Minnesota Opera Under the Stars (with racism?)

Tonight the wife and I took in a free public performance of the Minnesota Opera company at the Lake Harriet Bandshell. We got there about 70 minutes before the curtain, which was enough time to get to the back of the first hill of people.

If you plan to attend an event like this at the Lake Harriet Bandshell, and you are a guy, be sure you don't drink much all day, cause while there is a women's room, the only facilities for men in sight are unisex family bathrooms. Luckily, I was in a good way tonight, which isn't usual for me. TMI.

What really got my knickers in a bunch, though, was the group parked right in front of us. This was wife's view of the stage.

Apparently the Phi Beta Kappa Twin Cities Association was meeting up at this Opera event, and they wanted EVERYONE to know, especially the people behind them. I told wife not to worry, surely they would take it down when the opera began. At 15 minutes to showtime, I went to find out that there were no designated men's facilities, and waited in line for the "family bath" rooms. There are so many things wrong with calling a room the "family bath" room, but let's leave that one alone. 

When I got back to wife, she relayed the following to me. 

Two guys, obviously college students, perhaps grad students, who spoke with thick accents, from somewhere where soccer and cricket are likely popular, asked the guy by the sign "I want to know, if we sit over there or here, will you take the sign down when the event starts?" The first guy ignored them. They moved on to the guy standing up by the sign and asked the same question. The standing up guy said "no matter where you sit, you won't be able to see the stage anyway, so it doesn't matter." 

The two guys walked away. Another college aged girl carrying a Barnes and Noble bag, long dark curly hair, comes over and points to the sign. The guy starts to get defensive. She asks "are you the Phi Beta Kappa group?" He says "yes." She says "I'm here for you." he changes demeanor completely into Nice Guy Ned. He makes room for her, offers her a cookie and stuff to sign. 

Then a woman in pink comes and asks if he's the Phi Beta Kappa group, as if the sign isn't RIGHT THERE.

This woman, the one wearing pink and a hat: 

They make room for her. then they discuss what happened with the sign. She said: "Good for you, you want to make sure that they know their place." 

That ACTUALLY HAPPENED. 

Now, I can't say if this was a racist comment, or a class-based comment. In any stretch of the imagination, it wasn't a comment that can be painted over with some easy explanation unless she has a really dry sense of humor that makes no one laugh. But perhaps that comes from being part of a honor society that makes you feel superior to other people. 

.Anyway, racist/classicist/classist(?) groups aside, I assured wife that I would step up to the plate and be an ass if I needed to be. The music began, and the sign wasn't going down. After a few measures, and a tweet, I  said rather loudly "Hey, Phi Beta Kappa, could you take down your sign now?" the guy turned and looked at me, blinked, probably gauging if I could see the stage if he moved the sign, and moved to take down the sign. I thanked him "thank you very much." and we moved into the Opera. 

They put the sign up again at intermission, and had to be verbally reminded again to please take it down thank you very much.

The concert was of "La Boeheme" a story of a group of friends at the end of the 19th Century who party hard, fall in love, and lose love to consumption. If you have seen "Rent" you know all the basic beats of the plot and characters. Me, I had an unhealthy obsession with Rent in high school, so reading the synopsis before the opera began I felt like I was treading on familiar ground. 

The music was rather hard to hear at times, even though we were closer than half the people attending. Though there were microphones around the stage, they weren't used by individual performers. Only when people really belted out an aria's glory notes would the audience really get excited, partly because of the beauty of the music, but also partly because they could actually hear it. 

I loved the introduction of love in the first act, signaled wonderfully by the light, romantic turn in the music, and aided by the diving sparrows around the park as they hunted bugs in the pink, Minnesota dusk. The setting was lovely, the picnic wife made of bagels with cream cheese and turkey was divine, and the whiskey and ginger drinks we brought in a thermos the shiny cap on a wonderful event. Wife took this picture of the feet of someone who knew exactly how to enjoy this time.

I'd entirely recommend going to such free opera in the park events, but be sure to get their plenty early to get good seats, hopefully not behind haughty signage.

Quickie

Just a short entry this time, rolling off the fingers.

Been a year since I got my job. It's been a good year overall. We got out of pre-foreclosure and pre-bankruptcy, we can afford to live. Wife is rocking the unemployment right now, getting an insane number of interviews, each of which brings her closer to a job. Hoping like balls her interview tomorrow goes well, cause that job is on the same damn block as mine and we could move and not have to do this driving for an hour or so every day.

Went to the first Farmers market of the year for us on Saturday. Got two bags of lettuce (5 bucks for one, 3.50 for the other). It's pricey, but DAMN you notice the difference. You forget that lettuce is supposed to taste good after a winter of the stuff shipped in from wherever in the world is warm. We get by in the winter on green leaf heads, which is okay. Once wife got iceberg because it was on sale, and it was like eating tasteless garbage (if that word pairing makes any sense). So if you learn anything from this post, it is to try Farmer's Market lettuce. Trust me, it'll change the way you see salad. I also bought a 6 dollar bunch of asparagus, which was not noticeably different than the stuff at the store. But with the goat cheese and green onions I also got, I was able to make a delicious quiche.

This farmer's market was at the Mill City Museum, so it had the added atmosphere of industrial river folk with girders, old train tracks, and tin roofs. I felt like I was in that black market place in The Hunger Games. It was awesome. Will definitely return later when prices have gone down as supplies grow around here.

Until then, wife and I will continue to cram in a salad every night, which even when it tastes awesome begins to feel like a chore to finish a five dollar bag before it goes bad.

Summer of Crap ... er ... Craft

We put it off for a year, but this summer, wife has decided, is the summer of crafts.

You read that right.

Last summer we were broke as shit, so it wasn't much use to put gas in the car to go to craft shows if we weren't going to even have a chance of buying anything. I was just starting a relationship with a local arts publication, and pitched the idea of having a curmudgeon like me galavanting around to craft fairs and to see whether or not by sheer volume I would be turned to what I considered to be the dark side. The pitch didn't take, and the editor turned out to be a horrible fit for me - as in she published a few articles but could never explain what she wanted and didn't want to put the work in on editing anything. I love writing multiple drafts, but not everyone jives with improving that way. I’m writing columns for an international art magazine now, so plan to use this space as a journal of this summer’s project to mold into a functioning piece by the end of August.

Anywho, the idea was germinated by This article by a guy who had to go to the Minnesota State Fair. I haven't been to the state fair ever, but I've learned to keep my mouth shut about that. I said as much at work last year and I think two co-workers were seriously ready to slap me for saying I'd never been. Really, their reaction was visceral anger flames.

So what could someone like me do to not copycat that article, but go one better? Well, smarty pants, why not make it a marathon? Sure anyone can go to a state fair for a day and write about it, but dragging your ass out of bed on an otherwise perfectly good weekend and spending hours looking at crafts? That's dedication. That's the kind of self-flagellating that in my mind outdoes any of those ridiculous self-mutilation videos people do online.

My idea of craft fairs up to this point has been shaped largely by attending them in Fergus Falls and Fargo, once because I was a reporter and, well, there's not much to report about in Fergus Falls, so you end up going to shitty craft fairs. And in Fargo - I went because Wife. 

Most times, I can bitch enough to be allowed to go sit in a corner with a book while wife walks around. I read my way through a chunk of The Road that way, and somewhat envied the characters in the book who didn't have craft fairs to go through, just a post apocalyptic wasteland of roving cannibals. 

When I hear the word, craft, I think of silverware with colorful rocks attached to it with wire to match fiestaware colors. I think of homemade belts. I think of hand painted rocks. I think of people with very specific sensibilities who for some reason are able to get other people to pay them for the things they found lying around and added some paint to or burned with a soldering iron. 

In short, I'm an asshole about crafts. 

The pain began a couple weeks ago. April 21, American Craft Council Show 2013. This was a show that you have to pay to park and pay to get in, so before Wife and I even see our first booth, we're out 34 bucks. 

The show was held in a large at the St. Paul RiverCenter, which seemed to be just the right size for the event. As a bonus, they had the event booths lined up in six clean rows with chairs at either end, so you could take a breather, walk down a row, and if your back was acting up like wife’s was that day, you can take another rest. This was sprinting style craft-fair attendance, and I liked it. I also liked being able to see an end to the place. Some craft fairs are set up outdoors and it seems like the rows of booths will never end until you give up.

The other nice thing about this event was that payment for entry seemed to guarantee quality. There were very few booths that struck me as especially “craft” driven as I have described above. Instead, this place was filled with what I would call artisans – people who have obviously put a lot of time and effort into providing quality over quantity. The booths were equally divided between metalworks, ceramics, woodworks, clothing, and jewelry. There was one photography booth as I recall, and a couple painting booths, but for the most part, this was the type of art/craft where you take something from nature and manuplate, cut, mold, and shape into something beautiful.

We went on a Sunday, which was the last day they were open, and the crowd was easily manageable. We never felt pushed along or as if we were simply avoiding being cornered by throngs.

Wife found what she wanted in the first row of booths, but we waited until we had seen everything to be sure and walked back (which is another nice thing about this setup – try this at some craft fairs and you may end up walking a mile back to the place you want to get something).

She bought a leaf.

Yes, a leaf.

This was actually more cool than it sounds. The guy collects leaves that mean something to him – at home, on trips to national parks – and preserves them by either encasing them with a thin layer of copper or by replicating them in copper. The process also takes color into account. What you end up with is a perfect (or imperfect) leaf in incredible detail with a pin on back to use it as a brooch or to connect to a necklace.

I got a nifty end grain cutting board that is composited together from various wood pieces. Not the most artistic of choices, but we needed a cutting board. It’s been a month now though, and I still have to get mineral oil to treat the board with.

Our third purchase – all for less than 100 total – was a Japanese influenced vase for a single flower. We got it in honor of our recent trip to the opera for the Japanese influenced production of Turandot.

I felt good about all three purchases – something not always true when it comes to craft fairs.

I do regret not partaking in a handcrafted whiskey tasting during the fair, but there was no way to know how much it would put us back, and I didn’t want the embarrassment of asking and finding out it was way out of my league.

The other aspect of this fair worth noting was about a dozen booths that were like little rooms decorated by local interior designers by creating the space around one craft piece from a booth at this fair. While that sounds rather interesting, the end results were like looking at pretension if pretension was a room that was decorated by someone who hates the idea of people living in that room.

Overall, our first foray into the craft world for 2013 was successful. Would I say I enjoy craft fairs now? Absolutely not. It will take more work to disabuse me of my prejudices when it comes to this whole “craft” world.

Our second scheduled craft fair was to be “Craftstravaganza” but with wife still on the hunt for full time work, we couldn’t swing the cash that it would take to gas the car to get there let alone actually get something. This was a crushing blow to wife, particularly after a job rejection she had made through the third round of interviews to get. We spent the day relapsing into smoking and heavy drinking what we had around the house instead. (6 cigarettes total, rest thrown away that night. 2 bottles of wine killed by noon on Saturday).

So the plan is to re-join this craft project with the Edina Art fair at the end of the month. This weekend is Art-A-Whirl, but we just don’t have the energy or cash flow to do that between two Red Sox vs. Twins outings on Friday and Sunday. We also went last year and had a less than stellar experience.

Opera is Awesome (And so is Taco Bell)

So with the bonus I got at work in March, I paid off a loan to finally be rid of a 200 monthly bill. We had enough left to invest in entertainment options throughout the spring, including two Wits shows, two Red Sox/Twins games, and a few other things, including tickets to last night’s opera outing. It gives us things to look forward to while wife goes through the crazy job hunting process. (five interviews last week and already has four scheduled this week!)

My history with Opera is very slim. I went to part of a Beethoven opera that was at the Vienna Opera House during my backpacking through Europe phase. I got the super cheap 4 dollar standing room ticket and watched the first hour from the back of the top balcony. No idea what the hell was going on. It was more cheap to do that than pay for a tour of the building though. I had to leave partway through to catch my overnight train to Venice.

Whenever I talk about such things, wife characterizes me in a snobby voice “well, when I was in Europe, I simply HAD to see the Opera.” I assure you I don’t mean it that way. I didn’t get anything out of it. I went, didn’t get it, and left. Actually, I was hoping the interior would look more like one of these places.

But it didn’t. The pics I find online don’t refresh my memory much. From my obstructed standing room view I couldn’t see much of anything of the place.

My other history with opera is taking Italian for two years in college, where two of my classmates were taking it as part of their opera training. They wore scarves a lot.

Beyond that, I absolutely love movies that involve opera like Amadeus and Topsy-Turvy.  I actually like Topsy-Turvy more because it speaks to the creative process as a mix of hard work, collaboration and inspiration rather than the God-given genius only bestowed on a select few that shit out art with little effort that Amadeus is (still love the movie). Topsy Turvy is available on Netflix Instant watch BTW, and the trailer doesn't do it enough justice. 

Wife had not been to any opera beyond the MSUM straw hat players once, and I don’t think that counts.

So in effect, we were both breaking our Opera cherry together with a full fledged professional production complete with subtitles so we could follow along.

Our experience would be Minnesota Opera Company’s take on Turandot by Puccini. Here’s my retelling of the plot of this in a few paragraphs.

Act 1: We open on a young dude getting beheaded for failing to answer the three riddles of Turandot correctly in his bid to marry her. A prince in the crowd runs into his blind and long-deposed king/father and the father’s servant, Liu. Not much is said about this random coincidence or what caused them to be apart so long. The prince sees Turandot in the distance and falls in love. He decides to ring the gong to take on the three riddles despite pretty much everyone in existence saying not to.

Act 2: Three ministers talk about how they miss their homelands and how many people have died from this crazy ass riddle thing. The prince answers the three riddles correctly, but it turns out Turandot is a crazy bitch who doesn’t want to marry because of something someone did to her ancestor 1000 years ago or something. So despite having killed several dozen people with her riddles, she doesn’t want to play by the rules SHE SET UP. The prince says OK, if you can tell me my name by dawn, I’ll submit to death.

Act 3: Turandot has ordered no one to sleep and that EVERYONE will die if the prince’s name is not discovered. The prince, still in love with this crazy ass bitch who is killing people left and right in order to find someone who knows his name, sings one of the most recognized songs in Opera.

Turandot finds the prince’s father and Liu, and starts torturing the fuck out of Liu to get the name. Liu sings a killer song, then slices the shit out of her own throat rather than reveal the name and dies. The prince sees this and STILL WANTS TO FUCKING MARRY TURANDOT!! The prince sings another song to Turandot and reveals his name to her. And then, out of pretty much nowhere, Turandot accepts his love and decides OK, lets do this thing, while you know, everyone is still walking around in the blood of Liu, because she is FUCKING NUTS and I’m sure in two years, the prince is going to severely regret his decision. The end.

So the love story leaves much to be desired, which makes sense after discovering that Puccini died before he was able to finish the thing. Critics agree with this view of the bat-shit craziness of the main character as well, I find out, and feel a bit better that I wasn’t missing something.

Despite the drawbacks of the actual story, the opera was still incredibly moving. The stage used a series of circular elements, steps dripping with the blood of former suitors, grimicaing heads on poles in the air. The costumes were absolutley stunning.

I got misty a few times in the third act, mostly with Liu’s part, and it’s hard to listen to Nessun Dorma and not get a bit misty cause something about it cuts to the fuckin core of human souls even before ever reading a translation.

Wife and I enjoyed pre-ordered champaign and big gingers during the two intermissions, looking out at Rice Park and the Landmark where we got married. It was a magical night at the Ordway, surrounded by people all gussied up, some even wearing opera gloves and tuxes. Me, I was wearing my new beige duds that make me look like a nice retiree in Florida ready for a game of canasta. Wife was stunning as always.

Two blocks away, people were beating eachother up on the ice during the Wild game.

Time on the weekend always gets away from us, and since we barely got to the theater in time for the show, we hadn’t eaten before. It was now 10:30 and we were hungry. What better way to top off a night at the opera than hitting Taco Bell. I improvized a song for wife while driving the half hour back to our neighborhood Taco Bell and waiting in the drive through line already 4 deep.

This is to the tune of Abba’s Take a Chance on Me.

T-t-taco Bell, T-t-taco Bell, T-t-taco Bell, T-t-taco bell.

When the bars are closed,
And you need tacos,
Go where we all go,
T-t-taco Bell.

It’s all in the shell,
And your farts will smell,
But you need to go,
To T-t-taco Bell.

As for the Minnesota Opera, we're now planning on going to two shows next year. 

Living in Filth

I just don't get this whole adult thing where people live in clean palaces.

Here's what I see when I visit other people:

Here's what I see when I come home:

(Except we don't have the excuse of kids to cause this sort of thing)

Wife and I have a bedroom, office, living room, kitchen and two bathrooms to clean. That's really not a lot of space. And this March, we planned out 1-2 rooms per weekend for deep cleaning, like taking out everything, rearraginging, dusting, washing it and putting it back. We got the living room done, and most of the kitchen. 

Even when things are relatively tidy, things go to shit quick. Since we try to eat healthy and make food at home, the dishes pile up quickly. Empty table space is like an invitation for the mail you don't think you can throw away yet, but don't know what to do with either as well as the cereal boxes that just don't fit in anywhere. Wife has a desperate fear of becoming a hoarder, so at least we are able to throw away legitimate trash. At least we aren't living with the remains of takeout food surrounding us along with dead cats for atmosphere. right?

The way I see things, there's about 5 useable hours a day where you aren't sleeping or working (including prep and travel time). Take out 2 hours for applying to jobs. 1 hour for cooking a healthy dinner. and there's two hours left in your day. Oh, wait, we have to budget the bills and see if we have enough to buy gas this week. 1.5 hours left. 

Oh wait, I'd like to spend some time connecting (not a euphemism, not entirely) with the person I want to spend my life with. Hard to connect when you're elbow deep in toilet gunk. 

So we end up doing what absolutely has to be done, like dishes and laundry, and leave the rest for another day. 

It's all just another thing Disney lied to me about. Where are the singing birds and mice that are supposed to help do this shit?

At least we got the Christmas tree down this month. 

I Hate Toddlers/Review of More Real at MIA

If there is one thing you should do before going to an art show at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, it is this: Check their schedule for kid events.

If there is an event for kids, such as Sunday’s Rock the Cradle with 89.3 The Current, DO NOT GO. You can be sure that every 2 year old in the metro area will be there.

You will find this out when you get to the museum after backroading through south Minneapolis because the GPS decides you need to visit every pothole in Minnesota on your way there. You will begin a spiral shaped pattern of driving around the museum in ever widening circles and narrow streets as you search hopelessly for a parking space. “Surely this street will have openings,” you think. “Parents wouldn’t want to walk their 2 year old in this cold for half a mile.” But you would be wrong.

Finally, you find a spot seven blocks away in a neighborhood that has several run-down apartment buildings daring the laws of gravity and good taste.

You walk the seven blocks in dampness, each step screaming “this better be worth it.”

Kids are everywhere as you get closer. Without wife along, as she was feeling sick, you start to stick out as the only tall guy, wearing a black coat and hat, without a kid hanging off a limb. You begin to feel as pedophiley and suspicious as a guy with a van and candy at a playground. But dammit, you’d punt a kid if you weren’t surrounded and actually rather terrified they might turn on you. And you have the lingering knowledge that if you have a sudden poop attack, there will be kids in each fucking stall in the place to make your life more miserable.

You begin to have conversations with these parents in your head. One-sided conversations where you pretty much yell at them.

“What the hell do you think your kid is getting out of this? Every kid here is about 2. Two! They don’t even understand the concept of fucking TIME yet, but you think you can force culture on them and they’ll get something useful out of it. Like the four cardboard tubes they tied together with string that they are carrying around like a fucking badge of genius rather than the worst craft project known to man? I can understand if your kids were 8 or so. At least then they can discern the concept that other people in the world think different thoughts than them, and they might actually remember what they saw today a month from now. You fucking liberal douchebag parents want to cram your 2 year olds into the genius class and want to grab on to the fact that your kid spent two seconds looking at a piece of art that they might just be the next Picasso or some shit. I hate you. This much.”

That’s the conversation I had while walking behind a mother who was letting her 2 year old walk up the stairs in front of me all by herself. I had a lot of time to think. 2 year olds are shit at climbing stairs.

I got up the stairs and dodged and weaved my way to the More Real show. I knew that there would be solace there, because tickets to get into this exhibit are 14 bucks, unlike the free rest of the museum. 14 bucks is a small price to pay to get away from munchkin land.

The full name of the exhibit is MO/RE/AL: Art in the Age of Truthiness. They already have a 300 or so page souvenir book about it you can buy for 40 bucks at the gift shop. Ugh. Also the site just linked to has more annoying gifs than a geocities refugee center.

If you don’t know what truthiness is by now, here you go.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

The idea of art as a lie that gets to the truth is an old one. I’m a fan of unreliable narrators and metafiction, but the pieces here did not impress like the collection at the Real Life show, which used a lot of the same thematic organizing devices, yet managed to group the pieces in more useful and digestible clusters.

Unlike the other shows I’ve been to at the MIA and the Walker, I had a lot of trouble getting into this one. The first three rooms, in fact, were a bit of a bummer and I was wondering if I could get my money back if I left early enough. Compared to the Sports Show and the Until Now shows at MIA and the Real Life show at the Walker, this exhibit was sparse. Most rooms had one or two artists, sometimes just one or two works to examine. It makes you jealous of MoMA visitors who have a chance to see Tilda Swinton in a box. 

I turned around a bit on the experience when I got to the “Phantom Truck” by Inigo Manglano-Oralle. This piece takes up the largest room in the wing, so much so you wonder how they got it in there. The whole room is dark, like photo-room dark, with little more than the exit sign illuminating anything. Out of the darkness you can make out the vague massive shape of an open top semi trailer with big, boxy and air-compressor shaped equipment loaded and strapped down. It’s rather menacing, and for good reason, since it is based on the idea of the chemical weapons trucks that were supposedly our reason to invade Iraq.

You wanna feel bad about your fellow social internet surfers? Like, shit we are doomed bad? You can check out this piece called “NoFun” Two artists decided to use Chat Roulette (You can go there anyway if you need to feel like we’re doomed) and put up a hanged body. People laugh about it, even though nothing about the scene looks fake. Out of the many people who saw the scene, one called the cops.

Another point of interest was Vik Muniz’ “Verso” pieces. A Rembrandt hangs on the wall, but around the room are other paintings, leaning up against the wall so you can only see the backs. On the backs, there are mailing labels to say what they are “Starry Night” or “American Gothic” and where they have been. The idea here is to give the museum goer a look at the story of the life of the painting, where it has been, which is typically only seen by the museum staff. I think this is where I get a bit perturbed by this.

The act of recreation here is impressive, don't get me wrong. Obsession like that usually is. However, pointing out to me that there are other stories behind great works, that they go to different museums, is about the least insightful thing you could say about artwork. I know that they keep making commentary tracks for movies, but I quit listening to them years ago after the point where they all pretty much say the same damn things and you aren’t really going to learn anything new about the movie business that you really cared to know. Exception: Anchorman commentary – it’s like another hilarious movie. Back to the Verso pieces, this insight isn’t even as good as a commentary track about how people got along in the making of the movie or which scene was shot first. It’s the intellectual equivalent of telling me that the book I’m reading was shipped to a Barnes and Noble once.

Much more interesting, and in the same meta-fictional realm of the backward paintings, was the nearby room showing a 10 minute film by Eve Sussman called “89 Seconds at Alcazar.” The film is a recreation and behind the scenes look at the minutes before and after the scene depicted in “Las Meninas” by Diego Velazquez. Here’s that painting, which I’m sure you’ve seen:

What’s so interesting in this one shot scene is the constant fluid motion of the people involved, the intricate costumes recreated from the painting, the way everyone eventually lines up, and the fact that Peter fuckin Dinklage is in a dress! And it’s way more interesting and says more about the piece it’s commenting upon then the back of a painting. There’s also a bit with a dog.

At the risk of apples to oranges comparisoning: here’s a list of novels concerning nature of mixing fiction/art/life that you will get more out of than spending time on the same subjects at this gallery:

Atonement

Lolita

The Neverending Story

The White Hotel

The French Lieutenant’s Woman

Bipolar Life in 2012

In typical fashion I’m a day late on reflection. Seems that all the year of 2012 blogs are already out and done.

I was at a show the other night, the Vilification Tennis group doing their F**K 2012 show. They are a wildly inappropriate insult comic group and always a blast to go see. You will think “Oh, you didn’t” at least once during the show, often while laughing. Here’s a video of them at the renaissance fest.

 I cannot repeat the Red Hook jokes, but they did help me personally to find some way through that shit that has been weighing on me for the past month.

Well, during the show, one of the activities was to ask the audience who had the shittiest year. They asked people to raise their hands to share. I thought over the past year.

I started off the year 4 months into unemployment that would last another 2 then got some sort of contract-work-employed for a couple months. I would have declared bankruptcy if I’d had the $1,500 for a lawyer. I was 3 months into pre-foreclosure on the house. I told my mother I'd had thoughts of suicide in two emails, and she never responded. I broke off contact with my family. I’ve hit my heaviest weight ever in the last week. Wife is now living in the uncertain contract position life where we never know when she will be paid and how long she has a job. Wife’s years of school loans are coming due at a rate of $900 a month to begin with. We enter 2013 with no savings, no safety net, and capped off the holidays by walking out on Christmas weekend with wife’s family after her grandmother said one too many criticisms of wife (a long list 33 years deep that includes how she was too big to ever get a husband, too dumb, useless and now added too loud, so thanks for that new complex). Also had a fun fight with her family members who were complaining about homeless people begging for money, when we were literally weeks from being among them when I finally landed my job.

Yet. I didn’t raise my hand.

And not because I was scared to speak in public. I don’t have that fear.

I didn’t raise my hand out of some sort of “could be worse” thing.

For every piece of crap part of my life over the past year, I also thought about the things that went right.

We sold the house before it was foreclosed, without owing money. I got hired by an awesome company and doing what I love – writing and creating. I am doing better without my family, and now know they can’t manipulate me through money, even when times are at their worst, and no longer accept money from them. I do pretty well feeling like shit about life on my own without their help, and Wife’s work is uncertain, but it’s a fuck of a lot better than working for Lisa Larson et al. at Hennepin Technical College. She gets paid closer to what she is worth, is respected for what she can do, and has gotten to know my colleagues better than me since she’s more of a people person than me. We get to go to work together every day and eat lunch together. We got on a debt reduction program. We quit smoking in August and it has stuck. Once I got my job, we have been able to start fully participating in life in the Twin Cities by having fantastic dinner experiences at The Melting Pot, the Lexington, Mort’s Deli, and more. We spent our anniversary in the St. Paul Hotel, where we got upgraded to the poshest room where presidents, dignitaries and celebrities stay. We’ve gone to Twins games, Paul F. Tompkins, Wits, Sleepwalk with Me with both Ira Glass and Mike Birbiglia at the screening, the It’s A Wonderful Life Radio Play, a Roast of Ebenezer Scrooge, the ballet, Art a Whirl, the Walker Art Museum, Northern Spark, the Aquatennial fireworks, Prairie Home Companion, Canterbury Downs horse races. Instead of not being able to go to things because we’re broke as shit, we can’t go cause we simply can’t find the time cause there’s too much we want to do. We’ve had trips to the North Shore, Duluth, and Red Wing. Wife’s best friend made it home safely from Afghanistan. Wife overcame fear of heights to go with me up Lutsen mountain in a gondola. For one month, we were both happily employed full time (more than we’ve ever been). We’ve been relatively healthy this year. I’m off all medications. Our cars have miraculously made it through another year.

2012 continued our bipolar life, which would have been a good alternate name for this blog. Highs, Lows, and few inbetweens.

BTW, the guy who won the shittiest year award: Got the Harley he’d saved up for years for, six months later, got hit by a drunk driver and spent three months in the hospital. Yeah, that would suck ass.

Got wife to watch Blink

So I'm a bit of a Dr. Who fan. first episode I remember is a vague recollection of the Tom Baker version on PBS when I was hanging out at a friend's house in 7th grade. His dad watched it. I noted it, and it stuck in whatever brain cavity things from that time period stick in that you can recall decades later, cause I don't remember shit about ANY OTHER watching habits of parents of friends, or even the friends themselves.

Then many years later, I was flipping around the channels and caught an episode of the reboot, the one where Rose meets her father on the day he died. It's pretty nuts, and I remember thinking "Wow, that guy from Shallow Grave is in this." Since that is what Christopher Eccleston was to me.  I also saw the second episode around that time, must have been a marathon or something that day on PBS.

A couple years go by, I hear things, and Dr. Who shows up on netflix or something, so I check it out. And I soon get hooked.

I've been raving about it ever since meeting the wife. I also raved about Lost and Battlestar Galactica. She watched them, enjoyed bits, and hated other bits. She really loathes having spent so much time on Lost, as the only redeeming factor was Desmond/Penny to her. But she keeps trying, and I keep trying her stuff.

I hesitated watching Big Bang Theory and The New Girl, but I am thoroughly hooked by those shows after some time (although Big Bang Theory is a season or two behind, since we don't get TV really, and their show isn't easily available for people who like to use Netflix, Hulu+, Amazon Prime, and Redbox - so yeah, it's my fault that I don't watch the ONE thing they are available on).

Wife even made a wedding vow to watch Doctor Who with me. This was not prompted by me at all. This was what she came up with.

We slogged through. She had me fast forward the nightmare enducing parts, like the WWII gas mask two parter. If it's creepy as fuck and gross to boot, she doesn't want to play.

So she's decided after a season and a half of Tennant and she wants to skip ahead to the next doctor. She just doesn't like Tennant like she did Eccelston, and she's seen some of Smith. Before we can do that, I said, there are a few key episodes you still have to see. Blink and Silence in the Library I think, since they introduce major additions to the Whoniverse. We'll miss out on the Master's intro, but seriously I think if wife saw the head spider things that come from that one and I wouldn't be able to get her to sit through another episode ever. He hasnt' been an issue in the Smith years anyway, so no worries. (I know jumping ahead is sacrilege to some people, but screw you, did you start with the first episode 50 years ago and watch every one in order? No you didn't cause that isn't possible unless you are British and old, and if that's the case why the hell are you reading my blog?)

Here's a bit about Blink for the uninitiated:


Tonight, after a day of cooking, wrapping gifts, cleaning and more chores, we sat down and watched Blink while wife did some online shopping for gifts. First 25 minutes, she wasn't into it. After hearing from me and others that it was THE BEST episode, she was not impressed.

Just Like McKayla

So after the needling, I asked her to hey, tone it down, and put down the computer, let me rub your legs, and let's close out the last 13 minutes. 

And she loved it. 

Yeah, it's that good. 

The Target Clerk Dipshit Conundrum

I don’t know what it is with me and clerks. Maybe it’s just that I have more contact with them in usual life. I have another short anecdote about a clerk. It may not be as embarrassing as the “I love you” incident, or as fascinating as the “trapped in the car wash” scene, but its up in my top five cause it happened a week ago and I still can’t shake it.

So wife got this lovely shirt for me for my birthday. The T-shirt is run of the mill screen print with this design on the front:

And that’s it. I love it and wear it on weekends. What’s really nice is I get compliments on it from fellow fans of the Doctor. That’s right, random strangers stop me and tell me, Nice shirt! One of my coworkers squealed in delight when I wore it on casual Friday, the other two had no idea what the big deal was or really heard of the show.

That’s all preamble to the following conversation had at Target last week. I was wearing the shirt. I was with the Wife, and we were checking out with a small hand cart full of items. The line below is when I slip between what was actually said, and what happened subsequently in my head. Enjoy.

Clerk: What’s with the shirt?

Me: Hmm?

Clerk: What’s the deal with the shirt?

Me: Oh, it’s just a show.

Clerk: I get that, the Daleks and all, but what’s the deal with it?

Me: Um, it’s just the Daleks crossing Abbey Road.

Clerk: Yeah, so, is there a point to it?

Me: Um, well, I think it’s just mashing two well known British icons together into one image.

Clerk: Huh. Whatever. I don’t see redfoot. Where’s redfoot?

Me: Um, I don’t know.

Me: Listen here you dickwad. I love that we live in this new internet age where you don’t have to feel bad for having a hobby and apparently feel that no one can love something as much as you. You remind me of  a hipster version of simpsons comic book guy, and you need to take down the superiority a notch. Really, it’s a show, I like it, I wear a shirt to display that appreciation, which is the only shirt I own with anything, not even a logo, on it (besides the subsequently bought tshirt with a Sherlock design). Just because someone doesn’t go through the trouble of learning every fuckiing nuance of a decades old tv show doesn’t make them less than you in whatever fucked up version of reality you live in. There’s no mystery to the shirt, it’s a mashup of two images. That’s it. No mystery to solve. No clever little Easter eggs for only the “true” fan to appreciate. What you see is what you get. Now go choke on a fucking adipose  you twat.

Me: have a good night.

Clerk: (shrugs and turns to next customer)

Wife and I ROCK the North Shore

The best advice I have if you are planning a trip to the north shore is to bring my wife. It will increase your enjoyment of nature's beauty to the point where you will start to question existence in a my-wifeless universe.

First some pics I couldn't fit elsewhere in this blog: 

Yup, north shore baby.

  

 On the north shore, people fuckin skip rocks. It really is this idyllic. I know!

 The Angry Trout Cafe deserves every bit of praise it ever gets. Oh My God they are good. DO NOT SKIMP HERE. Order what your heart wants and skip a meal later, you will not regret it.

We got there just past color peak season, but it still frakin rocked.

 

For one, wife is a whiz at packing. After all the time she spent living out of a suitcase shuttling between her shit life in Grand Forks and her weekends with me in Fargo, she became very good at it. As Malcolm Gladwell would point out, she put in her 10,000 hours of packing.

Problem is this last week she was off her game. She had an interview scheduled for Thursday night, which after working until 6 p.m. didn't leave any time for packing once we got home. However, she got it done and we got out on Friday by 8 a.m. Wife don't pity no fools when it comes to packing.

For two, you are likely to hear the best combinations of the English language ever spoken when you are traveling with my wife. Here are a few excerpts:

"I just want to see a goddamn tugboat and a goddamn lighthouse in this goddamn town, then I want some pie."

"I need some coffee before I kill an orphan."

Deer in the North Shore just stand there and pose for pictures

Dogs in the North Shore drive, but they are crap at parallel parking

For three, if you've played your cards right, if you've been a good boy for four to five years, doing dishes, laundry, driving, shopping, cooking, you get rewarded. We drove up to the Lutsen ski resort, where the gondolas were still moving up to a distant mountain (Minnesota Mountain). The scene was breathtaking. 

Then wife, who has a deadly fear of heights, says

"I'll do it. I'll go up with you. I owe you for so much, so this makes us even."

And it does. Her fear of heights is like anyone's worst fear. I doubt I would be able to hold live snakes for wife, or scuba dive in an eel tank with waterproof spiders. This was her equivalent. So we took the eight minute gondola ride up, and up, then up some more. Then we got to this chalet thing, Lake Superior off in the distance, trees with most leaves down, but still smatterings of mustard yellow and fire orange smeared on the hillsides. The floor of the balcony at this chalet was a wire mesh that wife didn't realize was 30 feet from solid ground until after we were nearly done and I asked for the camera to do a foot picture.

That’s what wife does for me.

She also knows how to splurge. We're still paying for the weekend festivities, but oh how we ate like kings. Poutine slathered in rainbow juice, Herring that sprang from Lake Superior onto our plates with a final look as if to say, "It is my time, please enjoy me." Smoked trout that stank up my hands for hours after. And the Pie. It was this fruit crumble thing from Betty's Pies outside of Two Harbors, and each bite was like tasting little balls of sunshine that burst forth and still brings tears to my eyes thinking about it five days later.

Last slice of heaven

Then on Sunday, we made our way from Lutsen Resort, Stopped at the Split Rock Light House for a spell, ate awesome burritos at Burrito Union in Duluth, a city I think must be the Portlandia of the Midwest because oh my god the hippies/hipsters/lefties.

We got back on Sunday.

And oh, I forgot to say, the Thursday before we left, my boss emails me and asks if my wife is still looking for a new job. Out of the blue because my boss and everyone I work with is awesomesauce personified and I can't believe it. It's a temp job that may last two weeks to two months, and it gets wife out of the miserable mess that HTC has become and into something that begins to approximate a wage that she is worth. It's not what she plans to do with her life, but it gets her out of the hellhole and into a head space that is healthy and human.

Wife was still not sure about leaving her job, since it's a steady thing and she loves to help students despite all the bullshit that they throw at her every week. Then she got an email from her new, and third, boss in a year that questioned her integrity on her time sheet. So wife let off a stern email, I went to the school the next day to get all her shit, and she emailed the HR people to tell them she was done. Simple, clean. And they haven't talked to her since.

Next blog, her exit interview. It's a thing of beauty.

The Lexington Makes Wife Forget Her Shitty Job for A Magical Night

It's hard to shake off a horrible week at work sometimes, and Saturday was no different for the wife. She spent the morning in a familiar pit of "When the fuck will one of my resumes hit and get me out of this horrible job?" Her pit has the added benefit of mice and bats. She used a microphone at a meeting to tell the entire staff and administration about the mice and bats that live with her. The next day, there was a box of mouse traps in her office.

It's hard not to think it was a prank, rather than a really lazy custodian's way of dealing with the issue.

But we had plans, and I was able to talk her out of the pit to take a short nap before one of the best nights out we've had since moving here.

First, we drove over to St. Paul to the block where they filmed Grumpy Old Men. The three houses were nestled into a block with beautiful trees. The colors in Plymouth are absolutely the best I've seen anywhere in years. Seems that fall is always a bunch of yellow trees that lose their leaves with the first stiff wind. This year, with the drought, the leaves are all sorts of reds and oranges and yellows. Everywhere you look, it's like the label on an Oktoberfest bottle.

Our next stop, Fitzgerald Theatre for the Prairie Home Companion. Wife has always wanted to go to this. We had tickets for the top corner of the top balcony, which is vertigo inducing. After I walked back down to get a couple drinks, whiskey for me for some reason, and rum and diet for the wife, I walked the five million steps back to the top. The last few steps before I got to my row, I seriously wondered if my legs would give way while trying to tip toe down the row to my seat. I made it though.

The Minnesota Opera opened the show, and got us both misty eyed even though we had no idea what they were singing. It was a wonderful evening of music and drama, but the thing that oddly enough got to me the most was the program notes about the show.

After the show, we went to The Lexington, where we had our groom's dinner last December but hadn't been since. That was a serious mistake, because their food was amazing. We started the dinner with some Old Fashioneds, which were whiskey central and took one sip for the wife to get a bit loopy.

I'm good at making steaks. They look weird, but they taste better than anything I have had in a restaurant, so I don't get steaks. I got the seafood linguine, which was excellent, particularly the whitefish part of it. Wife kept reading about their steaks though, and took her chances on a steak, medium rare.

I swear, they must age their meat in a room filled with shamans and Buddhist monks who do nothing but put out positive energy, then douse the steaks in angel tears and Care Bear blood because holy Jebus Wife's steak was incredible. Absolutely incredible.

We then got this Wellington thing for desert on the house brought out by our awesome goddess of a waitress. It was a pastry wrapped around a brownie, marshmallow and melted chocolate and even though I don't care for chocolate I would sacrifice my future children for this desert maker to live with us and make us deliciousness every day. We topped it all off with some Irish coffees and called it a night.

Yesterday I became an accidental hero

Yesterday I was at an art exhibit to be inspired and write about it for a freelance opportunity. I looked at art for about 3 hours, and it was all wonderful. By the end, I had a strong thesis rolling around in my head and several pieces picked out to help exemplify and expound on that thesis while deepening it.

There's a lot of construction going on in Minneapolis right now, which made getting to the place something of an adventure as primary, secondary and tertiary streets were blocked off. In the end, I just had to keep the general direction of the gallery in my head while driving and just keep turning the car in that direction until construction turned me another way and I spiraled my way there.

The coolest thing, though, was while I was watching the last video installation, I could hear the weather sirens going off. I decided to head out, and by the time I got outside, the sirens were off. I walked up three flights of stairs in the parking garage (also under construction for each floor above floor three). I opened the door and about 30 feet away, a very large black bird, a raven or crow, saw me and started to take off with something in its mouth.

The raven dropped whatever it was carrying, I guess thinking I was too much of a threat to keep holding on to lunch.

The thing dropped two feet to the parking lot ground.

It got up. It was a tiny bird.

It also flew away, the other direction, while about a dozen of its friends and relatives went after the raven, shooing it away out of the parking lot.

I sort of felt like a hero. 

A night out at the ballpark becomes a deathtrap

We were spoiled by the RedHawks. There isn’t much more to it. But our evening trying to capture that summer joy of being at a ballgame with the St. Paul Saints quickly became a disaster, filled with danger.

Wife had bought tickets through Groupon, which meant we had to pick them up at the window on Thursday, the opening day for the Saints. This was our first game with them, the first of many we planned. The RedHawks had been a staple of our summers. We’d come to enjoy each player’s quirks, and mourned when they moved on or were traded away.

First thing is parking. For literally two miles along the road the field is on, people are parking along the street. Luckily, there are a few lots close by, and we coughed up 6 bucks to park there, in a field of grass.

We made our way to Midway Stadium, at 5:50. They don’t open the gates until an hour before first pitch, so we had some time to stand there and look around. There’s a sign that says that stadium waves are not allowed at Midway. “Do they hate fun?” I said. “Maybe” Wife said.

Finally we get through the turnstyles built for 10 year old beanpole kids, and start heading to our seats. We end up in the next to last row on the far right field side of the main bleachers. Bleachers? Yes, these seats are silver colored metal steel bleachers (with back rails at least). We’d grown used to nice, cool, plastic fold down chairs with cup holders, like adults use. I can’t imagine these seats are any sort of comfortable in the heat of mid-summer.

At this point, I was daunted a bit. I can’t say I was undaunted anymore. I'm plussed. We puffed our way to the seats. I tried to make the best of it by taking our remaining 32 bucks and get some food. I got a brat and a pulled pork sandwich and two beers for 18.50. The food was good, even better than similar fare at the RedHawks, even if the price was more. I also can’t get over the $12 per seat at this stadium for bleachers in the hot sun high above the stadium. RedHawks were $8 and you could sit right by the on-deck batter as he warmed up.

So now it’s still early. The announcer is testing his mic, and it isn’t going well for him. His station is a fold out table on top of the hometeam dugout. This mic is picking up parts of words here and there, which could be a problem when it comes time to announce a player named Hiscock. After 10 minutes of “mic check” and trying to get through his script and failing miserably, someone goes out to the stage behind the pitchers mound to grab the mic from there. This mic is the only working one in the stadium.

I decide to go get some more food with our remaining money. There are no hot peanuts, my wife’s favorite game food. But they have regular. I get myself a big pretzel, which is my favorite game food. I also try to get some soda, but can’t figure out why they don’t have anything. It’s three bucks a bottle, and all I can see is RC cola and 7up. I leave without soda.

The teams are announced, then the Governor is there, and the Mayor, and all these military people. They wait for the mic to be delivered back to the stage on the field. It’s military night at the ballpark, and they play a video that reduces wife to tears because her best friend is in Afghanistan, and she resents the team for playing so heavily on emotions. The mic is run out to the podium, where the speeches begin.

The pretzel is the worst. The absolute worst I’ve ever had. It was stale as hell, as if it had been waiting since last season. Oh my lord was it aweful. It’s hard to describe how bad it was. My unborn children’s children will carry the stain of this pretzel on their souls. And yet I ate nearly all of it because we had almost no money left and it was going to be a long game. We agreed for me to take the last 6 bucks and get to bottles of soda.

I’m done listening to speeches. It’s now 7:15 and the game isn’t even close to starting.

Turns out that RC and 7up are the major brands of pop at Midway. I get two bottles of Hawaiian Punch and head back up to the seats.

Before I get there, Wife is coming down the stairs. “Let’s go” she says, as if she can hear my battered psyche breaking its nails on the stone walls of this prison well of an experience. I love her. She’s never left a game early except for once, at the RedHawks one July 4 when it was so hot I was turning pale and vomity. Even then it took 5 innings.

This time, we weren’t even going to make it to first pitch, which was now 20 minutes behind schedule.

We walk to the car and start to drive home. “You know, when I got up to leave, the people next to me wouldn’t let me through,” wife says. “What?” “I asked to get through, and they said no.” “Seriously?” “No shitting.” “That’s ridiculous.” “Yeah. Fuck the Saints and their fans.”

Then about the time we get into Minneapolis on 94, the car sounds like something fell off the back end. What the fuck?

We pull over as soon as possible, with each bump making this horrible death rattle. I find a parking lot and get out to look under the car. Nothing is hanging on the ground, everything seems OK. I try to wiggle the muffler, but it’s steady. Now we have a car that runs, but feels like a death trap, and we are in downtown Minneapolis, ten miles from home. We get back on the road, and start driving. The gas is on the last eighth of a tank. So at least when we blow up, there won’t be a lot of fire.

Every bump on the road becomes a new reason for my heart to stop beating. The car clangs away in staccato triplets. Chung chung chung. Chung chung chung.

We make it through half way of downtown when we get to a stop light on Nicollete, and there’s a fucking race going on. A bunch of runners take off and we have to wait for the cops to let us through. Mental math on the state of the car tells me that it wouldn’t handle the cobblestone streets I would have to go on to get to 55, so I get on interstate 394. Going 40. Cars honking, piiiiiissed off, wanting us dead. I go north on 100 to get onto 55. Again, every single bump is another nail in our coffin. Wife is crying at this point. My first paycheck arrives tomorrow, and we may already lose it to the car. “Things will never be good for us.” She says. Part of me wonders if it is true.

We get home an hour after leaving the game. I’m exhausted. The sun is going down. Wife uses the last of her credit card to order pizza. She ends up spending the night throwing up in the bathroom.

Our groupon gives us two more tickets. We will give them another shot, only because the game is with the RedHawks, and they’ll need support to get through playing at this devil field.