Record Releases, Birthdays and Bon Voyage, Sam!

Well, it's been a really busy Winter Quarter--especially these past few weeks. Ever since my workload suddenly changed from 1 full course + 1 course assistanceship to 2 full courses, I've been working on a relentless schedule. For the first couple of weeks after the change, every hour of my day was taken up desperately keeping up with lecture preparations, marking and the complexities of individual student issues (sicknesses, cheating, failing grades, etc).

In the past week, I began to feel like I was finally mastering the workload. I was still completely busy with work, but I could sense that I was getting faster and more efficient in my lecture preparations. I had been ready to spend the weekend preparing several lectures in advance...but then this party happened. A good friend of mine--also an internationally-touring DJ, techno producer and promoter--had recently announced that she was going to move to London, England along with her husband, who is also a very active in the scene. As some of the central figures in the techno collective, Naughty Bad Fun, their absence will be a sore and deeply felt one. So this weekend's party became not just a record release party, but also a bon voyage party for Sam and Ryan (and also a birthday party for another friend).

Anyway, long story short (too late!): I ditched my plans to work ahead on my courses in the interest of seeing Sam off.

00:00-02:00: Dirtybird & Sassmouth

Before heading out to the party, I forced myself to at least finish my lecture notes for Monday morning. Thank gawd I did! This party rendered me nearly useless the next day. I finished the notes around 11:45 and started racing to get ready. I had already missed the opening set by my friend Kev a.k.a. Cap'n Can't Get Right, and I was about to miss Jenna & Sam's set! I showered and changed, dashed out the door and zipped over to Sam & Ryan's place as fast I could safely could.

After climbing my way over hard-packed ice, through their back yard in Humboldt Park in pitch-black darkness, I finally got to the back entrance to their place just as someone stepped out. After a moment of surprise, the person at the door (a friend of the hosts and an acquaintance of mine) let me in.

After throwing a few dollars to the hosts for the communal beer keg, I ran down into the infamous "Rave Cave" / "Rave Dungeon." You see, Sam & Ryan live in a lovely vintage Chicago 2-flat, where they share an unfinished, concrete-floored basement with the tenants on the second floor. Luckily, their upstairs neighbours are part of a punk collective, so between the two of them, they take turns hosting music events in the basement. The basement is really well isolated--deep in the ground and concrete-walled--so that they could keep the music pumping loudly all night with minimal complaints from their neighbours. Admittedly, this is Humboldt Park, and they live on a street of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos that frequently hold their own block parties, so I don't doubt that they would have much more trouble throwing these parties in Lincoln Park or Lakeview. You can get an idea of what the Rave Cave looks like by checking out the pictures and videos below; the rest of the space is pretty similar: a palimpsest of graffiti on concrete and second-hand furniture.

Anyway, I made my way into the basement and made the "arrival" rounds--that set of social calls you feel compelled to make when you arrive into a social event. Who do you know? You better find out and hug them. Or kiss them, grope them...whatever's appropriate. Anyway, I made my presence known, made the gestures of warmth that would begin the story of "partying-with" my friends, and declared my desires for getting fucked up tonight. It had been a long while since I had had the opportunity to really party; this wasn't really a good opportunity to party, either--I had to be "normal" and responsible by 4pm the next day--but it was Sam's sendoff party and I wasn't going to wuss out. Over the past few weeks, I've come to the realization that there is never a "convenient" time to get messed up and disorganized, and if I wait for that perfect weekend where I have nothing else to do, I'll always be partying half-heartedly until I find myself back on the plane to Paris. Not that I mind going back to Paris, but I only have 6 months left to make good fieldwork. Just typing that makes me hyperventilate a little.

With all of that sorted out (I'm not giving any details on here, but I'll just say that I had an opportunity to get fucked up in a way that I haven't been in a good 6 years), I snapped a few pictures and video of Sassmouth & Dirtybird spinning and got my dance on. As it turns out, one of my friends (and part of the Naughty Bad Fun collective) had set up a camera and was streaming this event live on the web (yay!), but I found out later that the streaming wasn't saved anywhere (wah!), so my dream of having a continuous record of the whole night fizzled. Anyway, I got some pretty choice shots on my own camera. There's a shot that doesn't show the two DJs all that well, but highlights the setup of their gear (Serato Scratch with laptop and 2 turntables; a webcam + laptop setup for the streaming video); there's also another shot that's blurry but vivid--a good reflection of my own perceptual world throughout most of the night.

Dirtybird & Sassmouth's set was great, and a bit surprising. I've always associated Sassmouth's sets with driving, dark, sometimes aggressive techno--that room-filling sound consistently associated with "Detroit"--but their combined sound tonight was much more sparse and pointillist. It wasn't quite the click-pop minimalism of Cabanne or FoundSound records, but it wasn't the head-banging minimalism of Ricardo Villalobos or Luciano either. I'm not sure where to place it, but I really liked it. I've managed to capture a bit of it in the videos I've attached after the pictures. What would you call this sound? Post your answer in the blog comments...

That's Sassmouth on the left, Dirtybird on the right.

Check out the gear!

This is how I felt...

02:00-3:00: Rex Sepulveda

As soon as Sam got off the decks, we began what would become a night-long trend of "Have fun in London! But we'll miss you! But good for you! But Chicago will never be the same!" At this point in the evening, it was mostly wistful smiles and warm hugs, but as the night went on, eyes became wet, smiles became pained, and some of us clutched her and sobbed.

I should say right now that I'm really not interested in having the debate about whether people would have felt so strongly about Sam's departure if they hadn't been high / drunk / etc. People do lots of things to their bodies to alter or intensify the way they look, feel, act, etc. Regardless of what happened before or after, these moments felt intensely real and achingly bittersweet.

Of course, the rest of the night wasn't just some rave-y version of a tearjerker film. There was lots of dancing, lots of cheering, and very high energy. I even have a shot of Sam humping the coveted Rave-Pole!

At some point during this set, I had a conversation with a friend at the party who is an artist and very well read in philosophy and critical theory, and we had a conversation something like this:

"Dude....DELEUZE!"

"Holy Fuck! DELEUZE!!!"

And so on. Neither of us was particularly coherent, and we amused his girlfriend to no end.

For similar reasons (i.e., incapable of understanding the concept of "camera"), I don't have much in the way of photos and video of Rex Sepulveda's set, but it was great. From what I did capture, you can see/hear that he was doing a live set that was on the darker side of minimal techno, somewhat downtempo compared to the sets before and after him. At some point shortly after his set, I we had a conversation that went something like this.

[I compliment him on his set and ask him where he's from (Detroit)]

Sepulveda: This is actually my first time in the Rave Cave.

LMGM: Wow. Really? Welcome.

S: Heh, yeah, thanks.

LMGM: This is sort of a baptism by fire.

S: Heh, baptism by fire...heheh....Hahaha ...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA [slaps knee]

03:00-04:00: The Punisher

Michelle(a.k.a. The Punisher)'s sound has shifted in an interesting way since the last time I heard her play (which, admittedly, was a long while ago). Her set tonight reminded me more of the Katapult and Circus Company minimal nights in Paris, or maybe the Perlon sound. Anyway, her set had a lightly housey, clicky feel to it, but the whole set was grounded with the sort of solid bass that I associate with Deeeeetroit! techno. I may have been too retarded to take many pictures, but I did manage to get some good video--probably because the flashing lights on her equipment were soooo pretty...

04:00-06:00: John Overfiend

Alas, I don't have any pictures of this set (although I do have some video...see below!), because I spent almost the entirety of this set out by the back entrance. Sorry mister Overfiend! Sometime at the beginning of this set, I went upstairs to get a bit of water and I realized that our hosts, Sam & Ryan, were guarding the back door with their jackets on (it's really cold back there). During the previous set, people had started arriving that the hosts didn't know; at first it seemed like mostly friends-of-friends-of-friends, but more and more it became clear that some of the after-hours crowd was spilling over from clubs and bars around town. While some of them were friendly and innocuous, many of them were sketchy and/or excessively fucked up. As the vibe in the room began to shift, Sam & Co. began to feel control over the crowd at the party slip away. So they set themselves up right at the back entrance to the house, trying to keep out any new strangers, while others in the group went around attempting to diplomatically (and, later, less diplomatically) shoo out the sketchpads downstairs.

Feeling bad for their plight, I put on my shell-top and stood by the door with them. As the drama continued and the hosts had to run around and keep things running smoothly (or at least positively), the crew of people keeping me company shifted and changed, but there was a constant feeling of camaraderie-in-the-trenches. As we complained about the random-ass strangers traipsing up and down the stairwell, we had some of the funniest moments of the whole party. My memories of the jokes are pretty fuzzy at this point, but I do remember Michelle and Kev making jokes about a cracked-out "Rave Squirrel" in a christmas tree, surrounded by blinking sequencers; I don't know why, but I laughed until my sides hurt.

At one point, I was trapped in the stairwell with a well-meaning guy that likes to practice his French with me...endlessly...even when I really don't want to. In the middle of this, a rather messed-up girl looking like she just walked out of an afterschool special stumbled down the stairs from the washroom. Walking through our rather stilted French conversation, she suddenly decided she needed to make herself the center of attention.

Random Skank: I don't know what you're talking about, but you're talking shit. I know that much.

LMGM: Uh-huh. That's nice.

RSkank: [over her shoulder, from the bottom of the stairs] Io parlo italiano (I speak Italian).

LMGM: Ed anche io lo parlo (I speak it, too).

RSkank: Oh yeah? Well, fuck you and your Italianspeak. [disappears into the basement]

Jenna: Oh, that bitch has got to GO.

And Jenna disappeared into the basement after her to defend my honor. Alas, the strained French conversation lasted for much longer...even though his date was very obviously eager to get home and get it on before work. What kind of guy takes his time to practice his French when his date is standing by the door and gesturing to her crotch?

6:00-?: Nathaniel Shreve

Sigh. I'd like to say that I was able to stick around for this and enjoy his set, but by the time I escaped the door and warmed back up, it was time to go home. I really wanted to stay all night and party until the last person fell asleep, but I had to get home, force myself to sleep, and then get back up, read some academic articles and run to campus and run a screening for my Sex&Gender class. Oh well, I thought, I more cautious version of me would've gone home at 2am, so I suppose I did well.

With only a bit of difficulty, I made it outside (aaagh! sunlight!!) and got myself home.

Phew! I'll be posting a few more thoughts on the party in tomorrow's blog post, but here's a fantastic glam-shot of Sam and MLE during the party:

By the way, you can see more pics from this event here and here.

Wake Up! : Pheek live

I had a busy day leading up to the party. First a student org meeting, then a few hours of library work, then a department dinner/reception, then a birthday gathering at the pub nearby. Nonetheless, after a good afternoon/evening of socializing, I was still up for a night of techno. I drove back to my place, changed into something more dance-y, and then off I went to Sonotheque, for another night of fun.

?h??-0h00: Antiphase vs. Kiddo

Unfortunately, my previous engagements that evening prevented me from catching anything but the last few beats of their back2back set (a.k.a. "ping-pong" in France), so I don't have much to report about their set, except that I liked the last track they were playing. However, I do have this cute pic of Kiddo peering over the edge of the DJ booth. Sorry the picture wasn't crisper!

0h00-1h30: Pheek live

Pheek's set was great, although the video clips don't show it very well. Something about the accoustics in that club make the crowd louder than the music to my camera's mic. That never happened when I recorded video in Paris, so I'm not entirely sure what's going on with that. Nonetheless, I did get a 2-minute long segment of the very beginning of his set, which was mostly static-y pads and high-end twiddling, finally brought into motion by beats around the end of the clip. Also, the third clip captures a few moments of one of the video projections that appeared a few times during the night. There's something about the classical indian dancer (is that kathak? bharatanatyam?) in a pixelated, iridescent silhouette that I find mesmerizing. And the occasional jump-cut and reversal adds a nice stuttering effect.

Anyway, Pheek's set was nice, crisp minimal techno with moments of looser microhouse. Generally, his emphasis was on fine and intricate patterns in the high-end, with punchy but relatively mellow bass beats and a rather thin mid-range. Check out the video clips for a sample, despite the poor sound quality. This was also a pretty tough show for my camera and pictures, partially due to the DJ booth of reflective glass, and partially thanks to the fact that I had left the ISO really high and the shutter too slow. One day, I'll get a hot SLR camera that allows me to take good quality pictures without flash. Someday. That's what research budgets are for.

1h30-2h00: DJ Sassmouth

Just like last time at Sonotheque on a Thursday, Sassmouth's set was wonderful, but far too short. Sam managed to throw down a few good techno tracks that skirted the line between heavy classic techno and crystalline, crackling minimal. Half an hour later, the bar manager was making the "kill it!" sign with his hands and turning up the lights.

Thankfully, I was able to snap a bunch of great shots of Sam (and some video) before the night was over. The first one was actually a botched, fuzzy picture, but I like smooth luminescence of the photo.

Longing for Boulangeries

Setting: In the Flourish Bakery on Bryn Mawr

Bakery Clerk: Hi, can I help you?

Luis: Hi, how fresh are those baguettes?

BK: They're fresh.

LMGM: Um, OK. I'll take one. And one of the cupcakes with green frosting.

BK: That'll be $3.00

LMGM: Really?! Jeez. By the way, do you guys bake an afternoon batch?

BK: Huh?

LMGM: Do you bake bread more than once a day? In the afternoon, so that you have fresh bread for dinner?

BK: We bake our bread fresh everyday.

LMGM: *silence*

BK: Actually, we bake it the night before, so that it's fresh every morning.

LMGM: *sigh*

Wake Up! : John Tejada, Sassmouth, Kate Simko, and Matthew Martin

Well, I'm blogging about this literally two months later (summer happened, as did moving and painting and life), so I don't have a detailed memory of the event. However, I do have a few good pictures and bits of video, along with some fragments of memories. The first memory I had, actually, was finding this poster on a window a few blocks down from the club, as I was parking the car:

If you can't quite read the fine print (click on the image for a bigger image in a new window), it lists several famous thinkers, writers, composers, artists, and then declares "People with Mental Illnesses Enrich our Lives." Neat. I like the approach that doesn't just exhort people to tolerate the mentally ill (which is an euphemism for "put up with"), but to in fact appreciate the contributions some of them make to their society. Admittedly, the guy standing on the corner of Sheridan and Foster strumming a de-tuned bright-red guitar and shouting random words may not be out generation's Schubert. On the other hand, he might just be an experimental performance artist; the two categories blend more than you think.

23h00-0h00: DJ Sassmouth

After getting past the doors (no lineup! no bagcheck!), I did the rounds and caught up with a bunch of friends I hadn't seen in a long while. I had already gone out the week before, but not everyone was out at that event, so this was in some ways the real "I have arrived" party. It was great to catch up with everybody, chat about music, hear apocryphal stories about the parties I missed, and take a few pictures. I got to the club early enough to catch most of Sam a.k.a. Sassmouth's set, which was just the sort of techno pounding I had been hoping for. Alas, I was standing in the middle of a very loud crowd when I took this video, so a lot of the sound in this clip is drowned out.

Well, leaving aside that video clip, I at least have some great pictures of DJ Sassmouth:

0h00-1h30: John Tejada live

John Tejada's set was GREAT. His sound somehow balanced between microhouse (i.e., minimal and glitch-inspired house) and punchy Detroit Techno without ever really sliding into the ascetic minimal techno that was hot in Paris last year. What was surprising about this is that, if all three of these genres were mapped onto some sort of continuum or plane, I would imagine minimal techno lying in between microhouse and classic techno—and yet Tejada somehow navigated around it (check out the video clips below).

The set was (as advertised) an all-hardware live set. For those who are not conversant in the terminology of dance music scenes, "live" sets are DJ performances that don't primarily involve mixing vinyl. Up until the late 90s, this always meant a performance with "gear": sequencers, effects boxes, samplers, drum machines and the like. Sometime in the late 90s (concurrent with the rise of glitch and click-pop), it became increasingly common to see live sets performed from laptops. At first, these DJs were simply using the same gear in software form, but eventually programs were designed that allowed laptop users to do things that were difficult (if not impossible) to do on "gear" (a good example of this would be Ableton Live). At the same time, mixing programs like Traktor, Serato Scratch and Final Scratch gave DJs the ability to perform canonic vinyl-style sets (i.e., tracks chained together rather than short loops and samples stacked and tweaked) using their laptops. All of this blurred the line between the traditional "vinyl" set and the "live" set. The alternative label "laptop set" is sometimes used to distinguish between a set performed on software and one performed on hardware, but the usage is too inconsistent to really preserve "live" as a term exclusive to "gear" performances. All of this comes down to proof of work, really. When a DJ does a laptop set, there is very little tangible, visible evidence of her work; all you see is the back of a laptop screen, the performer staring intently at it. When it's a "gear" performance, the artist has a bank of impressive looking knobs, switches, lights and dials—all of which she can manipulate in a way that seems physical, kinetic and transparent. Sure, there could have been the same amount of work put into preparing both sets, but appearances count when you're trying to sell tickets, and "gear" performances are still valued above laptop sets as "special" events.

Anyway, this is just a long way of saying that I took several pictures of John Tejada and his gear setup. Part of this is because I like to have a pic of the DJ, but part of this was also to document the impressive array of technology Tejada had before him. Even if you're not an expert in music technology (e.g., a gearwhore), you can still look at the blinking lights and innumerable knobs and be impressed by his ability to master these technological beasts.

At some point during the set, I was chatting with a friend, R., and he said something very interesting. I'm paraphrasing two months after the fact, but here is the gist of it:

I like going to events where I know some of my crew will attend. That way, you can be pretty certain that you'll fit in--or at least that you won't be excluded. I still like to go out and meet new people, talk to strangers and such, but nobody wants to be excluded.

I had just been reading some essays by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick about shame and rejection, so this sort of struck me right between the eyes. Everything R. said is pretty obvious and unremarkable, but it was a really succinct summary of how and why socializing in nightclubs works the way it does. Certainly, an important part of why we go out is the "you never know" effect: maybe you'll meet someone new and have a moment of closeness and connection. However, the risk is that you might not meet anyone or find your attempts and friendly interaction rejected, ignored or maybe even ridiculed. The quest for intimacy is one that travels between pleasurable possibilities and ego-bruising risks, and ensuring the presence of friends at these events can function as insurance against those risks. Sure, an important goal of going out is to expand your social network and make new friends, but bringing along your existing social network helps smooth things out.

01h30-2h00?: Kate Simko

I don't recall exactly when the bar manager told Kate to cut the music, but it felt too soon. I was still running on the Parisian party schedule, which started at midnight and ran till 6am at the earliest, so I felt like we were just getting started. Nonetheless, Kate's set was great, rounding out the evening and providing a slightly lower-intensity conclusion to the whole thing. Alas, my batteries were running low by then, so I only have one fuzzy picture to show for it. Sorry, Kate!

ApartmentWatch: Pictures!

Finally! Pictures of my new apartment. I've put them all together on a Flickr photostream here, but I'm mirroring them here as well for those who are too lazy to click on the link. I spent most of the day cleaning up around the apartment and starting to put away the kitchen stuff that I had kept in storage with a friend while I was away. Aside from that, I went to a drag show tonight that involved a Wisonsinite hausfrau baking pies.

These first few pictures are of the living room. While I'm totally unimpressed with the mirrored doors on the closet, the space is huge and the gothic arched portals are very amusing.

And here's the dining room, along with a view out of its window. I'm planning to convert this room into a sort of library, with dark smoking room walls...

And check out my kitchen! It's a galley kitchen, so there isn't much space to move, but there's plenty of counter space (3 workspaces!) and there's a GAS STOVE. This is a huge improvement over the kitchens I've been working with for the last three years.

Bathroom! A little less exciting, I admit.

And the Bedroom. Notice the amazing built-in cabinetry on the far wall. It is AWESOME.

And I can't forget the lobby. The folks here clearly put a lot of work into making the entrance of this building impressive.

Dim Sum and Housewarmings

Oy.

After getting home around 7am, I slept until 10am and then got myself together for dim sum with Lauren and Peter. After a cold shower and a change of clothes, I headed out to pick up the other two and make our way to Shui-Wah restaurant in Chinatown.

At first I was worried that I wouldn't be able to muster much of an appetite or any substantial conversation, but by the time we walked into the restaurant and I got a whiff of the steamed dumplings and buns, I was ravenous. And by the time I got some warm congee into me, I was chatting up a storm. We ate until we simply couldn't anymore, and then settled the bill and lurched our way back to my car.

Lauren and Peter still had a bit of time before they needed to start preparing for their housewarming party, so we drove up to my new apartment to take a quick tour. I also took the opportunity to take some pictures of the apartment before I started painting, which I'll post on this blog tomorrow (hopefully). The drive to Uptown went rather quickly, but Lakeshore Drive was a mess southbound, so we cut across Fullerton and took the 90-94 to the 55 to the souther portion of LSD. The jury is still out as to whether it actually saved time, but either way, we arrived in Hyde Park a much later than we had hoped. I dropped P&L at their place to start preparing their party, and I headed back to Steve's place (where I'm currently crashing) to get a bit of work done.

I spent some time getting a start to changing my mailing address with banks and preparing some mango-jalapeño salsa for Lauren and Peter's party. By the time I got over to their place that afternoon, the party was already well in swing. Lauren & Peter had prepared a fantastic spread of delicious and (mostly) healthy party foods, and all the guests came along with their own offerings, so there was a fair bit of food to absorb all the wine and beer I drank there. My offerings (aside from the mango salsa) included a couple of bottles of fancypants French wine, which seemed like an appropriate thing to bring, considering where I've been for the last year.

By about midnight, all the partying of the night before finally caught up with me, and I hitched a ride with Andrew M. and headed back to Steve's place to crash for the night. Yay! For whatever reason, this particular party really made me feel that I had arrived in Chicago again. It will hopefully help motivate me during the endless painting I'm going to be doing soon...

Back in the scene

Friday night, after a long day of unpacking kitchen stuff and admiring my new apartment, I got a call from M., a friend in the techno scene here in Chicago. Apparently, there was an event going on at a nightclub downtown, followed by someone's birthday party as an afterparty. I had made plans to celebrate my return to down with drink's at Jimmy's in Hyde Park with the U of C crowd that night, but I didn't expect it to last much past midnight, so I thought I could do both.

I headed down to Hyde Park with my friend Scott in tow and we met up with Shayna and Andy G. for some beer at Jimmy's. A few other people made appearances, including Travis, Greg and Melissa, and I eventually made my way back out around half past midnight, heading off to the club. The event was in the basement of Vision nightclub in River North; Vision is not exactly my favourite club--it's one of those mega-clubs that tend to cater to a meat-market crowd with trance and progressive house as the soundtrack--but this event was in a separate space ("The Lair"), and organized by folks that I knew from the Naughty Bad Fun Collective.

After dropping off Scott at a train line and getting some cash from an ATM, I spied M. crossing the street as I was searching for parking. After stopping traffic to say hi to him and his crew, I finally and miraculously found a parking spot only a couple of blocks away from the club and headed over. At the door, the bouncer asked for my ID as the doorwoman asked me if I was on the list. I said, "Well, I'm here for Nadia's party..." and the doorwoman said, "Oh, then go right in and take the spiral staircase downstairs."

I walked down a hallway and came to another woman at a cash register, who took my cover charge ($8; I still had to pay) and waved me in. I got a drink from the bar and looked around at a nearly empty club with some rather unexciting music coming from a stage that was "decorated" with a flashing construction roadblock. Hmmm, not what I expected.

A few minutes later, I remembered that the doorwoman had told me to go down a set of stairs, so I spotted a discreet spiral staircase and headed down. Immediately, the scene changed to a busy but small room with a DJ setup in the corner and some good, pounding techno. Apparently, the entire Volatl DJ roster was in attendance to spin for Nadia's birthday event. This makes sense, as Nadia is pretty much the founder and manager of Volatl Talent Management.

I immediately caught up with M., as well as several other friends and acquaintances from the Chicago scene. It was really nice to be back, and it was great to see so many familiar faces and get caught up on what they had all been up to. One particularly interesting aspect of this experience was how it was facilitated by the NBFC's forum / message board. While in Paris, I had been posting occasional stuff in the forums to keep people apprised of what I was doing and to share photos and party reviews. When I got back to Chicago, I immediately posted a message to the board saying that I was back in town. Within a day or so, several people had added me on MySpace, many more had sent me their cell numbers or asked for mine, I had a list of upcoming events that I was invited to attend, and I was helping a couple DJs make connections with promoters I knew in Paris. So when I arrived at this event tonight, several people knew I was coming and were eager to say hi, give me hugs, and chat with me about Paris. In other words, the experience of intimacy tonight was augmented and channelled by the actions we took on social networking sites in the days and weeks before. Not exactly an earth-shattering revelation, I'm sure, but interesting nonetheless. M. would never have called me to come out tonight if I hadn't been posting on NBFC, and few of the people in attendance would've known that I would be there (or perhaps even remembered me).

Anyway, I ran into R., a good friend and Sassmouth's boyfriend, and we spent a good part of the evening chatting. By 3am, the club was closing and the bouncers were hustling us to the doors. After my time in Paris, it was really weird to be kicked out of a club that early. In Paris, the headliner would be just coming on at this point.

From there, a bunch of us headed to M.'s place to hang out while Nadia and her crew headed over to her place to put set up the afterparty. At around 5am, we put together a car caravan and headed over to her place in Humboldt Park. Nadia has this AMAZING loft space in a desanctified church, with vaulted ceilings and long church windows. She had an incredible sound system and food and drinks for everyone, and things were just getting started when we arrived at 6am. Alas, I had a date for dim sum with two friends the next day at 11am, so I headed out shortly thereafter to get some rest.

Getting home at 7am, it felt a little bit like Paris all over again...

Apartment Update: Yay!

Well, after a great deal of phone-tag, I finally got a call from someone at Horizon Realty Group yesterday. As it turns out, the person that I had been trying to call was the wrong person, so the receptionist had given me the wrong contact information. In addition, the receptionist had also been wasting my time by telling me that basic cable wasn't included. Apparently, if she had just transferred me to an actual agent rather than try to answer my question herself, I would've signed that lease on Tuesday and saved myself a lot of time.

Anyway, the result was that basic cable is included in the rent, but it doesn't appear explicitly in the lease because the lease is a general one they use for all their properties. Part of the confusion was that they would be shifting to a no-cable lease by Oct 1, but that would not affect me (although it might when/if I renew the lease next year). The agent (Mary), gave me a verbal contract that the cable would be included, and so I started calling Apartment People to make arrangements to sign my lease.

Today I finally got a hold of someone in the processing department and drove up to Lakeview to sign my lease. After signing the thing and paying the security deposit and getting the keys (yay!), I drove straight up to the new apartment. I went upstairs, opened the windows, and took a moment to put my hands on my hips and survey my domain. I was almost tempted to pee in a corner and declare the place mine!!

Anyway, from there I spent some time exploring the building (I have a freight elevator! And a workout room!) and then headed back down to Hyde Park to pick up a bunch of stuff from my friend Tim's apartment. After loading my car with a TON of stuff I had left in his storage space (mostly kitchen stuff), I headed back uptown and unloaded it into my apartment. From there, I spent easily 3 hours meticulously measuring the apartment, accounting for every nook and cranny so that I could plan out where I could put furniture. More pressingly, I need to have an idea of the surface area of the walls so that I can start buying paint.

Well, I won't have a chance to scan and upload the hand-made blueprint I made today, but here's a layout I found on the Horizon Realty Group website:

[If you go to the actual website for this floor plan, you can click on the little red camera symbols to get pictures from the unit.]

The plan is actually for a different unit, so you have to imagine this plan flipped right-to-left. Essentially, my bedroom is to the right of the entrance, and my living room / kitchen / etc. is to the left. Also, the measurements aren't precisely accurate (the living room is more 17' by 10'), but it's a good indicator. Also, here's the presentation page of my building, in case you want to see a few pictures, including the front of the building:

And you can find some photos of the interior of the building here.

Chicago Apartment Update: Hiccup

So this morning I got up and headed off to the Working Bikes Co-Op to shop for a "new" bike. I say "new," because Working Bikes specializes in taking landfill-bound bikes and refurbishing them. So, for $45 I got a bad-ass vintage Schwinn road bike with a basket and STREAMERS. Did you hear that? STREAMERS.

Anyway, after buying my AWESOMETASTIC bike, I spent a good half hour trying to stuff it into my tiny Saturn. Finally, I borrowed a wrench from the store and took off the front wheel, which made it possible to cram it in there. While I was testing the bikes, I had received a call from Apartment People saying that they had my lease ready to sign, so I headed over to their offices.

Well, actually, I first made a detour to the Italian lemon ice stand on Taylor Street, near Racine. That place is AWESOME. They make this fantastic italian-style ice that is made from real lemons, not too much sugar, and slices of lemons. It was something I really needed after nearly sweating 1 litre of water getting my bike into my car in the blazing sun.

Anyway, I made it to the agency's office and started to look over the lease, only to find a discrepancy between the apartment's initial listing and the terms of the lease. According to the listing, basic cable was included in the rent--which was a good thing, considering that neither heat nor electricity was included. I got the number for the property management agency (Horizon Property) and gave them a call, only to get a receptionist that was dead sure that they never pay for cable. When I pointed out that it was included in the listing that they published, all she had to say was "Sorry." Well thanks.

So I said that I had taken the cable into account when I considered the price of the rent, and the receptionist gave me the number of the person (Mark) who manages that specific building. Of course, he was off today, so I have to wait until tomorrow to find out if this man is going to honour the word of their lease. If there is no way that they are going to pay for cable, they at least need to reduce the rental rate for the monthly cost of basic cable.

From there, I left the lease uncompleted, voided the charge they made on my credit card for the security deposit, and headed home. Ironically, I'm less disturbed about the possibility of paying for cable, and more about the possibility that my future landlords might be lying sleazeballs. Of course, they still have a chance to redeem themselves tomorrow when I call this Mark guy, so we shall see. But if he's a prick, I think I'm going to re-start my apartment search.

I knew it was too good to be true.

My Chicago Policy

Before leaving Paris, many people asked me what I was going to do with this blog. After all, it's called "Luis in Paris," and I'm not currently in Paris. On the other hand, I'll be back there in September of 2008 at the latest, so there's some good reason to keeping this blog going.

As you might guess from the last couple of posts and the new "Chicago" label, I've decided to continue posting, even if I'm not currently in Paris. However, unlike in Paris, I'll only be posting from time to time, mostly when something amusing or important happens to me. Most importantly, I'm going to try to continue blogging about my evenings out at EDM events and research-related stuff, since this blog has become a really useful aide-mémoire for my research. Also, when people asked me if I was going to keep blogging, they were often really asking about these "club reviews." Furthermore, why not give my French friends a chance to read about Chicago club nights? Considering they've been the subject of my scrutiny for the past year, it only seems fair.

Nonetheless, I'm not going to change the name or domain of this blog, since it's already well-established as "Luis in Paris." So you'll just have to imagine "...and Chicago" for the time being.