Mardi Gras Memories and Promises...

(Voltaire the Gargoyle, longtime guardian and home office compatriot, decides to get into the Mardi Gras spirit)

Yes, it is Mardi Gras! On Sunday I thanked a random number generator for choosing a Terrence Simien CD this week, which is a reference that very few people understood. See, Terrence is my favorite Zydeco performer and is just a thrill to watch and listen to. The guy just attacks the accordion and it is impossible to watch him while sitting down. You have to get up and move and smile and just enjoy life. Plus half the lyrics are in French and are incomprehensible even when translated. I’m not kidding, this is one of his verses translated into English: “The snapbeans aren’t salty / The snapbeans aren’t salty / I am not worried / The snapbeans aren’t salty.” Pure genius. So, I got to listen to that driving back and forth from work and man isn’t that a thrill.

Plus, I get into a bit of a reflective mood during this time because of Mardi Gras 2003, which while it might not be the most influential night of my life it probably ranks in the top five. Here’s the story (and those that actually played a role in it can try to keep me honest). We were finishing up our last semester of business school and after a weekend of misadventures, involving cops addressing the crowd at the Backer, my completely blowing chance #437 with the legendary SBEM (and no, I will not be providing a translation for that acronym. Those who need to know, know), Super dragging me to an Irish bar by saying, “There is Guinness and Irish women there. You can not give me a reason that will trump that.”, Super and I returning to the Backer like conquering heroes and proving the power of the Tao, my leaving the bar completely oblivious to the fact that a buddy of mine was getting into a fight a couple of hundred yards away and that was just Friday night. For crying out loud, I met Renee the next night and that isn’t a story for the blog, that’s the basis for about half of my novel. Anyway, after all of this Erik and I ended up sitting at the bar on Mardi Gras night, because we simply had to go out on Mardi Gras, and the following offer was made.

“We can rebuild you. We can make you stronger. Faster. Cooler.”

And that’s how it all began. A determined effort to reshape my persona and style and try to figure out a way to show who I really am. And gain a ton of confidence and stop being so damn negative about everything. Oh and fix the way I wore my baseball cap, this was really significant at the time. Honest, it’s in my writer’s journal. I took notes on this. And you know what? It worked, better than anyone ever expected.

So I’m sitting here tonight and even I’m looking at those days with a sense of awe. Which is not the right emotion to have since I should have surpassed who I was but I have regressed a bit. Hopefully just a bit, but definitely some steps backwards. And that just means one thing, the process starts up again. So when people ask me what I am giving up for Lent this year I am going to say the same thing I did three years ago, “Negativity.” It’s time for a reinvention, a reinvigoration, and while I won’t have the Backer and my advisory council is now spread across the globe all the way to Milwaukee I am going to go at this one full bore. Because win or lose, life is too short to spend sitting in front of a screen night after night. With that, it is off to celebrate.

Well that and figure out how to get a St. Mary’s girl to upgrade my wardrobe. That was a lot easier to accomplish three years ago…

One more Wheat for the road...

Tonight is going to be a rather interesting posting. Steve the Bartender who a) owns my favorite bar, b) is a fellow Illini and c) has been serving me drinks from literally my first week in town has decided to take a break from the bartending arts starting this evening. This means that I am both distraught as well as feeling the effects of spending the past few hours at the bar celebrating his last night. When a bartender tells you, “Hey, could you show up on Monday night?” you listen. (Note to Donna and Joey, don’t worry, you are still tops on my list of favorite bartenders. I’ve had many bartenders serve me without my actually ordering. You two are the only ones to serve me without my technically being in the bar at the time.) So, let’s just say that if this isn’t coherent there is a reason. Why the other nights aren’t coherent we will just blame on my lack of talent. Anyway…

1) Lots of Hollywood deaths this weekend. We lost Don Knotts, who is alternately known as Barney Fife, that dude in Three’s Company who wasn’t John Ritter or that guy with the bad perm, or the star of about a dozen Disney films you were subjected to in grade school to celebrate your good behavior. Yes, growing up in the early 80’s was that depressing, if you didn’t get a detention during the year you got to watch The Incredible Mr. Limpett (on film, no less). Plus, at least according to the headlines we lost the star of The Christmas Story. When I saw that I thought, “Wow, Peter Billingsly died? He was so awesome on Real People.” But instead it was the dad, who it is hard pressed to count as the star of the film. Well at least we still have Scott Schwartz, the kid who got his tongue stuck to the flag pole, was in The Toy, and starred in a film that you could, uh, get in the back room of the video store, around.

2) Some of you reading this outside of KC may have heard of the following story. Those in KC know it very well because it has been on the news non-stop. They captured the fugitive couple who orchestrated a rather ingenious prison escape. See, she ran this program in which convicted felons worked with dogs and trained them to help people and she hid a convicted murderer in one of the dog storage crates and snuck him out of the prison. They finally captured them in Tennessee after they made the fatal mistake of leaving the cabin that they were renting and went to a Barnes and Noble. Not exactly the original ending of Bonnie and Clyde but you take what you can get. We of course now get the film footage of what was found inside their cabin (junk food, guitars, a half finished puzzle and porn, gleefully reported by the local press). Still, we are waiting to find out the answer to the biggest question, how in the world does a woman, who is a wife and a mother who runs a dog training program for crying out loud, fall for a convicted murderer, plan his escape from prison and runs away with him? I’m pretty sure it’s just because the guy likes dogs. I could also go into how a convicted murderer apparently has an easier time getting a girlfriend than I do but I so don’t want to go there right now.

3) We had a new episode of How I Met Your Mother tonight, thank God. Found out some useful facts, such as that Barney graduated college in 1998. I’m going to estimate that this makes Barney two years younger than me (I know, I graduated in ’95 but I was incredibly young and odds are it took Barney more than four years), which would make him Super’s age (see I told you that you could sue). Plus, we’ve gained the origin of the phrase “Suit Up” and to be honest, good clothes and wealth does apparently win out over substance and heart. Try as I might, that sure seems to be the story.

4) On the show, I want to comment on ESPN’s The Sports Guy describing the show as a chick show. I’m of mixed emotions here. First of all, I’m happy for any attention this show gets since that would equate to higher ratings and a greater likelihood of their being a second season. But I just don’t buy it as a chick show along the line of Grey’s Anatomy or Desperate Housewives. First of all, it is genuinely funny and well written and I swear it has captured entire portions of my life perfectly. It gets a little corny at times but even the example he uses, the wedding episode, is surprisingly close to events that have happened to me. You can claim that it is unrealistic, that no guy would spend the night with a girl promising not to make a move, but the entire episode is saved by the moment where he, after spending hours trying to figure out who she is, finds her and her first words are “Thank God.” That was just an awesome scene. So for every bad romantic comedy moment there are some real quality laugh out loud jokes and mirror images of life and for that it should rank as a must watch show, especially in this age of Howie Mandel hosted game shows.

Re-viewing New Orleans

Well, I just watched the finale of Celebrity Fit Club and the seemingly impossible has happened. A contestant spent 100 days on a television show devoted to losing weight and ended up gaining four pounds. True, she was going through a divorce at the time, which would obviously have an impact on your body and mind, but that is still an achievement. Though I have to give props to Kelly LeBrock, the “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” woman, who had the guts to come on the show and really put on a good showing. I’m bummed that the show is ending, now I won’t have anything to compare my efforts to.

(Yes, I am in a weight loss process. I’ll talk about the results when I hit my first big milestone, which in really good news is probably only a few weeks away.)

I’ve watched some of the coverage of Mardi Gras from New Orleans and I am pleasantly surprised by what I have seen. It does look as if the touristy parts of town have come back and are at least functional. Meaning that Bourbon Street looks like it is back up and that a good portion of the restaurants in the Quarter are open for business. Some of the other businesses are hurting. Saw an interview with an owner of one of the galleries that I think I may have bought some pictures from and she said that business is really bad. These are the art galleries with the really high quality photos of the city and they rely on the older, wealthier tourist crowd and that group hasn’t returned to the city yet. Those places are going to have a hard time since that tourist crowd is going to be very slow to return. The even higher end art galleries on Royal probably haven’t reopened at all.

Still, while the touristy areas are running a huge portion of the city is still uninhabitable and this includes places like Mid-City and Gentilly and this is where the story really lies. It will be a long time for those neighborhoods to return and until they do it will truly be a different place. That said, at least New Orleans still exists. I watched some of the news footage from Gulfport and Bay St. Louis and those towns really were washed off the map by Katrina. That still stuns me, I can’t imagine that one storm could take out entire towns.

All in all, this does have me thinking that maybe I will be making a trip back to New Orleans this year. Have to do my part to help out the economy and I owe a return visit to Pirate’s Alley based on some promises I made there last year. It won’t be the same but still, in a weird way it is my home and I can’t stay away for too long.

Not much else going on this weekend. Illinois won, Duke won, Kansas lost, Kansas State lost so everything is all right in that end of the world. I had the major accomplishment of getting my apartment cleaned (though I still have a basket of laundry that should get put away some time in the next week). Consider it an early spring cleaning, I just couldn’t stand the state that my apartment was in. You know, that point where you realize that there is a week’s worth of mail on your coffee table and dishes from Tuesday in the sink and nothing is horribly wrong but everything just looks slightly oft kilter. Hopefully that is taken care of and I’ll be of a clear mind to take on this week because it is going to be a long one. I’ll let you know what I mean as the week goes on.

The five random CDs of the week
1) U2 “The Joshua Tree”
2) Shannon McNally “Jukebox Sparrows”
3) Terrance Simien “Positively Beadhead” (thank you random number generator)
4) Julie Delpy “Julie Delpy” (thanks again)
5) Iris DeMent “The Way I Should”

Further Instructions for my Clone

(Lindsey Lohan Alert: Lindsey has recently been seen canoodling with Olympic gold medallist “The Flying Tomato” Shaun White. We cannot confirm that they are an item but they were definitely seen “getting better acquainted” in New York. As a result, I am changing the Lohan Alert level to “Orange”, meaning that informants will be placed at all nightspots until who she is dating is confirmed. That is all.)

(For those interested, part one of this was posted back in November 2004. Check the archives)

Further Instructions for my Clone

A lot of the time you will hear people complain that life doesn’t come with an instruction manual. The good news is that in your case it actually does. Here are a few more lessons that I learned so that you won’t have to.

You are not allowed to choose your own nickname. However, if at all possible try to convince someone to start calling you Red Dragon. There is no better feeling than walking into a bar and having a number of people yell out “Red Dragon”. Trust me, just try to make it happen.

Expect to have a head of hair that is unruly, unmanageable and that has a surprising ability to turn itself into a mullet overnight. As a result, find a good stylist and tip them well. Work to get on good terms with them, you will need all the help you can get.

On tipping. It’s a dollar a drink. No matter what the drink, even if they just grabbed a bottle of beer and handed it to you, it’s a dollar a drink. Find out the bartender’s name, tip them a dollar and say “Thanks, insert name here.” First of all, it’s just good manners. Second of all, this is what causes your bar tab to decrease over time. Also, it’s twenty percent on all dinner tabs and you round up. Never be the person that the staff bitches about at the end of the shift.

If someone tells you, “Dude, you’ve got to do this” then a) you really don’t have to and b) you’re probably better off not. There is nothing in life that is a required course. Choose your own path.

If you follow my advice and go to Notre Dame you’ll discover that the weather is horrible seemingly all of the time. Then you’ll walk pass the Dome on a crisp fall day and think, “This is cool.” A few months later when the snow is drifting down as you walk past the Grotto you’ll realize, “This is the most beautiful place on planet Earth.” It’s the moments that matter, no matter how fleeting they might be.

In filling out your tournament brackets find Duke and write them into the Sweet 16 automatically. Find the odd SEC team like Mississippi or Georgia that somehow ended up as a 3 or 4 seed and have them lose in the first round. Find the Big 12 teams and have them all losing in the first round. Pretty much wins you the pool right there.

When life gets you down, find a place that serves beer and a good bowl of gumbo. It might not solve the problem but it makes the world seem a little nicer place to hang around in.

I had to turn 32 before I figured this one out but having breakfast in the morning is actually a good thing. You know cereal, orange juice the whole package. Coffee and a handful of Oreos does not count, even though that was my routine for, oh I don’t know, a decade.

At some point in life, find a way to stand on stage in front of a group of people and perform something that you created. A song, a dance, a stand up routine, whatever. From that moment on you’ll know that nothing in life can ever faze you because you had the courage to put the spotlight on yourself and show who you are to a roomful of people.

The best concert that you’ll ever see is the one you decide to go to at the last minute featuring a band you’ve barely heard of. The show that you’ve waited a year for and showcases the CD you’ve been listening to nonstop for days will always be a disappointment. It’s sad but true, sometimes life will never live up to your expectations.

You are going to be blessed with a photographic memory, which will make taking tests easy and will give other people the impression that you are intelligent. It also means that you will remember every embarrassing moment in brilliant detail for years after the fact. This, like most things in life, is a trade off.

And at the end of the day, always remember the words of Bobby “The Brain” Heenan: “Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat.”

Dream a little dream

I can’t believe that the U.S. lost to Finland today. Those god damn Finns with their national health care and fjords and months of total darkness. Man I hate those guys. (This is what I love about the Winter Olympics, for two weeks every four years I can express my displeasure with otherwise non-descript European nations due to family slights that occurred generations ago. Though this also means that these are the two weeks every four years that people ask me, “Dude, what the hell do you have against Latvia?”)

Actually, I’m not surprised that we lost to Finland. The Finns were the one team in the tournament that were playing really smooth hockey and taking advantage of the larger rinks. The Canadians losing is even more severe as there will be a lot of Molson being morosely drunk tonight. How they hit a scoring drought I’ll never understand. Oh well, at least we will always have curling to look forward to.

Ok, I’m going to do something that I do occasionally and that is probably really annoying but I do anyway and that is talk about the dreams that I had last night. I know that no one ever wants to hear about someone else’s dream. I mean, you guys weren’t there and it is a lot more interesting to me than to you but at least these two were relatively interesting.

The first one I’ve mentioned before as I’ve been having this recurring dream where I have a paper due for a class and I haven’t started it and we are now down to the night before and I’m tired and don’t want to write it. I am having this dream on a monthly basis now and I hate it because these dreams a) make me go look at my diplomas to make sure that I actually have my degrees so I probably don’t really owe a report to anyone and b) this dream in particular is always a sign that I am really stressing out. The good news is that last night I may have been able to take advantage of a lucid state and change the nature of the dream. Now the paper that I have due is no longer on some vague science topic but is now a twelve page report on the mythology of Star Wars. Can’t really stress out about that, it actually sounds like a pretty enjoyable evening of writing.

(Oh, and a lucid state is where you are dreaming and you realize that you are dreaming and can then change what is going on in your dream. And fly, if you want to. I’ve been able to have lucid dreams since I was a sixteen (or at least that is the first one that made me wake up and go, “Whoa, what the hell just happened?”) and one of these days I will write about what it is like. My easiest explanation is that it is like being in a meditative state that people spend years trying to achieve, except that in my case it’s just Tuesday.)

Anyway, here is the second one, which is a little more bizarre. I was talking to someone at a bar and proudly showed off that I had Paris Hilton’s phone number. As in, she had written it on a napkin and gave it to me. This had me asking on waking, “Wait, do I really have her number?” Answer: I actually did at one point in time (thanks Super) but to my knowledge I’ve never actually met her. The weird thing is that in those first few seconds of waking it seemed perfectly reasonable to believe that I met her in a bar one night and got her number. I mean, last weekend was her birthday and all so who knows what might have happened. But this also tells me that maybe, just maybe, I’m a little too into pop culture. When it’s invading your subconscious mind maybe that is a sign that you should put down the Entertainment Weekly.

Being John Cusack...

What to do, what to say…

1) Since I am listening to Les Mis this week I feel the duty to once again state that the two characters that I hate the most in the play are the ones that get to live happily ever after. Every cool character dies but Cosette and Marius get the fancy wedding. I’m sorry but Cosette is a whiny brat and Marius is just a cold heartless bastard who somehow thinks that Cosette is better than Eponine, which is insane. And yes, I know that last week I was talking about wrestling DVDs and now I am writing about the intricacies of musical theater. You know, I would consider myself a renaissance man if not for the fact that I don’t think that most renaissance men when asked to list their heroes in life would include “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair.

2) Got to give a shout out to the Dorfmeister for taking home another gold medal. Because when it is crunch time you just cannot count out the Dorfmeister. Also, I must admit that after seeing the wipeouts in the Ice Dancing competition I may need to reconsider my statement as to whether it is a sport or not. Those falls sure looked like they hurt. Tonight we are showing the women’s figure skating competition, also known as the moment in which the fate of an entire nation rests on the shoulders of a sixteen year old girl. Which doesn’t happen very often, other than the occasional Joan of Arc.

3) I did watch the biathlon this weekend and it is a strangely engrossing sport. They’re skiing. They’re skiing some more. Wait a minute, they just pulled out a rifle. And now they’re firing at silver dollar sized targets. And the dude from Norway just choked and missed. Incredibly, this kept my interest for an hour. That said, I also watched people playing roulette on television this week, which meant I was paying attention to what random number appeared on a wheel.

4) On the great comment on independent record stores. I personally frequent the Streetside Records in KC, which is at least quasi-independent (though on occasion Borders pulls through with some really odd selections). It is the type of place where they’ll help you out even without asking. I went in there and went to buy the Garden State soundtrack and one of the Shins CDs and the guy working there goes, “You know, if you buy both Shins CDs the second one will be half priced and trust me, once you listen to the first one you’ll buy the other.” Plus, I somehow ended up in a ten minute conversation there once on the merits of The Cowboy Junkies. Yep, that’s why I try to avoid the Best Buys of the world and why someday I’ll just realize that my life should completely resemble High Fidelity and I’ll just open up my own store.

5) Oh, and I did catch the Ryan Adams/Tift Merritt episode of Austin City Limits. Here is the weird thing, I was super psyched to get to see Tift in high definition. This is odd because I’ve met her, stood right next to her and we talked and she signed her set list for me (which is on my fridge as if it is my hipster report card). But I was more pumped to see her in high definition on television. Apparently reality just doesn’t have the degree of resolution that I am looking for.

Swimming to Oblivion

(In an attempt to shake things up a little I’ve changed the background on my desktop. Those of you who know me, especially those who sat behind me in business school, know that this just means that I switched which picture of Julie Delpy is currently greeting me when I turn on the machine. I don’t really consider it an obsession, more like a habit that has lasted over a decade.)

It’s February and that means one thing. Actually, it means a lot of things like rodents seeing their shadows, an unending month of gray days, and the fact that my not being in a relationship is apparently damaging to the US economy. But what it really means, and what it has meant since my youth, is that it is time for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Since the issue came in the mail last week I figured that I might as well give my impression. Which is, meh.

The swimsuit issue may be one cultural artifact that has seemingly lost all meaning and ability to raise any controversy. When I was a kid this was a major event. Sure, teenage hormones and access to only basic cable probably played a role in this but it was a big deal. There was basically a cult around the beauty of Kathy Ireland, who was unknown outside of that one week in February. (A cult that lasted until she started talking and, even worse, acting. When the highlight of your career is a film that was ridiculed on MST3K you really should stick to modeling). Even in college, this was the biggest week of the year as those of us with SI subscriptions became extremely popular. So what’s happened?

A bunch of things. First, I still think it jumped the shark when it became its own issue. Part of the charm (and thrill) was that it was just a regular issue of SI, which just happened to have girls in bathing suits in it this time around. Now it is its own issue and it’s like some weird fashion magazine. Plus this means that we get even more strange articles on the intricacies of photo shoots when most of us would rather read analysis of the Daytona 500 (look, cars going around in circles is more exciting than reading about having to get up at dawn to get the good light). Now it is an event and it just can’t live up to its own hype.

Plus, we now live in a world of Maxim and FHM and all the various offshoots. It just isn’t a big deal for a guy to buy a magazine with pretty pictures in them any more. The Swimsuit Issue used to be this big excuse to see what is now on every newsstand every day of the year. It’s just taken all of the uniqueness out of the thing. And that’s sad, more from a societal standpoint than anything. I mean, every other sociology student is writing a thesis on the pornification of America but it is a real point. I’m the free speech advocate but even I look at what is on display and think that there is no way that this could be healthy. Especially when it isn’t done for beauty or art or even self-expression, it’s just commerce, pure and simple.

SI tries to make it interesting. They brought Elle back, which is always cool. And Maria Sharapova made an appearance (following in the footsteps of Anna Kornikova and Steffi Graf) and that was greatly appreciated. Though someone should tell her to look like she is enjoying herself the next time around. Seriously, smile a little. But you know what, it just doesn’t really matter anymore. In a few weeks I’ll read the letters of people canceling their subscriptions and I’ll wonder, “If this makes you cancel a subscription how do you handle society? Can you unsubscribe from life?”

Passive and Agressive Frontmen

Thanks for all of the suggestions on vacations so far. The Grand Canyon would be interesting since I could probably have that just be a side trip from a Vegas trip (they’re both in the Southwest, right?) See, this is what happens when the farthest west you have ever been in your life is Lawrence, KS. Actually, that is just a really, really sad fact. I’ll figure this all out at one point or another.

No great Olympic stories from the weekend. I basically didn’t even watch tonight because other than cross country skiing, which is interesting in the same way that watching people run on a treadmill is interesting, there really wasn’t anything of importance on. Yes, I know that there is Ice Dancing but that is so on the border of being considered an actual sport that it pains me to watch it. And I was watching curling this morning (mainly because the sisters on the US squad are pretty cute and the ability to accurately throw a rock down a sheet on ice is a surprisingly attractive quality) as well as Nascar this afternoon so what I consider a sport is a pretty loose definition.

(Oh and I’m not even going to talk about the US hockey team. Twice they had a two man advantage this afternoon (for almost four minutes) and couldn’t score. Sweden is good but you have to take advantage of those opportunities. Right now I just want to make the quarterfinals and see if maybe the team starts to play with any kind of rhythm.)

Had another interesting concert experience this weekend. Went and saw Cowboy Mouth at Harrah’s Casino, which means that I got to experience the wonderful world of just who decides that on a Friday night in Kansas City that the casino is the best entertainment option. On top of that I have the people who go just so they can be at Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar, a bar that I believe if I step in I will immediately lose my will to live. Anyway, for those of you who don’t know, Cowboy Mouth is this incredible New Orleans band that has been around for a good decade now and they are known for their full energy live shows. Given that I wanted to get out of a rut, this is the band to see.

And for that part, the show worked. Fred the Drummer started the show by walking into the crowd and grabbing people out of their chairs and forcing them on to the floor. The show was all energy and bouncing around and you can’t listen to their songs without wanting to scream and move. Of course, they were promoting their new unreleased album, which meant that we got to experience the “Here’s a song you’ve never heard before” moments that make concerts a little more challenging. Still, love the band and loved the set.

The thing is I was contrasting this show to Richard Buckner. Richard doesn’t acknowledge the audience and in fact, actually started the show when most of the people in the venue thought he was just tuning his guitar. On the other hand we have Fred getting people to stand, telling everyone to jump around, ordering everyone closer to the stage and basically dictating your entire experience. And maybe I’m just old or maybe it was just being in a reflective mood but sometimes I like Richard’s method better. Sometimes I just want to listen to music and not to be ordered to have fun. Just two completely different ways to see a show.

The five random CDs of the week (and boy, is this a motley bunch. The only thing that these discs have in common is that I’ve seen every one of these in concert)
1) Liz Phair “Liz Phair”
2) Richard Buckner “Since”
3) Tommy Malone “Soul Heavy”
4) Original Broadway Cast Recording “Les Miserables”
5) Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison “Happy Holidays”

Audience Participation Time

(Nothing creatively prepared tonight, just some thoughts and ideas I want to try to get off my chest.)

I’ve been in a rather pensive mood the past few weeks. That happens to me in February, even though it has been a rather warm winter it is still gray and blah outside and you can’t really do anything anywhere. This is when I find myself in a rut of getting up, going to the office, going home, spending the night watching television, and wondering why my life just seems so boring. I never feel alive in the month of February, it’s always like I’m just serving those last few months of a prison sentence. Just killing time…

The cool thing is that I now know that I always get in this mood at this time of year and try to adjust for it, which at least keeps me from spending too much time in the dark corners of my mind. Now, last year what I was planning to do right about now is make my way back down to New Orleans since that was the one place on the planet where my life always seemed to make sense. Right now that really isn’t an option since if I went down there I probably wouldn’t be sitting in Café du Monde, drinking coffee and wondering about life’s mysteries. No, I would probably be marching into Entergy’s office and consulting them on how to reconstruct the electrical grid. Or at least trying to do something useful down there. I’ll make my way back to the Big Easy, but I want to give the city a little more time to recover.

This leaves me with the problem of not having any idea where to go on vacation right now. It’s a pretty serious problem given that since June I haven’t been any place that wasn’t Kansas City, Chicago or South Bend. So I want to open this up to my reading audience, any ideas on place for me to head off to for a few days to clear my head and think things through a little more? Preferably a location reachable by Southwest? (I mean, I would love to head down to Sydney for a few days or just crash in Galway but that is a bit more air time than I am looking for right now.) Post some ideas, I need to figure out a good place where I could just hang out for a few days.

Otherwise, I think that this is going to be a rather quiet weekend. I should be able to finally finish my “Best of 2005 Concert Series” CD set. This is a project that I started last year and it is in my mind pretty cool. The idea is that I look at all the bands that I saw last year and I build a compilation CD featuring every one that I actually have some tracks from. Which for 2005 is going to turn into a 3 disc, 48 track compilation (depending on how I finally decide on the “Is Lyle Lovett and his Large Band different than Lyle Lovett” question). My hope is to do this every year and that at some point in the future all I’ll need to do is grab a CD and suddenly remember where I was at this point in my life. It’s documenting my life through music, a welcome addition to my overall documenting efforts. Just wait until I finally buy a digital video camera, then you’ll get video podcasts of my life.

Oh, and I always feel the need to announce this but I am reading another Mike Gayle novel, this one is called “Turning Thirty.” I mention this because reading Mike Gayle novels typically result in my life turning upside down. Could be a coincidence, maybe not, but to be honest, I really wouldn’t mind having my life turned upside down right about now. Could use the change of perspective. Have a great weekend everyone.

Running Wild Times Four

Time to try something different…

A) Your Olympic headline of the night: “Dorfmeister takes gold medal in women’s Downhill.” I am a huge fan of anyone who comes with their own nickname. Come on, it’s the Dorfmeister! Can’t you just see yourself at the Backer going, “Hey, is Dorfmeister coming out tonight?” Or what about the possibility that you could be dating the Dorfmeister? Best name of the Olympics, by far.

B) Great quote from Before Sunset that I don’t know if I’ve ever posted before. “I had this dream where I found out I was 32 and was scared and then woke up to find I was 23. Then I woke up for real and found out that I was actually 32.” That’s pretty much a daily occurrence for me now. Anyway, Before Sunset is one of those movies that you should watch once or twice a year at completely random intervals. It’s ninety minutes spent eavesdropping on the lives of people who mirror your own life.

C) As part of my public service of keeping everyone updated on all celebrity happenings I need to weigh in on the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes breakup rumors. Now, I do not deny the fact that at some point Katie might suddenly realize “Oh my God, this guy is totally insane. Plus he’s like a midget or something” but that isn’t the fun part of the rumor. The fun part is the detailed plan of how they will stay together until two months after the birth (and the opening of Mission: Impossible 3) and then they will separate while living nearby to each other. It would be the most organized and civil breakup ever. The other thing is that this rumor was printed in “Life & Style” magazine. Ok, I read a lot of celebrity news. Heck, I can even make an argument that it is part of my job description (don’t ask how, sometimes life takes you in really odd directions). But, I have never, ever heard of this magazine. So the biggest celebrity news story of the year will be broken by these guys? I wouldn’t put too much weight into it.

D) Saw that the WWF is planning on releasing a 4 disc DVD retrospective on Hulk Hogan’s career this year. Now as someone who owns a fair share of wrestling DVDs I….wait a minute…did I just admit to owning wrestling DVDs? That probably explains a lot about my life… Anyway, I really want to know who will sit through four discs of Hogan matches, which were all the same from 1986 through about 1998. Same plot, same pace, same moves. I mean, how many clothesline, big boot, leg drop combinations does one need to see? 16 hours worth? With multiple commentary tracks? “Wow, he’s making another comeback from the brink of defeat. Haven’t seen that before.” There is nostalgia and then there is overkill and this falls into the latter category.

Olympic commentary

So many topics, so little time, even less talent…

1) First Olympic comment of the night. The Chinese figure skater story is great in that she struggled through injury to win the silver medal. However, I still want to figure out how their winning a medal was even possible. For those who missed it, in the pairs competition they did one of those throws and the skater basically crash landed in one of the worst falls that I have ever seen. She struggles to get to her feat and they stop skating the routine. After a check by the doctors and a few minutes of getting her wind back they were able to pick up where they left off. How is that legal? Can you just stop a routine halfway through to catch your breath? This really bothers me.
2) Of course, I should make my typical comment on the fact that NBC is tape delaying almost all of the competitions, which means that I know exactly what is going to happen when I turn on the television. Given that the Olympics are in Italy this isn’t a big surprise when you remember that NBC taped delayed the games when they were held in Atlanta. Admittedly, I probably wouldn’t take time off from work to watch Luge but the fact that I can’t watch the marquee events live takes away a lot of the fun of the event.
3) I also read today the usual complaint (this time from Bryant Gumbel) that the Winter Olympics really aren’t sports given that much of the world doesn’t compete in them and the Greeks never wore skis and stuff like that. It is a silly argument since in my mind they all reach the qualification of sports. Luge and bobsled and skeleton are all variation on who can get down the hill the fastest and if you want to get on the fact that they are all riding something then explain why we have all of these sailing events in the Olympics. You might question the made for America events (snowboarding for everyone!) but those at least fill up what would otherwise be a sparse schedule. And that is what makes the Winter Olympics much more enjoyable than the summer. It is a slower pace and more intimate and it gives you a lot of “Wow” moments. Anyone can run fast or swim fast, ski jumping though, that is a challenge.
4) Switching gears, it looks like Love Monkey has been either been put on hiatus or cancelled, depending on your source. I’m not entirely surprised by the outcome, though I thought that it would last more than three episodes. The writing always seemed to be off, as if it was written by a bunch of graduates of Screenwriting 101. Plus, Jason Priestly was so awful you had to wonder if he was intentionally trying to screw up every scene. That said, it was nice to have a show that featured the music industry so heavily. It was a welcome change from the hospital/police station/district attorney’s office scenario that every other show seems to be using.
5) Listening to local sports radio yesterday I heard the following. With Quin Snyder (a former Duke point guard so I can’t say anything bad about him) resigning as coach of Missouri it means that they are searching for a new coach. Someone on the show called the Missouri head coaching job as “A Top 15 position.” I’m sorry, but please return to planet Earth. Missouri isn’t even a top 15 position in the Big 12. The local sports guys here kill me. The morning after the Super Bowl I turn them on and instead of analyzing the biggest sporting event of the year they were talking about the Iowa State game from Saturday. And people wonder why I have five CDs in my car at all times.
6) Since it is the 14th I’ve had to figure out what I am doing tonight. Well, once I post this I’m going to go and watch Before Sunset and imagine that when I have a book signing Julie Delpy will magically appear in the crowd. That’s even better than spending the night listening to Morrissey.

Changing Channels

We have an early leader in the quote of the year competition. This one comes from “The Flying Tomato” Shaun White, winner of the Snowboard Half Pipe gold medal. It’s on his possible endorsement windfall. “I think it’s better to buy real estate than say, a yellow and purple Corvette or an elephant that can speak sign language. My parents help me a lot with that stuff. They don’t want to see me when I’m 30, dead broke, selling bootleg tapes of my snowboard movies on the side of the freeway.”

My first thought when I read that quote was “I somehow don’t think that Jim Thorpe said that when he won his gold medals.” I then realized, “Given that Jim Thorpe effectively did end up selling bootleg tapes of his career on the side of the freeway this kid really has his head on his shoulders.” Though having an elephant that could speak sign language would be friggin awesome.

Ok, I’ve often mentioned my dismay that MTV no longer has anything to do with music. That is a recognized fact but it was one that was a gradual process. You watched it over the years and suddenly realized that you could not remember the last time you saw a video and when you read the Video Music Awards nominees you couldn’t recognize any of them. Well, I’ve spent the past few months watching another channel completely change its focus and I need to write about it.

The channel is G4TV, the channel for video gamers by video gamers. As you can tell, this is pretty much niche programming. When I started watching it last year the entire program schedule was based on video games. This was good (with X Play having some of the best writing on the air and Attack of the Show providing me with all of the industry insights that I need in an hour show) and bad, as watching other people play video games is nowhere near as interesting as one would imagine. So, while not all of the programming was of a high quality you at least knew if you turned to that channel you would see video games.

Then they started to air shows like Street Fury, which was about drift racing. Ok, maybe it wasn’t a game but it was somewhat interesting. Then they started airing Fastlane, a show that lasted about eight episodes on Fox and that was just because it had one of the girls from Baywatch in it. A questionable choice, but it also involved fast cars. A few months ago they started airing episodes of The Man Show, which given the typical gamer is actually a pretty wise programming choice. Of course, it has nothing to do with video games but it hits the demographic.

In keeping with this vein, at the start of the year they started to show Star Trek: The Next Generation. Again, a good choice for video gamers but now the entire prime time schedule has absolutely nothing to do with video games. Despite the fact that it is the title of the network. And finally, to just push the envelope even more, next week they will have a series featuring Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. It’s pretty much at the point where they should rename the channel Spike TV light.

I understand why they’ve done this, it’s not like the network was getting any viewers with the old lineup. But it’s rather stunning to see a channel completely reinvent itself in a little over six months. And you know what? I miss the fact that I knew that I could flip the channel and watch people play video games. It just removes one more channel from my internal program list when I flip around.

Weekend update

Three stories from the weekend…

I went to see Robert Randolph and the Family Band on Friday night. I believe that in my “Concertgoer Bill of Rights” Article Five states the following, “A town will determine a consistent definition as to what the time on the ticket means. It will either be a) the time the doors open, b) the time the opening act starts or c) when you should leave the house (also known as the Chicago principle).” I’d like to thank the Uptown Theater for making their own rules as I showed up fifteen minutes before ticket time to find the opening act finishing off their set and then having to sit through an hour intermission before the main set. That is just incredibly annoying when your only option for entertainment is determining just how much you are being screwed by paying five bucks for a bottle of beer.

Also, I ended up next to one of my least favorite concertgoers, “The fat Woo Hoo guy.” You know, the guy who has pounded about eight beers and is just wobbling and going “Woo Hoo” throughout the entire set. The show was cool, Robert Randolph does things with a pedal steel that it was never meant to do, but at the end it was another jam band and I can only late about ninety minutes at any jam band concert. At that point I just start wondering why in the world I am listening to yet another bass solo. For the life of me, I can not see how bass solos are ever meant to be interesting.

Second story: On Saturday afternoon I went out to run some errands and ended up at Walgreen’s. Because there are certain items in life that everyone purchases but no one really feels a need to discuss so you end up at a Walgreen’s. So, I’m in the aisle trying to find dishwashing detergent and I hear someone go, “Hey what’s up?” It’s Kristen, the girl I always run into at concerts and who I am always disappointed to find still has a boyfriend. We start talking both explaining that yeah, we’re out running errands. As I do this I determine that it really is difficult to hold a conversation with someone when you have in your hands razor blades, toothpaste, laundry detergent and toilet bowl cleaner. Sure, these are things that everyone on the planet purchases but none of us every really want to admit that we do. It’s just so trivial. And when you find yourself in a random conversation with someone you never want to have a possible branch in the conversation tree be, “So, you have a dirty toilet, eh?”

Final Story: It’s probably not a surprise to anyone that I have been watching the Olympics non-stop and probably will continue to do so for the next two weeks. I just like watching sports, especially sports that I have no idea how or why they exist. Or how to know if someone is doing well, my view of snowboarding is that if you don’t crash you did well. However, I did have to ask myself over the weekend just why I was watching the Nordic Combined in which the competitor’s ski jump and then go on a nine mile cross country ski trip. I had no rooting interest in the event, can’t understand what it is all about, and yet I still spent a good portion of a day watching it. I’m still trying to figure out the Summer Olympic equivalent. I’m guessing it would be the Pole Vault-Half Marathon competition. Anyway, expect some pretty steady commentary from me, especially once we get into the curling competition. Any sport that I feel that I could play drunk is my type of Olympic event.

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Jeff Buckley “Live A L’Olympia”
2) Gear Daddies “Can’t Have Nothin’ Nice”
3) Loreena McKennitt “The Visit”
4) The Tragically Hip “Road Apples”
5) Lucinda Williams “World Without Tears”

Dance to the music

(Regular blog entry tonight due to two very important subjects…)

As always, I must start off with my daily Lindsey Lohan report. Heard through the celebrity gossip grapevine that Lindsey is currently dating one of my idols in Ryan Adams. Apparently she has been spending a lot of time at his place in Greenwich Village and they are bonding and stuff. First of all, this just proves that Ryan Adams has something incredible going for him because he has already dated Winona Ryder, Parker Posey and Beth Orton. Not bad for a punk from North Carolina who can write some songs and plays an ok guitar but has only had one song that could even be called a marginal hit. However, this makes last week story of Lindsey getting her leg cut by a broken teacup at Bryan Adams’ (the Canadian Summer of ’69 guy) house all the more confusing. It is quite possible that Lindsey got Bryan and Ryan confused and forgot which one she was dating at the time. I swear she probably looked up, went “Wait, you’re not my boyfriend” and then dropped the teacup. Only time and the inevitable E! True Hollywood Story will tell.

Here’s the other subject for the night. I was asked by someone today what I thought of the Grammy’s and I answered, “I didn’t think of them.” Here are some reasons why: Steely Dan “Two Against Nature”, Celine Dion “Falling Into You”, Phil Collins “No Jacket Required”, Eric Clapton “Change the World”, Phil Collins “Another Day in Paradise” and Toto “Toto IV”. All of those won either Album of the Year or Song of the Year. Add in Christina Aguilera winning Best New Artist a few years back and you can see why I have absolutely no respect for the Grammy’s whatsoever. They in no way reflect who is the best at music.

But the thing is, there really is no way to give out awards for music. Even as someone who is living proof that one can rank order every aspect of their life I have a hell of a time when someone asks me what the best album of the year is. I can tell you the one that I like the most right now but that doesn’t mean that I’ll like it next month or next year. Ten years ago I still would have claimed that R.E.M.’s “Out of Time” was one of the best albums ever. Now I listen to it and I can barely make my way through the disc. Music is a very malleable medium.

Also, there really is no qualitative way to measure the quality of a piece of music. You can’t just rely on technical mastery or lyrical inventiveness. If you listed the Top Ten songs of all time, regardless of genre, era, what have you there is only one song that I can guarantee you will make the list. That song is “Louie Louie” by The Kingsmen. There has never been a better rock and roll song written than that one. Even the mention of it makes you smile. Play it at any party, any gathering and everyone will be singing and dancing along. This from a song that is unintelligible and may potentially contain a chord. So music isn’t like movies where you can try to set some artistic standards, there is a much more visceral side to the equation.

That’s why the Grammy’s will never work. It’s impossible to judge what is better when what is better depends on all the things that make up your world view. Sure, occasionally they’ll be right and say that Coldplay’s “Clocks” deserves an award but there is no way that you can tell me that U2 put out a better album than The Arcade Fire. And it’s tough to respect an award that Aerosmith has several of, a band whose entire song catalog can be played without moving the fingers of your left hand on the fretboard. So we can have the award ceremony for the industry to congratulate itself and to have a celebrity fashion show and to bring Sly Stone out of hiding but don’t look to it to judge what is best. Because it simply can’t. Because if it did, Josh Rouse’s “Nashville” would have won every award.

Rerun Van Pelt and other literary legends...

Lots of topics in search of a theme…

1) Somehow ended up in an email conversation with Super today in which I started reciting entire Peanuts comic strips. Figured that I would post one of my favorites involving Linus and Lucy’s younger brother, Rerun. “Yes Ma’am… I’m writing a story.. It’s about this kid who’s in kindergarten and how the stress is slowly destroying him.. Every morning he… Ma’am? Well, I have another one here about some purple bunnies..” That’s my life in a nutshell.

2) Speaking about my life, we all know that the 14th is next week. And once again, barring any unforeseen circumstances it looks like I will be spending Valentine’s Day alone, again. This shouldn’t be that big of a deal since I consider Valentine’s Day to be just another Hallmark holiday, just like Sweetest Day and Christmas. But, I still need a gameplan on how to handle the day marked for couples when there is currently only one of me. Typically I would just turn off all the lights in my apartment and listen to The Smiths all night long (because if you are miserable you can always rely on Morrissey to feel your pain.) But since that might not be the most productive thing to do I am throwing it out to the Interweb for suggestions. What should I do next Tuesday night? Build a My Space page? Go to the biggest dive bar I can find and wallow in my sorrows? Help me out here.

3) Since it is February that means that it is also sweeps month. This means that I get confronted by the evening news teasers on “Watch tonight’s news to find out what common household product may be killing you in your sleep” or “Watch our hidden camera footage at local adult establishments.” I love the latter, which is always just an excuse to show blurry, out of focus shots from strip clubs and result in giving five minutes of free advertising to businesses that legally can’t advertise on television. Last year this also resulted about them doing an expose on rowdy behavior after closing time that included a shot that I swear must have been taken from directly in front of my place. It was the first time that I thought that I might have made the evening news.

4) Last note, just came back from another Richard Buckner concert in which he once again played an hour and a half set without ever talking to the crowd, introducing a song, or bothering to even have the music stop. Add to that the fact that I don’t think that one of his songs has had a chorus for a good eight years and it just becomes one of the most unusual shows in existence. You can barely tell when one song ends and another begins. Also, it makes it really difficult to know when to clap.

Blue Devils take another one...

Well the good news is that Duke beat North Carolina. The bad news is that Duke once again blew a big lead in the second half and couldn’t put away a team that it is much better than. This is what worries me about this Duke squad. They’ve played to the last seconds with the likes of Florida State and Boston College and Virginia Tech in games that should not have had that much of a challenge. Duke’s easily going to be a number one seed but I don’t know, this worries me. Plus, tonight’s game was ugly by both teams. Turnovers everywhere and nobody was able to get into an offensive rhythm, which did not make it fun to watch. Plus, it wasn’t even shown in HD so explain that one to me.

There is an interesting point on whether J. J. Reddick is the most hated player in the history of Duke basketball. It’s a tough list to crack. I definitely consider him to be the most hated player since Wojo who was outright despised due to the fact that he either a) played incredible man to man defense or b) fouled on every single possession. J. J. probably is running neck to neck with Christian Laettner in the most hated category. I mean, Christian gave you a lot of good reasons to hate him. He was tall, he was the best player on the court and he knew it and made sure that everyone else knew it as well, he hit every big shot, and he had really good hair. You either wanted to be him or failing that, beat the living crap out of him. I don’t really get why everyone hates J. J. though. He’s a killer outside shooter with a bit of an attitude. Sure, it feels like he’s been playing college basketball for ten years but that isn’t a reason to hate the guy.

Switching topics, I had a really interesting experience while driving to work this morning. I put in U2’s The Unforgettable Fire in the CD player for the first time in maybe a decade. It’s a disc that just hasn’t been in my regular rotation and if you asked me I would say man that album is ancient. The thing is, the second I started listening to the CD I immediately remembered listening to a cassette I had of the album in high school, sitting on the floor of my bedroom writing a letter to the legendary girl from Minnesota. This memory is as fresh as anything, from the fact that I always thought A Sort of Homecoming was a great song to the fact that if anyone can ever explain to me what the hell is going on in Elvis Pressley and America please let me know. In my heart, I don’t consider that to be that long ago, definitely feels more like five years than fifteen years. Suddenly realizing how fast time has gone by while you drive to work is not something you expect to encounter every morning.

The other thing is is that realization that some albums have such a connection to time and place. I can guarantee you I will always think of that same time whenever I listen to this album. Kelly Willis’ “What I Deserve” always reminds me of working at ComEd in winter because I would listen to it constantly while I sat at my desk running power flows. Neko Case’s “Furnace Room Lullaby” reminds me of sitting at my old desktop writing B-School admission essays. I just find it interesting that years after the fact, hearing a song can trigger such memories. It makes you wonder just how all of those thoughts are organized in my head. Some people use an alphabetical filing system, some go chronologically, mine apparently mirrors the Billboard Top 40.

(Last bit: can’t believe that I forgot that Calista Flockhart dated Harrison Ford and Lara Flynn Boyle dated Jack Nicholson. That said, what the hell happened to Ally McBeal anyway? Has she done anything since? Is she about two seconds away from appearing on The Surreal Life?)

Random states...

Here’s a good description of the current state of my life. Went over to Harry’s this evening for dinner and discovered that once again I was the only person in the bar who wasn’t receiving a paycheck from the place. And you know what? That’s not the first time that’s happened. Now if I could bring them to hire me part time I would solve that problem but until then I am just going to be a very loyal customer.

(Before anyone worries, the reason I went out is that I got home late and hadn’t eaten and really didn’t want to reheat leftovers for another night. Especially not when I could walk two blocks and get some gumbo.)

A couple of other random comments that I have to discuss. There was one celebrity news story that I missed talking about last week. We had the revelation that the girl on Full House (the one who isn’t an Olsen twin) is a recovering meth addict. Of course, the classic part of the sotry was that her intervention was staged by John Stamos, Bob Saget and the Olsen Twins. Which leads to two questions 1) was Dave Coulier too busy that week and 2) how seriously could you take an intervention that featured the Olsen Twins? I know that I would need a drink just to get through it.

Switching topics, not much else to report from the Super Bowl. The Magic Fridge spot from Bud Light was deemed the best ad and it was funny. Not uproariously funny but good for a chuckle. I did see the uncensored ad for GoDaddy.Com and yeah, it probably pushed the boundary a little. I’ve seen a lot worse on television but they probably got more publicity by being banned in the first place. It was nice to see that ESPN’s Bill Simmons completely stole my idea and kept his running journal as well. He even took a lot of my lines. The only difference being that he is on the most popular website around and I have, well, all of my faithful readers.

Ok, one last bit on a very disjointed night. Most of my paycheck goes to Ticketmaster but tonight was a first for me in my relationship with Ticketmaster. I received tickets to two shows tonight and could not remember what shows I had bought tickets for. I was pretty sure that one was for Lucinda Williams but had no idea what the other one was for. Finally when I looked at it saw that it was for Pat McGee. If you ever need proof that I attend way too many concerts the fact that I can no longer keep track of what shows I’ve bought tickets for is probably as good a sign as any.

Super Blog II

4:44 P.M.: Coming to you live from the living room couch at Battling the Current headquarters it is Super Blog 2. Featuring a cast of…well, actually it’s just me here. Dude, this Super Bowl party sucks. Oh well, at least this way I don’t have to worry about anybody else getting to all the good beer before I do.

4:46 P.M.: As always, here are the ground rules. I’m going to watch the Super Bowl and keep a journal of all my comments on the night. Think of me as the wiseguy sitting in the back of the room, except that I’m writing everything down. Like why do we have Joss Stone as a part of the pregame festivities? We’re in Motown and that is like the equivalent of having a tribute band as your featured entertainment.

4:55 P.M.: Ah, Hank Williams Jr. proof once again that talent skips a generation in the Williams household.

4:56 P.M.: Dude, is this a home game for Pittsburgh? Lots of terrible towels in the crowd.

5:02 P.M.: Desmond Howard was an MVP? Yeesh, I think I tried to forget that game. And Mark Rypien? But here comes my man, the sack man Richard Dent.

5:09 P.M.: I don’t know if I would want to have my team run onto the field to The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.” It’s Seattle, we could at least have used an old Pearl Jam riff. However, I once again would like to than the New England Patriots for getting rid of the “Introduce each player individually” portion of the pre-game show, which was the dullest ten minutes in football.

5:17 P.M.: The continuing popularity of Jessica Simpson continues to baffle me. Please tell me what aspect of her personality or her look is supposed to be attractive. I mean, she looks like if you exposed her to an open flame she’d melt.

5:18 P.M.: Harrison Ford, please remember that you are in your sixties now. I know the last time we heard form you you were dating Lara Flynn Boyle but still, ditch the earring.

5:19 P.M.: Come on, bring on the coin flip. I’ve got fifty bucks on heads.

5:23 P.M.: As always, all of America needs to have it explained which side is heads and which side is tails.

5:24 P.M.: It’s tails. God I hate Tom Brady. The bastard costs me fifty bucks in games that he isn’t even playing in.

5:25 P.M.: We have Suzy Kobler and Joe Namath in the same place. Please, please, please have her interview him again. It would be television history.

5:26 P.M.: Blockbuster Online, otherwise known as, “Stop using NetFlix, please? I mean, sure we were the most evil corporation in history but we promise we’ll be good from now on.”

5:32 P.M.: Bud Light gets first commercial of the evening. And Burger King is continuing with their tradition of extremely disturbing commercials. I can do without a Busby Berkley montage featuring women dressed as condiments. But maybe that’s just me.

5:51 P.M.: V for Vendetta, one of the few films that I am looking forward to seeing. If only because Natalie Portman may be the only actress who can make a shaved head appear attractive.

5:56 P.M.: That was a weak offensive pass interference call on Seattle. He barely touched the guy when he switched directions. Could have been a touchdown.

5:58 P.M.: Yay, we finally have points. Josh Brown, a two year veteran of my fantasy team, hits a long field goal.

6:00 P.M.: Random news note of the night #1: They are going to release a four disc DVD set of the best of The Electric Company. Cool, I’ll get to learn how to read all over again and enjoy the work of Morgan Freeman.

6:05 P.M.: You know, it might be nice if Pittsburgh decided to play offense. They certainly didn’t in the first quarter.

6:14 P.M.: Good commercial for Mobile ESPN. Still doesn’t explain exactly what the product does, but a ton of good visuals in the spot.

6:17 P.M.: Monkeys! First rule of advertising, anything that can be promoted can be promoted better through the use of a monkey.

6:21 P.M.: Does anyone want to cheer Tom Cruise in a movie? Honestly, is there a less liked pop culture figure right now? In MI:3 I bet you that the crowd will be cheering every time he gets hurt.

6:27 P.M.: First really good commercial with extreme Kermit. Though the Michelob Ultra ad has the greatest disparity between the awesomeness of the ad and the dismalness of the product.

6:28 P.M.: I’d talk more about the game but there just hasn’t been anything to talk about. It’s better than a blow out but it just hasn’t been much of a game so far.

6:41 P.M.: Big Ben did not make it in on that bootleg. It was the right call to run a bootleg but he was definitely stopped short.

6:43 P.M.: Dude, they just do not want Seattle to win this game. Ben definitely did not break the plane of the end zone.

6:55 P.M.: And it’s halftime, which means that it’s time for Lingerie Bowl III! Just kidding. I mean, it is on but I’ll stick with the scheduled programming.

6:56 P.M.: Hey, Sprint has a commercial. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll just keep my mouth shut.

6:59 P.M.: This has nothing to do with the game but it is one of the biggest news events of the weekend for me. Not only do we have the Lisa Loeb dating show on E! right now but there are two major Lisa Loeb events from this weekend. The first is that they are releasing a best of Lisa Loeb CD. Yes, an entire CD. Someone sat down and actually chose 14 songs. You don’t need 14, all you need is Stay. The other is courtesy of VH-1’s Best Week Ever. Apparently, while she was on Isaac Mizrahi’s show she showed off her thong. Having viewed the footage that may have been Lisa’s best career move in a good decade. It completely goes against her image and has nothing to do with music but hey, publicity is publicity.

7:11 P.M.: Ok, who told the Rolling Stones to play a song that isn’t one of their hits? None of us are watching this for their great musicianship any more so just play Satisfaction or I’ll switch the channel to a Simpson’s episode that I saw before and it wasn’t even funny then.

7:17 P.M.: Just for the record, there are certain people who just shouldn’t be seen in high definition. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are pretty high on that list. Definitely not the most telegenic band of all time.

7:33 P.M.: Fast Willie Parker just broke a huge run to start off the second half. Now Pittsburgh will get to play their style of football. Mainly run the ball and just keep the clock running.

7:42 P.M.: Josh Brown misses yet another field goal showing why I won’t be drafting him next year. And you know what else I miss? Bud Bowl. Is it that difficult to animate beer bottles playing football? I mean, I used to gamble on the outcome of the game. Now that was a good commercial. Of course, we have also just had a Fabio sighting. Fabio, proving that all you need to make it in this world is really good hair.

7:45 P.M.: Remember that time when Fabio got hit in the face by a seagull while he rode on a roller coaster? That was awesome.

7:50 P.M.: Hummer wins for weirdest commercial. Giant Robot and Monster have a baby car. How can you have a commercial with a giant robot that sucks? I mean, that is just behind monkeys in the marketing handbook.

7:52 P.M.: Huge interception by the Seahawks. We might have a game of this yet though that was a really ill advised pass by Ben. He just lofted the ball up there with a DB hanging behind the man.

7:54 P.M.: Touchdown Seahawks as Jeremy Stevens finally catches the ball. We can officially state that momentum has shifted.

7:56 P.M.: Random news note of the night # 2: I’ve once again received my Jackson County property tax form. Once again I have to declare how many gilts I have. I mean, I didn’t know that there was technically a measurement system for guilt. Also, I have to report all of my poultry. This is understandable as I do run that free range chicken ranch in my apartment. Ok, it’s not that much of a free range but it is a two bedroom apartment so they have some room to move around in.

8:15 P.M.: A Benny Hill reference? I…I…I better show that discretion is the better part of valor.

8:27 P.M.: The gadget play works and Antawn Randle El becomes the first point guard to throw a touchdown pass in the Super Bowl. Seattle now has a lot of ground to try to make up in less than nine minutes.

8:30 P.M.: Once again we show that the blog is on the leading edge of the pop culture curve as we beat a national MacGyver reference to the punch by a good week. Though it looks like he cut back on the super mullet, which is a travesty.

8:35 P.M.: Well, if that Hasselbeck fumble stands everyone will know what I meant by saying that having Matt Hasselbeck on your team is like getting punched in the groin repeatedly. You know it’s coming but that just doesn’t make it any easier.

8:52 P.M.: The Steelers are just going to run out the clock. Seattle does what Seattle always does, they get really close to winning but never quite get there. I think they’ll win for the newest tortured sports town.

9:02 P.M.: Steelers win. Congrats to Bettis and company.

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Sinead Lohan “No Mermaid”
2) Blue Rodeo “The Days In Between”
3) Son Volt “A Retrospective: 1995 to 2000”
4) U2 “The Unforgettable Fire”
5) Josh Rouse “Under Cold Blue Stars”

Songbook: Volume Two

(First off, need to give a huge shout out to long time friend of the blog (and hopefully one of our future sponsors) www.starzantees.com You want to be hip? You want to be unique? Then you'll want to be like Starzan.)

(To refresh, the idea behind Songbook is taken from the Nick Hornby book of the same name. The idea is to write about a song but not actually review the song. It is more to discuss how the song fits into your life.)

Soul Asylum “Somebody to Shove”

I don’t know about anyone else, but basically my entire life has been defined by my few years of college. I bet it is pretty universal. Those years where you are nineteen or twenty years old build the framework of who you will become. Every moment in those years is new and unique and alive. You truly believe that no one has ever fallen in love the way that you have, that no one has ever had their heart ripped out of their chest like you just had, and that no one has ever gotten drunk to the degree that you just did. It is that one moment in your life where you feel that the world is yours for the taking. Everything is possible and the future of mankind hinges on you and your friends. And if there is one thing that I am certain really is universal is that everyone will always claim that the music of their generation trumps anything that came before or since.

That’s why I will always speak proudly of a band like Soul Asylum, who are one of the lynchpins in my argument that Minnesota has produced better bands than the entire state of California. (Don’t believe me? Dylan, Prince and The Replacements. That’s my first three. Dare ya to beat it.) They were one of those bands that I always listened to in school. When I wrote a quote every day in my notebooks for class Soul Asylum lyrics made a constant appearance. If you ask me about my junior year of college I won’t mention getting the only C of my academic career or breaking up with a girl just so I could start dating her roommate, I’ll mention listening to Slave Dancers Union day in and day out.

But even I will say that what I’ve just written makes absolutely no sense. It’s been more than a decade and there is no logical reason why a song or an album should carry that much importance in my life. You could argue that it isn’t healthy and I don’t know if I’d disagree. That is until I heard the opening guitar riff (that Dave Pirner forgot how to play and had to actually mention that fact during concerts) and I’ll just start bouncing around the room.

This is because Somebody to Shove is one of those songs that just hooks into your soul. It just hits on all of those insecurities you have growing up. “I’m waiting by the phone, waiting for you to call me up and tell me I’m not alone.” Tell me that thought did not go through your mind when you were nineteen. We all sit around and want someone, anyone to confide in us just so we can know that we aren’t the only ones who view the world this way. It doesn’t matter how social you are, how many friends you have, there is always that nagging doubt that sits in the back of your mind. I don’t know if many people actually solve it, I think most people just try to focus on other aspects of life in an attempt to drown out that voice. But Soul Asylum brings it to the surface and makes you want to start pushing people around. Because no one wants to sit around and wait for things to happen, you want to stir things up.

Soul Asylum is going to hold a strange place in music history. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone calls them a one hit wonder based on Runaway Train, which is so wrong. Most people would consider them a grunge band, which neglects all of their early punk work. And others will just remember that Dave Pirner dated Winona Ryder, which just shows that I really, really need to learn how to play guitar (and grow bad dreadlocks). But all of those views miss the point. Soul Asylum realized that most people live lives of quiet desperation, so much so that you can go deaf from the noise. They put words to that desperation and screamed them for everyone to hear. And as a skinny kid with bad glasses and poor social skills who listened to the song and said, “Finally someone gets it” I just have to say thanks.

Hot celeb newz...

Sometimes I really have to struggle to think up what to write about. Today was a lot easier. All I had to do was look at the celebrity news and I hit the story trifecta.

First off, we have Lucy Liu making a humanitarian visit to the earthquake victims in Pakistan. Let’s start off by my being serious and non-cynical and that I am happy for any attention that is brought to tragedy. That fell off the world radar very quickly given the magnitude of the disaster and that part of the world is still in very bad shape. But remember, the story here is not that there are people homeless and suffering through a harsh winter. It is that Lucy Liu has decided to travel over there. In fact, anything that you would read on this would focus more on Lucy Liu than anything else. Which is odd given that she is just on the B List for celebrity status. I mean, she’s the least important Charlie’s Angel. She probably arrived and the Red Cross workers looked at each other and went, “What, Drew Barrymore is too busy this week? I knew that we couldn’t get Cameron Diaz but come on now.”

The next story involves one of those sentences that I never would have anticipated writing in my life, “Lindsey Lohan requires stitches after a teacup accident at Bryan Adams’ house.” Every word in that sentence is true. Trust me, I’m not lying. Let’s go through this bit by bit. Apparently Lindsey was preparing tea in London and slipped, dropping a teacup that shattered and a shard cut deeply into her leg. This is somewhat plausible. I’d think that it would take a little bit of work to occur but let’s just assume that she is rather klutzy. It’s the fact that this happened at Bryan Adams’ house in London that bothers me. Because now I have to believe that Bryan Adams, the guy whose claim to fame is that he wrote “Summer of ‘69”, knows Lindsey Lohan well enough to invite her over to his place. There is no way in the world that is possible. I mean, Bryan Adams hasn’t been relevant since, well, the actual conception of Lindsey Lohan (to be honest, those two events may very well be related). If he could know her there really is no reason why I’m not hanging out with starlets right now.

The last story is that they have issued a warrant for Natasha Lyonne’s arrest, again. For those of you who don’t remember, Natasha was the other girl in American Pie. The one who isn’t Shannon Elizabeth (last seen playing poker), Alyson Hannigan (who rocks), Mena Suvari (where did she disappear to?), or Tara Reid (man, I miss Taradise). She also had a great role in Slums of Beverly Hills (really under appreciated flick) and did a decent job in But I’m a Cheerleader (which I watched only because Julie Delpy is in it for, like, a minute). Anyway, Natasha is one of those examples of someone with a ton of talent who just ruins their life with drugs. Serious, serious problems. In that if you held an American Pie reunion Tara Reid would not be the most screwed up person there, which might be the only time Tara could look around and think that. Just shows what can happen when you let other things take control of your life.

(Oh, one of the things on the arrest warrant is that she “Threatened to sexually molest her neighbor’s dog.” I consider it my goal in life to learn everything that I possibly can but you know, I think that I’ll just let this one be.)

Last thing since I’m going to try to do a Songbook posting tomorrow night. Barring a last minute invite to a Super Bowl party, get ready for the return of the Super Blog on Sunday night. Yes, my running game commentary starting with the pregame show and ending whenever I get sick of writing about commercials. At least this year I know who to cheer for. We have the Steelers featuring Domer and long time veteran of my fantasy team Jerome Bettis versus the Seahawks and Matt Hasselbeck. Hasselbeck who a) went to Boston College and b) screwed over my fantasy team with his inconsistent play so much last year that I still pledge that if I ever ran into him on the street I would punch him in the groin repeatedly just so he could know how I felt all of last year. So, go Steelers.