Our most ambitious work to date

We are strong and pure of heart, etc.(!)

We are sitting these days, and smiling. We are thinking of ways to reverse time, to warp space, to hunt down vampires and turn them to dust, and things of that nature, regarding villainy and H.G. Wells and Stephen Hawking. These days are full of mosquito bites and awkward conversations, armies of one and superfluous congressional sessions. These days are full of all these things and more.


Things these days are full of, in Wisconsin, but not Chicago:

1. We have seen wooded hills without buildings!
2. We have seen fireflies, lightning bugs, usually around 8:15pm!
3. We have seen Best Week Ever, courtesy of VH1!

Things these days are full of, in Chicago, but not in Wisconsin:

1. We are missing Taste of Chicago, for the second straight year!
2. We are missing Stella get skinnier, or at least that is our hope!
3. We are missing all that heated concrete, which really isn't such a big deal, which in fact, we pretty much hate!

Then, later on in the day...

We are thinking of how many unfunny comedians there are in this world, and how we know so many funny people who aren't comedians, and how we ought to have the power to hand out sitcoms to our friends. We are thinking of other things we ought to be handing out to our friends. Such as, a) music to love; b) cake to eat; and c) bottles of tap water, because tap water is free.

Burn yr iPod.

We are listening to the Concretes so very much these days, and by we I should like to mean all of us, and everyone we know, and their aunts, uncles, cousins, etcetera, for the good of mankind and mother earth, for the betterment of society as we know it, for bits of the eschaton in our cd players, but not necessarily our mp3 players, because the jury is still out on whether or not we like those, but as of last count we are 9-3 in opposition, mostly because there are definitely times when music should not be played, when we should shut the fuck up and listen to the sounds of our surroundings, and remind ourselves that we are not actors in a movie, and we do not need a soundtrack when we laugh and dance like children of the night, and there are no happy moments that would be better experienced in montage, and we can never understand another person's life in two and a half hours, and books have no singles from the Shins and they are better for it.

To reiterate:

1. We are not living in a movie.
2. Life has its own soundtrack; it's called our hearts and hands and the crunch of gravel beneath our feet.
3. There is no such person as Meg Ryan/George Clooney in real life. And we are better for it.

Also, we have voices, and our voices are the greatest voices in the world, regardless of what others may say, because they are bastards, and we are children of God.

While our kids are dying in Iraq, let us speak endlessly of outlawing flag burning and same-sex marriage all the while pretending it has nothing to do with that election in November!

Yes! We are frustrated these days with the state of how things are, and frustrated with our lack of power to make things right, to restore lands to their original owners, to support those who toil and labor rather those than who pillage and exploit, to stand up the chairs of justice on all four legs, declaring an actual year of jubilee, a factual year of jubilation, letting lands lay fallow and tax cuts expire, realizing that while it may sting today, we owe it to our children to leave them with a better world than what we were given. Let us be stewards and not corporate raiders. Let us be Peter Parkers and not Norman Osbornes. Let us seek truth, even when it hurts like hell! I'm talking to you, Rick Santorum!

We have run out of things to say.

Finally, do we remember that one scene in Conan the Barbarian, where Arnold slugged that horse in the face? Oh man, that was completely freaking ridiculous! I'm talking to you, Rick Santorum!

Hell, yeah!