Greetings from Peace Garden at the Chicago lakefront (Buena and Lakeshore Drive, or 4200N), where I am taking a break from the usual cafes and simply enjoying the sun and water on this late-summer day. Would anyone out there, by the way, happen to know more about this strange little nook in the city's park system? Like, information on when Peace Garden was established, who was responsible for creating it, or where the modern "peace sculptures" found here came from? I'm fascinated with this tiny little mini-park, since it's so close to my apartment; unfortunately there's no information to be found at the Chicago Park District's website, and of course my email to them several months ago is still unanswered. Anyway, I've got a whole pile of notes here on my Treo that are starting to get stacked up; so in usual fashion, I thought I'd just get them all posted at once. Enjoy!

--Mea bigga culpa! On Friday I was talking here about podcasts, and specifically how I wish more podcasters would stop trying to mimic the sound and feel of a traditional radio show (an endeavor a podcaster will always lose at, in my opinion) and try to do more things with their podcasts that radio shows can't. (I've received a number of complimentary emails about the entry, by the way - seems I'm not the only one who feels this way.) But I forgot to mention an incredibly important point in that entry, and it's completely my fault that I forgot it - that I was only talking about personal podcasts done by amateurs, who don't have any particular theme or subject to their podcast. When it comes to professional organizations doing podcasts, or amateurs who wish to tackle one specific subject (like tech, indie-rock, cars, etc), I think in that case it's perfectly fine to try to mimic the sound and feel of a traditional radio show, although in my particular case I don't have very much interest in listening to such a show.

And what's more, it's astounding, I think, of just how cheaply one can put together a podcast recording kit these days, that really can deliver the same professional-sounding experience as only a radio station used to be able to do. I mean, seriously, once you acquire the actual computer, one can easily put together a system for under $100 that will faithfully deliver a studio-quality podcast, as long as you're smart about how you actually use the equipment (that is, if you use the equipment in a small, enclosed, quiet space, and especially one with a lot of curtains and tiles and other natural sound-dampening material). Back when I was an undergraduate, when my friends and I were fascinated with pirate radio, we used to pray that such portable, professional equipment existed; and now here it is, not even 15 years later, and it actually does. Viva la revolucion!

--I don't know about any other Chicago bicyclers, but I've been meaning to mention here what a great experience I've been having here with CTA bus drivers, when it comes to my own biking; namely, almost all the bus drivers I've come across here in the city now will give you a couple of quick little honks when they're behind you, to let you know that they're there, and will also often pause for a few extra seconds at stops to let rear bicyclers pass them, before starting up on their route again. And I wonder - is this an official policy of the CTA, to be extra friendly and attentive to bicyclers, or is it simply that most bus drivers here feel curiously sympatico with area bicyclers? In any case, it's something I really appreciate the bus drivers here in Chicago doing, considering just how easy it is to accidentally get trapped on the right-hand side of busses right before they pull over to a stop, which of course would just crush a bicycler between the bus and parked cars like a bug if such a thing was to happen. Have I mentioned lately just how insanely happy I am being a bicycler in Chicago? Damn!

--A confession: One of the greatest pleasures I get from doing this site, far from the pleasure of actually writing journal entries, is simply getting to check out all the cool things my readers are doing in their own corners of the world. Case in point - Christopher Sharpe, a filmmaker in Austin (Texas) who is tantalizingly close to releasing a new full-length movie called Sex Machine. Their production company's website has a trailer up right now, in fact, in a whole variety of formats and sizes, and boy, it just looks so great - a campy, funny spoof of violence and sex, much like a lot of DV films you see advertised and reviewed these days in such magazines as Fangoria. (Man, forget about blogs - I'm convinced the 2000's will be known in the future as the Second Golden Age of the sex-and-blood-laden B-movie.) Anyway, you should definitely check it out if you have the chance, because you will be endlessly entertained by the trailer that's currently up...well, that is, if your idea of entertainment is gratuitous cartoon violence and a bunch of hot Suicide-Girl-type women running around with no clothes on. (And if it's not - for fuck's sake, why are you reading my journal in the first place?) Oh, and a question for Christopher as well - do all those hot girls we see in the trailer actually have sex in the movie, like in the vein of the recent accidental mainstream hit The Manson Family? Or do we just see a bunch of tits and ass, like in most DV B-movies? I'm not complaining in either case!

--And now for something completely different... The latest issue of Texas Monthly has an incredibly long and fascinating article about Joel Osteen, current head of the Lakewood "megachurch" in Houston. I confess, I have this real fascination with Osteen, and have actually watched and really enjoyed something like 15 or 20 of his sermons now on local television, as embarrassing as that is to admit. Osteen is just such a bundle of contradictions, which is why I think he's so fascinating: a Protestant preacher who refuses to tell people they're going to Hell; a televangelist who refuses to talk about money on his television show.

I always feel so weirdly positive and happy after watching one of Osteen's sermons, because he's just so relentlessly optimistic himself; he's always talking about how to reconnect with your friends and family in a more profound way, how to not let all the shit-talkers of the world overwhelm you, how to achieve happiness without necessarily having to collect up a bunch of consumerist crap in one's life. Of course, this is the same thing that gets him criticisms from a lot of conservative Christians as well, because his sermons are light on the traditional subjects Protestant preachers talk about - how everyone who's not a conservative Protestant is going to Hell, how your job as a Christian is to go out and disrupt as many other people's lives as possible, how it's your duty as a Christian to be judgmental of others.

There's a growing number of people, according to this article I read, who are considering Osteen as the logical "successor" of Billy Graham, and such statements make me understand for the first time why Graham was so popular in the first place, back in the '40s and '50s during the height of his career. It's remarkable, I think, that I as a longtime atheist can get so inspired by this preacher's sermons, get so infused with excitement and find so many things in what he's saying that can be so directly applied to my own life. Anyway, I don't have much of a point here; I just think it's fascinating, that's all.

--Oh, and speaking of religions, have you heard yet about Flying Spaghetti Monsterism (also known as the "Pastafarians")? It's a parody religion started by this guy named Bobby Henderson, as a protest against Kansas' decision earlier this year to let Creationism be taught in science classrooms alongside evolutionary theory; the whole idea is that people demand that FSM be allowed to be taught as well, since it too is a legitimate non-evolutionary theory about how the world began. (And a little mini-rant, by the way, as long as we're on the subject - just because Creationists call it "intelligent design" doesn't mean that you have to! Jesus, people! Shit still stinks like shit, after all, even if someone wants to call it "intelligent refuse." Please, please, I'm urging you, DON'T LET THE TERM "INTELLIGENT DESIGN" BECOME A LEGITIMATE PHRASE IN OUR SOCIETY; I urge all of you to keep calling it Creationism, as it rightly should be called. Or even better, "superstition," which in fact is what it precisely is.)

Anyway, one of the things that's happened is that the guys at BoingBoing have gotten fascinated with FSM, which of course means that there are now millions of people fascinated with FSM, to the point that the mainstream media has even started doing articles about the phenomenon. Obviously the whole thing's pretty silly, designed mostly for stoned undergraduates with too much time on their hands (including such hilarious beliefs as that global warming is caused by the decline of pirates in the 1800s, and that a stripper factory and beer volcano are waiting in heaven for faithful Pastafarians); it does, however, remind me a lot of a parody religion my friends and I used to follow back in the '80s, when we were stoned undergraduates ourselves, which is why I wanted to mention it.

That one is called The Church of the SubGenius, and is based around worshipping this piece of 1950s clip art that adherents have named J.R. "Bob" Dobbs; back in the '80s, when the religion was at its height, there were dozens of local SubGenius chapters around the planet, with such famous tech writers as RU Serious and Bruce Sterling being ordained ministers. And this was before the web, mind you, back when underground culture was still spread the old-fashioned way (zines, stickers, and random drunken conversations in bars, that is - and God, ask me how much I sometimes miss those days). Anyway, once again I don't really have much of a point; it's just been pleasant, that's all, to see all this FSM stuff and be reminded of how much my friends and I were into the Church of the SubGenius back in college, and how fun it used to be back then to randomly stumble across stickers and posters of Bob in what was sometimes just the most unlikeliest places.

--Television notes, part 1: Dude! You won't even begin to be able to guess what popped up on our local UPN station this weekend. That's right, it was The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the Eighth Dimension, arguably the greatest movie ever made about brain-surgeon rocket scientists who also have their own hit rock band, comic-book series and volunteer child army. DUDE! Goddamnit, when is someone going to finally make a sequel to Buckaroo Bonzai? I mean, there's been a screenplay floating around Hollywood for twenty years now, I've heard, along with a number of very prominent directors attached to it at one time or another (including Kevin Smith, and how many of us exactly would come in our pants if Kevin Smith made a sequel to Buckaroo Bonzai?). Dude!!!

--Television notes, part 2: For international readers who don't know, the fall TV season is just about to start here in the US. And believe it or not, there are six - count 'em, six - new shows on network television this year that have to do with science-fiction or the supernatural, all of them of course green-lighted because of the accidental success of last year's Lost. Well, let's hear it for stupid fearful television executives, man! We all know, of course, of the notorious attitude most television executives have regarding new shows (i.e. "That thing's a hit? We need one too!"), but unfortunately for the last couple of years that's been working against all of us intelligent people who like intelligent creative projects; so man, it's nice to finally see such narrow-mindedness actually working in our favor now.

Now, granted, most of these new shows might suck, and most of them might be off the air by Christmas...but, you know, still. In particular I'm looking forward to CBS' Threshold, which is being done by most of the same creative team behind not only Star Trek: Enterprise but also Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which in my opinion still stands as one of the greatest television shows in the history of the medium. (And yeah, fuck you, okay?) And it's a really intriguing concept as well - basically, that the US government has discovered that aliens are planning on invading the earth, and instead of alerting the public they put together a secret team to try to foil the aliens' plans. But to do this, this team also has to pull over a bunch of fast ones on the American public as well, meaning that it's a conspiracy show but from the point of view of the conspirators themselves, which I think is a fairly interesting take on an old concept. Anyway, as always, lots of thoughts and opinions about all these new shows, once September rolls around and they finally start airing.

--And speaking of new shows, will you like me be glued to the TV tonight for the two-hour premiere of Fox's new Prison Break? Oh, man, this looks like such a kick-ass show; I really hope it's not disappointing. The whole concept is that this guy gets sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit; and so his brother, a gifted mechanical engineer, deliberately commits a crime so that he'll be sent to the same prison, so that he can bust himself and his brother out of it (after, of course, already studying blueprints of the prison and devising an escape plan, the details of which will be slowly revealed to us over the course of the season, 24 style). And not only that, but the whole thing is being filmed here in the Chicago area as well - specifically, the now-closed Joliet Correctional Facility, about 30 minutes south of Chicago, which is the same prison that "Joliet" Jake was supposed to be incarcerated at in The Blues Brothers. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to the show, and with any luck will be glued to the screen in suspense all evening tonight.

That's it! Talk with you again tomorrow!