Power Love

Your definitive resource. That's all, just your definitive resource.

30 December 2006

HIGH DRAMA IN LINCOLN SQUARE!

The Convention of Really Good Looking Men in Uniforms met today in Lincoln Square, Chicago. Topics on the agenda: How to hold an ax; how to kick down a door; how to turn off a pot left cooking on the stove.






Apparently, an unalert neighbor in this sleepy neighborhood decided to go shopping in the middle of cooking soup on the stove. Concerned neighbor Gladys J. Hildegaard was not unalert and noticed the black billowing smoke coming from that particular apartment. It was her call that brought the Really Good Looking Men in Uniforms.





All is fine here in Lincoln Square thanks to the Really Good Looking Men in Uniforms.







You'll have to trust me that these guys are really good looking. I guess you'll also have to trust me on the uniform thing, too, since these guys seem to be wearing fire-proof suits. But, they wore the fire-proof suits as though they were uniforms. So, there's that.

Gawd, it woulda sucked so bad if I did something today and missed all this drama!

29 December 2006

Fuzzy happy holiday haze. You are going to a party where there will be people you like. These same people also seem to like you. You like these situations because there is always some kind of uproarious laughter and this is good. You could spend days listening to the beautifully clear sound of your friends laughing. You know you are lucky to be around them, here at this party, so you do a lot of laughing and a lot of smiling. Sometimes you laugh so hard you can barely stop the beer from spouting out your nose.


On the way to the party, these are the things you will see:

Whatever you are paying for a haircut, you are paying too much. Unless you are going here.











How do you negotiate these? It's like an obstacle course of tamale carts.











Ham.












Cheese. Knives to cut the cheese. Cut the cheese.










Beyond this rain encrusted window is a large group of humans all of whom look as though they have yet to venture through puberty. This is outside the Aragon, which means tomorrow, I'll be able to look up what or who was playing and then find out that THIS is what that band's demographic looks like. For the record, no one seemed wasted or particularly obnoxious. But still. You know. There were a lot of them. And NO ONE HAD ANY ZITS!












Seriously, ocifer, I took a cab. Yeah. It's all good.

28 December 2006

There are a lot of squares in this picture.











Back when I was an international spy, I found myself in dire need of calcium supplements. What most people don't know is that international spying is quite taxing on the calcium deposits in your body. You should be aware of this people, it's very serious.

Anyway, I went to Sherwyn's to purchase my calcium supplements with my extensive government top secret international spy expense account. I was greeted by a beautiful woman with warm brown eyes and age-proof skin. She explained to me the love affair between calcium and magnesium and how magnesium works with calcium so calcium can be the best mineral it can be and there's just a ring of love around the two that made me, at the time, cynical spy that I was, say, "Oh. How cute." But inwardly, I was charmed and loving the love between calcium and magnesium and silently cheering them on to make it in this stony, cold world, and yes! Hooray for love! And now look:











Sherwyns. Closed. I will never again have a love moment over minerals for as long as I live. It just hurts too much.

26 December 2006

A Study of Illinois: Near and Far


country






















suburbs











city

23 December 2006

These guys are like, "Ohmygod, what are you getting for Christmas?"
"Ohmygod, I'm, like, totally getting a grey feather boa."
"Snap! You are gonna look so fly at The Pigeon Club when we go rock our shit!"
"No you're not. Grey feathers are gonna make you look washed out. And that was a dumb pun."
"Well, look who's the meow cat today."
"Leave her alone, she's constipated."
"Oh, poor thing."
"Yeah. Poor thing. Maybe if you were getting a feather boa it would take your mind off your stoppage troubles."

Pigeons. What queens.

22 December 2006

Mad Writer-Love

If you're a writer, you can make people fall in love with you by creating a sentence like this:

SUMMING UP A year's worth of music with a short list of albums and singles is like trying to summarize foreign-policy white papers in haiku.

Too Much Time On My Hands

This from Yahoo, that beacon of journalistic integrity that conveniently doesn't cite the study referenced so neither will I:

A Harvard study found that looking at attractive people activates a pleasure center in the brain usually triggered only by food, drugs, and money.

(The Power Love editors want to remind everyone that attractive people talk, therefore they may not be as pleasurable as nontalking items such as food, money, and the much-loved drugs.)

Team Power Love Goes Shopping!

Every year we try to find the perfect gift for the world's most beautifulest human, the Mommers. We=me +my attitude so filled with snarkitude, it warrants its own identity.

The attitude of snarkitude befalls us this time of year because Team Power Love knows that there is nothing in this entire world that we could buy that would reflect even one gagillionth (gagillionth= a lot)(a lotter more than a lot) of the deep and profound love we have for the Mommers.

Contrary to Power Love's mission statement (spread good energy or get the fuck out), we have to say at this point in the holiday season: the holidays suck some major ass.

Here's why:
Field's (macy's, pshaw) has Mary Poppins in the windows. Here's Mary Poppins now, singing, "A Spoonful of Sugar":










If by "spoonful" she means "a metric ton" and if by "sugar" she means "psychotropic drugs," then we're all for her happy, floating holiday happiness!

But consumerism weighs heavily on our heads and exacerbates our snarkitude because it makes Team Power Love wonder the wonder of the season: What Does It All Mean? Which is a very heavy thought to contemplate while negotiating the throngs of humans clamoring up and down State Street. Here are the throngs of humans now:












However, if you seek it out, you can always find the proverbial oasis in the desert:











Ahhh . . . shoes . . . suddenly, it all becomes very clear . . . mmmm . . . shoes . . .

And then, attention is turned to an issue far more pressing, a question to end all questions:










Who is Chicago's illest MC ever?

WHO????

20 December 2006

You got the rock n roll disease and I think you caught it from your lyrics, kid. Yeah, it's a serious thing.

I know a lot of freaks write to you, and I enjoy reading about freaks, but I don’t want to date a freak. Where can I find a normal man?

From the Overheard on the El File:

A. From someone's headphones: I don't wanna wait in vay-ayn for your love . . . .

B. This phrase: "Raggedy ass clothes."

C. How men should shave to avoid getting a rash:
1. Do it in the shower
2. Lather
3. Use a fresh razor

D. This advice: "Also, the federal government is strict in its hiring practices. If you have multiple, visible piercings, you may want to seek employment elsewhere."

E. This age check: "There was a show called 'Northern Exposure.' No? Maybe that's before your time."

18 December 2006

Um, yeah, if you could blow my brain out of my head, that'd be great. Thanks.

When karaoke rocks . . .

. . . when you go with Shiow, who commits fully and has a patented line up of rock star moves
. . . when you meet a group of people who are instantly fun to be with so you don't really feel like a big dumb jerk singing along to "Livin' on a Prayer"
. . . when you say "singing" but you really mean, "screamed as loud as I could and did the arm wave"
. . . when the bartender sings "Feelings" and you think, "Man, I should've picked 'Feelings' and then you put a mental flag on the song because you are already planning the next time you are going to Bong Ho for beers and karaoke
. . . when you wonder if you can find a mohair suit and electric boots on eBay because next time, it's all about the costume and nailing every word of "Benny and the Jets"
. . . when you get home and feel happy and are still smiling and, most importantly, still smiling

15 December 2006

SAVE THE KIMTINI!

By some malicious twist of fate, the KIMTINI has been left off the martini menu of Bistro Campagne. It is imperative that YOU, the patriotic public, DEMAND THE KIMTINI! Every day the KIMTINI is off the menu at the Bistro is another day the terrorists have won! Run! Don't walk! DEMAND THE KIMTINI RIGHT NOW!

This gorgeous piece of artwork is the KIMTINI.












This guy is the artist who makes the KIMTINI (he's very serious).












This is what you should eat before DEMANDING YOUR RIGHT TO YOUR KIMTINI (it is very important you have a seafood-type dish in a styrofoam container--you know, protein, good fats, yada yada--keep up the strength).











Here's the part of the demanding/ordering process where you will drool. Maintain calm. Nobody likes a freakish demander of KIMTINIs.












Look how happy everyone is when they have KIMTINIs in their lives!










All good things must come to an end, but . . .











if all goes well, you won't care.












AMURICA! DEMAND YOUR RIGHT TO HAVE THE KIMTINI ON THE BISTRO MENU!

(This message brought to you by the Friends of the KIMTINI Committee for Social Justice.)

14 December 2006

WAR POETRY

“We wait for the Ethiopians like dry land waits for rain."

ANATOMY OF A FIND:

First, I went here.
Then, I went here.

Then I cried.

12 December 2006

Just in case you've forgotten, this is what July looks like:












When the heat in my apartment goes on strike and I'm sitting on my couch covered in two sweaters, a scarf, and a blanket, this is where my mind goes:











This is who comes with me:

11 December 2006

The chronology of change.

Oops.

08 December 2006

From the What Is Going on in The Square File:











Remember that episode from "The X-Files" where there was that old victorian house that was covered in what looked like a striped circus tent, but I think they were doing some sort of fumagating, possibly alien fumagation, and as though circus references aren't creepy enough, throughout the entire episode they kept playing a Cher song, which upped the creep factor to 11? Well, that's kinda what I thought about on my way in to work the other day when I saw this tent in the square and though they are not using a striped circus-like tent, which is good, they are playing Christmas carols on repeat, which is bad, and what is far worse, the Christmas carols are being sung by someone who has obviously been smoking unfiltered cigarettes since 1962, but is trying desperately to imitate Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks and that blows the creep factor off the charts. The real question here is: Why am I going in to work when the streetlights are still on?