Megatradeshow week:

Yesterday, I found myself at a tradeshow in Chicago that was specifically for people who do things like run buildings. It was super-busy. Filled with dudes with biznass hair. All those dudes were showing their foreheads. The rest of the uniform consisted of a suit with azultooth, or dockers and a polo shirt blasting your company name. I was not fitting in very well. On the other hand it was rad to see my work in action.

Regarding this tradeshow: If you want to see some serious corpo-big brother action, stay alert to the work of businesses offering building solutions. They can smell you.

Also, shout out to part-time bloggerman, part-time mega-marketer Andre Wenzy of Boards & Brews who was there heating it up. I said hello and we spoke awkwardly for about 4 minutes.

Contrast all of that with SIA which goes down this weekend. I will look like the stiff, but still accept your beers. Thank you.

TheChicagoManualofStyleSixteenthEdition Brown and the Mystery of the Wrecked Wrist:

Upon returning home yesterday my wrist was sore. But not that “I’ve been masturbating for 6 hours” kind of sore. Plus, it was my left wrist. I stretched it out a bit and eventually went to sleep. This morning I am in 100% crippler mode. I would guess I have 50% range of motion and gripping strength. Plus it seems like it might be a little swollen, but that may just be my perception or my weight issues.

Now the question is, how has this happened? I haven’t put any extraordinary stress on the wrist as of late. I haven’t been to a house party, so this isn’t some I-was-so-wasted-and-woke-up-with-bruised-ribs-and-some-forgettable-leaning-towards-regrettable-broad situation.

Can you solve the mystery?

Karmic:

Yesterday, in the rain/snow I was walking to work and was hit with a tidal wave of gutter slush from a passing car. Head-to-toe splashed. I did my best seakkle and just kept walking. What else could I do? The moment it happened I was going to scream, but almost instantly something stopped me. I knew it was payback. Over a decade later the karmic forces have caught up to me.

It starts like this: A 17-year old Rumorator, behind the wheel of a, oddly khaki-colored VW station wagon. It is early spring. The snowbanks are melting. The sun this time of year in Northern Wisconsin gives a false sense of warmth. In the Volkswagen, the windows are down, Fugazi is in the tapedeck, Wheeler is riding in the passenger seat. We still had enough time before work at the YMCA to drive aimlessly and maybe smoke one more cigarette. We hadn’t even left the Third Ward when we saw him. Older, probably in his 60s, standing on the apron of his driveway between the sidewalk and the street. He was breaking away the layers and layers of ice that had been forming since November.

No more than five feet from him was a puddle of spring’s thaw. Dirty with salt and sand and the debris that accumulates during five months of no street sweeping. Wheeler and I knew what needed to be done. He began to roll up the window on his side. I shifted down into 2nd and pressed the accelerator. We rocketed towards the murk with the light roar of a German car that is passed its prime, but still had the strength propel itself towards this puddle or keep pace at 90mph after a long day of snow-boarding, and would until it was crashed into a deer on new year’s day. The whir of that motor didn’t phase the man in his driveway. He keep working even as the car hit the puddle, covering him with the largest slush wave a car like that could ever create.

I imagine, as he shook the slush and grime from his arms, he turned to see the car, to hear the mo-tor, now mixed with the laughter of youth, rounding the corner and speeding away. Not once did the feeling of guilt settle over us in that car. We knew funny when we saw it. We continued laughing for a few minutes. When the laughing finally died we turned the car back towards the scene and washed that dude one more time.

That is why I had to just keep walking yesterday morning.

Artist in Residence:

Shout out to The Second Inventor of the Worm, who was awarded a residency in Gwangju, South Korea

Dude is shooting films. Blasting.

Mouthful of Metal:

I ate at Kuma’s Korner last night. I had the Megadeth burger. Still felt like a pussy.

The future:

I’m probably gonna feel like this by the weekend: