My shiny new Chicago life

Switching it up from all work and very little personal stuff, I thought it would be fun to show people who know me my shiny new Chicago life (so if you don't know me, get out while you can, this will probably be boring). Especially since I can't blog my drawings 'cause I don't have a scanner yet... hence my not posting lately.

Like a koi who needs to be moved to a bigger pond to grow, I became too comfortable in Minneapolis after four good years there. I got proof one day when I walked around Uptown and saw nine people I knew. I moved to Chicago in mid-August. I rented a Penske truck that was well over twice as large as I needed it to be, as continuing proof of my inability to grasp simple things like knowing how much I own. Oh, well.

My friend Brad helped me move, accompanied me on my nervewracking first time driving a large vehicle, and stayed with us for a week in Chicago.
At one point on the 7-hour+ drive, Brad remarked that I was far to the right. "Oh?" I said, and corrected it. I also blissfully ignored the "TRUCKS LEFT LANE ONLY" signs. Brad rode shotgun and was shifting through his Spanish flash cards when, BAM! We both jerked up to see that the right-hand mirror had smacked into a road pylon and fallen off. We laughed for an hour and quickly came up with a solution of how we would merge right when we needed to (it being a 16-foot truck, the side mirror is the rear view mirror). Brad rolled down the window, leaned out like a dog, and gave me the okay. It felt like an action movie. Maybe a lame one, but it was still a blast. And thanks to fifty-one dollars in insurance, I didn't pay a dime in damages.

I ended up in the West Rogers Park / West Ridge area. There are 80-120 neighborhoods and Chicago and no one is sure of their borders or even how many there are. One thing is sure: I am north, north, north, about eight blocks from the Chicago/Evanston border. (The one real downside to the place is it's a little bumblefucky.)

We lucked into the apartment because my friend and roommate Kirsten was friends with the previous tenants, so she knew and loved the apartment already. The previous tenant, her friend Lewis, had lived there with his dad for 18 years, and they were moving out in August... exactly when I wanted to move in. We pay less than $300 a month each, which is unheard of anywhere I've lived, let alone in Chicago, the most expensive city in the midwest. I've not yet tested it, but theoretically I will only have to work part time to support myself. That would leave the rest of my time open for writing, drawing, and reading.

I live in the upper floor of a duplex built in the 20's. The landlord is below us. We have a subletter, Amy the actress, who will be here until Julia the Russian funny-dessert-loving English major graduates from Columbia in May.
It smells like Chinese food out here because China Ling (inferior, unfortunately, to #1 divey Chinese spot, China Hut on Clark, a 7-minute bike ride away).

An old-timey hallway (it smelled funny until Amy cleaned it -- I never think to do these things) leads you to...

Our living room. Big windows, and best of all...

Built in bookshelves!! Coming upon them fresh and empty, I salivated, then immediately filled them. I took sick pleasure in organizing them with a system of my own devising. (By the way, that's not my Apples to Apples game or wooden mannequin.) The fireplace is for show.
Art spotlight:

Someone free shelf'd a stack of old Mediascene magazines from the 70's at MCAD this summer. I gave away most of them to my friend Max before the move, but I kept this cover: with Ralph McQuarrie art, the cover boasts "Star Wars: First News of the Sequel."
Zak Sally's signed Sammy the Mouse screenprint, co-printed by Aesthetic Apparatus. Zak's new collection of old stuff, Like a Dog, is out real soon and it should be real good (I've read a lot of it before, and it is).

Above the mantle, an '07 piece of mine that I've never posted on-line.

We got the junked couch from an antique auction house a couple blocks away. As Kirsten, Brad (who helped me move and stayed for a week) and I lugged it across four-lane Western Ave., a red pickup truck stopped beside us. A man with an indeterminate accent named Elvis offered to help us out. Brad climbed in the passenger door and Kirsten and I got in the back of the truck. With the wind blowing through my hair, I realized how fast a moderately-paced car ride is. Brad was sure Elvis was drunk. It was 3 PM. Chicago. There's a liquor store about three blocks down, but last week a new one sprung up, so now I barely have to cross the street.

Above, right to left, Anna's little girls screenprint, the Crumb soundtrack cover, and a painting I made in '07.

Our kitchen is a mostly empty room that looks like a gallery. Our table (also junked and free, courtesy Kirsten's parents - as well as all our chairs) sits far too high to eat on unless you want to feel like a four-year-old.
Art spotlight:

My second most prized piece, Mega Man shoots Dick Cheney in a digital print on canvas from Philly's Punk Rock Flea Market, a gift from my friend Anton.

Two paintings by Anna that border this piece of brilliance:

A drawing I bought from a homeless artist in the Union Square subway in NYC last summer.
After the kitchen, is...

The bedroom! Hey hey. I would say that this is where the magic happens, but really the magic happens at Ash's Magic Shop on Western by the Brown line. I do stuff in here too though.

On the other side is my music (which I realized, Cohen listeners, is in fact a "Tower of Song").
Art spotlight:

Johnny Cash letterpress poster from Nashville's Hatch Show Print, courtesy of my mom.

Little screenprint by local cartoonist Lilli Carré. A postcard of Dali smooching Warhol, also courtesy of my mom.
Through my bedroom is...

My studio. A seperate room for a studio was, besides sanity and cheapness, the #1 thing I wanted in a living situation. Without room to draw, my life is total black-hole depression chaos. You'll notice the tracing paper on the drafting table, a new staple of my working method! Working in a ton of layers is new and exciting to me. It keeps the image feeling fresh.
R.E.M. Murmur poster and a photo of Chuck Jones smiling from his drawing desk float above mine.
Art spotlight:

"Sweet Deals" print from Renny Kissling (you can buy your own for $5 from his webstore); signed What It Is Lynda Barry poster; Nicole Georges queer animals calendar, gift from Abby.

#1 most prized piece of art, my Gary Panter original from my SVA pre-college days. As a grubby high schooler just being introduced to art comics, I did not know what I was receiving (besides a cool drawing by a great teacher) when he was making sketches for students on the second to last day of comic class. I'm glad I didn't ask him to sign it to me, because I asked for a ninja dinosaur and my friend Harry asked for a robot dinosaur, we liked each others' better and traded.

Out behind the studio we see...

The backyard, with a decrepit, locked garage.

To our right is a little yellow house whose lights are never on. An old lady lives there who is practically a phantom. Once I watched her exit and get her mail, but because she was behind those tall bushes, I couldn't see her face. We theorize that she's a witch. A little brown bunny sits near the bushes.

And here's what I look like in the studio. Renny's drawing of our Nils character (which I am currently at work writing and revising the script for) is behind, as is a funny pink lamp from Target.

What else? I am soon starting a part-time, short-term (but well-paid) job tutoring at a public school under the program Brain Hurricane. I am looking for permanent part-time work, and have applied to a shelter, a Dunkin' Donuts, and others. I am living off savings and enjoying my temporary unemployment. I spend most of my time reading (ChiPubLib is a gift from heaven), writing, drawing, exploring free things in the city, and partying with my friends in West Town. Some hard stuff has happened lately but not anything that everybody doesn't go through. It has been sometimes overwhelming and lonely to move here but my continuing massive dumb luck seems to have no sign of running out, as I have basically everything that I ever wanted.



Speaking of luck, at the Country Music Festival in Grant Park today I was able to catch, for free, a set by Alejandro Escovedo. I had never really listened to his music and wasn't blown away by what I heard on his myspace page beforehand, but carried by the wind of many music critics who I had read calling him one of the great living songwriters, I went. I'm glad I did. They were right! By the third song everyone in the audience were made to be believers. Above is my favorite song from the set, which he said is about "Sid and Nancy... You've probably all seen the movie."

Speaking of the movie (which I mostly hated), this rules:



I hope to be getting ahold of a scanner soon, then you don't know what you're in for. Signing off.