I watched the movie Yojimbo the other night. What a fantastic movie. It’s an Akira Kirosawa film circa 1961. Beautifully crafted, and very minimal. I can’t wait to see the sequal, which I am anxiously awaiting for Netflix to deliver to my door stop. I’m a little worried though. I think my devious neighbors are stealing my Netflix deliveries. I was supposed to receive several other fine cinema classics that have yet to show themselves. I have been impressed with Netflix so far. The rate at which they turn around movies has been pleasantly fast. Unfortunately the size of my mailbox does not accommodate the circumference of a cd/dvd forcing my mail carrier to place the Netflix cargo on top of the burgeoning stack of AOL cds that are laying siege to my stoop. I am drawing up plans for a raid on my neighbors domicile quietly in my spare moments. My neighbors own a confused gray cat that has taken to lying about on my patio trying to engage me in staring contests and other feline fecundity. If more drastic measures must be taken to secure my DVD inflow than the cat will be snatched and held (loving of course) until they cough up the goods.

But back to Yojimbo. It’s a great movie. Did i mention that? It was redone as an American western with Clint “the man” Eastwood. The title was changes to A Fistful of Dollars. Yojimbo has an amazing score by Masaru Sato. I think somebody should make a 2002 version of Yojimbo but use the original score and sequencing. One of my favorite scenes of the movie is near the beginning when the two warring clans in the village are lined up in the streets taunting each other to engage in battle, when a messenger arrives to tell all that some regional inspector is a about to show up. Both clans back off and demand that everyone in town act normal and happy, as if everything is peaceful.

The arrival of the inspector and the pretend harmony that ensues is a fantastic theme. From parents interrupting battling siblings to principles in the halls of high schools, from the cops on the streets of L.A. to the U.N. inspectors in Sierra Leone, it’s all Yojimbo.

I must now go drink more coffee and write to the powers that be about this new phenomenon known as “The Yojimbo Effect”. I’ll do that right after I win the next staring contest with my neighbors’ cat.

battle creek park!

I was told an amazing dot.bomb story today by this guy who works in the same building as I. His name is James Brown, and he could very well have run with the godfather of super heavy funk back in the hay day. JB works on the same floor where this young educational software company rose to power and collapsed within the same breath, leaving behind a trail of smoke and broken mirrors.

According to JB, this company came and took over his floor (he was the first tenant there over 20 years ago) and subsequent floors like a hyper cancer, performing amazing build outs at untold costs, renovating elevators and installing huge glass installations to the amazement of everyone else who watched the e-commerce stampede.

JB found the new company hard to swallow. “They never talked to anyone”, JB said. “Everyone in our building is really friendly, everyone talks to each other on the elevator – I know just about everyone in the building.” Which was proven true as JB gave me a tour of the dot.bomb remains and said good morning to every maintenance worker and office dweller by name. “But these dotcommers never said a word, like they were better than everyone else”, JB exclaimed. He thought the influx of Californians to the upstart was the problem but he wasn’t sure.

Well, this software upstart goes on to hire and import about 150 employees giving them each amazing custom built workstations and gets them all working on bleeding edge educational tools, which, I’m sure if they could have raised just one more round of financing would have revolutionized the way children eat chalk and plagiarize college essays. But they didn’t. sadly.

Instead the management of the company decides to closes up shop one day right after the yuletide holidays and locks every employee out of the office.

JB was happy that day because for the first time he actually got to hear some of these employees speak. But speaking wasn’t the only thing these employees did. They all muddled around for about 45 minutes yelling and screaming obscenities at the management before they realized the management wasn’t home! So they Rioted! Yeah, they smashed the glass windows, tore into their Herman Miller workstation and looted the joint. “not just staplers and stuff, everyone was running out with lap-tops, large computers and monitors, statues, and lots of toys”, remembers JB, “It was hysterical”. I bet. I wish I could have seen it with my own eyes but JB’s tour of the carnage, which is still pretty fresh, was impressive enough. I am left wondering just how many stories there are like this one. Apparently, JB remembers after finally getting the chance to speak with one of the employees, “they hadn’t been paid in months”. Damn. That is one fucked company.

It was my friend Bill’s 29th birthday this weekend (an age that I’m going to have to get real familiar with in the not so distant future). Like all good parties in Saint Paul a call went up from somewhere in Bill’s foyer for the late night remainders (read: the childless) to leave his house, and the college basketball that was playing itself out on the smallest television on the lower south side, and to rendezvous at The Manor.

The Manor is quietly becoming my favorite place to spend a Friday or a Saturday night. Primarily because of Donna Dee. Queen of the piano bar, Donna commands the room like Captain Kirk perched on a raised platform surrounded by the controls of her Wurlitzer and other assorted anolog/digital synths. Donna’s followers, droogs, support commandos, groupies?, huddle and support themselves along the outside of her padded lounge half circle, waiting for their chance to croon their way into our hearts with an olde tyme selection from her master file of piano bar favorites. Was that “King of the Road” I just heard? Oh Christ that’s a great version of “Delta Dawn”. “The Girl From Ipanema” has never sounded so intimate – so gentle on the north shores of the mississip’ – if only Jobim could hear us now.

We are always the youngest ones at The Manor. Even on the eve of St. Pats day, we are the only kids. But damn, that suit fits well. We always drink like hedonist hooligans living on someone else’s time, someone else’s song. But the thievery is good and important when celebrating a near thirty birthday. It struck me last night that the songs Donna-Dee’s consortium belts out with polonaise soul once were very important songs. First date songs. Youth mantras. Fight songs. Sadly, to me they don’t amount to much more than a giant ball of kitsch. I wonder what version of the piano bar we will have when we are the age of Donna’s current chorus. Does the fact that I love to hang out at The Manor now show how poor the current ‘scene’ is for the jet-setting twenty-something hipsters of the Twin Towns. Maybe someday I’ll be singing Moby songs at some geriatric club that shows old re-runs of The Simpsons and Cribs. Ok, that would be pretty cool actually.

I love the Manor because it’s a throw back to another time – a slower time. Sure the piano bar was pretty rowdy Saturday night, what with all the St. Pat neon green headbands tethered to foreheads and powder dust wigs. And yes the elfish elvis looking bartender was eight shots of Jameson in front of anyone who could vie for a close second, and who spilled more booze on himself and the floor then over my rocks with a twist. But you can always escape for a while and enjoy The Manor’s second room. The second room is powered by a big band lounge act that provides the deep vibe for sinking into the comforts of a high backed faux-naugahyde experience. From the booth you can sip your drink and catch glimpses of people dancing dances that actually require steps. All this for no cover. odd.

My other favorite part of The Manor is the interior design and architecture, which before today, if pressed, I would have mumbled something about sixties modern and dark Scandinavian design. But then on The Manor website it mentions googie architecture, a school of architecture I was very unschooled in. After poking around the googie sites, I am resolved to hunt down more of these restaurant icons and make mandatory stops when on the road or visiting lesser villages. Go googie! go Donna! See you at the Piano Bar.

Winter in Minnesota is like gravity. You can jump in the air and pretend for a second that it’s gone but then it smacks you in the face when you fall hard.

The Storm of the Year, left me pinned and hunkered down last night. The hot coco was brought out. Sammy Davis Jr. scratched and swooned from the hi-fi and several volumes of Dostoevsky were read, or…perhaps it was Dickens. In either case it was first edition and leather-bound with gold leaf ridges. My friend Joel brought me back some sacred smokes from the shores of Communist Cuba not long ago. A few of those were also enjoyed. The brand was “Romeo y Julieta”. What a great name for cigarettes. Communists got class.

Today I find special amusement in odd comfort toys. Some of them I’m not sure I would give to a child but I find funny nonetheless.

It’s 6 in the morning and I have a bloody nose, so what better time to write about going to the Science Museum of Minnesota last weekend. My main motivation for finally making it down to the relocated and redecorated science museum was the screening of the OMNI movie Shakleton’s Arctic Adventure. Having read both Endurance and Shakleton’s Forgotten Men. I was giddy to see the 8mm footage that was taken of the Endurance locked in Ice Pack and Frank Hurley’s Epic photos of her bow being snapped like matchsticks.

The movie was excellent. A great combination of Hurley’s still photography, old film footage, historical re-enactments, a dramatic narration by Kevin Spacey, and the obligatory (but oh so anticipated) helicopter OMNI shots — a roller coaster over the arctic ice caps. The film goes out of its way to show the toil and trauma that Shakleton and his men went through just to survive (having their original mission of being the first to cross the Antarctic continent go horribly wrong). One of my favorite moments was when the experienced modern day mountaineers equipped with thousands of dollars of sweet gear from REI, Patagonia and North Face retrace Shakleton’s route over the South St. George Island and with camera crew along show what Shakleton and his men must have faced with their flimsy British government issue wool sweaters and screws in their soles for traction shoes.

My one criticism of the movie is that it makes no mention of the other party that busted its ass to lay the depots that Shakleton would never use (hence the name probably for “Shakleton’s Forgotten Men”). For me that’s the part of the entire expedition story that leaves me scratching my melon and asking, why? What compels us to boldly go where no man has gone before? Obviously, there’s a very good reason that nobody has gone there before. It’s cold – you get scurvy – you die. Humans were not meant for that climate. Regardless though, I thought Shackleton a bad-ass and a hero.

However the next night I watched the French Documentary of the New York City Firehouse that got down to business on 9-11. The juxtaposition of that film to the Shakleton adventure, made Saturday’s Shackleton hero worship seem very small. Shakleton gets points for being crazy enough to boldly go where no man has gone before, simply for showing us the possible – the triumph of the individual – man against nature. But the guy’s of the NY Firehouse, who put aside their own concerns to help the citizens lost in chaos, get my vote today. The scene where the fire chief throws his body on top of the French film maker when the second tower came down is about as close to a pure altruistic event as one could ever imagine.

Anyhoo. Obligatory comments on the new (for me) Science Museum. It’s very nice but way to Childcentric to warrant repeat visits from the jaded late twenties demo. The sound sculpture is a must see (hear) however. It’s a huge installation hanging from the ceiling like a double helix meets the corkscrew roller coaster at Vallyfair, where each helix is a metal tube set to a certain musical pitch. Each bar is set with an electronic sensor that I thought was triggered by the folks walking around the museum (which I tried unsuccessfully to control by breaking into tiny dance routines) but which I later learned, after reading the explanatory text (oh yeah), that the bars are triggered by the earths seismic activity around the world. Jesus…dullsville. Oh well, I’ll have to go rock out at the Science Museum the next time San Francisco has another 7.3.

“Dude, Eddie Van Halen could never play a Richter Scale”.

Ok. I got to say it. “The Osbourns” is some of the best damn T.V. ever. I think I watched the first episode 3 times over the weekend, mostly the result of a brilliant snow storm which was as good a reason as any to hunker down and hibernate with Ozzy and his clan. Even after my third viewing I couldn’t figure out what the heck they were all screaming about. Watching Ozzy attempt to figure out the computerized deck for operating his television, and get so frustrated with it that he wants to pound on it and smash it, which, when he does, makes the lamps behind him turn on and off, is so funny that just writing about it makes me giggle with glee. I wish I could have sat in on the MTV creative meetings when this show was being discussed as a potential for the 2002 schedule. If you enjoy the show, then you must read STEE’s comments at “Television Without Pity”. I’m very glad they gave this show to him.

“Lima Beans don’t make me mean”
– James Brown

Sometimes Modern Technology doesn’t seem so good at all. Recently, I’ve had to reinstall my system software a half dozen times or so which has roughed the edges of my techno tolerance and left me open to the possibility that modern advances in technology and software amount to little more then quaint cartoons and supersonic skateboards, that only the builders and slack jaw hooligans who follow the press releases of those builders will ever care about.

This paranoia and line of questioning that I fall prey to in my luddite lapses, usually results from seeing an artifact, a design, a possibility from the past that is so perfect that it shames anything that’s being created on the same plane today. A Frank Lloyd Wright house, a 1968 Dodge Charger R/T, it’s all subjective but you get the idea. Sometimes the old school perfection can be found in the small details of a great old work. Now don’t get me wrong. This isn’t nostalgia I’m talking about. This isn’t the happiness I find in gently dusting my records before putting them on the turntable, or experiencing the joy of making my own stamps. No, it’s more than that. These artifacts of old comment on my modern world, not making me wish for older times (things) necessarily, but suggest, rather, that there is a lack of quality control in today’s marketable goods, which shows itself most dramatically in the technological solutions that make a claim at problem solving – or advancing our lives.

This all came to point this weekend, when I was at my parents house, admiring the collection of Cribbage Boards (it’s a game) that my step-father has amassed – Over 500 boards now with no end in sight – And one book published on the subject to boot. His latest obsession are cribbage boards put out by a company called Horn. They began making boards in the early part of last century and continued to invent and create new styles of boards, improving little by little on a a solid foundation. They are, I must admit, very amazing. But the best part about the Horn boards and the part that is relevant here is the tiny detail of the “slider”. The slider is a thin strip of brass (once steel) that, when removed from the cribbage board reveals a compartment for holding the pegs used to count points in the game of cribbage. The amazing thing about the Horn sliders is that everyone of them can be interchanged with any Horn board ever made. This was proven to me as I took one slider from a Horn board dated 1917 and threw it in one that was made in the late 1960’s. Simply amazing. You mean someone came up with a solution to a problem (how to store the cribbage pegs) solved the problem, and then left it alone – forever? Damn.

This probably would have been impressive to me in a sort of “Well, that’s good craftsmanship” type of thing. And I would have left it at that had it not been for another recent event of total juxtaposition.
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I own an Apple G3 Powerbook and only have one power supply for this sucker, a burden since the battery Apple shipped with this machine is a total piece of shit and dies after 10 minutes of use. I wanted to get another power supply for the powerbook so I could have one at home and one at work. I decided that a trip out to the mega mall to visit the new Apple store would be a good time to buy this tiny accessory and check out the new store that’s been the “buzz”. Well the storefront is great; Clean, impressive, bright. Nice job all around on the design of the Apple Store. However, trying to get a power supply for a one-and-a-half year old apple machine erased all that. It turns out Apple doesn’t make or sell those power supply cords anymore and the new powerbooks (the titanium variety) are sold with a power supply almost identical to the one that I covet, yet it is 4 millimeters smaller than mine and was never meant to fit my ancient machine. The poor folk at the apple store (even the guy working at the genius bar) didn’t seem to acknowledge that this was just unacceptable, and although I consider myself facile at locating and purchasing things on-line, I have to admit that I was pissed off when the they told me the only way I could get my prehistoric power was to find a third party seller somewhere “on-line”. They said they could recommend some sites on “the internet” to get me started.

It’s enough to make me wonder…Was the advance in design of the new power supply so much greater to warrant making it useless to every other Apple computer? Did the revenues generated off the hype of an anorexically thin titanium powerbook (and therefore slimmer power supply) offset alienating those customers who don’t buy a new computer every fiscal quarter? Can the slider from a Horn Cribbage board teach us a lesson in planned obsolescence? Hell, can I power my computer with a Horn slider? Or should I just turn the machines off for the day and play a game of cribbage?