Respect Authority

Chicago’s icy claws have loosened from my neck, allowing for wholesome trips to the beach a few blocks from my apartment, and some unwholesome as well — which obviously include a lot more smuggling of alcohol and much less photography.

What can I even say here that hasn’t already been said? Water just looks better in America. Sorry exotic beaches of the world, you just can’t compete with the Midwest’s proud collection of gigantic mud puddles. The lakes are called “Great” for a reason, and I’ll let you in on a little secret, it’s not because of their size. It’s because they’re in the U-S-mother-fucking-A. Read More ›

Truly, there is no better kind of happy hour than skateboarding in the dying light of an unseasonably warm Friday evening.

It was 85 here today. 85 degrees Fahrenheit, here, in the frozen hell that is Chicago. Hello Retribution, I don’t believe we’ve met.

The weather in the Windy City of late has been reasonably tolerable, which means little in a place where a few short months ago we were graced with -20 degree icy farts that Jack Frost routinely blew in our faces whenever we stepped outside. Nonetheless, it’s still a bit too brisk to convincingly call it “Spring” — in fact, I feel almost as if Winter is sadistically dangling its successor in front of my face, a juicy morsel of hope hovering just out of a starving man’s reach.

Fuck the April showers, just gimme my mother fucking May flowers.

Here’s the simplest Q&A ever conceived:

Q: Should I live in Chicago?
A: No.

Do you see him? If you squint a bit it even looks like he’s puffing on whatever it was that got me seeing faces growing out of the fucking street in the first place.

Who knows, it’s probably just Jesus or whatever.

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. Read More ›

Despite the fact that I don’t shave all that often and drink heavily on the weekends, surprisingly, I still don’t know the secret to being a great skateboarder. After all, if I did, I’d be one by now and would be getting sent fat checks for drinking Mountain Dew and acting like an asshole on MTV. But I can tell you that whacking off a little less often and actually going skating instead can only help. And I can also tell you the secret to staying in love with skating after years and years (especially if they’ve been spent being a not great skateboarder). It takes, go figure, a little something called “heart.” Like, duh.

Over the past week, most of the country has been experiencing a weather phenomenon commonly referred to as an “Indian Summer.” Apparently India has its Summer in February? I have no idea… I’m not an Indian. Nonetheless, with even the drifting iceberg of a city that is Chicago reaching temperatures around 60 degrees Fahrenheit, a whopping 60 degrees warmer than it usually is this time of year, every respectable skater has been taking to the streets. And as for all you little fuckers living in LA where it’s always 60 degrees, well, I just hope cars full of laughing teenage girls run over your legs. Read More ›

It’s pretty hard to complain when it’s suddenly 56 degrees in the middle of a punishing Chicago February, but you can bet I’m going to try! Here’s one downside to all the melting snow banks encroaching on every sidewalk. Months worth of cryogenically frozen shit festooning the grass, contributing its own very particular bouquet to each overzealous breath of fresh Spring air. It’s like finding a caveman encased in ice… only shittier. Sorry for that, puns stink.

Not exactly an appetizing post for the mid-afternoon burnout snack hour, but what can I say, I’ve got shit for inspiration these days.

Typically, I honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day the best way I know how: by smoking wacky for hours in the early afternoon, eating Chinese food since I’m pretty sure MLK would have liked Chinese, and then playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City until I pass out, usually around 5:30 PM. It’s my own personal form of reflection on one of the greatest men of the 20th century, who was an inspiration to millions, and were he alive today, I’d like to believe that we would play video games together, having heated tournaments to see who could last the longest before getting killed by the FBI Vice City police department.

But MLK never showed up to chill yesterday, and I was all alone. So instead of inspiring my couch to better conform to the contours of my asscheeks, I decided to instead attempt something approaching the realm of productivity and actually left my apartment to go shoot photos in the Yukon Territory. It was almost like a vacation since it’s actually warmer there than in Chicago.

Just kidding, of course, but you know I had to throw some jokes about the cold in there. If you couldn’t already tell, Winter is by far my favorite season — and one of my favorite activities to do during this exasperatingly long annual expedition through the depths of Season Affective Disorder is hang out at the beach. Because truly, what could be more ironic than going to the beach in the middle of January? And that’s what we’re all about here at RA: cliché irony and only liking bands before they get popular.
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The relentless onslaught of snow and wind let up for about five seconds this weekend, so I ventured out into the unforgiving wasteland in the hopes of getting some photos, actually interacting with the living, and throwing snowballs at the school bus and then running away before my mom finds out.

Of course, you remember what they told you about the yellow snow. That’s right, it has great lymon taste! You know what to do — obey your thirst^TM.
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Did you know that at the height of World War II, Soviet Russia would send its prisoners of war to brutal forced labor camps buried deep in the tundra of Chicago, Illinois? The inhospitable environment there lent itself to the demoralization of the inmates and provided a general atmosphere of hopelessness and dread. It’s true, and maybe you’d know that if you read a book once and a while, hm?

Fast forward to the present, and it’s not hard to imagine what those conditions must have been like. It snowed Tuesday and Wednesday. I can’t really remember if it snowed Thursday, but it snowed yesterday. And, oh, get this, the weather forecast has just informed me that it will snow for the next four days in a row as well. Looking out my window into the white abyss, it’s easy to feel like a prisoner myself, hot tears streaming down my face like rivulets of spilled borscht.

Having a lot of snow on the forecast in Chicago doesn’t hold quite the same meaning as it does in a cramped, sweaty Williamsburg party. Fortunately, Chicago’s only advantage in this arena is that I can at least sleep through the nightmare, which is, absolutely, my intention. Frankly, I’ve really grown an appreciation for this whole “hibernation” thing our mammalian cousins enjoy this time of year.

Granted, even when it’s all you ever see, snow has a kind of desolate, serene beauty to it. And everybody is always thrilled at the first magical snowfall of the year (even when that happened to take place in October, and is, more importantly, a dark portent of the next six months of your life). But let’s not get to fooling ourselves — femmes fatales are beautiful too, it’s precisely where they derive their power. If you want to see the true side of snow, think about the slop of ice, slush, and mud you have to trod through on the sidewalk every day while you’re going to work. Doodoo water. That’s what I call it.

Also, a surplus of snow only makes it easier for the Abominable Snowman to hide. NOT GOOD.

Honestly, I don’t care if each individual snowflake is unique. When there are this many of them falling at once, they all just look like the same pain in the ass.

Some people create Flickr accounts… but me? I just clutter up this website, instead.

Having windows placed strategically throughout my apartment in order to allow me to spy on two separate alleyways sounds like a nice perk in the Craigslist ad, but in reality, provides me little entertainment aside from counting the number of bums who rifle through the dumpsters every day. For the record, 6 to 10. What can I say? Allowing pets may be a clincher for some, but personally, I’m not paying any application fee until I see the magical words, voyeurism is OK — *creep creep* Read More ›

"I will eat the fucking book then throw my shit in your face."

Patrick Fitzgerald, the son of a Manhattan doorman, grew up in Midwood, Brooklyn. He got his start in 1988 as an assistant US attorney who helped prosecute John “I’m totally in the Mafia” Gambino. A few years later, Fitzgerald led the case against the fellows who carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

In 1996, after successfully prosecuting foreign terrorists involved in an attack on US soil, Fitzgerlad was assigned to a special team of prosecutors investigating Osama Bin Laden. Several years later, he was nominated to become the US attorney for Northern Illinois. Immediately after his nomination was confirmed, Fitzgerald proceeded to rip the caked up shit out of the hairy asshole that is greater Chicago.

When he wasn’t harassing Mayor Daley or indicting members of Illinois gubernatorial staff on any given weekday, Fitzgerald was investing the closest thing to treason the executive branch could be pinned for. Fitzgerald famously indicted I. Lewis “I’m an effeminate yes man who lets my boss call me Scooter” Libby, while he was on Alberto Gonzalez’s chopping block during the infamous Department of Justice political firings. Balls, my friends… balls.

Without batting an eye, Fitzgerald has now taken down probably the most comically corrupt politician in modern American history. And as an added bonus, Fitzgerald may very well have positioned himself as the only man in America that Obama’s categorically terrified of. God forbid he starts an investigation on Blue State Digital and Obama’s grassroots fund raising - it may knock the change right out of him.