On the Way

So growing up, I always thought it was weird that my family would tape-record family gatherings. I mean, it’d just be like people sitting around, eating and drinking, and telling stories about “that one when when so-and-so did whatever…”. I’ve got tapes sitting on my bookcase right now of such gatherings, tapes that I haven’t listened to every. I mean, this is what Polish people (or at least my Polish people) do. They make tapes of stuff.

When I was a kid, I would start recording “everyday life”, too. I’ve never really thought much about it.

Until tonight.

Recently, I’ve been listening to podcasts of This American Life or Radio Lab on my iPod as I lay me down to sleep. I often listen to the characteristics in the voices of the people interviewed on these shows and be like “wow!! these people are so cool. They’re so normal, I wish I could be normal and cool.”

Then I realized that “my people” are the “original ganstas”. We sat around with the little magnetic tape recorders years before Apple even made the IIe. We created artifacts of Polish-American culture, capturing moments of tenderness and vulnerability and monotony.

Ira Glass eat your heart out.

My friend Nathan linked to this sweet video. Macs are neato.

I went and saw the Chicago Fire play (and, unfortunately, lose to) the Houston Dynamo Saturday night.  In the pouring rain. Toyota Park is a great stadium, too. I’d like to go again on Wednesday night to see the Fire play Kraków Wisła FC. (Wisła’s stadium is across the street from the building where I took language classes last summer when I was visiting my mom. Some of my classmates and I went to the pub next to the stadium for a beer before class.) With fees and parking, though, tickets are $45. Grrr.

I’m so one of these people.

…work finds you when you don’t want to be found.

We’ll keep that nebulous for now. Ask me for details via some other medium.

This song is hilarious. Listen on her MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/janesiberrysheeba.Thanks to RadioParadise (http://radioparadise.com) for introducing me. 

I saw Eddia Izzard last night. He did standup for close to two hours nonstop; the guy didn’t even have a bottle of water (or anything else to drink for that matter) on the stage. I’d say about a third of his set was making fun of God, Jesus, the Bible, and his perceived ridiculousness of things divine and sacred. While there were legitimately funny parts of his show (eg. the parts where he wasn’t being so sacrilegious), so much of it was just uncomfortable and offensive. To pay $63/ticket to sit there and be subjected to such mockery was disappointing, and I genuinely feel sad for the guy. (I would have been less offended if he brought me up on the stage and ripped on me the whole time: it’s not like I’m in any position of authority on a cosmic scale.)I understand people doing provocative and racy things for the sake of “art” and entertainment, to get a rise out of people, but his show came across as angry and, frankly, uncreative. 

My friend called me the other day and asked  me if I wanted to go see Eddie Izzard at the Chicago Theatre tonight. (He got the ticket for his girlfriend, who wasn’t able to go in the end.) I didn’t know who he was talking about at first, but after seeing the list of movies he’s been in, I knew who he is.This will be my first stand-up comedy show. 

Tom Waits’ “Step Right Up” is bringing a smile to my face this afternoon as I work.

I’m working from the back porch again today–for one the second or third time this year. Nice breeze. Birds chirping. Very nice.I’m trying to get back in a rhythm now after Holy Week. Christ is risen!