BIBJ Playlist of the 2000s entry #83: Fight Test by The Flaming Lips

Full Details of the BIBJ Millennial Playlist Hullabaloo are available here. Today's entry is #83: Fight Test by The Flaming Lips (2002)


Flaming Lips - Fight Test




Yesterday Chicago lost the 2016 Olympics. While watching the live coverage, I observed the sheer bafflement on the faces of anchors, reporters, and people on the street in what apparently was an upset in the eyes of many. People seemed most stunned by the fact that Chicago placed dead last of the four candidate cities, and you would never know by the coverage that half of Chicagoans never wanted the games in the first place. Irregardless, after the first few minutes of newscasters and volunteers coming to grips with the shock, I started hearing a familiar refrain. It's the same motto I've been hearing people spout out leading up to yesterday's decision, and one I've heard ad infinitum since before Olympic talk even began:

"We're going to show people that Chicago is a world class city."

A google search of Olympics Chicago "world class city" reveals 7,060,000 results. But what is the phrase "world class city" supposed to even mean? Chicago is the 3rd biggest city in America. People around the world know about Chicago. Yet this city has some deeply embedded inferiority complex that manifests itself in this ridiculous quest to prove its collective worth to the rest of the world, who frankly couldn't give a shit one way or the other.

I'm not sure where this inherited paranoia comes from, but I see it time and time again in people who can't wait to tell you that they've lived in Chicago their whole life. (The majority of these people consider growing up in Schaumburg or Wilmette the same as "Chicago," mailing address be damned. By this rationale, those who live in Greenwich, Connecticut will be pleased to know they can claim to be from New York City.)

Along with this pride of being real Chicagoans, there is a bizarre judgment of any other city within the Midwest. Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, St. Louis - you are second class cities, all secretly conspiring as you dream of reaching the stature the Windy City claims. A former Sun Time columnist, who now can tell you all you need to know about womens Korea Open tennis, once wrote an infamous column before Super Bowl XLI about the intense jealousy Indianapolis must have of Chicago. If only he knew that people in Indianapolis have pretty much no opinion whatsoever of Chicago, aside from the fact that they probably silently wonder what kind of city would keep re-electing a mayor who has proven to be such a complete fuck up.

Here's what I've realized. People of Chicago want these other Midwestern cities to be jealous of Chicago, because the truth is that Chicago is jealous of LA and New York, for reasons I'll likely never understand. They want the eyes of the world on Chicago as much as possible (unless the reason involves Blago.) Any arbitrary list that any publication invents, Chicago wants to be #1. Men's Health's most stressed city? Car & Driver's worst highway traffic? An airline magazine's top farmer's markets? They want it all, and when they feel put down, they lash out like Third Eye Blind backers, indignant at those who don't show proper respect, while simultaneously begging for approval of their worth from the masses.

Needless to say, I can't wait to see the reaction in four years when Minneapolis inevitably gets the 2020 Olympic Games.

BIBJ Playlist of the 2000s entry #52: Chicago by Sufjan Stevens

Full Details of the BIBJ Millennial Playlist Hullabaloo are available here. Today's entry is #52: Chicago by Sufjan Stevens (2005)

It's a big day today. Let's go Rio!


P.S. A cappella groups LOVE Sufjan Stevens. So do people who enjoy writing "Thematic elements" sections within Wikipedia articles.

Nuclear War

While watching the trendy Dayton Flyers fall from the ranks of the unbeaten this evening, I checked out Pitchfork for the first time this week and read the predictably uneven review of the predictably uneven Grampall Jookabox album. This review unexpectedly led to a savvy quick marketing scheme by label Asthmatic Kitty, and sparked a (relatively) thoughtful discussion on Musical Family Tree on the merits of the review, and of Pitchfork's review system as a whole. As I read the Pitchfork review, framed in the author's context of being a Hoosier himself, this final passage seemed most irritating (even more so than a normal P4k missive):

Ropechain isn't going to displace Margot & the Nuclear So-and-Sos as the standard-bearers for Indie-ana any time soon (though please, someone hurry up and do it), but the album can stake a claim to represent that ever-underrepresented subculture that the nineteenth state owns as well as the other 49: Fidgety suburban druggies.

Swish. Why just review the album itself when you can also take a pot-shot at a completely unrelated band?

Perhaps my sentimentality gets the best of me at times - this can happen when you live in a state preparing to send it's second straight governor to jail. But I don't get the point of ripping on a hometown band for no apparent reason in a review of someone else's album. Perhaps it has to do with where I now live. One of the biggest surprises I've found since moving to Chicago is that while this city obviously is a destination spot for national touring bands, the local band scene in Chicago is not supported anywhere near the extent that the same scene is appreciated in Indianapolis. Maybe that's a direct result of national bands being much more readily available, but as a whole, there's very little enthusiasm for local bands playing live within Chicago. Neither does there seem to be the same sense of camaraderie among bands supporting each other that is evident in Indy. This mentality no doubt further colors my disdain for watching a hometown band get thrown under the bus.

But the fun doesn't end there. The discussion continued on the reviewer's personal blog, where the comments section included this highly dubious claim:

I've talked to more people around Indy and Bloomington that resent them [Margot] than like them, that's for sure.

If true, then the people you've talked to are assholes. I know many people in Indy who find the band to not particularly be their cup of tea, but even those who don't necessarily like the band's music think it's cool that a band from Indy is making a name for itself. Who from Indianapolis wouldn't have been excited to see the Melody Inn t-shirt or shout out to Marmoset on national television? Shit man, I'm happy just hearing Conan say the word "Indianapolis." The very few people I know who actually resent them (I can think of 2 people total) are jealous musicians or wannabes, upset that they haven't gotten the well-deserved breaks Margot has.

That notion is crystallized further later in the comments:

it's easiest to understand where i'm coming from if you're from indianapolis, have been attending shows in the area for about half your life, have seen hundreds of great bands come and go, and still, the only band ever mentioned is the one which gets popular because they sound like arcade fire and cop a wes anderson reference. it's frustrating, and a lot of people i talk to admit it. i don't hate that band, and i don't want to bully them out of existence. i'm just expressing frustration, again from an "insider" perspective, that it's got to be *them.* point granted, though. i know it seems shitty.

Welcome to the real world, friend. I fit every one of your listed stipulations there, and yes, until the day I die, my inner 14-year-old will be outraged that SuperFatFlyBoy never went on to headline Lollapalooza. We've all seen bands galore that deserve that big break but never quite get it because in the end, success is a lottery. Most bands will never get that notoriety, but this bullshit about "that band doesn't deserve it" is a joke. Should more bands from Indy have broken through? Of course they should have. But trying your best to throw rocks at the one band who is doing things the right way while finding a measured amount of success is lazy and more than a little disappointing. This is not a band who has earned notoriety through easily optioning their songs to air on "The Hills" or "Grey's Anatomy." This is not a band that has shamed it's hometown the way Nickelback has shamed all of Canada. This is a band that has consistently praised other local acts in interviews and on stage, much more than they've needed to.

Luckily, the majority of people supporting music in Indianapolis aren't doing so while talking with others about how much they hate one band in particular. Most fall in line with Dodge, praising the local acts that more people should know about, and simultaneously refusing to take cheap shots at one of the successes of a scene that means a lot to many people. This my friends, is true Hoosier hospitality.

Keep the Car Running

Driving from the city of Chicago to the suburbs on a daily basis brings about several repeated moments of road rage. This is compounded on mornings like today's, when several inches of snow makes travel a grind. Anyone going from downtown to O'Hare had a tidy 2-hour-15-minute wait on the expressways. Sounds like a party!

But it really puts a crimp in the commute when a water main bursts and a damn street collapses into the earth!


This large newly-built pond used to be Montrose Ave., running through Lincoln Square and Ravenswood. The burst started overnight and caused massive flooding throughout the area. The restaurant unfortunately positioned behind the lake is El Torito, which one might assume could be closed for a bit.



Images copied from TheErin's flickr account.

Masquerade

My mission for Halloween 2007 was simple. Since I've moved to Chicago and learned to cope with the rigors of waking up in the morning consistently for the first time in six months, I've been playing things close to the vest. I've yet to go to work with a hangover, and more often than not I've been getting an appropriate amount of sleep each night. Clearly, this had to stop, and what night was better for ending this trend than this? With that in mind, I headed to the Metro for what turned out to be an ass-kicking show from Art Brut and The Hold Steady. Both bands brought it hard in the costume department, although Elvis jumpsuits are not always flattering. The Hold Steady also announced that the show was being recorded for a live album/DVD, which should be outstanding as the show was epic.

As I was walking to the Metro, I thought I would swing by and check out the big gay Halloween parade careening up Halsted. This year marked the 11th annual North Halsted Parade, and I applaud any event that combines a costume contest for children with the shenanigans of Boystown. Where else can you combine the cuteness of this......with the subtlety of this...
In case you're wondering, the collective pictured above dubbed themselves "The Cockettes." They were pretty tame compared with some of the more adventurous parade-goers.

But try as they might, Santa's not so little helpers did not win me over for best costume of the evening. That honor belonged to another attendee. I don't think I've ever been jealous of a kindergarten-aged lad, let alone jealous of their wardrobe, but I was in complete and unadulterated envy of this tyke's get up:
What kid this age has any basis to know who Conan O'Brien even is? I guarantee when I was his age I wasn't begging my mom to let me dress up as Tom Snyder for trick-or-treating. Kudos to you kid. You've set the bar high for Halloween 2008. Hope you weren't planning on dressing as a Cockette. That costume is taken.