We may have played for half an hour yesterday.
Everything sounded great.
Picking songs apart until they sounded bad was the only alternative to an early night.
Camouflage should be reserved for lying in wait.
The only camouflage I ever liked was Bill Murray’s shirt in Lost in Translation. Bright orange, worn inside out.
I’ll wear army green. I like army green a lot. Army green is the color of moss and lichen, which do not have serial numbers.
I threw the HP piece of junk on the sidewalk beside the house.
Oh it felt good to destroy it.
The all-in-one scannercopiercolorprinter. Typical bright idea. Works out for shit in practice.
We will get a little photo printer and work our way back from there.
SEPARATES.
House is mostly brick, but the porch needs new siding. We got clear cedar.
Every place on internet: COAT the new cedar siding with sealer on ALL FOUR sides before you install it.
Installer: Don’t put anything on it. Leave it until spring. Then we clean it and put something on it then.
Me: ???
Guy at paint store: This is new cedar siding? Don’t seal it. Leave it until spring. Then clean it and put something on it then.
I am trusting the installer and paint store guy.
Disappointing practice last night. I think everyone was off, but my head felt like it was full of wool, so what do I know.
Easily ascribed to post-holiday torpor, I suppose. Still demoralizing when we have a session in a week.
I humored myself into thinking we have five songs ‘ready’ to record, but it is clear to me now that we have three.
I have an unfortunate habit of rushing to push stuff to completion when I can see the finish line. We have no record company asking us to pad the record, and anyone who buys the record will be grateful it even exists. Yet the urge to pile on whatever might possibly translate into music is inescapable.
That urge, almost certainly, comes from uncertainty about the future. I spent my adolescence as a musician, and I have spent my entire adulthood extending my adolescence, as a musician. At no time since I assumed this calling have I known what lay in store past six months’ time. Three months’ time has been generous notice.
In the old days, the uncertainty was due to fluctuating life circumstances. People went to college and moved to the East Coast with their parents. Distances opened with lack of funds to bridge them.
Today, the uncertainty is due to static life circumstances. Families. Mortgages. Jobs. Business ventures. Real life sits. Its demands expand to fill most hours and cost most of our mental energy. Musical material that used to take form in a couple weeks takes months instead.
The entire question of why exactly we do this particular thing, particularly at this level, hovers above the proceedings always. At moments like this, in the shadow of a bad practice, 6AM two hours into the day already, the question is writ large.
Rock and roll saves lives and ruins them. I would trade nothing I’ve done in the service of our music save a baker’s dozen of meaningless shows. And I can’t deny it also has kept me young and dumb, too dumb to ever know when to stop.
I’m past choice. The chatter of what the drums should do, what the bass should do, what the guitar should do, what I should do. It rattles through my head when I sleep. I hum and tap the parts distractedly as I drive half-awake to work on slippery roads.
The freeway is a mess. One inch of ice and snow. Idiots who think they are winged in the fast lanes. I stay to the right rear of the big trucks, willing to slog, watching for an exit that gets me where I need, absolutely need, to go.
Infant: Diaper
Toddler: Short pants, elastic waist
Child: Little jeans, easily patched
Preteen, teen, young adult: Jeans
“Adult”: Pants on which you cannot wipe your hands
Adult: Pants on which you can wipe your hands
Elderly: Long pants, elastic waist
Aged: Diaper
Rib tips last night from Hickory’s. Little char, too chewy, precious little evidence of smoke. Sauce OK but one-dimensional (dimension: tang). Sunk in the triangle between steakhouse ribs, grilled meat, and actual barbecue.
Steakhouse ribs are a staple in Chicago. They are nearly always baby-back ribs. Not flavorful, but easy to get, as high-rise pig farms in Denmark export tons.
Steakhouse ribs are parboiled, coated in sauce, and finished in a broiler. Ideally, the sauce is carmelized onto the meat. The ribs may also see some smoke at some point.
I don’t eat steakhouse ribs that often. Twin Anchors, for example, is well-regarded, but I found their ribs to be bland and their sauce to be laden with corn syrup and what tasted like fake smoke.
Carson’s, however, has credible steakhouse ribs that have contented me on occasions when the drive to Lem’s was too much.
The best actual barbecue in Chicago is Lem’s, handily.
Lem’s sauce is marvelous and to my taste. It is tomato-based (ketchup) but vinegary, made of regular kitchen ingredients (no liquid smoke).
I prefer ‘mixed,’ which is equal parts of the ‘mild’ and ‘hot’ sauces. You can get ‘mixed’ on whatever meat you buy there. You can only buy one or the other by the gallon. We get ‘mild’ in jugs.
Small ends and tips: normally transcendent, always at least very good. The pinnacle achievement at Lem’s is an astounding hot link.
Indescribably coarse, the link splits down the middle when cooked, yielding a panoply of touchstone pork flavors. Seared skin, unctuous fat, moist leg and rib meat, gristle. A wonder among the wonders of pig.
Lem’s uses an aquarium smoker over what is in essence a hardwood campfire. Quite high heat. The meat is moved around a fair amount to vary the amount of heat it gets. Most barbecue, of course, is cooked slowly at low heat, but Lem’s has proven out a high-heat barbecuing concept that works.
The meat is kept in the smoker until ordered. On ordering, it is cut up as appropriate. Slabs are dunked in sauce. Tips and links are brushed with sauce, using what appears to be a regular nylon-bristle paint brush. Base layer in the cardboard boats is white bread. Fries next, then meat.
The smoker, prep area, and cashier are in one room. The room is half-full of wood smoke. The line is on the other side of thick plexiglass. Money goes through a slot, and the meat goes through a little door.
Welcome to Broken Feet.
There is no format.
Thank you for visiting.