bad sandwich chronicles

Hey kids, it’s that time of year again! That’s right! It’s time to vote for your favorite blog, twitter, new band, old band, bartender and label over at the Chicago Reader’s best of 2012 readers poll. If you PUH-LEEEEEEEEAASE would be so kind as to head over there and vote for badsandwichchronicles.net for best blog, I’d love you all forever. You don’t have to live in Chicago. Hell, it’s kinda better if you DON’T live in Chicago. We won it last year and it’s been nothing but ruby encrusted dildos and the finest in caviar since we donned the crown. I want to win again, but I’ll need your help.

Now, here in Chicago, politics are notoriously dirty. A big trick that ‘the man’ pulls during elections is that he sends his thugs/cronies/buddies out to nursing homes and poor neighborhoods full of people who are vaguely senile/don’t speak English, where they round ‘em up, load ‘em on busses, drive ‘em to the polling place and give them a cheat sheet that they use to vote, which contains all the relevant races on the ballot and the candidates that people should cast their votes for. Since I’m from Chicago, and my goal is to be known as a fat cat of sorts, here’s a small cheat sheet for you, my demented followers:

Best Local Blog: Badsandwichchronicles.net

Best local record label: Red Scare Industries

Best Chicagoan to follow on Twitter @badsandwich

Best bartender: Katie Degroote- Gingerman Tavern

Thanks! You guys are the best. I’m eternally grateful. Now, there are all sorts of other categories that I’d love to be considered for too if y’all are bored and want to really get into it. I think I’d make a great “best Chicago ambassador” and my band, Brendan Kelly and the Wandering Birds would be a pretty awesome “best new band.” What else? I don’t know. You guys are pretty good at this stuff. Last year the Lawrence Arms beat out Wilco for ‘best band that’s been around forever’ and also won ‘best band name’ despite the fact that The Lawrence Arms is, at best, a confusing, barely acceptable band name. And that’s the awesome part about this:

There are enough of you, my dogs of war, to effectively take control of this whole hilarious poll. We kind of did it last year with minimal effort, so I’d LOVE to really stick it to the squares and the dildos and drive it home this year with a vast and terrible exploding outpouring of yellow, brown and red support. Are you people out there ready? Up to the challenge? The shit takes 2 minutes and will not ever result in you getting spammed or anything like that (I say this as someone who has voted in this poll for the past few years and never received even a single email from the Reader [even when I won!])

My fate is in your hands. Help me Obi Wan Kenobis. Yall are my only hopes. THIS is a link to the ballot.

Xoxoxoxo

Oh, right. See you at Pouzza Fest! Can’t wait!

OH, right! Slapstick is playing Riot Fest Chicago. Hummina hummina hummina! Get stoked.

I’m out.

There’s a lot of talk about sexual identity and gender and gayness going around this week, and there’s one particular aspect of this that I would, in fact like to weigh in on. That’s the notion that any of this stuff, be it exotic, highly of-the-moment issues like gender dysphoria or just regular, boring old gayness is something that people choose. I KNOW I’m preaching to the choir here, but it’s INSANE to think that someone would choose to willingly forego basic human rights or undergo risky procedures because ‘fuck it. that sounds like a cool thing to do.’ I’ve struggled my entire adult life to understand this point of view, but recently I read or heard something and it all clicked for me and I’d like to share my insights with y’all.

Okay, firstly, we’ve all seen the studies that correlate homophobia and gayness, right? For those of you who haven’t, it’s essentially scientific evidence that the ol’ “methinks the lady doth protest too much” maxim is true when it comes to people who are really outspoken about hating gays. Why are they so angry? Because they’re gayer than Christmas themselves.  You hardly need a study for this though. It’s behavior that we see all the time. Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, Marcus Bachman, the list goes on and on and on. There’s very little question in my mind that Rick Santorum is going to find himself using a “those three dicks were wrestling in my mouth without my knowledge or consent” argument before too long (which is gonna be awesome, by the way).

These people, the people I mentioned above, they’re all of the opinion that being gay is a choice. Despite science (which some of them admittedly dismiss as snobbish bullshit [which is a whole other topic that’s so mind bogglingly infuriating that I can’t even think about it right now]), despite the fact that it makes no logical sense, despite the fact that NO ONE would ever choose to exist as a marginalized and maligned member of society if they didn’t have to, they stand by this notion. “Being gay is a choice.” Do you know why they think/say/believe this? The answer is strangely obvious: Because for them, for your Haggards, your Craigs, your Bachmans and Santorums, it IS a choice…it’s a choice they struggle not to make each and every day.

See, to someone who’s born gay, but too much of a coward to face their own biological desires head on, there’s a choice, and there’s only one choice. That’s to batten down and repress those desires, find one woman you can bear, pump kids into her until she never wants to see your penis again (contrary to what logic may seem to dictate, people with lots of kids have WAY less sex than people with just a couple, or no kids), and think of baseball statistics every time wrestling or competitive diving comes on television. Do you see what I’m saying? It’s a choice. The choice being made is to repress your desires, become spiteful and shitty and lash out at the gay people who were braver than you and who made the choice to live with the biological imperatives that they were born with and not be subject to the jealous hateful bullshit rules of a vocal minority of closeted, self loathing queers who can’t stand that they have to fuck people like Michelle Bachman while there are real live dens of depraved awesomeness right there in the city operating as though SOME OF US hadn’t made the hard, soul crushing choice to not be gay.

I mean, they’re kind of right, in a way. In a society where being straight is the celebrated and rewarded norm, being gay may not be a choice, but being straight sure as hell is, and if you’re too much of a chickenshit to listen to your body and id, well, you can make the choice to be very, very unfulfilled and bitter and ‘straight.’ Because let me tell you something: if I lived in a world where gayness was the norm, and it would disappoint my parents and my social circles if I came out as a straight guy, I could probably choke down a dick or two for the cameras just to take the pressure off, but there’s no way I could reasonably keep that up for very long. I could ‘choose’ the easy path for a while, in hopes that I’d learn to like it or come around, but it would never be something that would excite or fulfill me in any way whatsoever. I just know my own body well enough to know that. I think anyone that’s truly comfortable with their orientation can say the same thing: ‘the way I’m wired is the way I’m wired and there’s no changing it, no matter what.’ It’s only the people who are still (figuratively) choking down vaginas to keep the cameras off of them that seem to think there’s any kind of choice in the matter. And I guess there is. It’s like when you really, really, really want to eat, but you don’t, despite what your body is telling you and despite the huge amount of damage you’re doing to yourself. That’s a choice. It’s a choice to be fucking miserable, and transparently making a choice that goes against your own fundamentally hardwired desires.

Uh, yeah. That’s all I got. As you were.

Huh. What to write about today, huh? Just another boring Wednesday. If only there was some highly-sensational, hot button issue that I could tackle here. Perhaps one that involved friends of mine or subcultures that I grew up in…you know: anything that I could exploit to hopefully prick up the ears of various news outlets and bring traffic over here (all for my own glory and personal gain). You know, like I did with that Patrick Stump thing or that Brian Fallon thing or even, if you think waaaaaaaaaay back, with that uh, who was it? Oh, right, Against Me! Any of you guys been around that long? Nah. Well, anyway, quick history lesson: I wrote that thing a long time ago about how I thought AM! were great and how even if their band completely changed to better suit the people that they’d become over the course of growing up, they were still awesome and I loved and backed them 100% since all they were doing was what they wanted/needed to do in order to make Against Me! the healthiest, happiest and most all-around successful band it could be. I got a lot of shit for that post. Do you guys remember that? Anyway, where was I? I dunno. I just wish there was something really volatile going on that I could leech onto so I could get me some of that sweet, sweet paper.

If only. That would be awesome.

And now, apropos of nothing, here’s a link you guys should check out. Pretty cool stuff.

xoxoxoxoxoxo (ha!)

Edit: I’m being told the link doesn’t work, but it’s working just fine for me. Uh…I don’t know what else to do. I guess, here’s another link to something very similar.

Your regularly scheduled BSC will resume this afternoon. I got some bullshit going on that i can’t get away from right now, but I’m thinking of all you Dogs of War out there. xoxoxox

bk

Adam Yauch was awesome. RIP. So sad. (fart sound, dick joke, shrug, teary sigh, wistful noise that sounds like a tiny elephant trumpeting, etc).