The Bird Machine

a week later...

2009-01-23T17:02:00.002-06:00

i spent the weekend painting the stairs, put down carpet squares on the risers for poor old seth, who's having trouble on the oak, and then on sunday morning, diana and i drove to washington DC. we stayed with our friends dan and rose, in hyattsville, MD, and hung with their two dogs (cricket and sadie) and their two cats (boris and marco).

monday we went to breakfast and i got waffles, and later we headed into DC proper to meet up with andrew and grab some dinner before going to the big shoulders ball that night at the black cat. the streets were crowded, the show was great, i got tired, and we left before eleventh dream day, which bummed me out. driving back to MD took forever, even at midnight.

tuesday jan 20th, we woke later than planned, and saw the news reporting that 'they' had shut off access to the mall. we wavered for a bit, and ultimately stayed in front of the TV at dan and rose's place to watch the inauguration.

as the ceremony ended, we saw the million (millions?) of people walking off the mall, and decided it as time to get on the highway before they all did.

eleven hours later we were at home.

wednesday and thursday, i worked at home, went to the gym (including swimming), got briefly sick on wednesday night (caffeine withdrawl), and saw a screening of the xan-produced film "milking the rhino" at the block gallery at northwestern. the film improved substantially from the last time i saw it, about a year ago, though some minor edits.

sara and jack spent tuesday through thursday packing up the second shipment of the 2008 subscriptions. i started drawing some shirts i'm doing for an online music retailer.

friday i went to the gym again, then met up with di at the shop, where she spent the day printing noble beast tour posters with sara. i worked on the shirt designs more. nathan came by to pick up what might be the last batch of prints and drawings to shoot for the new book. sara will be helping him at the MCA this weekend with that shoot. i bought plane tickets for sxsw.

wood stove as scuba gear

2009-01-16T21:28:00.002-06:00

had a scattered day at work, paying bills, filing sales taxes, trying to finish a couple non-poster jobs, trying to get my frozen car started. the guys from the garage at the end of the block came down to help me push the car into the shop, where they declared the engine flooded. i opted for a full tune-up with new plugs, wires, air filter, and the works. the car was quite peppy when i picked it up later in the day.

some time after 5, i left work and stopped by the apple store to return the 'mobile me' package i had bought, which did not actually help me sync up my email between machines as i had been told it would.

i headed home, in the mood to paint the stairs, a project i started last weekend. this is how i know i'm getting old: a good friday night involves laying on oak stairs, painting the risers and the stringer a nice barn red.

di is at the table working on painting text for the spine of a new book, seth is asleep in front of the wood stove with ocho nearby. akiko is probably asleep in di's sweater drawer.

i grew up in chicagoland. i've been here my whole life, almost. this weather is not amazing to me - it is currently two degrees below zero, though right now it feels much colder. today, though, the temp is weighing on me heavily, and being inside the house feels more like being inside a tiny submarine. this wood stove has become my scuba gear, and some part of me is really feeling drowned by the cold.

fuck, i forgot to watch battlestar galactica.

alarms

2009-01-16T08:37:00.002-06:00

my phone rang at 3:28am. i jumped out of bed, and said "this can't be good" to diana.

i missed the call, but called the number back. the alarm monitoring company for the shop was calling to tell me that one of the alarms was going off, and should they call the police? i said no, and pulled my clothes on. i was out the door and into the car in about 30 seconds, and caught all green lights as i flew the four miles over there.

on the drive i had the opportunity to think about my computer going away, or what other objects in the shop could disappear, and how that would affect me. i had time to think about installing curtains. i thought about finding someone in my office.

the shop was closed; no one had broken in. i looked around to make sure, and decided that the oversized new order poster had been moving the in breeze of a fan i moved slightly when leaving work, to blow air on the iced-over windows. i called diana, so she could go back to sleep, and drove myself home. i was back in bed at five after four, but of course couldn't sleep until almost five am.

thursday, very cold

2009-01-15T23:26:00.003-06:00

seth woke us up at 3:30 this morning, and when he wakes us, he means business. the dog has to be pushed out of bed in the morning, so if he comes nosing us in the dark, he really has to pee.

i took him out to mark the neighbor's bushes, and then i stayed up looking a the internet until about 4:30.

this made it difficult to get up in the morning. di got up and ready for the museum, and after a proper dog walk, i slowly made my way to the shop, picking up sara at the train station on the way.

we got some private news last night which made us decide (after sleeping on it) to cancel the dianogah show in madison this weekend. there is too much risk and stress associated with leaving town, so we regretfully backed out. i spent the first part of the morning asking around for other bands to take our place, but on short notice, i couldn't find anyone.

the mass of the day was spent printing the last two screens on the "big shoulders ball" poster which we've been working on this week. andrew bird, ted leo, tortoise, freakwater, eleventh dream day, and a bunch of other greats are playing at the black cat in DC on monday night, the night before the inauguration. the show was organized by he people who bring us the production side of the pichfork music festival, and the hideout. we had many issues with the screen for the last color, but burning it a third time finally got it right.

sara stayed late to curate and count the prints while i signed them, so i could get them delivered to the hideout tonight. upon leaving the shop, my car would not start (as it is about ten below zero here). the battery was charged, the starter would crank, but the engine wouldn't turn over. i tried to avoid it, but wore down the battery by cranking fruitlessly. i called jason to pick me up, as diana was down eating dinner and going to a movie with X in logan square. i put sara in a cab for home, walked seth again, and we piled into jason's car when he arrived with arthur in tow. arthur sang sufjan stevens' "chicago" to me, and was floored when he realized i knew the words, as well. "i drove to new york in a van with my friend. we slept in parking lots, i don't mind, i don't mind." jason and i admitted to each other that these lines made us each think of a job i got in early 1995 driving a minivan full of high-end antiques to a show in manhattan. jason went with me. we drove straight out there, and slept in the van, in the heavy moving blankets, after we had handed off the hundred thousand dollars' worth of wooden furniture.

upon arriving home tonight, i ran over to the next block to make the alderman's meeting, but found the meeting cancelled. everyone had left just before i arrived, i was told. i returned home and found that i had somehow gotten ink all over my new-ish orange jacket, so i spent some time scrubbing that in the kitchen sink, until john arrived to pick me up and drive me to the hideout to deliver the prints. we sat at the bar for a drink, and upon returning to the van i found a plastic barrel, ideal for being converted to a rain barrel next summer. we drove over to el pacifico for food, on fullerton, near john's house. as we arrived, we saw faces we knew looking out the windows at us - bob weston and carrie weston and mary nisi. we joined them for dinner and margaritas. very nice surprise.

soon diana's movie let out, and she swung by to pick me up. we drove home, and i type this now, as diana climbs the stairs towards bed. i will follow.

monday night, burning a childhood tree

2009-01-12T21:08:00.002-06:00

growing up, my parents' house had a one-acre back yard. this was mostly lawn, almost weed-free, and was great for frisbees or racing around with the dog. the yard was ringed by trees: poplar, oak, white pine, an apple tree, a towering willow, and various large trees i never identified.

off to the side was a corkscrew willow, a densely branched willow with (obviously) corkscrew-shaped branches, twisting like cartoon pigs' tails up in a graceful burst, tipped with long, slender leaves like the gigantic 'normal' willow on the opposite side of the yard. due to the density of the branches, this was a prime climbing tree, despite the relative thinness of the limbs. i stayed close to the trunk, was considerate of the tree's ability to support me, and weighed next to nothing myself.

a couple years ago, the tree came down in a storm, and my dad slowly cut it up, stacking the wood as he had time. i was sad about this, but felt that his was just another in a long (never-ending, actually) string of changes. the things you grew up with die, break, move away, are replaced. this is not news.

this past fall, when our expected source of firewood didn't pan out, diana and i collected what wood we could as the snow started to fly, and my dad and i spent some time chainsawing the larger remaining branches of the corkscrew willow into about 15-inch sections, ideal for my tiny wood stove. they stacked in my garage with other small collections from various local trees, and dried as best they could.

i'm sitting here at the kitchen table, drawing a glorious parade scene for a poster for a concert in washington DC, the night before obama's inauguration. it's snowing out here in evanston, the temperature is supposed to drop below zero for the next several days, and we expect blizzard conditions in the morning.

as i move to put more wood in the wood stove, where seth and ocho are asleep, i look at the twisted branch about the size of my forearm, and recognize it as my corkscrew willow. i remember hanging upside down from this tree, climbing it with various neighborhood kids. i remember cicadas, bats, and bee hives. i think of the daffodils that grew at the base of this tree, the area just south of the tree which would flood during thunderstorms, and camping in my tent near this tree.

the wood goes into the fire, sits briefly above the hot coals, and then bursts into flame.

returning

2008-11-30T14:25:00.002-06:00

i've failed to enter anything here in several months, and was lacking for some time before that. i'll try to pick this up again.

have been thinking about these next two posters for several weeks, and spent today drawing.

hum / life and times / dianogah, the double door, 12/31/08 and 1/1/09.

tuesday

2008-08-19T22:33:00.002-05:00

i never did go into TBM today. i stayed home and drew at the kitchen table. finished the second of two posters for my morning jacket. exchanged some emails with dan sinker. ate the first tomatoes from the garden. diana received her order from velo-orange.com, and we installed her new brooks saddle on her pista, switching her old saddle to her volpe. i installed bells on my long haul trucker and my lemond. ding, ding.

we watched a bit of donnie darko over dinner, and i wen to TBM for a brief run-through of a cover song we're working up, with jason and stephanie.

weird tuesday morning

2008-08-19T12:48:00.003-05:00

so a couple weeks ago i was invited to be involved in an article about 40 something something people in chicago. there is a photoshoot for a magazine, and a breakfast downtown. i figured out that steve albini was one of the other 40 chicagoans invited, so we decided to carpool.

picked steve up this morning at 8 and drove downtown to a building overlooking daley plaza. we were some for the first people to arrive, and as others came in, i soon lost track of names. we ate fruit salad, fresh orange juice, and lox and bagels. several folks associated with steppenwolf theater and second city were there. some politicians were there. i was delighted to see my friends joe meno and ken vandermark, so steve and i had some more people to talk to. chris ware called in sick. i talked to martha lavey (artistic director of steppenwolf), with steve, for a good amount of time. jesse jackson jr was introducing himself to me for the second time, while jerry springer walked in the door behind him. john mahoney wore dirty white sneakers (ralph lauren), and carol marin and jerry springer were photographed while chatting. christie hefner. steve was asked to be the stand-in for mayor daley (no show), where he introduced himself to congressman bobby rush as "i'm the mayor of this town" during one photo.

vandermark and albini and i took off as soon as possible, and i drove them home. such nice guys, these two.

now i draw something for my morning jacket.

one month blogless

2008-08-05T22:16:00.002-05:00

somehow i have avoided adding anything here for a month now. this disappoints me, and this week's theme is something along the lines of 'getting back on the horse', so i am going to try to catch up here.

today, tuesday, we woke after a remarkably crazy overnight thunderstorm. the trees were all still standing and the power was on, so i looked at it as a remedy for the dry lawn. we got up around 6 and got moving. i took a bath to wake up the joints from last night's jog.

di came to work with seth and i, and we picked up sara from the train. di and sara printed the second of three prints for the intercontinental hotel in rosemont, while i tried to clean up a bit in my office, and to organize he dianogah records.

at 11am, nathan stopped by with one kid from his photo class, for a tour. jack (the kid) and his mom, peggy, spent a good amount of time learning about the shop, and i enjoyed having them there. jack is going into 7th grade, his dad bikes a lot, and mom grew up in the same town i did.

after work, we went home and i went out running, for the second day in a row. didn't go far or fast, but pushed myself a bit more than i would have expected. upon returning home, i showered and then spent an hour or two finishing the chicken-fencing-off of the tomato garden, as the fucking squirrels have been destroying my tomatoes. someone (squirrels? raccoons?) obliterated the corn, which is 100% gone. i really don't want to lose the tomatoes, as well.

we picked the mass of the green beans on sunday, and took them to my folks' house to eat with dinner, while my brother and his new (surprise!) wife were in town with the kids. we had a great visit, and i really am glad they've jumped to being married, for practical reasons. gramma was at dinner, as well, and it's always great to see her.

tonight there was an old-timey baptist revival in a tent pitched in the parking lot of a church down the street, with a crowd, and the cliché preacher on a cheap PA system screaming "can i get a witness?!" over and over. seth and i went down that way, so he could poop on some bushes across the street from them.

bed.

thursday, a photoshoot

2008-07-06T12:35:00.002-05:00

woke early with seth, and took him out to look a the cows. he was very nervous about them, and wanted to look at anything else aside from the dozen big bovines peering at him from the fence.

the people all woke up, and after a big omelette and coffee, we started pulling power cables and sun-umbrellas up the hill behind the barn. i was put in charge of setting up andrew's "civil-war-re-enactment-grade canvas wall tent", and soon realized we'd need metal spikes to hold it down in the strong breeze blowing across the hilltop.

the cameras were set, and seth was un-collared to be a model dog in this photo shoot fro andrew's new album. by five in the evening, as the light really got good, some neighbors arrived with two horses (one of whom would be in the shoot. seth got super excited to see them, and we had to excuse ourselves to walk the edge of the field until he grew bored of these new arrivals, which i can only assume he interpreted as some sort of super-dogs. eventually, he was calm enough that we worked our way back to the shoot, and seth was placed at andrew's side, again, without a collar, standing about 15 feet from a horse with no bridle.

di worked on her drawings down at the house, and everyone came down to shower and eat. i cooked hot dogs. the rest of the gang packed up to drive to des moines so they could be ready for a 9am soundcheck opening for the flaming lips at a festival. we drove home.

monday through wednesday at TBM

2008-07-06T12:28:00.003-05:00

i stayed home to draw on monday and tuesday, though i didn't really get enough done. some patagonia shirt work, and a couple variations on the pitchfork music festival shirts. tried to catch up on emails, and did some work in the yard.

wednesday, i went to TBM to scan and color the final OMF shirt. also sent off the new year shirt i had made a while back. around 5, i went home and picked up di and seth, and we headed out northwest towards andrew's barn, where we arrived around 9pm. cameron, the photographer from minneapolis, arrived soon after us, and we all ate dinner of steaks and various awesome vegetables.

cameron, andrew, seth and i walked out into the corn field to watch the fireflies, and cameron shot a bunch of long exposures of the barn and the fireflies.

back at the barn, di and seth ad i took the guest room, while cameron slept on the couch.

louisville to chicago

2008-07-06T12:19:00.003-05:00

woke happily on the floor of jason noble's air conditioned office. got the other dudes up, and went for coffee with jason and kristen. got a gigantic swiss mocha, iced. we hopped onto 64, changed to 65 north, and hit it. great drive, clear roads right up to gary, where we had to detour onto 80/94, got off a kline ave, took it o the skyway, and headed to the practice space. dropped the gear, dropped off stephanie, hen kip, and jason and i went to his house. emptied the van, put the seats back in, and i drove arthur and clive to the rental place (as they have never been in a van before. jason and hil tagged along in their car. returned the van, climbed into the mazda, and they drove me home, where i got to see di and seth.

i think i went right to sleep.

saturday, pgh to louisville

2008-07-01T22:17:00.002-05:00

i woke around 8, got the dudes up, and rick walked us back to our van. we stopped for some coffee, and rolled towards columbus, cincinnati and louisville. stopped for lunch at waffle house; i soon felt like crap, and regretted the stop. suddenly i lost the energy to tour.

arrived at ear x-tacy (record shop) just in time for our in-store, and saw jason noble, todd cook, david buschermohle, and jay durbin. we played a short set while they played qhnnnl over the store's stereo. we loaded back out to the van, talked to rachel grimes on the phone, and walked across the street for pulled pork sandwiches, which made me feel just a little better.

loaded into the pourhaus, as rachel and alec arrived with her piano. we ran through two songs with rachel, and took way too much time soundchecking. the club had the worst natural acoustics ever. the opening bands were heroically patient, and both played very well. i slept in the van for part of the evening. i found a ten dollar bill on the floor of the bar. i ddodled on jay durbin's fugazi "dogs" poster.

we played a set that made me dizzy. i am not convinced that it sounded good, but we got to see a lot of old friends. loaded out, blah blah.

we drove to jason noble's house, and were amazing by the size and contents of his complex. i slept again on the office floor.

friday: DC to PGH

2008-07-01T21:57:00.002-05:00

woke, confused, on dan wilson's floor. soon met rose, his lovely wife, and cricket the chihuahua. i took cricket and sadie (?) the other dog out into the yard. dan bought us bagels form a local bakery. i showered, woke everyone else up. dan and rose have a lovely bungalow, with many built-ins, we noted.

onto the beltway, and west across virginia and pennsylvania. arrived in pittsburgh, made our way to the smiling moose. rick gribenas texted me to offer his house for the sleeping. so great.

we parked, and sat at a sports bar across the street so kip could watch the cubs game. eventually, we finagled a space right in front of the smiling moose, and we loaded in. the bar was busy before we even got there. mike budai made posters for the show. the club owner made us pasta dinner, which we ate while watching austin powers, and then land of the lost DVDs.

red team blue team played first, and were great, with various basses, guitars, and a banjo. knotfeeder followed, and the don cab lineage was brought back to a place of honor. we played.

after the show, sean, the promoter and soundman, let us park in his large garage space, and we walked to rick's house, where we met his chihuahuas and went to sleep. i recall rick stepping over me a couple times in the night; i doubt he slept much.

more touring

2008-07-01T07:43:00.002-05:00

thursday he 26th, we woke up in baltimore, go on the internet to look for a nice coffee shop in DC, and hit the road. we came upon the coffee shop, though it didn't have all of the muffins and scones we would have hoped for. it was still good, and we ate in the air conditioning, while looking through the local weekly at movie showtimes. nothing we wanted to see was out yet (until tomorrow, friday) or was showing at the right time, so we hopped in the van, drove across town, and dianogah settled for 'the hulk', while stephanie picked 'sex in the city'. actually, since we had to wait to see the hulk, we watched the first 20 minutes of 'kung fu panda', which actually looked great. in the end, stephanie walked out of sex in the city, and the hulk was slightly better than i expected.

back in the van and the heat, we parked in georgetown and looked for food. saw some plainclothes cops tearing apart some dudes' car on the street. we ended up in a crepery, and we ate well.

off to the black cat - we didn't really recognize the neighborhood as it has "improved" so much in the last bunch of years. it's now a bustling bar and restaurant area, where i used to be a pretty dark strip of boarded up buildings. we love he black cat - they feed us and are always nice. dan wilson, formerly of hurl, was one of the first people to show up. always great to see dan.

we played well, i think, and ate dinner in the green room afterwards. reloading the van, we followed dan's truck back to his awesome little bungalow just outside DC. i slept face down in the first floor office, while everyone else stayed upstairs.

tour: boston to baltimore

2008-06-30T12:20:00.004-05:00

typed this intermittently in the van, without internets to connect to.

monday afternoon, after we thought we had jason's amp fixed, we finally took off for providence, following sean and tina in their car, with dan in his van trailing us. we got to the venue, called the grant, and were greeted by pete cardoso and paul gordon and others, who helped load us into the space. the grant is a building bought by a dude in the decrepit downtown of pawtucket. he fixed the building up and made it a sort of mall of artist spaces, a screenprint shop, a bmx shop, architect's office, and a skateboard ramp. we were the third show to happen in the space. we walked over to get some beers and some chinese food, and the first two bands played. helms went on and killed it; we felt like they should have headlined. we played fine. jason used tina's head again. i met shea'la from tiny showcase, and had a hard time staying off the halfpipe.

after the show, dan took off for cape cod, and we followed sean & tina back to their place, where we crashed very quickly.

tuesday, we got up and tried to get out as soon as possible. we got coffee with sean and dwight the dog, then rolled out of town. we headed south to NY, and wound our way onto the BQE and eventually stopped at a small recording studio for an "at home anywhere" session - just like he "daytrotter" session we did with andrew back in the fall, this is a one-take quickie on the studio's gear. we were a bit short on time, so we did three songs, including a handsome family cover: "stalled".

after this, we went to the club, a small place on the corner. we pulled up right at the same time as the austerity program, and we all loaded into the tiny union pool. met the headliner, made out of babies, who were really nice, bu not our particular taste, musically. fucking gorgeous guitars, though: custom 'electrical'-brand "mosrite" body style guitar and bass.

we walked over a block or two to get some pizzas, came back for our soundcheck, and people started to show up. austerity program was brutally loud, and played excellently; we believe that more people came to see them than he other two bands. we did fine, with one or two minor technical issues. made out of babies played, but we were mostly out on the patio, visiting with scott zionic, pari, tanya and claudia from u of i, some folks from the electrical boards, and various other people. justin punched the 'seatbelt' button on my chrome-brand backpack, leaving my laptop to drop to the concrete, where the case split. thankfully, it still works, but i'm just a bit pissed.

we loaded out, and drove back to astoria, where we stayed with justin at his house. i bathed and went to bed.

in the morning, i walked to get coffee with kip, then visited with justin's dog, camacho. we piled into justin's car and drove to guitar canter, where jason bough a new amplifier for an absurd amount of money. thanks to guitar center's generous 30-day return policy, we will keep the head in immaculate condition and return it to GC when we get back to chicago.

loaded this heavy heavy head into the van, and we rolled over to et sandwiches from 'il bambino', on our way out of astoria and queens. across the triborough and george washington bridges, we rolled south through new jersey and into baltimore, where we GPSed ourselves to the ottobar, for what was probably the least appropriate show of the tour. we played with harvey milk and storm of light (both loud as hell metal) and dactyl, the local opener. met a dude with a left arm full of egon schiele tattoos; he was drinking.

after we played ( as quickly as possible) and loaded directly back out to the van (while storm of light was setting up), we heard a male voice on the other side of the fence we were parked against: he was sobbing, crying "it just doesn't matter! we missed it! bwahhhh!". this was followed by various slamming and slapping noises. kip and i looked at each other, unsure of what was going on. i peered over the fence to make sure no one was getting beaten, but only saw a young man crying, hitting his car, and his girlfriend trying to comfort him. we continued loading the van, trying self-consciously to be as quiet as possible, without being, you know, *too* quiet.

moments later, a young woman shows up at our van, explaining how her boyfriend was upset as they had missed our set, and had driven an hour. meanwhile, he came and peered over the fence, red-faced. she talked about him as if he weren't there.

we drove to a motel half way between balt and DC, and kip arranged for a room, using alcohol to enhance his hotel-booking skills. after getting the room, we drove across town o the denny's, where we ate too much of terrible foods.

back to the hotel, asleep.

monday in boston, to providence and back

2008-06-25T11:19:00.003-05:00

since we only had a 45 minute drive to get to providence for monday night's show, i had planned to spend all day working on patagonia shirts and a tiny showcase illustration. however, with jason's amp in a broken way, we had to go tool around town to try to get it fixed. i won't document every bit of driving here and there, but by day's end we had used more than a quarter tank of gas ($30) and had an amp which only stayed fixed for half an hour of play on tuesday. still, on monday, we got to hang out with dan and sean, and when we finally got to eat our first meal of the day, it was burgers and beer at 2pm. jason's amp was 'fixed' by aerosmith's amp tech, who could not have been more of an entertaining asshole. totally full of himself, he described how jason had bought into a marketing scheme by owning a mesa boogie amp. he described how he was regularly thankful that he could not shrink himself down to fit inside of a vacuum tube, and how he had to bust out a fresh can of turd polish to work on jason's amp. in the end, he literally fixed the amp with a chopstick. the amp broke the next day, after spending $200.

more later. we're off to brooklyn's guitar center to buy a new amp.

tour begins.

2008-06-24T08:05:00.002-05:00

friday, i stayed late at work, signing the various generator prints, until jason came to pick me up. we drove out to near ohare, and rented a 15 passenger chevy van from our favorite low-budget rental service. i drove the van home, jason drove to his house.

diana was finishing watching a french movie while i arrived, and i started packing. turned over the compost pile, collected my laundry, dug through the attic mess in the dining room until i found my lightweight sleeping bag and mat pad.

watched some of 'gone baby gone' with di, and couldn't fall asleep until 1am.

to buffalo:

woke at 5:30 saturday morning, and bathed, shaved, and dressed in the clothes i had set out for myself. despite waking up extra early, i was still 15 minutes late for picking jason up at 6:30, but i got to see the twins for a bit. they sat behind the wheel as jason and i took the rear seats out of the van, and left them in his garage.

we stopped by TBM to pick up the merch, then headed down skokie blvd, lincoln to kimball, and to kip's. collected him, and the equipment stephanie had left at his house, and stopped by starbucks on logan blvd, before picking up the main body of our gear at the practice space. we got on the road around 8:30, and flew east.

the van drove really well, the ipods worked and the GPS was on. 9 hours across indiana, ohio, pennsylvania and up lake erie to buffalo. loaded into big orbit's sound lab, and called mark and beth from hero design, who came to get us after we finished soundchecking. we went to the place which invented the "buffalo wing", where we had a 50-piece order of wings, a cheese pizza, and some drinks, while a thunderstorm came through the area.

back to the club, people were showing up. tony zanni, from rochester, came and ended up hanging with the hero folks the whole time. gordon pelligrinetti came, since we saw him in champaign a few weeks ago. a car load of dianogah fans came four hours from upstate, and got very drunk. one of them, who works as a bellhop, took me down the street to show me a nearby louis sullivan building from 1893.

red tag rummage sale played, with one cello and one hammer-on les paul, the young couple singing rather intimately. the second band was a flurry of guitars, keyboards and cello. i can't think of their name, but i enjoyed their set.

we played well, very loose, loud and fun. people shouted at us a bit more than usual, and we played an unusually long 12 songs. i sang on sprinter, and did a breaks b by myself.

the fellow who had shown me the sullivan building was quite drunk when we finished, and passed out face down on our merch table. after his friends propped him up, i pulled up his sleeve and drew on his arm, then returned his sleeve. hung out for a bit, and sold a good amount of merch.

back to mark & beth's house, we got to visit with the three cats and derby, the dog. i forget the name of the breed, but derby is the "spuds mackenzie" model of dog. super sweet and cuddly. she was so cute. i slept on the couch, jason and kip took the bedroom upstairs.

buffalo to boston:

woke pretty early, confused. got up to pee, then found my way back to the couch, somehow. pretty big disorientation. slept a few more hours. eventually everyone was up, and we headed out to get breakfast at some good/bad diner, where jason, kip and i each got a "louie omelette", featuring three eggs, some cheese, and two hot dogs. quick stop for a chai for me, and we went to see the hero retail store, which was awesome, filled with vinyl figures and prints. new york-style, it was packed pretty tight, with thier design office and print shop rounding out the 650 square foot space. everything within reach.

onto the highway just a bit late, we flew along the erie canal to albany, then looped south and cut across mass to boston. arrived at the great scott to find sean and tine macarthy of helms outside, loading in. we took their spot, loaded in, and line checked before walking down to a burrito place. veggie burrito = awesome.

stephanie arrived with her friends, and we got her up to speed.

the first band, piles, were really surprisingly good, and set a nice tone for the night. the second band, ba-na-nas, featured paul, formerly of our old friends, lynx, as well as his younger brother justin. hi-lar-ious. they playe really well, but the two brothers, on bass and guitar, respectively, danced around their drummer, had wonderful little 'moves', and were very fun to watch.

helms kicked ass, as always. they had some new songs which seemed a bit more flowey to me, less mathematical. i still love sean's guitar playing - always very inventive, playing with his jawline, tapping very tastefully.

we were a disaster, as jason's amp went to a blown-out sound during the first song, and he stopped playing after the second. we thought it was his cabinet, but it was his head, so we borrowed time's amp for the remainder of the set. we sort of got back on rack, but never really got comfortable for the rest of the set. we did fine, but wished it could have been 100%. the crowd was into it, though: we sold a bunch of records.

loaded out to the van, and followed the helmses back to tina and seans' beautiful top-floor condo in an old small building. we met the cats, and handsome mr. dwight, the greyhound. dwight is seth's cousin, via seth's grandfather (dwight's great-grandfather) named HB's COMMANDER. dan and sean and i took dwight out around the block, then headed back and sat on the deck with jason, kip, stephanie and tina. i drank orange juice, and soon called out for my sleeping bag.

june 16-20

2008-06-24T08:02:00.001-05:00

we went to see the swell season at the chicago theater on the 17th, and worked on printing five 'generator' art prints from monday through friday. dianogah practice on sunday and wednesday.

my birthday

2008-06-16T22:04:00.002-05:00

we woke up around 6, and i shaved and bathed. diana gave me some very good presents, and we drove out to diana's folks' house, stopping to get chai on the way. nice visit with dan & marilyn. seth loves seeing them, but always worries that we're leaving him there.

two hours, and we headed to see my folks. my dad made a cake for me. my dad and i opened presents (fathers day), and we helped them move a little furniture in anticipation of my mom's foot surgery on tuesday morning. mom will be off her feet for most of the rest of the summer, so we made sure the recliner was within reach of everything.

di and i headed back home, and i mowed the lawn with our new rechargeable mower, which worked great, while di planted and weeded. i added a very satisfying load of grass clippings to our optimistic little compost pile.

around 3:30, i went back to TBM to finish the editioning, then loaded the prints into the car and headed down to the chicago theater to drop them off with the band. from there, i went to practice, which went great. stephanie brought birthday brownies which she and nathan had baked for me.

after practice, we went to our old practice space to clean out the last of our stuff from there. pain in and about the ass. jason and i loaded our cars' worth of stuff into his basement, then i went into bed with diana, feeling 36.

saturday june 14

2008-06-16T21:53:00.002-05:00

we woke up at 6 and got ourselves moving. rode the bikes over to the farmer's market, and got a couple panniers full of honey mustard, mushrooms, baby asparagus, oak leaf lettuces, cherry tomatoes, dill, strawberries, bread, and garlic herb goat cheese. from there, we rode to the unicorn cafe, for a chai out on the sidewalk. off to whole foods for cereal, orange juice, yogurt, avocado, peaches, and bananas.

riding home, we decided to go the long way, and ended up looping through all of northwestern's campus, sitting for a while on the lakefront landfill. the sun was bright and the day was perfect. we came back west along lincoln ave, and put the groceries away at home.

seth, diana and i drove over to TBM, so di could print and i could take a stab at finishing editioning the swell season prints. i stepped out to run to fedex to pick up our new lawnmower, shipped in. i didn't quite finish the swell season prints, but it was a good day. we went home, and diana and i rode out to the lake front on our fixed-gear bikes to watch the thunderstorms roll menacingly across the northern sky, out into the lake.

the week at the bird machine

2008-06-16T21:49:00.002-05:00

this week was a fast one. we ran three different runs of 600 posters each of swell season prints. sara and patrick kicked ass, though patrick took off for bonnarro on wednesday. froilan suggested i hire his friend lisa for thursday, to do take-off, and she did great. friday was spent curating and editioning, though i didn't finish. wednesday night was dianogah practice, and we're feeling ready for the tour. nothing remarkable for the week, just plain old productivity.

sunday

2008-06-12T21:49:00.003-05:00

after leaving club lucky (i forgot to mention) i went to jason's house and took my lawnmower back from his garage. wonder what a cop would have thought to find a man in a suit "stealing" a crappy electric lawnmower from an unlocked garage at 1am.

woke up in the morning and mowed the lawn for quite a while, finishing just moments before a major thunderstorm came though. spent a little time cleaning the porch, then went back into the yard when the storm had passed.

sunday night, we had dianogah practice, which went really well.

chicago poster biennial judging, friday and saturday

2008-06-08T23:33:00.002-05:00

saturday, i headed down to UIC to judge the biennial, with the other ten judges. we were stationed in a large complex of open rooms, with rows of the various 1600 posters spread on the floors. we had about four rounds of looking at about 400 posters at a time, and selected our favorites using a complicated method i won't try to describe here. sufice i to say that by the end of friday, we had selected he posters which would be in the catalog, and by the end of saturday, we had selected the posters which would be in the biennial show itsself, as well as the handful of actual prized positions.

friday night, di and i picked up sarah here in evanston, and we went to a dinner party at joseph and nancy's place down on north avenue. amazing house, amazing office. concrete construction, beautiful garden in back. pretty much perfect. fukuda-san brought gifts for sharing, and sang a song to us all after dinner. we spent a good amount of time talking to martin venezky, and yossi lemel, and jacqueline mondalvo (a book designer in her own right).

saturday morning, i brought "134 squirrels" books to the judging, to give to folks. german also brought his book to share, and martin gave out some nicely printed one-sheet things in a folder. i drank an iced mocha and we spent the day sorting the excellent work out of the really excellent work. i saw so many ideas to rip off.

after the judging was through, i went back to yann's place with michel, and the three of us hung out. i read, while michel dozed on the sofa. eventually, we got dressed, and drove down to IIT for the opening of the judges' show, at crown hall. many folks were already there. the board had arranged for one print from each jury member to be printed on fabric and made into a dress, which various young women were wearing around. we, the jury, were introduced by lance, the dresses were auctioned, and the show was really good. it made me want to print bigger. diana came with xan, my folks were there, and nick & nadine brought their friend, mirko.

after the show, i went to dinner at club lucky with yann, michel, roman, lance and mikki. i ate too much linguine, and shared a spot of tiramisu with roman. drove home, slept the fuck out of my futon.

thursday

2008-06-08T22:43:00.003-05:00

thursday at tbm, we started sorting the first subscription mailing of 08, while i editioned the last of the mudhoney posters, and tried to finish signing the dianogah tour prints. seth and i cu out around 4 to go home, so i could get ready for the evening.

i rode the old schwinn 'banana bike' over to the el, from home, and took the red line down town. there was brief confusion as to whether i was going to the hard rock cafe (incorrect), or the hard rock hotel (correct).

i arrived at the bar at the hotel, and met up with the rest of the jury for the chicago international poster biennial. alfred halasa was in from montreal, martin venezky, from san francisco. lanny sommese from penn state, and luba lukova from bulgaria via NYC. yann finally arrived with his old mentor, michel bouvet, from paris. i spent some time talking with yossi lemel, from tel aviv, and later met german montalvo and his wife jaqcueline, from puebla, near mexico city. eventually, shigeo fukuda showed up, straight from tokyo, sporting a cubs shirt he had found at the airport.

i spent some time talking to joseph essex, one of the biennial organizers. amazing guy, very friendly.

when it was time to go, i took a cab to evanston with aude, and walked north o the noyes st station to get my bike, i rode home with my shirt open, in the hot night.

wednesday

2008-06-05T07:22:00.003-05:00

rode my bike to work for the third day in a row. took the surly, with panniers. sara was already at work, stacking prints.

cut films for the last two colors (4 & 5) on the race across america print while sara and patrick printed the third screen. made a number of trips to the impending container garden in TBM's back lot - the beans have started to take off, and many of the seeds i planted a while back have finally started coming up.

once sara and patrick got the final color going, i took off to fedex to ship off 'as seen from above' to be shipped to a manufacturing plant for a repress.

from fedex on howard, i rode west to mccormick, south to devon, to granville, east to ravenswood, across to the top of clark street near gethsemane. met up with andrew for a bike ride. we rode out to the lake, south on the lakefront path, and all through the montrose / wilson park in a heavy fog.

we eventually headed back to andersonville and ate mussels and brisket at the hopleaf. we stayed for a long time, watching people bike back and forth on clark. eventually we picked up and walk down the street, and then rode west to lincoln square, to get tea and a slice of pie at cafe selmarie, where we sat until dark. andrew headed home, and i rode west on lawrence to the river, and along the river back north in the dark with my head light off. 33 miles overall today.

visited with diana, the got in the tub, fell asleep. di woke me up later, and i went to bed.

today was tuesday

2008-06-04T00:51:00.002-05:00

i got up by 7 and rode my bike to the copy shop to make films for the 'scott mcintosh / race across america' print, then south to TBM. started cutting films, and had sara do a bunch of setting up and clean up, and prep work for next year's mistake books. patrick arrived, and they printed two colors on the run. the beans growing in empty ink cans behind the shop have taken off, throwing up vines which have not yet found the trellis i built them.

aside from cutting films, i drew a new andrew bird shirt, based on an old sketch i had given bird last year when we were discussing a video which never happened. tried to publicize the CIPB opening this weekend at IIT. starting to be nervous.

after work, i rode home, ate dinner, and watched a little indiana jones 3 with di. we decided to ride into town to pick up nylon magazine, which has a sudyka feature in it, and we had to get ice cream while we were out. home again, we watched the end of the movie, i did laundry, and now i type this, trying to fall asleep.

a week.

2008-06-04T00:24:00.002-05:00

tuesday morning we got up and i took seth to the vet to get his teeth cleaned and to get a blood sample taken o figure out why his thyroid count is low. upon returning to my car i found i had a flat, so i went to wally's to get it fixed, then to the shop. di picked seth and his clean teeth up later in the day. tuesday night, dianogah practice was at mark's studio, for the songs he's playing at the record release show on saturday.

wednesday, we had dianogah practice with billy and stephanie. i think we're prepared. i picked jason up from work, and we got burritos from irazu on the way to practice. we also picked up our LPs from southern, and dropped off tour posters.

thursday during the day, i made some changes to my mudhoney poster for the carrboro show, and i became a poster for the chicago show. thursday night, di and i picked up andrew and xan and went to see dosh play at subterranean. annathello opened, and they were good. after the show, i stayed up drawing for the new carrboro poster.

friday, sue came to work, as well as sara, and we had another super productive day. we started on the carrboro prins, and celebrated 'no donut friday' with a few donuts. friday night, i went to reggies to see mudhoney. talked to mark arm about the posters. the band killed. they were great. i was falling asleep from such a long day, so i had to leave before they finished.

saturday morning = farmers' market and unicorn cafe first thing. spent some time in the yard. took seth out to my folks' house, and walked with my dad down to the annual fair. saw john hughes III, along with his wife and three kids. it was really good to see him - i haven't in years. he lives near my parents now. back at home, i took a brief nap, and woke up just a little late to head to load-out. picked up records and shirts from TBM, then headed to the practice space to load cars. over to the hideout, 2 hour soundcheck, then walked to whole foods with jason and andrew. upon leaving the hideout for dinner, we ran into chad, in his cop car. it's always good to see him. the walk to dinner was maybe the nicest part of the evening.

back at the hideout, people actually came to the show. head of skulls were great, and we played just fine. my fingers weren't working at all for qhnnnl, the first song, but things got better.

tom and elizabeth (from milwaukee) came back to our house to stay over. we arrived at 2:45am.

sunday morning i got up at 7:45 and made my way top drop seth of at my folks' for the day. met back up with tom, elizabeh and di for coffee, then we got on the highway. dropped my car at tom's house in milwaukee, then drove to the international crane foundation in (or near?) barraboo, WI. the cranes were all agitated due o the time of year, and were very aggressive. we soon found ourselves covered in ticks, and spent some time checking crevices for stragglers. we bought cheese and eggs from a roadside stand, then headed back to milwaukee. i slept with my mouth open for part of the way.

in milwaukee, we ate at classic slice, and diana and i headed back to chicago. di dropped me at my folks' and picked seth up. she headed home, while i stayed to help my parents move furniture. dad drove me home late.

monday, i biked to TBM. sara printed the last two colors on the carrboro mudhoney prints, then curated them, and we got them shipped off to NC after i signed them. i worked on the scott mcintosh drawing, which i took home with me to finish.

at 8pm, di and i drove into the city again, picking up andrew on the way. we went to the bottle to see nick butcher's record release show. as i was parking, my brother mike called to tell me he got engaged, which is awesome. lulu is good for him.

nick played really well, despite the loud bar ambiance. it was great to see the big crowd, half of whom i knew. we cut out soon after nick played, ad dropped andrew at home.

memorial day weekend

2008-05-27T20:35:00.002-05:00

saturday, we woke up and rode bikes to the farmers' market, where we got mostly lettuce and radishes, and a loaf of ciabatta. from there, to unicorn cafe for chai, then to whole foods for soy milk. sop at the bank to deposit checks, then home.

at home we switched to the car, and drove to a few garage sales, where i got various bike parts and a pot rack and some jazz LPs (mostly coltrane). at the garden center, we got pine bark mulch for the yard, and then we finally picked up some chairs and a table for our yard. home, to spread the mulch and set up the furniture.

saturday evening, we went to loagan square to eat with xan and andrew. they got a new grill, and we had thin-cut carne asada, grilled, and cut into tortillas with guacamole and lettuce and radishes. there was wine, and we listened to some new recordings. i sort of fell asleep in a chair, since i am a lame.

sunday morning, di and i woke early, packed our bikes onto the car, took seth to my folks' house, stopped by the shop o pick up posters, and went to john & christy's. transferred our bikes to john's minivan, and the four of us drove to champaign. we checked into the union, ran into nissa and michael, and ran into some other folks on the quad.

john and christy went out to ride around champaign, and di and i rode around the south end of campus, then into urbana. we stopped by carle park, a spot we frequented early in our relationship (summer of 92), and rode past the houses we used to live in on oregon street and high street. wonder what it would be like to own those houses now, and to live in them. north, through downtown urbana, the library, the courier cafe, and into crystal lake park, where we rode all the paths and winding roads. reverse the trip, heading back to the quad. di went up to nap, i visited with some folks on the lawn. people wandered off to various commitments, and i wen up to see di in our room.

around 5, we left wih john and christy to ride up to jupiters for pizza. we met up with michael and nissa, who were kind enough to transport my prints from the union. over the next hour, most of the people who came into the place, or walked pas the window, were people we knew - the whole grover gang (jason's old band), various band members playing later tonight, the girlfriends (now wives) of those band members, classmates, friends who live near us, but whom we only see in champaign, etc.

7pm he doors opened, and we grabbed some good seats in the balcony, to be far enough away to no be overpowered by the music, but still able to see everything. the high dive filled quickly, and many "hey, wait! i know you!"s were exchanged.

driver has no cash played first, hilariously, with bill on a heavily effected ukelele and big frank singing. bob rising was the drummer, and though he's put on some weight, he's still fun to watch, and was charming in person.

corndolly played second, and surprised everyone by really not seeming to have lost much of the energy they had 15 years ago. they did well, aside from some very forgivable dropped solos, but the vocals were on, and rachel's crazy right hand made her bass playing always dramatic.

dick justice, i think, were the weird surprise of the night. i never really saw them much back in the day, aside from their extremely hilarious acoustic sets at bandjam each spring. since college ended, i have become friends with jim, and seen him play guitar and sing in other bands. his was probably the most powerful, exciting set i've seen him play. galen the drummer is nuts. he was only wearing underwear by the end of the set. they stopped to hanks all the bands that had ilved in c-u between 88 and 95, the time that jim had lived there, and they even mentioned spoon (my old band; not the *good* spoon, from texas).

the moon seven times played way too long, and while there was nothing wrong with their set at all, they never really interested me.

mother played fifth, and i think this was the high point of the evening for me, as i still actively listen to their music, probably once a week. i don't know if i was the fact that this band got to me when i was young, or what, but they blew me away. his was about as excited as i've been at a rock show in the last decade. baltie is a great guitar player, and joel and colin had only a few lapses in perfection. i lost my voice singing along.

honcho overload closed out the night, and they did not disappoint at all. honcho shows were always as much a spectacle as a music performance, and they pulled out all the stops for this evening. smoke machines, halogen lights, strobe lights, and the house lights really transformed the space well. the thing that was missing, i thought, was that all five band members looked bummed to be playing. they played perfectly. loud as fuck, the bass was huge the guitars screamed, and bill was as weird, polite and sinister as ever... but they looked like they wanted to be somewhere else. i screamed along with bill anyway - "something never happened" - and the people in the place went nuts like they were 23 years old.

here were some drunk people, and i was sweaty. di and christy had left about halfway through mother's set, and john and i hung out at he bar for a while, catching up with folks. when it was tim to leave, we decided to ride west on church street, into champaign, pretty much as far as the road would take us. it was some time after 2am, warm outside, a light breeze which seemed o be at our backs whichever way we rode. no one was out, the street was dark and flat. nice ride, smooth, long. we turned around after a while, just before mathis, and came back on university ave. didn't see any cars on the whole ride, i think.

as we entered the campus area, we took at look at green street, with the staggering drunks of former fraternity brothers and their moms. we rode back to the union, put our bikes into the van, double-locked the girls' bikes with our locks, and found all the doors to the union locked, except for the front door (eventually).

i returned to our room, showered, and went to bed around 3.

monday morning, di and i got up around 8 or so, tried for the continental breakfast at 9 (only bagels remained), and found espresso royale downstairs after some wandering. we walked the quad, talking about the specific buildings, and soon met up with john, christy, michael and nissa for breakfast at a diner in downtown champaign, one of the few places open on memorial day. we got pancakes and eggs and potatoes, and said goodbye to nissa and michael. the four of us drove north, though i managed to fall asleep a bit.

in logan square, we transferred our bikes to our car, and headed north to pick up seth, then back to our house.

di and i were sort of unsatisfied with the amoun of biking we got downstate, so we got out the touring bikes and rode up to highland park along the greenbay trail - 22.7 miles. we got home as the sun was settling down, made omelette with mushrooms from the farmer's market, and a salad with radishes. we ate out on our new lawn furniture. i watched an episode of battlestar galactica laying on the living room floor with seth, then went to bed.

2008-05-23T22:46:00.003-05:00

i just looked at greg bolsinga's database of shows he's been to, and came upon the show which was the first date for diana and i: march 26, 1992: hum, grover, and steakdaddy six at the blind pig in champaign. i was 19.

http://www.bolsinga.com/bands/stats.html

friday night at home

2008-05-23T21:50:00.002-05:00

i still haven't gotten the T key fixed on his laptop - it takes extra care to make sure it engages and makes the letter. i think i will not bother with that right now.

the last two weeks have been a bit of a lost tailspin for my schedule. i don't feel like anything has been actually finished or accomplished at work. bits of things get done, or worked on, but i haven't really been able to cross anything off my to-do list with certainty. i think this is linked to this gap in the blog, but i don't know if the chicken or the egg came first.

today i was at the shop alone most of the day - my dad came in for a while to do some mail orders, briefly - and i editioned the recyclery prints. lots of emails, but i have so many yet to answer. i committed to some 'my morning jacket' posters, and turned down doing some 'yonder mountain string band' work. also took on some 'the new year' prints, which i'm looking forward to.

i loaded the five new prints onto the site, where they will remain staged until i kick them live on tuesday. hopefully we will have another burst of mail order insanity then.

this week we received a five foot tall pile of 1800 lbs of paper, and 33 gallons of ink. we received 17 cases of mailing tubes. we are stocked. stacked. something. our shelves are laden with optimism.

yesterday, thursday, yann legendre came into the shop to make prints, with his brother julian, who is visiting from paris. they both had line drawings in hand when seth and i picked them up from sara's apartment in evanston. we got coffee, and headed to kinkos to make films. they are both quite professional poster designers, but they waned to run through making prints by hand at a screenprint shop. from kinkos, we went to TBM, i spliced their key plates together, and got them started cutting rubylith. sara came in and pretty much kicked butt all day, staying one step ahead of us on everything. we set up yann's first screen, printed fifty pieces, and moved to julian's print. we alternated between pieces for the day, breaking in the middle to have thai food with di. by 5pm, both guys had finished their prints, and hey both were staggeringly good in their own way.

dianogah has been practicing again, as much as possible - sunday and wednesday nights at our new space, which is a vast improvement from the old space. tuesday (5/21) we went to play at mark greenberg's studio, to practice with him. we played fine, but all on borrowed instruments, so the sound was *crazy*. the songs were almost new, in some ways. jasom and i stayed long after practice, talking with mark on his driveway.

last saturday (5/17), jason's boys had their fourth birthday party at the new house. di and i rode our bikes, ate a bunch of mini sandwiches, and generally had a great time.

the next day we took a break from painting our bedroom to go to the chandler center for jesse's second birthday party, because when *we* party, it's generally with three- and four-year olds. this weekend proves it.

friday (5/9), i worked alone at the shop until about 3pm, when i took the train down to the gene siskel film center to see sara's fiancé's film release. simon is finishing up at SAIC. the five films were good, but simon's film stood out to me, along with a humorous and scathing semi-personal documentary about american intervention in the cocao trade in colombia.

these screenings ended at 6pm, and i hoofed it down to 1104 s. wabash to see a new documentary by laura zinger about amos paul kennedy, jr, a personal/political letterpress postermaker in alabama, called "proceed and be bold". the film was very well done, and it was a pleasure to meet mr. kennedy, and to see ryan nole.

monday (5/19), om stack came intot he shop to print with sara, and i spent a couple hours getting flinchy set up as a business with the state, the IRS, and he government. formed a partnership, etc. and got our paperwork notarized.

wednesday (5/14) i got an email from poster designer tyler stout, who's printer had mistakenly shipped tyler's copies of some flight of the conchords prints to the band, who were playing in chicago on his night. tyler asked if i could go pick the prints up from the band, which i did, wih some amount of hassle, much to the merch lady's chagrin. from there, i went to reckless and myopic and got the new death cab, and a couple books. met jason for pizza slices, then hit quimby's, where we talked to chris ware for a while before starting to watch chip kidd read from his new book. sadly, jason and i soon had to leave to get to practice.

at this point, between the yard and the shop, we have planted these vegetables this year:
five types of tomato
sweet peppers
corn
broccoli
sting beans
sunflowers (large seed)
snap peas
leeks
lettuce (variety)
basil
cilantro
apple tree
cantoloupe
acorn squash

and more ferns and may apples and hens & chicks than one would consider shaking any sort of stick at.

we've been tending our compost pile carefully, hoping it would make the jump from 'cold compost' to shit-hot. turns out i found hot compost working just fine in our yard waste tote, where the lawn dudes put our grass clippings, so i moved as many clippings (and black decomposing pudding) as i could into the compost bin, but it didn't stay warm. when he yard dudes came on wednesday, i got them to unload the mower into the bin, and was delighted to find a steamy pile of quickly decomposing compost cooking itsself right up when i checked later. i appears our soil is all low in nitrogen, so this compost will go to immediate good use.

onight, di and i watched *lost* online, and then di jumped up and decided she was going for a bike ride, so we rode to the beach in the dark, and sat near the base of the light house for a while. it was just the break we needed.

i have to sleep now.

in brief

2008-05-19T22:10:00.002-05:00

the T key on my laptop does not appear to be working correctly, so i will need to do extra proofreading.

i have a week and a half to catch up on here, but i want to write about what just happened ten minutes ago, while it's still fresh.

we had dinner with andrew and xan at lulu's in evanston, hen walked around and ended up at kaffiene, a little NU coffee hangout.

drove home in the relative cold, and parked in the garage. di got out of the car first and walked to the house while i parked and closed the garage. walking up the yard, i saw di quickly come back around the house towards me, going "shhh! shit!" quietly. as a came towards her, she told me a coyote had just run past our front gate. i went out front, and there he was, just south of our house, standing in the splay of the streetlight at foster and darrow. di and i ducked down and sat on our front steps as he came trotting back north on our street, towards us, right in front of our house, and towards the park along the channel. our street, for once, had frozen completely still. no cars at either end of the block, no one in their front yards, no kids yelling.

the coyote was pale, with long fine legs. his appeared to be larger than other coyotes i've seen, but definitely had the slightly feline demeanor which (to my mind) separates them from wolves.

di and i decided to follow the coyote towards the park, a long greenway on both sides of the channel running miles between the north branch of the chicago river, north through lincolnwood, skokie, evanston, and into wilmette, where it joins lake michigan right near the bahai temple. the park, this greenway, passes about a block and a half north of our house. we walked towards the community gardens, and found the coyote in the middle of a large field, known to us as home to dozens of playful rabbits. crouching and pacing back and forth, the coyote was looking for a rabbit, crossing the field back and forth. he saw us, studied us, and went back to pacing as cold rain started pelting us, standing quietly on the gravel path. a couple times he passed under the park's dirty yellow streetlights. we watched him for ten minutes in the park.

as he headed east towards greenbay road, we decided to go home.

wedensday

2008-05-08T09:16:00.002-05:00

after a walk, i drove seth to TBM, where i spent the day answering emails, editioning the '1993 revisited' prints, and watching sara and patrick print the last colors on the modest mouse prints and the pretty in pink prints. chuck came back and took all the extra shelving i had at the shop (creating more space) and wired the 60amp box up for the huge-ass paper cutter. the apple store called to tell me the keyboard was in.

i took off around 4pm, dropped seth at home. i drove down dodge/california all the way to north avenue, where i saw the new dianogah practice space and picked up a key. from there, back north to sonnenzimmer to drop off some unused painting stretchers donated by nina, then over to kips at 6:30 where we loaded our gear out just before it started to rain.

down california in the downpour to the new spot again, to wait in the cars for a break in the deluge. i used to not mind loading gear, but the novelty has worn down a bit. when the rain slowed to merely a firm drenching, we started hauling gear into the space, which meant carrying it about 8 feet. and not up four stories of stairs, which was nice.

practice was fun, though, and sounded better than i would have expected. rubin the cat watched us, and fell asleep on the back of a warm computer monitor. new favorite practice cat.

i drove home on the very-under-construction highway, inspected the work paul and greg have been doing at the house, and went to bed. okay.

tuesday

2008-05-08T09:00:00.002-05:00

di and i drove to central street with seth for some reason (as opposed to walking). we got cinnamon rolls from great harvest, and a coffee cake ting for use later at TBM. seth pooped in the park. we all went to work.

sara arrived at work and i congratulated her on her engagement over the weekend. patrick arrived and i congratulated him on his birthday. sara and di spent the day printing diana's new 'breakfast at tiffany's' print, and patrick cleaned screens, moved shelving around to access the paper cutter, and helped me sign 400 '134 squirrels' books which were purchased by a reseller.

chuck came by to size up the electrical needs of the paper cutter. i ran to the apple store to get this laptop looked at - it has no C key, and typing that letter is sort of a pain, pushing way into the keypad. thanks, ocho. they would give me a whole new keyboard, but they had to order one.

tuesday night i talked to frantz on the phone a bunch about bikes, and spent some time in the garage building more frames for what i'm now calling 'the tomato coop' in the yard.

monday at TBM

2008-05-08T08:56:00.002-05:00

monday i rode to work on the surly with the trailer. i stopped at the store and picked up two big bags of potting soil, and rode the rest of the way a bit more slowly. at work, i shuffled around, poking a couple of different projects, and sat outside repotting the nine bean plants i have started in yogurt cups.

nick and nadine stopped by with sylvan and alex from switzerland, and we had a great visit. we had to go get donuts, of course.

they left, i drew some more, and eventually rode home.

i don't recall monday night, specifically.

sunday at home

2008-05-05T10:30:00.002-05:00

sunday we woke up and di went to the gym. i took seth and walked to central street for chai, as the weather warmed. by the time we crossed back over bridge street, seth was panting and tired, so we sat in the community garden for 20 minutes to cool down. back at the house, i spent most of the day working on framing in a cage around the raised tomato bed. had to drive over to TBM at one point to pick up stored lumber and cut it to size, but the only new wood i had to get were a couple 2x4 pressure-treated 12 footers. di made chicken burgers for dinner and we ate in the yard. later, i wrapped new handlebar tape on my old schwinn traveler, and watched a new episode of BSG online, while di toiled away in her basement studio.

okay.

saturday, to urbana and back (via berwyn)

2008-05-05T09:48:00.004-05:00

saturday i got up and went to TBM. loaded the car with prints for the lincoln bindery and for the high dive, and headed south on cicero, to 94 south. plowed through chicago with the windows open, enjoying the relative warmth, listening to the stereo loud: the radio department, battles, kings of convenience, spoon, jawbox, interpol, and a lot of shuffle.

rolled into urbana, got to the lake house at crystal lake park, and helped set up the surprise party. tedra, the woman who binds books for me, had organized a surprise party of about 50 people for her boss, chris, the owner of lincoln bindery for the last 30 years. he arrived, was appropriately surprised, and everyone had a great time. i was surprised to see mare payne, the woman who lived next door to the house where my old band (also called spoon) had practiced in urbana back in 1992. she and her husband, jim, had tried to be patient with us back then, but if i had been in their situation, i would have killed the band.

got a nice long visit with dennis rowan, the former printmaking teacher at U of I who i worked with for two semesters, and who had a profound and lasting effect on diana's work, and her interest in printmaking.

i forgot to mention that di had planned to go along for this trip, but was really feeling the looming deadline for her current book illustration project, and decided to stay home.

great lunch of BBQ and beans and coleslaw. i visited with tedra's mom and deb, dennis' lady friend, and dennis. i heard about both womens' brain tumors, and saw a mock-up a book deb is working on.

by 2:30, the party wound down. i looked at the goslings in the parking lot again, then drove across town to leave the '1993' prints at jupiters, where ward would pick them up later. stopped to pick up a present for ludo's first birthday, and got back on the highway. i listened to radiohead all the way north, and decided to let the GPS tell me how top get to frantz's house in berwyn. i never would have though to take 57 to 80 EAST to 294 northwest to 55 northeast to harlem ave. it worked out fine.

crazy first birthday with a bunch of kids under 4 running around, including arthur & clive, my dudes. turkey and beans and beans and deliciousness. there was a curious george piñata, and pineapple cake.

around 7:30, i took off for home, and decided to try taking harlem most of the way north. good drive.

home, visit, sleep.

friday: action!

2008-05-05T09:21:00.002-05:00

have i mentioned that the alarm goes off at 5:50 every morning, and we lay awake listening to NPR's traffic reporter relaying travel times, and laugh every day at the end of her report, when melba lara says "thank you abby." and abby ryan replies in a tiny voice, unlike her *reporting voice*, "you're welcome!"

friday i got right up and headed to kinkos to make key plate films for the '1993 revisited' print. i decided to try some tricks as far as using three key plates - one for the third color to be printed, (the outline of the wooly mammoth), another to be printed fifth, (as the outline of the ice block), and the third to be the outlines of the mammoth's feet and head, protruding from the ice.

got to work, started cutting and drawing in with my opaquing pen, and was actually ready when sara came in. sue arrived to take off the prints, jack came in, and patrick showed up a little later. me and four employees. this blows my mind. i draw mastodons in ice cubes, and now there are four people working for me. sara and patrick printed all day, while sue helped jack with the mail order and generally did the amazing sue-style clean-up.

by the end of the day, we had printed 380 pieces of a six color print - a new record for us, i think. especially considering it was finished less than 24 hours after i started the drawing (thursday night).

a crazy storm blew through right as we were finishing and cleaning up - rain going sideways, very high winds. i opted to drive patrick and sara home due to the long work day and the bad weather. dropped sara near metropolis, and patrick down near broadway & belmont, then came home. took seth for a walk with diana, and i went to bed.

tuesday, wednesday, thursday.

2008-05-05T09:06:00.003-05:00

tuesday and wednesday are sort of a blur to me now (writing on monday may 5). i worked on wine label designs. we ordered a ton of ink from diesel fuel prints in portland. sara and patrick took turns helping jack with the mail order. we printed the first color on the modest mouse prints, and i was pleased with the subtlety of the split fountain (which we later obliterated with subsequent screens). did we print the lincoln bindery prints on these days? i don't recall - i'll have to check previous posts.

we got a call at 7:20am thursday from the greyhound adoption group we work with. someone's dog had gotten loose in evanston, and was running. within 3 minutes, diana was out in her car, and i was out in mine with poor seth, who i woke up by throwing his collar on him and dragging him out the door. (normally, last thing to do before we leave in the morning is wake the dog up so he can go with us).

up and down mccormick, along the area we were told she was last sighted, heading south. an hour of looking, seth and i running through parks and down alleys, phone calls in to co-ordinate with other people out looking. i started to get an idea based on what little info i was able to get. seth and i headed back over near our house, and found the nine-year old female trotting tiredly down the sidewalk, half a block before heading across green bay road. seth yelped at her, she stopped in her tracks, and i got her into my car.

her owner, it turned out, had let rosie out into the yard for her morning piss, and came back to find the gate standing open, dog gone.

when i got into work around 9:30 thursday we plowed through printing the last five of the six colors on the modest mouse prints, though there were registration issues with the last color due to paper stretch (due to moisture). we printed about 40 of them, so i could get copies off to the festival, and took down the screen, to finish the run after the prints have dried for a couple days. we're under no immediate deadline for these now that the festival's copies are ready. sent patrick and sara home, and i ran to fedex to catch the last drop-off time. i went home, and stayed up until 1am reworking a new idea for the '1993 revisited' show in champaign on may 25. i want to see if we can plow through getting these prints done in time for me to take them with me on saturday morning when i drive down to urbana for the lincoln bindery 30th anniversary party.

monday, finally productive

2008-04-28T22:06:00.002-05:00

so sunday night, after posting here, i meant to finish working on the pretty in pink drawing, but instead, my mind wandered to the subject of battlestar galatica, and i ended up watching four episodes back to back online until 1am.

this morning i got up around 7 and out by 8. at TBM, i decided to start over, and soon ended up with a much better drawing for pretty in pink. i worked on that all day, on and off between putting out fires with the massive mail order boom we've got right now, due to the blue planet prints, and the first real mailing list email i have sent out, ever.

came home around 5. the broken C key on my laptop has finally fallen off like an old scab, so getting that key to work takes some attention.

now sitting in front of the fire, trying to draw the poster for the may 25 reunion show in champaign. dustin slater told me he's reading this blog, too. so that's seven people checking in periodically?

sunday, colder.

2008-04-27T19:40:00.004-05:00

woke at 5:50 again, and di and i got right up, somehow. she went for a run, while i walked seth up to central street for a chai. di came to find us while we were walking back, on her way home from the run. once home, we decided to hit a hardware store for a soil-testing kit and some bolts, so i could fix the broken joists we've found in the basement ceiling. i looked online to check the hours of the old man hardware store in wilmette (since i know the evanston one is closed on sundays) and found a different store out on linden, right near the end of the purple line train. we decided to ride bikes over there, and selected the fixed-gears. rode over to the store, discovering a new route across the channel at bryant(?) street. parked our bikes and swooned at seeing this great looking tiny coffee shop (closed sundays) across the street. di will come back and check this out during the week. stopped in a small, old grocery store to pick up various things, such as dog and suds rootbeer, then finally went into the hardware store,which was everything we were hoping for: cramped, shelves towering to the ceiling, small aisles, and old men working there, laughing with the other customers. we found what we wanted (bolts, soil test kit, doorbell buttons/bell/transformer), rode to panera to get di some coffee, and rode home, wandering through back streets.

[gary just told me he's reading my blog, which freaks me out a bit - i think that means there are six people here now. hi!]

at home, i tore out the diagonal struts holding the joists square, screwed in some 6 foot long 2 x 8's, and then bolted the whole thing together, five bolts in each of the two broken joists. the house was built in 1913, and has not been impeccably maintained. tore a bit of other stuff out of the basement, while di was in the garden weeding. chopped some stout bushes out which are growing up *in* the fence along the side of the house, tapping into our waste line to the street - the neighbors must have thought i was nuts, apparently swinging my axe into the chain link fence. i cooked chicken sausages and put them on hot dog buns, and di and i ate on the front steps, with seth watching us very very closely. we went in, showered, and i dressed in clean clothes for the first time in a week.

i started a fire in the wood stove, and set to updating the website. accidentally posted the complete set of the blue planet prints before i meant to, and got about ten order in the first ten minutes. fixed it, went to expressobeans to see what was up, hilarity ensued. i finished the updates, the prints went live, and we sold a bunch of them. hi gary.

now going to draw.

the week in TBM

2008-04-26T19:38:00.003-05:00

i've been doing a great job of coming up with things to write about, in my head, but a terrible job of actually logging the day-to-day in the last weeks, or months. this week was spent pretty continuously at the shop, printing and working on illustrations, getting some things done, failing to get some other important stuff done. this evening i went to TBM, after an all-day functional headache; i drank a big glass of water and realized with some degree of clarity that my actual day-to-day has become such a mess that it's not even worth complaining about anymore.

this week i had a dream i was sitting on the beach with ian mackaye, and he was teaching me keyboard shortcuts on my imac, which was just plopped into the sand.

tuesday i had lunch with tim hugh and erik nakamura, the owner of the giant robot chain of toy culture stores and magazine. wednesday night, stephanie and jason came to the shop to run through some guitar parts.

some of the rest of the week was spent exchanging emails with a movie star who had offered to buy one of my basses. he was very gracious, and we came to the agreement that my bass, while interesting, was not in 'collector's condition', and thus not worth the amount i had hoped to get for it. so now i still have this bass.

the dudes are still working at the house, so the second floor is still empty of furniture, and the holes in the walls are almost all fixed. the electricity is on.

i had planted beans in cups at work, and those came up this week. friday afternoon, i hung some metal frames on a brick wall out back at TBM, to act as trellises when the beans get tall enough.

thursday and friday, we printed posters for a special event. the prints are a surprise for the owner of the business, and will be for sale after next weekend.

thursday night we had dinner in downtown evanston with john and christy. we planned on riding our bikes, but the rain started pouring while we were still in the yard with our bikes. we gave up and hopped in the car. j &c were about half way to the restaurant when the rain hit, so we were all pretty soaked at the table, but dinner was excellent.

friday night we watched 'pretty in pink' an 'breakfast at tiffany's', for posters that i and di, respectively, am doing. whoa, grammar.

today, saturday, di and i woke at 5:50, and got up to take seth for a walk. i had seen that there was a garage sale nearby, but no garage sale was present at the address when we arrived. we were surprised and shaken by the cold temps this morning, despite the clear skies and sun. returning home, we left seth and went downtown to grocery shop, sat at unicorn cafe (di's new favorite space, where i worked on my PiP drawing), and shop for a few reference books. this afternoon i rode my bike to the old man hardware store on central to et some fittings for the rain barrels, and to pick up a switch for chuck the electrician, who was working today. di planted lettuce, i mended some garden hose, and then i finished reading 3001 (a.c.clark). we just ran to TBM to pick up some tools and lumber, and to bring the plants inside.

that's enough for this week.

sunday at the house

2008-04-22T06:04:00.003-05:00

sunday was spent at a couple garden centers and hardware stores, and then planting. we got four cypress trees for along the back fence, an apple tree for the middle of the back yard, a big bag of grass seed for the whole lawn, a bunch of pansies, four trillium plants, and (the big one) an oak tree which is arriving on thursday, which will be planted in the front yard. di got a hose reel, and i spent a couple hours, while motivated, cleaning the utility room in the basement. i also split the little bit of new firewood we've collected for this year. we laid out a tarp to start killing off the weeds in an area along the side of our yard where we'll be planting a prairie patch of aboriginal grasses. we started sunflowers in yogurt cups. i think that was all for sunday.

saturday, michigan to chicago

2008-04-22T05:50:00.002-05:00

woke early, cold, in the lumpy bed with too few blankets. seth was up, looking at me. waiting.

i dressed, we went out for a walk, then went back to bed, clothed. this time i slept better, but only until about 8. chad had been up for 15 minutes when i came staggering down. i ate two peanut butter and banana sandwiches, an we started in on yard work.

i spent most of the morning splitting logs down near the waterline, and stacked the incredibly soaked wood to dry. chad went around the house digging up unwanted yucca plants, seeding new grass, and raking mole hills flat. we collaborated on a dramatic removal of a very large branch which had fallen but remained dangling above the driveway, out of easy reach. a lasso was involved, and some smashing.

seth went back into the house, n chad and i took the rowboat across the lake. we landed at the public access, dragged the boat on shore, and walked up and down the road. we were confronted by the white-trashiest of drunken women, who wanted to talk at us about a house that had burned down. a different woman told us to get away from the burned house, acting like we were 8 year olds. "you boys get away from that driveway, it might gonna collapse."

we rowed back across, and seth was so hapy to see us that he actually ran around for the first time since we had arrived. he ran big loops around the house, figure-8-ing his way through the yard, and back around the house.

we cleaned up the house, packed the car, and took off. it smattered rain on the way home, but we made great time, and dropped chad home around 5:30. seth and i went home.

saturday night, i don't remember, specifically. i think i stayed home with di.

friday, to michigan

2008-04-21T18:54:00.002-05:00

friday i woke and packed a couple things in my bag. packed some food for seth an took his bed. we loaded the car and took off for wally's, to get the oil changed. while the car was on the lift, seth and i walked over to lawrence & pulaski to get a chai. the car was done when we got back.

we picked up chad from his condo near wally's and headed south on 90/94, onto the skyway, and into michigan. stopped for lunch and the bathroom, and seth didn't eat his food, so i left half of it for a stray cat i saw lurking in the reeds at the edge of the parking lot. as soon as we were in the car, the cat was eating the food.

we stopped at saint julain winery, and did some grocery shopping at the market. seth waited in the car

a bit later we were at chad and chris' new cabin, on a 160something acre lake in southwestern michigan. house was built in 1974, decorated, kept very clean, and sold 33 years later, furnished. the plates and bedsheets are amazing.

we ran out to the hardware stores in town to pick up some screws and parts we needed for some of the unanticipated repairs. the second store we went to seemed oddly familiar to me - i walked in and was sure i had been here before, but thought this was preposterous. as we left, i realized we were across the street from a place that john, christy, diana and i had parked when we rode our bikes on the trail to lake michigan a couple years ago. we had been in this hardware store to get trail permits.

back at the house, we installed a new exterior outlet on the foundation on the back of the house. i repaired the screen door on the front, which had been more or less ripped from it's hinges at some point by wind, apparently. we did some yard work, and collected downed branches.

eventually got the steaks out of the fridge, started the grill, microwaved the potatoes, and gave seth a new bone from the meat counter at the grocery store. dinner was awesome.

after dinner, we started a fire in the fire pit to burn the downed branches. sat by the fire until a bit after midnight, then went to bed.

thursday, later.

2008-04-21T18:44:00.002-05:00

yann came by the shop a little after 5, and we went to shallots, the kosher french restaurant half a block from TBM. the food was good, but 15% too pricey. i'd go there again, no problem, for a special occasion. we spent some time back at the shop, i gave him the grand tour, and we talked about the upcoming chicago international poster biennial a lot. we drove back to my house, so he could see the work we're doing, with the walls all open upstairs, and then i dropped him at his apartment in evanston, where he goes to visit sarah, since she's in school at kellog.

i headed down to logan square via the highway, which was mercifully clear, despite the two-lane reduction. 'my chemical romance' was playing at the congress theater, and had just let out as i arrived, so parking was easy, and the kids were hilarious and sad. i went to the gallery next door, where daniel danger's band was playing. the door guy recognized me, and i found daniel. we walked down to CVS for a coke and a candybar, and upon returning, found john w there talking to the other guys in daniel's band. john and i sat and talked in the basement while daniel's band, city safe from water (?), set up. i sat off to the side, right up at the front, when they played, an they were quite good. i'd go see them again. xan texted me during the show telling me to swing by.

after they played, i said goodnight to the folks and headed out. my car was much further than i had remembered it. xan & andrew's place looked dark, so i didn't stop in, just headed home.

back on track; thursday

2008-04-17T11:25:00.002-05:00

woke at 5:30, waited for the alarm to go off at 6. got up and headed to pick up my dad to take him to the airport. he's having a small adventure, heading to newark, finding a train into NJ, and buying a car, which he will drive home tomorrow.

as he hasn't flown in years, i told him about all the new TSA restrictions and protocol. dropped him off and headed back to TBM. picked up chai on the way.

morning was spent tying up loose ends. ten boxes of the "100 posters / 134 squirrels" books arrived. trying to figure which 'next' project is the most pressing.

my list:

"ice cream man" posters
two wine labels for CA winery
the f-holes poster
secret poster commission for a friend
may 25 champaign reunion show
burton snowboard
the recyclery poster
wolf park poster
new year (band) shirt
jody goodall illustration
'dogs in school' art print commission
dianogah LP cover sleeve design & printing
dianogah june tour posters
flatstock chicago poster
mudhoney poster
modest mouse poster
swell season x3 poster
poison arrows poster
3 or 4 art prints.

... at the moment, that's all i can think of.

monday through wednesday at TBM

2008-04-16T21:22:00.003-05:00

monday morning, becka from quatre tete came to pick up the covers, and we agreed that they looked a bit shit. the new bird machine site went live, and we got a ton of orders. i posted a long thread on gigposters about the new shop and site, and new prints. in the afternoon, i went to nathan's to drop off prints to be photographed. at 10pm, i went back to nathan's to pick up the prints and files.

tuesday morning i went to kinkos to make new films, to start over on the quatre tete records. patrick and i printed all day, and we finished at 8pm. all morning i was obsessed by the image of my face being smashed in a car crash. the quatre tete covers worked a lot better this time. i feel i will be happy about them. the first versions would have never made me feel good. at home, we watched 'there will be blood', though di fell asleep half way through.

wednesday, i took seth to the shop, editioned the remaining 2001 prints, burned a CDR of the newly shot prints (for yann and the biennial). seth stayed at the shop, i went out to lake forest high school to talk to two classes. went very well. i ate a sweet potato burrito for lunch. back to the shop, i got seth, and we headed downtown to yann's office. yann came down and brought seth and i up to see the new office. we met lance and the editor of step magazine.

north again, we stopped to pick up dog food, seth and i went home, and we went out for a long walk with diana. at home we sat in the dark yard, talking. paul stopped in to pick up some tools. i typed this up, feeling very distracted.

friday, saturday, sunday

2008-04-16T21:12:00.002-05:00

friday, i dunno. sara and simon were at the shop early with their moving van to take the flatfiles she bought from wayne. sue came in, and patrick worked. what did we do? i don't know. we recycled some stuff. patrick helped me run the first color on the quatre tete covers.

saturday was cold and rainy. in the morning i something something. around 1pm, i picked up andrew to help me find a semi-formal jacket, a sport coat, what do you call it? a blazer? what's the difference? this is why i asked andrew for his help. we went up and down milwaukee ave to a variety of shops. i sold some 7"s to reckless, some books to myopic. we did not find a jacket, despite andrew's good guidance. i am too big for good taste. we had some lunch at milk & honey.

sunday, i don't know. i went to the shop and was frustrated by the quatre tete covers, but printed the remaining two colors. had to burn the key plate twice. di came over to help me print.

how do i recount a week?

2008-04-10T21:51:00.002-05:00

this is why i KEEP this blog in the first place: to be able to recall what i did a few days ago. it's thursday, and i haven't entered anything in a week, which i think might be the longest gap since i started this back in september. i need to get back to doing this daily. the small details get lost.

friday, we finished printing the brigade posters, and found that mr. wayne next door was able to cut them for us, which saved a huge amount of effort on our part. it was great having sue, sara, patrick and jack all working at the same time today and thusday - we got a ton finished.

saturday, di and seth and i went to the shop. my dad was already there. i spent a couple hours writing an email response to a customer who needed a stern talking-to. the three of us discussed business plans extensively as they relate to current excitements. di and i went home around 3, and jason came by around 4 to discuss new plans for the dianogah record, as the budget has shrunk once again. saturday evening, diana and i rode our bikes up the greenbay trail to tower road, winnetka, and turned around. 12 miles round trip.

saturday night we watched the best movie of 2007: no country for old men. after that, we needed a bit of cheering, so we dropped in 'superbad', but got tired after a bit.

sunday morning we rode the same route again, but left the path at tower road to get coffee at panera. from there, we rode west on tower road to the north branch bike path which took us to the botanic gardens, where we ate lunch and strolled the grounds. the return trip took the same route (minus the stop at panera) and the round-trip was 21 miles.

sunday afternoon i went to the skokie library (surprisingly impressive by itself) for the opening of a show by alan magee, an artist from maine. i am still not sure exactly how he works, but he was a charming and worldly fellow. he and his wife, along with my friend bill anthony and his wife, stopped by TBM after the opening. while at the library, i took out arthur c clarke's 2010, and 2061, both of which i read during junior high. clarke's recent death got me thinking about several of his books - i will re-read 3001 next, and then childhood's end. then onto heinlein or p.k.dick.

later sunday, i went out to see glenn kotche and the bang on a can all-stars play at northwestern, with andrew and xan. john stirratt sat next to me, and john mcentire sat a few rows back. the performance was amazing. makes me want to learn to read music. before the show, we had stopped at lulu's in evanston to eat dinner. i had ramen soup.

monday, sara came in to work, though i was running late. she printed 2001s with patrick.

tuesday and wednesday, sara and patrick printed 2001 posters and jeff tweedy posters. i signed and numbered the 2001s to be shipped to texas, and continued my plow through the almost 600 brigade prints. during down time, patrick loaded images onto the new site, and we're almost ready to go live.

this whole week, we've got paul and greg working at the house on window casings and drywall, and chuck the electrician is opening up walls and putting all new wiring into the second floor. this means we're sleeping on the first floor (futon in the den), and all of our stuff is piled up in places where it's not supposed to be. greg removed much of the basement ceiling on wednesday, and the basement bathroom today (thursday). diana has done a great job of keeping "the boys" filled with cookies and pie.

elephants

2008-04-03T20:24:00.001-05:00

how can you see a video like this one, and not re-think our relationship with animals?

monday through thursday at TBM

2008-04-03T19:06:00.002-05:00

monday i worked alone at the shop. stayed up late working on a drawing for the short film brigade's new poster for this season.

tuesday i worked from about 7:30 am to 11 pm. cut films for the brigade print. printed the last color on the penguins, then editioned the 350 prints. sara and i shot photos of the blue planet series (thus far) and of 20 monoprints. i started posting them to etsy, and sold eight prints (at $100/ea) between tuesday night and thursday morning.

wednesday, sara and i printed the last three colors on the 'deep' poster for the blue planet series. this was the end of a huge project, and all i had left to do was sign, number, sort and ship them. and i gotta get paid. i went back home around noon to meet with chuck to talk about the new electrical work beginning at the house.

thursday morning, di and i decided that today's onslaught would be best approached after a walk to central street for chai. we got home, and i began moving the furniture out of our bedroom and the yoga room upstairs. by 10am, i had both those rooms empty, and enough out of the way in the office to allow chuck access to the first walls he'd be opening. i went to work.

today we had sara, and sue came in, and patrick had his first day. he's being hired on a one-month plan. i don't know how i'm going to make it through this month, so an extra set of hands seemed like a good idea. he spent the day loading images onto the new site, and rotated i as take-off for the printing for an hour here and there. overall, it went really well.

i changed plans a couple times today on the brigade prints. i depended on the white underprint for the bull to stand out from the background, and was sort of let down when the second color, a thin but dark slate blue didn't pop the bull shape enough. transparent white, very transparent blue, then citric yellow for the banner (worked great with the transparency) then the same yellow 'greened up' a bit for the overprint of the st. bernard and the cat. the plan wa to go with the key plate next, but i now think that the bull needs another color. thin red purple? the key plate will have to be light. tomorrow we'll know.

now di is downtown with the girls for becca's party for her new job. seth and i are at home listening to neko case, and i'm about to start in on drawing the '2001: a space odyssey' poster.

wayne next door started emptying his flat files this week, and bringing them over to me. i'm going to sort out some for sara, jason, and maybe sue d. and andrea t., then post the rest to gigposters.com.

sunday

2008-04-03T19:05:00.000-05:00

i do not recall sunday. it is now thursday.

saturday, emerald kennels and TBM

2008-03-29T19:45:00.003-05:00

this morning we woke up about 6:30, and stayed in bed talking until almost 8. finally got up and headed to the bank, returned yojimbo to the video store, and got two chais. we stopped at TBM for bit to bide our time, then got on the highway for wisconsin. an hour later we arrived at emerald kennels, the home of the new dogs of 'greyhounds only', the adoption group with whom we work.

seth was pleased to see all the other dogs visiting, and had a good time. the sun was out, it was in the 40's. about 20 dogs were loose in the 'yard' of the kennel, which is about two acres, fenced. once seth was comfortable, we let him off the leash to run, and he did great, for a bit. once he was really ready to run, he was leading he pack in a wide loop from the back of the yard towards all the people at the front, when a lone dog came across the pack at full speed, traveling perpendicular to the pack. this dog slammed into seth and sent him flying, end over end. he started screaming in pain as all the people ran towards the pile of dogs, with me in the lead. as is the nature of greyhounds in race mode, the other dogs we lunging at seth as he lay on the ground. a couple of us waded in and pulled them all away and started to check seth over. we got him to stop screaming, and i could see blood in his mouth, inside his muzzle. his rear legs appeared to hurt him a lot; i was pretty sure he had broken something. i talked to him and petted him while the medic woman looked his legs over, but nothing was obviously broken. after a few minutes, i decided to let him up, and he pulled himself to his feet, walking with a pretty good limp in his right rear leg, but smiling sheepishly. we walked around on leash, went out to walk the grounds outside the dog fence, and came back in. he was still limping, but appeared okay. after some more visiting, we decided it was probably time to go. it had been an hour and a half of dogtime for seth.

back in the car, back across 50 and down 41. we stopped for subway, and stopped at the chalet to try to get a couple plants for the shop. we ended up getting a dog bed, a squeak toy, and some seeds instead.

back to the shop, di spent the afternoon drawing some 'ex libris' plates while i went through boxes of books, shelving and trashing, filing, archiving. at 4pm we went home.

pizza in front of the blue planet DVD.

i got into the shower and had seth get in the tub to wash the mud off him. he hates this, but was a good sport.

now i'm typing in front of the fire as i try to finish up before we turn off the lights for earth hour.

g'night.

this week at the bird machine

2008-03-29T19:28:00.002-05:00

i spent the week signing blue planet prints, working on the quatre tete record cover, and cutting films and printing the blue planet posters. mat came in on wednesday, sara was in all week except monday, sue came in thursday. i managed to finally unpack a bunch of books and boxes in my office, up front. sara and sue both did great jobs of cleaning the shop - it's starting to look like i had hoped.

monday and wednesday, i rode my bike to work. 38 miles for the year, to date.

tuesday night, i drove to pearl to pick up some glow-in-the-dark inks, then met up with john h and jim kamp for burritos, followed by an evening of whiffle ball at some gym near north ave and halsted. it should have been fun, but i actually didn't enjoy it at all, which i am surprised to feel. about 16 guys played in this gym, only one semi-major injury requiring stitches, and i found it boring and frustrating. i left around 10, i think, though it went until midnight.

wednesday night, diana and i watched akira kurosawa's 'yojimbo'.

thursday night, in the snow & sleet, di and i drove to pick up xan, then kylie, and went to "members' night" at the field museum, where we saw some insanely amazing things from the collection, and watched events like, for example, the skinning of a bobcat. after this, we dropped kylie at home, and xan, di & i went to lula for a late dinner.

jason and i spent some time this week booking the june dianogah tour of the east coast, and setting dates for the october eurotour.

one night this week i had a dream that three people pinned me down and tried to tag my left hand, on the webbing between thumb and first finger, with a tag like one might find on the ear of a wild animal. another night i dreamt that ALL my pants had tar on them, from re-tarring a roof. on a third night, i dreamt i was at my parents' house and saw an ostrich handlebar bag sitting on a shelf, thus ruining the surprise of a birthday present.

friday, i stayed late at work, signing prints at my desk, listening to ida. i was very happy to be at the shop, and felt really peaceful, despite the huge number of almost-late poster jobs that are about to hit me next week.

sunday, easter.

2008-03-24T19:49:00.002-05:00

we slept late! almost 10am when we got up. i shaved. we walked up to central street and got chai. upon returning home, we tried to make some plans for the yard, including a plot of where things would go, but only decided on two or three trees. di baked cookies. i cued up the computer machine to watch LOST online, but we ran out of time...

around 3:30 we went to di's crazy cousin wendy's place for easter. lovely and fun as always. they usually arrange for games for everyone, despite the fact that the youngest cousin is 24. old people jumping up and down and shooting each other with plastic toys - typical for this side of the family. dinner included white castle burgers, for novelty. seth came with us, and really enjoyed seeing everyone.

drove home and watched the last bit of this week's LOST.

something something bed.

satuday

2008-03-24T19:40:00.003-05:00

di and i woe a little late, and went to the gym. i did the elliptical machine again, and stretched a bunch. hot tub, steam room, sauna. from there, we went home, grabbed seth, stopped to pick up some lunch, and went to TBM, where we spent the day in the office. di was drawing and painting for her gawain project, and i was editioning prints.

saturday night, we went to andrew & xan's for fish soup, wilted spinach, and pork. andrew was really concerned that all was overcooked, but it was perfect. on the way, we had stopped to get chocolates and wine, which were also enjoyed.

we watched a dvd of the electric company, and it was surprisingly enjoyable. morgan freeman, rita moreno, irene cara, and bill cosby. who knew? i remembered most of it. pretty great.

drove home in the cold and snow. bed, sleep.

friday

2008-03-24T19:35:00.003-05:00

worked all day, as snow fell heavily. mat and sara printed blue planet 'polar bear' prints, and i editioned orcas. cut films, and tried to stay two steps ahead.

diana and tom stack arrived at the shop around 5pm, and after showing tom aroud, we took off for home. dropped seth off, then went to central street to eat thai food. as tom and di went into the thai place, i popped into the video store to rent some DVDs.

back home (in the snow, about 5 inches), we had a good business meeting about flinchy, and made some tangible plans.

tom left, di and i sat down and watched 'i am legend', which, despite it's flaws, was far better than i expected. di fell asleep during the film, and i sent her off to bed when it ended. i stayed up and watched 'pirates of the caribbean 3', during which i came to realize that kiera knightly is quite hot. i don't usually go for the movie-star good looks, but wow.

off to bed around 3am. haven't done that for a while.

thursday

2008-03-20T22:26:00.002-05:00

tried to justify driving again, by bringing another bookcase to work. got it out of the basement and wedged into the civic so the hatchback wouldn't close an i couldn't et the bookcase out. di came to help me. i then tried to get it into the subaru, to no avail. frustrated, i left the bookcase in the garage and headed to kinko's, where i realized i had left some of my drawings at home. fortunately, i DID bring the one text film which i needed today, so it wasn't a total loss.

got to work, sara was already kicking ass. i took 15 minutes to clean out my car for the first time since winter began, and to vacuum it out. i left the windows and hatchback open all day, to try to dry it out. after 15 minutes, i felt better, and felt ready to begin the day.

was disappointed to see how the second color, the underside of the manta rays, had dried too dark overnight on the blue planet prints, so we set the press up and ran that color again, but mixed about 40% more white into the ink. this time it looked right.

mat arrived, and took over printing. i ran out to get our kitchen knives sharpened, and to buy a new drill for home. spent the rest of the day cutting blue planet films, and scanning layers in for the dianogah record cover.

at 5:30 we three left to pick up di. we slowly made our way out of evanston (bad traffic re: ridge ave repaving) and dropped sara off at her place. mat di and i tooled downtown, to anchor graphics, for a meeting about an upcoming gallery show.

dropped mat at the train, then di and i went grocery shopping. at home, i built a fire, collected wood from the garage. we both played with ocho, who was in attack mode, and i'm wading through emails now.

wednesday

2008-03-20T22:18:00.003-05:00

packed the car with a bunch of plywood boxes i use as shelves. will now have somewhere to put books at the shop. took a bunch of canned soup, and extra case of beer, and some books (along with seth) to the shop. sara helped me load in.

mat and sara printed more blue planet stuff today, and i unpacked some boxes. i cut films. took screens to chicago silkscreen for remeshing, and went to mat's studio to pick up the ink i had left there, only to realize i had left my keys at home. could not get in. i returned to TBM.

di called on her way home from the museum to say she was ordering thai food, and got me panang curry chicken. ggggghhhrrh.

seth and i went home, and i ate thai food with di. i stayed up late drawing text for the blue planet posters, and went to bed around 1:30.

tuesday

2008-03-20T22:15:00.002-05:00

rode my bike to work again today.

sara and mat printed all day while i burned screens and tried to stay two steps ahead of them. ate soup for lunch.

rode home in the rain.

planned to go see some frech dudes i met in bordeaux some years ago - their new band, adam keeler, was playing downtown. at the last minute, andrew and i decided to go see 10,000bc, instead. it was a terrible film, but the mammoths looked cool.

after the film, i dropped andrew at home, and i went to screwball press at 1am to pick up the ink i had left there. home, into bed.

monday, TBM

2008-03-17T23:17:00.003-05:00

rode my bike to work today, and it worked great. 4.68 miles each way. not so much mileage, but it's over nine miles a day i won't be driving.

spent the day answering emails, putting out fires, laying the groundwork for a june dianogah tour, and sporadically finishing the last of the last of the text for a patagonia shirt.

left work at 6:45, rode home in snow flurries, and went to the gym with di. light workout, rode the elliptical machine instead of the stationary bike. stretched, sat in the hot tub.

at home, we talked for a while in the living room, and di went to bed. i'm to follow momentarily.

sunday, austin to chicago. also, surly bike's first ride.

2008-03-16T22:11:00.003-05:00

woke at 6am, took the pup out.

di and i packed, called a cab, and said goodbye to the pup.

cab took us to the airport, where we realized our flight was at 9:50, a bit later than we expected. we had time to sit and i typed up the last several days of this blog. chad and krista and howard from T&G sat near us, waiting for the flight.

flight home was pleasantly boring. i actually slept a bit.

landed half an hour early, at 10:05, and my dad picked us up as soon as we got our bags (which were the first ones to come out of the conveyor). drove to the shop to get my car, and home. i took stephanie to the train, stopped to get new batteries for my cyclocomputer, and came home. we took a nap, listening to dick buckley on the radio.

i slept until 5pm, i think, and we decided to go for a bike ride and to get some groceries. it was colder out than expected, but the surly's first ride went well. very comfortable. did just under a modest 5 miles.

at home, di made soup, salad and grilled cheeses, and we watched the last two weeks of LOST online.

di's in bed, i'm going to bed. tomorrow will kick ass.

saturday, flatstock day 3

2008-03-16T22:10:00.001-05:00

i woke and wondered if we were supposed to be at an API meeting. i got dressed, in case, and heard geoff get up about 9:30. we ran out to jo's, then down to the convention center, where the API meeting covered the next couple flatstocks and bonnaroo and veegoose.

today's flatstock made up for yesterday's slowness. i ran into the guys from (the band) l'havre, from bordeaux. they are now in a different band, and live in paris, and were playing tonight, heading to chicago to play tuesday. i also met julien from andrew's french label, who hopes to show my work in paris.

sold a bunch of stuff, bought and traded for some good ones, and, as usual, took forever to clean up after 6pm, due to dealing with jody and lad for wholesale stuff.

took all the boxes to geoff and yancy's, and went way out to some sushi place. everything was good about this, except for for unagi in my una ju. i got all bones, and was quite unhappy.

back to the house, we hung out with the pup, walked down to amy's for ice cream, and soon went to bed with a snoring pup.

flatstock day 2

2008-03-16T22:08:00.001-05:00

woke again, still in texas.

geoff, di and i hopped in the car and (after stopping at jo's for turbos) headed to the convention center hotel for the group meeting with jody, for goodall gallery business. good meeting, no new surprises. light brunch foods, guy burwell hilarity. rob jones installs an edge of the surreal in all experiences.

we all trooped over to FS, and got set up for another day. i don't know what was wrong, but i sold a very small number of prints. at the end of the day, i had taken a little more that 10% of what i made the day before.

after 6, everyone headed to obsolete industries for the annual bbq. we sat with jason munn, dirk fowler, brady and lindsey from hammerpress, bryce mccloud and other folks. a little hispanic girl on the other side of the fence was toting around a chihuahua pup like it was a barbie. i borrowed fucik's bike and rode a couple blocks down to cafe mondi (or something) and got brownies for the table.

upon returning, someone mentioned that micah was still at the convention center, and that the doors to FS were unlocked, with folks going in and out. geoff, kendra and i tore over there, and, after emptying the room (again), found security to lock the place down. back to the party.

di and i soon got worned, so we took the mini and headed home and to bed. puppy, snoring.

we drifted in and out of sleep, unsure of the time, and never really getting properly into bed. late, the puppy started barking and carrying on, refusing to go to sleep. i took him out into the yard, and saw the lights in the coach house on, meaning everyone else was home. we tried to keep him quiet, but this only worked intermittently.

at 3am, geoff, yancy, grzeca and farley arrived, and geoff was in extremely fine form. hilarious, he jumped on di in bed, ran out to the coach house and jumped on the canadians, said hilarious stuff, and was beet red.

eventually, everyone settled in for a real sleep.

flatstock day 1

2008-03-16T22:06:00.001-05:00

woke and took the dog out. geoff and di and i, as well as morty and clay (aka the canadians) loaded more boxes into the cars and drove down to the convention center. i spent the morning helping other folks bring stuff in from their cars, as my boxes had not yet arrived with mr. slater. bill arrived around 11, and i slowly started setting up, though it was after 1pm, and flatstiock was open, before i was really ready to go.

the day went relatively quickly, and sales were good, boosted by the mistakes books, which some people knew to ask for. i sold out of those in the first hours.

my booth was between diana's and jason "small stakes" munn, across from dan black, with his friend jess, and their new company, landland.

during the afternoon, yancy took the pup to the vet, where his fleas and worms were confirmed, and the lumps on the scruff of his neck were diagnosed as abscesses, which the vet drained and for which the vet prescribed a round of antibiotics. the vet also pointed out a severe overbite, highlighting the dog's poor breeding. i fucking hate people.

after six, a bunch of us headed to polvo's for dinner. i rode with darret in his tiny bmw convertible, and we parked in philip's yard. at polvo's, elijah wood walked right past us and into the bathroom. most of the old school FS folks were there. i sipped off of di's margarita, and ended up getting quite messy. i'm such a lightweight. i wasn't too happy with myself.

back to geoff's, and nick was persuaded to play a couple of his pieces. the puppy found out about cats, as junebug found out there was a puppy at the house, and came out punching.

di and i snuck off to bed while people were still hanging. puppy came with us and went right to sleep, snoring away.

wednesday

2008-03-16T22:03:00.002-05:00

woke around 7, the puppy still asleep between us. he slept the night without fussing at all, snoring pleasantly. geoff and yancy were up as well. we walked to jo's for coffee. i have been drinking chai for months, only rarely having a mocha, but i knew going into this trip that i'd be drinking my special annual drink: the large iced turbo, from jo's, a great outdoor coffee shop about four blocks downhill from geoff and yancy's place. we walked all three dogs down, and the turbo was everything i remembered it being.

geoff and i picked up philip's truck, and we spent the morning shuttling all the flatstock boxes to the convention center. everyone shipped their posters ahead of time to geoff, so we took these down and loaded them in to each individual table. aesthetic apparatus shipped a hilariously huge pile of identical boxes.

for lunch, we went to homeslice, the pizza place near geoff's house. i ended up eating three big slices, and was delighted. heard bad stories about the maker of the poster documentary which is coming out soon.

hanging at the house, we got to meet fucik and erin's new daughter, junebug (human baby, different from junebug the cat). we admired the way they weren't overly careful with her, letting her crawl (supervised) across the turd-strewn yard, and play in the dog water bowl.

we went to guero's restaurant, and saw moonlight towers play a handful of songs outdoors. i was ticking pretty hard from the turbo earlier in the day. dan and michael apparatus arrived, and grzeca pulled up as we left guero's and walked to the woodland for dinner. i had a roast beef sandwich which was a bit less good that i might have hoped.

we drove downtown to see nick butcher play his 10:30 set, but got stuck in traffic for a disappointingly long time. the parking garage was full and closed, and we eventually gave up.

bill slater called me from his hotel 30 miles north of austin, but we decided that i'd just wait for him to drive into the city in the morning, as far as picking up my boxes of posters and books from him.

tuesday, to austin

2008-03-12T15:40:00.002-05:00

packed my clothes and took seth to TBM, where i compiled my application onto one disk, and burnt a couple copies, including hard copies, to be fedexed.

jack drove me and seth to lorna's laces, where we met up with di, dropped seth and the subaru with stephanie, and jack drove di and i to ohare.

flew to austin. also on our plane were brent from southern and jason and robin from sound opinions.

i slept a bit on the plane.

yancy picked us up, and drove us back towards her house. on the way, we saw someone drop a puppy off on the side of a busy road, so we U-turned and picked the young bull terrier mix up. very sweet dog. well-behaved and happy. he rode on my arms back to geoff & yancy's place. we bathed him and he hung out with rocketsauce and tater lu.

geoff made an insanely great dinner, four courses. chicken legs wrapped in bacon, with tomato & cottage cheese on bread, some ham pile with shredded ham on top. polenta. awesome across the board.

brent came by geoff's place to sleep on a couch. geoff and brent and i stayed up to wait for clay and morty to arrive, and watched jackass episodes back-to-back up to midnight, when i crashed. slept with a puppy wedged between di and i. slept really well.

monday

2008-03-12T15:37:00.002-05:00

sara was already at TBM when i got there. she stacked walrus prints, i editioned them. sara and jack prepped the boxes going to FS with bill slater. we sorted out which mistakes books were going where. nathan came by to shoot photos of prints, and i spent the rest of the day writing my application and preparing the images for an award for which i had been nominated.

met di at home at 7pm for dinner. i did some dishes, sat in front of the fire, drank home-made chai, and finally went to bed around 1am. di stayed up.

sunday

2008-03-12T15:24:00.002-05:00

did email stuff at home, then went to TBM to sit for jason's boys from 2:30-4pm. we make a cardboard box fort, drew for a little bit, and watched a bit of shrek 3. laurie geller called, and i went to pick her up at the drake. we drove north and met di at lucky platter for dinner, which fell just short of our usually cozy expectations. i drove laurie over past the bahai temple, and to our house for a bit. around 8:30, i drove laurie back to her hotel, then ran down to midway to pick up sara from her flight home for the weekend. ipod dumped all its songs on the way.

simon also went to pick sara up, so i drove them both home, then went to bed at my house, with my wife.

saturday, urbana and back

2008-03-12T15:07:00.002-05:00

i woke around 6 and headed out in the cold, driving south to urbana. stopped for chai, and made it down by 9am. visited with chris, got the 'mistakes' books, and headed over to an old favorite, farm & fleet. i used to buy clothes there when i was in college. they have everything from horse tack to work boots, to car parts and houseplants. i bought a dog toy and some other stuff, and got back on the highway north. arrived back at TBM by 12:30.

a guy named marvin came by to pick up the light table and screens i had been offering free on craigslist.

eventually, i ran the last color on the walruses, with my dad doing take-off. they turned out well.

went home and watched disc two of 'seven samurai'. amazing film.

friday

2008-03-12T14:58:00.002-05:00

headed out around 7:30am to get the subaru from wally's. got di into that car, now featuring new ball joints, and had wally fix the slow leak on the civic's back tire. went to the shop and never really got to printing the last color on the walruses. i editioned posters and worked on patagonia drawings.

headed home around 5, and andrew and xan came by for dinner. di made mushroom soup, we had salads and bread. sat in front of the fire until late.

thursday, it was

2008-03-06T21:26:00.002-06:00

woke early so di and i could take the subaru to wally's for work on the front end. we drove down and got there just before 8am. left the car with norm, and we went to starbucks for chai and cake. back north to TBM where we arrived just before pete the plumber, who worked on the dual breaker for the boiler supply line. dad arrived with casey the dog (who is fun and bonkers around seth). i spent the day editioning posters, moving tables, and trying to fucking finally finish drawing the patagonia revisions. wally called to tell me the car needs new ball joints for the front end. a bit expensive, but the car has 200k miles on it. oh well. the delivery truck came with the huge skid of french paper, and thankfully they sent a truck with a liftgate and a pallet jack. loading 1300 lbs of paper was no problem at all. bill slater came by for lunch - he's going to drive our stuff down to texas on tuesday. later, tony from metropolis came by with one of his dudes to pick up the huge 12' long table, which they will use at their roasting facility. this freed up a huge amount of space for us. very exciting. di took the car home, and my dad and i went to guitar works to try to get a couple parts for his garage sale banjo project. he dropped me at home, di had chicken and mashed potatoes for me, and we watched the first half of 'the seven samurai', which i loved.

wednesday

2008-03-05T21:33:00.002-06:00

i arrived at work at 7:30, and sara got there soon after. seth was so excited to see her walking across the street towards the shop that he was jumping up and down, barking.

tony from nonagon happened to be visiting the band & orchestra supply place next door, and decided to try to figure out where my shop was. our location was a pleasant surprise, and made his search very brief.

our mass of cardboard recycling was finally picked up, freeing up many square feet of floor space.

we went over setting up the press again, and ran the first color on the walrus prints. sara burned the second and third screens, and mat arrived. mat and sara printed those screens while i cut and burned the fourth and fifth screens. i started my final stab at editioning the 'animals & objects...' prints from the krannert show. packed FS16 prints to ship to mark pedini for hanging in austin.

sara and mat took off after four screens, i almost finished the a&o prints, and took off to pick up di, so we could go to the gym.

spent an hour and a half at the gym on the bike and stretching before getting in the hot tub and steamroom. all was good.

came home to try to recall the last four days via typing the blog. i swear, my brain just doesn't work well anymore for shit like this.

tuesday, at TBM

2008-03-05T21:22:00.003-06:00

i arrived around 8, sara was already there. di arrived a little later with seth. i started working on films for the blue planet prints.

around noon, mat arrived at the skokie swift, so di ran over to get him. sara and i finally built a new base to our older set of drying racks, and i repeatedly ran the screwgun into a particular spot on my finger, raising a blood blister. mat and sara printed the second, third, and fourth screens on the FS16 prints, and they turned out great. i decided to take advantage of having mat at the shop, and set to making an art print. i ended up with a drawin of twelve walrus heads (bodyless, but not decapitated) piled on top of each other. i ran to kinkos to make films, and started cutting rubylith. in the end, we didn't have time to start printing these today.

dropped mat and sara off at the swift terminal at 5:30, went home, feeling like i needed to go to the gym or for a bike ride. upon arriving home, i found di on her way to the gym, so i went. we stayed for 2 hours, and i felt great.

went home, got into bed, slept.

monday

2008-03-05T21:15:00.005-06:00

i arrived at work at 8am with films, fresh from kinkos. sara was already there. we cut films for the flatstock 16 posters, and i had sara splice together films to print new business cards. i showed sara how to cut rubylith, and she got it. we burned the first screens for the FS16 prints, mixed ink, walked through setting up the press, and printed the first color.

i talked to my contact at patagonia about the last bit of the revisions on the shirts.

we ate wheat bread with nutella on it.

dropped sara at the train, and went home. i cut the remaining films for the FS16 prints. i think we watched lost, online.

sunday

2008-03-05T21:15:00.001-06:00

will try to remember sunday.

saturday

2008-03-01T23:18:00.002-06:00

we got up, i walked seth, then took off for downtown evanston. we stopped to get groceries for making smoothies, and then hit the bank, and jamba juice, to get smoothies for drinking. dropped the groceries at home, and headed to abt electronics to finally try to get a new toaster oven and microwave.

di's lower lip is swollen and has bruised, but she's okay.

we eventually decided on a toaster oven and a microwave, (after a lot of indecision), made our purchases, and headed home.

and mueller came over to visit while he's in town from los angeles. he brought sandwiches! we had a good visit, heard about owen, showed him the house. andy and i went over to see TBM, and i sent him on his way to visit jason, hil and the twins. i came home.

did dishes, unpacked the new ovens, called gramma (left message) and my dad's aunt (her 67th wedding anniversary). oh, the laundry.

trying to catch up on emails, and this, the blogging.

di's in bed. i'm going to join her, and will try to not bash her up in any way this time.

friday, how interesting

2008-03-01T22:36:00.004-06:00

di came to work today, which was awesome. she painted at her desk up in the front, while sara and i worked in back, sorting through more fucking boxes. i'm not exactly sure where today went.

we dropped sara off at the train around 5, and di and i went to the apple store for a new keyboard. ocho the cat had pulled many keys off of both my computers last week (as i sit typing on my laptop with a shattered C key). he really dismantled my imac keyboard, and after reassembling all the pieces i could find, i was still out one E key, and the shift key had no spring to keep it up. time for a new keyboard. thanks, cat.

stopped at home briefly, then went to (1) the book cellar in lincoln square to sign some books as per the owner's request, (2) chicago printmaker's collaborative to drop off prints for a show this weekend, and (3) way down to the space that used to be 'open end gallery' at damen and carroll, to see coleman/mueller/resh and a bunch of other folks, including baltie from menthol and john fuller. sadly, we only stayed 15 minutes, then ran to schubas to see liam finn play - he was awesome.

back home.

we headed to bed - i was in bed first, laying face down. due to some weird choreography, as i lifted and turned my head to put the other side of my face down, diana brought her face close to me, resulting in me smashing the back of my head into her mouth. she jumped up and ran out of the room, bleeding everywhere. i felt my head for cuts and found di in the bathroom, blood gushing from a split lower lip. we tried taping the halves together and decided to go to the emergency room, where we arrived at 1am. soon, di received a local anesthetic shot right into the split, followed by five stitches. she was brave, and did a great job. we got home and into bed by three.

thursday

2008-03-01T22:16:00.002-06:00

thursday morning i went to kinkos to make films, then went to TBM and met up with sara. we made some plans, got to coating four screens for our first try, and sara set to reclaiming and/or cleaning the rest of the screens which have become a bit dusty during the rehabbing.

in hooking the power sprayer back up, i found that i had broken it (finally) after 9 years of working great. so long, old friend!

off to the store to get a new power sprayer and a whole pile of odds & ends: extra halogen bulbs for the exposure unit, new vents which we can close for the ductwork in the print area, spray nozzle for the hose, etc.

moved a bunch more crap around, posted a couple tables on craigslist.

we burned a screen, and got it right the first time. set up the press, and printed the credits page for the mistakes books. assembled the last signature for the books, and sent them off to urbana for binding.

i took off and went to the dianogah practice space,, where i met up with the guys, and john. we found out that there's a delay in the impending construction, so we don't *have* to be out this weekend. i think we're all agreed we should go anyway.

loaded out, mostly into john's van, and loaded into the hideout, while andrew was soundchecking. katie and tim bought us falafel lunches. amazingly good.

we spent a good amount of time soundchecking, both with andrew and alone, and were pretty comfortable. i went upstairs with my bass and kip's ipod to learn 'don't be scared', a handsome family cover that andrew had decided to include in the set, and 'spare-ohs'.

tonight's show was a benefit for obama's campaign. tickets were $100, and sold out last week.

we started at 8:30, and played fine. sorry, i don't feel like being too descriptive here. andrew and stephanie joined us for four or five songs, and all went fine. both times we played 'a breaks b' (including soundcheck) tonight were pretty much the best live versions we've done yet. we kept it short, and let andrew come on asap.

andrew played great, as always. he had nora up for three songs, then had us come up. jason messed a couple things up, but confidently, so it looked like he was being creative. i only had a few lapses, hopefully they weren't glaring.

so tired by the end of the night. we loaded out in the blowing snowstorm. i drove eric selz home, then went to kip's to load in to his basement. andrew called at 1am, when i was almost home, to see if i wanted pancakes, which i would have loved. too late.

into the bed.

wednesday

2008-02-28T00:25:00.002-06:00

seth and i went to work. sara arrived soon after, and we spent the day doing some serious sorting, caulking, tub-sealing, and cutting. we ran to chicago silkscreen to get emulsion, went to crosshair to pick up my exposure stuff and screens from matt. built the shelf for inside the darkroom. made the spray-out booth water tight and usable. cut up scrap trash wood. sorted and sorted and found places for things and cleaned. set up the exposure unit. i bought tickets for the may 25 show in champaign, and arranged for our paper delivery after the weekend.

dropped sara at the train around 5, then went to try to buy a new toaster and microwave. got frustrated at best buy and target. ran out of time, headed downtown.

arrived at xan's work to see a screening of the documentary she has been working on. 95% final cut. it looked great. i made a couple suggestions, and had to slip out early, to go to practice. stopped to get chai.

at practice we ran through most of what we'll play tomorrow at the hideout, set an order for the set, nd startd to clean out our practice space.

came home just before midnight.

tuesday, at TBM

2008-02-28T00:12:00.002-06:00

woke a bit late, i think - 8:45. ran out the door and got to the shop while sara was already working. we moved stuff around, made some decisions about which tables would stay and which would leave. ran over the basics of the presses.

at home, di had ordered thai food, which we ate while watching the first third of "2001". i ordered paper for the next bunch of jobs.

monday

2008-02-28T00:08:00.002-06:00

i went to the shop, i think.

i moved some stuff around. i can't remember, exactly, as it's late wednesday night, or thursday morning.

at 7pm, as a heavy snow was falling, di and i went to meet with meagan, barry, april & amy at the new vegan restaurant on simpson, so meagan could tell us about some neighborhood news re: peer boards for juvenile offenders. i had a black bean burgr which was really good.

sunday

2008-02-24T22:25:00.002-06:00

woke around 8 something. we went to get coffee/chai, and stopped in at TBM so di could see what had happened since wednesday. we drove out to the western burbs to see her folks and her brother. nice visit. we ate at the chinese buffet, a rich family tradition.

came home, and i fell asleep on the living room floor with seth, in front of the fire.

di decided to run to the library to get some reference material for an upcoming project, and i went with her.

the library is in a new building, and is really impressive. i was quite inspired, and want to read so many books now - i just spent my 20 minutes there wandering the aisles. i ended up picking up some CDs (dexter gordon, mingus, and two yo yo ma discs) and the movie 2001. happened upon the poster boom section, and was delighted to see my book in the shelves.

at home, di started in on her illustration, while i watched 'colour me kubrick', which i didn't like. it was a depressing movie with a collection of funny moments.

i made soup in di's new pot, and started in on documenting the last few days, and answering emails.

i just read that a cyclist named matt lynch was killed while running a red light today. one of the people who was with him while he died was a guy i talked to last night at the sonnenzimmer event.

saturday is diana's birthday

2008-02-24T22:14:00.002-06:00

we got up and went to TBM with seth. diana went to the gym.

i spent the day wiring the shop for internets, and moved more stuff into place. pete madler came by to pick up some prints, and i got a visit from tony dreyfuss and his daughters.

my folks went to our house in the afternoon to bring diana some blossoming cherry branches, which she loved. the folks came to TBM after that, and we got a visit.

dad took seth back to their house, and i went shopping with mom for a bit, including a trip to the new whole foods near their house. dropped mom at home, picked up seth, and headed back to our house. showered and took off for dinner with di.

met up with john & christy, andrew & xan at va pensiero in evanston. felt a little underdressed, but settled in nicely. it was extremely good to get some slow dinner time with these four friends, whom i don't think we've ever been together with (as six people). not a very good sentence, grammatically, but you know what i mean. dinner was great (i had lobster bisque and a ahi steak, as well as various meat plated, salads, breads, a spot of good wine, a cappuccino, and tiramisu). diana opened her presents, and loved the whole thing (though in retrospect she worried about bringing friends to such an expensive restaurant).

from there we stopped home momentarily, then headed to sonnenzimmer for an opening/party, where we saw tons of good folks, including tom stack and chris kerr and deedee sacci. orso played (including nick macri and jim elkington), and fun was had.

we took off around 11:30, i think, and headed home for bed.

friday

2008-02-24T21:39:00.002-06:00

okay. friday. i started sending the final files off to the UK, and decided to redraw one of the images. connection speed was somehow slow, so i burned the files to a disc and took them to TBM. sporadically sent them off during the day, while sara and i moved things around, and set up my drawing tables in the front office. holy crap, what a relief this is.

dropped sara at the train, and went to practice. andrew came by to run through some stuff, and our practice space sucks.

after practice, kip, andrew and i went to schubas to see shannon wright, and kings daughters & sons. it was weird, i knew most of the people there. seemed like only people in bands came to the show.

got home at 2am, slept well.

thursday

2008-02-24T21:32:00.003-06:00

i worked on the blue planet illustrations all morning, sending them off in pairs as they were finished. really happy with how they turned out, and the british people were as well.

around noon, i stopped by TBM, where jack and sara were spending the day sorting and filing posters in the flat files, newly relocated to the business office. awesome.

i picked up supplies and headed out to deerfield high school for an afternoon of talks and a print demo. the kids weren't too into it. i felt like only about 6 were connected to it at all.

andrea, the teacher who brought me out there, had a flat tire after we finished the demo, so i drove her to the train, then came home to finish the last blue planet drawings.

wednesday, judgement day. also, seth's birthday

2008-02-24T21:13:00.004-06:00

i've been running around a bit more than usual, and now sit typing this on sunday night, in front of the fire, with seth on the floor in front of me, and di drawing at the kitchen table ten feet away. dexter gordon on the stereo, and life is good. we made soup.
- - -
wednesday morning, i got to the shop around 8, with diana and seth. seth got plenty of extra petting today, since it's his ninth birthday.

di started in on grouting the spray-out booth, and i shuffled around doing random odd things which needed doing.

the water meter woman came by at 8:30 to install the new water meter. she loves dogs, and cites "foreigners" as the source of most of the world's problems. flooded basements, stray dogs, high property values, the weird ductwork in my building i had to remove back in august: all due to foreigners. huh, i didn't know.

she left, finally. sara arrived and set about touching up the paint on some of the trim. jack arrived, and we headed down to roscoe village to meet with the accountant. that was actually fun, and i came away feeling great about the business side of stuff.

we stopped at hot doug's on the way back, and ate our dogs in the car. BLT dogs. gggggghhhhgghh.

back at the shop, diana finished and took off with seth. the tub looks great. jack took off. the plumbing inspector arrived half an hour early, and was actually surprisingly chipper, attempting "humor" and "friendliness" which are traits i had previously not thought him capable of. he cited me for a newly-discovered missing check valve (which i subsequently called the plumber for), and said he wouldn't stand in the ay of us opening. awesome.

2pm rolled around, and the general building inspector came by. green light from steve.

erik the electrical inspector came back, scowled at most things, but gave us the go-ahead.

the fire inspector came by pushed the test buttons on the emergency lights, checked the dates on the charges on our extinguishers, and cited me for having too much clutter in the back of the building. well, duh. he said he'd come back in a couple weeks to see where we were at, but gave us the sign-off.

he left, and sara was beaming. i sat down and almost cried. so much relief. we took about two minutes to bask in the glow of passing the inspections, then set to work dragging things out from under tarps and plastic sheeting. sara needed to be on the train soon after 5pm, but we made some serious progress up to then.

dropped sara at the train, went home for 20 minutes, then headed out to practice. stephanie came to play, and we ran through the songs she plays on, focussing on the vocals. she left, and we covered a couple other things we're working on.

home, emails, and to bed.

tuesday

2008-02-19T22:46:00.002-06:00

got out as early as i could, met sara at the skokie swift. we got coffee (chai for me), then stopped at TBM for the permits stuff and to load in things from my car. went over to the hardware store to get a couple things, then village hall to request our final inspections, scheduled for wednesday at 2pm.

back to the shop to clean, install various switch plates, mop, and wait for chuck the electrician, who eventually arrived and installed all the lights.

i took off around 1pm to grab sandwiches at kaufman's, and drove home to meet up with andrew. we spent the afternoon playing some stuff for next week's show. some covers, some new material he hasn't finished writing. playing with andrew is both extremely inspiring and completely defeating. it's great to hear him play guitar or violin, just casually, but at the same time i have no hope of ever being anywhere near as talented as he is, and it sort of makes me want to stop farting around and stop playing music entirely. the same sort of feeling i get from looking closely at horkey's work. anyway, i had a great afternoon.

ran out around 5:15 to head down to northeastern illinois university, to talk to a class about my prints. went pretty well. i gave them the long lecture. 50% were really into it. kim ambriz was teaching in the room next door.

left there, stopped at home depot, and came home to emails, dog petting, and visiting with my wife in front of the fire.

if these inspections go fine tomorrow (which they should), then all is going to be great really really soon. we'll be up and running, sara will be able to train, the mail order will be back up, and we'll settle in for a huge load of productive and satisfying work.

i don't have any reason to expect it, but if the inspectors for some reason decide that i need X or Y (pronouns i will use to describe actual valid concerns with the building), then i don't know what will happen. i need to be printing. we need the income. i need to be able to meet these upcoming deadlines.

now, to bed.

monday

2008-02-19T22:43:00.003-06:00

went to TBM and finished putting up the trim, bought all remaining light fixtures, cleaned some of the tools, filled a hole in the floor, and a bunch of other random stuff.

left at 5, stopped at home, then went to kip's to load gear out of his basement in the bitter cold, into cars, and down to the practice space where we carried it up the four stories to our space. worked on some of the sings for next week's show.

home, emails, sleep.

sunday

2008-02-19T22:41:00.001-06:00

spent most of the day drawing blue planet stuff for the BBC.

a story.

2008-02-17T08:56:00.002-06:00

i just typed this up for a forum i post on, and though i'd repost it here.

a couple years ago, a really popular band was re-forming, and i was surprised to get a call from the singer, whom i had met years ago. he was asking me to audition for the band, which was really exciting.

i suggested that they talk to another mutual friend, who seemed to me to be the obvious choice. he said they wanted to try playing with four other people, though in the end they did go with the person i had originally suggested, the fifth audition.

before they settled on him, i did get to audition.

the audition was in a large rock club, during the day time.

i prepared the five songs they sent me, and thought they started out okay, though after the second or third song, the 'lead' guitarist's interest was obviously waning. we played them all, and some of them a couple times, though the guitar player kept sort of wandering off, away from the stage. soon the other guitarist/singer wandered off as well to talk to the manager, and i found myself working on the details of some confusing parts with the drummer, who had actually written the bass parts in the first place. he was very nice, very helpful. the 'lead' guitarist never said a word to me, i think, and i felt like he had some real disgust with me, for some reason.

anyway, i soon got ushered out with some sort of 'don't call us, we'll call you', and somehow the immediate knowledge that i wasn't the one for this band was not at all disappointing. i had spent a couple hours playing with one of my favorite bands. this is a very happy memory.

i saw them play a couple months later, with the obvious choice bass player, and they were great.

i can't listen to them anymore, though. they have sort of ruined themselves for me now.

saturday

2008-02-17T00:02:00.002-06:00

i woke and headed north to get chai, return the movie, go to the bank, and go grocery shopping.

spent most of the day drawing for the blue planet project, or building the fire up.

2:30 i went to TBM to pick up jason's sub tube, and went to his house for a photo shoot with nathan for the record cover. played with arthur & clive a bunch.

came home, found ocho had torn apart the keyboard for my laptop. spent half an hour rebuilding it. the C key is permanantly fuxxed, but seems to work okay.

di and i went to darrin & cindy's for a potluck dinner, saw a bunch of folks we see once a year or less, then came home.

ok.

friday

2008-02-15T23:20:00.003-06:00

woke with a pounding headache, due to the mouthguardlessness of my night and the low vodka tolerance i have.

arrived at TBM at 10am, in time to meet up with a woman for an interview for a magazine. we went over to starbucks to talk for about an hour, before she dropped me back off at TBM.

sara and i worked on putting up the last of the trim, cleaning, sorting, adding doorknobs, cleaning paul's wetsaw, etc.

di called me around 4:30, as there was an animal trapped in the exhaust pipe from our boiler in the basement of our house. i told her to turn off the thermostat, and she started to disconnect the pipe, to see what came out. i headed for home asap.

in transit, di called me to let me know that it was two starlings, which were now flying around the basement, to the consternation of the cats.

by the time i arrived home, the birds were outside.

we ordered thai food, went to pick it up, and rented 'eagle vs shark', which was pretty great. then we watched last night's LOST episode.

andrew called, we made plans for next week's show.

i answer emails, i type you blog, i go to bed.

thursday, oh man.

2008-02-15T22:48:00.002-06:00

woke and waited for the internet repair dude, who arrived on time, at 8am. he spent almost two hours replacing everything related to the cable for our house - he strung a new line all the way from the street to the house. he seemed underemployed, like he had a masters in electrical engineering or something.

went to TBM, arrived as sara was receiving a flower delivery from her mom. she was so excited.

we gritted our teeth and decided to plow into removing all the adhesive from the front office and hallway floors, which entailed a couple of trips to the hardware store to get mineral spirits and rags and gloves. we got the whole thing done in time for her to catch the train at 5pm.

i went home, bathed, lay in the tub on my aching back. di wasn't feeling good, so i took off to go to andrew & xan's house for a little party, where it was really nice to catch up with a bunch of folks. i drank just a wee bit too much vodka, and decided i'd be better off asleep in the extra bed, instead of driving home. woke at 4:15am, drove my aching head home.

i appear to have lost my mouthguard some time between leaving madison and going to bed wednesday night. if you know me, you know that this means i am in trouble, due to grinding my teeth. when i arrived home at 4:45am, i found an old temporary mouthguard, which i used for the remainder of the night.

tuesday and wednesday in madison

2008-02-15T22:40:00.002-06:00

tuesday and wednesday were spent in madison, with di dow the hall in the etching studio working with anna, and mat and i working with erin and heather and matt reedy in the screenprint studio. mat and i both made our own 8-screen prints, in editions of a couple dozen. mine is called 'madison exchange', after the bicycle race maneuver, and the way the bike in my image is leading an array of animals and objects across the page. mat's is another tight landscape / foliage scene based on a photo of sue, i believe. di made a two-plate etching with a fancy pigeon and a dodo.

we ate sandwiches, drank coffee, ate bagels in the morning, and i had a huge "bob's bad breath burger" at 'the weary traveler' on tuesday night. heather's bed was pretty good, but my back is just a bit too picky when it comes to pillows. hard to get up in the morning.

printing was more hand-pulling than i've done in years, of large screens. my stomach ached.

we left madison around 7 or so on wednesday night,a nd drove home. i dropped di at her car, and took mat home to hyde park. on the way back north, i listened to rebecca gates.

monday, to madison

2008-02-12T09:19:00.000-06:00

woke around 5:30, got back to work on the drawing. took seth out for a brief walk, then packed while di took seth to my folks' house. di returned, we packed the car, and took off to pick up mat from the howard street station. stopped to get chai, then to fedex the disk to patagonia and to make films for my madison print. took to the highways. di plugged in the GPS unit her brother had given us for christmas, and figured out how to use it. we headed north and then west, stopping to get crappy burger king veggie burgers. arrived in madison around 12:45.

heather met up with us, and we spent the afternoon slowly getting set in the humanities building. mat and i cut films, di started working on her copper plate with ana, heather's roommate. we got coffee and snacks mid-afternoon.

the obama benefit, featuring andrew bird and dianogah, was confirmed and announced today.

by 8pm, we were done for the day, and went to 'the weary traveler' with heather, matt reedy, ana, and erin. i had the half-pound "bad breath burger", with cottage cheese on it. it was amazing. ginger beer.

i haven't mentioned how crappin cold it was all day. sub-zero. painful.

upon leaving the restaurant, we found ana's car had been towed, but was retrieved from a nearby side street. we all drove back to ana's and heather's place, played with the cat, and went to bed.

i had good dreams, though i don't remember them.

sunday

2008-02-12T09:18:00.000-06:00

went to bed at 4:30 am, woke at 7am.

went to nick & nadine's for dinner, fell asleep on their couch immediately after.

saturday, milwaukee

2008-02-12T09:17:00.001-06:00

dianogah played to twenty people in milwaukee and earned $11.50.

the weather was crappy going north, and worse coming home at 2am. the high winds and heavy snow made for some exciting 2am driving.

friday, to champaign and back

2008-02-09T15:09:00.000-06:00

woke around 5:30, left the house just before 6am. the weather was a bit shit, very wet snow/sleet falling as i got through downtown chicago as fast as i could. the weather kept up pretty much until i crossed the kankakee river (flooded), at which point the sun was up, and out, and the roads were clear.

arrived at lincoln bindery at 8:45, dropped off the mistakes books, and headed over to the art & design building. two of jennifer's students (sam and brett) met me in the parking lot and we loaded the traveling press and my demo prints into a classroom, then went to krannert museum where a surprising number of students and faculty had gathered for my talk.

change of plans: i decided the whole thing would go better with my slide show, so i asked for a projector and screen. got those set up, people sat down on portable benches they got from the museum, and i started in. the talk went well, with lots of questions about the process and my business.

we moved to the class room for the demo, and probably 75 people came along. typical demo, went fine. it was a bit slow, since everyone wanted turns printing, but many folks stuck around all the way through. tim stevens and brian reedy (formerly of lonely trailer) were both there, as was ed weiskamp, who runs the screenprint shirt shop in champaign.

upstairs with jennifer, walter, ed, tim van laar, and a couple students for some lunch and conversation about who's-doing-what-now.

i took off at 2:45 or so and headed north, trying to beat rush hour traffic. did fine until i got near homewood, where a cop had pulled someone over, and traffic was stopped for miles. sped up again, then stopped from comiskey park up to montrose. took that opportunity to make a couple calls, touching base with xan and andrew in hawaii, making sure turin had finished tweaking my surly, and talking to justin in LA, who is coding our 'newer' new TBM.com.

stopped by the video store to get 'the last king of scotland' and '3:10 to yuma', went home to di and some fresh hot mushroom soup, and watched both movies right up to bedtime.