I began this work full of wonder and hopefulness. According to the dust jacket it was “a valentine to coffee and bikes and rain,” and I like all those things. How could this book make me want to seek out the author and punch him in the face? I’ll tell you. I HATE ZINES. I loathe shoddy workmanship which is the main calling card of a zine. They are xeroxed. Ugh.

The main character, Bartholomew Flynn is a zine-ster. Aren’t 20-somethings whiny enough without the added copypaper zine? Then something wonderful happened, the “inserted” zine pages were actually funny. Flynn went from the everyman of the Midwest to the scribe. He captured not only the story of Booker, but the Portlandia of Portland.

As the exploration of Portland unfolds through “Coffee Breaks” and commentary from Flynn the dream of the 90′s shines through. Unlike the actual IFC show Portlandia, this Portland is one I want to visit. I want to get a Voodoo doughnut and ride around on a fixie.

The survivalists of the work, the C.H.V.C.K. boys are aggressive in a weird way and never fully explained. Do they really know how to survive in the wilderness? Raggedy Andy’s experience tilts the answer to yes, but how much of it was just him not bathing? It could have all just been a set up.

Overall a good read and perhaps the next time I see a zine I will resist the urge to wipe my ass with it. Perhaps.

This year Easter fell on my birthday. It seems very appropriate since it is actually my Jesus year. That’s right, I am now 33. I got the best card that brings it all together as well.

Now I’m starting this year off right, headed to PBR book club this evening. There will be lots of ironic looks and PBRs consumed.

Monday evening Youth Lagoon played at the Jackpot. I couldn’t resist a small venue show that would consist of a guy, keyboard, and a drum machine. Arrived a few hours early to do my favorite thing, read and drink PBR. I was there for sound check which in all truth was louder than the Radiohead concert the night before.

Three PBRs and five short stories in the place was packed. In fact my produce stalker was even in the house. The opening band completed their soundcheck (having arrived late) and started their set.

After the opening band I headed to the dancefloor/stage viewing area to await young Powers. He was introduced with a terrible joke, which all the hipsters seemed to know the punch line: What does a fish say when he swims into a wall? (Dam.) Touring Youth Lagoon consisted of Trevor Powers and his friend on guitar. Powers vocals almost sound like what I imagine Elmo will sound like as a disenchanted young adult. Youth Lagoon played exactly the length of time I expected and brought it full force. Overall a good show.

After the show I took a walk down to the Tap Room to get some air and hey another cheaper PBR. As I approached I could hear the music from about half a block away. The door guy yelled $3. The bartender asked if I was here for the death metal show. I yelled back, no. Thought I would grab a better and cool off. $6 later I had a PBR in hand & was back out on the patio where the metal heads were yelling at each about how great the Triumph motorcycle is.

Apparently if one actually ventured downstairs to where the show was the sound level was well above 130 decibels. One guy went there sans earplugs in hopes to dislodge his sinus infection. Overall a fitting end to my music weekend. Now it’s on to basketball.

I have missed Radiohead by days, hours in the past. I wasn’t able to make it to their Bottleneck show in’95. I missed them by a day in Tokyo. There was talk of seeing them as part of APW a couple of years ago, but I hate festivals. So this was it finally seeing Radiohead live, in concert.

When the opening band did a quick 30 minute set I got excited. That meant that Radiohead was allotting at least 2.5 hours if not 3. I was ready. The show started out as I figured it would, lots of the new music. Traquil, napping music. Let’s face it people, Amnesiac was the beginning of the end of the great rock from Radiohead. I’m not saying the new stuff isn’t enjoyable, but seriously how does one dance to it? If you were the girl in front of me the answer is spastic with elbows to my face; the guy behind me a gentle head bob.

The house lights came up during one number which woke me up a bit, but overall the entire first hour was nothing more than a nice warm up. The real show started with the encore. The light screen was finally used in a more dramatic way. Unfortunately the first encore was only 5 songs, while the second was a short 2. Total playing time for Radiohead came in just over an hour forty-five. This from a band with nearly 20 years of music. Shocking, appalling not worth the $70 and sexual harassment of the floor seats.

A note on the stage design. There was a light board directly behind the band with movable screens. So much could have been done with this. What did we get? Repeating patterns and shots of the band. Le sigh. Beck had a similar set-up 4 years ago and did more with it, as did Thievery Corporation. Overall Radiohead, you were nothing but a disappointment.

Better use of lightboard

And men who wear hats.

Last night was the Bon Iver show at the Uptown Theater. This was my first trip to the Uptown Theater and wasn’t too sure how the parking would play out. As it turned out I got there too late to park in the adjacent lot, but was able to get a spot a couple of blocks away. As I had gotten used to walking over to Terminal 5 in NYC this was a prime spot in my mind.

Usually I try to make it in time to catch the opening act, but decided against it this time. There is only so much sad guitar I can take. Thus I arrived about halfway through the openers set, which was too much of it for my taste.

Bon Iver went on around 9:30 and just killed it. I was looking for a photo on the web, as I saw people taking them, but alas none have been posted. The audience was under the spell of Justin. I haven’t been a part of an audience like that for a while. It was quite nice.

In other news I did complete a 10k a couple  of weeks ago. There are photos, but they are all copyrighted.  You should be able to view them by going to the Northface Endurance Challenge website under the Kansas City results. My bib number was 1320.

It’s getting close to start training for the half marathon, because clearly I’m insane.

I had heard that the Conan remake was terrible, but much like a car wreck I had to see it for myself. So I hit up a matinee to witness the train wreck that is Conan the Barbarian 3D.

The lack of Valeria already had me bummed, but Rose McGowan was in the film and it was shot pre-disfigurement so she is still pretty. Plus Ron Perlman. How can that be bad? I’ll tell you. In the opening scene after he cuts his child out of his wife’s uterus he holds him up Lion King style. WTF.

So let’s skip ahead. Preteen Conan is pretty bad-ass up until after his father’s death and he pulls a sword out of a body and holds it up Masters of the Universe style. Again what the fuck? The same pose happens two other times in the movie. It made we wish I was watching the Dolph Lundgren vehicle (at least he wore a loin cloth).

Finally we meet the heroine. I couldn’t figure out if she was badly rewritten or just a weak character. Every five minutes she was yelling for Conan. Conan save me I can only sort of wield a blade; I can’t even defeat Rose McGowan who isn’t using any of her witchy powers.

Boo filmmakers. Boo.

The local paper is running a contest/project. It’s called Dear Lawrence. The idea is to revisit places that have been photographed and capture the same image now. It isn’t just taking the same picture though. One actually takes the original print and photographs it inline with the surroundings. This is actually quite challenging. I went through my photos and found three that you can actually see Lawrence. They were taken specifically of downtown Lawrence to show how much hipper it is compared to Chapel Hill. I then dug through some of my mom’s photos from the ’70s. I found almost an entire roll that was shot on the 700 block of Massachusetts. The only problem was that all I had was the contact sheet & the negatives. I thought, hey ImageWorks can print these, but alas it is out of business. So I got all 21st century on them. I scanned in the contact sheet and then saved each image individually thanks to Photoscape. Best Buy had a crazy sale on photopaper a few years ago so I have access to a few hundred sheets. I printed the images onto 4X6 and was good to go. The images certainly aren’t as crisp as they would be if they were printed from negatives, but they work. Besides wasn’t everything fuzzy in 1972?

Last year I attempted to will away my birthday.  I ended up black out drunk with possibly the worst hangover  of my life.  This year I thought hey, let’s do something.  Unfortunately I had to work pretty much all weekend, but did that stop me?  No.

In part I started celebrating my birthday way back in March when I went to go see the Cold War Kids.  That show wasn’t the best I’d seen from them, but they did play Every Man I Fall For which was missing from the show at T5 the year before.

I ran a 5K poorly.  I went back to B-town for an evening, which turned into a night and a vow to not be there without a chaperon.  The KU basketball team choked once again.

Then my actual birthday rolled around.  I celebrated it with co-birthday buddy Jake in KC.  I got pleasantly drunk and only slightly obnoxious and got to work the next morning on time.  Overall it was a good day.

Was I done?  Oh hell no.  I hadn’t gone out in Larryville to celebrate.  So the following weekend I headed out to the Tap Room.  I had a few PBRs, then met up with some fellow drinkers.  We went patio hopping.  If you took a card and had a patio we paid a visit (as some people for some reason have a hard time carrying cash).  This time I got pleasantly drunk and slightly more obnoxious, but throughly enjoyed myself.

The final bit of my birthday celebration was the Arcade Fire/National concert at Starlight.  

This was easily the best show I’ve seen in a while.  Now if only Peter Bjorn & John would make a stop in Kansas City!

My cousin recently went through a metamorphosis. She lost almost a hundred pounds by changing her lifestyle. I thought hey, if she can do it so can I. I had already lost close to thirty pounds and was ready to hit it hard. Eventually the stars lined up (I got off my bum) and I was able to truly dedicate myself to becoming healthy. I was living in a community that had a free workout 5 days a week. I started going to that workout. These workouts are truly community-wide. Anyone and everyone is welcome. You can do the exercises at your own speed and to the best of your ability. If you are told to do 10 push-ups and only complete 5 that’s fine. Noone will laugh at you or mock you. In fact there is nothing but encouragement at these workouts, which works out well as during the summer there will always be at least one ridiculous hill that you are told to run up; sometimes you’ve got to run up it backwards.

I started these workouts with the summer session, June 1. I had recently put on about 10 pounds, but I chalked it up to moving, stress, and actually eating three times a day as opposed to my former twice a day regimen. So doing some sit-ups, push-ups, volleyball jumps, burpees, mountain climbers were definitely on the menu. I attended the workouts regularly; meaning 4 or more times a week. After a month I had gained 4 pounds. I decided those were all muscle.

Now I had also modified my diet. I was eating fairly well. I would have cereal or oatmeal for breakfast and a mid-morning snack of grapes. Lunch consisted of a turkey sandwich on low calorie wheat bread and an apple. I had an afternoon snack most days that consisted of a bag of chips and a Coke Zero. Then I would go workout for an hour. Dinner wasn’t ever healthy. Sometimes it was chicken, or tacos, but most times it was homemade pizza. In theory they weighed in around 500 calories, but I’m sure they were more as I really like cheese. During this time I was averaging about 4 liters of water a day.

So here I was working out, eating fairly well, and what was happening. Everyday I felt a little worse. I was tired all the time. At first it wasn’t all that obvious. I was napping over my lunch hour, but hey I’d just moved and started working full time again. That’s tiring. Then things changes so that I couldn’t take that nap. I was going to bed around 9pm and getting up at 6am. Then it was 6:30am, finally I was lucky to get up at 7am. That definitely put a cramp in my breakfast routine.

Did I mention that the summer heat didn’t bother me? I was wearing long sleeves to work. Now I told myself it was because they were the most professional things I owned (true) and that it worked out because the air conditioning was ridiculous. It is true that we would turn on the air conditioning in the morning and let it run till just after lunch. At that point I would turn it off for the day. By the time I left it was usually around 84 in my office, which was just fine. During my lunch hour I was outside soaking up the sun and warming up. Most days it was in the 90s with a week in the triple digits. I barely broke a sweat. I would sweat when I worked out, and it was clothes soaking, but again I was hitting it hard. So I really didn’t think anything was wrong.

So after 3 months of the same routine there was a week break of the community workout. I needed it. I was exhausted. I went to bed early and let my body recover. I knew that I was stronger and faster than I had been in March, but I didn’t really feel like it. It seemed that every week I had a harder time doing what I had done the week before. Push-ups weren’t getting easier, they were getting harder. The fall workout was only three days a week, so I started just running on my own. I found a training program for a half-marathon, not that I was going to run one, but it seemed like something to do, and started following it. So I started working out 6 days a week. The community workout became my easy days and on some occasions I didn’t finish those workouts.

Now my life was far from pretty. Much like the rest of America I had no money and owed a bunch. So I was ridiculously stressed out about that so it seemed natural that I would be a bit melancholy. I realized that something was wrong the day that I was told that my position had been made permanent and I would be getting benefits (insurance and everything) and I knew I should be happy, but I just wasn’t.

I would go to work and fall into hazes. My boss would be talking to me about something and I would have to concentrate very hard on what he was saying as it was like listening to everything through a fog. I thought it was strange, but figured it was part of aging and normal. Because isn’t 98% of the things you experience well within the normal range?

On the more personal side, I had decided not to date for a while. Since I didn’t have any money it was easy not to go out and I was so tired that most days I didn’t want to go out. What I didn’t notice was that my sex drive had disappeared. I hadn’t thought about it for a while and I had abstained in the past, but this was different. I had no urges at all. Which was really fine as I wasn’t feeling pretty. My hair had completely dried out and was a mess. I had always had very healthy hair, even when I dyed it; but lately it was horrid. Perhaps from the lack of fat in my diet? I wasn’t sure. My skin was also dry. My skin had only been dry once before and that was in the dead of winter, this was mid September with 70% humidity and I was scaly.

All of these things I didn’t really worry about until I broke out in a rash on my shin. My insurance had kicked in so I made an appointment. I decided to get a full physical because I hadn’t had one in a while. My doctor immediately diagnosed the rash as a result from being fair skinned and dry. Steroid cream and recommendations for lotion. Otherwise I was completely healthy aside from my weight. I should lose 20 pounds.

I said, but I’m running 6 days a week and I’m really tired. He said he’d run some tests. As it turns out I do actually have a thyroid problem. Just gaining a wee bit of weight does not make for metabolism problem, but in combination with all the other things you might have a problem.