Power Love

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

27 October 2007

THE DOWN LOW

What has been going on at Team Power Love HQ this week? As you would know if you checked our current stock price, Team Power Love is rolling in dough, due in large part to our overwhelmingly successful cycling team of one. As every serious cyclist knows, women's bike racing is the cash cow of all cash cows.

Whatever will we do with all this cash? How will we help the world? Through music, of course. We are proud to announce that Team Power Love is the money and brains behind the We Are Better Than You (WABTY) Music Consortium. The WABTY Music Consortium seeks to brainwash and condescend to all peoples equally through the proactive dissemination and strategic implementation of expertly curated musical groups.

In addition, the WABTY Music Consortium will also provide critical dialogue regarding music and its place in our society by generating our own critical essays and reviews and telling you how dumb you are if you stupidly disagree with us.

We are very excited to announce our current line-up. Expect a press release soon announcing tour dates.

Our roster includes:
1. Dissemination of Information--A Devo cover band, this group of friendly misfits has distinguished itself by wearing yellow hats instead of red ones
2. Spread Like a Virus--This thoroughly punk band only plays basement parties and they want you to know that you suck
3. Boy Toys and Snickers--Once the masterminds behind a now-failed porn blog, this raunchy band of middle-aged losers has reinvented themselves into the next big boy band, with none of the youth and all of the flab
4. Barrettes With Bees--After a decades-long stint in rehab, this country band is back with a vengence, all new songs, and a year's supply of Uncle Johnny's homemade whiskey

T-shirts for all bands forthcoming. Or, stop by our merch table.

If you and your bandmates are interested in joining our music consortium, send an email and a demo to Team Power Love HQ. No posers, please.

23 October 2007

LET ME OUTSHINE THE MOON

Good humans! How about some storytelling for your Wednesday night? Come on out and hang with us. Hear good stories. It'll be a hot time in the cold city, I can tell ya. Unless it's 65 degrees, in which case it'll be a hot time in the warm city, which will inevitably spark discussion of global warming, but NO! Then the stories will kick in AND YOU WILL HAVE THE GREATEST TIME EVER!!

Details:
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Red Kiva
1108 W. Randolph
7pm
$10
More info here.

19 October 2007

HOW TO PROCRASTINATE

In response to the overhwhelming demand from fanatical Power Love readers, we are here to present yet another How To Live Life piece. This will also satisfy the community service requirement bestowed upon us by "the courts" as a result of our latest "indiscretion."

I. First. In order to procrastinate properly, you need to have something to procrastinate from and something to procrastinate to. For example, let's just say you have a stack of bills that reach to your ceiling, that's balancing so precariously one on top of another that you have already taken steps to protect yourself from the inevitable collapse (namely, wearing a CPSC standard bicycle helmet and oven mits). In this example, the something you are procrastinating from, the procrastinatee, is the pile of bills (which hate you, incidentally, and, if given the chance, would suck your blood until you died).

II. Two. Now you need something to procrastinate to, the procrastinator. This is where you get to use all that creative energy you keep telling everyone you have. We offer a few suggestions, as follows:

A. Clouds. If it's cloudy outside, figure out where one cloud ends and where the next one begins, then count them. Then try to see what shapes they make. Then smoke 3 joints. Now what shapes do they make?

B. Rollers. What are rollers?

1. One. Those weird, tiny, cylinder-shaped barrels that you can roll into your hair. Known in some segments of Amurca as anti-sleeping devices, they are mostly used as a mode of torture in upscale death camps, euphemistically called "hair salons." So. You could pretend like you're Barbie and play with your hair.

2. HOWEVER, since you're all really reading Power Love for the in depth reporting on the amazingly popular sport of cycling, I think we all know what we really know when we talk about rollers BUT for you noncyclists out there, all you need to know about the odd world of rollers in cycling is that there is actually a machine out in the world that you can spend money on, that you can set up by laying it across the threshold of a doorframe so that once you set your bike on said machine you can hold on to said doorframe, at which point, you are supposed to ride your bike over rolling pins as though this isn't the weirdest thing in the universe, and you will probably be able to do this for about 2 seconds before your bike slips out from under you, driving you into the doorframe and more than likely cracking your nose and/or teeth in multiple places.

The CPSC standard bicycle helmet and oven mits come in handy in an instance such as this. So. When choosing your procrastinator, you may want to go with the bicycle rollers as you will be using your helmet/oven mits combo for two purposes (bill avoidance, cracked body parts avoidance) and this, obviously, is the most efficient manner of use.

III. Ninethly. Now that you have a procrastinatee and a procrastinator, you should contact the dictionary people and tell them to add these words to the dictionary. After that, you should come up with an excuse, which is a word we don't use here at Power Love HQ (we prefer, "rationale").

You will need a rationale for the bill people. They will call you. They will call you repeatedly. You should be aware they don't really care that you just cracked your nose and your teeth while using your cycling rollers and they don't care that you were simultaneously using hair rollers and now your hair is all matted with blood and the curl has gone out--"Just like that!" you may want to say, "Now how effective are these rollers, really? Would they stand up to Chicago humidity?" Don't say that. The bill people won't care.

Explain to them that you are wearing a safety-approved helmet and oven mits with cows on them and tell them you are about to go spelunking through the cave that is your bills (of course, now it's a cave; before, it was a tower, but it fell, because you nailed the doorframe so hard, they fell and now you've got yourself a cave, don't you?) and you will get in touch with them as soon as you find your checks. As an added caution, you may want to see if they can call you back within a day, as the cave could very likely collapse on you and then you will need some help. And they will call you. Yes, they will call you.

18 October 2007

LISTEN

To this.

[via]

17 October 2007

WINNER: Best Quote of the Day Award

"Do whatchoo wanna do and quit doin' all that dumb ass shit. Shit."

12 October 2007

WE ARE GUERILLA STORYTELLERS

What is guerilla storytelling? It's the mispelled version of storytelling, with primates. Ha! No it's not. It's the misspelled version of storytelling with primates. Ha! What fun we're having! We all know gorillas aren't primates, they're really deliverers of singing telegrams!

Speaking of singing telegrams, The Writers were out in force last night, overtaking the world with our super powers, crushing talkative talkers with strength and literary prowess. Margot and Jeff collected me and Byron in the Batmobile, and off we flew to the armpit intersection of sheesh and the Around the Coyote festival. Around the Coyote is a festival dedicated to coyotes, indigenous four-legged carnivores of North America. True Amurcans. The important thing to know about Around the Coyote is that there are frequent and highly organized howling sessions.


Upon arrival at the howling session, The Writers partook of the free alcohol--beer (Peroni)(that's Italian)(yes!) and a bottled drink with vodka that tasted suspiciously similar to Country Time lemonade. There was also guacamole that was being prepared by a white-jacketed cook-like looking person, and this will play a role later in our story so I introduce it here so I can brag about my excellent powers of Foreshadowing, which is a super power akin to flying or instant rejuvenation, but without the moral quandry that often accompanies either of those.

The room crowdified. This is the scientific process by which humans multiply instantaneously, many of whom were wearing the same outfit, but in different colors; also many of whom were wearing leggings, which, if I was The Supreme Ruler of Earth, would be a crime punishable by death. And I mean, a really painful death.

After the crowdification, the guacamole was lovingly spread out on the table--no dish or anything, just spread over the table as though the table was one big cracker. Also, did I mention the free beer? Italian! Yes! The guacamole and a deep tub of beer (!) was set up mere feet across from the microphone. Unbeknownst to the legging-wearing crowd, the microphone was actually the conduit through which we, The Writers, would soon be taking over the world. The people talked and talked, running hands through hair, giggling big words.

So Margot reads her story first. Margot's super power is Voice, by which I mean, while reading, she is able to convert this literary gift into the verbal equivalent of death ray vision, which consequently made everyone's clothes disintegrate. So now everyone's naked. This was disturbing in some instances, not so bad in others.

Still, the people talked and talked. The ladies come and go, speaking of Michelangelo. Thanks much, T.S.

Then I read. I read a very light-hearted piece about tap dancing and interpretive dance. I'm very lighthearted, and while I was reading, I used my powers of Foreshadowing to melt everyone's brains. Some brains oozed out of some heads. For the record, oozy brains look very similar to guacamole.

Still, the people talked and talked and walked and walked, murmuring and oogling, stabbing the air with the occassional yelp.

Then Byron read. Byron used his powers of Structure to elongate the ear drums of the murmurers and the yelpers. The unfortunate side effect of elongated ear drums is a decreased cartilage mass for the lobe. If you listened closely, you could hear the gentle pings of earrings as they hit the wood floor. Without ear lobes, there is no room for earrings.

Then Jeff read. Jeff likes to say poetic things like, "Eat me, fuckmo." He's very poetical and shit. While reading, Jeff used his powers of Characterization to melt the lips off the peeps in the crowd. The murmuring subsided. Not all of it, apparently those people had talents that even the strongest Characterization cannot fight. Not coincidentally, the remaining talkers were wearing leggings. Need I tell you who the real terrorists are?

So then we were left with an audience of naked, brainless, lobeless, lipless beings, none of whom looked even vaguely human. As you can imagine, we chose this moment to make our move. Gracefully, we dumped the tubs of beer (!) into our bags (Really Big Bags)(designer)(!), scooped all the earrings from the floor, and jauntily skipped out the front door. The outside air was crisp and cool and we stealthily worked our way through honking cabs and angry SUVs, back to the Batmobile, which lovingly zoomed us back to The Fortress of Active Verbs, where we live with all the other superhero writers.

And that, boys and girls, is the story of Christianity.

11 October 2007

Hey! Hello! What are you doing tonight? How about heading over to Around the Coyote and hearing some stories! WHAT A GREAT WAY TO START THE WEEKEND!!

Around the Coyote--it's the kickoff to a weekend of arty stuff!
1935 1/2 W. North Avenue
Chicagogogoville
8pm

More info here.

10 October 2007

SUMMER HIATUS OVER

Looks like the curmudgeons over at Lost Blueprint are back at it.

08 October 2007

STREET ART

Chicago.

[via]

APPRECIATE THE MESSENGERS

Yeah.

02 October 2007

I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I

Listen, you. Here:

1. I spent 20 minutes this afternoon staring at a nickel. I thought about how I once had a conversation with a history major wherein we discussed military strategy, which I am secretly fascinated with, and he told me, between puffs of a giganitc joint and loud slurps of really cheap beer, how the American forces in 1776 were fighting war in a whole new way--specifically, guerilla style, since they didn't have the numbers but they did have the knowledge of the terrain, and who the hell lines up across a field and marches forward so that 1/2 your army's dead by the time you meet at the middle anyway? Dumb British.

And I wondered this afternoon, as I looked at my nickel, if anyone currently running the train wreck that is U.S. foreign policy has thought about the fact that we started this country with guerilla warfare and now we're fighting guerrila warfare, except that now, we're the stodgy dudes lining up for a predictable battle that is simply no longer happening predictably.

2. I miss riding my bike so much it hurts.

3. When The Genius plays the music to the first daydream sequence in the Things With Knobs epic tale, I feel like I am being sacrilegious for talking over it and maybe, if he/she/it exists, god might strike me dead. To which I say, ha! Get in line behind the blood clots, "god."

4. Fall is coming, which makes me melancholy, which makes me make inappropriate jokes about death.

5. I am considering cashing out all my equity and buying as many pairs of $500 Italian leather shoes as possible and the only thing stopping me is the fact that animals would have to die just so I have swanky footwear to wear in my coffin, because you have to be dressed for those things, which is exactly why I want to be cremated. Except, not the shoes. Don't cremate the shoes.