Onederlust tour Chicago 6/23-6/25 Reacquainting with Windy City
Monday 6/23
Performing in an inspiring Safe Haven
My bus ride from Indianapolis to
Chicago was relatively short. I read and listened to More Than Skies' EP “The Liar The Puppet The Fox”. It's a lovely acoustic
album, Adam Tomlinson, whose the mastermind behind the project, is
releasing a double album of similar new and old music soon so look
out for that. I had a lot of time before my performance at Beauty Bar, I walked through the brutal heat of Chicago dragging my
suitcase. I was nervously anticipating my performance there. The
theme for the SALONATHON LEXICA event was “How We Heal” and I had decided
earlier in the week to perform a piece about my Poppy, and I realized
that I didn't want it to be written so as to maintain the sincerity
and vulnerability of it. As I walked for about an hour to find the
venue, I improvised aloud, speaking to myself about things and
reminiscing about my grandfather and times we had together and the
resonating pain and lessons in the loss. In doing this in broad
daylight, I began to cry twice. Knowing I'd indeed tapped into
something present, meaningful and real, I decided to leave the
subject alone to keep myself composed and to leave the “performance”
to a raw and open discussion. My choice to improvise was to share a
poem or monologue about the process of hurting and healing during a
real process of mourning and recovering in front of people.
On my walk I saw a lot of really
interesting stickers and street art as I wound my way through the
brutally hot roads of Chicago. I realized that skateboarding is a
hard thing to have grown up doing, as it shapes your world in a whole
different way and later nearly everything you're to encounter reminds
you of your bygone youth. Being as I had several hours before my
show and I was starving and sweating and I found a little cafe nearby
the Beauty Bar called “Awake Cafe”. “Awake” is a clean place
with bright pastel colors and decals tattoo the walls that read a lot
of great expressions. Some of the strongest of them were:
“Stop texting and start talking”
“Now is a good time”
“bend but do not break”
“live local,
think global”
“It's okay to be nice”
“everything for a
reason”.
I got a cappuccino frozen smoothie and
drank it down absurdly fast out of parched necessity. I ended up
hanging out there for several hours, editing a story, posting on this
blog and catching up with people. I later had a salad and a fruit
smoothie as well! I got an idea for a sticker/mantra/logo and I had
my friend Kyle Crowell design a sticker of it....you will see it very
soon! A few hours went by and I finally met up with my friend Ariel,
whom I know from Long Island back in the Cool Beanz days. She moved
to Chicago and hosted Alexa and I last minute when our initial
couchsurfing experience went awry! We got into the Beauty Bar, a
place that is indeed a split between a salon and a Bar! The event,
SALONATHON, is a multi-genre experimental art event run every Monday
there by a really nice, creative and community driven guy named Joe Varisco and the charming and charismatic Jane Beachy. The
event was split into two “rounds” of performances featuring all
sorts of poets, dancers, artists, singers and so on. I encourage you
to explore all of their work! There was video taken of the performances but I have no idea when that will be available, so I've done my best to seek out and link to the people that were there, the talent, beauty and sincerity of these performances could really only be fully experienced in person, so I will not attempt to rob them of that by clumsily describing them at length. Rest assured, I was rattled and impressed, as I'm sure you'd have been as well!
Round 1
Me (AllOne... yahoo!)
Round 2
The performances were absolutely
cathartic and impacting. From choreographed fights, incredible
interpretive dance, singing routines to meaningful beautiful
poetry/monologues regarding the issues of love, eating disorders,
loss and the difficulties of life struggling with gender
identification and the adversity of sexual preference the event had
it all. Some more experimental performances involved crowd
participation embodying strong themes like rape, near death
experiences, racism and otherwise. The experience was strange and
arresting. Even though I was new to the town and don't identify as
homosexual I was treated like family by everyone and there was not a
bad vibe in the room. It was one of the most open and supportive
groups of people as well as most eclectic and consistently daring
displays of performance I've ever seen. Many of them gave me chills
and I was very impressed by people's honesty and heart. I was
responded to very strongly and it felt amazing and humbling to be
among all of these amazing artists and people. A really awesome girl
named Jenna Anast approached me to assure my that she loved my
performance and that it made her cry and we got to know one another a
little bit, she said she wanted to have me on her Chicago college
radio show “Jivin' with Jenna” and we spoke about life and art and
made some plans to meet up. I had conversations with Joe and several
others and ended up taking my first Uber ride back to Ariel's as she
had left early!
Tuesday 6/24/14 Exploring and vandalizing the Windy City
I woke up early and played with Ariel's
funny tubby cat “Bumpkin” who was perfectly named! I continued
to read O'Henry's collection and in it there were several amazing
stories of con-artists, as he is known for having. I really enjoyed being in their apartment, from instruments and shelvces of great books and films to funny and awesome posters, it was good to find myself among like-minded friends! One of Ariel's
roommates Gail, left me a note and her pass into the Chicago Art
Institute, I'd planned on going there, but first I had to peruse the
neighborhood and put stickers EVERYWHERE! For the first time, I used
a bike sharing system called Divvy, which was liberating and fun, I
think the bike sharing idea is brilliant, evidently Divvy has only been around for a year, but it's a necessary and wonderful system. It was a really hot day
and I was hassled by a cop via megaphone from a car for riding on the
sidewalk. Shortly after reprimanding me, he closed out our
interaction with “cool mustache bro”. Although it was brutally
hot out I spent several hours just meandering around trading feet for
wheels on and off. You are only able to ride the Divvy bikes for a
half hour at a time and then you are charged extra and I would panic
be unsure if I could stumble upon another bike dock so I'd just
return to the original one. 
People I'd been encountering seem
generally kind and open and the streets I'd explored managed to have
a good mix of interesting locally owned businesses such as comic book
shops, writer's havens, cafes and such among the more well
established franchises. At one point I ended up in a really neat little local organic grocery store where I ate amazing dark chocolate and drank an all natural ginseng drink while writing a story-song! Once retiring back to Ariel's apartment, I
wrote and worked on some new work while at Ariel's. Later that night,
Jenna and I met one another at “Bar On Buena” and sat outside to
eat and talked about our histories and heritage, music and her radio
show ect. We shared a hummus plate and had clever interactions with
a really cool waitress. The night was considerably cooler. Jenna
was more than pleasant company, one of those people who you talk with
and feel immediately like friends. She's an intelligent reader who
is quick to smile, loves horror and yet HATES clowns! We made plans
to meet up the next day to record for her radio show at UIC. I took
a nice nighttime stroll home around midnight and am again startled by
how easily it is that I/we as people can assimilate so quickly others
and new places so long as we are courageously open. I fell asleep
feeling contentedly connected and at home where I was despite my
bewildering bike rides earlier in the day.
Wednesday 6/25/14 New friends & coincidences. My out-of-state radio debut!
Once starting my day meandering, I
wound up going the wrong way early to UIC where Jenna's radio show
was to be! I went into a giant consignment/antique/thrift store and ended up finding Jane Eyre and Kidnapped for really cheap so i conceded to buying them both, knowing I'd end up reading them eventually. My one vice when traveling is contributing to my endless "to-read" bookshelf whenever I find cheap books no matter how dauntingly full the shelf gets! Later I stumbled upon a nice clean coffee shop called CafeDescartes. It was decorated with portraits of well known
philosophers and was empty, save for one smiling fellow working
behind the counter. I ordered a coffee and sat down, began talking
to this kind guy whose name turned out to be Reggie. He's a smart
and soft spoken Chicago native. We spoke about books and music and
he recommended Vladimir Nabokov's “Pale Fire” which is interesting because
Sadistik references it in the song "1984" in his newest album ("Ultraviolet") so I'd recently had it in
my head anyway! A classically trained pianist, playing since 7 years
old, he teaches piano and music theory! Cafe Descartes had a
brutally slow day of business, and so we had an opportunity to talk,
he taught me a bit about musical theory and styles of music and
informed me of some science fiction writers I should look out for.
As an hour or so elapsed I ended up getting a tasty macaroni and
vegetable salad, if you're ever there...try it out! We talked on
psychology and some philosophy and I sampled some delicious gelato
(made on-site!) from time to time. He helped me with advice on how
to get to UIC for Jenna's show and we exchanged information, to keep
in touch and perhaps some future musical collaboration. We both
emerged from that situation with a friend, and I thanked my poor
navigation for the experience!
I couldn't figure out the bus
system or the right ones weren't running but I ended up using the
Uber car again, and spoke to my driver who took a roundabout way that
ended up being quicker because of the traffic. We spoke about one
another's entrepreneurial ambitions and on dedication to family and
your future and had a really nice conversation. I got to Jenna's in
time to give hugs and get right onto the show, as she'd been generous
enough to wait for me to start it! On the show we spoke about the
meanings and approaches behind my songs and songwriting, general
feelings about ambitions, goals, and how to exchange messages through
art, the Onederlust tour, my job with F.R.E.E. back home and how
important it is to volunteer and help people for both the person
volunteering and those that are being helped! She played “What'sYour Problem?” “The Inevitable Effort” “Grab The Horns”
“Brainstorm Of The Century” “This Is For”, “Trash CanEpiphanies”, “Pennsylvanian Patriarch” and “Revealed{Practical]”! The whole time was really comfortable and she was
asking great questions and I had a really fun time. Jenna is
vivacious, emphatic, and inspiring and it definitely reflects in her
show...so do endeavor to tune into that! After the show we took some
photos together and spoke outside til nightfall, she opted to take a
bus with me to help to further direct me. Whenever I'm in town, she
and Reggie are two more friends I will certainly intend to meet with
that I'd got to know even further and got to know myself through
their actions even further and this tour has consistently presented
these gifts to me!
Once I got back to Ariel's, her
and I talked a bit, I'd met Gail and Stephanie, her room mates and we
spoke for a while. Being as they all worked and I seemed to
continuously have things to do at night we didn't get to speak as
much as I'd like (especially considering they're my hosts!) but they
weren't bothered by it and so long as I wasn't offending them I was
able to live with it. Even in the hour or so that I got to speak to
them, I felt I learned something. I went to bed, anticipating an
early departure morning for Detroit. I fell asleep thinking it's
funny this mental Rolodex I persistently add to, it's amazing how
close you can get to people in such a short amount of time. Kaila
and I spoke of this once when she was on her trip, about how it seems
that people cut the fat of small talk and get right to being real
with you due to the brevity of your intersecting in life. Another
factor might also be that people are less afraid to open up to you
more since you don't generally have any immediate effect on their
everyday life. It may also just be a reflection of how inviting we
are as people, gregarious and sincere.
There's never a reason to feel lonely
in the strangest of places,
“Everyone's lonely so I know at least
I'm not alone” -Micheal Eyedea Larsen,
Most people will r.s.v.p. they're just waiting for an invitation.
-AllOne
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