The footage contained in this project cover the period between my return from Furnace Fest (see project for that here) and Thanksgiving when we left for Pennsylvania for the whitetail deer rifle season and to celebrate the holidays with family. I decided to make a separate post that includes any of the hunting I did for 2024 so folks who prefer to NOT see that will not be blindsided by the footage in the midst of this project or that for The Holidays 2024.
This is by far the shortest "Fall" project in length in some time if not ever. That was due in part to an episode of COVID-19 happening at Halloween which knocked us out of commission for our usual Halloweeniversary celebrating and for the week afterwards.
OCTOBER
10.07.2024 - 10.11.2024
After returning from Furnace Fest, I headed to work on Monday morning October 7th, 2024. I was pretty dang tired but I went to work. As I made the morning commute, I noticed and captured that there was a rainbow at Buckingham Fountain. It seems during a certain part of the late summer or early fall, the sun must be at just the right spot during my morning commute to make this happen. I suppose it is possible in the spring as well if the fountain is on during that particular period of time where the sun would hit just right.
On Thursday October 10th, 2024 another solar storm occurred bringing visibility for the Northern Lights to the Chicago area. We didn't make the effort to go out into the dark spaces this time but I was able to capture the color pretty well from where we live in the city that night.
10.12.2024
On Saturday October 12th, 2024, we attended the 15th Prison City Halloween Massacre at The Forge in Joliet, IL. We got there a bit late and missed the first couple of bands. The first band we saw was Sarmy Of Doom. It was an interesting performance. Whut? played next. They essentially host the show each year. The vocalist was having a birthday as well. The Disgraceland Wasteland Suspensions did their performance after Whut? finished up and it was cool as usual. The night ended up closing out with Elbow Deep who put in a performance that was part hardcore punk show and part wrestling with a couple 'fights' among band members toward the end. One of them ended up cut pretty badly and will apparently require surgery. The mess that they made ended up taking so long to clean up that Disgraceland Wasteland didn't do any more suspensions as they had indicated they hoped to do.
I have made a playlist of previous Prison City Halloween Massacre shows and now also included the clips from this one.
10.13.2024 - 10.18.2024
On Monday October 14th, 2024, it was Canada's Thanksgiving and Indigenous People's Day here in the United States. I made my usual dinner choice on Canada's Thanksgiving and went to The Bad Apple to pick up some poutine!
On Tuesday October 15th, 2024, there was hail coming down as I went to get my lunch. As I made my commute home, the skies had some vibrant colors reflecting off of the storm clouds over Lake Michigan.
10.18.2024
On Friday October 18th, 2024, friends were putting on a show in the Garden Room at J.P.U.S.A. in Uptown Chicago. I decided to stick around after work and catch the show. Since I had to take the C.T.A. to work due to getting a dent worked out of the car, I walked over from work at Cornerstone Community Outreach, stopping off at Sonic to grab some dinner.
Kevin Schlereth opened the night with some new tunes he's been working on and showcasing on this tour. Tobin Bawinkel played a 6'10 set next and played a newer song called "The Eastland" about a Chicago River shipwreck that happened around 100 years ago and took many lives. This may be a Flatfoot 56 song whenever it gets released rather than a 6'10 song...I'm not sure, ha! Sun Baron ended the night and I enjoyed the tunes that he played as well. I hung around quite a while after the show, enduring an odd fellow seemingly saying some imappropriate things, ha! When Tobin prepared to leave, I asked if I could hitch a ride home rather than ride the train and he thankfully obliged. We got in a cool conversation on the way as well.
NOTE: For some reason I posted this as being October 19th, 2024 originally. I went through to correct the video titles and information on YouTube but the embedded text is wrong.
10.19.2024 - 10.22.2024
On Saturday October 19th, 2024 I picked my car up at Parkview Auto where a dent and scratch as well as my amateur attempts to cover it was fixed. I also made a quick trip to Jewel to get some chopped vegetables to add to our venison stew. As I left there, I noticed someone set up weird little statutes or something along the old KFC at Western and Archer, I assume trying to sell them. That evening, we enjoyed some venison stew!
10.23.2024
On Wednesday October 23rd, 2024 we scored some extremely cheap tickets to see The Sisters of Mercy at Aragon Ballroom in Uptown Chicago. It was a bit of a surprise we were able to score such cheap tickets as it is a Ticketmaster/Live Nation venue and the face value was around $50.00 I believe. We took advantage of the low price on Stubhub and hoped for the best upon arrival. We hung out over at J.P.U.S.A. for a bit before the show, having dinner. A few of our friends Skot and Rachel Shaw and Mellie came out to the show as well. While waiting for the show to start, at one point a fairly significant group of our friends were all gathered around where we tend to hang out to watch shows at that venue. There is a step up so Elphie can see over the heads of the crowd and for the most part it doesn't get overly crowded.
The opening act was Blaqk Audio featuring members of A.F.I. They were ok and I thought sound wise it reminded me a bit of NYVES.
The Sisters of Mercy had a fairly long setlist and I expected the show to go quite a bit later than it did but they got through the songs quite quickly. I decided to capture "Lucretia, My Reflection." Of the songs I know by The Sisters Of Mercy, that would probably be among my favorite and I was introduced to it through a cover by Project 86.
After the show, we hung some more at J.P.U.S.A. with Skot and Rachel Shaw and Mellie as well as Shawn and Holly Browning who came out from Fort Wayne. We ended up driving Shawn and Holly to where they had parked their car after the hangs.
10.26.2024
On Saturday October 26th, 2024, we attended the annual Nocturna All Hallow's Eve Ball at Metro. I decided to make this video clip of the night which is mostly showing the costume contest. That is in itself worth it to attend to see the creativity of costumes. We got to hang with some friends for a bit and that was fun. We didn't stay terribly late but had a good time while there.
10.27.2024 - 11.08.2024
On Thursday October 31st, 2024, I had to take Stein back to the vet for a follow-up appointment for a vaccination. Elphie hadn't been feeling well the last day or so and stayed home. After finishing at the vet, I captured some footage of the Halloween decorations in the neighborhood as I went to work. Not long after I arrived at work and clocked in, Elphie messaged that she had tested positive for COVID-19. I tested myself but came up negative. On my drive home I saved some footage from the CrossTour CR-900 of the neighborhood and Trick-or-Treat activity. We had to put our usual plan to celebrate our Halloweeniversary on hold. We ended up being out of commission for the next week.
NOVEMBER
11.09.2024
On Saturday November 9th, 2024, Elphie and I attended an "old-school" set by Five Iron Frenzy at the Bottom Lounge. They brought Lo(u)ser out as well. I think he has been on most of these "old school" set shows. His set was pretty funny, making some jokes about youth group culture and utilizing video game graphics with his songs. The video clip I captured used PacMan themed graphics. The Boy Detective was also on this show (and the one in Columbus from this weekend run). They are out of Michigan and did a pretty cool set as well. The lead vocalist spent most of the show in the middle of the crowd. I captured the last song of the set. I also captured the last song from the Five Iron Frenzy set. It was "Every New Day." I am pretty sure I have some footage of them performing "Every New Day" from another show but I wanted to capture it again anyway...there were a number of other fun options I could have decided to capture from the set. We saw a few friends at the show and Elphie got in a little bit of time hanging with Raye so that was cool.
11.10.2024 - 11.14.2024
On Sunday November 10th, 2024 we went to our friend Daniel's house for his birthday party and a bonfire later in the evening. He had meat pies for us as a meal! I only captured the bonfire.
On Thursday November 14th, 2024 I experienced a couple bad Chicago drivers and decided to pull the footage for the ongoing documentation. The first one was on Lake Shore Drive as I tried to enter using the ramp from Wilson Avenue. I was accelerating up to speed as one is meant to do. A car was in the right curb lane and initially it seemed I'd have plenty of room to merge in front of the car. The driver sped up but not enough to get passed me...only enough to end up mostly in my blindspot. They also chose to not shift left to the next lane. As I ran out or ramp space, I proceeded with my merge and accelerated, creating and maintaining a gap with this other driver. They apparently intended to use one of the next off ramps. While utilizing it, they flashed their lights at me it would seem. Why?
Further down Lake Shore Drive near the downtown parks I encountered another bad Chicago driver who created a close call but turning right on a red light directly in front of me. I was forced to slam my brakes and honked my horn. Thankfully, I was able to stop and not hit them (nor get rear-ended in the process).
11.15.2024
On Friday November 15th, 2024, Elphie and I went to see one of the last Front 242 shows at Metro. Elphie had a ticket with Kori and I bought my own. Unfortunately there was some issue with the tickets Kori had gotten which seemed to negate the ticket for Elphie. Eventually, they were all permitted in but sure seemed like a lot of unnecessary problems. I had secured a space in the balcony to watch from and held on to it the best I could. It turned out I was trying to hold space for three other people not just two! It was a good show though. I captured clips from both Front 242 and the opener Kontravoid.
https://youtu.be/LnV9SO-OVQE
https://youtu.be/6GiHez_TJD8
11.15.2024
On Friday November 15th, 2024, Elphie and I went to see one of the last Front 242 shows at Metro. Elphie had a ticket with Kori and I bought my own. Unfortunately there was some issue with the tickets Kori had gotten which seemed to negate the ticket for Elphie. Eventually, they were all permitted in but sure seemed like a lot of unnecessary problems. I had secured a space in the balcony to watch from and held on to it the best I could. It turned out I was trying to hold space for three other people not just two! It was a good show though. I captured clips from both Front 242 and the opener Kontravoid.
https://youtu.be/LnV9SO-OVQE
https://youtu.be/6GiHez_TJD8
11.16.2024 - 11.27.2024
On Tuesday November 19th, 2024 I noticed an odd drone show apparently happening as I drove down Lake Shore Drive. I have no idea what it was about or why it was happening.
On Thursday November 21st, 2024 we had our first measurable snow storm in Chicago as far as I can recall. I captured some clips of that.
We drove out to South Bend, Indiana on Saturday November 23rd, 2024 for Bloodline Fest at The Well. It was fun and I documented it on a separate post you can check out here.
Early Sunday morning after returning from Bloodline Fest in South Bend, Indiana, I stopped to get a charge. As I waited for the light to change so that I could go to the charger, several vehicles apparently felt that they did not need to stop at the red light and proceeded through. It was quite a few vehicles. As I plugged in to charge, I could hear squealing tires and assumed it was probably at least some of those same cars doing a "street takeover" and spinning donuts. This is a thing in Chicago.
On Tuesday November 26th, 2024 during my evening commute, while sitting with the rest of the traffic on Pershing Road, a driver determined that they did not need to wait and proceeded to continue down the middle of the road passed everyone who was waiting and I'd assume probably through the next light.
The rest of the footage for the year of 2024 will be included in the Holidays project and also the hunting project.
Additional soundtrack includes "An Autumnal Nightmare" by Rodent Emporium, "Halloween" by Insomniac Folklore, and "Autumn" by The Curbsquirrels.
Footage filmed using an iPhone 12 and 14 and Crosstour CR-900 by Elphie and Joel A. Swanson. Titles and other animations created and project edited using Final Cut Pro X on a Mac Mini by Joel A. Swanson.
