Jul 31 2012
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Essay, Travel

Away Games


I wanted to sleep on the train, but the excitement and the freshness kept me awake. It was Wednesday afternoon. I had just left O’Hare Airport, deciding to take the train instead of a cab after a friendly elderly woman offered me a free ticket she wasn’t able to use.

Stop after stop, Chicago sprung to life. We passed Addison, and I knew Wrigley’s green walls beckoned close by. We passed Grand, and I knew shoppers walked the streets above the surface headed toward the Magnificent Mile.

Each stop brought me closer to the tall buildings, to the stiff breezes off the lake, to the artificial sunsets produced by the Hancock Observatory, to a refuge. Continue reading →

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Jul 30 2012
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#MusicMonday: Ben Gibbard

Every Monday morning. Music so good… it must be shared.

This week: “Ichiro’s Theme” — Ben Gibbard, released last week by the Death Cab frontman

-fin-

Jul 30 2012
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Culture, Essay

One last song in Kansas City

It was the last week of classes, maybe a Wednesday, a warm spring morning in Lawrence, Kansas. I had a week left of college — well, technically, a couple days of classes and then finals — and I had promised my editor at the school paper that I’d file a farewell column that afternoon.

I can’t exactly remember what else I had going on that day. That night would be a party for our last night of production at the student newspaper, and I felt like maybe I had something else to do as well. In any event, I wanted to sit down and write that column. I had an idea of what I wanted to write, and I had already pieced it together in my head, but I needed a solid chunk of time. Maybe two hours or so. That should do it, I told myself.

I also had a class that morning at 9 a.m. … Journalism Ethics.

Too bad, I thought. I went to the library and started writing.

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Jul 27 2012
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Unsolicited Endorsements XXXI

Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.

Summer Concert Series: “Fox & Friends All-American Summer Concert Series”

Everything about the Fox News Channel is stunning, when you step back and look at the bigger picture. Whether you agree or disagree with the notion an entity like Fox News – or MSNBC, for that matter – should attempt to pass itself off as a reputable news organization, you can’t really deny the channel’s influence (the same can’t be said for MSNBC). The main reason I love* Fox News is that everyone involved is clearly in on the joke. To truly appreciate the operation’s genius, you have to forget about the whole “ruining our nation” thing for a second and focus on the power it wields every Friday morning.

*Love might not be the right word.

The “Fox & Friends All-American Summer Concert Series” brings a crowd of several hundred to the corner of 48th Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan every Friday morning. Once assembled, the attendees start the morning by sitting at picnic tables on a fake grass lawn, consuming Famous Dave’s BBQ, and listening to music – usually country, usually espousing conservative values. This all happens IN THE HEART OF MIDTOWN MANHATTAN. AT EIGHT IN THE MORNING.

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Jul 20 2012
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Culture, Movies, Music

Unsolicited Endorsements XXX

Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.

Movie: In Bruges

Colin Farrell has starred in some terrible and forgettable movies. We know his role. He plays the fast-talking punk who’s really not a punk because we KNOW he has a soft side. He endears himself to us because he’s Irish, and women think his body totally rocks. And there is a law, written in permanent ink on a massive steno pad somewhere in Hollywood (I’ve seen it), that posits anyone with a body deemed to totally rock cannot be a punk.

Back in 2008, Farrell actually proved why he deserves the attention and the dollar bills that follow when he starred in a movie most of us never heard about, and if we did, we probably shrugged our shoulders and then forgot. He starred in a movie called “In Bruges.” The name sounds art house. And despite featuring heavy gunfire, it kind of is. The best way to explain the movie is how I explained it in a text to a friend: “It’s a dark comedy/crime thriller set in Bruges. Somehow it worked.”

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Jul 20 2012
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Essay, Humor

What We Talk About When We Talk About The Men Who Sell Pixie Stix By The Highway

OK. So there are these men in Kansas City. Well, usually they’re men. And, anyway, they’re always standing at this busy intersection, this one right by my house, just a few blocks away, right down by the highway.

Like literally, By. The. Highway. Like maybe a hundred yards or so. Let’s see. There’s a stoplight. And then an intersection. And then the highway.

And what are they doing? They’re selling Pixie Stix. Yep, fucking Pixie Stix. Those big, plastic ones. Giant fucking Pixie Stix. Now, this is actually not the first time I’ve seen these men in Kansas City. I used to see them down by this busy intersection near the Plaza, right around State Line and Shawnee Mission Parkway. That made no sense, either. There was no convenient place to stop. The intersection was all sorts of busy. And they just stood there, on the medians, hawking pixie sticks. Giant fucking pixie sticks.

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Jul 17 2012
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Music

#MusicMonday: Noah and The Whale

Every Monday morning. Music so good… it must be shared.

This week: “2 Atoms in a Molecule” — Noah and The Whale, off the album, “Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down”
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Jul 09 2012
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Music

#MusicMonday: The Thermals

Every Monday morning. Music so good… it must be shared.

This week: “Back to Gray” — The Thermals, off the album, “More Parts per Million”  
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Jun 27 2012
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Essay

Standing Outside the Sandusky House

I took this picture on Friday night. Tweeted it to a public and media that were growing increasingly frantic about any hint as to whether a jury would make its decision or deliberate deeper into the weekend.

Sandusky house

The picture displays Jerry Sandusky leaving his house for what would be the last time, Continue reading →

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Jun 15 2012
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Endorsements, Music

Unsolicited Endorsements IXXX

Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.

Song: Nas – “Life’s A Bitch”

Growing up as a guitarist and a huge fan of rock and metal, I would routinely listen to songs just to get to that one epic guitar solo, riff or breakdown that immediately triggered the air guitar instinct. In fact, I’d usually rewind to the start of the particularly epic* passage a few times out of sheer reverence. “Life’s A Bitch” is one of the songs that – as a 25-year-old fan of wordplay and hip-hop – I always have to stop to rewind. Continue reading →

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