What happens in Vegas…I put on the Internets

Over the weekend I made a trip to Sin-City with a group of guys, following is what transpired.

I was the first one to get in, around 4 PM on Friday night. So I checked in to the MGM Grand, dumped my stuff off in the room, and then cruised down to the poker room by 6 to play some cards, drink some beers and wait for everybody else. The rest of the crew (JR, Doug, Juan, Mike and Dave) had finally all arrived about 9, and we got ready to go out for the evening.

The six of us hopped in a limo and headed to the Venetian. Another friend Dan was originally supposed to go with us, but ended up not being able to make it. We were able to hook up with his friend Kay and a couple of her friends, however, and Kay had got us hooked up with a VIP table and bottle service at the Tao Nightclub. Tao was a very large, very loud, very aesthetically pleasing joint with tons of people wandering about trying to be seen. There were quite a few different levels, but I probably only explored about 20% of it (from what I recall, anyway).

It was nice to actually have a table with our bottles, no waits for drinks, no budging/squirming past people. I settled in very easily for the first of numerous Crown and Cokes. Kay’s two friends were from Brasil, so I had a nice time chatting about their country with them and probably annoying the heck out of them. As the night went on, and the drinks kept flowing, things get hazier for me. We ended up recruiting a bunch of girls to help us drink the booze drinks. I recall dancing on a ledge and falling on or bashing me knee into a speaker ever so gracefully, it still hurts as I type this. Very classy on my part, I know.

Next thing I know JR and I are leaving the club, it must have been about 3:30 at this point. Apparently I fell asleep in the club and was asked to leave, but I don’t recall that at all, I just recall being outside the club and hopping in a cab to go back to the MGM. JR, Mike and I decided we were hungry so we went to go get food. I changed my mind and left those two at the restaurant about two minutes later and ended up playing slots with some middle-aged women from North Dakota. I was in bed by about 6 AM.

I woke up about 4 hours later to find that I had actually made some money during my late night slot adventures. I wandered downstairs to grab some grub for JR and myself; everybody was up and moving by about noon. The six of us then went over to the pool where we had reserved a cabana and recalled the various exploits of the night previous and watched some college football games. On my first trip back from the bathroom I find that there were about six girls in our cabana all of a sudden. Again, we had recruited some girls to help us drink our buckets of beer. Everyone had a grand old time until the pool area closed at 5 PM.

Most of the other guys wandered back to the rooms to take naps, bathe, etc., but I made my way back to the poker room again to entertain myself and snag some more free beers. I ended up sitting next to a kid that had gone to Gustavus Adolphus a couple of years later than me, so that was pretty fun just talking with him and his buddies. After winning a grand total of $1 over the course of 2.5 hours, I hopped in a cab and made my way over to the Double Down Saloon.

The Double Down is a dirty punk rock bar near the Hard Rock, and there were a bunch of bands I had never heard of playing. I ended up making a couple of friends (primarily due to my Cobra Skulls t-shirt) while watching the show and even picked up a disc from one of the bands. I ended up hopping in a cab back to the MGM around 3 AM.

Once back at the hotel I found everyone again and we continued goofing off, drinking, gambling and the likes until the wee hours of the morning again.

Sunday I actually uttered the words, “I don’t think I can drink anymore beer”. The End.

Stay Classy, San Diego

My buddy JR is from San Diego and my other friend Doug is from Chicago, so they wanted to head down the coast to check out the opening NFL game between the Chargers and the Bears. I tagged along since I had never been in San Diego, and here is what transpired.

Friday, September 7

After my longest ever BART ride from my work all the way to SFO, I meet up with JR and Doug at the bar near our gate and get the lowdown on all of the people we’ll be meeting up with and on Doug’s NFL and college wagers. Upon landing in San Diego, I switch out of my work clothes in the arrivals area as Dave, one of their friends swings by to pick us up. We were staying with Dave and his girl AC for the duration of the weekend, so we set off for their place first to drop stuff off and have a couple of drinks. We end up meeting a couple other people at their place before heading out for the evening.

I had my first ever San Diego burrito, which is a big point of contention between Northern and Southern CA residents. Both sides claim that their burritos are better, but I think I have to say I enjoyed San Diego’s a bit more. No rice, no beans, no cheese, no sour cream. Just meat, sauce, pico and a little bit of guacamole. The tortilla was becoming translucent near the end from all of the awesome grease. This served as a great base for the evening of booze drinking.

The first place we went to was a sports bar type place called Three Crowns (I think). Decent tap beers and lots of games to play were the calling cards of this joint. You could have your own Bar Olympics here due to the numerous dart boards, pool tables, video games, ping-pong tables and even shuffleboard. I had a good time meeting even more of their friends and getting adjusted to the awesome San Diego weather.

Next bar was Don’s or Lou's or something, I can’t remember for sure. We stumbled into someone’s birthday party being held at the bar, so there were tons of streamers everywhere. It had a townie type of vibe to it, this bar could have been in any numerous Midwest small towns, except it had a killer jukebox that even had Dillinger Four on it. After bullying the jukebox for a bit, I saw someone else at the bar singing along to a D4 song. We got to talking and it turned out he was from MPLS as well and was in the band Scooby Don’t (mid 90’s punk band) which was Billy from D4’s first band. I love meeting random people this way.

At bar close we set off for home and I passed out in an easy chair, beer in hand.

Saturday, September 8

I wake up to find the beer bottle still in my hand after sleeping for 5 or so hours, although the contents had managed to tip out and onto Dave and AC’s carpet. Luckily I had soaked up most of it in my socks. I did my best to clean up my mess and then wandered around the house waiting for the rest of the crew to wake up.

A little after noon we (JR, Doug, AC and I) took off to go to JR’s parents place, as they were going to cook lunch for us. Once there I got to meet some of JR’s brothers and of course his parents. I’ve never had food from the Philippines before, and it was fantastic. We had lupia (think like an egg-roll/taquito type thing), ponset (noodles with meat and seafood), chicken adobo (chicken and pork in a delicious sauce, served over rice), NY strip steak, crab legs, apple pie and ice cream. I was “third plate at Thanksgiving” stuffed after done eating, it was that fantastic.

I fell into a slight food coma after lunch, but we had to go and meet some of Doug’s friends from LA who were also in SD for the weekend. We headed out to Mission Beach, and walked along the waterfront/boardwalk area for a little bit before setting down at a bar near the ocean. It was a gorgeous day out and we had some nice outdoor seating. We stayed there until the sunset, where I got to see a minor version of the “Green Flash”, which is a phenomenon that happens when the sun goes down over the horizon past the ocean. Beautiful.

We scooted back to Dave and AC’s for a bit before heading out for the evening. We ended up at a bar called the Local, which was a nice big bar and we had enough tables for everyone to chill out and set up shop. They had a breathalyzer there, and I totally won the high score (.34 or something). After the bar we stopped at a taco shack, which I peed behind while waiting for my breakfast burrito. After that, it was back to the house where I promptly passed out with a beer in my hand again (thankfully, someone removed it from me this time).

Sunday, September 9

Apparently I had woke some of the other people up due to my nighttime utterances and flatulence, and I apologized profusely, pretty embarrassing. We watched some of the early football games before AC dropped Doug, JR and I off near Qualcomm Stadium so that they could get tickets to the game. After getting some tix off a scalper (who gave us a business card, awesome!), they headed into the game while I wandered off to a nearby Scottish sports bar to catch all of the games. Once the game was over, I headed back to the stadium and met the guys at JR’s sister’s post-game tailgate. Poor Doug was sunburned pretty badly and was looking worse for wear due to his Bears getting stomped.

We were invited back to their friend’s Romey and Brooke’s house right near the stadium after the game, so we took off in that direction. While walking up a hill we saw a cab pull over and a few people start to get out. I say start because one girl in the backseat driver’s side was still getting out when the cab driver peeled out, toppling her backwards. The guys that had just got out of the car started screaming at him and took off in pursuit.

The street the cabbie was going up had a gate at the end, so he had to take a U-turn and come right back past us. The guys were still chasing this speeding cab as it came back towards them. At this point, I was charged up trying to figure out what the heck was going on, so naturally I start chasing the cab while getting my cell phone out to take pictures of the cab. Doug and JR jumped up to go check on the girl, she had gotten up and started dazedly wandering around. The cab got stopped shortly after a stop light when some Good Samaritan pinned him in with their Explorer. The guys chasing the cab caught up to him, only to have the cab driver bolt out of the car, kick off his sandals, and start running away through traffic. I let them go after the driver and took a quick picture of the cab, then ducked into the cab to get the cabbie’s ID and took a picture of that as well.

About 5 minutes, 8 cop cars and 2 police helicopters later, I got the low-down, kind of. It turned out that the people had hopped in the cab and told them they wanted to go to some suburb, but the cabbie didn’t want to take them there. They showed him they had the right amount of money, but he was adamant. They couldn’t do anything else really, so they started to get out of the cab when the driver screeched his tires and started the whole mess. I sent the pictures to the one guy’s cell phone, gave my statement to the officer, and then we continued on to Romey and Brooke’s joint. We had a heck of a story to explain why we were late, that’s for sure.

We had a few beers, some ribs and wings, and then Romey gave us a ride home. I think we all fell asleep before 10. Fun weekend.

Rock the Bells

On Saturday Diana and I made the $75 per ticket splurge and headed to the SF Rock the Bells tour date at McCovey Cove just outside of PacBell/AT&T/Phone Conglomerate Stadium. Here’s what transpired during the course of the day.

We got to the venue around 10:45 AM, and there was no line at will call. YES! Only then do we realize that the line to get in is about a half a mile along the cove. We later found out that estimated attendance was 80,000 people, so it could have been worse, I guess.

The reason we went so early was to catch the first act of the day, Jedi Mind Tricks. Gravel-voiced, angry rap from Philadelphia that was really impressive live. I only have their most recent album, and didn’t think too much of it for the first 5 or 6 listens. It finally “clicked” about 10 days before the show, so it was good to be able to catch them.

Second up was Immortal Technique from NYC, who somehow was even more pissed-off than Jedi Mind Tricks. I had only ever heard one song by him, but as soon as he was done, Diana turned to me and said, “We’re getting some of his albums, right?” Best line of the day was spewed by him during a freestyle that went something like “Like someone with AIDS, you’ll wish you never f*cked with me”. I can’t wait to pick up some of his stuff.

We stuck around the main stage to see what Pharoe Monch was about, but it ended up being a bit boring, especially after the intensity of the first two acts, so we made a detour to the beer gardens, then over to the second stage to check out the best white, fat, rapper from Rhode Island ever, Sage Francis. The man sure is getting puffy, but still put on a heck of a show. No band this time like a couple of months ago, just him and his tracks, reminiscent of his early shows. Great stuff from him as usual, including some killer dance moves during “Dance Monkey” as his closer.

As soon as Sage was done we rushed over to the Main Stage as Talib Kwali was already about ten minutes into his set. After a handful of songs, Mos Def came out to join him and they flowed straight into some Black Star material. Then TK ditched the stage and Mos Def did some of his solo stuff.

Really killer move on their parts, it totally worked and was a ton of fun. It was a super nice day out, but a little windy, which caused some of the lighting over the stage to sway back and forth. Mos Def noticed this and freaked out a little bit, saying he had children and wasn’t down with “wobble wobble, shaky shaky”. So he did the last few songs in the barrier in the crowd. Good for those near him, kind of a bummer for everyone else who had to watch it on the screens instead.

Up next was everyone’s favorite Cannabis loving goof-balls, Cypress Hill. I had never seen them before, and never owned a Cypress Hill album, but this was a surprising treat. A 15 foot inflatable Buddha with a pot leaf on his belly rose up on the stage as they broke into their first song. About 30 minutes in, the DJ called for a smoke break. B-Real came back on stage a couple of minutes later with the biggest joint I’ve ever seen, even in a comedy movie as a gag. I’m not joking when I’m saying he had to have rolled the thing in newspaper, it was that big. Of course, this being SF, the crowd roared their appreciation and toked on their much smaller amounts along with the band.

Next up was Public Enemy, one of my favorites. I had a tough choice here, because Blackalicious were playing the second stage at the same time, but those guys are West Coast based so I figured I’ll have another chance to check them out later. I think I made the correct decision, too, as PE broke into “Bring tha Noize” their second song in. I got excited to scream along to one of my favorite PE songs, and then noticed a white dude with a long, pointy, red beard on the big screen. Instantly I recognized him, as did about 50,000 others and everybody went ape as Scott Ian from Anthrax laid down the guitar parts on the remainder of the song. Totally unexpected and a hell of a lot of fun. PE did almost every song I wanted to hear, except for “Give it Up”, but that could be forgiven.

Flava Flav closed out the set with “911’s a Joke” with his son on stage dancing with him. Then Flav told everyone that he was coming out with Flava of Love 3, and it was the quietest it had been all day at the show. No one wanted to boo him, as they had just put on a heck of a show, but not a single person cheered either. It was really, really awkward, until someone behind me screamed out, “It’s OK Foofy Foof!” Awesome.

The crowd around the main stage started to get really, really thick around the second half of PE’s set, and with Wu-Tang coming up next, it got even worse. Diana couldn’t even see, so she was just surrounded by sweaty people smoking dope while she watched the concert on a big screen. I wanted to stick it out, but even I was having trouble seeing, plus, I’m bummed to say, they weren’t very good.

I was so excited to see them, but for some reason I had kind of feared seeing them. The whole Clan was there, minus ODP of course (RIP). There were just too many guys running around screaming, it just didn’t work. Method Man did do a couple verses of “Bring tha Pain”, and that was fun, but most everything else had them yelling over the top of each other. Kind of a bummer.

The headliner for Rock the Bells 2007 was a reunited Rage Against the Machine. There was a real buzz going through the crowd as we waited for the band to get set up, it really was “electric” (lame cliché, I just don’t know how else to put it). By this time, we had bailed way, way back so we could see the stage, although they were very small, but we could also breathe and move, which was nice. As soon as the band came on and broke into the first song, we were constantly moving. I thrashed about so much I just about threw out my back and my voice. Incredible live show that saw them do both “Freedom” and “Killing in the Name Of” as their encore. Crazy feeling having thousands of people screaming “F*ck You, I Won’t Do What You Tell Me!” and having it echo off the buildings and across the water around us. They were really tight and makes you wonder if a full-scale reunion tour/album could be in the works.

Exhausted after our 11.5 hour concert experience, we hopped a train home, ate leftover takeout, and went to bed sunburnt, cramped, slightly deafer, and completely, contentedly tired that only comes from a festival concert experience that you know you’ll never forget.

Uh-Oh It’s Magic! Bummer, Bummer, Bummer!

One of my first tasks in my new gig was to prepare a rather large PowerPoint Presentation for the Floral Merchandisers Meeting for all of the divisions. Our Group Director and our VP had to give a presentation at this meeting, so I worked diligently with numerous animated slides (think star-wipes and spins), images, and music.

“Boring! Why am I reading about this?” I can already hear from across the interweb. Well, you see, the theme of our presentation was The Magic of Quality, and it was decided that we really had to jazz up the presentation, so I was sent off to do research.

The first thing I had to do was visit a magic store in my neighborhood. I had no idea that a magic store would be packed with customers on an early Wednesday evening, but man was it ever. I waited patiently in line while the guy behind the counter was debating the merits of various disappearing scarves.

Once I made it to the front of the line, I explained to him that I needed two tricks that could be performed by any amateur, would look good on video and, if possible, include flowers. I ended up with a color changing magic scarf (basically it’s just a scarf that turns inside out when you hold onto the one end), and a magic bouquet of flowers (you remove the flowers from the stems, push a little knob up in back, and more flowers grow out of it). I’m not a magician, so I’m not beholden to the code of don’t ever tell them how it’s done.

I was told to find some David Copperfield videos, so I dutifully fired up Google Video and found a goldmine of craptacular “magic”. Of course, everyone LOVED it.

One video had an introduction to Mr. Copperfield which we copied almost word for word, substituting quality and floral related dialogue. This script was then taken to the AV center to record, and I’ll get into details later.

One video showed a guy riding in on a motorcycle, which was then covered by a cloth by DC. Hocus-Pocus, Abracadabra, the cloth is removed to reveal two women underneath! Roars of approval came from my supervisors, who came up with a suitable substitute.

When the meeting rolled around last Wednesday, I was nervous. We had barely practiced anything at all, and we had specific stage directions, music cues, etc. that we had to nail or else we’d look like idiots.

The presentation is going ok, all of my animation and songs were spot on, so that was good. We were right after lunch so I saw numerous people straining to keep their eyes open. Towards the end we pulled off such a magic show it would have made GOB proud.

The lights go down, and they run the video of a shadowy close-up of our VP’s eyes. It camera pulls back to show our VP running the magic scarf color-changing trick. The screen then goes black for a brief moment, then a 10-1 countdown shows up on the screen.

This was my cue. As Seal’s “Crazy” (I tried to get them to play Europe’s Final Countdown) played over the speakers, I hopped on stage wearing an all-black outfit and a motorcycle helmet. In an attempt to recreate the motorcycle stunt, I rode my co-worker’s daughter’s Razor Scooter (with a large flashlight taped to the front of it) back and forth across the darkened stage. It was very unfortunate that I could not talk them into renting a Segway. I was very careful to not go tumbling over the sides or into the podium, but still have very dramatic foot kicks. I then ducked down as other co-workers came on stage with a large pink cloth. The VP snuck on stage behind the cloth they were carrying, the Group Director made some fantastical hand gestures, and the cloth was removed to show the VP on the scooter in my place!

“How did I disappear?” you may ask? I simply crawled behind the cloth when it was removed to the other side of the stage, army crawled down the stairs, and took my position to hand off the magic bouquet and receive the Razor when the VP was done with her victory lap.

Once the bouquet trick was completed, we did a trick using glowing lotion that shows up under black-lights, showing the need to properly clean floral buckets and equipment. I did actually get them to use Gorillaz “Feel Good Inc.” for this stunt, despite the fact that it had the word “ass-crack” in it.

Successfully completing the glow trick, we moved all of the props off the side of the stage for the Group Director and the VP to make some concluding remarks. The final, and most intensive PowerPoint Slides, then came up along with some music by Jennifer Hudson (I’ve been told that she was from American Idol and was in the movie Dream Girls). While some song about changing came on, myself and 3 co-workers ran out into the audiences throwing roses into the 150 people in the hotel ballroom (I had to get to work extra early that morning to manually de-throne 8 dozen roses).

We then ran back on stage with the Group Director and VP and took bows as big “Do Not” red circle with lines through them showed up over all of our store competitors.

Cheesy as heck, right? We brought the house down with a standing ovation. I have a weird job.

Start with the Rock, End up in the Kiddie Pool

Last Saturday was the guerilla-style Asian Man Records 11th Year anniversary show headlined by The Lawrence Arms, held at a tailgate at McAfee Stadium (Oakland A’s). Seems that Mr. Park forgot to celebrate his 10th year anniversary, so he just adjusted by a year, and everyone ended up a winner.

After recovering from the formal anniversary show the night before at Bottom of the Hill, Josh Sixkiller, Michelle, Joe and I met up at the Mucky Duck for a drink before catching the train. Turned out that Joe and 6 ended up wearing the same Cobra Skulls T-shirt that we had all bought at their show a couple of weeks previous. So they looked like a really lame gang, or at least a two-man team.

Once we arrived in Oakland, we wandered to the far end of the parking lot where about 150 kids were enjoying the free, unsanctioned show. Mike had brought a couple of kegs, 600 hot dogs, and tons of Cds, Stickers and Posters, all gratis.

I’m glad that Mike Park is still able to put out bands he likes, and has always tried to help out the community in whatever way he can. He’s one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, in the band business or otherwise, I even wore my ancient Ska Against Racism show staff shirt for the event.

The Larry Arms played great, even though it was early and the band were obviously nursing hangovers or tremendous proportions. More booze (from the kegs and my 375ml of SoCo) always helps. The lead singer pointed out Joe and 6’s matching t-shirts, and taunted me for liking one of his previous bands (The Broadways).

After the show on the way back to the city, I ended up meeting a recent MN transplant on BART. The fact that she was wearing a D4 shirt was a pretty big giveaway. So our enlarged group made their way down to the bar where 6 had to work and enjoyed a few post concert beers.

That would have been a nice end to the day, but of course, I can’t let that stand. My buddy Dan owns Underdog’s Sports Bar and a little birdie told me there was going to be a Wet T-Shirt Contest that night. Now, I’ve never been to a Wet T-Shirt contest, but it sure seemed like a good idea to go after a nice long day of drinking in the sun. So a group of us left one sports bar to go meet some more friends at the other.

Every time you bought a drink you received a raffle ticket. If your ticket was pulled out of the fish bowl, you were the big winner who got to pour a pitcher of water on the contestant, who was placed in a kiddie pool on top of the bar. As luck would have it, my number got pulled for the last entrant. I made my way behind the bar, received my pitcher, and then took a long swig from it. The rest is explained in the below video. Be sure to check out my water fountain impression, you have to look closely.

Now be aware, this is NOT SAFE FOR WORK. I do not want anyone to get in trouble by pasting this 8 second clip of awesomeness in their browser. You have been warned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KhBZUg0MQQ

I ended up the evening passed out on my friend Doug’s couch. The end.

2007 2nd Quarter Reading List

Here's a sample of what I've read over the last three months, hope you find something you might like.

Possible Side Effects by Augusten Burroughs – Another memoir from Augusten, he has such a great sense of humor. I think my favorites in this one was his abnormal fear of the tooth fairy as a child plus how he ended up owing his cleaning lady $20K.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell – This time Mr. Gladwell explores the idea of thinking without thinking about it. Basically, it’s all about the extreme end of first impressions. Some really neat stuff about experts on reading people’s facial expressions was included in here.

Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson by Geoffry C. Ward – Awesome biography on the first great black Heavyweight Boxing Champion. You can easily draw some comparisons between Johnson and another outspoken heavyweight who came around about 60 years later (Ali, duh!). Great anecdote was included here about Johnson getting pulled over for speeding in a small town. The fine was going to be $50, Johnson gave the cop $100, telling him “I’ll be coming back through the same way”.

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby – Not one of my favorite Hornby books, but still pretty entertaining. It’s about four strangers who all climb to the top of the same building on New Year’s Ever with intentions of committing suicide, but form a sort of dysfunctional support group for each other.

Little Big Man by Thomas Berger – One of the top ten funniest books I’ve ever read, I’d recommend this one to anyone. A senior in a nursing home recounts how he grew up with the Indians, hung out with Wild Bill Hickock, and was the only surviving white man at The Battle of Little Big Horn.

Baseball Between the Numbers by Baseball Prospectus – Really fun baseball book that has the subtitle “why everything you think you knew about the game was wrong”. Very interesting take on how to interpret statistics, including an intriguing section comparing Rickey Henderson to the infamous Pete Incaviglia, and claiming that they had about equal value to their teams. If you’re a fan of the sport, pick this up.

Candy Girl by Diablo Cody – A memoir about a woman in MPLS who decided to quit her day job and become a stripper. Pretty interesting look at the profession, and it was funny to me to see her mention all of the nudie places back in the city (Déjà vu, Showgirls, Skyway Lounge).

Fantasyland by Sam Walker – Hilarious book about the author trying to win Tout Wars, the most competitive Rotisserie Baseball league in the nation. He ends up using his influence as a reporter/baseball insider to try and swing trades, and uses his advance of $50K to try to win the whole thing. He hires two staffers to help him with the draft, and even gives all of his players on his team T-shirts and trophies to his players of the month.

Gimp by Mark Zupan and Tim Swanson – Interesting biography about the star of Murderball (recent movie documentary about wheelchair rugby). Turns out Zupan was always pissed off, even before his accident left him paralyzed. Awesome story about him crowd surfing, in his chair, at a Pearl Jam concert.

Plagues and Peoples by William H McNeill – A history of infectious diseases, and how they affected history. Interesting to note that the Mongols spread a bunch of diseases in addition to their marauding, and that the same virus that causes the Bubonic Plague is in just about every gopher hole in California.

The Dirt as told by Motley Crue – Hmmm, can’t get umlauts on this thing, oh well, but this is an oral history of the band. How none of these guys ended up dead is beyond me. I would end up laughing uncontrollably on BART some mornings, disturbing all other passengers. Highly entertaining.

Can I Keep My Jersey by Paul Shirley – The journeyman forward, famous for his blogs on NBA.com, tells about his first four years after leaving Iowa State trying to become a professional basketball player. Interesting look at the life of a marginal NBA player, from a guy who doesn’t even seem to like basketball (and for sure, doesn’t like basketball players), all that much.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov – I’ve heard about this book from a number of people in the last year, all proclaiming it is their favorite book. It’s influenced everyone from The Lawrence Arms to Buck 65, so I had to get it to see what all of the hype is about. Once working my way through all of the Russian names and keeping it straight, it was a pretty fantastic book. All about the Devil coming to Moscow and the havoc that comes along with it. Great satire of communism.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynee Truss – Angry linguist that is frustrated with how far the English Language has fallen. Kind of lame, I can’t believe this was a best-seller. Language is always going to change and she has a hard time dealing with it, I guess.

Ballpark Blues by C.W. Tooke – Lame read that just seemed like an excuse for the author to take out his frustrations with professional sports in novel form. Don’t bother.

Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins – Mr. Robbins is such a weirdo, and this novel was no different. A princess living in Seattle falls in love with an angry bomber, ends up marrying a Middle Eastern Prince and gets him to build her a pyramid. Always entertaining, but like I said, weird.

Suit of Armor with Wooden Arms

Last night Diana and I cruised down to the historic Fillmore Theater to check out Sage Francis and Buck 65, following is what transpired.

We arrived at The Fillmore only to have a 90 second confused conversation with the door people about whether I had to check my wallet chain or not. It was eventually decided that I could keep it, but to “tuck it in”. That will keep people safer.

Walking into the venue with my vicious weaponry, we are greeted by someone and told which way the bathrooms are. Quite friendly, I must say. Also at the entrance was a steel bucket full of apples that are free to take and munch away on. I’m assuming this must be some long-held tradition, everyone seemed unfazed by it.

Diana grabbed a Fat Tire and I had a Stella Artois and we just wandered the theater through most of Buddy Wakefield’s and Alias’ sets. The Fillmore is probably the size of First Avenue, holding probably 1200-1500. It has a big main floor with a nice, wide stage. There were fanciful chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, quite a change from the “underwater ship wreck” feel that First Ave’s ceiling has (credit for above analogy goes to Diana). The place has numerous maroon velvet curtains, which finishes off the theater vibe.

The upstairs part had a huge balcony with booths that also gave great sight-lines. Also upstairs was a huge back room with another bar, but this room was completely separate and you could not see any part of the show from there. The greatest part of the upstairs, though, was the 1000s of old framed concert posters from the history of the Fillmore. We must have spent almost 45 minutes just wandering around, pointing out cool posters and ones from tours that we had seen in other places (including the Handsome Boy Modeling School/Buck 65 poster from a couple of years ago). Everything from Jefferson Airplane to last week’s Feist show was included. I want to go there when there’s not a show and just peruse that part for hours.

Around 10, Buck 65 hit the stage. Last year we went on vacation to Toronto, and a big reason we went there was because Buck was going to be having a concert on her birthday, so needless to say she’s a big fan. He’s a rapper from Nova Scotia but sounds like a cross between Tom Waits and a Virginian truck driver. He’s always had a different take on hip-hop, but his stage presence and charisma can’t be topped. He pulled out some of his “razzle-dazzle” (glitter in his jeans pockets) and numerous dance moves. There was a good combo of old songs, songs done under various monikers, and even a new one that will be coming out on his new album this September. He finished off the set with a 3-minute medley of tons of his old stuff, including 4-6-3, Centaur, and Wicked and Weird.

With minimal delay Sage Francis took the stage. This tour is in support of his new album “Human the Death Dance”, which seems a little more personal than and not quite as angry as his last full-length for Epitaph, but is still a pretty solid album. Gone is his CD-player backed music, in with a three piece backing band (bass, DJ and guitar/string player). He started off his set with You Can’t Kill Me MF’er, which got the whole crowd singing along for the rest of the set. He pulls off a great feat of getting you pumped up and angry (Slow Down Ghandi) to making you laugh like mad. One of the most hilarious things he did half-way through the set was grabbing people’s coats, bags and hats they had set on the stage and claiming them for himself. He ended the set with Dance Monkey, then came on to do an encore finishing with Jah Didn’t Kill Johnny with everyone else on the bill coming on stage to assist.

We picked up yet another Buck 65 album and exited the venue as a tired, happy couple.

My Girlish Figure’s Demise

Here is a list of my top five favorite new things to eat since I’ve moved to the Left Coast.

Spam Musubi – This is grilled Spam surrounded by a teriyaki-type sauce, rice and seaweed (nori). This is a great starter Hawaiian dish that is a perfect combo of salty and sweet, yum.

Mortadella – This is basically bologna but has pistachios and garlic embedded in it. Nothing better than making a huge sandwich with some Havarti cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, mayo and about a 1/4 pound of Mortadella.

Samosas – This is the Indian/African version of an empanada. Can be filled with meat, poultry or various vegetables, it’s a fantastic appetizer that I’ve come to crave on a consistent basis.

Loco Moco – The perfect food to consume before going on a bender. This is another Hawaiian staple that is essentially a bed of rice, two hamburger patties, two over-easy fried eggs and a butt-load of gravy poured over the top of it. It will fill you up and makes for a solid base for those long nights.

Magner’s Irish Cider – This has become one of my go-to drinks here in the city. A dry, tart, not-too-sweet cider that I’ve become a huge fan of. I can go through these almost as quick as I can go through Grain Belt.

Scott Adams Would Be Proud

After a little over a half a year into my new position, I received a phone call from the Director of Quality at Safeway to see if I would be interested in applying for a new position. In my opinion, if someone calls you, you might as well interview for it to see what it is about.

Today, I accepted a position as a Quality Assurance Technical Business Analyst, reporting directly to the Group VP of Quality for Safeway. I will be managing data bases, preparing reports and presentations, and who knows what else. It is an awesome opportunity to work with some of the higher-ups in the field, and get some new knowledge.

The commute ends up being about the same, but the new position came with a 15% salary bump, not too shabby.

I start my new gig on June 25th. The best part, the punchline, is that I have to wear a tie. Every day.

The Truth is Here

Diana’s been out of town (vacationing in Tanzania and Zanzibar), resulting in my tattered rags getting caught on our coffee table. Here’s what I did over the holiday weekend:

Friday night – Hooked up with my buddy Paul to go to the sold out Brother Ali concert at Slim’s. After a quick dinner at Popeye’s, we snared a cab to get to the venue. The first act we saw was the Boom Bap Project, a decent opener hailing from Seattle via the Bay Area. Some fun rhymes, especially the free-style portions, but I wasn’t a huge fan of their beats nor their DJ.

Next up was Psalm One, a female rapper from Chicago on Rhyme Sayers. I think my buddy Faust has put it best about female hip-hop, in that it’s really hard to get into, especially when they try to act tough/hard. Mostly forgettable.

The main event had everyone’s favorite Albino, Muslim rapper from MPLS, Brother Ali. He rocked (Like a Champion) in every aspect, playing mostly stuff from his new album, even some of the deeply personal tracks. He has a captivating presence, but it’s a unique kind of charisma that I’ve never seen before, but I can’t place it. The crowd was really into Ali, I didn’t realize he had gotten as big as he had.

After the show Paul and I scooted over to The Page to meet up with friends and get a couple of drinks before bar close. I got home and in bed around 2:30.

Saturday – Woke up and fed and walked Josie, did some chores, then finally made my way over to my buddy Dan’s Underdogs Sports Bar around 5:30 PM to hook up with JR and Joe to watch UFC 71. A great evening of fights, with 4 of the 5 main matches ending in upsets (which netted Dan over a grand in his wagers, in which he picked all 5 dogs). Much celebration went down when Rampage knocked out Liddell, but also numerous people were shocked that it ended so quickly in the manner it did.

JR, Joe and I made our way over to the Mucky Duck to welcome my friend Josh Six-Killer, his girlfriend Michelle and their roommate Stan to the neighborhood. They moved into a new place about four blocks from us on Saturday, and were having a few drinks after moving day. Eventually AJ and his girl Tera showed up as well, so there was a full-on bowling team bonding moment as well. Again, we closed down the bar and I went over to Josh’s new joint for a couple of drinks afterwards. I got home and in bed around 4:00.

Sunday – Woke up and fed Josie, then wandered over to JR’s place. JR, myself and a bunch of JR’s friends went down to the Mission to see the Carnaval celebration. We saw a bit of the parade with the crazy costumes, loud music, and tossed beads. JR and I ducked into a corner store that was closing down so we got 2 for 1 bottles of booze to encourage our depravity. After the parade, we wandered over to the street festival portion of the events and ate our way through the area.

Feeling pretty exhausted at this point, I caught a train home and figured I’d chill out for the evening, maybe watch a movie and go to bed early. Nope. My friend Cat texted me and asked if I wanted to go dancing, and convincing myself I would rest on Monday, I took a train back into the sketchy Tenderloin area. We ended up at a place called the BamBuhdda Lounge, which had kind of a neat set-up. Two rooms with two separate DJs spinning mostly house and techno stuff. It took me a while to get enough drinks, but I broke out some of my old moves from First Ave’s Sunday Night Dance Party. We left the club and ended up back at Cat’s, where we continued the dance party using people’s iPods as our source of tunes.

I was pretty exhausted by this point, so I left around 2:30 to walk the five blocks home, only to see about 8 cop cars, 2 ambulances and 3 firetrucks near the church by our house. From what I could gather, a car had blasted into at least two other parked cars, and at least one of those were on fire. They had the whole block roped off with police tape and I had to go around the block to get home. Very weird stuff, never found out exactly what happened, however. Got home and in bed by 3:30.

Monday – Rested a lot.

The Pin Pals

A couple of months ago, my friend Joe mentioned that he was starting a punk-rock bowling team. I was amused by his enthusiasm and said it sounded like fun. Two Tuesdays ago I received a frantic phone call from Joe. “Dude first league night is tonight, can you make it?” I didn’t even know that I had been drafted into the team, not to mention I couldn’t make it that night. Apparently, me saying it sounded like fun was enough for me to be on the team. Luckily, Joe was misinformed so I didn’t cause our team to be a roller short that night.

On Tuesday I met Joe at Underdog’s Sports Bar so we could take a bus to the train to the bowling alley. Joe was already into his fifth or sixth drink by the time I got to him. We met another friend AJ and made our way to Serra Bowl in Colma, CA. We got there an hour early and split a pitcher and waited for our league to begin.

We are in the Mission Merchants league with about 20 other teams, and it was painfully obvious we were the Newbies in the league. Marian, the overseer of the league, was very patient with us and helped us fill out our scoring sheet and explained the set-up of the games. Our team (The Sunset Punx Pitcher Killers) ended up being matched up with another team of three (one of our guys failed to show). Joe darted to the bar and came teetering back with three pitchers of Budweiser, sloshing froth everywhere as AJ and I looked on in horror and bemusement. Most of the other bowlers were non-plussed with our antics.

We made our acquaintance with Bill, Roger and Steve (of course they had the best bowling names ever), our opponents for the evening. These guys appeared to be hardcore bikers/recovering alcoholics, as they politely declined to share in some of our bountiful pitchers of Bud. They were really helpful as well in figuring out the order and some of the rules surrounding the league.

The other bowlers in the league were quite varied, as clichéd as it seems, it was right out of The Big Lebowski. They came in all shapes and sizes, and everyone else was much more serious than the Pitcher Killers, I thought for sure they were gonna kill Joe for spilling the beer. One guy around our age started off with 9 straight strikes before crapping out in the 10th frame.

I ended up rolling a 171 my first game, which was my second highest score ever. “This game is too easy” I thought to myself in a Dikembe like tone. I was convinced that I’d be ranked in the top ten in the league in no time. Second game, a 141, was still a respectable score for this novice bowler.

By the time the third game rolled around I was a) getting tired, b) getting a sore arm, and c) getting a bit tipsy. I ended up with a 90. Hey, I still beat Joe. My cumulative average was a respectable 134, earning me top score for our team for the night.

Marian helped us fill out our USBC (United States Bowling Congress) application, so I will be a card carrying member for the next 1.5 years. She also gave us her “card”, a rainbow colored pen with her information printed on it. She’s the best. She also promised that she was going to take us under her wing and make sure we do our best to not annoy or do anything worse to the other bowlers.

I’ll try to let everyone know how we do as the season progresses, maybe by the end I’ll have my own Skull Ball and fitted shoes.

Cha Cha Cha

It’s been a while since I’ve put something up on here, so I thought I’d write a quick story about the date Diana and I had on Saturday.

We had tried to go see Ozomatli earlier that day at some big radio station concert, but it was a big CF from the beginning. We went the wrong way once we got down to the piers, then we saw the line to get into the show was at least a mile long, no exaggeration. The doors were at 4, Ozomatli was supposed to go on at 4:30, and there was no way we were gonna catch the band waiting in that line. So we abandoned our tickets and made our way back to our place, a little tired and a little grumpy.

We decided that we’d go out and eat at a restaurant in The Upper Haight called Cha Cha Cha. It was a nice tapas joint that had a cool ambiance about it and was absolutely packed. Getting a table was going to be a wait of about 45 minutes, but then the host told us that we could belly up to the bar and eat there with a minimal wait. We considered our options and our growling stomachs and chose option B.

The bar was staffed by two very efficient, likeable servers. We ordered a large pitcher of sangria that was really good, and ended up packing a bit of a punch. The sangria at Cha Cha Cha is a well known staple, it was swimming with apples, pears, oranges and grapes and was a perfect drink for our meal.

Our first item to come out of the kitchen was a delicious seviche salad. The shrimp, scallops and calamari were all very fresh and the lime juice was fresh squeezed and made for a nice start to the meal.

Next up was a tapas staple, mushrooms. These were just the right size so they weren’t too woody or stiff. They were tender, buttery and seasoned with fresh herbs. Just a great dish overall.

The following dish was jerk chicken. This one was my favorite due to the combination of the fall-off-the-bone chicken and the sauce which had a nice level of heat. It was just spicy enough, but not so overpowering that it would ruin the flavors of the seviche or the mushrooms. Served on a bed of fluffy jasmine rice, I could have had this alone and been happy.

To top off the meal we had a nice coconut flan that was sweet, sticky and a perfect end to dinner. We finished off the last of our sangria, tipped out our servers, and made our way into the chilly evening and down a few blocks to The Gold Cane.

The Gold Cane reminds me of a NE MPLS bar, with a decent jukebox, cheap drinks and a stuffed moose head on the wall. The old Irish bartender that is always there was in a great mood (perhaps because he drinks on the job) as always. Diana grabbed us a 22 oz. cider and a bourbon ginger ale which ended up being an affordable $8. In the meantime, I bullied the jukebox and played tons of Aggrolites, Against Me, Bouncing Souls and Dropkick Murphys. We ended up making friends with a couple of other drunk Irishmen who enjoyed changing the lyrics of Pogues songs to make fun of each other or other bar patrons.

It was a great way to salvage what had started off as a difficult day.

Much Better than that Chris Klein/LL Cool J Vehicle

A couple of weeks ago Diana and I were walking the dog in the Upper Haight neighborhood and noticed a poster in the window for an upcoming roller derby match pitting The Bay City Bombers vs. The Brooklyn Red Devils. Knowing that our friends back in MN had attended roller derby in the past and had become devoted enthusiasts, we figured we had to give it a whirl. Thus, we attended our first Bay City Bombers (I thought it would be way cooler if they were nicknamed the Rollers instead, trademark laws be damned) on S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y, Night!

We met up with our group at the Kezar pub across the street from the Kezar Pavilion where the match was taking place. Unfortunately, numerous others had decided to meet their groups of friends there as well, which resulted in the worst service I have ever had at a restaurant. Eight of us ordered food right away, but only six meals ever came. They even had the gall to try and tack on the gratuity at the end. Blech.

After that rocky start, I was concerned for the rest of the evening, but those fears were unwarranted. The pavilion looked like something straight out of the 70’s with an overall feeling of beige. You could just imagine this place being a sweaty, smoky haze housing all sorts of events as varied as Donkey Basketball, Professional Wrestling and Flower Shows back then.We took our seats in the upper corner of the pavilion and watched the events unfold before us.

I vaguely knew the rules to roller derby due to my viewing habits as a youth, but couldn’t exactly figure out what was going on, so after the 2nd of 8 periods I sprang the $5 for a program so I could better understand the action. It basically boiled down to this: There are five rollers on the track at one time for each team. Two rollers for each team were the Jammers, who were signified by the x’s on their helmets. A point was scored for each time the Jammers would pass someone from the opposing team (essentially lapping that team member) once a jam was signaled from the referees. Physical contact is allowed to avoid being passed. Repeat for eight, ten-minute periods, with each period alternating between the men’s and women’s sides of the team.

What it really turned out to be was choreographed pro-wrestling on wheels and a banked track. Often someone from the Bombers would be elbowed and fall straight to the ground in overwhelming agony, only to have the manager of the opposing team stalk over and stomp them when the ref wasn’t looking, much to the chagrin of the home crowd. Especially vocal were the hordes of children and two older, perm-mullet coifed ladies who I could only assume were former rollers themselves.

We saw numerous rollers from both sides go up and over the rails, crashing hard to the floor. We saw many a pier six brawl, many a donny-brook, many a fisticuff. Basically, a ton of fake fights when frustrations bubbled to the surface. Our entire group of about 15 people were having a blast howling along and screaming at the villainous Red Devils, except for two people in our group from NY who were cheering the squad from Brooklyn, the traitors.

Two fan favorites quickly emerged among our friends. The first was a delightfully cute little roller named Rose Sylvia. She had the whole alterna-chick look working for her, and even when she wasn’t on the track, many in our group kept their eyes out for her. She was a hottie.

The second was the team captain on the men’s side, number 38, Maverick. He only goes by one name like Madonna or Cher, and certainly knew his way around the track, not to mention a buffet table. We had nicknamed him Crisco before we found out his name in the program. Crisco executed a couple of crowd-pleasing moves, including giving a Superfly Snuka belly splash on a downed opponent, and basically a rolling butt-drop on another.

With the score 57-52 going into the last jam, the Rollers thwarted the Red Devils last second attempt to pull the score even. The mustachioed villain for the Brooklyn crew ended up getting thrown out over the top of the rail, then one of our nimble heroes jumped up on the rail, skates on and all, and leapt down on him to finish him off. We cheered like mad and all declared it was most likely the best $10 we had ever spent.

Final Score: Bombers 57, Red Devils 54.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Last week I went to a sports bar to see the Twins take on Seattle with my friend Tracie who is a devoted Mariners fan. The Twins ended up dominating that game thanks to a grand slam from Torii Hunter, which netted me a free drink from Tracie. The other good thing that came out of it was that we made plans to go see the A’s/Mariners matchup at McAfee Coliseum in Oakland, which took place last night.

I took BART straight from work arriving at 5 with a couple of hours to kill before game time. I looked up stuff on the internet and asked my friends what there was to do near the stadium. The closest thing I could come up with was to hang out at the convenience shack in the BART station or go to an In ‘n’ Out Burger. The latter would be right up my alley most days, but not on dollar dog night at the park. There is NOTHING to do near the park, good thing I had a paper.

I walked a couple of laps around the stadium, killing time until Tracie got there. Once she arrived we picked up our tickets at will call and scurried to the GA outfield seats to watch the Mariners take batting practice. The seats were reasonably priced at $12 each and afforded some really decent sight lines. Only when the ball was hit to deep center would we miss any of the action. Also of note was the massive amount of foul territory in the park. It is usually mentioned on television broadcasts how much foul territory there is, but it’s really strange seeing it in person.

The Mariners ended up winning 2-0 on two solo home runs, featured at least 4 double plays, the last one sealing Seattle’s victory. The game was less than two hours and was a great defensive/pitching match-up.

The dollar dogs were good, as everyone knows, hot dogs always taste better at sporting events. The $7.75 Kona Brewery Longboard Lagers were tasty and cold, which they had better be for that price.

Making our way out of the stadium we were funneled into the walkway to the BART station with all of the other fans. I hear some screaming and see two girls going at it; scratching, punching, hair pulling, the works. Then the boyfriends get into it (after one of them flicks a lit cigarette in the other’s face) and chaos reigns. I quickly push Tracie on the other side of me and debate who is the bigger douchebag of the two combatants. Things settle down fairly quickly, but something tells me this happens in Oakland more frequently than San Francisco, it’s just a hunch.

We ended up meeting another Mariner’s fan on the train back into the city who had caught a foul ball from Eric Chavez, which is as close to knowing someone who has caught a ball that I know. Has anyone else ever caught one?

Overall I give the experience a B+, bonus points for the baseball game itself and the seats, negative points for the barren wasteland around the stadium.

I Like the Tin Man

On Monday I had an all-day company meeting, two brief highlights:

1) During the opening speech and introduction, my boss’s boss’s boss wavered about 3.5 minutes into it and proceeded to pass out. He kind of just wavered there behind the podium, glassy-eyed. The theme of the meeting was courage, and I mistakenly at first thought he might be doing something to enhance this point. However, when people started screaming out “call 911” I figured that wasn’t the case. Luckily someone caught him before he bought it, but it was weird. Turned out he had been sick all weekend and hadn’t eaten anything for breakfast. Not smart.

2) As mentioned above, the theme for this meeting was courage. Numerous portions of the meeting referenced The Wizard of Oz, including portions of the film interspliced in slide shows and two presenters dressing up as bad witches. The real double-footed Jimmy kick was at the end of the meeting, where they asked everybody to stand up and sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. I couldn’t believe people were participating in this, are you kidding me? I just about lost it right then and there.

I have a weird job.

An Ear-Splitting Good Time

I had a chance to attend two shows in two nights last week and thought I’d let you know about them.

The first was The Aggrolites with Knock-Out at Slim’s on Thursday evening. It was a really crummy night out, with lots of rain and wind. Diana and myself had a nice Vietnamese meal before the show and did our best to stay dry during the walk to the show.

Knock-Out was the first up and they were adequate. Hailing out of Riverside, CA, these guys sounded like Sublime Jr. The lead singer even sort of looked like Brad’s younger brother. They would alter between slower ska tunes to hard, fast-paced punk numbers. I wasn’t mad at hearing them, but the lead singer came across as kind of a dill-hole, so I didn’t pick anything up by them. Note to opening bands: Don’t insult the audience when you are the curtain jerking band that no one has heard of, especially when you follow up the rants with pathetic pleadings to buy your merch. Good luck with that gas money.

The Aggrolites were the main event, and worth every penny spent on the ticket times five. You may remember this is the same band that we saw open up for Hepcat on New Year’s Eve. They were just as good this time, but had even more time to play. The new songs were fantastic, and the crowd had a great time singing along to their older material. This “dirty reggae” that they play is one of the greatest styles I’ve heard in years and years. It’s a shame more people haven’t heard them. As a result, if you email me or ask me at any point for an Aggrolites album, I will buy it for you, straight up, no strings attached. I don’t want to burn it for you, this band deserves more money and more popularity than they currently have, and I will consider any additional albums I buy as an investment. So, let me know…

On Friday night I hooked up with AJ, Tera and Toby to go to Annie’s Social Club. Two of the bands on the bill, La Plebe and The Cobra Skulls are recent signings to Toby’s label, Red Scare Records. Annie’s is a pretty decent venue that holds about 250 people, is really loud, and has Strongbow on tap.

The first band to play was Beer Can out of Reno, Nevada. They were pretty decent for an opener. Toby likened their sound to “Lagwagon’s first practice”, which is a pretty good compliment, if you think about it.

Next up was Nothington from SF. This band has members of former SF bands Enemy You and Tsunami Bomb in it. They played a really great show and sound like a cross between Leatherface/Motorhead/Hot Water Music.

Going on next was The Cobra Skulls, who recently relocated to SF from Reno as of last week. Going in I thought they sounded a little bit like Against Me, but I don’t think that’s quite right. Good three piece band and the lead singer has a ton of charisma, plus a kick-ass cookie duster.

The headliner was La Plebe, a Latino punk rock band out of the Mission neighborhood in SF. Plus, they have horns. I can’t understand a dang word they say except for when they cover Dirty Old Town by The Pogues, and even then it’s tough. They are fantastic, however, and some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. The first time I saw them, one of their friends/relatives brought a bunch of tamales to give to people after the show, how awesome is that?

I ended up grabbing a couple of CDs and T-shirt at the show to show my support for the fun night.

Two additional notes about Friday’s show:

1. I briefly met Eric Heitmann, the center for the 49ers. He went to Stanford and goes to a bunch of punk rock shows. I met him through Toby’s friend Nolan, who used to be a merch guy for Alkaline Trio, who went to school with Eric. This brings my SF celebrity sightings to 3 (Augusten Burroughs, Rob Courdrey, and Eric).

2. After the show, Toby and I piled into The Cobra Skulls van, stopped and grabbed some beer, and then went over to their new pad. Beers were drank and songs were played and I got home around 4, if I remember correctly. Fun times.

Always Up to No Good

Yesterday we had a nice dinner in the North Beach section of town. The eight of us were at an Irish Pub/Curry House called Kennedy’s for the monthly supper club. It was a pretty cool joint, about 100 different beers and they even had Big Buck Hunter, the first time I’ve seen it in this city.

Some of the girls didn’t like the fact that there was no hard alcohol, only beer is sold at Kennedy’s. They cruised next door to The International Club to get some cocktails, while the guys finished up our deer shooting and pool games before going next door.

Five of us (JR, Doug, Becca, Diana and myself) decided to head back into our neighborhood around midnight. As we stepped into the night air, the first thing we encounter is a chauffer getting out of the backseat of a limo. “How much for a ride back to The Sunset?” Doug asks. The chauffer replied, “Make me an offer I can’t refuse”. Quickly, Doug comes up with a number, “How about $55?” The chauffer had a very brief response, “Get in”.

Sweet! So we pile into the backseat of the limo and are giggling that we don’t have to worry about catching a couple of cabs to go home. I crawl in and immediately find a half-bottle of champagne that was on ice. We quickly realized that this limo had been hired by someone else, and we had hijacked it so the chauffer could make a quick $50. Awesome. As a result, I helped myself to the bottle of Korbel.

We cruise around the city, heading back towards our neighborhood while the smooth sounds of “Tha Doggfather” is blasting out of the limo’s windows. At some point, the driver asked us if we were Giants fans. We all admitted that we were not, but found out that our driver composes and sings songs about the SF Giants. We were very excited and had him pass his CD into the backseat so we could shove it in the player. The only song we had a chance to hear was about how awesome Barry Bonds is and how cool the new park is and about how much he likes John Miller (Giants announcer). The driver told us that he composes and records the songs under the moniker “The San Fran Fan Man”.

His website is www.sanfranfanman.com. Unfortunately, his music isn’t working on the site right now, but it was fantastic.

I woke up this morning with vague memories of talking to a member of an Arnold Schwarzenegger tribute band called Arno-Corps, but the Korbel had fogged my memory quite a bit. This town is fun.

2007 1st Quarter Reading List

As I’ve mentioned previously, I have lots of time to read during my 3 hours of commuting each day, so I thought I’d share what I’ve read thus far this year.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace – This collection of seven essays from Wallace vary from mind candy (the title essay, about going on a cruise) to the challenging (essays about literary theory and the math involved in tennis). I especially enjoyed the title essay and the essay on David Lynch making Lost Highway. Some misses, but mostly hits.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson – Bryson is one of the funniest authors going today, and this book about growing up in Des Moines, IA solidifies my theory. Highlights include getting his elementary school teacher to lick pee and his cross-country trip to Disney World. Highly recommended.

Made in America by Bill Bryson – Another Bryson book, can you tell I’m a big fan, I’m glad Diana introduced me to him. This book on American etymology is a fascinating read if you are into the history of words. He tackles this in a chronological order and you learn many reasons behind some of the words, place names, and sayings we take for granted today (including the fact that the original writers of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” had, in fact, never actually been to a game). Fun book if you are normally interested in these kinds of things.

Americana by Hampton Sides – The theme of this book concentrates on different groups of people brought together by a love of something. Included in this collection are stories about attending a Private Investigation Academy run by G. Gordon Liddy, a visit to Sturgis and attending a temporary town made up exclusively of Airstream Trailers. Entertaining book.

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn – I read this book about 10 years ago, but I don’t think it really sunk in back then, I was too interested in myself at the time. Now considered an alternative history classic, it definitely can get you worked up about all of the different conflicts that the United States has gotten into. The chapters on the Vietnam War were especially disheartening, and you can draw direct parallels between what happened 40 years ago and what is happening right now. Not an easy read, but a great read.

IV, A Decade of Curios People and Dangerous Ideas by Chuck Klosterman – Ah Chuck, he can do no wrong in my mind. This is a collection of some of his previous articles and stories for various publications. I especially love it because he puts footnotes throughout to explain what he was thinking when he wrote them. If you are a Chuck fan or just a fan of Pop-Culture in general, pick this up.

The Red Sox Reader edited by Dan Riley – A collection of essays and articles about the Boston Red Sox. I love baseball books and will read most anything. This was interesting, but definitely dated (the book came out shortly after Buckner let it go through his wickets in ’86). Authors include Peter Gammons, Steven King and John Updike.

Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart – This was a good find, it is about a hip –hop loving son of a Russian/Jewish mafia Don and how he ends up in the middle of a war being conducted primarily to get Haliburton to finance the fledgling country. Great satire and the lead character reminds me of a cross between Ignatius Reilly, Fredo Corleone, and Alex (played by Eugene Hutz) in Everything is Illuminated.

A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester – This is a history of the 1906 SF earthquake, plus analysis of other earthquakes that happened in US history and the inevitability of another one happening. Sometimes gets pretty technical, but filled with interesting parts (including the fact that there were earthquakes in Missouri and North Carolina in the early history of our country).

Disturbing the Peace by Vaclav Havel – This was a book length interview with the absurdist playwright who later became the first president of the new Czech Republic. Not a great read, it definitely would’ve helped if I had known a little bit more about Czech history.

Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy by Jane Leavy – I always heard that Koufax may have been the best pitcher ever in the Major Leagues, and this book makes a strong case for this argument. The book reveals that Koufax would have rather played basketball, pitched through a ton of pain over the last few years, and was one of the first players to stick to his beliefs (he wouldn’t pitch in the first game of the World Series because it occurred on Rosh Hashanah).

Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs – Another collection of memoir stories from Mr. Burroughs. Not as crazy as Running with Scissors, but not as depressing as Dry. Solid book. On a side note, we saw Mr. Burroughs at The Zeitgeist about 2 months ago, just hanging out. That brings my SF celebrity sightings to two (the other being Rob Courdrey from The Daily Show).

McGoorty: A Pool Room Hustler – A biography of a champion billiards player/professional hobo/womanizer from the SF area. Very quick read, I finished it in one day.

Double Duce by Aaron Cometbus – A collection of the famous ‘zine writer’s stories about living in a crap-hole apartment with his messed-up roommates in Berkley. The author, who also was the drummer in Cleveland Bound Death Sentence (which also included members of other MPLS bands Dillinger Four and The Saltines), hand wrote the entire book, which just makes it visually kind of neat.

The Drunken Tourist by Hadrian Santana - Probably the worst book I’ve read this year, the author recounts his fleeing from the law to go over to Europe to do copious amounts of drugs, get laid, and spread the word about some shitty religion he’s really into. The book ends with him going to jail, I hope he’s still there. He just comes across as a jerk with no redeeming qualities.

Managing Ignatius – The real-life story of Lucky Dogs Hot Dog Vendors made popular in A Confederacy of Dunces. The manager lets everyone know about the dysfunctional types of people who would be working these carts and the hijinks they get into. A little disjointed but very funny.

A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain – Basically a written version of his Travel Channel show “No Reservations”, but equally funny and interesting to read about the quest for the perfect meal. Makes me want to get into the restaurant business for sure.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell – The author’s theories behind why something becomes popular or a hit. Very interesting read and reminds me a little bit of Freakonomics, but from an anthropology point of view. Covers everything from Hush Puppies to graffiti, neat book.

Hopefully everyone can find at least one book on here that they hadn’t heard of before and check it out.

Sometimes Parents Just Don’t Understand

My parents visited us over the weekend, here are some of the highlights:

Thursday 03/22/07
I picked up Ed and Joyce along with their traveling companions, Richard and Roxanne at the SFO airport on Thursday afternoon. After wedging the luggage into my smallish automobile, we were on our way back towards the city, with my mother making gasping noises about my driving the majority of the way. I responded by making fun of her for wearing her San Francisco T-Shirt we had given her for X-mas.

We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and cruised into Sausalito in Marin County. We enjoyed a nice lunch at a little café and checked out the bay. Next we went up Highway 1 into the base of the Muir Woods. I had planned to take them to a nice lookout that was about ¼ mile off of a trailhead off of the highway, but was foiled by the cops. I had entered a closed section of the highway (road construction) and the officers were not amused at my ambitions to drive along that portion of the road. I pleaded ignorance and went back on my way sans any citations, which was nice.

Once back in the city, we took our visitors to their vacation residence. I had found the top floor of a flat a couple blocks from our place. It was a really nice two bedroom affair that had a working fireplace, a rather large television and stereo system, even laundry and a dishwasher. It kind of made our place look drab by comparison.

That night the six of us went out to dinner to Jimi-san’s Japanese Restaurant. We enjoyed several different appetizers and rolls, and everyone was very game about trying new things. My mom even used chopsticks and was close to mastering them by the end of the evening. Jimi-san hooked us up with free desserts at the end of the meal, he’s the best. The evening was capped off by a drink at the second oldest bar in SF, the Little Shamrock.

Friday 03/23/07
The six of us headed over to Golden Gate Park and went to the Japanese Tea Gardens. It was really beautiful in the gardens, with some excellent water features, bridges, blossoming cherry trees and Zen gardens. After that, we headed across the street to the arboretum and checked out some of the foliage there.

Our zeal for plants satiated, we caught the Muni to the Upper Haight Neighborhood. Mom was amazed that someone was actually driving the train, I’m not sure if she thought it was controlled by robots or something else. We checked out some of the shops and took some pictures at the ever-famous Haight-Ashbury crossing. Mom and Dad picked up some Haight-Ashbury hoodies and then mailed them to themselves so they needn’t tote them around the rest of the day.

We dined at a brew-pub called Magnolia for lunch. My father completed what I’d term “The Big Lebowski”, by tasting every single type of beer available in the establishment by consuming not one but two sampler trays of 2.5 oz. beers. Richard also got the new nickname of “Oysterhead”, named after the Stout that was being served at the Magnolia (Richard’s surname is Stout).

Once lunch was completed we took a bus down to the Mission area and wandered around a bit. It was OK, although Mom thought that the Ice Cream Cart Vendors were fanciful homeless people (very confusing logic from Mom here, too much to get into detail). Around 2:30 we headed over to the Zeitgeist, a killer biker/bike-messenger bar that has a huge backyard with picnic tables. We ordered most of our drinks successfully, although Roxanne’s request for a Malibu/Diet-Coke was rebuffed by the bartender (“I don’t have either one of those” he growled). Roxanne ended up with a margarita on the rocks instead. Eventually, our friends Paul, Dan, Newton and Rich all showed up to enjoy the sunshine and partake in a few drinks. Around 5 o’clock we left to catch a Muni back into our neighborhood. Once the train arrived, we packed on with the rest of the normal Friday commuters.

We met back up with the crew to go out to dinner at PJ’s, an Oyster Bar/Cajun joint in our neighborhood. It was a great meal that was enjoyed by most, with the exception of poor Roxanne. Unfortunately, the two Margaritas at the Zeitgeist had done her in. I didn’t really think about it when she was ordering, but the bartenders there mix a very strong drink, and everything is served in pint glasses there. As a result, Roxanne didn’t eat anything at her and Richard’s 5th year Anniversary Dinner, Diana and I felt terrible about it. After dinner, the group minus Roxanne met up with our friends Rich and Cat at the Dubliner for a nightcap.

Saturday 03/24/07
With Roxanne still out of commission from the Margaritas, the rest of us walked around the west portion of our neighborhood. We showed them all of the various restaurants and stores where we shop for our groceries, the highlight being the Sunset Super Market where we showed them the vats of live fish and buckets of live frogs. A clam even spat water out on Mom, which was funny. We picked up some crazy Japanese candy for our nieces and went back towards their flat.

Roxanne was back up and ready to go by the time we got back, what a champ! We headed to Union Square to catch a cable car ride up to Lombard Street. We walked down “The Crookedest Road” and made our way to North Beach. We had a nice Italian meal and then walked a couple of blocks over to China Town. It’s always amazing to be in Europe one block, then South Asia the next.

We caught a street car over to the piers and checked out the sea lions, then we headed a couple of piers over to queue up for our boat to Alcatraz. The day was rather gray and misty, so we didn’t sit up on the top deck, but still had a neat view for the 15 minute boat ride to the island. Since we were on the night-time tour, we had a free 45 minute audio tour. There were some legitimately creepy parts of the old prison, including the hospital and the hallway where the grenades had blown out pieces of the floor during an uprising. I still can’t believe that people had to actually serve out sentences there, talk about “Hard Time”.

We caught cabs back to our neighborhood and went to New Eritrea, a North African restaurant. Although reluctant at first, even Mom got into the idea of eating everything with our hands and using the flat bread/pancake pieces used for scooping up the various veggies and meats brought to us on a huge platter.

Sunday 03/25/07
We went over to the flat to pick up the group and then made our way to Darla’s for breakfast and Bloody Marys. We were delighted to be waited upon by Darla herself and had a delicious meal. After breakfast, we packed up the luggage in our car so they could be checked out on time, then hopped the Muni and went to Ocean Beach. The tide was really low that morning, so everyone had a good time picking up shells and sand dollars and watching the plovers dig up crabs.

We eventually made it back to our place and let Josie lick everyone until it was time to head off to the airport. Overall it was a successful visit that left very few casualties.

I Have a Meeting with “The Bobs”

Last week I rolled into work on a Monday morning to discover a 8.5 x 11 announcement sitting on my desk. It turned out we were having a Casual Week. Since I didn’t get the handout the week previous, I was not able to inflict upon my co-workers one of my numerous Hawaiian shirts. Bummer.

Tuesday was Retro or Plaid Day. I wore a nice long-sleeved number that had a feeling of the 70’s about it. There were numerous tie-dye shirts abound, including a couple that were probably a couple of sizes too small for the individuals who chose to wear them.

Wednesday was Denim Day. People were very excited to wear their blue jeans to work. I showed my appreciation by wearing my jet-black Carhardt’s.

Thursday was Americana Day. I did not partake in this particular dress-up day. There was an elderly gentleman that had a great stars and bars shirt that would have made any Texan proud.

Friday was Sports Day. I happily wore my TC style Twins cap all day, mostly twisted off to the side or backwards. There were lots of A’s uniforms and caps that day, and a few NASCAR fan(atics) showed their awesome love of corporate logos.

What was the occasion for this celebration? I have no idea. The sheet said it was a “Casual for a Cause Week”. There were no sign-up sheets for donations, no emails about helping out the elderly, no one coming around trying to support the arts, nothing. I did get a free lunch out of it on Wednesday, which was nice.

Take care,

jeremy

Good God, This is Going to be Awful

I arrived home last week to find a package from someplace in the state of Washington. My friend Doug just moved there to take a Professor job, but the name on the package said “Arthur Blumpkins”, or something of that ilk. Not knowing a Mr. Blumpkins, I was curious as to what was inside.

I tear open the package and find a catalog, a travel pack of facial tissue with a Hula Girl on it, and two boxes of mints. The mints, however, are Uncle Oinker’s Savory Bacon Mints. I check out the delivery paper and in the comments it simply states, “Mmm, Bacon”. Immediately, I knew this was my X-mas present from Ken.

I am now going to attempt to taste these mints, and give you my running commentary as I go. Ugh.

The 0.7 oz metal tin is adorned with whom I can only assume is Uncle Oinker himself. He looks slightly surprised, and is wearing a 50’s style fishing hat. Looks pretty good for a pig.

The backside of the tin has some delicious looking bacon in the background. Let’s see here, the Ingredient Statement is as follows: DEXTROSE, CORN SYRUP, MAGNESIUM STEARATE, BACON & MINT FLAVORS, ACESULFAME POTASSIUM, MALTODEXTRIN. This is apparently made in China, which makes sense, I suppose. I can also call a number to get the Nutritional Information. I’d rather not.

I am tearing off the protective plastic wrap. Ahhhh! An odor of bacon-like substance has permeated the room. It sort of smells like the fetal pigs we dissected in Biology class. I don’t see formaldehyde on the ingredient list. This is not going to be good.

I’m having a hard time opening this. It appears that there is a fine film of bacon grease on the tin. It’s either that or my body is going into self-defense mode and making me sweat through my fingers so as to not be able to open the tin and consume what is inside.

OK, got it open. It’s full of about 50 little white “mints”. The smell is getting worse.

ARRRRGH! It started off minty, but now is giving a pervasive rancid bacon flavor mixed with peppermint. This is terrible. I really think that Magnesium Stearate is a secret code word for formaldehyde. What the hell am I gonna do with two boxes of these things?

Do I dare chew it? I don’t want to have it in my mouth much longer, but will chewing it make it worse? I’m so conflicted.

Oh dear God! I shouldn’t have chewed it. Now I have formaldehyde powder stuck in my teeth.

I just downed half a bottle of Grain Belt to see if it helped. It didn’t.

Josie is whining. Maybe I should see if she wants one.

She spit it out at first, but now she is smelling around looking for more. Maybe they’ll be a doggie version of after-dinner mints.

Damn it! I just belched and it tasted like them. This is going to be a long night.

I feel as if I’m losing vision in my right eye. I better go seek medical treatment.

Thanks for the gift Ken.

I Sell Propane and Propane Accessories

My buddy Paul bought a deep-fryer for the turkeys he made for Thanksgiving and Super Bowl, and about a month ago we came up with the idea to have a deep-fry party. The King of the Hill episode in which Bill and Boomhauer decided that they would only deep fry foods since the day they had purchased one inspired the party. Saturday was the day that all arteries within an 8 block radius were clogged, all the local high school kids broke out with severe acne just from walking by the party, and some truly disturbing (yet delicious) items were thrown into a vat of canola oil pre-heated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

There were only two rules to the party; 1) you could only eat deep-fried food and 2) if you brought it to deep-fry it, you had to at least try it. Following is a list of everything I ate at the deep fry party, complete with commentary and rankings (all rankings based out of number of arteries clogged out of 10):

Battered Jalapeno Poppers (9) – The first entry into the bubbling oil was a masterpiece. Fresh jalapeno peppers opened and stuffed with cream cheese, Monterey Jack cheese, Cajun seasoning, and the key ingredient, bacon. These things were a great kickoff to the party. It only gets a 9 out of 10 because we hadn’t yet figured out that we needed to dip the deep fried items in milk/eggs, flour, then the batter. As a result, most of the batter fell off of the first couple of items.

Battered Sliced Dill Pickles (3) – Not very good due to the fact that the batter pretty much fell off of these right away. All that was left was a soggy, hot pickle. This was the one thing we brought that bombed.

Battered White Button Mushrooms (7) – Deep-fried mushrooms are one of my favorite appetizers, and this was one of the things that we brought. The batter stuck to this pretty well, but we had placed it in the second of the two deep-fryers at the party. The problem was the oil was nearly 500 degrees, so they got brown very fast.

Battered Zucchini (7) – Again, one of our contributions, this had a great texture, and held up very well. We cut it into thin slices which was perfect, but we had thrown it in as the same time as the mushrooms, so too brown, too quick.

Battered Catfish (9) – Catfish, in my opinion, is only truly great when fried. This was no exception. Flavorful, flaky, and fantastic.

Battered Shrimp (6) – Pretty good, but not as good as I’d hoped for. A little bland.

Sweet-Battered Ice Cream Bon-Bons (6) – This would have been a lot better had at not been for the execution. We used Mochi, which are Japanese ice cream bon-bons. Mochi have a thicker shell than a normal bon-bon, which worked out well for the deep-fry process. The problem was that these stuck to the bottom of the basket. When we removed the bon-bons, the bottoms would rip out, leaving a runny ice cream/batter mess. Tasted fantastic, messy as all hell.

Battered Crawfish Tails (4) – I expected these to be better as well, but much like the shrimp, they were quite bland. Combined with the chewy texture, I was rather bummed out that this didn’t work out.

Perogi (9) – These were not battered, but are an Eastern European dumpling filled with mashed potatoes. Outstanding!

Battered Avocado (8) – This was peeled and halved, and was really yummy. Ed took the other half of the avocado and wrapped it in bacon. I did not try that one, however.

Bacon (7) – Receives a higher score, because hey, it’s bacon. Didn’t really taste any better or worse than normal bacon though.

Battered Sage Leaves (5) – Interesting theory, but not the greatest. Basically tasted like Thanksgiving stuffing.

Battered Black Olives (5) – Tasted like warm olives, and some extra oil got stuck in the hole. Nothing too great.

Pizza (5) – Good concept from Ed, but just didn’t translate well. We should have tried a Hot Pocket or something instead.

Battered Big Mac (10) – Again from Ed, this was out of sight! People were pretending they were not interested or grossed out, but those people deep down in their hearts know that this kicked major booty. I’m sure we were not the first people to batter and deep-fry a Big Mac, but I want to be sure it is not my last. The bun stayed good and warm, but not soggy. The cheese got melted and the special sauce seemed to achieve maximum tang. Think if I bribe my local joint they’ll do one for me?

So I tried about 15 different deep-fried foods, and as of 27 hours later, no signs of a heart stoppage. Yet.

Take care,

jeremy

You Just Spray the Area

On Friday night, I ended up at a party that seems like it could have been lifted from a late 90’s movie (think Go, or something of that ilk).

The night started innocently enough, I picked up some Newcastle and went over to Toby’s. Toby, his roommate Scott, another friend AJ, and I had a couple of drinks and listened to some tunes.

I left there around 9 to go over to Yancy’s pub to meet up with my friends JR, Doug and Cat. Toby and AJ swung over after a while and the six of us hung out and had a few drinks. JR, Doug and Cat left to go to dinner, so the rest of us decided to go to a party that Toby had gotten invited to.

The party was being held at a Tattoo parlor named One Shot Tattoo just down the road. We ran into Toby’s friend Ryan who was leaving the party to go get more beer, so we went with him to pick up some as well. Ryan’s girlfriend is an artist at the parlor, and he was already pretty messed up, so I knew it was going to be an interesting experience.

We roll into the party to find it in full swing. Most everyone, guys and girls, were wearing fake mustaches. Even the Pit-Bull, Precious, was wearing one on her rump. I later found out that Precious was an adopted dog who ended up at the shelter after being shot by the cops during a raid. Nice dog, though.

There were two categories of party attendees. The first subset were the heavily inked, punk rock/rockabilly types. The second group consisted of hard-core gangsters. In striking up a conversation with a guy named Joe, within 30 seconds he let me know that I could get whatever I would need from him, including numerous “Pharmaceuticals” or any weaponry that I’d need. I professed to not really needing a “piece”, but he was quite a salesman. Even though I did not purchase anything, he made sure to write down his name and phone number in case I changed my mind. So now I have a gun guy.

Later, Doug, JR and Rich showed up at the party after dinner. As they walked in I was on my knees playing C-Lo on the floor for 5 bucks a roll. I ended up breaking even.

The occasion for the party was a going-away type of thing for an artist named Sky. It was very difficult to maintain any sense of a normal conversation about his impending move to Boston while there were two girls making out not more than five feet from us. Very distracting.

We finally said goodbye to our new friends around 1:30, and I made it home and into bed by 2:30. I don’t think I’m gonna call Joe, but if anybody needs something, I’ve now got a guy.

Take Care.

I Have a Weird Job

Yesterday, I had to eat about a dozen different kinds of organic baby food. I have a weird job.

Thank You, Tony Dungy

The Super Bowl is my fifth favorite holiday (in order: St. Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving, Bock Fest, Arbor Day, Super Bowl). My first Super Bowl Sunday in California was an upgrade over the only other time I’ve watched the game outside of MN (for that one I was in a hotel room in Cedar Rapids, IA eating crummy take-out Chinese food by myself).

Diana and myself walked over to the Big Blue House on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. Our friend Paul knows the people at the Big Blue House through one of his high school friends, and they are known for throwing a pretty killer party, this one was no different.

Upon arriving, we checked out the Hawaiian pork that our friend Tracie had slaved over for about 15 hours. She had grown up in Hawaii and got the recipe from her mother (A boneless pork butt [not actually from the rump of the hog] slathered in Hawaiian salt and wrapped in tea leaves and banana leaves). She went so far as to buy an electric smoker off of Craigslist to make the 12 pound piece of meat she had purchased. Tracie spent the night at the Big Blue House so she could start the smoker at Midnight, and got up every three hours or so to add more soaked wood chips. That’s some real dedication, right there.

I set to work on making a numbers board for the party, and spent most of the pre-game badgering people to get their names on the board and collecting money for the pot. I even missed the opening kickoff return for touchdown as I was just finishing up getting it taken care of.

I quickly grabbed a plateful of food (pulled Hawaiian pork with sauce, some deep-fried turkey, chicken wings, stuffed mushrooms, chips and guacamole) and headed to one of the three rooms that had televisions set up. The room I was in wasn’t connected to the satellite that the TV in the adjoining room was. As a result, the rabbit-ears on our TV would have the game action about five seconds before the TV in the next room did. It was a great source of amusement the whole game to hear the roars in our room go up during a big play, and then wait for the room next to us follow with a similar reaction.

When I mean roar, I literally mean it. The best estimation was that there was 100 people at the party at any one time, and a total of about 125 showed up, and everybody brought food, beer, or both to share. We made some new friends and had a grand old time.

I need to thank Tony Dungy for not going for the field goal late in the game, as a result my number hit (9 Colts, 7 Bears) on the final and I was up $80. The people at the party quickly accused me of fixing the board, and I reminded them that I would have gone with 7-0 or 7-3 rather than 7-9 if I was truly trying to cheat.

The winnings were spent last night on flesh and cigars. Thanks again, Mr. Dungy.

WWVVD? (What Would Vincent Vega Do?)

Good grief am I tired. That’s usually a sign of a good night, and last night was no exception.

One of the first people I met out here was Toby. He wandered by while I was at one of my local pubs (The Mucky Duck) watching the Vikings on the HD Flatscreen. He asked if I was from MN, I responded in the affirmative, then he asked, “Do you know this shi**y band called Dillinger Four?” Now, those that know me would know that I could consider them Fightin’ Words. He was obviously joking, however, and we got to talking. It turns out he runs his own record label (Red Scare Records) and I owned a couple of albums off of his label (The Falcon, which has members of The Lawrence Arms and Alkaline Trio). He had started the label less than a couple of years ago and had earlier in the year had quit his job at Fat Wreck Chords. Fat Wreck (run by Fat Mike of NOFX) supplied numerous albums that were, and still are, a cornerstone of the music that I enjoy to this day. Toby and I instantly hit it off, to say the least.

Last night Toby was able to get me in to the second of three NOFX shows playing at Slim’s. The three night extravaganza is their homecoming from their mini-tour that they’ve been on, and I was very grateful that Toby was able to pull some strings and get me into a sold-out, small-size venue. Toby, however, fully exceeded anything that I expected when he produced not only tickets, but all-access wrist bands to go back stage and see the show from a less dense roped off area. Plus they had a couple of kegs of Pabst in the back alley that was gratis to anyone wearing the wrist band, I owe Toby a couple of drinks, don’t you think?

We arrived a bit late so we missed the first band, but the second band was Strike Anywhere, an anthemic, melodic hardcore band from Richmond, VA that is on Fat Wreck’s roster. They were really good, so good, in fact that I picked up two of their albums after the show.

The whole time we are in the all-access area, Toby is introducing me to various friends of his from Fat Wreck, local musicians, etc. I received a tap on the shoulder after Strike Anywhere’s set and figured Toby wanted me to meet another one of his ex-coworkers. Turning around, I realized that it was not one of his ex-coworkers, but his ex-boss. Toby introduces me to Fat Mike and we make some non-committal small talk while Mike signs a couple of kid’s shirts. Then Mike tells me a story of what had happened to him earlier that morning.

Turns out that Mike had met a super-fan from MPLS the night before and had accepted this fan’s offer to go golfing at a super exclusive golf course in the city. The guy stressed that he needed Mike and his partner to be on their best behavior (dressing nicely, [no plaid pants], easy on the drink, no ditching the carts in sand traps, etc.). Mike shows up at the course and meets up with the fan at about 8 AM. The fan appeared to be a little shaky and twitchy, Mike wrote it off as an all-night bender and was excited to go hit the links. Then, on the second hole, the fan collapses. Turns out the guy OD’d on liquid Valium and went down right in the tee box. Ambulances and fire trucks show up, and they plunge the big needle of adrenaline right into the guy’s chest, right there on the course.

After the guy had been taken to the hospital, Mike and his playing partner did what any self-respected golfer would do when on a golf course Mecca. They played out the rest of their round.

After the story I wished Mike well on his show coming up as he went backstage to prepare, I totally forgot to tell him “Hi” from Diana, whoops. Toby and I headed out to the alley to get a Pabst and talk with some other locals in “the scene”, we even chatted up Matt Smith, the guitarist from Strike Anywhere, for a little bit. One of the best parts of having the wrist band, however, is the clean, no-line bathroom. Can’t beat that with a stick.

NOFX came on and played for a little over an hour, mixing in older and newer songs quite well and had the usual hilarious stage banter. The sound was great, the show was great, and they were done a little bit before 12:30 AM.

After the show Toby, Chris from The Nothingtons and I went over to a bar a little over a block away. The Eagle is a motorcycle, bear, leather-daddy bar that a lot of the bands that play at Slim’s go to. I can see why as the place was really cool. It had a huge outdoor area with trees and fire pits and just a really cool look about it. The bartender even gave us some killer Boston Crème Cake that was leftover from an earlier party. I had a Beck’s with the kids and then hailed a cab, getting home at 2 AM. I got up for work this morning at 5. Good grief am I tired.

Take care.

jeremy

P.O.S. is Ruining My Life

We had quite the day on Saturday. We were invited over to my friend Toby’s house in the afternoon as his roommate was having a Sangria party. We rolled in about 5 PM to find the party well underway. Sangria was flowing copiously and Josie was a big hit with the punk kids and the college kids alike. I spent much of my time preventing her from mauling Toby’s soccer ball, which she took an instant attraction to.

On the way back from the party, we saw a small corner store that was selling soccer balls, so we grabbed one for her. She wanted to play with it the whole way home. Once unleashed in the house, she took to running around with her new favorite toy. For five minutes. Josie punctured it, and then was sufficiently freaked out when the air began hissing out of it. Oh well, it was only five bucks. I need a bullet proof soccer ball or something, I guess.

We stopped at a local Mediterranean joint for dinner before heading out to Bottom of the Hill to see P.O.S. We happened to run into my buddy J.R. and his friend Eric at the restaurant, so we dined with them and then Eric was nice enough to give us a ride to the venue.

BOTH is a decent venue, it holds probably about 300 people, I would estimate. The stage is facing you as soon as you walk in the door, and they have a back pool/pinball room that doubles as a merch area for shows. They also have a back patio where they will have BBQs on Sunday afternoons before shows, which would be kind of fun.

The first guy up went by the name Silent Army, I believe. He’s a local Bay Area guy, and P.O.S. wanted him to do 10-15 minutes before the rest of the acts. Not too bad, I’d be interested in seeing him again with more time, but the most notable thing about him was his killer hoodie. It had all of the chest bones on front and back, and the hood was a skull, I want one.

The second act was Dessa from Doomtree. She’s the female rapper in that group, Saturday night she was doing some solo material. She’s definitely improved over the few years I’ve seen her, and she can hold her own on stage. There’s just something missing with her that I can’t quite put my finger on. It may be a confidence issue, but that’s merely conjecture.

Next up was Mac Lethal. I’ve seen his name around tons of times, but never had a chance to check him out previously in the Midwest. He was pretty entertaining, and very funny, but nothing that I’d purchase, I don’t think. He ripped on everything from the “Lean with it, rock with it” motorcycle dance, Chinese character tattoos and being asked to be on the White Rapper show on VH1 (he didn’t accept, obviously).

Finally the main event was P.O.S. He’s become something of an inside joke amongst my show-attending friends, as it seems like he’s opened up for just about everybody under the sun in MPLS. I’ve seen him open doing solo stuff or with Doomtree for acts as varied as Atmosphere, Dillinger Four and The Hold Steady. He definitely held his own being the headliner, however. He performed a bunch of material off of his most recent album, and even broke out a couple of new songs that he’s working on. Paul, our friend from Georgia who had never even heard of him, really liked him which is a good sign. Spilled cider and screaming out lyrics were in abundance throughout his set.

After this we nabbed a cab and headed to a bar in the Mission to hook up with Paul’s friend Jonah and Pete, and then proceeded to an afterparty in some loft a couple of blocks away. I poured myself a sick Jack Daniels and Ginger Ale and tried my best to mingle, but the electronica blaring throughout the party was too much. Plus there was a baby there. A baby, at an afterparty at three in the morning. It was weird, to say the least.

If anyone wants to hear P.O.S. go to www.rhymesayers.com and check it out, hopefully you’ll dig it.

jeremy