die to please.

well.

been an interesting sort of week so far. happy, happy birthday indeed.

one thing i can say, although i have weathered years upon years of generic (and not-so generic) heartbreak, i will always, always have my friends... some have come and gone, of course (sometimes i was the one going)... but goddamn.

sometimes all this poor me, nobody-loves-me bullshit makes me lose sight of who and what is really important to me.

the ones that really matter, i hope they know. i know i probably don't say it enough. but i hope they know.

Mark Your Calendars!

April 18 is International Record Store Day, according to Greg Kot. So awesome!!!

To find participating stores, go here.

"You're welcome!"

Last night I was fortunate enough to catch the live premiere of sketch comedy duo Sausage. Playing to a sold out crowd at the Theatre Building Chicago, Sausage managed to blend pop culture snarkishness and self-deprecating humor, with a dash of ridiculousness.

Highlights? The shooting of Pete Wentz bit was pretty goddamn hilarious.

Also, unbeknownst to me, I was featured in one of their sketches, via old footage from an audition tape. Huzzah!

wouldn't it be nice?

From jezebel, this great question is sure to make you think: What was the album that made you love music? Says blogger Hortense:

This is Paul McCartney's favorite album," my father would say before putting the record on, as if Beatle-street cred would keep me in the room long enough to hear every song. It wasn't necessary: as soon as Brian Wilson's songs started playing, it was all over. This was not a dumb Beach Boys surf album. This was something beautiful and sad and sweet; a strange and lovely album that showed me a side of my somewhat emotionally distant father that I'd never seen. Some fathers like to give lectures, some like to give hugs, some like to play catch. My father liked to listen to Pet Sounds, and he wanted me to like listening to it, too.

While Pet Sounds IS amazing, it seems to be one of those generic hipster answers.. If you read the comments in the post, you'll find a plethora of even more hipster-ish responses. Cat Power? Really? I doubt you were listening to Cat Power ten years ago. Were you shopping at Urban Outfitters then too?

But I'm not knocking this chick at all. Pet Sounds is truly a great record. And I was raised the same way as a child, only my mother was the one obsessed with music.



But if you really want to know what record totally opened my eyes and made me "love" music (as if I didn't love it before), I'd have to say it was Devo's Freedom of Choice. Sure, I loved my mother's fifties and sixties gems, as well as my brother's bad eighties metal/early hip hop, but Freedom of Choice was the first record that I found, that I discovered on my own.

I bought it at a very early age... I must have been ten or eleven. I was digging through the discount bins at the old Rose Records on Schaumburg Road... and I found it for something like a couple bucks, which I'm sure was a fortune to me at the time. Something about the cover just made me want to check them out. The red dome hats and silver suits, the nerdish glasses...

...anyway, I put the record on and loved it from side a to side b. They may be dismissed as a one-hit wonder, a novelty eighties group, but it really was a great album. It made me buy their other records, and in turn it made me want to check out other bands.



And that, actually, is what I think makes a record like that so important. When it makes you want to track down similar artists, similar genres; when it makes you branch out and check out the artists that influenced them, and the artists that they influenced themselves, that's when a record really makes an impression.

So thanks, Devo.

cheap cologne and that damn song too.

Something about seeing/hearing Naked Raygun on a jukebox makes me ridiculously happy. Sunday I was at Schuba's for an open mic, and not once, but TWICE, I heard the sweet sounds of Raygun. I was so giddy about it, I not only expressed my squealy girly excitement to my long-suffering boyfriend, who barely batted an eye, but I also explained it to his brother, who had no idea what I was talking about.

It's gotta be the Chicago pride thing. It's the same reason I have the Wax Trax! power lines tattooed on my arm. At any rate, here's a couple of the local bars with halfway decent jukeboxes:

● Inner Town Pub: 1935 W Thomas Street

If I remember correctly, they have Throb Throb and All Rise on the jukebox, which is my favorite album anyway. It's a little bit hipster, but the bar is neat and old. They've got Iggy and The Dolls on the box too, and pool tables. Overall, it's a cute little place.

● The Gingerman Tavern? 3740 N. Clark

Well, considering I was drunk the last time I was here, I could be completely wrong on the name and location. BUT, I know it's right next to the Metro, and it has a really great jukebox. As far as the Raygun goes, it only has Understand? on it, but that has the classics Treason and Wonder Beer, so that's good enough for me.

I'll post more when I remember.



Next week: A list of the best Mexican restaurants in the area that still have the game Burgertime.

Whee 2009!

Unfortunately, I didn't know that we could smuggle our cameras into the Metro on NYE, otherwise I would've posted some really gnarly Dandy Warhols photos.

Best part of the entire night though was buying bottles of champagne from the bar... and walking around the venue, dressed to the nines, swigging from bottles of bubbly.

Oh, and the band... I'm sure the band was good too.



I'm stoked about oh nine though. Got some ideas a'cookin... or something to that extent.

joie de vivre!

I've discovered the key to life. Or more accurately, the key to enjoying life...

Or maybe it's just the Red Bull talking. At any rate... add Marion Cotillard to my list of girlcrushes. Vive la France! I must note, though, that she will never replace my Audrey.

Also, I got the best present in the world yesterday. Long nights, rewrites, and rejection letters... here I come!

wow.

I haven't even seen Juno yet, or read Candy Girl for that matter, but I think I'm in love with Diablo Cody.

it's more fun to compute.

The best album to listen to on a dreary Monday morning is Kraftwerk's Computer World. If you like this sort of music (i.e., primitive electronic), it's beautiful enough to relax to, but not enough to put you to sleep. It has a very calming effect, enough to combat the blinding rage of having to be figuratively chained to your desk for eight hours a day, five days a week, doing repetitive, mindless tasks that sap your energy and creativity; mindless tasks a monkey could do, but for some reason it pays well enough that you might as well suffer.

I don't know what it is, but I've mentally checked out. No pop culture to be snarky about, nothing to really complain about (other than the above). I try not to complain about work in a public forum such as this, because I know it can come back to haunt you. But god. Kraftwerk is so perfect right now.

my favorite boys!

● Also... Joel Stein, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways... For those of you that don't know him (for shame!) he is a columnist for The Los Angeles Times, a particularly witty columnist at that. Everything he writes is dry, self-deprecating, and riddled with pop-culture goodness. So much so that he's a frequent commentator on those ridiculous E! countdowns, like The Hundred Most Blankety Blanks.. It's no wonder I am at once wanting to be him and wanting to bear his children. Kidding...

And several years back, I actually interviewed him via email, for a school project about our "heroes" or something silly like that. He was more than willing, and gave some decent advice. I couldn't believe he responded, but then again, how many college students aspire to be entertainment columnists/talking heads on I Love the 80s?

● Another guy I'm pretty much jealous of is the host of The Soup, Joel McHale. How can I get paid to make hilariously biting comments on the sad state of pop culture? Seriously though, I'd settle for being an intern.

Honorable Mentions: Amir Blumenfeld, of jakeandamir.com... This guy is also pretty amazing. So far I've only browsed the comics, but the zombie pick up lines alone are priceless.