1. Several months ago I thought it would be interesting to get feedback from somebody, anybody, regarding my writing.
2. I had no interest, however, in sharing my blog with my friends or family, so I created a Twitter account as a means to promote the jukebox.
3. I learned that Twitter is a waste of time for 99 percent of us.
4. I no longer care about trying to generate an audience for this blog.
5. I don't care about a lot of things these days. Many of the things I use to care about no longer matter to me.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Happy new year
It was one month ago today, four weeks exactly, that I learned it was 2009 all over again.
And that's a good thing. It really is, but first a little context.
My former girlfriend, somebody I spent more than a year with, proved to me what I've known for years. Two weeks after moving out of state, she told me I was disposable. She gave me variations of the "it's not you, it's me" routine, but that's her way of being nice. She knew for months she could do better, much better, and after sending me plenty of signals, she finally pulled the trigger after I forced her hand, two weeks after the last night we spent together here in Minnesota. There was talk of a long-distance relationship, and thoughts on my part of trying to make that happen, but it turns out that either she was kidding or I was kidding myself.
It hurts, a lot, to realize that many Saturday nights in 2011 are going to end up like this past weekend, alone and forgettable, just like March 2009.
The world is a wacky place. A "friend" I have known for more than 10 years, but haven't seen in nearly seven -- despite the fact she lives in nearby St. Paul -- once quizzed me as to why I spend stretches of my life single. The best explanation I could give in one sentence, I'm not a good catch.
That's the great irony of life. My friend Michelle is several years younger than me, has four children through more than one father, has never had a career and couldn't make it through life without the help and assistance of others, including her mother, who is retired and probably never dreamed her golden years would be spent supporting her children and grandchildren. Michelle is intelligent, personable and cute. I can't tell you anything about her various boyfriends and/or fathers of her children, so perhaps they are more dysfunctional than she is, but all I know is that a relationship with Michelle is anything but a walk in the park. Yet she pretty much always has a boyfriend. I'll never understand it.
As I said, the world is a wacky place. Guys fall all over themselves to become one of Michelle's ex-boyfriends, and somebody like me who has a modest career and no children is destined to end the journey through life alone. I knew this two years ago, and four weeks ago today the point was reinforced to me.
I'm not happy about where my life is in 2011, but this is not a pity party. I don't feel sorry for myself, and neither should anyone else. Life isn't fair, I tell that to people periodically, usually during a discussion pertaining to the content of my weekly newspaper. Some people will always have somebody to share life with. Not just anybody. Somebody. I won't.
As I said, I knew this two years ago, and after the past few months, it was proven to me.
I had a personal goal for 2009, a goal I should have achieved despite the fact my life was sidetracked with a relationship. The only reason that goal wasn't achieved was because I lack the focus and drive to see many things through. Not this time.
I thought my former girlfriend's moving out of state was going to be the catalyst for me finally reaching that 2009 goal, for a very different reason than the one that inspired it. But I didn't get a chance to test the theory that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Instead I got 2009 back.
My 2009 goal is tied to a very important decision I made regarding my life, a decision some would question. Most would, actually. But with age comes wisdom, and I'm wise enough to know what I've believed to be true for many years is, in fact, true.
It's an exciting time to be alive, it's 2009, and things are going to be fine.
And that's a good thing. It really is, but first a little context.
My former girlfriend, somebody I spent more than a year with, proved to me what I've known for years. Two weeks after moving out of state, she told me I was disposable. She gave me variations of the "it's not you, it's me" routine, but that's her way of being nice. She knew for months she could do better, much better, and after sending me plenty of signals, she finally pulled the trigger after I forced her hand, two weeks after the last night we spent together here in Minnesota. There was talk of a long-distance relationship, and thoughts on my part of trying to make that happen, but it turns out that either she was kidding or I was kidding myself.
It hurts, a lot, to realize that many Saturday nights in 2011 are going to end up like this past weekend, alone and forgettable, just like March 2009.
The world is a wacky place. A "friend" I have known for more than 10 years, but haven't seen in nearly seven -- despite the fact she lives in nearby St. Paul -- once quizzed me as to why I spend stretches of my life single. The best explanation I could give in one sentence, I'm not a good catch.
That's the great irony of life. My friend Michelle is several years younger than me, has four children through more than one father, has never had a career and couldn't make it through life without the help and assistance of others, including her mother, who is retired and probably never dreamed her golden years would be spent supporting her children and grandchildren. Michelle is intelligent, personable and cute. I can't tell you anything about her various boyfriends and/or fathers of her children, so perhaps they are more dysfunctional than she is, but all I know is that a relationship with Michelle is anything but a walk in the park. Yet she pretty much always has a boyfriend. I'll never understand it.
As I said, the world is a wacky place. Guys fall all over themselves to become one of Michelle's ex-boyfriends, and somebody like me who has a modest career and no children is destined to end the journey through life alone. I knew this two years ago, and four weeks ago today the point was reinforced to me.
I'm not happy about where my life is in 2011, but this is not a pity party. I don't feel sorry for myself, and neither should anyone else. Life isn't fair, I tell that to people periodically, usually during a discussion pertaining to the content of my weekly newspaper. Some people will always have somebody to share life with. Not just anybody. Somebody. I won't.
As I said, I knew this two years ago, and after the past few months, it was proven to me.
I had a personal goal for 2009, a goal I should have achieved despite the fact my life was sidetracked with a relationship. The only reason that goal wasn't achieved was because I lack the focus and drive to see many things through. Not this time.
I thought my former girlfriend's moving out of state was going to be the catalyst for me finally reaching that 2009 goal, for a very different reason than the one that inspired it. But I didn't get a chance to test the theory that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Instead I got 2009 back.
My 2009 goal is tied to a very important decision I made regarding my life, a decision some would question. Most would, actually. But with age comes wisdom, and I'm wise enough to know what I've believed to be true for many years is, in fact, true.
It's an exciting time to be alive, it's 2009, and things are going to be fine.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Meet market (unedited)
We all know Valentine’s Day is a marketing scam designed to sell flowers, candy, greeting cards, wine and fancy steak dinners to our consumer-driven society.
Besides the obvious beneficiaries of VD, many other businesses and organizations capitalize on the mid-winter homage to the orgasm. Valentine’s Day celebrates sex, and if you’re in the business of marketing sex, what better time to tout your goods.
When I refer to the business of marketing sex, I’m including about dating services. The altruistic purpose of a dating service, be it the nationally renowned dating scam Great Expectations or one of our locally owned and operated purveyors of sexual encounters such as Quikdatz -- one of the early purveyors of speed dating here in the metro and one of the few still in business -- is to help people find sex. Forget love, marriage and all that crap, dating services are in the sex trade. Customers may say they're looking to meet new people, or are looking to meet their sole mate, but they're being dishonest. They're looking for a hot piece of ass. If they get more than that, that's icing on the cake.
So it goes without saying that sex marketers pounce on VD as an opportunity to sell their service. It's too easy. People who aren't having sex, and aren't trapped in a miserable marriage, hate VD. They want nothing to do with VD because they're not getting sex and VD reminds them of the fact they're not having sex.
I didn't think I wasn't in the market for sex in the days leading up to VD -- turns out I was misinformed, but that's another story for another time -- yet I went to a meet market on Feb. 10.
I went to Date for Life, a well orchestrated fundraising event for the Children's Cancer Research Fund.
Why? By chance I found out a week earlier that my good friend Monica, the flight attendant, was attending with a few folks from her social circle. That's the first I heard of this fundraising gala in downtown Minneapolis.
By attending I learned that the event is in memory of a young woman who spent her high school years battling cancer and died because of cancer as a young adult. That was a few years ago, and this event is in her memory. God bless her and her family. They deserve better. I don't know them personally, but I know myself, so I know they deserve a better hand than life has dealt them. I'm proof of that, but I digress.
The event was quite high class. There was a silent auction with several nice items up for bid, a great spread of hors d'œuvres and several beautiful people up for bid. I have no idea how the meat of the meet market wound up on the auction block, but this was definately an event for the beautiful people. The meat was composed of attractive, successful people. There weren't any McDonald's managers or factory workers up for bids. Among the men were a doctor, a chef, sales geniuses and personal trainers, including a dude who seems rather pleased to be known for being one of the sausages competing for one woman on ABC's "The Bachelor." (He should be ashamed of himself, but that's America, and why the rest of the world hates us, we objectify such morons.)
The women included at least one yoga instructor, behavior therapist, personal trainer and teacher.
The format of the auction was rather odd. They introduced every piece of meat on stage and then turned them loose for an hour. Each piece of meat had a promoter, a friend or family member who helped work the crowd for an hour or more, shilling for his or her piece of meat and recording bids received on for the meat. Those pieces of meat with the highest bids at the end of the mingling session were brought up on stage in an effort to drum up final bids.
I discussed this strategy with Monica's group. We couldn't decide what made more sense: Do you bring up those with the highest bids to try to push the price even higher since those were the most desirable pieces of meat? Or do you bring up those on the bottom of the totem poll, to give those with a budget a chance to bid on second-rate meat since the prime cuts were priced out of their league?
We decided that if you try to bring up the big losers of the night, you'll brand them with a scarlet letter, and who wants to see that at a charity event? We concluded the best idea was to pre-select a cross-section of meat so that there's something for everyone at the end of the night.
Despite the fact the upper echelon had bids of $700 or more, most garnered at least one more bid. I think the big winner of the night was the kindergarten teacher. She was 25 or so, and had a respectable $700 bid by the end of the night. She made the cut, so they brought her up on stage. She worked the crowd like Hulk Hogan in his prime as the auctioneer egged eager males into bidding for her. I think she finished with a winning bid of $1,600, and I think that was the biggest buy of the night.
Monica was turned onto the event by a member of her social circle, as one of the bachelors seemed to be a perfect match for her, at least on paper. She sensed the bidding would be higher for him than she could justify spending, and she was right. But after meeting him that night, she wasn't sold on the idea that he was her perfect match. Nonetheless she enjoyed her night, even though we all abanonded her. A local musical genius was performing after the bidding, and Monica is a fan, so she hung around to enjoy his musical stylings.
Even if I had known I was in the market to bid on one of the pieces of meat, I am neither beautiful nor affluent enough to be granted membership in that social circle. But I enjoyed my evening as an uninvited guest at the party.
And I'm grateful that I was blissfully unaware I was among those who should hate VD. I was mistakenly under the impression I could celebrate VD this year.
Besides the obvious beneficiaries of VD, many other businesses and organizations capitalize on the mid-winter homage to the orgasm. Valentine’s Day celebrates sex, and if you’re in the business of marketing sex, what better time to tout your goods.
When I refer to the business of marketing sex, I’m including about dating services. The altruistic purpose of a dating service, be it the nationally renowned dating scam Great Expectations or one of our locally owned and operated purveyors of sexual encounters such as Quikdatz -- one of the early purveyors of speed dating here in the metro and one of the few still in business -- is to help people find sex. Forget love, marriage and all that crap, dating services are in the sex trade. Customers may say they're looking to meet new people, or are looking to meet their sole mate, but they're being dishonest. They're looking for a hot piece of ass. If they get more than that, that's icing on the cake.
So it goes without saying that sex marketers pounce on VD as an opportunity to sell their service. It's too easy. People who aren't having sex, and aren't trapped in a miserable marriage, hate VD. They want nothing to do with VD because they're not getting sex and VD reminds them of the fact they're not having sex.
I didn't think I wasn't in the market for sex in the days leading up to VD -- turns out I was misinformed, but that's another story for another time -- yet I went to a meet market on Feb. 10.
I went to Date for Life, a well orchestrated fundraising event for the Children's Cancer Research Fund.
Why? By chance I found out a week earlier that my good friend Monica, the flight attendant, was attending with a few folks from her social circle. That's the first I heard of this fundraising gala in downtown Minneapolis.
By attending I learned that the event is in memory of a young woman who spent her high school years battling cancer and died because of cancer as a young adult. That was a few years ago, and this event is in her memory. God bless her and her family. They deserve better. I don't know them personally, but I know myself, so I know they deserve a better hand than life has dealt them. I'm proof of that, but I digress.
The event was quite high class. There was a silent auction with several nice items up for bid, a great spread of hors d'œuvres and several beautiful people up for bid. I have no idea how the meat of the meet market wound up on the auction block, but this was definately an event for the beautiful people. The meat was composed of attractive, successful people. There weren't any McDonald's managers or factory workers up for bids. Among the men were a doctor, a chef, sales geniuses and personal trainers, including a dude who seems rather pleased to be known for being one of the sausages competing for one woman on ABC's "The Bachelor." (He should be ashamed of himself, but that's America, and why the rest of the world hates us, we objectify such morons.)
The women included at least one yoga instructor, behavior therapist, personal trainer and teacher.
The format of the auction was rather odd. They introduced every piece of meat on stage and then turned them loose for an hour. Each piece of meat had a promoter, a friend or family member who helped work the crowd for an hour or more, shilling for his or her piece of meat and recording bids received on for the meat. Those pieces of meat with the highest bids at the end of the mingling session were brought up on stage in an effort to drum up final bids.
I discussed this strategy with Monica's group. We couldn't decide what made more sense: Do you bring up those with the highest bids to try to push the price even higher since those were the most desirable pieces of meat? Or do you bring up those on the bottom of the totem poll, to give those with a budget a chance to bid on second-rate meat since the prime cuts were priced out of their league?
We decided that if you try to bring up the big losers of the night, you'll brand them with a scarlet letter, and who wants to see that at a charity event? We concluded the best idea was to pre-select a cross-section of meat so that there's something for everyone at the end of the night.
Despite the fact the upper echelon had bids of $700 or more, most garnered at least one more bid. I think the big winner of the night was the kindergarten teacher. She was 25 or so, and had a respectable $700 bid by the end of the night. She made the cut, so they brought her up on stage. She worked the crowd like Hulk Hogan in his prime as the auctioneer egged eager males into bidding for her. I think she finished with a winning bid of $1,600, and I think that was the biggest buy of the night.
Monica was turned onto the event by a member of her social circle, as one of the bachelors seemed to be a perfect match for her, at least on paper. She sensed the bidding would be higher for him than she could justify spending, and she was right. But after meeting him that night, she wasn't sold on the idea that he was her perfect match. Nonetheless she enjoyed her night, even though we all abanonded her. A local musical genius was performing after the bidding, and Monica is a fan, so she hung around to enjoy his musical stylings.
Even if I had known I was in the market to bid on one of the pieces of meat, I am neither beautiful nor affluent enough to be granted membership in that social circle. But I enjoyed my evening as an uninvited guest at the party.
And I'm grateful that I was blissfully unaware I was among those who should hate VD. I was mistakenly under the impression I could celebrate VD this year.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
I'm not a Nye's guy (unedited)
Anybody who knows the Minneapolis bar scene knows about Nye's.
I get the quirky appeal of it, but I don't get why it's a destination. Nye's is an old restaurant with an old bar. It's bar is separated from the main restaurant by swinging doors, and it's your small, old school bar. There's a long bar with stools along one wall, booths along the other wall and barely enough room for a woman with a walker to pass between them if nobody is sitting at the bar. As soon as the booths and bar stools are full, it's a tough proposition to pass from the front entrance on Hennepin Avenue to the swinging doors leading into the restaurant.
On weekends, at least, the bar area is a madhouse, with people packing the place to pay premium prices for drinks and listen to the sounds of a geriatric polka band. I get the appeal of polka music when you drink, I just don't get the appeal of an expensive, tiny, cramped bar. Yet it draws the young, beautiful people and the old timers who wish they were still among the young and beautiful, or regret the fact they were never young and beautiful but want to get a whiff of the beautiful people.
The restaurant is expansive, slightly upscale and as dated as the layout of the bar. You can sit around a geriatric piano player and sing along to your favorite piano hits if you're not dining in the restaurant. Another small bar nearby provides seats for carousers who aren't fascinated by a near comatose accordian player on the other side of the wall.
I made a 60-minute cameo at Nye's earlier tonight because Monica took her mother there for a belated birthday dinner. I joined them after dinner, in part because I don't get to visit with Monica's mom very often, and I wanted to finally give Monica her belated birthday present.
Nye's is an upscale place that never kept up with the times, choosing instead to open its arms to everyone who lusts for a nostalgic nod to yesteryear at today's upscale prices.
And I don't get it.
I get the quirky appeal of it, but I don't get why it's a destination. Nye's is an old restaurant with an old bar. It's bar is separated from the main restaurant by swinging doors, and it's your small, old school bar. There's a long bar with stools along one wall, booths along the other wall and barely enough room for a woman with a walker to pass between them if nobody is sitting at the bar. As soon as the booths and bar stools are full, it's a tough proposition to pass from the front entrance on Hennepin Avenue to the swinging doors leading into the restaurant.
On weekends, at least, the bar area is a madhouse, with people packing the place to pay premium prices for drinks and listen to the sounds of a geriatric polka band. I get the appeal of polka music when you drink, I just don't get the appeal of an expensive, tiny, cramped bar. Yet it draws the young, beautiful people and the old timers who wish they were still among the young and beautiful, or regret the fact they were never young and beautiful but want to get a whiff of the beautiful people.
The restaurant is expansive, slightly upscale and as dated as the layout of the bar. You can sit around a geriatric piano player and sing along to your favorite piano hits if you're not dining in the restaurant. Another small bar nearby provides seats for carousers who aren't fascinated by a near comatose accordian player on the other side of the wall.
I made a 60-minute cameo at Nye's earlier tonight because Monica took her mother there for a belated birthday dinner. I joined them after dinner, in part because I don't get to visit with Monica's mom very often, and I wanted to finally give Monica her belated birthday present.
Nye's is an upscale place that never kept up with the times, choosing instead to open its arms to everyone who lusts for a nostalgic nod to yesteryear at today's upscale prices.
And I don't get it.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Hellraisers ball (unedited)
I can't control my gypsy soul.
As the preeminent BulletBoys blogger, you'd think I'd be blogging about the life and times of many mostly forgotten hair bands.
Truth of the matter, I follow the comings and goings of several bands, but I don't go out of my way to see that many of them that do come to town. I'm a fan of Tesla to this day, but I haven't been to one of their concerts in a few years. They draw decent in comparison to some of their hair band brethren, and make a much better living than the BulletBoys, without a doubt.
Thursday night I drove from the Twin Cities to the unspectacular city of Mankato, Minn., for an L.A. Guns concert. I have written about the BulletBoys several times, but the band I've seen live more than any other is L.A. Guns.
I'll spare the L.A. Guns history lesson, and references to their catalog. If you don't know who I'm talking about, you don't care. All you need to know is that using an A to D scale of success during the hair band era, Bon Jovi and Motley Crue are among the A level acts. Tesla is a B level act. L.A. Guns is a C.
The band finds its way to Minnesota annually, sometimes several times in a year, which is ironic since the dudes really do live in the Los Angeles area to this day. Their management and booking is by a St. Paul-based company, which is a lot of the reason why they play gigs in the midwest as often as they do.
I don't have any insider knowledge, but from what I have gleaned over the years is that L.A. Guns flies into an area for a weekend of shows and then heads back to California after two or three nights of gigs. The band doesn't have the support of a major label any more, there's no tour bus traveling across the country. Compared to their late 1980s early 1990s heyday, it's quite a step down. Fans treat them like rock stars, and they have it better than most musicians ever will, but the bloom is off the rose at this point.
My guess is that they draw enough to get paid a few thousand dollars, give or take, per gig. Who pays for their flight back and forth? Who pays for the hotel rooms where they crash each night? Who pays to drive them between cities each night during their weekend jaunt? I assume that's covered by their management, who must get a cut of the fee L.A. Guns collects from each venue.
Since there's no tour bus or cross country tour, I'm also guessing that much of the equipment from night to night is provided by their management. There's no way these guys are taking more than a few guitars with them for three nights of concerts in Minnesota and Iowa.
There's much I don't know, but what I do know is that I still enjoy most of their songs two decades after I they were major label darlings. The irony is that I never got to see the band when they were drawing sellout crowds at huge clubs across the country or opening for bands like AC/DC. After years of touring without the original lead singer, the band reunited in 1999. I finally got to see them live on a Friday night in St. Paul, and for no cover charge. I don't know how that happened, but it did. There was a nice crowd at that unspectacular club. They sold more than a million copies of their second CD, so they still had fans.
And they continue to draw a few hundred people to a show in the Twin Cities. On a Thursday night in Mankato, the crowd was probably 200. It was $10 at the door, $7 in advance. I have no idea how much the bar has to pay to book the band on a Thursday night, but I'd love to see accounting for their night.
Since L.A. Guns performs in the Twin Cities regularly -- perhaps more often than they perform in California at this point -- I can count on seeing them live at least once a year. I once saw them three times in less than three months here in the Twin Cities.
But I had to miss their last show here in the Twin Cities, on Oct. 29, 2010. And it had been more than a year since they last played at a club here in the Twin Cities, so I decided to make a Thursday night road trip to Mankato, as long as the weather wasn't too lousy to drive. It was 75 minutes one way, so it was an easy round trip, especially since I timed my arrival to fall less then 30 minutes before L.A. Guns took the stage. The round trip, including a 14-song set by the band, was barely more than four hours.
That's a minor time commitment, although working for a living makes a Thursday night road trip less than ideal. But I don't have children to worry about or a time clock to punch at a set time every morning, (a blessing and curse of working in the media.) I have a less than glamourous life, I may make less than glamourous choices on a Thursday night in Minnesota, but I have the freedom and ability to hit the road and go hear a band I have enjoyed for two decades. A lot of people can't do that.
Would my life seem empty and meaningless today if I hadn't went to Mankato last night? No. And unlike hardcore music fans, it's not as if I was suffering symptoms of withdrawal from having missed the October show here in the Twin Cities. I simply had a chance to see a band I still enjoy, and I took advantage of it. '
It was a nice luxury to have, and one life doesn't afford me nearly often enough.
As the preeminent BulletBoys blogger, you'd think I'd be blogging about the life and times of many mostly forgotten hair bands.
Truth of the matter, I follow the comings and goings of several bands, but I don't go out of my way to see that many of them that do come to town. I'm a fan of Tesla to this day, but I haven't been to one of their concerts in a few years. They draw decent in comparison to some of their hair band brethren, and make a much better living than the BulletBoys, without a doubt.
Thursday night I drove from the Twin Cities to the unspectacular city of Mankato, Minn., for an L.A. Guns concert. I have written about the BulletBoys several times, but the band I've seen live more than any other is L.A. Guns.
I'll spare the L.A. Guns history lesson, and references to their catalog. If you don't know who I'm talking about, you don't care. All you need to know is that using an A to D scale of success during the hair band era, Bon Jovi and Motley Crue are among the A level acts. Tesla is a B level act. L.A. Guns is a C.
The band finds its way to Minnesota annually, sometimes several times in a year, which is ironic since the dudes really do live in the Los Angeles area to this day. Their management and booking is by a St. Paul-based company, which is a lot of the reason why they play gigs in the midwest as often as they do.
I don't have any insider knowledge, but from what I have gleaned over the years is that L.A. Guns flies into an area for a weekend of shows and then heads back to California after two or three nights of gigs. The band doesn't have the support of a major label any more, there's no tour bus traveling across the country. Compared to their late 1980s early 1990s heyday, it's quite a step down. Fans treat them like rock stars, and they have it better than most musicians ever will, but the bloom is off the rose at this point.
My guess is that they draw enough to get paid a few thousand dollars, give or take, per gig. Who pays for their flight back and forth? Who pays for the hotel rooms where they crash each night? Who pays to drive them between cities each night during their weekend jaunt? I assume that's covered by their management, who must get a cut of the fee L.A. Guns collects from each venue.
Since there's no tour bus or cross country tour, I'm also guessing that much of the equipment from night to night is provided by their management. There's no way these guys are taking more than a few guitars with them for three nights of concerts in Minnesota and Iowa.
There's much I don't know, but what I do know is that I still enjoy most of their songs two decades after I they were major label darlings. The irony is that I never got to see the band when they were drawing sellout crowds at huge clubs across the country or opening for bands like AC/DC. After years of touring without the original lead singer, the band reunited in 1999. I finally got to see them live on a Friday night in St. Paul, and for no cover charge. I don't know how that happened, but it did. There was a nice crowd at that unspectacular club. They sold more than a million copies of their second CD, so they still had fans.
And they continue to draw a few hundred people to a show in the Twin Cities. On a Thursday night in Mankato, the crowd was probably 200. It was $10 at the door, $7 in advance. I have no idea how much the bar has to pay to book the band on a Thursday night, but I'd love to see accounting for their night.
Since L.A. Guns performs in the Twin Cities regularly -- perhaps more often than they perform in California at this point -- I can count on seeing them live at least once a year. I once saw them three times in less than three months here in the Twin Cities.
But I had to miss their last show here in the Twin Cities, on Oct. 29, 2010. And it had been more than a year since they last played at a club here in the Twin Cities, so I decided to make a Thursday night road trip to Mankato, as long as the weather wasn't too lousy to drive. It was 75 minutes one way, so it was an easy round trip, especially since I timed my arrival to fall less then 30 minutes before L.A. Guns took the stage. The round trip, including a 14-song set by the band, was barely more than four hours.
That's a minor time commitment, although working for a living makes a Thursday night road trip less than ideal. But I don't have children to worry about or a time clock to punch at a set time every morning, (a blessing and curse of working in the media.) I have a less than glamourous life, I may make less than glamourous choices on a Thursday night in Minnesota, but I have the freedom and ability to hit the road and go hear a band I have enjoyed for two decades. A lot of people can't do that.
Would my life seem empty and meaningless today if I hadn't went to Mankato last night? No. And unlike hardcore music fans, it's not as if I was suffering symptoms of withdrawal from having missed the October show here in the Twin Cities. I simply had a chance to see a band I still enjoy, and I took advantage of it. '
It was a nice luxury to have, and one life doesn't afford me nearly often enough.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Factually speaking #7 (unedited)
1. I enjoy having a blog, and I'd enjoy feedback on a few topics I write about, but I'm not going to beg for feedback, or attach my name to this blog. That means few people will ever read anything I write.
2. There are billions of blogs, yet I rarely find one that keeps me coming back. And like all good things, many of them come to an end, either by design or by happenstance.
3. Twitter is an incredible waste of time and I keep reading reports that back that up. It's not without value, but 99 percent of it is worthless noise.
4. The Internet has given us so much more than most of us ever imagined, but most people don't realize how much it takes away from us.
5. I understand the theory behind price points, but smaller candy bars make me sad.
2. There are billions of blogs, yet I rarely find one that keeps me coming back. And like all good things, many of them come to an end, either by design or by happenstance.
3. Twitter is an incredible waste of time and I keep reading reports that back that up. It's not without value, but 99 percent of it is worthless noise.
4. The Internet has given us so much more than most of us ever imagined, but most people don't realize how much it takes away from us.
5. I understand the theory behind price points, but smaller candy bars make me sad.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Remembering the infamous (unedited)
I was reminded of a college classmate earlier this evening. I hadn't thought about her in a few years.
This classmate was a year ahead of me, as I recall, lived in my co-ed dorm and was studying journalism. We sat next to each other in a writing class and discussed a class project in her dorm room one night. Cute girl, as I recall.
She was from central Wisconsin and, as I'd be reminded over and over, was a dairy princess. I think she won a local pageant and was representing the dairy industry in some way. She didn't seem to talk up her status as a dairy princess, but the media couldn't let go of it.
Her name was Lori Esker, and she was convicted of murder in 1990, less than a year after she killed her ex-boyfriend's girlfriend. The story garnered plenty of attention in parts of Wisconsin, as well as some national attention, including the TV news show A Current Affair.
Lori has long since forgotten the awkward, socially inept boy that she sat next to in journalism class, but I haven't forgotten her.
Michael Faulkner doesn't remember me either, I'm sure. Mike was rather peculiar. I'd heard stories about a traumatic childhood, and if they're true, it might explain his horrible personal hygiene, his lack of social grace and his bizarre behavior. He may have been a bit bizarre, but he had an eye for the ladies, evidently. Allegedly he was reprimanded more than once for creeping out cute girls in the dorms. He didn't do anything criminal, as far as I know, he just didn't know how to keep his distance, and this troubled young, fragrant women.
I am 99 percent sure he was the same guy I read about in 1998. A guy named Michael Faulkner was arrested for violating a restraining order. He had been stalking late 1980s pop sensation Debbie Gibson, and violated a restraining order.
Everything I read about the stalker indicated it was the same guy I knew from college. Eventually I remembered something obscure about my guy that convinces me he was indeed Debbie's stalker. My guy did a weekly shift on the campus radio station, just like me. I remember he used a somewhat obscure Debbie Gibson song as background music for his show one semester. Yep, it was a filler tune off her debut CD, and I knew the tune because I had the CD, as dorky as that makes me. (I probably still own the disc to this day.)
That last nugget of info convinced me that Debbie's stalker was my guy from college.
It makes me wonder what other types of criminals I shared the campus sidewalks with.
This classmate was a year ahead of me, as I recall, lived in my co-ed dorm and was studying journalism. We sat next to each other in a writing class and discussed a class project in her dorm room one night. Cute girl, as I recall.
She was from central Wisconsin and, as I'd be reminded over and over, was a dairy princess. I think she won a local pageant and was representing the dairy industry in some way. She didn't seem to talk up her status as a dairy princess, but the media couldn't let go of it.
Her name was Lori Esker, and she was convicted of murder in 1990, less than a year after she killed her ex-boyfriend's girlfriend. The story garnered plenty of attention in parts of Wisconsin, as well as some national attention, including the TV news show A Current Affair.
Lori has long since forgotten the awkward, socially inept boy that she sat next to in journalism class, but I haven't forgotten her.
Michael Faulkner doesn't remember me either, I'm sure. Mike was rather peculiar. I'd heard stories about a traumatic childhood, and if they're true, it might explain his horrible personal hygiene, his lack of social grace and his bizarre behavior. He may have been a bit bizarre, but he had an eye for the ladies, evidently. Allegedly he was reprimanded more than once for creeping out cute girls in the dorms. He didn't do anything criminal, as far as I know, he just didn't know how to keep his distance, and this troubled young, fragrant women.
I am 99 percent sure he was the same guy I read about in 1998. A guy named Michael Faulkner was arrested for violating a restraining order. He had been stalking late 1980s pop sensation Debbie Gibson, and violated a restraining order.
Everything I read about the stalker indicated it was the same guy I knew from college. Eventually I remembered something obscure about my guy that convinces me he was indeed Debbie's stalker. My guy did a weekly shift on the campus radio station, just like me. I remember he used a somewhat obscure Debbie Gibson song as background music for his show one semester. Yep, it was a filler tune off her debut CD, and I knew the tune because I had the CD, as dorky as that makes me. (I probably still own the disc to this day.)
That last nugget of info convinced me that Debbie's stalker was my guy from college.
It makes me wonder what other types of criminals I shared the campus sidewalks with.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
