White House Hopscotch

This is so cool. And it comes in the same week that President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a chat outside the White House, near the Obama girls' swing-set. I don't know, there's just something strangely heart-warming about it.

Blood on Their Hands

This weekend, a 23-year-old man from Pittsburgh, who had been laid off from his job at a glass factory, shot and killed three police officers who had come to his home to answer a domestic disturbance call.

The man had told friends that his fear in life was not the economy, his family, his community, the future of his country, but that the Obama administration would take his guns away. No matter where you stand on the issue of guns -- I think it wouldn't be an entirely bad thing if everyone's guns were taken away, why would anyone need an AK-47 in their home, like this man had? -- this is a myth that has been perpetrated and perpetuated by the whole McCain/Palin, "Joe the Plumber," Limbaugh, O'Reilly, FOX, "F -- Obama" crowd, and each and every one of them has blood on their hands. Every person who has worked to perpetuate this fear among gun owners, all these law and order types, from congressmen and women all the way down to the individuals who two months after the inauguration, refuse to accept Obama as their president, has the blood of three dead Pittsburgh police officers on their hands. And I don't expect the rhetoric to cool down any time soon.

We can only hope, and pray, that sensible people will prevail.

Throwing My Arms Around Morrissey

I think since I reference Him in this blog's subtitle, I should at least occasionally post some news about Morrissey or my obsession with him.

This is Morrissey weekend for me. Tonight I am going to see him at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. It ain't much of a ballroom -- it's more just a giant pit with a horrible sound system, and I have seen him there at least three times already, but it's only a mile or so away from where I live so I can walk there.

Monday night I am going to see Him in Minneapolis, at a place that looks to be a great, once grand and recently refurbished old theater. That should be fun.

Actually both shows should be fun. Tonight I will be going with my friend Michael, whom I saw Morrissey with in Milwaukee last year, then we will be meeting my other half, Stephen, at, appropriately enough, the Wild(e) Pug salon, which is an English-inspired gay club, which may or may not have music and drinks that bring to mind Dear Old Blighty (or they may just play thump-thump music and have go-go boys wearing Union Jacks. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but after a Morrissey show?)

Monday Stephen and I will be driving up to Minneapolis, which I have never been to before, so I can see Him there, then we will hang out a bit in one half of the Twin Cities before driving back to Chicago Tuesday. On my list of things to do up there is visit a cafe called the Wilde Roast and of course, stand in the street and toss my hat up in the air, a la Mary Tyler Moore. In this instance, I allow anyone to say, "That's so Gay!" Because, well, it is. I like it, though.

Trip details, as well as photos, of course, will be posted next week. I might just make it after all ...

My Other Blog

So, as if I don't have enough on my plate already, (pun half-intended), I now blog for the Chicago Sun-Times' food section/Web site/food site on the Web.

The blog, "Digging In," (you like it? I came up with that), is filled with food features, food and restaurant news, observations on food (that's by me - I wonder about things a lot) and occasional restaurant reviews. I know, I know, as if there aren't enough people writing about food and newspapers and magazines and Web sites blogging about food. But we hope this is a little different, because it is, for the main part, written by people whose background is in news reporting. Two of the people, Janet and Lisa, actually know and write about food often -- Janet is the paper's food editor, Lisa does the 'food detective' column. So, we'll have stuff on what chef is in the running for what food award, but we will also report on restaurants that are closed by the city because of health code violations and mouse droppings in the food prep areas. We'll also cover some things that the serious "foodies" wouldn't stoop so low as to write about -- that's where I come in. I am the guy who asks the stupid questions, but who hopefully finds some interesting food news and bits and bites (another intended pun) sometimes.

I am not what you would call a "foodie." I live right around the corner from one of the most renown "foodie" haunts in Chicago, a Japanese restaurant that is open like three hours a week and supposedly is one of the few "authentic" Japanese restaurants in the metropolitan area, and I've never been there. I also live a few blocks away from one of the hottest pizza places in the city, but I have never been there and do not intend to go there, because the place is so cool, so hip, that they cannot even bring themselves to say, in the window, that they are a pizza place/bakery. Seriously. My other half and I have walked past many a time and have wondered if the joint is a neo-retro hardware/furniture store, an organic bakery or rustic art gallery. No menu in the window, no hours posted, and they've got some ambiguous 'what could it be?' name, as well. I don't get it.

But I do like food. I like eatin' it, like cooking (sometimes) like watching other people cook, like trying to figure out what's in certain dishes. I like reading magazines about food and I get all breathless when I walk by the kitchen showrooms in the Merchandise Mart.

So we'll see how this goes. Every New Year's I resolve to be published in one place I haven't been before, and I guess this kind of sort of fulfills that resolution for this year. Who knows, maybe Lisa, janet and I will become sort of a Siskel, Ebert and friend of food writers. And soon, radio and TV shows will be clamoring for our witty and wicked insights. I can dream, can't I?

Ivri Lider Kissed a Girl

... and he liked it. It would be one thing if someone merely covered the Katy Perry song and even slowed it down quite a bit, but when that someone is a gay man, like Israeli pop star Ivri Lider, the song becomes something different altogether.

His version, introspective and, well, for lack of a better word, questioning, is not a cover version, it is a brilliant song in its own right. The combination of the acoustic treatment, his weary, somewhat worried, perhaps kind of confused, voice, takes the situation, shakes it up and puts it back down, all upside down. The tenor of the song is especially brought to the forefront when, just as Perry sang in her version, he says, "I hope my boyfriend don't mind it." Then to top it off, you have a nice-looking woman enter the room (a bathroom?), walk out, and he soon follows her.

Or I could just be reading way too much into it. I think not. Nothing black and white about it; it's all gray, and I guess that's why I like it. Ivri Lider is just brilliant.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - He's a Bear

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - He's a Bear

This show, much like this 90-second clip from it, is hilarious. And, much like in this clip, they often go places you'd think, "Oh no, they're not ... oh, they are!" going to, all the while, of course, while you are laughing your ass off watching them.

Lisa Lampenelli and Simon Cowell

Everything that Lisa Lampanelli says is wrong, wrong, wrong. And I laugh my ass off listening to her. People think Kathy Griffin is bad and funny? Lisa wipes the floor with her. Hilarious.