Sarah Morris

Last Friday Jen and I went to see Sarah Morris at the 318 Cafe in Excelsior.  We've been to see Sarah a bunch of times.  At the State Fair Heritage stage.  At the State Fair by the BOB FM stage [sooooo brutally hot, particularly after a bike ride up there from Eagan].  At the Aster this last Christmas.  I'm sure I'm missing one or two.  Yeah....definitely.  Because I remember working on my bicycle under the entryway to the house while streaming her concert during the deepest Covid.  Ah...and at the Hook and Ladder for the Christmas concert with the Sometimes Elves - can't forget that one; it was wonderful and there's a poster of her on the boardgame shelf in the dining room.  And we backed her Kickstarter back in 2016 and Patreon her musical lifestyle.  Well....I think my wife would say I backed her even though it's our family Kickstarter account, because she didn't know who Sarah was until I hauled her to stage at the Fair.

You can catch her music over on her Youtube channel.  I recommend checking out some of her "Toilet Tunes" as well as her official videos.  That's the series she started while on Covid lockdown.  Lots of local artists.  By the book, country [she was on the BOB stage after all].  Realistically...a bit more folk, and lounge and variety than just country.  You'll find some toilet tunes that channels Janis Joplin and more. If you go into a show thinking she'll just be country and that means you'll be disappointed, you'll find yourself pleasantly surprised.  My sister in law seemed to be.  She lives in that area so we invited her and her husband to join us.  My brother in law was busy, but she showed up and seemed to have a really good time.  Smart lyrics.  Transcendent voice.  And she really is that small.

The 318 Cafe was a double gig.  She was there with Becky Schlegel. For a while they were doing songs about states that were warmer than Minnesota [it was the night it was like -16F by the time we got out], but transitioned into warm places they'd written songs and some warm thoughts about songs Becky had written on request for anniversaries and birthdays.  Pretty cool to have your own song.

I did enjoy that the library behind them lit up a little while into the show as a pair of janitors started evening cleaning.  It was like one of the coffee shop screensavers my wife plays on Youtube while reading.  A couple of guys coming and going from shelves of books as they dusted and vacuumed, all set to music.

;

Daddy Daughter Sweetheart Dance

Despite being obnoxiously ill, I went to the Sweetheart Dance with Eryn.  Which reminded me that I was rather ill last year when I went.  But at least I get to share my annual illness with lots of kids, which makes it all worthwhile.

There was dancing.  If you're a 2-12 year old girl, dancing involves bouncing up and down.  Having been to a few college parties and watched MTV, I know that this works for 18-24 year old women as well, although for different reasons.  For us white, middle-aged dudes, it's much more complicated.  There was the shuffle step - back and forth, feet touching on each side.  There was the minor bounce - basically a bending of the knees.  There was the hands in the air, ala Ronald Miller in Can't Buy Me Love (oh yeah...Dr. Dreamy had a past and I saw it in a big physics auditorium in Troy, NY).  There was the arms up and down.

The following image is an animated gif.  If you click through, you should be able to see the arms up and down.  Which should distract you from the fact that I'm in a hula hoop contest.  Little girls in a hula hoop contest - it's on until they have to raise their arms and then stick them out to their sides.  Dads in a hula hoop contest, the winner is the tallest one who starts his hoop the furthest up his body.  True dat.

See that suit jacket?  The dance cost me $300.00.  Since losing weight, I haven't bothered to replace any of my high end dress clothes.  Fortunately, there was a two-for-one sale.  Reminded me of the last time I switched jobs.  I think my mother may have bought me the last suit I own.

There were activities other than dancing...there was the toilet paper contest.  I didn't have to participate in this one.  But in my defense, I was probably the first dad on the floor for the hula hoop contest.  The goal here was to wrap your dad in as much toilet paper as possible. Yum.  Picture courtesy of Eryn.


There was cookie frosting.  After I got done with my cookie, Eryn pointed out to me that the cookie was a ballet slipper, not a car.  Boys.  She's lucky I didn't frost a gun.


Eryn frosting her cookie and looking very old in her fancy dress and pearl necklace.


Afterwards, we did our annual trip to Ring Mountain - not that we go to Ring Mountain once a year, but we always go there after the Daddy Daughter Dance - and they had Chocolate Chili pepper on tap!  An excellent evening, particularly as there's a quart of chocolate chili pepper misered away in the downstairs freezer at this very moment.

Midwest Burlesk 2012

On Saturday night, despite being ill of health, I went to Best of Midwest Burlesk 2012 with Ming, Kyle, my father-in-law, Greg, and Matthew.  I'm not sure what Greg thought of it.  He was the new guy, and it's always difficult to get a read on anyone's first time at BOMB.  He said he enjoyed being asked to go and had a good time - so I'll assume he was.

We were two up on my wife's night at BOMB.  She didn't have the live band, The Southside Aces.  We did, in their long johns.  She didn't have Nadine DuBois MCing.  We did.  As the main host, accompanied by a variety of other hosts.  My favorite extra host was Big Mama Red.  She entered an aisle on one end down front and slowly talked her way to the middle where she leaned over a guy who enthusiastically decided a bit of a motorboat was in order.  She laughed at him when she backed up and told him to stand up and turn around.  He had a big goofy grin and the most serious case of glitterface you've ever seen.  She continued to talk and slowly move toward the other end of the aisle, and close to the end, midword, just bent over and licked a bald guy on the head, back to front, and then a little extra for good measure.  She borrowed wine from another table claiming he'd been very salty.

My favorite acts?  Ray Gunn dancing with an image cast on sheets. Impressive.  Looked like it took an amazing amount of work.  I hear my wife's crew was taken with his little red pouch.  The Beaujolais Sisters and their banana song about the banana between the branches.  I can't find the lyrics on the web, unfortunately.  Peach Pies Caburlesque out of Madison, Wisconsin, with their mustaches and 70's jackets. One of them had this Butthead look on her face, mouth open, upper teeth showing, that was hilarious.  And Midnite Martini and Buster Hymen, who did an amazing Hello Kitty act.  She came out in a Japanese schoolgirl outfit.  Danced around with her Hello Kitty, and finally threw it in her toybox.  The Kitty came alive and danced with her until someone off stage handed her a shirtless Ken doll.  Hello Kitty was irritated, so he began to strip...right down to his Hello Kitty softball-sized stuff head on a jockstrap.  Nadine encouraged everyone in the audience with children to consider their Hello Kitty backpacks.

The locals did some very nice work as well: Coco Dupree, Nadine, Tila (not local, but local enough I've seen her many times), Sweatpea, Ophelia Flame.

My sister might note I left out the cross dressing Mistress Victoria DeVille who sang the Little Mermaid's Part of Your World with a gay-marriage political theme.  Enjoyable, and the big costume made it more integrated with the show than this YouTube performance.  But to me it didn't feel like burlesque - more like something I'd go to the Gay 90s to see - which could be a lot of fun, it just wasn't what I was expecting.  However, Mistress DeVille seems to be a staple at burlesque around town, so maybe I've just always missed having male cross-dressing at my burlesque (which is decidedly different than what the Peaches were doing, for instance).

So overall, fun.  Despite being a bit ill and forgetting to get a beer before a show where there wasn't an intermission and a bit of disappointment that it's become hip enough that it's noticeably more expensive than in the past.  Ming was less enthusiastic, but only because the woman next to him was whistling so loud he was going deaf.  He claims that's why he's making this face, although she doesn't appear to be whistling that I can see.  Just quietly reading her program.  I think he was just putting on a posture so Julie doesn't know he was checking out her legs.

Look at how happy he is to see her backside...you know, so the whistling is over.  Why are you keeping your program strategically positioned, Ming?

MST3k - Eegah

Kyle and I went to Bryant Lake Bowl tonight to watch Eegah, the MST3K episode of the month. Made more enjoyable by chicken nachos and a wide selection of beer. A special surprise tonight was that Trace Beaulieu was there. In case you're not familiar with his role on MST3K, he was both Crow T. Robot and Dr. Clayton Forrester.  He was promoting his new book, Silly Rhymes for Belligerent Children.  He read a few of them, including one that involved a tapeworm.  Seems like Christmas gift material to me.

My favorite quote from Eegah, "He's like a cabbage patch Elvis."

Midwest Burlesk 2011

Last night I went to the Midwest Burlesk 2011 after dinner at Nye's.  This is the third year I've gone.  The first year I talked Kyle into going, and then urged my wife to attend the next day with Sarah and Pete.  Last year, despite misaligning with Kyle, he added Matthew and his brother in law and my wife added my sister and Cookie Queen.  And this year we added Ming and my wife added a friend and a co-worker of mine.  I list this ever growing roster of attendees as supporting documentation for my yearly assertion that the festival is one of the best events in town and that it's not some sort of event (only) for oversexed 40-somethings.

The acts were, once again, hilarious, although according to my wife we missed out by not getting to see the little person, Viva LaMuerte, doing burlesk.  Pooteewheet said the act wasn't great as far as burlesque, but it was unique because of Viva.

We did see The Bon-Bons, Coco Dupree doing an act with a safe (great dancer), Ophelia Flame doing an office burlesque that involved a copier that transmitted to the big screen (nice beaver), Midnite Martini who could remove one stocking seductively with her opposite foot, Nadine Dubois the host singing I Feel Like a Natural Woman while the Stage Door Johnnies were behind her all Kali-like, Sizzle Dizzle from New York, Sweetpea in a rather fascinating gold pantsuit (don't think of a 70's pants suit...it was nothing like that), Minnie Tonka, and a few others, including a burlesque dancer dressed in a plastic trash bag doing a fan dance with fans made of refuse.  Burlesque as social commentary!

The male dancers - boylesque - ran away with the show, however.  I believe it was Jett Adore of the Stage Door Johnnies who did an act featuring an outfit with numerous strings which prompted host Nadine Dubois to remark, "Who'd have thought an ass corset could bring you to tears?  This is a great job!"

And then there was The Evil Hate Monkey.  He's actually a duet, Trixie Little and The Evil Hate Monkey, although he performed solo as well earlier, engaging in a series of ballet moves (real ones - on the toes, good form, et al) that brought to mind what the Nutbuster should have been like.  Trixie and the Hate Monkey were mesmerizing.  They opened to Total Eclipse of the Heart, and appeared in and out of the darkness, including disappearing from the stage and into the audience, and then moved into their act which included all sorts of acrobatics you'd normally expect to see at Cirque du Soleil, all while incrementally disrobing with plenty of humor.  I almost got beaned by the humor, his banana peel flying straight at my head (I ducked and let the person behind me catch it, although it would have been amusing to bring home for Pooteewheet).  I'm disappointed a can't buy Kyle his very own Hate Monkey t-shirt for his birthday (they exist, they're just sold out).

A great show!  Here's Trixie and the Evil Hate Monkey performing, although it was much better in person.

Scavenger Hunt

We went to Schultz Lake at Lebanon Hills tonight to enjoy a park scavenger hunt. Erik and Morgan invited us. It started at 7:00 p.m., so it was already getting a bit dark by the time we started. Most of our hunt for clues was done by iPhone light.

The event was fun, and included smores, a game of Camp, and a nice walk around half the lake and back.

Here's the visitor center. Sean of Uninspired & Unoriginal, and Steve Eck's friend, recognized me and said "hey". He was at the Paul Bunyan trail the same day I was up there, and I just played games with Steve the other day (I think Steve was on board for Manila and Agricola). I told Pooteewheet she should be impressed I was recognized from my blog. Sean was definitely recognizable, although I hadn't seen much of him until he accosted me, although it's difficult to picture someone as different from how you first saw them on their blog, and Sean's constant running (he's doing the Twin Cities Marathon) has left him a lean, mean, running machine. Makes me think I should definitely be doing more bicycling.

Eryn, on our way up to the visitor center after the scavenger hunt. All we had left to find was a milkweed plant.

Lots of Things to Do!

It's shaping up to be a busy month. I'm pondering this as my itinerary:

• It's already too late for Minneapolis Oktoberfest, Kielbasa fest, and the Granite City Oktoberfest. Next year!
• Friday, September 17. Devil, by M. Night Shyamalan, just so I can ruin it for Ming by telling him the plot. I have part of the work day reserved to go. Anyone interested?
• Saturday, September 18, breakfast at Junior's followed by board gaming at my house. Primarily Eurogaming as Troy won't be around. You're all invited. To both events. Gaming at 10:00 a.m. Breakfast is usually around 8:30.
• Sunday, September 19, breakfast at the Capital View Cafe. I have $6 off. You're all invited. I'll spread the $6 amongst the guests. Probably as a tip.
• Sunday, September 19 again - Gasthaus Bavarian Hunter Oktoberfest...Kyle? Is this kid friendly, do you suppose? Eryn would probably enjoy traveling to Wisconsin to an Oktoberfest. Wait...what sort of lame Oktoberfest is noon to 6 p.m.? An "all ages welcome" Oktoberfest. Woo hoo! I can take the family and drink. Twofer.
• Friday, September 24 - the 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins at CTC.
• Saturday, September 25 - Tater Tour, NHCC - you're all invited. I'm doing the 25 mile version
• Saturday, September 25 - Decadent Weimar Republic Kabarett Night at the Black Forest with Le Cirque Rouge.
• Sunday 26 - Mom's birthday, better send her a present
• Tuesday 28 - Home Brew Night as part of the Oktoberfest at Black Forest.
• Saturday, October 2 - Chilifest - you must be 6'2" or taller to attend. I will be attendings this rather than the Dallas, Wisconsin, Oktoberfest: http://www.vikingbrewing.com/ofest.htm
• Sunday, October 3 - Drain the Keg night at the Black Forest.
• October 8 or 9 - Twin Cities Oktoberfest at the State Fair grounds. The important part is the coupon for a free beer: http://www.twincitiesoktoberfest.com/index.php/admission.html. And the beer server with the large chest and small outfit.
• October 8 or 9 - Gasthoff Oktoberfest in north Minneapolis. This is an either/or with the Twin Cities Oktoberfest. Maybe. Could always do both in one night. That would be some serious Oktoberfest-ing.
• October 22 - Soap Factory Haunted Basement. Ming's going too. CRAP! That's the same day as the CTC Robin Hood play. Grr...that's what I get for not sending myself all the dates ASAP. We'll have to move the play.
• Saturday, October 30, Rosemount Halloween Haunted Trial as Eryn wants to go to something sort of spooky. We might visit Ming and his neighbor for a spooky garage as well.
• Sunday, October 31 - Halloween! Someone might be going as Hermione Granger again this year.
• Somewhere in that mix, I need to schedule a geocaching day with Kevin. Maybe a week day, as I have a lot of vacation left.

72 Hours

I was listening to local radio last week, and they were talking about the three year old kid in Eagan who wandered out of a bedroom, out to the garage, opened the garage door, and then wandered off to play on the highway. The child is ok. But child protective services will be holding on to the child for 72 hours. The female radio host stated that it was only right child protective services take the kid, because there really needed to be an investigation. Normal parents didn't lose their children at night. They'd immediately know something was wrong.

Having grown up in a era when parents were sometimes willing to put a lock on the outside of a child's door, just not talk about it in polite company, I know she's full of it. There are plenty of children that wander off, get up and run around in the middle of the night, eat dry cake mix with a carving knife (not me, a previous friend of mine), etc. Sometimes parents have gone to the length of putting a cover on the crib. Sneaky kids are sneaky. The only way you can control them is to put up alarms and fancier locks. And you don't know to do that until after the first time they push that boundary. And that doesn't include all the times parents potentially forget their children, like at a bakery.

Back to the radio host. She was convinced the parents were probably bad parents and the 72 hours was appropriate. That's an acceptable opinion, even if perhaps misinformed. And 72 hours is probably SOP in these cases while they do a bit of investigation. I suspect the kid might actually come home sooner. But then she launched into a story about how when she was little she hid from her mother in a store and wouldn't come out, even when her mother was looking for her. It required locking down the store and calling in security to find her. The radio host seemed to think that was funny. Didn't deserve 72 hours. Her mother was still a good mother. The Eagan kid who wanders away out the garage has bad parents and needs family evaluation.

It's the same. You should have been taken away for 72 hours. It doesn't change just because you were fortunate enough to do it in a store instead of in the street.

(found the article at the Star Trib)

Brad Turns 40

Eryn, Pooteewheet and I went to Mears Park last night to listen to Communist Daughter and Molly Dean and celebrate Brad's 40th birthday.

Communist Daughter - "Not the Kid" from Spencer Wells on Vimeo.

Amusingly, in my Outlook calendar at work it says "Brad's Birthday" and then includes the note "He was 30 in 2000". One more sign that I'm getting old. And so is Brad. We had a good time, although we should have brought lawn chairs as that's acceptable at Mears. Sitting on the wet, cut grass was vaguely uncomfortable. Eryn liked the faux stream that runs through the park and has rocks for crossing it at various places. She managed to get her feet wet despite the rocks being about as big as she is.

For Brad's 40th, we got him a coin to cover his poker cards. That way, when he flops the nuts, no one accidentally mucks his cards.

Here's the front:


And the back:

Midwest Burlesk 2010

I went to the Best of the Midwest Burlesk Festival 2010 at the Ritz tonight. Last year I went with Kyle, but this year I screwed it up and managed to purchase a ticket for the 7:00 p.m. show while Kyle and his brother went to the 10:00 p.m. show. I think I finally figured out what I did, and it involved the use of a bookmark and backspace key. All very stupid. But I'm almost glad I missed dinner at the Polish restaurant. I had breakfast at Junior's with Ming and lunch at Ghengis with the guys from work. I'm still not hungry (although I am drinking a 2010 Bigfoot Ale while I write and, as we all know, food is beer).

Midwest Burlesk was once again great, even by myself (Ming...I know they were sold out, but I think you could have scored a ticket at the door. There was an open seat next to me, although perhaps the only one in the house). It's just an incredible variety of bulesk (burlesque), and you're never bored.

Some of my favorite moments were:

• The opening act, Minne Tonka. She did a Mary Tyler Moore strip tease.
• The Stage Door Johnnies from Chicago. One of them did a strip tease involving washing himself and multiple layers of towels, like a Matryoshka doll. A favorite of the many women in the audience.
• Nadine DuBois singing "Coax Me" while being undressed by AJ the Bodyguard. She's hilarious in addition to being sexy. That was a serious green dress, by the way.
• Trigger (Ferguson). Oh my god. I expected this to be something I hated. It was less burlesk at first and more loud cross dressing act. But it went somewhere incredibly amusing after the opening monologue. The audience was roaring. And he's seriously athletic.
• Fanny Tastic. She did a bit as a flight attendant last year. This year she did an act with a bowler (hat). Great dancing. When she sort of grabbed at her bottom and legs with her fingers and pulled, you could hear a reaction from the audience. Incredibly sexy.
• Sweetpea dancing to "Dance Machine". She started out in a boots and a robot costume and took it off to reveal heels and skin. She started with a robot dance and moved into several other dance in what was so energetic it looked like serious work.
• Lola van Ella from St. Louis doing a 50s housewife schtick involving an apron, some frosting, and a spatula while singing "Bake me a cake". Nadine warned that she was renowned for her bottom, and her site calls her "the derriere beyond compare". The advertising was well deserved. The frosting ended up on her body, and the spatula ended up replacing her merkin. Very funny. Her website says I can book her for parties...hmm...Kyle, don't you turn 40(ish) this year?
• Michelle L'amour did the finale with a sort of Spanish dance. Not as exciting a finale as last year with all the hands popping out of the sofa, but a great dance. She does a lot with minimal props.
• And there were others - it didn't end there. Burgundy Brixx from Vancouver. The Chicago Starlets (from Michelle L'amour's school in Chicago). Kami Oh (I think). Ned the Magnificent. Ophelia Flame. Ray Gunn. Summer Clearance (I think it was her doing the fan dance). Switch the Boi. Vica the naughty ballerina. And more.

Pooteewheet is going with Cookie Queen and Lissy Jo tomorrow. I know she'll have fun.

My only complaint is that the beer selection wasn't as good as it was last year when there were Flat Earth beers to be had. Fortunately, Surdyk's was right down the road and between the Ritz and I-35.

Midwest Burlesk, Open Invite

I am going to the Midwest Burlesk Review on Friday, January 29 with Kyle and his brother Matthew and an associated brother in law. We'll be eating at Nye's prior to the Review, which will be disappointing because I suspect The World's Most Dangerous Polka Band or whatever entertainment is afoot won't be playing yet, but at least the Polish food will be delicious. If you are interested, I'd enjoy having you along as a fellow attendee. Tickets are for open seating and you can find them here. And if you want to hit dinner with us before the show, drop me a line.

My wife will be going the next evening, Saturday, if you're a chick and you don't like hanging out at a burlesk festival with dudes (although I believe Kyle and I might have been outnumbered by the opposite sex last year), then I suspect she'd enjoy a few co-attendees as well.

Nutbuster: The Ballet!

I haven't been willing to post about this for several days, because I just don't know what to say about it. In the City Pages, there was an advertisement for Nutbuster! The Ballet at the Bryant Lake Bowl. This seemed to be one of those things that would amuse me. After all, the idea that Drosselmeyer is some sort of drunk ruminating on the holidays and having a Nutcrackeresque fantasy - it's all in his mind, not Clara's - is an idea that I feel could be ripe for interesting commentary. Eryn disagreed. She was a bit disgusted with me for thinking that might be fun, although she wanted to know all the details after I went.

But there was no interesting commentary. Rather, after talking Kyle into going with me, we watched a late 40's to early 50's guy dance around the stage for over 30 minutes. Sometimes with a little girl's doll. Sometimes with a bottle of vodka (Kyle and I discussed the similarities to his infamous vodka + knife + phonebook + cement floor incident when we lived at Riverside Plaza. If you look at the picture in that link, we were on the top floor, close to middle, of the building facing you in the photo). Sometimes with a nutcracker. Sometimes with a blow up doll (although he stabbed her at one point and she deflated - I don't remember that scene in The Nutcracker). The only talking was over the pa system at the beginning of the Nutbuster during which John Munger (playing Drosselmeyer) discussed his inspiration for Nutbuster, which evolved out of a lonely Christmas where he wrapped himself three presents, hung out with his cat, and then went to see Dune at the local theater. Given that Dune was released in 1984, I'm going to up my guess of his age to mid-50's.

To capture the feeling of this one man play, I'd have to go with, you know when you see something that's so sad, it becomes funny? And then it becomes sad again? And then you have a moment of disbelief that you're still sitting there watching it, so it becomes sad for you, then sad for them again, and then the whole thing is funny because it's all so sad. But not really in a good way. That feeling. Sort of A Clockwork Orange with your eyes toothpicked open feeling, but more melancholy before the uncontrollable laughter sets in.

On a positive note, the beer and my dinner, three cheese tortellini with shrimp and lots of vegetables, were very good. I had enough Surly Furious to smooth over the strangeness of almost anything, and a good Anchor Porter thrown in the midst of some post-ballet drinking with Kyle made it all worthwhile.

Stinky

If tomorrow wasn't a workday, and I wasn't certain that it would give my allergies an overload, I'd be sacked out in the hammock in the backyard overnight.

A note - I'm not typically as crabby and judgemental as the next paragraph implies. But you had to be there to appreciate the smell.

As for you, if you're at Cub Foods, and I can smell you over the produce, across more than the width of a fruit stand, across more than two, you need a shower. I understand that Cub Foods produce is often limp and lifeless and devoid of the best fruit and vegetable smells that would normally cover up funk, but it makes up for it with the rotting apples and grapes that they don't take off the floor. Those weren't complementing your smell, they were competing. And losing. And while it's a possibility that you're poor and can't afford water, but still need food, you should be leaning in favor of a minimal water bill or stealing the neighbor's hose at night rather than treating yourself to the $6.49 raspberries you put in your cart. Everyone is stinky at some time, but there's a limit. I didn't get looks and that much avoidance space from other shoppers when I was fruit shopping after an 80 mile, 100 degree day at RAGBRAI. I didn't put that much space between me and anyone else I've ever met, and I used to ride the 18 and 21 downtown. And your wife. Does she have no nose? Has the smell deadened her nostrils? Does she only eat rice cakes and raspberries because everything tastes the same with that smell cluttering up the background? I hope you smelled like that before you married her and that it was some sort of attractant, because you shouldn't subject it to her as a relationship development.

And don't tell me you have Trimethylaminuria. It wasn't a fishy smell. I believe it was more of a Isovaleric acid reaction with Staphylococcus epidermidis, resulting in a strong cheese type smell, but much worse. B.O. on Wikipedia states that diet is a common issue. If the raspberries are a common habit, I'd recommend dropping them and seeing if that helps.

Daddy Daughter Sweetheart Dance

Pooteewheet threw a picture of Eryn and I at the Eagan Daddy Daughter Sweetheart dance up on Facebook, but I thought I'd post something here as well so I could add a few videos of the dancing. The dance was on Superbowl Sunday, and from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. central time. It was layered over the entire game. Fortunately, I came home for the last five minutes which were the most interesting.

I note the game, because the woman running the dance apologized to the audience several times for the date and assured everyone it would never be on that date again. On the positive side, Eryn got a teddy bear, a cloth rose, and a second teddy bear centerpiece because there were so many bears and centerpieces left over from no-shows that it was less of a lottery and more of a handout. I presume I'm a good Dad for going to a dance instead of watching the game.

We did have a great time. We got dressed up. Drank lemonade. Made Valentine's cookies. Colored heart magnets. And danced. I felt bad because some of the fathers lifted their daughters up for a slow dance, and Eryn's just too big for that (or I'm too weak...take your pick). She looked like it made her feel a bit sad, but she seems to understand. She stated after the first hour, her hair a bit sweaty, "Dad. Dancing is like exercise."

So here we are, dressed up for the dance. My suit hasn't been out of the closet in so long the shoulders were dusty. I'm not sure I've had it on since Eryn was born.


Here's Eryn dancing for the camera. Hamming it up a bit.


And here's me doing a white guy dance with her, although I can't quite get her to stop dancing for the camera. We didn't really capture her favorite move in this video. The spin. She likes to spin, until it looks like she should puke. One hand spin clockwise. One hand spin counterclockwise. Two hands,spin around and spin back. Spin around me with other spins, like a planet orbiting the sun. Sometimes it involved using the rose or the teddy bear as a pivot point. Made me dizzy just standing there.


The two bears have been named. The larger bear is Teddy Bear. The smaller bear is Teddy. I shouldn't complain. I once named two of the stuffed wiener dogs Pooteewheet owns Dick and Dick Dick.

Burlesk

Every once in a while I get it in my head to do something I wouldn't normally do, like attend Point Break the Play. This week I felt I was long overdue and I noticed in some of the local papers that the Midwest Burlesk show was playing Thursday through Sunday at the Ritz Theater, right next to the 331 (home of Liberally Drinking). It fit the bill, and I pinged Kyle to ask him if he'd go. He was game, so we decided to make it a full Thursday, and hit Origami for sushi, and then the show.

Sushi was great, and the highlight was trying Monkfish liver, which the menu touted as the foie gras of the sea. Fortunately, I can't picture anyone trying to force feed a monkfish, which is why I don't eat real foie gras. I wasn't sure what to expect and was pleasantly surprised. It was smooth, with a slight tang from the lemon and sauce, and had a light fish flavor that wasn't at all like eating a piece of fish fat. Just a light, sea flavor that you hear about on Food TV, but never really bump into if you're not a world traveler or living in Seattle. Delicious. And that machine with the two bottles sticking out of it. That's a sake warmer. I guess I should have known that, but I've always been a cold sake sort of guy.

On to the burlesque (burlesk). I realize that no matter how I explain this, there's likely to be a wide swath of people I know who think, "I don't care what he says. That must have been lame. He was drunk. Or an idiot. No. I know Scott. It was both." I'm not denying I'm an idiot. I'm not denying I was drinking. The Ritz Theater had a wide selection of wines and beer and I had some great Angry Planet Pale Ale from Flat Earth Brewing. But the show was wonderful. Truly spectacular. Seriously. Damn. Fun.

One of my early memories is staying in a hotel and how excited my parents were to discover that on pay television there was a burlesque show. Despite how young I was, they let me watch the show and told me about seeing live shows when they were younger. There was a guy singing about being the top banana, and later in the show a woman came on the screen to do her act. My mother was ecstatic that she was a tassel twirler, and when the woman gave evidence to how she could twirl in both directions at once, my mother was visibly and vocally happy about how professional she was because it took real talent to twirl appropriately. The Midwest Burlesk show gave me an idea of why having seen live shows when she was younger would have been such a memorable event.

My favorite acts of the night were:

Nadine Dubois - the emcee for the night. Funny. Sexy (I never thought I'd say that about someone in sparkly red lipstick). She sings. She does burlesque. She makes jokes about whiskey and cowbells. She was engaging from front to back and really pulled the show together.

The first act - I don't know who they were, but a strip tease done in snowmobile suits, furry hats, and other accoutrements. Hilarious.

Foxy Tann and the Wham Bam Thank You Ma'ams - great dance moves, afros and Hendrix's Foxy Lady. Some serious cheering from the audience.

Ned the Magnificent - not really a stripper. He was the comic entertainment. He did a superman schtick with a folding chair that was great.

Boylesque Hot Toddy - not quite equal time for the guys. But I point out this member of Belmont Burlesque of Chicago (who also had a great red head doing an act) because his act was so classically burlesque and done so well. The audience seemed to be about 60/40 women, so his act was well met. Four of the women from Belmont Burlesque came out with very large pillows and did a dance, then met in the middle of the stage and brought the pillows together in a 2x2 formation as Boylesque stripped behind the pillows. Left - lots of flesh, hat on head. Right - lots of flesh, hat on head. Front, with the fedora strategically placed.

Fanny Tastic - Fanny came out dressed in a very shiny flight attendant outfit, carrying a flight case, the sort your mother converted into a makeup case, or a storage container for old photos. She bent over and pulled out a belt and demonstrated how to prepare for your fight. Pulled out a can of coke and poo pooed it in favor of a bottle of Jack Daniels. Then did an amazingly athletic dance.

Michelle L'amour - I saw Michelle on television when she was doing her balloon dance on America's Got Talent. The Hoff and company ruined her gig which seemed silly when they made fun of her not-for-family-viewing antics, because she did the balloon dance during the burlesque show, floating away several pieces of clothing, and it was funny and sexy at the same time. But that wasn't the highlight. The highlight was her show-closing performance. Michelle had a large heart rolled out on the stage that looked like it was covered wth your grandmother's old, green couch. She did a great burlesque dance on stage that then moved to the heart, which had posts around the outside so she could do some acrobatics along the sides and top. Just when you thought she was done, more clothing came off, her champagne glass turned out to be full of baby oil instead, and hands shot out through the heart-couch to rub in the baby oil. Kyle put it well. He said it was like a fireworks display. You kept expecting the end, and she kept upping the stakes. This is the part where you think I'm crazy, or a perv, but you had to be there to see it to appreciate just what a show it was.

They're sold out for Friday and Saturday, but tickets are still available for Sunday (and Lily's Burlesque does regular shows at Bryant Lake and Michelle L'amour in Chicago) and it's definitely an event you can bring a date to (and many people did).

St. Paul Bike Classic 2008

I've been going to the St. Paul Bike Classic and riding the 30 mile ride and breakfasting at the St. Clair Broiler for many, many years. This year seemed a little subdued. In the past there have been squirrel attacks (bikes attacking squirrels), thong sightings, large dead snakes, death and maiming, old ladies dancing - just all manner of excitement. Not so much this year, although Mean Mr. Mustard purports to have overheard some naughty talk.

But the good news is that although it was 52 degrees and looked like it was going to rain, it was dry the whole time, except while we were in the restaurant, and it didn't go below 52 degrees, which can be a problem. We had a pretty good turnout - me, Mean Mr. Mustard, Ming, Kyle, Tom, Alan, Christy, Sandy, Erik - and we bumped into a few coworkers in the St. Thomas parking lot we can invite next year.

Rhinoceros bike. There was a huge fish bike and a number of flamingo bikes as well.


Our state capital in the background. If you were watching the RNC, then this is just up the hill from Excel Center ground zero. I can report that the area seemed fairly free of fences and Republicans. The Obama to McCain sign count was about 200 to 1 in St. Paul.


Erik sneaking into a picture near the Como pavillion. My favorite rest stop, because there's lots of coffee.


All our bikes locked up outside the St. Clair Broiler. A bike orgy if you will. Go with the Iron Lake if you're at the St. Clair - four eggs, ham, cheese and wild rice, coupled with hashbrowns and a pile of toast. I wasn't hungry again until about 6 p.m.

State Fair 2008

Ah...the smell of grease, meat, trash and Suave shampoo-washed swine. It must be the Minnesota State Fair. Second in size only to the state fair of Texas, which would presumably stage something smaller if it weren't for us encroaching on their claims to be the biggest in everything. I noticed this year that we took exceptionally fewer pictures of Eryn a.) just wandering around (and there was a record amount of complaint-free walking this year), b.) on rides (not even one of her on the giant slide, despite three rides), c.) eating things (and it was her first cheese curd). The honeymoon is over. At five, she's ceased to be attached to the end of our camera lens.

So I should start by refuting any idea that we didn't take any pictures of her. Here's the traditional photo, now in year six, same sign. Eryn's making a strong showing toward a decade at the fair.


I don't know what a soy boy is, but it sounds like something in a creepy farmer-themed horror movie. I had an epic fail near this photo. I was in the line for the Little Farm Hands, wandering from station to station with Eryn, and near the pedal tractors a very attractive mother in tight jean shorts was trying to push and take a picture of her child at the same time, going into all sorts of bent over contortions. I realized that this was perhaps the best reason any father (and maybe some mothers) could have for going through the little farm hands line. I know I should be happy to do it just for Eryn, and I am, but it was exceedingly slow and hot, and this seemed like added compensation. So I got out my camera and actually snapped a picture - unobtrusively, mind you. And it didn't click! So I took a picture at the perfect moment, and my camera failed me. Phallic metaphor? Or perhaps my camera simply has a more evolved conscience than I do. Either way, you get a picture of a soy boy poster instead of a bent over blonde.


Here's a picture of Eryn on the pedal tractors. Perhaps it will help you imagine a blonde in jean shorts nearby.


This post is unique not because I touch a statue of Homer Simpson inappropriately, although I do.


Rather, it's unique because Homer tries to touch me inappropriately. He's sort of a skeevy perv, or else he's convinced there's a moon waffle in my pants. Later, we were making bacon on the beach - covered in chocolate, like they do at the state fair.


Pooteewheet wears a paper hat from the Newspaper Museum. She's not the first to be on Flickr in a newspaper hat, but she may be the only adult. Eryn kept trying to snatch it and crush it. It offended her almost as much as the bookmark with Chloepin, the clothes pin doll, on it.


I got first place in the pet cow competition, but only because I cut off the head of my competition.


We went in the Midwest Showmen's Association's display back in heritage village. It's a strange little corner of the fair with no one else in it, and there are many pictures of people from the 90s who have hair from the 60s. But the creepiest bit was that they didn't have duplicate pictures of some past presidents, so they'd cut out the water damaged portions and framed just the face, like some sort of weird, photoshop experience. Here's an example in Sheldon Shorter. I'm not entirely sure you weren't supposed to slide his almost 3-D photo under the broken five-cent peepshow stereoscope that was sitting there (not to be confused with a mutoscope).


For my sister who always says, "I'm not a carpet." But it's not necessarily the woman who's Oriental, only the torture cabinet. Kyle accused me of checking out her breasts. The sad thing is, I was. The railing was sort of in the way and I thought, "She seems to have very large breasts." So I looked behind the railing just to confirm my suspicion. I don't think she minded.


Eryn playing the bean bag game at Jack FM 104.1. She makes me listen to Jack in the car on the way home from school every weekday. It's her favorite. Their stand is in the furthest corner of the fairgrounds, coincidentally right next to the sign we always take her photo in front of. I'm not sure if it's fate, or subliminal advertising.

Lake Phalen Triathlon

Nope. Didn't run one. Didn't even try. As I've said before, I have the perfect excuse. The doctor has told me I have no cartilages in my big toe, which means unless I get an operation, running, basketball and tennis will cause all sorts of pain radiating up from my toe and foot into my ankle and shin. There was a second option, which was to give up tennis, at least the sort involving movement below the waist, to give up basketball, at least the sort where you're not spelling P-I-G, and to give up running unless chased by a bear or chasing some promise of nudity. But that's why I have a bike. No stop and start toe friction in bicycling, and you can still chase nudity, albeit not as efficiently inside the house.

Instead, I woke Eryn up around 6:30 a.m., and she and I trundled off to Lake Phalen to watch Sarah run a marathon with what seemed like about 1000 other people. Here is one batch of contestants preparing to swim. Your swim cap differentiated you from other waves of swimmers, or allowed the safety patrols to get a good look at you if the other swimmers had pressed you underwater, which was possible on the entry, during the swim, and as the international swimmers lapped you. Some of these things happened to Sarah who was, as Pete described it, "beaned in the head." Eryn liked it that we could walk right up to the edge of the water, almost in the middle of the starting swimmers so she could see if boys or girls were taking off. I like the little kids on the edge of the water - I smiled an evil smile as I imagined a hundred green-capped swimmers bounding over and onto them.


This guy looks incredibly tired. The guy that was about a minute ahead of him, who was speeding along right behind a tight-bodied woman in a very revealing bikini, didn't look tired at all. It's just a state of mind.


I thought tear down offered some prettier pictures than the race, and the race was bumming me out because of the twelve year olds doing the whole thing who were in much better shape than I'll ever be again. I compensated by getting some geocaching exercise with Eryn, who insisted that we could find a "mystery cache" by just looking in trees at random. I told her it would take all day, and she replied that we could drive the car and stop at every tree. "No way, I'm not stopping at all those trees," I informed her. To which she replied, "You'll only stop at the ones I tell you to stop at." Ok, Mom.


We dropped by Sarah and Pete's to see how she was doing. She wasn't dead, which really means you're a winner in a triathlon as far as I'm concerned. Eryn found their bowl of candy and a muffin. I asked her why there was fur flying around her face as she ate, and she reached under her butt and pulled out a huge pile of the stuff from the cat cushion she was sitting on. I thought we'd taught her well enough not to sit on piles of unfamiliar cat fur, but then again, that's not in the big book of rules we keep in her room, so maybe we skipped that day.

Now Then Threshing Show 2008

I never really gave any thought to the fact that there are various strains of sweet corn. Until yesterday, when on the way back from NowThen, we stopped on the roadside to buy a dozen ears from a farmer and a regular noted, "Is this Peaches and Cream? That is so good." Today I did a vague culinary faux paux and cooked an ear in the microwave as a snack (just wrapped it in some wet paper towels). Oh man...if that's what it tastes like cooked wrong, it must sing when it's properly boiled. Why does Cub sell me that other crap? We're expanding our garden next year, so I think this is going to be something we plant.

I'm not sure where to start with the NowThen Threshing Show. We had breakfast at Kyle's and gave him his birthday present (Descent - a board game. We play tested it over pizza afterward and he killed Eryn and me, which made Eryn hide her resurrected character behind the door). It was beautiful out. Much nicer than last year when it rained on us. So we got to experience the whole Parade of Power and 364 tractors, the small, rideable train, and the full outdoor garage sale, where Kyle pointed out two rabbit candleholders for Sarah that I bought and took to her this morning. They match her other rabbit teacandle holder, so they were a bargain, even though twice as expensive as originally thought (the farmer priced them individually). I thought about buying a horribly racist Native American container that indicated it was for firewater. It was only $1. But I just couldn't imagine where I could white elephant gift it other than to Dan'l and Kyle, and that's a pretty short passing-around list. I also tried to buy Dan'l some cologne in a Coleman Lantern container. My Dad had that cologne when I was 8, so it may actually be 31 years old. But the guy wanted $12, though he yelled at me, "$10 if you really like it!" You've had it for 31 years...how much can it be worth to you? You obviously don't want to wear it, and (cheap) cologne doesn't age well. Fifty cents is reasonable you bastard. $2 might have had me at least thinking about it. Eryn walked away with a little plaster sign for the garden for $1 that said something about how wishes happen in the garden. She was torn over whether to get it, or the sign that said "Mom's Garden", and she actually looked like she felt guilty for getting the one she got.

I could NOT find my sister a "Milking Coach" t-shirt like I saw on a kid at the Threshing Show. And I am horrified that I can't even find one on the web. That's wrong. Everything should be on the web, particularly milking shirts that would be hilarious if owned by a lactation consultant.

But, I did find some directions for making the $5-$6 marshmallow guns on line, which can be mass produced with a bit of PVC for about $2 each. I've made four. Two for the nephews, one for Eryn and one for me. I'm going to make Ame one as well, although I suspect my sister may conveniently lose it. But she should think twice. Many of the instructions I found on line were from church groups who were making them as church projects. Which is creepy. They really shoot a marshmallow with some velocity. That long one is very accurate. I managed to shoot Pooteewheet in the nipple. I didn't make it extra long just so I'd look cooler than the kids, I just had that much PVC left over off my 10' pole.


I'm not going to subject you to all the pictures from the show. Suffice it to say that you can enjoy it by following this link to the set and letting your eyes gloss over with all the pictures of tractors. You can see Eryn's wooden yo yo getting branded with an N for NowThen, old tractors, new tractors, middling tractors, law tractors, modified tractors, and even a John Deere motorcycle. And further below are three videos from the threshing show, which may give you just enough virtual tractor show to satiate your every desire.

But I will post this picture of Eryn standing next to the raffle tractor we're going to win. It has a sign on it that threatens anyone who might want to touch it. The big guy is the enforcer - at least that's what Kyle told Eryn. And he raised his eyebrows and asked if she'd touched it. No way.


Noisy, heavily vibrating, John Deere


Minneapolis Thresher


Case Thresher

Revenge of the Right Brainers

Status: drinking Crooked Tree I.P.A., listening to I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry and Tube Snake Boogie by ZZ Top, thinking that everyone who knows my wife should ask her what her nickname is because of the 5-letter code that put on all the bills in her name and worrying that when Erik leaves I will fall into a deep depression marked by a cessation of coffee drinking.

I went to Great Conversations at the U of MN tonight to listen to Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind and Johnny Bunko (a manga career guide for Millennials with advice about how to fail and that if you have a plan for your career, following A to B to C, you might as well discard it, it won't matter by the time you get somewhere between A and B. They should probably hand out a copy to each kid under about 28 that walks in the door at work), talk about what he sees as the changing nature of work. To sum it up, I think he sees us all becoming more like Millennials, where we no longer focus on a job, or on a career, but on a breadth of skills that encompasses the ability to tackle several careers. His assertion that if you're trying to create modern spaces for students or workers, you should tell them the budget and just give them free reign to redesign, falls right into the Millennial habit of wanting to contribute (meaningfully) to everything they touch in ways that cut across traditional work boundaries.

In some respects, it was more motivational speaking than business, but he addressed some of the ways different generations learn and what should be common to them as far as what they get out of work to feel engaged. Namely that you should give your employees the ability command some sort of autonomy (read Drucker circa 1950 - he makes the same assertion in his chapters about how repetitive motion jobs of the hands or brain actually decrease productivity), encourage/allow them to achieve mastery (don't do the same thing if you can help it, focus on getting rid of all re-iteration), and give them purpose (also Drucker, if you equate it to knowing your objectives and line of sight. Very Millennial in the sense that they want purpose. Very dawning-retirement age Boomer as they struggle to make sure they leave a legacy as individuals). He had a nice quote about the last point, commenting that your work should not be unhinged from the real world. And he appended that it was important to model these ideals in yourself if you wanted to see them show up in others. I think Drucker would point to that as a sign of the ethical manager.

Pink also gave a few good anecdotes about education and innovation, noting that if you walked into a school now, you might not notice any difference from the school you attended 20, 30 or 40 years ago. I think it's a valid point that lack of change doesn't mean we long ago reached the nadir of school design, but that we're modeling schools to prepare kids for our past, not their future. Overall, it was a good reiteration of some of the very same themes I was hearing and pondering during the MN High Tech Association Innovation Conference.