Jar Guy Should Keep Not Wearing Clothes

“Jar guy should keep not wearing clothes.” This was one of Ginger’s musings on this art project (“Five Guys Take Same Photo For Thirty Years”). Also, drastic disappointment that the roach and its photo of a rock star were not in the jar in any but the first photo. What a letdown.

We’re at the Beanhive in Galesburg, IL, drinking coffee. When Ginger ordered, she asked what was in a Banilla Smoothie. I was talking over the barista as he explained the drink, giving what I figured was the crucial piece of information, that the drink didn’t have coffee, only to have Ginger interrupt both him and me to say, “Yeah, well, I’m thinking of getting both that and coffee.” I’m ashamed to say that my response was, “Wait, can you do that?” much like a day or two before when I had said in all earnestness, “Lucky!” She was nice enough to refrain from making fun of me until we returned to the seclusion of the car, after which, however, she has ceased to let up.

Shoe plants at the Beanhive

The day before yesterday was Ginger’s birthday, shared with that of her twin brother, who happened also to be in Chicago (and born on the same day, go figure!). We got “PB&J’s” at a bar called the Boiler Room in Logan Square, which consisted not of bread and spreads but of pizza, beer, and a shot of Jack. We each had two, and we would have to chug any remaining beer before beginning our next pizza slice and shot. This was difficult only for me. My lack of skill in chugging was charmingly aggravated by our waitress, who didn’t mind standing around and waiting for me to finish each successive beer since we were her only table and she’d been cut for the night. Her name was Stephanie, and she joined us for a drink and told us she was off to the northwest to look for a job in social work. She and Andrea talked about this for a while, since Andrea’s in a similar field.

Andrea K. Kampfner (neé Voelkel), formerly of Immanuel Won’t, now of the SSA at the U of C. One of my best friends in the entire world. And really one of the world’s best friends.

Tony thought, however, that Stephanie likely had a thing for him, or perhaps knew him from a drunken, debaucherous escapade from days past, since she called him by name. But it turns out she did this only because she couldn’t get his attention any other way, so entranced was he with his macaroni (about which birthday-boy David Cook taunted him by calling it a pasta salad with truckloads too much mayo). She apparently just asked someone further down at the table what his name was.

Tony smells his pasta salad-mayonnaise soup (neé macaroni and cheese).

Ginger is talking with her mouth full again, which makes it even harder to understand what she’s saying. She’s probably ordering another PB&J.
David Cook and Michael Castele
Ben and Akemi

Here are Christy and Orson on the bed watching Heather’s son Hunter’s award-winning 2009 video about the Easter Bunny, cleverly titled “Easter Video 2009.”

 

Here are Orson and Monkey getting down in Ben and Akemi’s super-fly flat in the Chicago West Loop, where we stayed Sunday night. Here’s also Christy doing some loft-modeling while I do some loft-photography. It was my really good Tom Sawyer idea to suggest it would be sexiest if I photographed her packing up the stuff. Sadly the lugging-down-the-stairs-all-alone pictures didn’t turn out as well.

Here’s a note we wrote to Dan Luban in thanks for letting us crash with him after our Salon gig in Hyde Park on Saturday night. It was delivered in a bottle. He may not receive it for many years.


Here are some pics from the Hyde Park Salon (Majel’s Opera Cabal series), taken by my sister Mugs. The good-looking audience members on the left are my dad and step-mother.

David Lakein was the performer who opened the show, and here he is with a nice woman and equally nice bottle of mustard.

Doing a little catch-up from Springfield, here’s my lovely grandmother, at 98 years of age.


Here’s Katie (my sister, who drove up from St. Louis), Heather Hoffmann (who drove down from Galesburg), and Ginger (all the way from Albuquerque, NM) after the sixth Springfield show, now outside the Celtic Mist.

And here’s a picture of an elephant.