Pad My Life In Bubblewrap
Damn The Jeffersons and their unyielding theme song!! Why must that exuberant anthem of American Prosperity broadcast itself on my inner brain’s hi-fi system repetitively, like the time 93 FM switched over to the ‘EDGE’ and played R.E.M’s ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it’ for 24 hours straight? The answer must lie somewhere in all these moving boxes and the large rolls of bubble wrap that lie about the house like clear futuristic reproductions of those elephant turd hay bails.

Packing for the move out west has begun in earnest. This weekend I made a ‘resolve of elimination’ and broke ground on sorting through a lifetime of acquisitions in the hopes of narrowing down my trapping to only ‘essential items’. The garage sale is set for this Saturday (one day only!!). Come on down and rummage through my back catalog.

We took a break from packing long enough to watch the swell documentary about competitive scrabble. Word Wars captures one of America’s most nerdy sub-cultures ever. My favorite scene from the film takes place in the lobby of some hotel that is hosting a scrabble competition. A group of scrabble geeks are sitting on the floor, situated around a board that holds a completed game. They are attempting to do some kind of post-mortem on how the game was played out. The level of nerd power crescendos to alarming levels while a befuddled bride dressed in a white wedding gown watches in horror in the distance. She is no doubt trying to find the words that she will use to chastise her wedding planner for placing her reception in the same hotel as the scrabblers.

Also got out to see my brother’s Ska band, the Secondhand Ska Kings, Saturday night at the Red Sea. It was good to see my Melodica getting used for it’s pure Plato purpose. After the Skankin’, J.G. and I went over to the Viking and caught a couple sets by Pop Wagner ‘The Renaissance Cowboy’. Pop Wagner plays some serious old skool Harry Smith type folk music. Pop wears a sweet wide brim topper that would make Curious George’s ‘The Man with The Yellow Hat’ jealous. A great night on the West Bank. I think that one block/intersection of the West Bank is the closest thing Minneapolis has to New York City. You had the whole Minnesota ska community out, there was old time country music a block away and in between there was the bike punk posse holding open-air acoustical jams with east african onlookers. Only a few yards away an epic asian wedding reception was rollicking along in one of the larger asian restaurants.