Family feud (unedited)

It's like a bad soap opera.

My maternal grandparents were married in the 1940s. They were 18/19 years old and my mother was born soon after they were married. According to my mother she was born less than nine months after they were married.

My Catholic grandparents proceeded to have 10 children, seven boys and three girls.

My grandfather proceeded to build a successful business in the flooring industry. Of his 10 children, eight have worked for the family business. My mom and one of her sisters are the only two who haven't, to the best of my knowledge. Today there are five of the 10 siblings working at the store, as well as one of my cousins who, despite going to college for something other than retail sales, seems to be on the road to a career in the flooring industry. Not a bad gig, I suspect, my relatives live a more lavish lifestyle than I do, although that's not saying much.

In October 2002 my grandmother died. My grandparents had been married for 57 years. Grandpa had been married his entire adult life, and suddenly, without warning, he was a widow. Sure, grandma had her share of health issues over the years, but nobody saw it coming that Friday morning.

It has now been six years since grandma died, and it's about to get ugly.

Grandpa has since remarried. He couldn't stand the idea of being alone, evidently. He married Huggy Bear 16 months after grandma died. Mom was not happy.

He met Huggy Bear six months after grandma died. Things progressed quickly. Huggy Bear is a widow. She has children. She has some sort of lake cabin up north. She didn't seem to be destitute. She's a nice person, albeit a bit odd. She means well.

Mom didn't try to stop grandpa's wedding to Huggy Bear, but she clearly wasn't happy about it. The wedding was a minor debacle, and mom took it as a personal slight. I didn't get it, but whatever.

Grandpa divided his business into 10 shares and gave one to each of his children. He wasn't working any more and planned to live off the rental income from the property on which the store sits. The kids own the business, grandpa owns the building and the property it sits on. Sounds like a good plan, eh?

Grandpa may have been a successful businessman for decades, but he seems to have made a mistake or two along the way. After grandma died grandpa bought land for a new store, a store that didn't happen. I don't know the details, but from what I've heard, it hasn't done grandpa any financial favors.

Huggy Bear must get some form of retirement income. She worked, so perhaps she has a pension. Her husband likely had life insurance. She can't be without income. But grandpa writes her a check every month, a check for $4,000. Grandpa gets a rent check from the store each month for something like $11,000. He left his checkbook at the store one day, that's how the aunts and uncles found out.

Since each sibling owns a share of the store, it has value and they're taxed on it. Although they've received dividends of some sort in the past, they're not seeing anything nowadays, and they still have tax liability for their share each year.

At Thanksgiving dinner my brother invited two uncles to join dinner. Mom and her brothers discussed the situation. It appears they think they need an attorney to represent their interests. Mom doesn't want to give back the shares of the store to grandpa, mainly because she doesn't want it to go to Huggy Bear if grandpa dies. They have a pre-nuptial agreement, but if the store winds up back in grandpa's hands, it would go to Huggy Bear, evidently. Mom is adamant that it won't become hers. Yikes!

At one point it was suggested grandpa is going senile and doesn't realize what is going on. The economy is in the toilet, sales are down and the store is barely breaking even. Grandpa is most concerned with getting his rent check, evidently, and oblivious to the fact that if the store goes in the toilet, he owns an empty building he'll have a really hard time renting. There's also some distrust of grandpa's legal/financial advice, I learned.

It has been six years since grandma died. We miss her more than ever.

I'm a rube

I went to a premiere screening of "Four Christmases" tonight. Not bad. It's not groundbreaking comedy, but it's entertaining from start to finish. Pretty good cast, too.

I've gone to enough of these to know that if you want to see the movie, show up early, otherwise you may get shut out. It has happened to me once or twice.

Passes for premiere screenings are usually in excess of capacity, probably far in excess, as it's expected that for most flicks, other than heavily-hyped blockbusters, there will be a high degree of no shows. But if enough people are dying to see the adorable Reese Witherspoon, then yeah, your free ticket may be worth less than the paper it's printed on if you roll into the theater five minutes before showtime.

It wasn't that I needed to see the latest Vince Vaughn movie, but it was an excuse to go to a movie, something I don't do that often, and it was a chance to get together with a buddy I hadn't talked to for a while. He's a movie geek, goes to way too many movies at the theaters, so a movie premiere is not a tough sell with him.

Jason and I met for dinner prior to the movie, and made sure to get there early, just to be safe, because rubes gotta get in to see the movie for free. We ended up at the theater about 50 minutes before the start of the movie, and there had to be 75 people lined up already.

If it's a chance to buy concert tickets for a Beatles reunion featuring a reincarnted Lennon and Harrison, yeah, I get the urgency, but it's a just a movie, and not exactly "Star Wars Episode IX: Luke's Coming Out Party."

I don't get why people show up 90 minutes early to be the first in line for a free movie, I really don't.

But for a chance to catch up with Jason and see a flick he hasn't seen, it was worth being a rube.

Batman smells

October is a busy month for me, and although I never got around to blogging here, I did plenty of writing, including for another blog I maintain during the Halloween season, a blog related to my annual gig screaming at teenage girls in the halls of a local haunted house, but that's another story for another blog.

It's the most wonderful time of the year, when we're innundated with Christmas music, whether we like it or not. I don't.

You grow up singing the songs and hearing them every year. Some of them aren't bad, but when I listened to "Living After Midnight" by The Donnas for the millionth time the other day, it was because I wanted to. I can listen to those chicks rock out on that Judas Priest song every day and I'd never get tired of it.

But when I have to hear "Silent Night" while walking through a store, any store, on any day of the year, I'm not happy. And 30 days of that isn't enough any more.

The worst part is that there are enough Christmas rubes out there that most radio markets across the country have at least one station that changes its program from "good times, great oldies," variety hits of the 80s, 90s and today or even Hicksville country music to all Christmas music.

Here in the Twin Cities, we are lucky enough to have two FM stations who find it financially viable to do so. And for some reason there's some sort of clout with being the first station to do so, I'm sure of it. Each year the date of the first "flip" in the metro is earlier than the previous year. See for yourself: Flippin' out!

Last Saturday night as I was driving home from a card game at 3 a.m. I scanned the FM dial for something tolerable. As I hit one of the Christmas stations I couldn't help but wonder who the hell is listening to Christmas music in the wee hours of Nov. 16? You can't convince me there's one person who thinks that's a good idea.

You want to make my blood boil? Start playing that awful Paul McCartney song within earshot of me. You know the one:

"Sim-ply hav-ing a wonderfulChristmastime

The moon is right
The spirits pour
We're here tonight
I want to score

Sim-ply hav-ing a wonderfulChristmastime
Sim-ply hav-ing a wonderfulChristmastime

The party's on
The feelin's here
That only comes
From a case of beer

Sim-ply hav-ing a wonderfulChristmastime
Sim-ply hav-ing a wonderfulChristmastime"

If I ever run into Paul McCartney during the holidays I'm going to grab his scarf and choke him with it until fruitcakes come out of his ass.

If there's one consolation I can take from all of this, it's that in sexy Stinktown they had two stations that flipped on Halloween night! You can try all you want to paint Stinktown white, it's still not sexy.

And finally (unedited)

Cosmo's wedding has provided more blog material than I could have imagined.

Cosmo was back in the office for a couple of days this week before departing for his honeymoon...following whatever Jewish observation is taking place this week.

Today we got to grill Cosmo about wedding details.

What we learned:

-- They intended to do a garder toss and a bouquet toss, but were too busy frolicking to make it happen.

-- Cosmo has rarely, if ever, seen a dollar dance, so it was never a consideration.

-- Since the wedding wasn't in a synogogue, Cosmo didn't need to wear a yamaka, but did so anyway.

-- The photographer provided one of those shopping mall photo booths for guests to take instant photos. Then prints of those photos were given to the guests, and placed in the guest book, along with a signature by the guest. I didn't take a photo, or sign the book, so I guess I never attended.

-- The round table the wedding party sat at in the center of the room was not a Jewish tradition, it was just a personal preference of the wedding party, and it's a much better idea than the press conference panel presentation of the wedding party at typical receptions.

-- The wedding planner is indeed Jewish.

And with that I'm done reminiscing about Cosmo's wedding. I can't believe it's the last wedding I'm ever going to attend, but it is, I swear, even if the new Mike is the same as the old Mike.

Thinking back (unedited)

Cosmo's wedding is like the gift that keeps on giving. For the third night in a row I'm blogging about it.

The timing wasn't perfect, but his wedding reminded me of three years ago. Cosmo was married on Oct. 5. Nearly three years earlier, on Oct. 7, 2005, I went to another wedding, of another co-worker. After three years, Heidi is still happily married, an no longer working for Napoleon's crumbling empire.

I remember that day for a couple of reasons. Her wedding was early on a Friday evening, the White Sox had a playoff game that afternoon in Boston and the ceremony started at a pivotal point in the game. Flash forward to Cosmo, his wedding was early on a Sunday evening (5 p.m. means it's no longer an afternoon wedding, right?) the White Sox had a playoff game that afternoon in Chicago and the ceremony started at a pivotal poin in the game.

Unlike 2005, the White Sox of 2008 will not be advancing to the American League Championship Series, or winning the World Series. But the similarity between the two weddings was not lost upon me. Nor was the significance of Heidi's wedding.

Unlike Cosmo's wedding, where I had all of two co-workers to hang out with, Heidi's wedding had several co-workers in attendance, past and present. The difference was that in 2008 I was hanging out with two editorial co-workers while in 2005 I was hanging out with a cast of salespeople. Where did I feel more out of my element? You'd think the answer would be 2005, since I'm an editorial guy, but I had a lot of fun at that wedding. I get to know many of the salespeople at work, despite the fact we live in two different worlds. We may work on the same product, and under the same roof, but our worlds are very different. Yet those folks seemed to be more my style.

It was that evening in 2005 with a group of people I was a relative outsider to that I came to an important conclusion and decision about my life. I made a personal commitment that night.

And at Cosmo's wedding I found myself revisiting that commitment. Here I am, two nights later, on the third anniversary of that decision, and I find myself examining the three years since that fateful night.

What have I concluded? To borrow a quote that has nothing to do with me, but speaks volumes about me: "This is the new Mike? Same as the old Mike."

Well done, genius.

Damn I'm tired

Blogging after Cosmo's wedding was an inspired decision, but I was tired all day Monday. I'm often awake past midnight, but I'm not often slurping up $5.50 cocktails for three or four hours prior to blogging at 1 a.m.

Those of us from Cosmo's newspaper circle were seated together at table 5. It seemed like a good idea, as there would be eight of us, and an infant. The problem was that Rush decided two weeks ago he couldn't attend due to childcare issues. What a bunch of crap.

At least he was able to let Cosmo know he had to cancel. Teri and her hetero life partner pulled a Teri. She said they were coming and then no-showed, as she is wont to do. She even e-mailed me last week to see if I would be attending, and I confirmed I was. Of course her dinner was paid for well in advance, and somehow I doubt it was an emergency or sudden Sunday night conflict that kept her and the mister from attending. Downright tacky.

So the four of us connected via the newspaper were sitting alone, until Marsha sat down at our table. I was curious who this woman with no family or friends was, but she was across the table from me, seated next to mother and child. I wasn't in the mood to make small talk. It turns out she was the wedding planner. She was there from start to finish, for what purpose I'm not entirely sure, but she was there.

I can only assume she's Jewish, but I don't know for sure. She's definitely a yenta, and while I've always assumed a yenta is automatically a Hebrew, I guess I'm not sure. At this point if I had to wager $10, I'd wager she's a card-carrying member of the nation.

How did I know she was a yenta? At some point she wants to know who we are across the table, and she immeidately starts asking if we're single. Oy ve!

Apparently I seemed like a less-than-hopeless project, because at a later point in the evening she asked what I thought of the maid of honor. She was quite lovely, and before I knew it, Marsha was checking on her availability. Here's a shock, she was "spoken for."

They claim that weddings are great places to meet people, and the whole "Wedding Crashers" movie was based upon that concept. I disagree. Nobody likes to go to a wedding and say "look at me, I'm flying solo because I'm a pathetic loser!" I never drag somebody with me to a wedding, but I'm tired of sticking out like a sore thumb. The way I figure it, you should be significantly committed to someone before you subject them to the awkwardness of a wedding, unless you both come from the same circle of friends.

Yet almost nobody under the age of 50 seems to be flying solo at a wedding these days. But given that I wouldn't drag someone to a wedding just to avoid sticking out like a sore thumb, it's another reason why I have to stop going to them.

I'm tired of playing by the wedding rules, so I'm going to stop playing, no matter how many hot young Jewish chicks are going to be at the reception.

Mazal tov

Sunday night was one I will always remember. It was the last time I will attend a wedding.

My Jewish co-worker, Cosmo, got married. The Sunday evening affair wasn't because he's from the Hebrew nation, it was because it was a night when they could hold the ceremony in the locale of their choosing without having to wait more than two years.

Mrs. Cosmo, for the record, ain't Jewish. She's a southern gal. Her exact denomination I cannot say, but the fact she doesn't eat kosher meals meant that the affair was only partly Jewish. So I'm not sure if I can claim to have been a spectator at a full-fledged Jewish ceremony, but this one was good enough for me.

The ceremony was held outdoors in Minneapolis. On a beautiful October afternoon an outdoor wedding would have been ideal. On Sunday, however, it was cloudy. I think it sprinkled for a minute or two prior to the ceremony, but the skies never opened up. We were under a giant tent anyway, overlooking the mighty Mississippi River. It wouldn't have been ideal, but had it rained, we would have survived.

The short ceremony had the token readings and sermons, with a few Jewish references and explanations thrown in for good measure. The finale was the stomping on the wine glass, or whatever the glass is that they break. We were all instructed to yell "mazal tov" upon Cosmo's ceremonial stomping on the glass. Sadly his performance was underwhelming, as I didn't hear any shattering of glass, and therefore I missed my cue. More Gentile I could not be at that moment.

The reception was at the site of the wedding, and it was largely non-denominational. Most of the music, dancing, eating and drinking was no different than any other reception I've attended.

But prior to dinner there was the ceremonial introduction of the newlyweds. They didn't introduce the wedding party, which curiously featured five bridesmaids and six groomsmen, but they introduced the happy couple. I didn't think anything of that, until the happy couple headed to the dance floor, and the live band started playing all the Jewish hits. People quickly descended upon the dance floor, dancing in circles around Cosmo and Robyn.

Before long they were being raised up above the crowd in chairs, just like I've seen in the movies. I was a bit surprised to see all of this take place before dinner.

If you wanted to play "Spot the Gentile," the pre-dinner dance was the time to do it. As many at the reception found their way to the dance floor, the Gentiles like me stood back and watched the drama unfold.

And the damn thing wouldn't end! Every time I thought they'd be wrapping up the dance, the music would kick in, again. Even Cosmo said the festivities went a little long. I swear the whole song and dance exceeded 20 minutes.

Following dinner the reception was rather Gentile in nature, although there was no dollar dance, bunny hop or garter toss. I don't know why, and I didn't ask questions. I'll do that when Cosmo returns to work.

There was an open bar all evening, so I pretty much paid for the cost of my wedding gift with drinks during the reception. A couple of co-workers attended, so that gave me reason to stick around past dinner. I kept hoping something unique was going to happen, given it was my last wedding reception, but no such luck. The Jews let me down.

I enjoyed the experience, especially watching the Princess of Power strut her stuff. I met her a few years ago, and she's hot. I was stunned she didn't have a boyfriend with her at the wedding. Despite that, I'm a realist, and not nearly creepy enough to hit on her.

So why is it the last wedding/reception I will attend? Because I'm bored with them, plain and simple.

People are lame. I went to another co-worker's wedding on May 31, and it's remarkable how many people bail out after dinner on a Saturday night. They don't have anywhere else to go, they don't have a four-hour drive home after the wedding. But they act like sticking around and socializing with friends and/or relatives is a pain in the ass. Maybe it is, but this is a recurring phenomena at weddings.

I can't say I entirely blame people. Most weddings have a DJ, and that means being subjected to a painful musical formula that includes that damn chicken dance and other assorted crap. I think I've been suicidal more than once as a result of the tedious musical format so many wedding receptions seem to follow. (Nobody really wants to dance to "Staying Alive.")

Beyond that, I find that the weddings I attend these days are less of a cause for celebration than those of past years. Most of my best friends have gotten married, with the exception of Chip and Monica, and I don't expect a close friend or family member to get married any time soon.

So what happens when my 25-year-old cousin gets married in a few years? I send him a gift and save him a few bucks on an overpriced dinner. What happens when Monica gets married? I feel bad that I'm not there, but a rule is a rule. Friends, family, co-workers, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to put up with the farce that is a wedding any more.

I'll send a gift, but it's time to start doing things for me and stop doing things for everyone else. Nobody will miss me at their wedding, and I won't miss the charade that is a wedding/reception.

My last wedding was a quasi-Jewish affair. It was nice to see one in action, to see something a little different than what I am use to. It was a memorable, and relatively enjoyable, experience. Given it was the last wedding I will ever attend, it was nice to go out on a high note.