1) Apparently, wearing an Obama t-shirt doesn’t play in Peoria. (As in, it might put your life in danger.)
(In other Obama-related news, Roger Waters’ Obama-endorsing pig apparently floated away at Coachella!)
2) People in Monmouth have the poops [rotovirus brought to town by a tennis team?]
3) Knox College student asks John Ashcroft if he has a soul!
The band Lucky Boys Confusion is playing at Western on Wednesday.
I am going nuts trying to think why I recognize the name.
Who are they, and why should I care?
[Not that it matters. I have class that night so I won't be going anyway. But I simply can't not know a cultural reference, especially if it relates in any way to something happening right here. The hipster's curse.]
…instead of being envious of those at Coachella [who get to see Prince, M.I.A., Rilo Kiley, everyone who is anyone, etc. etc.] she thinks,
“ugh… I hate to sweat”
when she sees this picture.
Sunshine says: i think that only .5 percent of that crowd is over 28. don’t feel to bad… but maybe you should consider changing your name to “Dust Devil Ali” (which is a a small, localized updraft of rising air) rather than “Tornado Ali” (the violent, destructive wind storm).
Finally!
More places to shop!
According to the Macomb Eagle, a new store is coming to town.
[Could it be a Target?
A bookstore open past dusk?
A coffee shop that doesn't close after the noon hour, you say?
Well,....no. It's called Fadz.
An indoor flea market offering body piercing for 90-year olds.]
Fadz to open in Macomb4/18/2008
By LAURA BLACK
Eagle Staff Writer
MACOMB – Macomb area shoppers will soon have another store filled with merchandise to peruse. Fadz will be opening in a suite at 1601 W. Jackson St.
Melissa Durk, owner, spoke of how her business came into being.
“We started by doing flea markets, fairs and street vending,” Durk said. “We sold T-shirts, sunglasses, body jewelry, stuff like that. In 2001 we opened the business (in Quincy).”
According to Terry Durk, master piercer, he and Melissa are opening the second store because they believe it will appeal to college students. Terry quickly added they carried items for all ages, though.
“I think its (the store’s) age group is from 8 years old up to 90,” Terry said. “We have something for everybody.”
Fadz will carry a large variety of merchandise, including hats, T-shirts, cell phone accessories, sunglasses, purses, flags, incense, candles, body jewelry and other types of jewelry.
“We have a variety of merchandise at very competitive prices,” Terry said. “For example, our faceplates for cell phones are $9.99. The body jewelry starts out at $3.99 and goes up to $10.99 and I have thousands of pieces in stock.”
Fadz will offer regular ear piercing using piercing guns. Terry will also be doing body piercing at the business. He said most body piercings from the waist up will cost $25. However, when they have the grand opening there will be a $15 special.
Terry spoke of his extensive background in piercings.
“I’ve been doing it for eight years,” Terry said. “I’ve done several thousand piercings and I’ve trained nine other piercers. I think that’s a pretty good background.”
“We’re very clean,” Melissa added. “It’s not the average tattoo piercing stereotype that people think of. We’re a family-oriented business.”
Melissa and Terry hope to have Fadz open by early to the middle of May.
According to my sources, a dude from Korn is going to be here this summer to spread the gospel.
According to the flier tucked inside the credit card offers and cable-provider ads in my mailbox the other night this summer’s Cornerstone Festival, which takes place out in the boondocks near Bushnell:
“On Saturday, July 5th Brian “Head” Welch, formerly of the mega rock band Korn, will share his journey to faith, how he found God, quit the band, kicked drugs, and lived to tell his story.”
Hmmmm.
Thoughts?
G.B. says: The festival soon will be known as: Kornerstone.
My Morning Jacket get the “Best Breakthrough” title from Rolling Stone’s “Best of Rock 2008.”
New album out June 10th.
And the contest hadn’t even officially gotten off the ground!
As you may recall, an esteemed reader had queried why I have not highlighted some of the area’s more, um, colorful aspects such as the infamous “titty tree” in rural Hancock County [duh, that's a redundancy].
Then, another esteemed reader sent the rather alarming news that the aforementioned anatomically-correct arboreal specimen had been defiled.
Upon hearing such news, I wanted to not only know more about said defilement, but also, be reminded of whether this tree really did resemble, um, “real life.”
I wanted proof that I haven’t been making it up all these years when I’ve told friends from other parts that, unlike suburban kids who hang out at malls or do whatever it is they do, when I was a teenager, my friends and I actually did spend our weekend nights making repeated road trips to visit a tree—one that looked like a naked woman.
Then I started wondering,
1) How many generations of Hancock County teenagers have known about the Titty Tree?
2) Do other people besides road-tripping teens know about this fine artifact of foliage? (Like, if I were to one day at the dinner table, when visiting my family, be like, “So, Grandpa… I’ve been meaning to ask you…”)
3) How could anyone be so crass as to defile the legendary Titty Tree?
So I pondered the idea of sending out a decree, sort of like the Wizard of Oz , like, “BRING ME [VISUAL PROOF OF] THE TITTY TREE!” Or, ok, not like that at all, but more like a fun contest. I just couldn’t figure out what I would offer as a prize.
I was not the only one with such an idea:
“So what happened to it? I wish I had a picture.” KK
“I agree with Kim. I think we should host a contest and the first person to post a picture of that tree wins…”
- And lo, my prayer was answered. A fellow Hancock Countian has sent in a piece of visual proof.
- Behold. Scroll down. (But be warned: if your boss catches you looking at this, you might have an awkward conversation ahead of you.)
Sigh. They did indeed defile her.
Just more proof that when you get older, you will always think you’re better and cooler than the dumb kids younger than you.
Present company excluded.[Thank you for your assistance in this matter, J.:) ]
G.B. says: The tattooed titty tree. I love it.
Sunshine says: Ah, I’m sure that the graffiti is just a phase that she’ll grow out of.
JDitty says: Tis a fine tree. And it didn’t always display the tats, that is the new generation of Hancockians. “In my day we respected her curvacious figure.”
Nathan says: okay but what about other neat places like the KKK church, hoot house,my personal favorite “im not driving any further”, “it only takes 7 minutes for beer to get cold on ice” and old mill bridge! sounds like we need to fire up the trucks and have ourselves a road trip!
Some final thoughts, and a bit of extra intrigue:
1) First of all, let me start off by providing another installation from my La Exhibicion de Cell Phone, of Okkervil River on stage. All in suits. I thought that was totally cool. Ok, cute. Cute is what I really wanted to say.
2) Now, allow me to tell you a tale. It turns out that on the same weekend that I and St. Louis Sue attended the New Pornographers/Okkervil River show at the Pageant in St. Louis, I somehow managed to not know that a gang of fellow WIU English folks had tickets to see the same show the same weekend in Chicago.
Included in this gang was a gal named Catherine (who, despite the fact that we have never actually met, I totally feel like I know, because, well, my friends in the English program talk about her all the time.)
3) Anyway, you should also know that the woman I keep referring to as “The Faux Neko” is actually a noted musician [specifically keyboardist/accordionist/vocalist] in her own right named Kathryn Calder. Please note that this is a Kathryn-with-a-K. I did learn this from the next-day’s review in the Riverside Reader, but:
4) I was helpfully reminded of the above fact—and otherwise straightened out on a few New Pornos/ “Faux Neko” misconceptions—in a comment left on my post. The author of the comment was none other than the aforementioned friend-of-a-friend-who-I-feel-like-I-actually-know, Catherine-with-a-C.
5) BUT, when I first saw that someone named Catherine had left a comment to my post, I got all nervous for two seconds, thinking that somehow Kathryn Calder from the band had read my page and was upset with my comments.
6) Despite the paranoid and delusional thought that this may be, it’s actually a quite rational fear because I have, in the past, been contacted by angry representatives for Phil Collins and “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”
But, alas, that’s a tale for another time, friends, another time.
7) So, ok, here are some of the things that Catherine-with-a-C helped straighten me out on regarding the “Faux Neko”:
8)
“Calder is actually not a new band member. She sang for Neko in Lollopolooza in ’06, and she was also on the Twin Cinema album (in ’05).”
[among other credits on N.P. albums.]
9) Furthermore,
“She’s just as much a part of the band as Neko now, actually, as she’s their keyboardist and Neko does not play anything with them. (She does, however, bang a tambourine on her bum, and I do enjoy that.”
10) Excellent points all around, Catherine-with-a-C! Thank you for setting the record straight!
Catherine says: ewwww: I sound like a creepy fan. Anyway, I’m quite glad you included the tambourine on the bum part. Vital, baby. It’s vital.
PS – I’m really, really amused by the fact that you thought it was Kathryn Calder. That’s so something I would think.
PPS – I really, really want to hear about you being contacted by these people. It’s story time.
…more than 400 writers, scholars and other peeps in the field of African American Literature— including two superstars, Jamaica Kincaid and Chimamanda Adichie— are right here in Macomb, at Western all week for a conference.
I’ve never read anything by Jamaica Kincaid, but I did read a short story last summer by Adichie, called “The Thing around Your Neck,” in the anthology the anthology THIS IS NOT CHICK LIT, and it totally rocked.
Right now, as I’m sitting in my cubicle eating my Starkist Lunch-to-Go, there is all kind of hubbub going on out in the Sherman Hall Auditorium, where there is apparently some kind of reception going on.
People from all over the world, right here in Forgotonia, discussing the 50th anniversary of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
G.B. says: Is Shimmer Chinodya there, too?
…when is this dude (coming soon to the Adler Theatre) gonna rock some new frames, yo?
Susie says: True dat.
Sorry. Why oh why can I not stop saying that?!
Kim says: Yo! Hello!! My Dad still wears these kind of eye glasses they just are not tinted, I told him if he changed them I wouldn’t know who he was!! and my Dad is FEROSH!
Tornado Ali says: Ok, fair point, Kim. Who would he be if he didn’t have these?
He’d be NOT FEROSH, that’s for sure!!:)
I grew up on a farm in west central Illinois, where there was one stoplight in the entire county. As a newspaper reporter and award-winning columnist ("Six Degrees from Galesburg"), public-radio commentator and blogger, I've uncovered the truth behind local legends (remind me to tell you the one involving Ringo Starr's tonsils), visited ghost towns and forgotten haunts, and interviewed marginally famous celebrities who happened to be stopping through town ("Corky" from "Life Goes On," anyone?). Now, after 12 years in journalism and PR, I've moved to Davenport, Iowa, to start life with my husband and to embark on a new gig as an English instructor. I'm also working on a batch of essays about life in small-town, murderous-to-latter-day-prophet America, (see "Joseph Smith" tag below). I love to hear from people who land here. Please leave comments at the bottom of posts, or drop me a line at alison dot sixdegrees at gmail.com.
Also, this probably won’t make it to print, but there was a refrigerator theft reported on Chambers Street at about 10:30 a.m. today. I heard it on the scanner.