June 30, 2003

The Vans Warp Tour
My favorite people at the Vans Warped Tour turned out to be these two hired cops. I asked if they would pose for this shot in front of the Marines recruiting station that was right next to the drug paraphernalia, hippie, rastafarian tent (man, talk about choosing the red pill or the blue pill). They were swell guys and happy to pose.

For what is essentially billed as a "punk" show the cops were pretty bored. No one was getting drunk because no one was old enough to drink. Which for me was kinda nice. Every-time I went to exchange my eight Warped tickets for a plastic cup of Miller Light there was no line and usually no one else but me in the beer tent. No drinking meant no fighting and generally no one was smoking the purple haired snoop-a-dizzle chronic. So really the Cops were just strolling around in the hot sun trying to have a good time. One guy even admitted he liked some of the music. Hey.

It was a nice day to chill on the blankets, sip beer, smoke cigarettes, watch some half-pipe action (photo), rap with folks, and sing in communal song to the anthems of the day. I had placed most of my bets on The Dropkick Murpheys (photo). They ripped it up. They went on in the hot sun at about three o'clock - brought out their bag-pipe player and ripped into their signature opening song "For Boston". After that, it was a throw down in the dry hot dirt that was punctuated with great covers of CCR and AC/DC. As we get closer and closer to the 4th of July, CCR begins to creep into everyone's musical subconscious.

The other band I had a large bet riding on was AFI. Their darker flavored anthems were greeted by a sudden rainstorm that lasted just as long as their set. It was an ominous sky but seemed very appropriate. AFI was probably the high point. They had maximum energy and the new songs sounded incredible. During AFI's set I was moved to dance around a bit and throw me hands in the air, which made lots of kids point and giggle and snicker to each other, "Look someone's dad is going bonkers". Kids today...if they only knew.

June 27, 2003

Summer Anvil Drop
I took this snap just as a watermelon exploded all over this car that was being softened up for the Annual Anvil Drop that happens at the tool shop just down the road on Washington Avenue. When the Anvil finally fell the car was annihilated. There was a band in the back playing the "Anvil Drop Anthem" while the crowd milled about eating hot dogs and ogling the latest line of Mikita power tools.

Before The Drop, I was out of the office looking forward to my mid afternoon cigarette but found someone had puked all over my favorite smoke spot. The smell was so bad I had to wondered on. I walked down to see if the the book seller was open down the road. He's been holding a piece for me there for over two weeks. He's got hours posted but never keeps them. As much as I admire his casual style, it's been completely annoying as I've been to his shop several times lately and he's not there. Finally today he was open. He said he'd been taking a few sick days and admitted he'd been a little lazy lately. He's an odd duck but I enjoy hanging out with him. He was very excited about some new titles he had gathered over the weekend and wanted to show them to me. Pretty uninteresting stuff. A weird mix of bad philosophy, German auto manuals from the 70's, some architecture stuff I had never heard of and some old bibles. It didn't really matter tho, I knew he wouldn't sell me any of the stuff, had I been interested. I really don't know how he stays in business keeping the odd hours he does and refusing to sell anybody anything when they do finally want something. Usually after I rummage through his small dusty stacks and I find the one gem that I want to buy, I've still only got a 50/50 chance of him agreeing to sell me the damn thing. I just don't think collectors like this guy have any business being in business. But, whatever, it's also a quality I admire in him. I see him as this cultural magistrate who gets to deem whether I'm worthy of his product or not. It's an exclusive club. Lucky for me, he's beginning to take a shine to my worthiness.

After convincing him out of some of his precious stock, I headed up to the post office. The line there was horrendous. I hate standing in line. I argued with a guy about the merits of the LeBron James draft. This guy was convinced he was the second coming of Jordan. I didn't think so. His girlfriend kept putting in her two cents on the subject by telling her man that he (referring to me), "don't know nothin' about no Michael Jordan". Which is true. I can't argue with her there. But when I'm stuck in a damn line at the post office I tend to start some shit just to entertain my boredom.

June 26, 2003

Angels Overloaded
Enough already. I'll go see the damn movie. I'll even sign something that obligates me to see the movie but please stop the hype train and the endless publicity saturation that hides around every corner, magazine cover, and television channel. Is it too late to edit the ending of the new Charlie's Angels movie so that all three of the angles die and can never make another movie again? I can't recall any movie being so overly publicized as the new Charlie's Angels movie. Demi's dating Ashton, all the girls get along like family and lean on each other for moral support in times of crisis. Bleectttth! Please. Demi's gonna dump Ashton after the movie grosses more than 200 million and those girls will be lucky if they remember to send each other Christmas cards. Anyway if you haven't gotten your fill of CA, then by all means you need to check out the Charlie's Angels Furniture Porn (It's Ok. It's just chairs). It's actually hard to tell the difference between some of the chairs and Cameron Diaz's body. Snap. Snap. Oh no he di'ent.

The new Radiohead record reviewed by many in 50 words or less.

June 24, 2003

The Nu Analog
I picked up this sweet General Electric Solid State Porta-Fi stand alone stereo cabinet with turntable yesterday from the Salvation Army. Wow, what a warm sound. I have it set up in the office. Right now I'm rocking a little Jimi Hendrix 'Band of Gypsys' and the bass is bouncing all over the concrete floors and filling up the room with such a huge sound.

I was going to take off for Chicago today to see Jets To Brazil but with work commitments and the Black Flag reunion show tonight at First Avenue, I'm not going to be able make it down to Chi Town.

I would like to lodge a formal complaint with touring bands this summer. What's the deal? Why aren't you giving the Twin Cities any love? If I have to travel to Chicago for every good band this summer, I'm going to be broke and exhausted. Is there something we did wrong? Do we Minnesotans smell bad? It's not cold here right now. There's no snow. Don't be shy, come on up. We'll take you the Mall of America.

I'm diggin on some of the new summer Hip Hop joints. The new Gang Starr record dropped today as well as the new Black Eyed Peas. I've still got the new Ugly Duckling on heavy rotation. It's the perfect party record for the summer. Check out their Meat Shake website and also make sure you check out their hilarious video to the Samba song.

June 23, 2003

Love and War
Well my brother went and did it. He got all married up. From the sounds of the peanut gallery his sole job now is the continual production of grandchildren. Just hand 'em over Dave, two at a time if you can muster it. They've already got names picked out for 'em and some heavy books on Southern discipline that you'll be given as your guide.

We had perfect weather for the wedding this weekend and besides my many boutonnières which refused to stay alive for more than five minutes, and forgetting that one of my best man duties was to sign the marriage certificate as a witness, things went off pretty smooth. The nicest detail of the wedding came from Rich, a friend of my brother Ben, who volunteered his '94 Fleetwood as the formal wedding carriage. The car was Big Pimpin' and looked like it had come straight off the set of The Sopranos. The car was cool but wouldn't have had nearly the stylin' effect if Rich hadn't shown up dressed the part of king chauffeur. For my money, I think if you're going to throw a big event you should either find volunteers or pay people to do nothing but stand around in dark shades and look official. It's even better if you can get them to guard shit. Protect things that in an ordinary setting would not require guarding -- punch bowls, bathrooms, the wedding cake, the bar, certain high profile individuals. The more the merrier. If they can all look like Mr. Smith that's even better.

I spent the better part of Sunday recovering from wedding duties and reading Evan Wright's piece about the Iraq war called The Killer Elite. I can't tell whether it's just battling departments at Rolling Stone or some brilliant piece of Hollywood magic like the film Three Kings, but putting that silly kid from American Idol on the cover of RS and then having such a wickedly brutal and blunt story like Wright's about the realities of war strikes me as pretty damn smart. I had this constant vision while reading Wright's piece of a thirteen-year old girl, who, after convincing her mother to buy her the RS issue so she could run home to her bedroom and read all about the Idol kid, emerges two hours later balling her eyes out because she has read the article that came right after the American Idol one.

After the Wright piece I read Anthony Swofford's Jarhead, which is an even more real and brutal marine memoir of the first Iraq war. Why I chose to relax by reading a book about war and marine life instead of a book about sorcerers and little kids with dark rimmed glasses like the rest of the country I do not know. Suffice it to say when I went to bed last night I had a head full of the sounds, sights, and smells of a war that continues on today. I went to sleep with that head and woke up with that head at exactly 2am when I was bombed out of bed with what I thought was incoming mortar fire. The first hit sounded like someone was bowling in the apartment, I could hear the ball rolling down the hardwoods in the hallway approaching the bedroom, then there was a brilliant flash of light followed by an explosion like a hundred rockets had just slammed into the apartment.

Then the rain came down hard.

Damn, I have never heard thunder creep up and deliver such a precision strike in my lifetime. That was too surreal. I am definitely laying off the military reading for awhile.

June 20, 2003

Amateur Photographer
I'm getting ready for my brothers big wedding this weekend. My first gig as a "best man". I'm hoping everything goes smooth. In preparation for tonight's grooms dinner and the wedding tomorrow, I thought I'd dust off the analog camera and take it into the camera repair shop to get it fixed. My light meter had stopped functioning months ago and I hadn't bothered to get it fixed yet. To my shock and horror the camera guy took one look at my broken camera and said, "Oh yeah, I can fix this", and he replaced the battery and handed it back to me. "There you go. Should work fine." Oh god how stupid, stupid, stupid I am. I walked out of there with the scarlet letter of shame and embarrassment emblazoned on my ego. Good stuff. Well at least I can snap analog style now.

Building | Book | Music | Type | T-shirt

June 19, 2003

Yo Mama Don't Wear No Drawers
My brother roped me into a vicious game of dart throwing last night at The Dubliner. It turns out the little bastard is a bona-fide Dart Shark. Personally, I've always thought that bars were for drinking and social-ly(z)ing, with some occasional sport watching from time to time. I always associated the dart players with a lesser breed, just a bunch of hyper-competitive sales people who need to have a game going all the time. But recently, those pasty pudgy people who spend their hours locked on to that stupid Golden Tee golf game have eclipsed the dart dullard as the true bottom feeders of the bar scene. Especially bad are the Golden Tee groupies, those guys who do nothing but stand around and cheer on their video golf buddies. Don't they know they're in public and people can see them?

After darts we went down to The Dakota and funked it up with Los Hombres Caliente. If you haven't heard these cats, you must. Bill Summers, the percussionist from Herbie Hancock's Headhunter's is the conductor of this latin tinged jazz combo. And when you get on board his groove train, he'll take you around the world - Cuba, Brazil, Haiti, and back home to New Orleans - all in the space of an hour. The funniest part of the show was when Bill tried to get all us unfunky Minnesotan's to try and sing this simple cuban chant over an even simpler hand clapped pattern and the whole joint was fucking up his song good. At the end of their last song, Bill led all the other musicians off stage in a typical New Orleans march with everyone still playing their instrument. Then he marched right towards me and put down his hand drum and gave me a big hug. Now I can finally cross off "get a big hug from Bill Summers" from my list of things to do in 2003. Sweet.

June 18, 2003

Our Weekend Starts on Wednesday
While putting air in my bike tire this morning a guy with no socks stopped me and asked if I had any cocaine. Jeez, I mean, how did he know I was carrying? Hee. Just kidding mom. I wasn't carrying nothing and that did not please the guy with no socks. I think he was even pissed at me. People these days...

...I mean what with the SARS and everything, people be acting like Humanzees - getting all freaked out and silly. Gun stores can't keep their shelves stocked and the innocent prairie dog has become the media's new Saddam Hussien. The old adage that form follows function has been updated for the double-o-three with the much more stylish fashion follows fear. On the heels of last months No-Contact Jacket, now we've got Bezenville's slick replacement for those lo-fi Kmart bought face masks. And if that's not slick enough for you, then go get yourself one of these.

Fold and build your own robots.

If cats ruled the world vs. If birds ruled the world.

Guerilla Marketing Portland Style.

June 17, 2003

A Happy Little Bush
When shopping for my graphic design supplies I always look to make sure that Bob Ross products are sold there. It's like the stamp of approval from the Better Business Bureau, but for art supply stores. If it's good enough for Bob than I know I'm only getting quality products and I can probably find that cute little fan brush that he always used to use. If you're feeling up to it go and take the Official Bob Ross Quiz, available from his website bobross.com.

When your done with the quiz, why don't you apply your BR painting techniques and make a nice oil painting of this odd scene I snapped a photo of and send it to me.

June 15, 2003

The Disabled List
I had to make a managerial decision today to put myself on the temporary disabled list. Yesterday while patrolling center field for well hit fly balls, I tried to evoke the spirit of Torii Hunter and chase down a ball that was well outside my athletic ability. Racing across the grass, I was almost to the ball when I caught an edge on a loose patch of sand that sent me into a broken collapse. If you were to hold a Raggedy Andy doll my the top of his head and let go you'd have a clear picture of my downfall.

It's amazing how much you think about in that split second when you're going down. First my ankle twisted and then my knee folded, the combination producing my graceful potato sack landing. The horrible sounds that both injuries made - a quick succession of popping and snapping noises - made me think I had broken something good. But after flaying about for a while I was able to walk off on my own power. The 30 year old body still proves indestructible! Unfortunately, all skateboarding, ball playing and bike riding will have to come to a halt for at least a week as I limp around and attend to my ice packs.

June 12, 2003

Skateboarding with a Bowl of Papaya Salad
The meal of the gods is surely Thai Green Papaya Salad. Where have you been all my life? I swear I could eat this stuff three times a day it's so good. It's light, it's filling, and it's got more flavor than the combined efforts of all the restaurants on Franklin Avenue. My favorite is the dish served up at True Thai in South Minneapolis. They have this dish down to heavenly perfection. It makes my mouth water just writing about it.

And after you fill your belly with some papaya salad head down to Saint Paul and get your skate on. Yup, thanks to the monster effort of a savvy handful of proactive and organized kids, who kick flipped the City Council with the velocity of Richy Carrasco and the finesse of Jay Adams, the downtown streets are now all the worlds playground.

Don't try those tricks on the other side of the river though, cause in Minneapolis the City Council has just voted to place even more security cameras around the city. The main purpose of these cameras is to put "a group of bored, unsupervised men in front of live video screens and allow them to zoom in on whatever happens to catch their eyes, they tend to spend a fair amount of time leering at women". Natch.

The brother and sister team of Ryan and Shannon Horton have unleashed their bent up and broken blog and we are all thankful and pleased and hope they continue to post oversized pictures of up and coming danish pop stars.

I am starting a foundation to raise some money so I can help buy this girl a sandwich.

What's good for the public is good for the pimps.

June 11, 2003

All Your Life in a Brandy Snifter
I saw this awesome rerun of Saturday Night Live over the weekend that had this funny skit where Alec Baldwin and Jimmy Fallon were two entrepreneurs from Long Island who had a company called something like Precious Moments where they would take your old treasured photos and class them up by putting them in brandy snifter. The result were these horribly photoshoped images of daughters, cars and pets all perfectly trapped in a blurred out brandy snifter. For an extra $7.95 they would really class it up by putting a long stem rose on top of the brandy snifter. It was darn funny, so I decided to try my hand at classing up a photo by putting it in a brandy snifter. My first one is called 'puppy in a brandy snifter 'and it can be seen here. I don't know, I may have to open a midwestern branch of Precious Moments cause the fact of the matter is, putting things in a brandy snifter is hilarious.

June 10, 2003

House Money Effect
I'm sure someone could write a doctoral thesis on the juxtaposition of the two sides of this bus stop display that lurks outside my building on Washington Avenue. I have to hand it to Skyy Vodka they've really taken the whole phallic advertising thing to a whole new level. It reminds me of those old Highlights magazines at the dentists office; can you count the number of phallic dongs and dildoes in the Skyy Vodka Ad? The billboard on the left is a campaign by The Foundation for a Better Life, a group affiliated with the Anschutz Foundation (founded by Qwest chairman Philip Anschutz). A part of me would like to sit here and write an analyses of these two post 9-11 competing value structures but I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

June 09, 2003

Time spent well
Another weekend, another fine wedding of one of my extended High School family. Congratulations Emily and Bryce. Thanks for the boat tour on the Saint Croix.

Yesterday, I saw Owning Mahowny (site | trailer). And yes, Philip Seymour Hoffman can do no wrong. Whether he's huffing gas in Love Lisa or a gambling addicted books cooker in Mahowney, he's one of the most believable actors working today. Like Jack Nicoloson, PSH is one of those captains of industry with such phenomenal instincts and on-screen honesty that I'll see anything he's in.

June 05, 2003

Shooting Back
Roland writes in his weblog about an interesting and inventive project that HP is working on called Casual Capture. It's basically a device that you wear (like sunglasses) that will constantly take photographs of everything you experience. People wouldn't even know you're taking their picture. The goal of the project is to take the human error element out of capturing the perfect snap at the perfect time. And as much as I don't see that as any real practical or interesting goal, the idea of portable or wearable imaging is interesting, especially in light of the fact that we are continually being viewed by the private sector through surveillance video. Steve Mann, an MIT graduate has experimented technologically and seems obsessed philosophically with the dilemma of surveillance. So much so that during his time at the Media Lab he pioneered wearable imaging technology. He's got really interesting snaps taken inside Wallmarts and the like. I guess some of these images are instantly transfered to his site. Sort of like a walking web cam.

Andrew Ferris offers the New York City Poloroid Project.

Early Morning Sports
Let's just say that my favorite time for watching sports is between the hours of 6AM and 9AM. I wish all sporto events took place during this perfect time of the day. Last year I had the World Cup bright and early, now it's the French Open. If every day could start with some coffee, a bowl of Incredible Hulk cereal and some great clay court tennis on the tube, I'd be one contented hombre. Right now I'm watching the last bit of the Serena Williams v. Jusitne Henin-Hardenne match. I thought Justine had what it takes to beat Serena but she's losing it now in the final set. (Update: Justine did it! She beat Serena. Wow.)

June 04, 2003

The Idealist
I just got the latest snap book of Glen E. Friedman's. It's called The Idealist: Twenty Years in My Eyes and it is so damn nice. And beautiful. I could stare at is all day long. Poking around a bit, I found a page of Glenn's called Recent Rolls, which displays some massive snaps of his classic subjects (Fugazi, Russell Simmons) along with newer material. The images of Femi Kuti, Sharpton, Nader, and Cornel West are great new additions. The one of Cornel West and Al Sharpton looks like they could be arguing or singing. Some of GEF's photo sets are being auctioned off by sixspace. Here is a good one of HR from Bad Brains that ends in a couple hours.

June 03, 2003

The Morning Wrap Up
The Register reports that Amazon is in "advanced" talks with Apple to license it's music store. That would be like really huge.

A BBQ gone horribly wrong with kids getting stabbed in the ass by angry skewers.

The Saint Paul City Council will vote tomorrow on the following ordinance:

Final Adoption - 03-441 - An ordinance amending Chapter 106 of the Saint Paul Legislative Code allowing skateboarding in Saint Paul unless indicated otherwise.

Minnesota Resources
It's been over two long months since the last trimming of the locks. I'm beginning to look like a bad extra from That 70's Show. It's time to go in again. This time I went online to find the right spot. I ended up at the Hair Police. Where I could actually browse through stylists and make the right choice. Like online dating with less consequences...I hope. Everything should be that easy.

If you're looking for free stuff or just want to unload some things and you live in Minnesota, then check out Twin Cities Free Market. You can pick up old Macintosh SE computers, Trees(!?), Beer Coolers, just about anything goes.

OK. It's 1:30 AM you're coming home from the rock show, your cruising around wireless and your looking for a good vegan meal, or perhaps just some really yummy vegetarian Tai food. Who's still open? Where can a rock star like yourself go? Hit up RegVeg.org and browse through their growing listing of vegetarian and vegan restaurants by region. Check out the comments and reviews and get fast access to restaurant hours and menu's. A great resource that grows with the every user. Add a location or just add your favorite veggie restaurant. The Twin Cities location is the heaviest populated right now.