Some of you are up in the northern suburbs of Chicago. That’s okay. I won’t hold that against you. In fact, just to show there’s no hard feelings, on Thursday, October 23rd, I’ll be playing a show at the newest and by far sexiest venue on the flipside of Howard Street: SPACE.

It’s going to be a great show — not just because you can have some fabulous pizza and choice beer at Union beforehand, but also because I’m opening for Matt Santos, who is a true phenom, having recently secured himself a major-label record contract (they still have those?) and played all over Lupe Fiasco’s records (but no, he’s not hip-hop). Janelle Kroll is opening the night, and she’ll probably be famous within the year, if she’s not already.

So, as the summer sun sets, stroll yourself on over to Uncommon Ground at Clark & Grace St., where I’ll be playing some summer-themed acoustic tunes fit for such an ideal evening. Some dear old pals of mine from Boston, the Brendan Boogie Band, are passing through town this weekend and have obliged to play some of their tunes at 7pm. Then, as the sun dips out of view at precisely 7:58pm, I’ll serenade you — lit only by the lights of the Cubs-Cards game going on across the street.

This Sunday, August 10
Uncommon Ground on Grace & Clark
3800 N. Clark St., 773 929-3680
FREE, All Ages

7pm - Brendan Boogie Band
7:58pm - Gordon Wright

But I’m a huge fan of the New Yorker’s classical music critic, Alex Ross. Not only is he a fantastic writer, but he has an openness and innocence in his approach to music of all styles, which I think is a needed and refreshing perspective, especially for that magazine.

Recently he quoted a rule from a composer named Bruce Adolphe: “To say exactly what one means without complication but also without compromise.”

Adolphe may have intended his reflection for composers, but no mantra could ring more true for songwriters. Gotta post that one on my wall.

Playing first will be another local, Denise Hradecky, who I plan to reminisce with about our overlapping Boston days. Between me, Jazzy Jeff and Denise, there can’t be more than one degree of separation from back in that incestuous Beantown rock scene.

To wit, David Brooks’s much-emailed op-ed today in the Times, How Obama Fell to Earth. If nobody emailed it to you, essentially he says that the damage has been done and now Obama is a pedestrian pol with all the double-talk, false promises and pandering that entails. The unsullied usher to the promised land has been reduced to that basest of human life-forms: the politician.

Ready for my retort? Well, I don’t have one. I completely agree. It’s been hugely sad to me to watch Obama engage in all the games he said he wouldn’t play and the tactics he said he’d never use. All along I’ve been worried about his pledges to bring our troops home from Iraq unequivocally, thinking surely his lawyerly prudence would assess the situation from inside the Oval Office and make the best decision for our country and the world. And actually I think this is still the case, but now veering even slightly from his current prescription will mean he lied outright. And that’s really disappointing.

I still find him hugely inspiring as a leader, thinker, speaker, and yes, even as a politician. For as much as he has sadly succumbed to the lowest common denominator, he still stands head and shoulders above the field. As a supporter, one can only hope that Clinton’s unabated and opportunistic attacks have only tempered the steel of his electability and promise, and not done any permanent damage heading into November.

God help us, when we make it to November, that is…

Now, loyal readers of course know that I’m an Obama supporter. Naturally, I was inclined to put the most positive spin on his statement. In retrospect I think he chose his words poorly, but it seems ludicrous that his mild comment could be used by Clinton or McCain to show that they are somehow more authentically in tune with rural voters.

Still, BO hasn’t done the best job killing this one. I think his intention was better stated by Lancaster, PA’s mayor, J. Richard Gray:

I don’t think he’s demeaning religion or guns. He’s saying the use of those issues as wedge issues plays on the bitterness that people have and diverts attention from the real economic issues, like the disparity between the wage earner and the rich.

The tragic thing to me about Obama’s now regrettable comment is that he was caught in the act of doing exactly what he pledges is his greatest strength: building bridges. He was at an intimate meeting of well-heeled Bay Area liberals, and he was explaining to them why they should care about what rural Pennsylvanians think, and why in the end, there are core social and economic goals they can all agree on. Just as he did in the race speech, he was able to step out of the room in a rural town hall with farmers and factory workers, and into a room on the other side of the country with left-leaning rich folks (and probably a few homosexuals, eh?) and share his same message of hope: simply, let’s come together and improve things. And he does it without the pandering or shape-shifting that has come to typify Clinton’s need to win at all costs or McCain’s fumbling attempts to court a divided electorate.

I’m not bragging. But I seriously have been luckier over the past month than at any other time in my life. It’s just plain eerie.

• I won the family NCAA pool. I picked the final four correctly and had Kansas to win.
• I won a Segway tour for two around downtown Chicago. I’m actually completely psyched for this…
• I won the Sony “Young & the Restless” sweepstakes. Seriously. The 46″ TV just got delivered to my house yesterday (thanks to my brawny FIL and a reluctant FedEx guy).
• I got a hot new job at the MacArthur Foundation. I start at the end of the month.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m psyched for all the good fortune. I just hope there’s no karmic retribution…

If you judge candidates by their actions as opposed to their words, Obama is the LEAST likely of the three to bridge the gap, as it were. Oddly, John McCain seems to be the MOST likely to actually listen to and work with members of the opposing party.

I have to agree with Hombre that one of the defining characteristics of McCain’s long tenure is stepping across the aisle and breaking with party-affiliation in service of a particular issue. I’ve often said that I myself would break with my Democratic voting record to support the “maverick.”

But, quite frankly, after nearly becoming the Democratic VP candidate in ’04, McCain took pains to ally himself with not just the Republican party, but specifically the Bush administration. While I thought switching parties would have been extreme, I was sorely disappointed in his cowering conciliation. It seemed like he realized that if he wanted to be president one day, he had to play by the very rules he had become famous for flaunting. His tardy endorsement of Bush’s campaign that year came off as wan and defeated. And my hunch is that conciliation was only the beginning, as he strains now to pull the neo-cons and a soon-to-be-disenfranchised religious right into the tent with his challenging voting record.

He can still be unpredictable. He can still be volatile. And, lately, he can even be doddering. But is he really the maverick anymore?