bad sandwich chronicles

Hey hey y’all. Thanks to everyone who voted for Bad Sandwich Chronicles for best blog and best twitter for the Chicago Reader’s best of 2013 poll. It’s over today so, well…good effort. It’s all in the hands of the gods now. Thanks.

For those of you who don’t know, my band, the Lawrence Arms, has been in the studio for the past 3 weeks. Yesterday saw Chris and I both finish our lead vocals. All that’s left are backing vocals, a few bass fixes and all the wacky ambient, textural thematic crap that ties everything together and we’ll have a new record on our hands. Thanks for your patience. It’s been 4 years since we released anything (2009’s masterpiece EP, Buttsweat and Tears) and an almost unbelievable seven (7!!) years since our last full length. That’s a long time.  In that time, we’ve somehow not faded into regrettable obscurity, and that’s truly awesome. We couldn’t be happier to have such rad fans and, while I don’t know that any record can live up to seven years of expectations, I think we’ve got a really great batch of songs on our hands here. I was getting goosebumps singing on one of Chris’s tunes last night. We definitely are stoked and I hope you guys like it when it finally sees the light of day.

Another thing that’s going around the Lawrence Arms camp is a case of Vegas fever. Tomorrow morning, before most of you have even had a chance to get up, barf and head to Walgreens for your plan B pills, we’ll be desert bound. Tomorrow night we’re playing a show with Nothington to help kick off Punk Rock Bowling. It should be fun. Do you want to go? It’s sold out, but we’ve got some guest list spots. Just find me. I’ll be around. Interesting trades will be considered. I haven’t been to Vegas in years and I look forward to seeing everything again almost as much as I’m looking forward to getting on the plane on Sunday and thinking “get me the fuck out of this hellhole. I never want to see this town again!” like I always do when I leave Vegas, (simple rule of thumb: no matter how long you’re in Vegas, it’s always one day too many).

Finally, I just watched that documentary about Zach Sobiech. For those of you who don’t know, Zach is a recently deceased Minnesota teen who lived the last significant bit of his life knowing that he had terminal cancer. It sounds like it would be a drag of a viewing…I realize this. If things were switched, and you were telling me to watch some movie about a kid dying, I’d say something to the effect of “man, my life is sad and depressing enough. I’ve already got a lot of energy earmarked to preserve that bubble around my soul that fends off the darkness of encroaching mortality. Thanks anyway!” However, this movie, this kid…He’s truly amazing. I watched it and it’s not sad. It’s one of the most amazing celebrations of what makes life worthwhile I’ve ever seen. I mean…I don’t know how to say this without it sounding like bullshit, but it’s a very happy movie.

This is kind of hard to explain, but, since I have nothing better to do, I’m gonna try. We’re all dying. No matter what you have going on right now, today could very well be your last day on earth. You could have an aneurism or get hit by a car or get shot in the dick or whatever. We pretend we’re not dying, because ugh…dying is a drag at best and horrifyingly, encompassingly permanent at worst. Generally, the standard model of dealing with death is to either fully ignore it or to fetishize it in some way that repurposes it as something that’s not death (your afterlifes, your creepy dark moody gothness, whatever…it bears mentioning that death isn’t dark and spooky any more than death is pink and full of clowns. To ascribe anything to it at all is [probably] wishful thinking and [definitely] wild, blind-ass speculation). What this little bit of mental gymnastics does is allow us to feel like we’ll be around forever. Consciously, we know this isn’t the case, but since our brains literally can’t conceive of a time when we weren’t there to observe and conceive of things, our lives kind of play out like eternity, even though they’re woefully finite.

This view can make it really, really easy to not appreciate what’s going on here. It’s easy to get bummed out and be revolted by loud noises, peoples’ lame jeans, war, the music of the Doors, whatever, but all of these things have positive sides to them that we ignore because the gymnastics of finding joy in even the shittiest of things is at odds with the gymnastics involved in pretending that we’re not gonna die. And this is what I got out of that documentary.

In the movie, Zach is dying. He actually dies at the end (though that’s an epilogue…you don’t see that part). He says shit like “yeah, I’m dying.” He knows. He’s dying just like I’m dying and you’re dying, but he’s brave. He faces it and he admits it, and as a result, the goggles come off and he’s seeing life for the wondrous joy that it is, and now, basking in the glow of having watched this awesome movie, I kind of see it too. Loud noises…it’s amazing that we live in a world where we can construct huge buildings, rip down huge buildings, send ambulances to people who need them and continue to do the little things we need to do every day even as buildings go up and come down right next to us. It’s fucking amazing that we’ve got this system of sounds in place that is so universal that I can understand what this guy on the train means when he screams about how the aliens are after him.

Those lame jeans on that person? Man, that guy likes those jeans and there’s something inherently sweet in someone putting themselves out there. That guy, at some point, put those jeans on and thought “yeah…these kind of make my legs look pretty close to the way I want them to” and I find that to be really sweet. Conversely, how awesome is it that I live in a situation where someone’s jeans are worth thinking about at all? I don’t want to sound like a hippy, so I’m gonna stop short of using words like “blessed” but lemme tell you, people huddled in attics, hiding from storm troopers don’t probably spend a lot of time rolling their eyes at each others’ choice in pants.

Speaking of war, it’s horrible. No one disputes that. How lucky am I to live in a world where war is largely theoretical to me? How wonderful is it that even as shitty people kill innocents in the name of my country, that there are other people out there who think and recognize, as I do, that the entire thing is a shitty tragedy and a crime? People DO care about things and dedicate their lives to attempting to better them. That’s pretty great. The Doors? Yeah, they suck ass, but the fact that they exist reminds me that there are plenty of bands out there who DON’T suck…If the Doors were the only band in the world (and what a dark world that would be), I’d probably like them by default. Almost nothing on earth is so overwhelmingly life affirming as the fact that I can hate the shit out of the Doors because I have so many options. You’re crowded on the subway? That’s because you’re part of a huge group of living things like you that, despite how things may seem, tend to come together and collectively try, mourn, laugh, work, take care of kids, whatever. Does this happen all the time? No. Are there horrors that are daily perpetrated by humanity? Sure. That doesn’t change the fact that there ARE things to love all over the place.

This movie is about a kid who knows what being alive is because he (like us) is only here for a very short time, and, because he’s brave as shit, he’s decided to squeeze every drop of love and awesomeness he can out of it. The only difference is that he realizes that his days are numbered. Yours are too. Before you know it, all this will be gone. You can cry about it or you can get out there and fuck em all.

Anyway, really, really great movie. RIP Zach.

We’ll see you guys in Vegas. Xoxoxoxoxo

BK

Hi guys. First up: Have you gone over to the Chicago Reader’s “Best of 2013” ballot and voted for Bad Sandwich Chronicles for best local blog yet? You really should. I’d be super grateful. We won last year and I think, with your help we can win again. If you’re into it, you can also vote for Red Scare for best local label, Ground Control (run by former Broadways, Slapstick and Honor System member Dan Hannaway) for best vegetarian Restaurant,  and Katie over at Gman for best bartender. There are also funny categories like “best power couple” which I’m sure you guys can creatively answer if you’re really bored. Please vote. I have so little joy in this life. Thanks, y’all.

Secondly: The Lawrence Arms have finished tracking drums for 16 songs. Chris started guitars yesterday and will continue today. Everything sounds SUPER good so far and we’re stoked for y’all to hear it. So yeah…should be cool. Now, onto the big stuff…

The other day I was sleuthing around on the interwebs looking for something cool to pass the time when I came across some homemade pornography. This pornography was completely verite, and it was set inside a trailer home. A few couples were over and they were all doing the things you do while appearing in pornography. These couples were uh…’unattractive’ is a pretty decent way to put it. They were kind of old and out of shape. I’d guess the median age was about fifty. There were at least three guys and at least two women in this trailer home. The lights were down, but it was midday, so everything was kind of in silhouette, and everyone was just sorta casually fuckin and suckin and filming and jiggling around.

The whole thing was pretty low-key, and I’m not above thinking that some old people having a casual trailer park group bang is pretty righteous. I enjoy the idea of people in porn banging because they really are super into it and fucking just happens to be what just came up over the course of sitting around the trailer, and they decided to film it and put it online for strangers to whack off to because that’s even hotter. And I don’t care really if people are old and out of shape. Sometimes that’s pretty interesting too.

In short, the whole scene was pretty cool. Living in a trailer park has gotta suck the dick off a dog. If it didn’t, rich people would live in trailer parks, but according to my last count, none do. In fact, the only people I know of who live in trailer parks are poor people, meth cookers and fugitives. Among other inconveniences, in a trailer park, the poo all has to go to a septic tank and that probably makes the earth above it soft and nasty, especially when it’s humid. In fact, I’d say that one of the only good things about living in the trailer park is probably all the casual day orgies that the residents get into now and again. And frankly, that’s probably a pretty decent perk. Is it totally worth it? Nah. Probably not, but it’s a definite silver lining.

I bring all this up only to fully illustrate that the actual ‘boning’ part of this video didn’t weird me out at all. Good on ‘em, I say. The thing that was so weird about it is that throughout the whole thing, the participants and the camera guy were just casually talking about flood insurance and different sorts of escrow deals and stuff. Like, here’s an old guy in a mustache, wearing only a captain’s hat, gripping the rolls of a grandmother who’s blowing him, casually saying to the guy who’s fucking her from behind “yeah, so we were really blessed, because we put our down payment in, but it turned out the bank had sold our loan, so the cashiers’ check came back, and then, the next day the property was just devastated by that storm.” The camera guy assents…’yeah. Y’all are lucky. Me n’ Tracy [not her real name…well, maybe it is. I don’t remember] had a very similar thing happen when we lived down in Decatur Springs (names and places have been changed because I don’t remember them) and that branch snapped off that tree and fell….” And on and on like this. All the while, they’re just flipping each other around and writhing away. It’s pretty weird.

I mean, dude…How fucking boring are old people? Even in the heat of relatively hot, semi-random group passion they have to talk about property tax and shit? Yawn. I’d much rather be semi-young, sitting alone in my darkened room, typing ABOUT old people talking about property taxes. That’s the way to go, yo.

Don’t forget to vote!

I have a question. Can’t we all like something in its entirety without irony, agendas or apologies? I’m of course referring to the heroism of Charles Ramsay. For those precious few of you who don’t know, Charles Ramsay is the dude…and this next part is apparently super important: the black dude with cracked, fucked up teeth, a dirty undershirt and some pretty Beethoven-esque hair who rescued three ladies from a decade of imprisonment, rape and torture in Cleveland earlier this week. Charles Ramsay, when interviewed, and in the recording of his 911 call, really has, thus far, had a way with words that’s compelling and frankly, awesome. He said “I knew there was something wrong when a pretty little white girl ran into a black man’s arms. Something is wrong here! Dead giveaway!” when interviewed at the scene. During his call to 911 when the dispatcher asks if the victims need an ambulance he says something to the effect of “shit, an ambulance? Yeah. She needs everything. She’s been locked up for ten years. Put yourself in her shoes.” He also rattles this shit off in a pretty awesome cadence. He’s great.

Because of his bravery and the universal stupidity of the internet, in the last few days, Charles Ramsay has been hailed as a hero, pointed to as the living embodiment of the cyber-minstrel show that is the internet meme factory, been repeatedly lauded/derided for being intelligent, dumb, well spoken, a crackhead, a savior, someone who should run for mayor, an example of classism, an unfortunate innocent who has no idea what is about to happen to his life and of course, the heir apparent to Sweet Brown, Antoine Dodson, the Alabama leprechaun et al.

You guys remember the Alabama leprechaun news story? That shit was fucked up. If it was, in fact, real (and my research indicates that it IS[!!!!!!!]), then there’s really nothing to get from it beyond “man, what a bunch of dumb motherfuckers.” Whether it’s a race thing (I think to some idiots out there it definitely is) or a class thing (vastly more likely/common), it’s not entertainment that comes from anything other than the desire to laugh directly in the face of people who try to pass off PVC piping as an ancient flute. But Charles Ramsay ain’t that (and I don’t think Sweet Brown or Antoine Dodson are either, but I’m getting ahead of myself a bit).

The thing about Charles Ramsay is this: He’s black. He’s so black and poor that there’s no way to consume and evaluate his image in this day and age without registering those things. He talks in quick, profanity laden colloquialisms. His teeth are broken. He’s wearing a classic “drunk dad” stained undershirt. For this reason, I’ve noticed that a lot of progressive types have their underpants in a bunch with an “ugh…they’re trotting out another internet meme minstrel show. People just love to laugh at poor black guys. Enjoy your Step n’ Fetchit routine, shitheads of the world.”  Meanwhile, the other side of white/upper middle class dildodom that’s taken with this dude is hastening to point out how ‘remarkably intelligent’ he is and how he “knows not to curse when he’s being interviewed on tv, switching up his syntax like a true master of the language,” and generally saying “we like this guy because he’s a hero! And all that stuff you THINK we like about him, well, if you’d pay a little attention, you’d notice that he’s not actually doing that stuff!”

Both of these attitudes seem remarkably shitty to me. They’re less shitty than the “this dude’s a dumb coon” attitude that I ASSUME is out there (but haven’t seen, if I’m being honest), but not by much.  I mean, for one thing, who DOESN’T know that you aren’t supposed to curse on TV? That’s not exactly rocket science.  Assessing that white people, in general, and particularly ‘pretty white girls,’ have a history of not trusting black men isn’t an indicator that he’s a genius. It’s an indicator that he exists on the earth. And more to the point, his being a hero, and being a great interview DOESN’T REQUIRE HIM TO BE ANY SORT OF BRILLIANT GENIUS. And acknowledging that fact doesn’t make me an implicit audience member at a minstrel show. Here’s the other thing:

Is this about race and/or class? Maybe a little, but let’s start at the beginning. This dude didn’t see a leprechaun and didn’t just escape from a house fire. This guy rescued three women from a decade of captivity. That’s a pretty big, insane deal. So right away, he’s got massive goodwill on his side. Does his blackness and poorness inform his diction and worldview? Of course it fucking does! He’s black and poor. And unless I’m missing a big part of this story, he’s probably been both of those things for a while. Why then, is it not acceptable to just really dig this dude who did this really courageous thing without tiptoeing around these parts of who he is? The fact is, Charles Ramsay is a poor, black dude who happens to be awesome and who did something pretty cool. I don’t see why I can’t just like him all the way without defending that or bending over backwards to acknowledge that we’re all entwined in some sort of part of cultural hegemony.

For the record: I don’t know if Charles Ramsay is smart or dumb, but I know he’s got a pretty great quick wit and that his quick thinking is directly responsible for him doing some amazing things for some people who were in very big trouble. I’m equally sure that some shit’s gonna come out about him in the next few months that’s gonna reveal that (gasp!) he hasn’t just spent his entire life rescuing people and being a guardian angel. In fact, he’s probably fucked up a few times, just like me, John Edwards, Barrack Obama, George W Bush, Ronnie Radke, Plaxico Burress and every other human being that exists or has existed. That isn’t because he’s poor and has fucked up hair and cracked teeth. That’s because he’s a living, breathing sentient being.

Here’s an article that, if you MUST intellectualize the whole “is the Charles Ramsay internet lovefest racist or not” situation, is pretty balanced. But I think it’s unnecessary to analyze this shit at all. Some people are racist. Some people are really, really dumb. Some people are so consumed with some form of class or race guilt that they cringe every time someone born into a less fortunate strata stumbles into the limelight because they’re so concerned about how dumbly insensitive all the white folk be. Listen up, though. I don’t want to live in a world where I have to pretend that Charles Ramsay’s blackness isn’t part of why he’s awesome. That’s who he is. It’s informed every bit of his life up to now. Can’t I like him, as-is, just for being a hero and being pretty damned witty and funny without defending his intelligence, my awareness of the dominant Anglo-patriarchy and all that? Because that shit sucks. Ignoring and qualifying character traits for the sake of some sort of candyland utopian paradigm sidestep the best part of being alive which is this: we’re all different and those differences ARE COOL and worth acknowledging and celebrating. You can like stuff. It’s okay. And you can like it just because you like it. You can like people just because you like them. You can even just like parts of them. That’s actually fine too. That’s how I feel about almost everyone I know. I’m SURE that’s how anyone that likes me feels about me.  In short, there are a lot of shitheads out there, and I like parts of the shitheadery at large, but not the parts that are arguing about this shit.

And finally, I guess I should clarify: racism is bad. whew.

Oh. TLA begins recording today. We’re doing a full length record. Pretty cool. Woot.

Last night, at a neighbor’s house, I was cleaning mud out from between my daughter’s toes. We were in the back yard. My dogs were there.  My son was there as well. My wife was working. The neighbors are a good squad and they’ve got two kids, just a bit younger than my kids. It was gonna be a relaxing evening of ‘put all the kids together and let them do all the work while we sit around.’

For those of you who have young kids, or are about to have kids, lemme tell you, this is the ultimate in power-parenting. If you can get your kids to eat outside with someone else’s kids, you’re killing it. The kids exhaust each other. They have fun. They socialize (which, I can’t stress enough is the MOST important thing children can learn to do. Quick quiz: who would you rather be around: a super nice, empathetic guy who’s favorite series of books is the Garfield anthology or a withdrawn, anti social genius?) and you get to sit there and relax, have a beer and get just a smidge of that perspective that’s so crucial when it comes to appreciating how cool it is to have kids.  This is what this night was supposed to be.

So we served ‘em dinner outside. No one was eating, but that’s not a surprise because kids generally only eat when they absolutely feel like it. Lots of parents go insane about this, and there’s a good reason to. If kids are hungry when they go to sleep, they wake up early and that means YOU have to wake up early and that’s a fucking dick punch. They don’t care that it’s early. They’re kids. They nap. They go to bed at 730. They do things like pick their noses and eat the results. They don’t care about anything. If they’re up at 5, they’re up at 5. But the difference between, say, 545 and 615 to an overworked, hungover mommy…well, shit, son. That’s the difference between pre-emptive victory and defeat.

The fact is, however, that kids don’t need that much food. You and your fat ass and your big sandwich, you’re overfed. That kid you’re stuffing full of (best case scenario) broccoli and (worst case scenario) White Castle Chicken Rings…she’s tiny. Her stomach is the size of a goddamn coin purse. She doesn’t need to eat nearly as much as you think she does. And the amounts you’ve put on her plate are arbitrary. “Just finish your carrots” you say. But why? You didn’t put thirteen carrot medallions on her plate because that’s some kind of FDA recommendation. You put 13 carrot medallions on her plate because that’s how many you haphazardly cut/grabbed out of a Tupperware while hastily assembling her shitty dinner that she’s not gonna eat anyway. Quit stressing. If she’s hungry, she’ll eat a handful of dirt. Getting riled up about a kid refusing to eat is like getting riled up about getting old. No one else but you cares. Recognize.

So anyway, my daughter (who didn’t eat anything but a few wayward slices of hotdog and a couple of noodles, by the way) is getting the mud cleaned out from between her toes by me. Suddenly, I smell this mud and begin to wonder “is this shit?” I look at the dogs. I scan the yard. “Where did this shit come from, sweetie?” I ask.  She points at the bench she was sitting on, which is smeared in poo. “Oh.” I say. “Is this YOUR shit?” She nods.

Suddenly, her muddy face and hands are a way, WAY bigger problem than I had previously assessed. I grab some paper towels and begin to clean human feces off my neighbors’ patio furniture. I do some casual yelling of the phrase “FINGERS OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!!!!” over and over again while I clean. My neighbors bring me a bag into which I can deposit the doodoo laden underpants and nightgown (this bit is a crucial piece of information. She is potty trained [in theory, obviously] so this was not a traditional ‘accident’ so much as it was an act of lazy aggression. What I mean by that is this: Kids don’t give two shits about making messes or you cleaning them up. To them, their entire lives are being picked up, wiped down, scrubbed, reconfigured, combed, brushed and spitshined. What IS of crucial importance to them is to not miss out on the good times while they’re happening. SO, there you are. You’re almost 3. You’re having a cool party with a bunch of your friends and your big brother. You’ve gotta poop, BUT that’s a big pain in the ass. It involves finding a hand to hold while you walk up the stairs, getting someone to turn on the lights, and negotiating some sort of footstool to get you to toilet height. AND at the end of it, someone else has to wipe your ass anyway. Where’s the downside in just shitting your pants right there in the yard? There’s none. Sure, you know better, but fuck it. Daddy’s not doing shit right now anyway. Boom. Lazy aggression.). As I take the underpants off, the poo goes everywhere: Down the legs, hanging off the heels, etc. It’s a grim scene.

I begin wiping this child down thoroughly only to have the neighbor child tap me on the shoulder to announce that my son is around the corner barfing. “Interesting development” I casually think to myself, and then, full of nothing but dignity and total composure, I stroll around the corner to ascertain that, yes, in fact, my kid IS barfing all over my neighbors’ deck.  Vivid red barf is…well, everywhere.

When I was a kid, I was a mad barfer. This kid has the gift too. Barfing in kids is amazing. If you can learn to barf well, you can overcome all sickness so much quicker and generally, you’re set up to jettison queasiness whether it comes from bad shrimp, too much tequila, a mild fever or the sight of your sister’s legs smeared in fecal matter.

So yeah. He barfed. The entire back yard was full of Kelly child human waste.  The dogs were barking like crazy. It was a real scene. My neighbors are super nice. They have two kids and so they know the score when it comes to random deuces and ralphs. They hosed the barf down while I mopped the poo and put the female child in the bath. Then we had a rather large water balloon fight. It was, actually, a great night.

The thing is, there’s a lot of discourse out there about what’s appropriate in terms of what you write about your kids on the internet. Is the above story needlessly embarrassing to my children? Am I putting my own quest to regale you with a sensational parenting tale above my kids’ right to privacy? You know what? I don’t know and frankly, I don’t care. Kids are embarrassed by their parents about 100% of the time, last time I checked, and the only people who are genuinely mortified about shitting their pants when they’re 2 are teenagers, who are, in my experience, a bunch of shitheads who could do with a little humility.

Everyone out there knows what’s good for your kids and what’s turning them into assholes and what’s gonna make their lives SO hard and different from ours. Well, here’s the thing. I didn’t turn out that great. Neither did you. These kids’ lives are gonna be different and hard because they’re gonna be fighting to the death for the last gallon of clean, drinkable water at the Piggly Wiggly. Their lives are gonna be different and hard because they’re gonna grow up in a world where they have almost no chance to avoid cancer due to the preponderance of cellphones and wifi signals everywhere, not to mention all the preservatives and chemical shit that’s in absolutely everything that we eat. They’re gonna be fucked up because they grow up in a world where everybody gets a hit, everybody gets a trophy, everybody wins, they’re gonna watch their friends’ parents yell at teachers for the bad grades their friends get, and they’re gonna get told over and over again that sex is dirty and wrong but blowing people up is good fun.  If the worst thing that happens to my kids is that they have a dickish, anecdotal dad who writes down what they do on some obscure corner of the internet, I think shit’ll be fine, but somehow, I don’t event think that’s gonna be a blip on their radar. Hopefully I’m wrong.

In closing, wow…what an adorable fucking mess children can be. Nice world we’ve set up for them.

In 2009, Lance Armstrong came out of retirement to compete, once again, in the Tour de France, the premier cycling event in the world. He came in third overall. This, of course, means that in 2009, Lance Armstrong was one of the very best competitive cyclists in the world. He was 38 years old. Let’s just put a pin in that for now, shall we? Okay…

It’s finally spring in Chicago. For those of you who don’t know, Chicago is one of the most spectacularly beautiful cities in the world, and the only reason that it’s not hyper expensive, a la Sydney/Tokyo/New York/LA/London etc. is because the weather here tends to suck the dick right off a dog. In the winter, it’s so cold that everyone and everything freezes. The old people die. It blows. In the summer, it gets so hot that everyone melts. Grids fail, bulbs burst in the sockets. The old people die. It blows. A fond expression around Chicago is “There are two seasons in Chicago: Winter and construction.” That’s pretty much true, and it’s a multi layered joke because firstly, it stays cold as shit long into “spring” and then just shoots right into being unbearably hot. Similarly, at the end of summer, one day you just kind of wake up and boom! You need your earmuffs. You gotta have your shorts AND parkas ready to go at a moments notice on any given day in this town (this has to do with the jetstreams and lake effect and all sorts of blah blah blah that I’m not gonna get into, but suffice it to say, we’ve got a unique place in the meteorological world that accounts for our crazy weather).

The second part of this joke is this: In the winter, it gets so fucking cold here that the streets all contract and crack. When it suddenly heats up real quick, all the roads bust apart and car-swallowing potholes bloom everywhere. Hence, winter and construction.

Anyway, the point is, right now, in these few beautiful spring days and again in September at the end of summer, Chicago is, hands down the most amazing city you could ever hope to be in. It’s spectacular. In celebration of our newly acquired ability to be outside without freezing our labias off, I’ve broken out my bike and started riding it to work. My bike is pretty okay. I bought it on Craigslist after my buddy Chris gave me a hot tip. It’s a road bike, no gears, but it’s not one of those dumb bikes with no brakes. I can coast on it. It’s just a regular, fast, light, normal bike for grownups. No stupid terminator 2 technology and no dumb future-primitive fixed-gear dick thumping. It doesn’t look fancy, but it’s fun to ride, and I’ve been taking it the 8 or so miles each way to and from work since it got nice out.

Now, back to the city for a moment: for those of you who’ve never been, Chicago is on Lake Michigan which is a huge lake that looks like a calm ocean, in that you can’t see the other side, and therefore it has the illusion of vastness. People from various coastal zones often come to Chicago and are shocked to find that this is true. “I didn’t believe that it REALLY looked like this, but this is like, a REAL BEACH!?!?! I don’t believe that’s a lake!” people say to us (which is kind of condescending, really. What do you think, I don’t know what a beach looks like? I said it looks like the ocean. I’ve been to the ocean…come on). Anyway, the reason the beachfront zone is so nice is because back in the day one of the big Chicago families (the Wrigleys [gum!] or the Kellogs [eugenics!], I don’t remember which and I’m too lazy to look it up) bought up the entire lakefront and gifted it to the city as a park back in the day. Therefore, there’s no commercial or private property development at all on the entire half mile or so between the water and the city along the eastern border of Chicago (there are a few exceptions to this, notably small hotdog stands, North Pond restaurant, that one building Oprah used to live in…but still, as far as huge, highly coveted swaths of land in major cities go, the lakefront in Chicago is remarkably pristine).

Anyway, I ride my bike from my house, which is way northwest, down to the lake and then I take the path all the way downtown to my office. It’s a really nice ride and a fun way to get some of the disgusting, coagulated bacon grease off of my musculature. However, I’m not the only person on the path. Heavens no. In fact, the path, even at 8 AM is full of other cyclists, powerwalkers, hobos, and joggers. And in the afternoon it’s completely insane. The path is jamming. Stoned teenagers, jugglers, and bodybuilders flank the path as the huge amounts of bike and jogging traffic thread through. And it’s these other motherfuckers on bikes, my fellow cyclists, I want to talk about today.

Yeah, I’m one of them. I like riding my bike. It’s fun, it’s great, and with a great place to ride like the Chicago lakefront, I understand completely why everyone and their mom gets out there and rides. But these dipshits that are going for it on their bikes…what’s up with them? Oh, you don’t know what I’m talking about? Let me set the scene:
You’re me. You’re cruising along at a nice clip, passing old ladies on bikes and joggers, going a reasonable speed, keeping yourself alert. Suddenly, someone starts shrilly barking words at you from behind “STRAIGHT ON! LEFT! XXXXXX{these X’s are to indicate shit that they all yell that I, as a path newbie, don’t yet understand}.” Suddenly, a ‘team’ of these dipshits shoot past, wearing heavily branded lycra bodysuits, toe clips, Oakley blades, with fucking go-pro helmet cams strapped to the tops of their heads. They’re FLYING through groups of people with kids, old folks, tubby hipsters on longboards etc. and right as you wrap your head around the weirdness that is a bunch of grown men playing dress up and putting everyone around them in danger so they can zip down the lakefront path with awesome gusto, ANOTHER squad of these dinguses swoop past you in the exact same getups. Then another group does. Then another group comes from the other way. Cyclists. Real, ‘competitive’ cyclists are EVERYWHERE, zooming all over the place with no shame at all. It’s almost as if they truly believe that they don’t look completely fucking stupid. And they do. What? Yeah they do. Listen:

You know why Lance Armstrong’s bodysuit is covered in ads? Lemme tell you why: It’s because people pay him for the space on his suit. When you’re willfully paying top dollar to slide into a nudity suit that’s slathered in corporate logos, you’re already a dick. You don’t even NEED the head-cam or the glasses—the lame ‘out-of-my-way’ jargon or the obnoxious formation riding. You’re ALREADY blowing it so bad by cruising around in that dumb suit. What are you, six? You want your superman pajamas, buddy? Is that what you want to go outside and play in? Okay. Cool. Just as long as we’re clear on what’s going on here.

The helmet cam? What? Do you watch that shit back? REALLY? What’s on there? A bunch of terrified moms pulling their kids out of the way and guys like me giving you the finger? Cool movie, bro. Listen, riding bikes is fun. Physically challenging yourself is fun. I’d even go so far as to say that there’s a way to ride fast on the bike path that’s fun and not completely stupid, but fuck me if any of the men in Chicago seem to have been able to figure that last bit out. Good grief. It’s like everyone’s training for the goddamned Tour de France, as if THAT’S somehow cool.

Listen, remember what I wrote at the top, about Lance Armstrong in 2009? If you can be 38 years old and be one of the elite in your sport, it ain’t much of a sport. Period. Sorry dorks. It’s true. That doesn’t make it not fun, or not challenging. It just means that people with REAL athletic ability are actually playing the sports that are way more fun, more challenging and more lucrative and therefore allowing for a cycling crème de la crème that consists of greasy Europeans and athletic geriatric cancer survivors. Cycling is a GREAT way to exercise, but no matter how high you rise in the elite, thrill-a-second world of celebrity cycling, about the best thing that’s gonna happen to you is that maybe you’ll get to bone Cheryl Crow. Guys that play HOCKEY bang supermodels, and only Canadians, white people from Detroit and Scandinavian perverts like hockey.

Other people that ride bikes in Chicago include hipster goofs on their magic bikes, glimmering shirtless gays, and the moms and old men, just jiggling the backs of their arms along down the trail. Once you get off the trail, you’ve got the guys with too many DUI’s, who you can spot a mile away. They’re older and they’re smoking cigarettes and they’re always on shitty 90’s mountain bikes. They’ve got bad tattoos and tend to be pretty amusing in their blatant disregard for all traffic laws, including their willingness to just ride on the sidewalk. Also on the same bikes, disregarding the same laws, but infinitely more respectable are the busboys. They’re pretty hard to find fault with, except for I just wish they’d stay the fuck off the sidewalk. That’s an unforgivable sin.

Okay, this is real long. Sorry. TL;DR version: Chicago is awesome. Don’t be a dick on your bike. Xoxoxoxo
BK

Hey y’all. It’s that time of year again, which means it’s time for me to beg all y’all to head over to the Reader’s ‘Best of Chicago’ poll and vote for Bad Sandwich Chronicles for ‘best blog.’ Thanks, SO much. While you’re there, I’d like to recommend a few other things you could vote for, such as Red Scare Industries for ‘best label’ and the always lovely and tireless Katie Degroote for “best bartender” (she runs the bar next door to the metro where my band gets drunk. She puts up with Cub fans and she even gave Chris [and me!] jobs. Generally, she’s an overall wonderful human, everyone.)

The dickpunch this year is that you have to vote for ‘best Chicagoan to follow on Twitter’ ON Twitter this year. This means, if you want to vote for me, you have to put my handle (@badsandwich) in a tweet with the hashtag #boctwitterer (yes, that’s BOC [for best of Chicago] twitterER). It’s a pain in the ass, for sure, but what happened was this:

Last year, because you guys are so awesome, I beat Roger Ebert in this category, which was awesome, and really a victory for the little guy (he was alive then, please recall). The Reader has never changed any of their ‘best of’ rules before, so the only explanation is that they didn’t like me beating out Ebert. And, well, with him being so dead now…you get the idea. The point is, they’re changing shit up with the obvious intention of usurping me, and if we let this injustice stand, well, the terrorists win, man.

Anyway, if you’ve got nothing but time on your hands and you want to vote for other good stuff, Jen Trok is a great tattooist and Ground Control is the new vegetarian spot opened by Dan Hannaway (from Slapstick, the Broadways, the Honor System and Ratisucia fame) and his wife Carrie and it’s GREAT. You should probably vote for it as well. They just had a new baby (Olive!) so they could ACTUALLY probably even use the boost more than me, if I’m being brutally honest in the assessment of my shamelessness and capacity for begging.

Anyway, please vote early and often. Thanks so much! You guys are the best. If you guys vote, I promise to keep blogging and tweeting out jokes about dongs until mine is old and grey.
Xoxoxo
BK