Drum

Snow Days Revisited
Another secret snowfall blanketed the morning. What a year to be a child of school age. They probably had at least a week off school this season. When I went to bed around midnight last night I could still see the grass on my lawn. So all of this new snow must have fallen in the last seven to eight hours. This week I’ve been silently watching two beautiful scarlet red cardinals making a cozy home in one of our backyard bushes. I’m afraid this last snowfall has buried their new deluxe bird condo underneath a small mountain. I wonder where they have been displaced to. I hope they return when the snow is gone again. Another photo.

Galactic Panic

The kittens and I share the same physical and psychological space today. It’s a recovery kind of space. A post-traumatic stress space, where warm teas and milk blend nicely with a mellow dub vibe on the hi-fi. The kittens just arrived back from a two day vacation at the vet where they both got spayed. I am recovering from some kind of bizarre panic attack suffered last night on the streets of Minneapolis.

I can’t say I’ve ever experienced a panic attack before and I’m not 100% certain that that’s what it was. I do know that if it doesn’t happen again in my lifetime, then I’ll be a happier man.

I ventured out last night to the Fine Line Music Cafe to see the funky stylings of Galactic. The Fine Line is notorious for overselling their shows and last night was no exception. The joint was packed tighter than a Pamela Anderson brassiere. It took all my energy to tunnel through and claw my way past the patchouli stained masses up to the bar. The Fine Line is also notorious for small watered down drinks that are intensely expensive. Last night was no exception to that rule either. Gallactic’s first set went by without incident. I was having a good time and getting my micro groove on. But during the break between sets the crowd started weighing heavy on my soul. I noticed I was feeling really hot. Damn hot. Las Vegas in July hot. My legs began to melt, liquify, and spill out from the bottom of my pants. I couldn’t see it but I knew it was happening. At that point I mumbled something incoherent to my peeps and excused myself. I needed some fresh air fast. Easier said than done. Walking from far stage left to the front door of the Fine Line felt like summiting Mount Everest without oxygen. And without legs. I spilled many a peoples drinks as I flung myself slovenly from person to person. I was using humans like monkey bars trying to make forward progress in my claustrophobic hell.
Eventually I made it outside and collapsed on the sidewalk just four feet from the entrance to the club. I couldn’t tell if I was going to puke, if my heart was going to explode, or if my legs were going to fall off. I crawled over to the building wall and sat despondently for a good long time trying to reeducate myself in the fine art of breathing. It wasn’t looking good. I was convinced someone had drugged me, slipped something into one of my drinks. I was the Titanic on the streets of Minneapolis going down quickly. I actually called at people to help me as I had no idea what was going on with my body. Thankfully, everyone ignored my pleas and I was left alone. I kept telling myself to ‘play though’. Then for some odd reason, in my most desperate hour I started thinking about Bill Cosby. Well not Bill Cosby, but rather Doctor Huckstable from the Cosby Show. It was a weird sorta ‘What Would Doctor Huckstable Do’ situation. And damn – it worked. After about three minutes of thinking about Doctor Huckstable and concentrating on my breathing I started to come around. And after another five minutes passed I was on my way to a semi-lucid recovery.

I’ve had minor battles with claustrophobia before. I especially seem to get it bad at Veterinary hospitals. Something about those small windowless rooms with dog and cat intestinal illustrations always seems to send my head spinning. But last night was the first time it took full frightening control over me. It’s probably very hard to explain the feeling of full claustrophobia to anyone who has never felt it. Kinda like trying to describe the notion of ‘pain’ to the girl who feels no pain. Who knows? Maybe Galactic was just too funky and I got a funk overdose. The story would make for a sweet gig review: “The band was so on tonight that I had to leave and pass out on the side walk”.

Anyhoo, I’ve got the the New Orleans JazzFest coming up in just a few weeks and this claustrophobia induced panic attack stuff is not the sort of thing one wants to bring as their ‘A-game’. Bottom line. More training is necessary.

Super Duper Tuesday

At exactly 7PM last night I reported to my precinct DFL caucus to cast my lot with fellow neighbors and drop civic science on them all. Luckily for me, John Edwards had just burped some mention that he was out of the race before most Minnesotans were able to get to their caucus. That made convincing people to throw their vote behind Dennis Kucinich that much easier. Actually it wasn’t that tough. Turns out my precinct is a pretty progressive one. No one seemed really gung-ho to get behind John Kerry. From the people I talked with who were going to vote for Kerry, they spoke in that leveled tone you expect to hear from someone who has just had to shoot their dog in order to put it out of some terrible misery. After an hour passed and the votes were finally counted they broke down as follows:

Edwards: 20
Kerry: 18
Kucinich: 12
Clark: 1
Dean: 1

As for the Kucinich vote, we were a few points under the 17% that he got throughout the entire state. After the votes were tallied we got a pep speech from our Ward 11 Council Member, Scott Benson. Who, it turns out, speaks exactly like you would expect after looking at his photo. A real condescending energetic circus clown kinda guy. He made it clear that one of the central battles being fought in the Ward is the exorcism of the two shady motels that run South on Lyndale Avenue. They are apparently the last two holdouts in a Ward bent on some serious gentrification. Scott assures us all that the two motels have both signed binding legal agreements to clean up their act. Part of which means they both need to “strongly consider an MPD suggestion to increase its room rates as a way of attracting better clientele”. It doesn’t get any more clearcut than that.

As the caucus lingered on we passed about five progressive resolutions. One resolution demanded the US pull out of and work to put an end to NAFTA and the WTO. Another requested that the US should follow international laws and treaties when it comes to Nuclear Weapons. Two other resolutions fought to refund education and head-start programs and then this last resolution:

Security through International Cooperation:
The U.S. must renounce the doctrine of preemptive war and work with the United Nations to resolve serious, international problems such as terrorism, genocide, nuclear prolifiration, and tyrannical regimes, through the use of diplomacy, the promotion of democracy, focused nonviolent intervention, and peaceful conflict resolutions.

All in all it was a fun time. The highlight of course was the sheer number of humans that came out. Record attendance everywhere. The people seemed determined.

Oscar Hangover

Man I can’t believe I stayed up and watched the entire Oscar extravaganza last night. Now I’m tired and a bit cranky with myself for spending too many of life’s precious hours with that boring event. If it weren’t for Will Farrell and Jack Black, I would be hating myself even more this morning. I’m very happy the whole LoTR trilogy business is done. I just never understood the hype around Peter Jackson’s directing abilities. I mean the guy can’t even make a movie that’s not 4 1/2 hours long. From where I come from, that’s just a lack of discipline. My two cats slept through the whole affair, only being roused for a brief show of appreciation for that jazzy tune from the Triplets of Belleville. I think they were into the guy playing the bicycle.

Thankfully the rest of the weekend wasn’t such a bland affair. I saw Urge Overkill at the Ave Friday night. They tore that place up. Genuine rock stars all the way. The UO have a penchant for all white suits. And for a bunch of aging rockers they looked better than many of the men on the red carpet last night.

Saturday the misses and I went a little overboard and purchased a fine danish end table. Up until this weekend I had a crummy little table next to my reading chair and it was beginning to sag from all the books and magazines piling up. Things would spill off from time to time and it was making the entire living room look like the floor of Mount Saint Helens. The new table has done wonders. Fine furniture has an odd psychological effect on myself. I think when you treat your furniture like art instead of simply something to sit in or put something on, you get a much more satisfing feeling just walking into a room. I guess it’s just another sign of aging but nice furniture brings me much happiness.

Hometown Pride
Your faith in humanity is shaken when the last thing you hear on the local news before going to bed is that two men, arguing about which area code (612 or 651) is better, got into a shoot out on a stretch of I-94. Read the story Man dies in I-94 shooting.

I’ve been going on brief little walks everyday in order to upset the sedentary nature of work and stretch my legs a bit. The last couple of days, I seem to have chosen to take my walks at the exact same time that the local Middle School gets out. There I am strolling amongst the shorter people of society who are darting about with little backpacks, racing to get home and play internet or Xbox no doubt. I’ve also noticed that the kids have been trained very well to avoid people like me. I’m slowly learning that adult individuals, who are not walking dogs, have no business wandering about the neighborhood three to four hours before the accepted post-dinner time when the curfew on adult walkers is lifted. To be fair I don’t make things easy on myself, what with my black jacket, and black wool skull cap pulled tightly over my dome, and sometimes rocking the three day old beard. I guess I just have to get comfortable with the fact that I look like some sketchy dude prowling the neighborhood. But damn do you really have to cross to the other side of the street and start running in the opposite direction when I come walking down the sidewalk?

But these are the days of ‘Fear-Factor’ alert orange. Even I fall into the same pattern given the right opportunity. I read an article about iPod thievery the other day. Basically the little white ear buds are such a brilliant branding idea that they’ve become a prime reason for getting jacked, much like Air Jordans in the 90’s. So now I’m on the alert when I walk around with the iPod. Two days ago I went for a walk down by the creek. The path I take to get down to the creek goes through a Holiday convenience station. As I was walking through the lot of the Holiday, bobbing my head to the beat, I noticed that a group of men were standing outside, one was holding a huge wad of cash out in the open. He started motioning me to come over. Apparently, he wanted to have a polite chat. I thought about it for a split second: group of large men, one with huge wad of cash in hand, it’s pretty dark outside, is this something I want to get involved in? Answer: no. Absolutley not. It was a safe bet that no good would come from me responding to their invitation. Unfortunately, I pointed directly at my earbuds and made some sort of half-assed gesture that was meant to be interpreted as: “Sorry sir, I have headphones on and cannot understand what you are saying, so I’m just going to keep walking, thanks anyway.” I could faintly hear them yelling towards me as I walked away and turned the corener. Well that pretty much ruined the walk for me. You see, as soon as your clear of the Holiday station you descend a large stone staircase that empties onto the path down by the creek. Picture a scene from any 80’s horror flick where dim street lamps are obscured by a soft frozen mist coming off a creek and you can see what I was up against. Just like that I turned into the Middle School kid with the fear radar going bananas.

Mel Gibson
I was going to weigh in on the current media frenzy surrounding ‘Gibson-gate’ but I think these words from the Good Doctor in an email I received today sum it up better than I could:

ITEM: You would think that there is no other news in
this world with all the fuss over Mel Gibson and his
idiotic movie about Jesus. Some Bible thumper from
town was interviewed on the local news this morning
and was saying how the movie was “accurate”. How does
he know this? Fuck Mel Gibson. Everything he has been
involved with since Road Warrior has been shit shit
shit. The Willamette Week critic said it was more
violent than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

And from an article in the London News Review about the troubling ‘acts of god’ that occured on the set of ‘Passion’:

This week Jim Caviezel, the actor playing Christ in the film which now has the much snappier title, The Passion of Christ, was struck by lightning for a second time. Steve McEveety, self-confessed Catholic and producer of the film, said, “I’m about a hundred feet away from them when I glance over and see lightning coming out of Caviezel’s ears.” And as if that weren’t enough – coming out of his *ears*, for Christ’s sake – he also had his fingertips burned by a separate bolt earlier in filming.

Drum

War Drums
I think I’ve found the drum set of my dreams. Isn’t she a thing of beauty. And what with it being an election year and all, these babies are the perfect instrument I need to beat a war march to the polls in November. I can do a drum roll for John Edwards, a cymbal splash for John Kerry, a paradiddle for Al Sharpton and can give Ralph Nader the big kick drum. Sitting upon the throne of this patriotic drum set, I will lay down a wicked bossa nova groove and we will all dance George Bush from his un-hip exclusive clubhouse. Dance! It’s Carnival time.

Bukowski

Bukowski in Film
Reading the FLM magazine last night I got all kinds of excited about – not one, but two movies about Charles Bukowski that are about to drop. The first will be the documentary, Bukowski: Born into This. From the review it looks like the movie will be a long overdue historical portrait with tons of old archival footage of the man the folks he hung out and worked with. This movie looks like it’s making the rounds in the independent film circuit and will hopefully be in a movie theater near me soon. The second full length is being written and directed by Bent Hamer (sweet name), who has the flick, Kitchen Stories, currently out in theaters. Hamer will be making a talking picture out of Bukowski’s book Factotum.

Touching the Void

The work load was more than I could take yesterday. It’s still daunting but yesterday I couldn’t take any more pixel pushing. It was time for some irresponsible mid-day movie time. I got what I was looking for in ‘Touching the Void’ (IFC Films, The book, Joe Simpson’s website). Hot damn is that a fine human drama. The shots alone of the heinous mountains that sought to destroy the two protagonists was worth the price of admission alone. Then add to that a story of unparalleled bad-assness on the part of Joe Simpson and his miraculous decent from the summit, and you’ve got yourself something close to brilliance. Pure guts and death defiant triumph. I would talk more about this movie but I don’t want to ruin it for those of you who should go see it ASAP.