Kick.Stand.

I am kicking myself because of my stolen bike in early September. I had pulled up my old receipt which I was ill informed had the serial number on it, but it didn't, so Johnny Sprockets had to go digging in their archives from 2009 of receipt tickets and it took them several weeks to find. Phil, a Johnny Sprockets company man, was very helpful in this project and got me the serial number. He left a voice mail. I feel bad because I haven't called him back yet to thank him. I've been meaning to do this. I should do it soon. I am going to put it on tomorrow's to do list. I never filled out a police report after I found the bike missing  because I wanted to make sure I had the serial, I felt a report would be ridiculous without it and that the cops would laugh at me. But it took so long to get the serial number that by then, it would look ridiculous with there being such a huge gap in between filing and the date of theft. I also thought I had some pictures of it but I guess I don't. That bike is as good as a belch dissipating in gale force winds. I miss it. I wish I was on the ball. It was a nice bike. I wish I had made it look shitty, with duct tape and yarn and spray paint and newspapers wrapped around its frame. Next bike I get I will put paper machete around it and paint fake vomit on it, maybe glue fake plastic vomit on it. Maybe some neon pom poms in the handles. Some beer cans in the tires. Pink duct tape on the frame. Doll heads hanging from the frame. It will look unique and stupid. No one will want to steal it. That's kind of what you have to do. I really want to go for a bike ride. I want it to snow something crazy and still go for a bike ride.


Today Eliaz Rodriguez and I helped out our friend Joe Avella shoot a scene for his feature length Master of Inventions movie. We shot it in the Mother's bar. I was an extra in a shot. I played drunk and even felt a little drunk. Mind over matter. I would save some money if I did that instead of buying booze. It was dark down there. Our eyes hurt when we left and the Division street farmer's market, an expansive thing was suddenly all packed up and not speck left behind. Eliaz and I went to my corner bar, the Orbit Room after and ran into my landlord who was having a beer after cleaning the shit left behind by my old downstairs neighbors. We found out a glass window had been blown out on our sun porch. My landlord let me know he noticed it. I thought maybe the wind fucked it up because we heard some rattling this week in the gusty howl, but in looking at it when I got home it looks like it was shattered, remains collected on the roof of the building next door, from the inside. Like a dick through something at it. I'm wondering if our ol' foes from downstairs gave us one final fuck you before they moved out. And I'm not surprised. I've kinda been bracing myself for a brick through the window from all of this. 

28 Years Kicking out My Feet

It has been a bit since I've last posted. August was a wild month featuring a trip to Minnesota, a summer cold, a handful of live sketch shows with Wood Sugars, packing up the old apartment, moving into a new one, and celebrating yet another year alive and healthy. I haven't written a damn thing in a month, and I've gotten antsy. The novel is back in revision stages, some short stories are set in motion. My energy is back up to par for daily demands after rough little kick in the calves. All through August I felt a sense of gleeful complacency knowing that my girlfriend had some extra money and had booked some movers. My first time with that, have always bribed friends with pizza and beer to help us move shit in and out of a rented U-Haul. Which had always worked well despite having lots of shit, but we figured maybe we're getting too old to expect that sort of favor. So psyched for the movers we were, everything ready in boxes, cat locked in one of the now empty bedrooms with his litter box, food, water. Everything cleaned so it would be an easy empty and returning of the keys on August 31st, the last day of our lease. 


But then the movers did not show up. They were due between 5-6pm. At 6:05pm we called to see an ETA, assuming they were just running late. Traffic can sometimes throw curve balls. No one answered. We tried again. No answer. No call from them. The patterned ensued until about 7:40pm when we lost faith that they would show. Desperation flared, here we had all of this stuff, some big furniture pieces, and the lease soon to expire. U-Haul had no availability until  10am the following morning as August 31st is one of the biggest moving days of the year. Using my BlackBerry we found a moving company on Craigslist that was hoping to put our anxieties at ease. The guy manning the phone called out to a crew finishing a job to see if they didn't mind an extra gig. They were game. But there was some mis-communication between the amount of stuff we had and a fairly small truck was sent, along with three guys. We had asked for three. Half of our stuff was loaded up before the main guy realized they wouldn't have enough room, then he started to panic about time. Even though we asked for three hours he now wanted to be done in 1.5hrs. So ultimately they only helped us move our big furniture, and milked us out of a lot of money. My girlfriend and I made trips in her four door sedan, filling up all available space to transport everything else, back and forth. We wrapped this about 5:45am. I got 30 min of sleep, she got 10 min before the next work day. My body barely held itself through the next day after what was essentially an all nighter, with physical exertion on a muggy summer day. One of those experiences that reminds you to work out more prior to such an activity. But we had expected the moving company we had hired to show up! Even after confirmation the prior day! We were quite aghast at the gall of them not even calling, we certainly understand shit comes up, but communication is what separates the professional from the piss poor mother fuckers. Allstate Movers dropped the ball. When we got a hold of them the next day (we had left several messages and didn't even receive a return call the next morning) they acted surprised that we didn't receive our service. The receptionist then said one of their drivers had a seizure, which is terrible and I feel for him, but still, could they not have called to alert their clients? She was going to speak to her manager. We still have not heard from them. I wrote them a 1 star Yelp Review. So had 3 other people on the 1st of Sept, to vent them same thing happening to them on August 31st with a No Call/No Show from Allstate Movers. But Yelp has filtered all of reviews. Perhaps because there were so many on one day and it flagged it as perhaps one person really trying to ruin a company. In this harsh economic climate I wish all small businesses success, but Allstate Movers needs to close business because they have proved unable to deliver the service they advertise and have no problem leaving you hanging. 


I will end my rant with mention of one of the repercussions. Since we didn't have the 22 ft truck we required, we didn't have room to bring my bicycle. So I had to lock it up across the street on a bike rack, outside of a well lit condo building. Both a U-Lock secured the frame and front tire to the rack, and a chain wrapped through securing frame and both sets of tires. When I went to retrieve it a few days later to ride it home, it was gone. Someone had apparently picked the U-Lock. If you see someone riding a black Jamis Commuter 1, feel free to tackle and question. 


So the week covering my 28th birthday had a rough patch, a test of patience and stamina towards bullshit. But the good news is I am moved into a new apartment and I love it. The building has been around since 1907 and has all of the original woodwork, although refinished in 1999 to keep it all nice looking. No ghosts yet, you would think perhaps an old building in Chicago might have a few spectres but it's a peaceful parlour. I also got to see Pearl Jam at the PJ20 event at Alpine Valley Wisconsin. Despite rain on that Saturday I enjoyed the rock and roll, Eddie Vedder's wine infused melodic grunting and Chris Cornell's special appearance. I have come to love the music of Liam Finn. And I still found burrs on my shoes the next morning after stepping up to be my brother's friends designated driver, hopping fences and ditches to find his car parked in some remote lot, a marshy field in Wisconsin. I was crabby during the field romp as I was still sleep deprived from the moving fiasco, but the next day I appreciated the opportunity of running around under a faint cloud covered moon in rural lands. We all need the fresh air and dark night to boot sometimes. 


So 28 has given me a kick to the teeth in ways, but I'm hoping I've met my bullshit quota for the year, getting all of that out of the way, and onward we go to glorious year, kicking ass in good ways.