Respect Authority

Check it out, another self indulgent photography post!

The first two are actually pretty old, taken back in an evil time several months ago, a time that has now led me to believe that 28 degrees Fahrenheit is warm. Plus, as I work at home (baby daddy is a full time job, okay) one could say I wasn’t getting out a whole lot. One could say, “that Howard Hughes mother fucker on the sixth floor’s beard is starting to smell.”

But just like Josh Hartnett’s seminal role (What? He’s proof that vampires can have mustaches) in 30 Days of Night, my tale is one of redemption, and my long winter is showing its first signs of relenting. Only I don’t have to turn into ashes now that we have daylight past 4:30 pm again, which is, obviously, a plus.

On the left is the call button to the very old freight elevator in my building, which was once a private hotel for celebrities or something like that. I’m really not entirely clear, but that’s what the four and a half foot tall and completely androgynous, often bald, doorman told me when I moved in. The thing is, I’m serious. And the freight elevator is appropriately weird, held together by coat hangers and some blend of dark sorcery. Summon its power by means of a large lever jutting out of the floor and it hurtles towards the basement where you have to pay a toll to a shadowy, cloaked man. His name tag reads “Charon.” I don’t know, it’s a weird apartment.

The normal elevator is considerably more familiar, its scars a good deal more comforting than the giant, rusting gouges in the freight elevator’s clattering cage.

And erupting into a relatively snow-free out-of-doors, the street bares its own brands. Graffiti is way illegal in Chicago, whereas in other places it is only definitely illegal. There’s a slight difference there, but Chicago can in no way compete with New York’s veritable murals born out of years of vandalism. Yep. I’m afraid Chicago travel brochures don’t boast its impressive graffiti collection, so scarcity creates value. Awesome tags, dudez.