Look At You

Having been a bit sullen after coming back from NZ, my friend reminded me how much I love Chicago and while I knew it, I could not actually seem to feel it. I rounded out the year with one of my 2008 obsessions - My Morning Jacket at the Chicago Theater. This was a happy reminder of why Chicago is great, even in the drab, dark, cold winter. This old historic theater, lead singer Jim James expressing his love for Perfect Strangers and Barack Obama.


This song, "Look At You" by MMJ must be meant for our Mister President-Elect:

Look at you
Such a fine citizen!
Look at you
Such a glowing example of peace and glory...

Let me follow you.
We believe in your power to lead without fear.
Not about, in some tower, but here-right down here-... with us in this world.
Look at you everywhere at once.

Ah yes...to be in the arms of my city

****

The Slow Transformation into Mother

I always find it funny and slightly irksome whenever I'm looking through my parent's old photo albums and there is a random picture inserted into the pages that is completely out of chronological order. In the middle of my high school graduation photos there is a black and white photo of my older sister in diapers. I always suspected my mother was behind this. On some level, I'm right here committing the same crime. That and I just can't let go of my recent past. Nostalgia literally means pain from homesickness which is sort of ironic. I'm pining for my travels. Anyhoo, more images from my travels have fallen into my lap and what are they meant for other than to share.

One of many long hours spent on the coach in China. Good company to my right, conscience directly behind me.

Nepal

Audrey, a slippy "glass-ee-er" and an ice axe.

A wibbly wobbly bridge and I look like I'm totally out to lunch.

Best Albums of 2008

Because the "editor" of another blog I occasionally contribute to left my list out, I'm slapping mine down here and waving it in all your faces (all two of you faithful whiskey followers, one of which is myself) because I want someone out there to be able to read it, since I toiled and agonized over it. I recall waking up at 2am because I thought of something I just had to say about one of the albums. Crazy? Probably.


My Favorite Albums of 2008:

10. Re-release of Exile in Guyville, Liz Phair.

I dismissed this album as a teenager and in dredging it up from the past in this anniversary year I realized that this was a time capsule of songs that only now are age-appropriate. Phair’s biting, unapologetic lyrics scream and claw for attention, respect and affection in a sausage-dominated world.

9. We Brave Bee Stings and All, Thao Nguyen and the Get Down Stay Down.

Little. Yellow. Edie Brickell-like. Better.

8. Keep reading.

7. Midnight Organ Fight, Frightened Rabbit.

In May, these guys upstaged headliners Oxford Collapse at the Empty Bottle as the opening act. The crowd cleared to an embarrassingly near empty before Oxford Collapse came on. In subsequent shows the billing got reversed. Talk about an ego check. All night long lead singer Scott Hutchison’s flannel clung uncomfortably to his drenched bod and I could see a long string of saliva connecting his lips to the mike from my distant position by the bar. You may call it a disgusting overrun of bodily fluids. I call it passion.

6. The Stand-Ins, Okkervil River

5. Keep reading…

4. Re-Arrange Us, Mates of State

3. You & Me, The Walkmen.

2. Oracular Spectacular, MGMT (Digital release in 2007 *)

This album made too big a splash this year to be left off any list. Time is one giant continuum anyway and years are just arbitrary markers invented by humans in order for civilization to function, right? So please don’t burn me on a technicality. This album plain rocked and I will forever associate it with the summer of 2008

1. Visiter, the Dodos.

The Dodos had me at “Fools” and by the time I got to “the Season” it was downright abusive. In trying to get our arms around a band we often draw comparisons as a way to somehow get a handle of the music. Anchor it to something familiar and we suddenly know what to do with it. I haven’t been able to do that with the Dodos. I simply can’t tie them down and tame them. They are unnerving when they scream, refreshing for their ingenuity, and irresistibly rhythmic. Over and over I have found myself drawn to this album when I can’t find a taste for anything else in my music collection. That wily index finger always loops its way back to Visiter on my iPod. This one was a cupcake.

* I would also try to sneak in Rogue Wave’s 2007 Asleep at Heaven’s Gate and Animal Collective’s Strawberry Jam for the same reason as my MGMT pick, but I won’t push it. It takes the general public and myself a little while to warm up to and possibly go ape-shit over an album. By the time festival season hits often it’s the previous year’s albums that become the anthems for this summer. So I find it hard to completely fail to mention some of the best music I heard this year purely for the fact that the official release date was in the previous calendar year. It’s an interesting lag time phenomenon. Maybe that lag time shortens the more guru your indie rock status becomes. As a rockologist you will have such refined and discriminating taste that you will identify a great album upon first listen! So I concede that I’m a novice and my list, well frankly, is a little retarded. With that in mind, please feel free to guess which yearling phantom albums made numbers 5 and 8.

Bad Santa

Second City hosted their annual benefit, "Letters to Santa" to fulfill the Christmas wishes of some Chicago families. Little did those families probably know, but the benefit was 24 straight hours of filthy talkin' improv artists. Though they were hilarious, thankfully the crass, improvisational comedy was punctuated by lovely performances by a determined but hoarse Nina Nastasia and my golden rock god, Jeff Tweedy.

Well, Ok. Nina told nasty, nasty sex and butt stories in between songs too...

This was at about 2 am on Tuesday night. I heard that things got really wild around 5am. Think whatever you like.

Tweedy called this a "lap dance" performance, where you could bid to have him serenade a song of your chosing, right up in your grill. No one was immune to the filthiness. Pictured here, Tweedy is slavishly or whorishly selling himself for the living room performances, where he will play 30 songs in your home. (all for charity, of course) And let me tell ya, Tweedy is one HIGH CLASS somethin' with the amount of money that was being thrown around. Note the red lighting, that was intentional.

Tourist in my own town

Though my overseas travels may be done, I still am afflicted with the traveler's bug. And by that I mean the snap-happy stuff, not involuntary bowel-cleansing. I am Asian afterall. It wouldn't be normal if I didn't have a camera hanging from my neck, right? So as I drove through the snowy streets of Chicago today, I vowed to treat the city like I am an extended tourist. I'm going to try and not use my daily buzzing about the city as a means to get from point A to point B, but rather try and look for both it's obvious beauty and it's hidden gems. Hopefully life's other distractions won't make me veer off this project.

Bird Poop and other Omens

I gave myself one shot at doing Tongariro Alpine Crossing. I stumbled off a bus in Turangi at 2am, hopped on another one at 7am to the drop off point for the hike. The weather here is so unpredictable and on the crossing it can be so horrendous such that the park will not allow people to attempt it. For the past three days they have not allowed anyone up the mountain, so I knew the day I was scheduled to come here might be a longshot. A bird pooped on me, all over my jacket, daypack and waiststrap the morning of the hike. The sun was shining. This was yet another stunning, 20 km day hike through a volcanic park, said to be NZ's best day hike. I don't disagree.

Sweaty, windy, cold.

Red Crater, or chocolate fudge spewing over red velvet cake?





Emerald Lakes

Kyle, a former Wolverine and marching band member. I met him on the Milford Track and rather randomly ran into him at the top of the crossing.

Time to go home now.

Kaikoura Coastal Track

Three days, 40 km, cottages and farmhouses all to myself. I walked through private farms, scattering sheep and welcomed to the farms with fresh squeezed lemonade.

The Staging Post, the start of the Kaikoura Coastal Track

Hawkswood Farm stagecoaches

Hawkswood Farm

Ngaroma Farm loft.

This was the view from my bedroom window. No big deal.

Pit stop at Circle Shelter, for some hot coffee.

The Lookout

It took me about 40 tries to get this picure.
This is what three days of being completely by yourself results in.

One last stop at Tongariro National Park for the Tongariro Crossing. It's going to be like the Amazing Race to get there, do the crossing, and hop on the plane to come home.

Driving on the Left Side

Jose and I rented a luxury Nissan Sunny and drove up the west coast of the South Island making pit stops everywhere because there are spectacular sites everywhere on this island. This place is just packed with so many cool things to do, it's killing me that I only can hit a few. There is never enough time in this world.

Lake Wanaka

Running amock with cramp-ons. Franz Josef Glacier

Blue ice is one of the coolest things on earth.

Our tiny but powerful tour guide hacking away relentlessly at the ice to pave a walkway for us.

Truman Beach sandstone and a Shawn Johnson wannabe.

In China these little guys are called "Mien Bao Tze" or "Loaf of Bread Car"

Tramp (Kiwi for backpacking) #2, Abel Tasman National Park

Pristine beaches! Secluded. No people except for these two idiots.

Waiting for the water taxi to take us back to civilization.

The Milford Track, South Island, NZ

Jose and I hit the Milford Track, one of New Zealand's "Great Walks", a lovely 4 day hike through the Fiordlands National Park. This track meanders through scenic valleys, spectacular lookouts, waterfalls and culminates in the entrance to Milford Sound. We hoofed 33 miles, hauling our own food and water. This was absolutely beautiful.

Queenstown, South Island

Cooking up grub in the hostel

Milford Track

Day 2 to Mintaro Hut

Long smiles make short miles

MacKinnon Pass

The requisite pondering photo

Endpoint of the Milford Track at Sandfly Point

Celebrating with tastey Monteith's beer

Milford Sound