Filed by Lance at 5:23 pm under General, Love, Social Issues
1 Comment
So after the success of our last Hatemail recording on 2/28, I felt inspired to Vlog about it.
Problem was, I felt a little like a zombie, and looked and sounded like one, too.
What to do?
(Keep reading…)
Filed by Lance at 2:36 pm under Fightin' Words, General, Hatemail, Shameless Plugs, The Arts
No Comments
Tip Your Waiter is hosting a recording session for our ongoing, collaborative project called Hatemail on the last Sunday of every month, and here’s what happening this time around:
(Keep reading…)
Filed by Lance at 10:41 pm under General, Love, Religion, Stuff to Read, The Arts
No Comments
I remember a story told about one of my favorite composers, Arvo Pärt, that when he was just beginning his career, he went to see a monk. He told the monk, “I would like to learn to write prayers, because I think it could help my music.”
The monk said, “No, no. Every prayer has already been written.”
(Keep reading…)
Filed by Lance at 12:31 am under General
1 Comment
Never mind today’s debut of Google Buzz, which is — I suppose — aimed at being Facebook and Twitter’s rival. Here’s when we know there’s too much internet on the internet:
(Keep reading…)
Filed by Lance at 2:45 pm under General, Pop Culture, The Arts, The Media
1 Comment
Here’s a clip of the most recent episode of The Cleveland Show. The point here is not the relative merits of Family Guy or American Dad! versus this MacFarlane project, but this clip is a classic rule of three with a nice button at the end.
(Keep reading…)
Filed by Lance at 10:59 pm under General
No Comments
Tip Your Waiter has the good sense to organize itself as an RSS feed. Some other groups, like New Colony, have an RSS feed built right in to the main page of the site, and broadcast news and information regularly. I’ve been wondering, though, if there’s an easy way to keep in touch with other groups on a regular basis. There are so many groups in Chicago to keep tabs on, some of which don’t regularly send out newsletters or don’t publicize smaller events as heavily. In a busy environment like Chicago, there’s a lot of stuff that gets glossed over if it isn’t screaming for attention.
(Keep reading…)
Filed by Lance at 7:15 pm under General
1 Comment
I have to admit, AIDS, AIDS activism, and AIDS awareness are usually under my radar.
(Keep reading…)
Filed by Lance at 12:04 am under General
No Comments
Here’s a brief update, and then the rest of this post won’t have anything to do with symmetrically-named 20th century writers, I promise. So after my next paragraph, I won’t allow myself to write anything about either William Carlos Williams… or Ford Madox Ford. But I will write about a portable, wearable projector and a plastic cloud.
(Keep reading…)
Filed by Trevor at 9:39 am under General
No Comments
“Look, here is the deal: whatever the past was, I can say that the worst day of his life was the day his wife died. Period. Be there for him. And nothing else matters in the slightest.” — Tom
Hi. I’m Trevor. I used to write here, then I allowed Bil to slowly take over for reasons that now escape me. But that’s OK.
Lauren passed away on Monday. That’s where I’ll start. Everyone’s known it was in the cards for years because Cystic Fibrosis doesn’t let anyone out alive. And it’s really quite silly to think that knowing there’s a giant expiration date on their forehead at all mitigates the tragedy of their passing, even if they did survive years past their prognosis.
I can’t claim this tragedy, though. I’ll save that for her husband, who at my age is already a widower and is no doubt replaying the tape of last week when he suddenly got sick and couldn’t visit the ER because he would only exacerbate the spread of infection in her lungs.
Brad and I hadn’t talked on the phone in over six years, but I’d been texting him for some time as Lauren’s condition began to worsen. So when I woke up yesterday with a missed call at 9:18 and listened to his words give me no concrete information save for his voice but it’s probably just early because it’s barely after 7:00 there and he probably had a long night at the hospital so he’s just a little froggy, I didn’t want to check Facebook before calling him back because at least then he would know what my voice sounded like when I still had hope.
Later on in the day, all I really wanted to do was give my best friend a hug. But I didn’t, because I was scared. And now I wish that I had anyway.
I have failed Brad more completely than I have anyone else in my life. As roommates our sophomore year of college, he was involved in a gruesome car accident on I-15 and was out of school for the rest of the year. I visited him in the hospital once the entire time. I don’t know why. In my memory I distinctly hear my voice rattling off all kinds of extenuating circumstances, but I’ll never know what my true motivation was. There’s a vintage Coca-Cola placard that sits on one of my shelves that had been his birthday present to me that year and was in the car so there’s a little tiny scratch still visible on it and I keep it high up where I can see it and everyone else just as a reminder of what a shitty friend I was and what it feels like to throw someone away.
I said I love you, and he said I love you too. And that was the best thing. Except I wanted to be saying it to his face and not on a cell phone in weekday traffic in a stupid northwest suburb.
No one deserves this. Go home and hug the people you love, without fear and without restraint. And I promise I will follow my own advice.
Filed by Lance at 6:56 pm under General, Shameless Plugs, The Arts
No Comments
Begin, my friend
for you cannot,
you may be sure,
take your song,
which drives all things out of mind,
with you to the other world.-from William Carlos Williams, Theocritus: Idyl I – A version from the Greek
