doodledee

I'm blowing thru Hartford again this week. It's about like I expected. I spend my days feasting on Dunkin and working in a windowless cell and my nights testing the elasticity of my per diem. (Update: surprisingly inelastic.)

So far the highlight has been my cab driver on the way in, who almost got in a fist fight with another cab driver at the airport right before I got in his cab. Um, I'll wait, thanks? Then he spent the first 15 minutes of our ride GOING OFF about the other guy and how he was such a "wise guy". Meanwhile, I spent the first 15 minutes of the ride praying silently that I would make it to my windowless cell in one piece. Seriously, I was a little freaked out. I was trying to go all peacemaker on him, talking about the weather and doing all my "dumb Minnesotan" bits. There'd be a lull and I'd be all "So, you call it a grinder, eh?" and he would be all "THAT GUY IS A WISEGUY!!" and I'd quickly resume my praying. At least we took the carpool lane so it was a quick ride.

Tonight the team rocked out this Vaughan's Irish Pub joint. It's the best place we've been to so far for dinner. Good atmosphere, good food, absurdly great homemade irish cream. And yeah, that's maybe kind of a sissy drink (right?) but whatever, next time I'm thinking maybe I'll just skip dinner and get 6 of them instead. That good. We clumsily begged the waitress for their secret recipe and she humored us by asking but - duh - it was a nogo. I looked around online a bit and it's actually not that crazy hard of a recipe. I'm sure my sister has made it 50 times and serves it up in matching mugs with a dollop of whipped cream and a handwritten Yeats poem for each person. This weekend, maybe? Love to, thanks.

Can we talk about this NPR Wilco show streaming live to my hotel room right now? Because it's ridiculous. Reaching back to 'AM'. To 'Being There' (!!). The new stuff. It's all so comfortable now. Top of their game? Some say yes. I d/l'd a couple of the recent Chicago run shows and haven't listened yet but they clearly must have been inspiring. DesMoines on the 9th? Tickets are still available?! Temp. Ting.

While the rest of you new media rubes were de-bunching your undies over at the UBS Forum thing, I was home doing dishes and changing diapers and watching this video I shot of Sunday night's roller derby over and over and over again. And by that I mean like maybe twice, at which point I took the liberty of tweeting at myself about how boring I was being. Zingers!

Derby was awesome as expected. Even with the blowout first match. And the crazy halftime metal band entertainment. Though they were fun for a while. In a surreal kind of way. Like "who is that lady who looks like my mom and why is she standing motionless 4 feet from the stage while a band named 'Corpse Show Creeps' is laying waste?" Seriously, who was she? Mom?

The second match was superclose. It even went into OT, which I think may have been a first because the refs had to huddle up and decide what the OT rules were. I'm still not sure I understand what exactly went down, but I can guarantee you this: the Garda Belts got totally jobbed. Sid will have the full breakdown, I'm sure.

Video comment: that loud guy yelling 'Sparkle Ninjaaaaa' may or may not be me. Ok, wait, it's totally me. She's so fast and spunky and stuff, how can you not cheer for her? Exactly.

I took maybe 4 shots before my shutter button finger froze and broke off. But it was worth it. Majestic? Some say yes.

The moon is the little sliver of light thing in the upper right corner. Honest. (Click-to-big.)

So there's that horrible story in the news today with all its horrible details and you all know what I'm talking about. You can't avoid it. And here's me, listening to The Current, trying to get my tunes on, cranking away at the office, and here comes Bob Collins with his shticky little newsbanter segment with Lucia. And he's doing his thing and then here he goes, into all the graphic details and I'm all like "seriously, we have to do this on The Current?" I mean I'm not That Guy, but it's a music station, and we often have it on in the background at the house around the kids and stuff. Seems a little trashy to go all SVU on your listening audience. Check that, a lot trashy. Kids or no kids in the room. Sure, report the story, but the sensationalist garbage details? Lame.

So I shoot a quick email to Bob and say "Maybe dial back the graphic details ... when you're on The Current." I'm all polite and stuff, I say that it's a music station, kids, blah blah blah.

His response included the following three words: thanks. no. bob.

CLASSY.

Two guesses as to how I'll answer next time MPR calls and asks me to re-up my membership.

Update 2/21/08 - Since comments are closed - and I can't reopen them without the spambots taking over - Bob emailed me a response and I added it to the thread on his behalf.

Cold enough that a weatherman will sneak into his dad's closet and steal his blazer. Check that - his ugliest blazer.

I think maybe it's beaver? Looks toasty.

Also this: 'beetle killing cold'? Love it.

Ventured out into the frozen night to see SWSCo at the Cedar on Saturday. As I said I would. Because I wouldn't miss it. New CD release party and whatnot. I happened to be in the neighborhood on Friday so I saved the $3 and got my ticket in advance. At the time there were *tons* of tickets left. They even posted something on the website like "um, we have tons of tickets left for this show". Then that night I stroll in 10 minutes after doors open and holy wow there are a ton of people here. I'm not sure what happened, but I'm thinking it got pimped on The Current or something. Whatever, it was great to see such a hungry crowd. Here's my quick and dirty:

Local jazz 3-piece Fat Kid Wednesdays opened and were just so right on. Michael Lewis on tenor was a genuine treat. (He also played some alto, but tenor's where it's at, doy.) They were smooth and/or fraggy in all the right places. I was really digging it.

Interlude. Grab a decaf and a cookie. Like $3. I suppose that's ok. I *really* wanted the cookie. They had m&m's in them and everything.

Back inside. Lights down. Out marches some herd of singers. I knew there was going to be some 'chorus' or something, assumed this was it. Here they are, singing some a cappella nonsense, but it's a slow and even somewhat moody song, so it's nice enough. Now here's another. A little more bouncy, but still I'm tolerating it. But wait, what's this? A full blown 'I Am The Walrus'? It's silly and goofy and oh lord it was a mood buster for me. Take it Rockapella! Ugh. But the crowd seemed to be loving it, and it obviously had to be the last song they'd do, so I chomped my cookie and slurped my coffee and waited for it to be over. Brutal.

And here come the boys, looking impossibly cool. They open with the chorus accompanying. It works better here, but not as well as you'd like. (Reminder: I know dick.) Then the chorus leaves. And business is gotten down to. And it's absurdly great. Like you knew it would be. And it's dark and it's atmospheric and it's everything you were hoping for. The new stuff is ridiculous. The old stuff is good as ever. And sure, it's straightforward in its pretension - Radio Head's 'Exit Music'… in Italian? - but at least it's straightforward, and it doesn't come off as gimmicky, it comes off as.. um, yeah, pretentious. And you put up with it, because it's unbelievably worth it.

Then they closed with everyone - and I mean everyone - back on the stage for an 'Eye of the Tiger'. And here's where I'm confused. Because this is certainly a gimmick. And somewhat of a mood buster (again). But it couldn't kill the whole buzz. Impossible. Just too much buzz. Also this: tons of people were eating it with a spoon. So it's probably just me. Some miles may vary.

Go buy the record.

Spaghetti Western String Company [spaghettiwesternmusic]
Fat Kid Wednesdays [myspace]

Friday. KG Homecoming Game. The one that me and 20000 other rubes have been waiting for since the day we dug through the schedules after the trade was announced. Now KG hurt. Not playing. Bummer. Not even sitting on the bench. Odd. Goofy one minute appearance? Odder. And here's our new look Wolves hanging strong [again]. And note that I didn't say 'looking strong', because they didn't. Neither did BOS. Ugly ugly basketball. Then all of a sudden it's the 4th quarter and it's a close game and both sides turn up the intensity and the place starts to go a little nutty. People jumping up and down like it's 2004. Craig Smith throws down a jam with 30 seconds left - to take the lead - and here's me, more or less standing on my seat giving high fives to everyone within arms reach. The Target Center rocking harder than it has since Hannah Montana rolled thru town. The future is now, people, right effing now. Oops! We lost on a last second tip-in that was LITERALLY stunning. Like it stunned everyone. Like everyone was stunned. Baffled. It was so insane. I can't even describe it. High to low rollercoaster of the season. Book it. But a fun time. (After party was 90 minutes of Rock Band back at the office. After 2 beers each and 4 pounds of pregame sushi (each?), who's not ready for that? Exactly.)

Sunday. KG makeup game. Everyone who went to Friday night got a free ticket to one of 3 upcoming games. Tonight was an option, and it was a 5:30, so I grabbed an extra free pass thing - which they gave me no questions asked - and figured I'd take junior. Which I did. And it was great. Because they gave us like $125 seats. Which was surprising. And it may or may not have had to do with the fact that I mentioned my good friend Erin at the ticket office. (Hi Erin!) But anyway, my point is that we had no trouble seeing. Or eating nachos. Or hot dogs. Or ice cream. Or being heard. Because we were like the only 2 people in the arena. A bit of a contrast from playoff-atmosphere Friday. Also different: the in house entertainment. No t-shirts, limited Crunch, etc. I mean I get that they want to blow their wad for a full house on a Friday night - which they did, obvs - but a Sunday evening game? That's a family game. Fire up the silly [cheap] stuff. Am I wrong on this? I mean I'm no marketing genius, but come on. And let me be clear: I've got zero interest in a free tshirt. Also this: we left at halftime, and it appears the Wolves did as well. Zouch!

I just got home from a 3 days in Hartford, CT or, as wikiepdia prefers you call it, "The Insurance Capital of the Universe". It was cold and rainy most every day, and as I walked from the office to my disturbingly grimy room at the Sheraton, I initially concluded the city just felt kind of desperate. In the way that a lot of cities feel desperate when they seem to say "whoops, we shouldn't have blown up our downtown to make way for that interstate he he he. Howsabout we build a little park with fake-antique light fixtures and then throw up a science museum or something to make it all better?" And go figure, that's pretty much exactly what they're doing. At least it's what it looked like they were doing, it was hard to tell what with all the noise from the interstate bouncing off the concrete office towers.

But downtown slowly began to win me over after I realized a) it wasn't all 12 story office towers built in the 50's, it actually had some neat areas with old buildings and fun little bars and shops and stuff and b) I was never more than a 90-second walk from a Dunkin' Donuts. Remind me again why we don't have DD's here? Oh, that's right, our donut industry is still recovering from the Bagel Craze of the early 90's. Remind me again who let that happen? Stupid bagels. Make me so mad. They're not even good. Seriously, they're not. So why do people eat them? You don't *have* to, people, so just don't. And if nobody eats them, we get donuts again. So let's everybody just stay calm and stop eating bagels.

Other Hartford trip stuff:

• They all talk funny. And not just New England accent funny, though that's fun, too. They say different stuff. I ordered a coffee and the girl said something like "How is it?" and I says "huh?" and she leans over and says "HOW. IS. IT?" and I says "I have no idea what that means" and she laughed and says "cream or sugar?" and I says "one of each" and she gave me my coffee just how I like it. Also: they eat something called a 'grinder'. It's a sandwich. Not sure why they don't just call it a 'sandwich'.
• Waiting for elevator in hotel one morning. Push button. Another dude walks up and starts waiting with me. Elevator opens. Only room for one of us. Other dude just jumps in. He turned around to look at me as the doors were closing - credit for making eye contact - and I give him the ol' arms-out shrug and say "come on". I'm thinking it was because I was wearing a puffy vest and a messenger bag while he was wearing a gangster suit, an overcoat, and a $2000 watch. But that's just a guess. Best part: guess who got to ride in the courtesy shuttle with him 5 minutes later? This guy. And guess who cracked wise the whole time while Mr. Gangster sat silently? Um, this guy.
• My backup-backup-backup headphones were the only headphones I had with me and it turns out the right ear is broken so now I need new backup-backup-backup headphones. I mostly wrote this to remind me to get them.
• We relaxed at an Irish pub one night to soak up and drink up the local flava and they had a real dartboard that used real darts. You had to keep score with chalk. Crazy. They also had peanuts free on all the tables. I think it was ok to throw the shells on the ground, but I wasn't sure so I ate slowly and tried to see what other people were doing. Then I noticed that the other lady from Minnesota I was traveling with was stacking her empty shells in a neat little pile and I asked her why and she said "I just don't feel right throwing them on the ground" and I thought that was awesome.

I'll be back soon, I'm sure. Work, and donuts, will demand it.

Junior and I took a break from hunkering down indoors counting the days until spring to check out the luminary event of the loppet on Saturday night. It was absurdly great. Some might say majestic, even. And they'd be right. Because it was. So let's just go with 'absurdly majestic'. It does a better job of capturing the mood than 'great' does. Though it certainly was great. But anyways.

There were tons of skiers and tons of luminaries and the weather was ideal and everyone was casually having fun walking or skiing or snowshoeing around the ice-wrapped-candle bordered course on the frozen surface of Lake of the Isles. And did I mention the 8-foot high luminary pyramid that we all gathered around like pagans to celebrate the news that some far-away groundhog had promised us 6 more weeks of winter playtime? Yeah, it was great, too. In its own pagany majestic kind of way.

I gotta find a way to ski this thing next year.