afrojet

The Great White Buffalo

The Motor City Madman is playing at Harriet Island tonight. I have to be honest here and admit that I would totally like to go see The Nuge kick out the fucking jams this evening. It’s funny, but, the deeper the Detroit rocker swims in the hateful political deep-end, the more I continue to dig the tunes. I still am unashamed whenever I catch myself humming the catchy chorus to ‘Wang Dang Sweet Poontang’. It’s like he’s testing me in a game of wills. Tonight he’s playing at some kind of Rib Festival. How sweet is that? Thousands of folks gnawing on spicy bones, red stained hands pumping the cool night air, all chanting in communal song: “Yank Me, Crank Me, But Don’t Wake Up And Thank Me!”

Lyrical excerpt from the Great White Buffalo:

Well, it happened long time ago,
in the new magic land.
The Indian and the buffalo,
they existed hand in hand….

But then came the white man,
with his thick and empty head.
He couldnt see past the billfold,
he wanted all the buffalo dead.
It was sad…It was sad.
Oh yeah…yes indeed.

Swillmart
My shredder has been pushed to the edge of collapse these last few days. I spent most of last night knee deep in large boxes of old papers and forgotten folders. I fed king-sized portions of pulp into the dispassionate teeth of my favorite ribbon maker. Amongst all the shavings, I ran across metric tons of neato nostalgia. For example, I found a folder of police reports from 1999 that documented a time when my veteran oldsmobile was stolen on an almost bi-weekly basis. Ah, the memories. I also found this interesting little parody of a newspaper circular advertisement. It’s for a store called Swillmart (At Swillmart, We Take the Profits and Pass the Prices On to You!). It looks to have been produced sometime in the 70’s but I’m unclear as to its origins. The above pictured item is just one of the great products from the NoNamo company that was available from the Swillmart catalog. Other products include titles like: Liquid Carpet, Swillmont Wine, Home Salt Lick, and the Legionnaire’s Disease Detectolarm.

The Little Elph
The new camera hunt is over and I am back on the mountain top, looking out over the digital frontier – poised and ready to capture everything that falls in front of my viewfinder. I elected to go with a camera that was robust yet entirely portable and procured the pocket sized Canon Elph. I flirted briefly with the Pentax Digital SLR only because I was told that it was designed to be back compatible with old school analog Pentax lenses, of which I have several. But upon further investigation I learned that although the old lenses do indeed fit on the newer digital SLR cameras, it’s virtually impossible to get an accurate f/stop reading. One has to experiment by taking multiple pictures and then look at the LCD screen to see if the light and exposure are correct. Tedious.

So far the little Elph is proving to be the little camera that could. The biggest improvement over my last digital camera is the quick shutter speed and the almost nonexistent delay between pressing the shutter and capturing the image. There are a whole bunch of bells and whistles on the camera that I’ll probably never use. One of those is something called ‘color swap’, which allows the user to pick a color from any object in the viewfinder and then swap it for another color. So, for example, you could pick out the color red on a red car and then take a picture of a green car and just like that the green car becomes red. Interesting enough, but nothing I thought I would ever use. But then I started doing the color swap thing with my neighbors house, the results of which made me think this could be a really useful feature if somebody was thinking of repainting the exterior of their house or even the interior for that matter.

I think it would definitely be an improvement over simple paint chips. Although, one could pick a paint chip color and swap it in for the current color of the house. In the example above, I took one photo of my neighbors garage, which is painted a color I will call ‘latte’. Then I used the color swap mode and took three more pictures, painting the garage yellow, green, and dark gray. Those colors were pulled from a yellow bag of sidewalk salt, a green leaf, and a garbage can. As you can see the results are not perfect but it gives a fairly good idea of what the garage might look like in those colors.

Bot Flies

There is a funny David Sedaris story in the current New Yorker called ‘It’s Catching: Worms, Germs, and Christmas‘. Part of the tale recounts Maw Hamrick’s run in with a parasite in the Congo. The parasite of Sedaris’ story sounds frighteningly similar to the disturbing bot fly parasite that I had the unfortunate pleasure of knowing when I last traveled in Belize.

I’m a bit unclear of the biology, but basically a mosquito that was carrying the bot fly larva bit me. The larva went under my skin and for the next four days there was little I could do but let this thing fester inside me and mature to the point where it decided to leave my body freely. Once it’s ready, the little guy poked it’s little head out of a whole in the skin and began to unhook it’s claws and make its way out. Only at that time, was I able to squeeze the little fucker out and feed it unceremoniously to one of the nearby dogs that was hungry for the little protein scooby snack.

Not being very familiar with these horrible creatures, I of course was deeply troubled and grief stricken the entire time I acted as “host” to my newly acquired friend. All of this was quite amusing to the locals who thought nothing of having several of these bot flies occupy their body. There was even small stakes betting on larva maturation and other such odd behavior that made me conclude that all these bot flies had begun to leave long lasting neuropsychological damage on many of the locals.

See also: another good bot fly story.

The Snare of Preparation
The household goods are slowly collapsing into organized and bold faced labeled moving boxes. My alabaster ankles and shins bear the brunt of our preparations as I continue to stumble into all kinds of low lying square hazards that now clutter our floors. Uncontrollable swearing binges that would make my viking ancestors wince, spill forth from my mouth at an unprecedented rate. The unclosed flap of a box not yet filled lies in wait for its chance to lash out and saw into the flesh of my leg. Yeah, can’t wait to be done with this stage!

The moving arrangements are a grind to say the least. This weekend’s projects include the complete pack up of all the vinyl. What a bitch. It’s enough to make me want to poor gasoline on ‘em, set ‘em ablaze, and forget I ever even owned ‘em.

We’ve got the moving truck all lined up. They’ll be dropping of the trailer on the 5th of August. We’ll have the weekend to pack it up and then Monday they come and take it away. With any luck, the truck, still in possession of all our goods, will arrive safety in the port of Portland sometime around the 15th of August. I think we’ll be jumping in the car with cats in tow around the 10th. Arriving in Portland on the 11th or 12th.

Incedently, the amount of space we’ve reserved on the trailer that will be taking our stuff out west measures exactly 10 X 8 X 9, which just so happens to be the exact dimensions of our present day kitchen. I’ve clocked a lot of time now staring at our kitchen, scratching my head, trying to imagine everything we own pilled up and fitting nicely in that space. I’ve even begun to play a lot of Tetris in the hopes that this will somehow exercise that part of the brain that deals with impossible spacial arrangements.

The Passing of a Good Friend

With heavy heart dear readers, I am sad to announce the untimely passing of my digital friend – the Canon Powershot G1. Oh the sadness that has befallen me. My partner in crime, my most trusted sidekick, has passed on to the scenic heavens. I am now without any digital means to capture the daily panoramas of life’s great stories.

I feared this day would come. About a month ago, I heard a mysterious rattling inside the camera, an important piece of machinery had broken free from its moorings and was drifting aimless about the cavity of the camera. From that point on things degenerated rapidly. Two weeks ago, the camera lost all control of its ability to zoom. I pleaded, I nurtured, but I was powerless to negotiate the matter, the camera just refused to see things close up. It only wanted to stroll about on the periphery and see things from afar. Then, just yesterday, while attempting to take a picture of my fancy new haircut, it locked up completely. In the final moments, it made helpless whining sounds as if it were struggling to break free from some internal blockage. And then, my friends, it died.

Oh yes I will grieve. I will remember fondly all the great adventures we had and all the things we saw. Over the years I have grown very accustom to having the camera by my side. And now, with its passing not yet a day old, I find my life a little bit empty. And that’s why I got to find a replacement for the Canon G1. Fast. There are just too many adventures coming up that need to be properly documented in full living color. I must not dwell on the past. I shall move quickly to the future. The only question remains: what will be the next camera?

The main reasons the G1’s life was cut short was mainly do to my constant abuse of the camera. To put it rather bluntly, It’s safe to say I was downright cruel. I tossed it around. I stuck it bike bags completely unprotect. I shoved it in cargo pockets that were already filled with keys and phones. I have only myself to blame. The G1 is a rather large camera, not the SUV size of a Canon EOS but it’s not a portable camera like, say, the Canon Elph. Unfortunately, I treated it like a portable camera and in doing so hastened its demise.

So now the dilemma of what to buy. For me it boils down to portability versus flexibility. Do I go with the sleek portability of something like the Elph that would allow my to have a small and accessible camera constantly at my fingertips – ready for rapid fire snapping – or, do I graduate to the more versatile and flexible EOS. A camera that would give me a greater aperture on the world and the ability to develop my photography skills beyond the simple automatic point and shoot. Of course the price differential is quite large.

Until that decision is made, and I am once again able to snap freely, I fear these pages could be a bit text heavy.

The Unencumbered Estate
And on the tenth day, the air conditioner was allowed a day of rest. The heat wave has given pause here today But I fear it’s going to be a brief respite following the last nine days of temperatures above 90 degrees. Apparently we haven’t experienced a heat wave like this since the late 1800’s. Hot Damn indeed! Of course, it was only natural that we would hold our garage sale on the hottest day of the year. Luckily this thing was billed as a ‘garage sale’ and not a ‘yard sale’ which meant that we could take cover all day in the hot box that was our garage. Fortunately, the heat did not discourage the masses from flocking to our goods. By all accounts the day (see photos) was a huge success. The craigslist geeks came early shouting with deep lisps, “hey there fellow Craigslister!!”, at once giving that title a heavy air of dorkiness that made me regret my loose affiliation immediately. Luckily, they all bought a lot of crap. The kids were the best part of the sale. They singlehandedly suckered their sweltering parents into shucking out cash for items I’m 100% sure they didn’t even know the purpose of. One boy used some jedi mind trick on his parent to buy a complete set of silverware. Silverware! What 12 year-old boy needs a complete set of silverware?

Anticipating the heat of the day, I stocked a cooler with ice cold bottled water and cokes. Sold ‘em for 25 cents a piece I did. This turned out to be the deal closer. Overheated bodies became so happy once hydrated that they didn’t even think twice before paying full price for hair curlers, broken lamps, and used garden edging.

After the sale we were flush with money and dying for that special kind of super-powered air conditioning that can only be found in megaplex theaters. We saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was terrific. Johnny Depp owns Wonka. He’s alarmingly good. His Wonka character was so good in fact that I was kinda bummed that it was tethered to the plot of the movie, which was familiar. I wanted to see Johnny’s Wonka outside the boundaries of the script. I propose a movie be made called something like; “The Mad Adventures of The Johnny Four”, it would be co-directed by Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton and would star only Johnny Depp. The four main characters would be Johnny’s Willie Wonka, Hunter S. Thompson, Captain Jack Sparrow, and Don Quixote. They would be a merry band of travelers cruising different geographical locations and historical/futuristic time periods. Along the way they would run into and have adventures with all the other characters Johnny has ever played – like the 21 Jump Street guy, Edward Scissorhands and Donnie Brasco. Think about it. It would be kick ass!

Voldemort Can’t Stop the Rock!
The misses is signed up to get her new Harry Potter this evening. Although I’ve never read any of ‘em, I’m curious enough to go witness the cultural oddity that is the Harry Potter fan base bedazzled in their frock and habit.

Here is a sampling of Potter Mania in our own backyard:

Minneapolis Public Library:
In celebration of the Harry Potter mania, the Library and Minneapolis Parks will feature a concert by the band, “Harry and the Potters”.

The duo is performing a free concert at Kenwood Park, 2101 W. Franklin Ave., Tuesday, July 19th at 6:30pm.

The band has two albums out: Harry and the Potters and Voldemort Can’t Stop the Rock! featuring songs such as: I Am a Wizard, The Dark Lord Lament, My Teacher Is a Werewolf, and The Missing Arm of Viktor Krum. With this summer’s release of the sixth Harry Potter, the band is finding itself quite busy.

Birchbark Books:
marshmallow roasting

ugly vegtables (for those on a marshmallow free diet)

a golden snitch pinata

a costume party in July

a wicked good time with friends

Brian Baxter, star of KSTP six o’clock news, in costume

Minnesota Zephyr
In honor of the release, the Minnesota Zephyr and the Valley Bookseller are teaming up for a special “Hogwarts Express.” The depot will be transformed into “diagon alley” complete with magic and candy shops. “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” books will also be available to buy.

Also, check out your whole list of Potter Parties in Minnesota.

All-Star Wine List
Quite often, the long journeys I must take to bring back the freshest content for these here pages require that I spend an occasional evening getting sotted and becoming plowed. It is a sacrifice I must make. But, I do it all for you, my faithful readers.

Last night became one of those oiled evenings, the fruits of which I will now share. I toured over to my friends Jodi and Heather’s place to cheer on the American League in the All Star Game. These friends of mine besides being huge baseball geeks are hardcore wine buffs ta boot. Once the variety of vinos were uncorked the game merely became background entertainment to an unprecedented wine tasting party. I, knowing very little about wine, was greatly impressed with the knowledge talk and quite bowled over by many of the selections. I became pleasantly drunk too.
At evenings end I had Heather draw me up a list so I might remember some of the selections. Here now is that list. Most of these are under $20 and a great many of them are $10 or less.

Whites:

Kings Estate Pinot Gris, Oregon (mineral, alcohol)
Pavao Vinho Verde, Spain (light, effervescent)
Giesen Sauvignon Blanc (brilliant, grapefruit)
El Portillo Sauvignon Blanc (cheap, grapefruit, dry)
Wachauer Rainer Wess Gruner Veltliners, Austria (minerality, salt, great for white fish)

Reds:
Copper Mountain Pinot Noir, Oregon (organic, dark berries)
Altano Douro, Portugal (cheap, great)
Beaucanon Estate Cabernet Franc (huge, elegant)
Protocolo, Vino De La Tierra De Castilla, Spain (cheap, great)
Arbanta Rioja (organic, family farm)
Joao Pires Dry Muscat, Portugal (very dry)
Wildekrans Pinotage (spicy)
Archery Summit, Pinot Noir, Premiere Cuvee, Oregon (more expensive, brilliant)
El Portillo Malbec, Mendoza (chocolate, berry)

Employee of the Month
Sitting having a cigarette yesterday I tried to make a mental list off all the jobs that I’ve ever had. By job, I mean anything that I ever actually got paid to do. So volunteer work didn’t count. This is the list I came up with but dammit I know there are some things that I’m forgetting. What’s your past job list?

Minneapolis Public School Teacher
House painter
Snow shoveler
Musician
Documentary film maker
Child and Adolescent Treatment Specialist
Barista
Concessions Manager at a bingo hall
Graphic Designer
Creative Director (start up dot com/bomb)
Caterer
House Cleaner
Assistant summer school custodian
Camp Counselor
General Manager (college radio station)
Retail sales (book store, comic book shop)
Researcher
Tour Guide (mexico)
Computer consultant
Bike messenger (portland)
Dishwasher
Tele-marketer (lasted only one day!)
Small Business Owner

I think if I had to pick a favorite (besides my current gig) it would be the job at the ‘Pot O’ Gold’ bingo hall. That shit was the best job evah. Also of note is that ‘blogger’ does not appear on this list.