Mad Town

"Remember when I revealed myself to you in the car/Listening to 'Rock 'n Roll Animal' as the night got dark/Your mother called up and said/'Go ahead girl and get yourself free...'"
-Ike Reilly

I've learned to live my life via the George Costenza method. I like my life circles to remain separate. I don't like my circles colliding. I see life as a great big snowman where the three big body parts represent different life cycles and one is placed on top of the next. There of course is some leakage as things get too hot and one's form starts to melt and dissolve. But no matter how it ends up, spiritually the parts are meant to be separate and distinct because that's the way we are built.

The last time I stayed in Madison, Wisconsin was the summer between my junior and senior years of college. I remember walking around Lake Michigan late one evening, near the student union (the only student union in the country that sells beer to its patrons). I was slowly/rapidly inevitably falling in love having just gone to my first Bob Dylan show, the one where the songs were nearly indistinguishable as the echoes bounced around inside the Metrodome. I also was falling into a sea of trouble with the girl who according to a daily Google search may have been swept away lost in the Tsunami.

This time, the trip to Madison (Scootertown, USA) wasn't in any way meant to recapture or re-experience anything that's gone before. Who remembers all that? This time it was truly an excursion in getting out of here, getting away to somewhere/anywhere if only temporarily. Despite a four hour delay caused initially by a flat tire and ultimately by a full four tire replacement and brake repair to the tune of over $1000, believe me (if you can) by the time we reached Madison I was glad to be there again and quite looking forward to the weekend.

"Trample on your yesterdays/But never on your tomorrows..."
-Ike Reilly (again)

My soon to be graduated graduate school friend and I spent Friday night finding a place to stay (and eat). We planned on dining at an Ethiopian restaurant her friend had recommended but ended up next door through a confusing door alignment at an impressive Afghani restaurant instead.

The next day began with a continental breakfast served at the converted dorm/meeting center that fell into our price range. We overheard the conversation of a table of people who were in town to celebrate their 50th anniversary of some moment of life, either a high school graduation or a college reunion.

I don't really have a lot of time these days for the marking of time. I could never have even a ten year plan because after all that has gone down (and wrong) I never figured I'd live this long.

We spent all of Saturday doing a lot of walking- around the Farmer's Market and the lovely university campus. Originally when this trip was planned the reason we gave was I had heard from an up and comer/two timer that Iron Chef Morimoto had a restaurant in Madison. That was enough reason to drop and run. Our end goal then was to find his restaurant even though it was a rumor stirring the fumes we were driving on. We ended up spending our last meal at an impressive Japanese restaurant named "Restaurant Muramoto" that was so well designed (and the food so great, especially a duck based sushi roll) that it just had to be connected to an Iron Chef despite the spelling discrepancy.

We returned home, me thankfully with a new be-bop hat on head (dispelling my Dad's notion that I never wear hats anymore) and a hand made clay clock that features the many positions of a black cat (who resembles Diego-san's shadowy self) spaced out across the face to count down the time that passes away each and every day.

None of this would have made any sense whatsoever of course if not the thankful appearance of a newly released Ike Reilly EP, The Last Demonstration. The six song mix is a combination of demos of already released songs and songs that weren't included on Ike's last CD. What is learned upon this latest release of our most underrated (God why aren't people listening to him) artist? Only that it's wonderful to hear sketches of songs that Ike has since more fully developed.

Another what the hell does this mean question that comes to mind is how Ike's last two CDs (Sparkle in the Finish and Junkie Faithful) have been named from lyrics to songs that were ultimately left off the full length CDs in favor of subsequent EPs. Not all may agree but I love the rawness, and the weariness, and the unpolished vocals Ike gives us on The Last Demonstration. This is a naked soul creating something new from something that's soon to be rather than what ever was. And that's exactly what a scooter riding Mini Cooper owner blindly sees as the route to take, the way to go, even if he has no clue as to what a ten year plan may or can look like ever again.

2005 Top Ten

Here are ten things that made it through the muck of 2005 (they are in particular order):

10) The Rock n Roll Hall of Fame/British Museum- Usually when I visit another city I don't care much if I see the obvious tourist attractions. I'm just as happy to find some out of the way place restaurant or CD store or something that is somehow uniquely that city. That said, I must say I loved visiting the RnR Hall of Fame in Cleveland. I was highly amused to see how tiny the Rolling Stones outfits were and it was a quite a kick reading Leadbelly's correspondence. Equally impressive was the British Museum in London that was almost too huge to comprehend. Pottery from ancient Persia? Cool. Kitty artifacts from various cultures? Neato.

9) Paul McCartney "Too Many People" "I'll Follow the Sun" at the Xcel Energy Center- I guess my Paul McCartney nostalgia differs from most people. I didn't care much for the umpteenth versions of "Get Back," "Back in the U.S.S.R.," or "Yesterday." What I was glad to hear, smile from ear to ear glad, was the snarling "Too Many People" from 1971's Ram where Paul chides John Lennon about preaching practices. Equally enjoyable was the version of 1965's "I'll Follow the Sun," one of those catchy McCartney tunes that seem to flow from him effortlessly. I was so inspired I went home and banged out my own piano version for my cats. Thompson scampered away either in fear or merely to get away from the annoying racket.

8) Arrested Development- This FOX show just keeps getting better and better. Who would have thought that Ron Howard, TV's Opie, director of so many insipid movies could produce something this biting? Scott Baio's attorney character, Bob Loblaw, and Charlize Theron's British siren, Rita, were inspired additions to the already stellar cast.

7) Lucinda Williams at the Minnesota Zoo- She treated us to six new and still unrecorded songs intermingled seamlessly with her older songs (meaning they were all insightful and heart stopping/starting ). I can't wait for the next CD.

6) Shelby Lynne at the Cleveland House of Blues- Lynne was brooding, tender, and by the end of the show she was somewhat drunk. But hearing live versions of songs like "Telephone" and "Where Am I Now?" truly was a treat. The show made me buy all her back catalog- the many CDs that she recorded before she was awarded her Grammy for "Best New Artist" in 2000.

5) Seeing my friend Alex in her hometown of San Diego- We hadn't seen each other in ten years. We had a nice sushi dinner and I marveled at how comfortable our friendship still feels and how much I still admire her drive, ambition, and inquisitive mind and soul.

4) CERA Graduation Beverly Hills- Over the past couple of years I've flown to various parts of the country to take election administration classes taught by the faculty of Auburn University. It's the only election administration certification program in the country and as I finished up my work this summer, I became one of the first 300 people to earn the accreditation. Graduating at the fancy Beverly Hills Hilton (where they hold the Golden Globe awards every year) in front of family and friends was an odd mixture of show biz and the electoral process.

3) Theo- The decision to add a third cat to the household mixture was greeted with skepticism by some of my friends and family. Still once I was introduced to young Thelonious, the decision was a forgone conclusion. He's sweet, spacey, and watching him try to find his place amongst his housemates has been pure joy.

2) Ike Reilly Junkie Faithful- When the blue-eyed editor introduced me to Ike's music a couple of years ago by giving me his first CD, Salesmen and Racists, I was immediately won over. When I got to the ultimate driving song "Angels and Whores" and Ike wails, "Hey motherf*%@er kiss the ground- I not only kept hitting the repeat button and turning the volume up louder and louder, I almost drove by my destination and just kept going. His new CD not only is full of clever and inspiring lyrics- it's got as much kick as it does spirit. My current favorite line? "The things I do in the daytime should only be done at night/Like when I watch my neighbor's wife bend down slow to pull out weeds…" Junkie Faithful is the best CD I've heard in quite a while.

1) Bob Dylan's five shows at London's Brixton Academy- On my way to the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport I was walking to my light rail stop when out of the corner of my eye I saw my co-workers running toward me waving a banner that read, "Dylan in London or Bust!" I was quite moved. I was also quite moved throughout the 50 different songs he did in five nights. We were treated to the live debut of "Million Dollar Bash." Along the way there were terrific performances of "Desolation Row," "Positively Fourth Street," "Sugar Baby," "Shelter from the Storm," and "Mississippi" just to name a few. To hear Bob do an abbreviated version of the Clash's "London Calling" during a couple of encores and have the natives go wild- made the expensive and somewhat crazy trip all worthwhile.

If I Were a County Attorney

Supposing that scientists were to develop cloning techniques so that humans could be cloned. I'm not saying it's gonna happen or anything but just suppose it did. And say that maybe I had been cloned and I'm not saying I would be, but if I was and for a freakish reason my clone, let's pretend, was the exact same age as I am. I would have to say if all that happened my clone might have enjoyed a pretty spectacular week pop culture-wise.

I'm not saying it's a given that my clone would have the exact same taste in things as I do, but supposing he did? Let's just say, for the sake of all this that he would have watched the PBS documentary No Direction Home about Bob Dylan. I'm not saying that one of the reasons he would have admired Dylan was Dylan's ability to turn expectations of him inside out- how when his fans were berating him for not being who they thought he should be, he channeled that anger into his music and made something lovely out of it. I'm not saying my clone would have cared one whit about that but if he did, No Direction Home might have impressed him for its capturing of this process.

I'm also not saying my clone would rely on music to get him through his life as much as I do but let's just say he did for a moment. If music mattered that much to him and he, let's just say, bought Ike Reilly's new CD Junkie Faithful and now accepting that the clone had made the exact same choices in CD purchases over the past few years, and I'm not saying that would necessarily be the case, but let's just say it is, maybe he would find too, that Junkie Faithful is the best CD he's heard since Dylan's 2001 Love and Theft. Matter of fact the clone, maybe just maybe might not be able to stop playing Junkie Faithful over and over because the music cuts through the other crap of his life like a cat's paw cuts through the fabric of the nearest couch. It maybe would be enough, and I'm not saying this is written in stone, to raise the clone's deflated spirit, if he had one, just a notch or two.

Let's just pretend for a moment and say that the clone would have agreed (and who knows if he would?) that Reilly's music is best played loud, like blasting out of a car stereo on a sunny summer day. Maybe despite this the clone would listen really carefully to the lyrics on Junkie Faithful and understand that when critics heap praises on Ike Reilly the comparison to Dylan often comes up and let's just say that the clone, like me for example, has never before understood that comparison until listening to the songs on Junkie Faithful.

The clone may or may not, but let's just say he does, think that the opening song "22 Hours of Darkness" depicts the state of depression better than anything he's heard since the songs on Dylan's misunderstood Street Legal. Maybe even just maybe, the clone would understand that the refrain that wails about 22 hours of darkness and two of light just about sums it all up in a neat little ball that often unravels uncontrollably. And maybe just maybe he'd understand thoroughly the line about love not being enough.

Let's also just say for the fun of it that the clone finds the second song on the disc, "The Mixture" to be spine tingling stuff. When in the chorus Ike calls out in desperation "Where were you?" the clone might also just relate to that very question about some necessary friends who disappeared when his mother died. Not that a clone would have a mother.

The clone also might, just might, snicker at the dirty little "Farm Girl" that not only contains clever little lyrics dripping with sexual innuendo but also how farming can be a dirty little business. "Squatting down telling me my top soil's gone/I'd rather die than pack up my farm/Squatting down telling me my beans won't grow, that my plows won't plow and my hoes won't hoe..."

I'm also not suggesting that the clone would so terribly miss the brilliance of his all time favorite TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer that left a hole in his heart as big as the void in his TV watching, and he hasn't found anything since remotely close in its emotional impact. And I'm also not suggesting it's a given that the clone would have been a fan of Buffy's creator/writer, Joss Whedon's next TV show, the never given a chance Firefly. Let's just say he would have been though, and thus he would have also maybe just maybe had made the effort to go and see Whedon's movie Serenity, the big screen version of Firefly.

I'm not sure how the clone would have responded to going to Serenity if he even had. Let's just say he did for pretends sake. Maybe the clone, and maybe he wouldn't have, just celebrated and enjoyed the humor and wit of the movie even though it reminded the clone, and I'm not saying it would, of a sense of humor that's been missing ever since Buffy left the airwaves. The clone may, and let's just imagine he might have, loved Serenity with it's rollicking action packed plot and it's quiet moments of sadness and reflection and insight. If we could somehow accept all this might be a possibility then the clone maybe just maybe could comprehend that not all weeks can be this good.

Techno Babble

This week we answer the musical question all of you have had on your minds for a long long while, "What do Teddy and Ike have in common?"

Now of course first I must clarify that I'm not exactly a neo-luddite. In high school I was the first one on my block and the second one in my conscious that owned a VCR allowing the taping of some late night programming to watch on the weekends. Later on I was one of the first I knew who owned an actual PC, and I wasn't exactly the last one on this planet to own an iPod.

Still as I watch all these cell phone carrying people who seemingly can't stand a moment of silence and have to conduct the most inane conversations in human history for the rest of us to be a captive audience to, and at the same time we live in the land of satellite radio and TIVO and GPS tracking devices that map out our each and every next move, I think I'm beginning to long for the day when life was much more simple and all we had to worry about was the Commies dropping the big one on us as we ducked and covered underneath the safety of our grade school desks. I'm somewhat reluctant to admit that yes indeed in the past month I've become very glad that I've lived beyond my expiration date to see the mass production (and acceptance) of DVDs and the future of how we listen to music.

When I was browsing the bins of the store we want to be, Amoeba in Los Angeles, I came across something I just had to buy even though its $44.95 price seemed a bit outlandish. It was a copy of one of my all time favorite TV shows on DVD, ABC's mid-90's flop, Murder One that I'm sure I wrote about in these pages all those years ago. I just finished watching the first season and man I'm even more impressed than I was when the show ran on my fuzzy reception rabbit ears aided antenna enhanced TV back in the day when life was just turning the corner of making it to the next day into believing again that something just a little bit greater was waiting for me if I could only hold on.

You must all see Murder One at some point in your life. It's another Steven Bochco serial series (the one that came after Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law and Bay City Blues and Cop Rock and N.Y.P.D. Blue and Delvecchio) and it didn't get the audience it deserved running up against the first few seasons of E.R. Coming just after the outcome of the O.J. trial the premise was that the show would be about just one trial over the course of its season, unlike all the many shows about lawyers that had preceded and followed it, from Perry Mason to Ally McBeal, from Owen Marshall to Law and Order. In its own way Murder One was thus the predecessor of the much more popular but inferior in every way, 24 that depends on its own unique (in TV terms) story timeline to drive its this isn't just another TV show personality.

Watching the first season of Murder One again nearly a decade after I saw it the first time I was a bit taken back by how much the unlikely hero, the not the usual lead character bald and inscrutable defense attorney Ted Hoffman, shaped the professional personae I eventually adopted. Ted seems a bit emotionally distant, and in a film noir world his understated and quiet lectures and moral code have to be listened to and not merely heard as in most television dialogue. Ultimately the only weakness of the series was that the writers apparently didn't map out the entire season in advance and rather made things up as they went along (much like 24) so loose ends are introduced and go nowhere, and false leads come and go for no apparent reason.

I was marveling in this wacky new DVD technology and having the ability to watch some of my favorite TV shows that didn't exactly air more than once even if TV Guide wrote about them as the best TV shows that no one was watching I also found out that my favorite "new" rocker Ike Reilly had four "new" tracks available for Internet download only. I paid twice (my bad) to hear these four new tracks but I'm not exactly upset about that if it means in the end it ends why starving? artists like Ike have so little loose pocket change.

All four download only available tracks blow away any song I've heard this year as Ike's music is wont to do. The spacey tumbling momentum laden "B.I.G.O.T" relies on the cryptic chorus line, "You've got to breed a better bigot for the band" that Ike sings in a way that suggests he's aware of the need of the parallel sounding "big hit" to better his fortunes. I love the line about "I'm part of nothing. I wish I was though. Part of something bigger than myself now" which I think is something many of us struggle with at some time if we are anything other than neo-luddites. The likewise likable "Trainbomber" contemplates and anticipates the awful chaos of a blown up train and ensuing missing of friends. Ike sounds his usual weary and knowing and I just love the trick/track. "She's So Free" paints a picture of the ultimate woman in my book. She's so godless and faithless, she don't need riches, she doesn't slave for nothing and no one, she can't be loyal, she don't need negligee, she don't eat steak and she don't eat soy. Where does she exist exactly and how do I look her up? "Maybe on the Way Out" rocks hard with its torpedo driven guitar melody. I love how Ike's band, the Assassination not only backs what he has to say, but backs it so fiercely that not only a head bob but a nod of the head is mandatory at this point out.

The O.C.

As I headed for my seat on the flight to Orange County I was struggling with my piece of carry on luggage in one hand and laptop case in the other while precariously holding on to a full latte. As I got to my seat and tried to fling my carry on bag into the overhead compartment, I spilled some coffee on my arm and my T-shirt. The gentleman seated in the row in front of me recoiled as if I was about to drip some radioactive juice on his golf cap covered noggin. I was having a hell of a time and it would have been nice for him to offer me a hand but he was too busy looking at me in disgust. I thought about dousing his head with the latte but I didn't need no federal marshal coming after me.

We took off. The banged up auburn haired lass was studying for one of her classes, looking at mathematical formulas that would make mush out of a precious porcelain kitty figure so I plugged my headphones into my iPod and dialed up Ike Reilly and got lost in the anger and confusion and snarl and beautiful music.

We arrived in Vegas and had about an hour to make our connecting flight to the O.C. We looked at the airport monitors to find our gate but didn't see it listed anywhere. Finally the banged up auburn haired lass asked a gate agent who informed us we needed to get on a tram and head for some faraway gate. Once we got into the right area of the airport we discovered we needed to go through security again and the ticketing agent told us we were too late anyway that we should have been at the gate at least a half an hour before the flight was to leave. So we ran. Or as close to running as one can get when one is holding a couple of bags and the other is holding the same and is too sore to run.

Luckily we made it. We didn't want to miss our latest mission- to take a tour of the Ricoh factory in Tustin, California. Ricoh makes many of our finest copy machines and they are now in the business of making some voting equipment that might be flooding Minnesota in no time helping us all add things up. We were there to make sure that they were making the apparatus right.

The factory tour reminded me of the Japanese company that Al and I visited in Osaka a few years back right before I became friends with the banged up auburn haired lass. Ricoh which is headquartered in Tokyo, is a very Japanese company. There are pep talk like slogans plastered throughout the factory and the workers are encouraged to offer up their ideas to improve the processes. None of the assembly line workers looked up as we approached their area and none ran from the room when the lunch bell rang, instead conscientiously staying at their station to finish up whatever task they were working on. Not ever feeling comfortable being a management type type I think I related to the mostly foreign looking factory workers a bit too much. I could see some appeal in having a doable task in front of me each and every day- having a routine that one could conceivably achieve some sort of perfection. But who was I kidding? Boredom isn't your major problem when opportunity doesn't even exist.

Our Embassy Suites hotel suites were sweet. We had a living room and a bedroom and though they lacked the 42 inch plasma TV like the room I had at the Beverly Hills Hilton, the TV was plenty big enough to be forever fearful as we watched Keanu Reeves leave his date and destiny in Hell for a hell on Earth in Constantine.

We were wined and dined at a fancy seafood restaurant right next to the hotel. The banged up auburn haired lass isn't too fond of seafood so she had a chicken caesar salad while I gorged myself on the freshest sashimi I ever did taste. My tablemates mostly ignored me although I caught an eye or two with my chopsticks skills.

I've spent a lot of time on the road this summer. Being away from home is always a new heart pumping experience. It's never been my goal in life to be a lifelong Minnesotan. If I were to spend my entire ordeal on this earth in one place I think in some sense I'd view that as a failure of a significant sort. I may not look the type but I do like to partake in a daily adventure or two. When I stay in one place too long it feels like gravity is cheating me, pushing down on me harder than anyone else. Upon my return I noticed that something is amiss. Hitting the road these days means hopefully hopping on my breathe the fresh air scooter. But one of the disadvantages of not traveling by car comes at a stoplight that often refuses to change because you don't weigh enough to trigger a change that changes the light from red to green, allowing you to finally move forward again. Only now they are. The lights are changing. I may be putting my foot down a bit harder than I used to and perhaps that's the only thing that could be causing such a difference. Except I suppose the loosening of the belt another notch. I've seen enough elsewhere this summer to rekindle the this isn't where I'm supposed to be feeling inside to unprecedented levels. Where that may or may not end up taking me is unfortunately forever unclear.

Ike Outtakes

The LAST time I danced in public (if you don't consider dancing nightly in front of three startled kitties being in public) was with the chief election official in Blue Earth County. So when the two of us were recently in Beverly Hills at a banquet where there was a cover band playing lots of Motown my last dance partner told me she expected an encore performance. Fat chance. Those that know me best (probably said kitties) know that if there is one thing I dislike it's like calling attention to myself. With my natural jerky movements (plenty have made fun of the way I walk) that go along perfectly with my natural jerky behavior, I'm not one who will be hitting another dance floor any time soon.

The one time I went to a high school dance was when Sharon Streif asked me and we went and she spent most of the evening with her friends and I spent most of the evening with mine. When the last dance was called I grabbed the nearest chair and halfway through the chair became my dance partner as I spun it around myself as I did a happy lil jig.

I mention all this because last Saturday's Ike Reilly performance at the Minnesota Zoo featured the Olympic Hopefuls as the opening act. I was looking forward to their performance having kinda grown fond of their peppy pop but having never seen them live they were better than advertised.

In a way it was the perfect match- Ike's brooding, angry, poetic pop played the role of Lennon to the Hopeful's peppy, somewhat silly, ever optimistically cynical McCartney like ditties. Midway through their set through a great great romp of "Drain the Sea" the sixth Hopeful came on stage dressed in a dress shirt, tie, and dress pants that contrasted with the other five Hopefuls who were wearing their trademark blue jumpsuits. This sixth Hopeful proceeded to dance with all the exaggerated movements I feature in own dance repertoire.

Later in the show this guy reappeared on stage and he motioned up to all the faithful Hopeful fans to come on down to join him in front of the band. The youthful throng did just that and spent the last few songs jumping up and down in place. It was enough to almost make your aging Asian cynic leave his front row seat and jump up and down with kids half his age.

I didn't quite muster up the energy to do that but I did go out the very next day and buy the Hopeful's CD, The Fuses Refuse to Burn. I haven't been able to stop listening to it ever since. Once again I'm reminded of McCartney's best pop efforts although I'm equally reminded of Crowded House a group I kinda always liked although I liked the Finn's songwriting better than I did the group's execution of the songs.

I'm not sure one will one will ever gain great insight to the meaning of life listening to the Hopefuls but a song like "Whisper" that so accurately recounts the universal feeling of being with one who secretly likes you but is petrified of being seen in public with you, that it'll probably send you back to therapy if you're in anything resembling a weakened condition. Likewise the opening track "Imaginary" features all the studio dubs and sounds the band can muster but that only adds to the lyrics about what it is like to dance with a chair.

The songwriting can be a bit too clever at times "You passed out... invitations to your show..." but seeing the band live the thing I loved most was that the group shared tambourine playing duties amongst themselves which indicates a healthy team spirit that would befit the greatest Olympic team. Listening to The Fuses Refuse to Burn in its entirety was a needed boost, a smile inducing narcotic just when I needed it most facing what might be a life change that blows beyond altering to let's start all over again.

Still if some opportunities that have arisen eventually fall by the wayside I think I may have found my next calling, the seventh Hopeful- the guy that sits at the side of the stage and takes it all in as he is wont to do.

What'dya Know About My Love?

My recent trip to California reminded me of a couple of things. First of all, every time I go to Los Angeles it's beaten into me that there are a lot of people on this planet at any given moment and most of the time I'm really not one of them. I was also reminded that as hard as I try, I'm just about as fond of the girl with the crooked pelvis as I ever have been.

The first little lesson may sound trite and absurd but here is what I mean: as I reach the age where it seems more than a little silly to be a grown man scootin' to work, I am constantly astounded, surprised, and perturbed at how unaware most other people I come across are to those around them. If they're not unaware, then they don't care that their actions, their movements, their words might actually have some consequences for those within listening distance. As I go along I'm finding it more and more difficult to find people who seem to care about the things I was taught about at an early age such as courtesy towards others, being a good listener, understanding that a moment of silence can actually be something to cherish, and just because you get a thought in your noggin it isn't always a good thing to share it with whoever might be with in range of your voice.

I've been away from home so much recently that I don't know if I'm coming or going. Those I share my house with seem to be feeling something similar. Two of my cats, Theo and Diego-san seem reluctant to let me out of their sight and the third, Thompson, gets this woefully sad look every time I step out of the house as if he's not sure when, if ever, I'll come back.

The spirit of their predecessor, Mr. Max will forever linger between these walls and I must admit everything I learned about being a cat, even though I'll never be a cat, came from my many years with Max. I tried my best to learn Mr. Max's ability to live right here and now, and not let the past or the future cripple my brain. It's a very Zen like notion and the shortcut involves becoming numb and doing whatever you have to do just to get by and to the next day.

See I used to do a lot of thinking. My brain would be busy from my morning shower to that moment at night that you just can't shut your mind off enough to fall asleep. Now days not so much. I'm lucky if I allow myself to think about (let alone feel) what's ahead the next day.

So I show up at work most mornings at around 6:30 and if my brain would possibly function without its shot of caffeine it would probably be scrambling how I accepted the fate at a 9 to 5 job that tends to suck... any ounce of creativity right out of my soul.

It's the music that (still) matters. There are certain artists, certain moments in particular shows I find myself at, certain songs that seep inside, remind or teach me that it was once different or this isn't the way it was meant to be, and then I feel more and more numb just about the same moment I can stop crying. Ike Reilly is one of these artists that thank GOD has made music that has changed my very being, my very heart and brain and spleen and every time I see him I'm glad I did at the same time I begin to wonder what the hell I'm doing with my life. Seeing Ike at the Minnesota Zoo Saturday night was once again one of these life altering, oh my God not another dead end detour type of show.

Ike came on stage solo with his acoustic guitar and did a I know you all might already be drunk, but this is what this sounded like when I was inspired and wrote this song, "Put a Little Love in It" followed by a similar in feeling "God Damn Shame," and then the first of several new songs he did throughout the night. The Assassination then joined him and rocked hard and dangerously.

A personal highlight came in the scorching "Garbage Day" when Ike, as he is want to do, captured exactly what I've been feeling ever since I went back out west, better than I ever could in a million and a half years. "Hey now I can't tell the buildings from the people, the strangers from the steeples, my anger from my friends. I soak here in the juices and beat up from the Stooges who sing here in my head, 'why can't we just get along?'"

Ike attracts a small albeit hard-core group of fans who share his love of drink (and song). Whenever he did one of his old songs the fans would sing and dance (if you can call jumping straight up in the air dancing) to the lyrics as if the same soundtrack was playing in all of our own personal movies (and struggles). I was in the front row of seats but I fought to see the band in between all the dancers and I battled just as much to hear the music what with the constant chatter of the woman behind me who had the most shrill voice that God ever gave to a human being. All I can say is I can't wait (and I gotta find a way to hold on) until September 27 when Ike's new CD, Junkie Faithful comes out. Given what I heard, songs about a boy in his dreams growing to a man in the arms of a woman who is just another line in another song may just provide enough of a tonic to make it all make sense for another day.

Crash on the Levee or Three Cool Cats

This week I was going to write about how at last week's Ike Reilly show that it dawned on me that great songs can come to mean something entirely different to you depending on your place in life. I had heard Ike's "Put a Little Love in It" a hundred times yet at the First Ave show the line, "Hang on to your spit for the flames inside your home" struck for the first time as being brilliant. It's a great way to say that one shouldn't bother wasting energy on things that don't matter in the end that there are always current troubles at home that need all one's attention.

Why hadn't I really heard that line before and why did it slice into me so deeply this time? I thought about that all week and was going to sit down and fill up this space with my thoughts on the matter.

That's when tragedy struck not once but three times.

The first bit of bad news was the death of a mentor of sorts- Ms. Marge Christianson- Moogie- the former Hennepin County Elections Manager. Marge was the one that taught me what matters in the end isn't the end count, the final result, what most often matters is the counting process itself. If that operation isn't right then nothing that comes afterwards is worth a hill of beans. There were times Marge took me under her wing and those times I felt quite special- as if what limited talents I do possess- really did matter.

Marge let me know she was a Sinatra fan. She loved "My Way," and "New York New York." So when I heard the sad news of her death I made sure to listen to Sinatra's great "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)" and thanked my lucky stars that Marge and my paths crossed when they did. She meant a lot to me.

The second bit of bad news of the week was a bit unexpected. I knew that bringing in cat #3 into the household would raise the hackles of the existing roommates and cause a bit of stress for a while. What I didn't see coming was that one of the two boyz, Mr. Thompson would not stay angry but rather he would get depressed. Being an involuntary expert on depression I should have seen it coming. I had thought by bringing in a soul to ward off future sadness caused by loss the worst result could be one of anger turned hissy fits. I should have known better. Anger turned inward is depression. Depression turned outward is one of life's largest lost causes.

I came home one evening and Thompson clearly wasn't himself. He skipped dinner. He lay on my bed, ears turned down and wouldn't move. Usually quite vocal he was silent and would barely look at me. A couple of times he also let out a solitary hack as if something was caught in his throat. I almost hoped his behavior change was the result of something physical not psychological. I flashed back to the time I had hit some skids and was lying hopelessly on my parent's couch when my Mom said she couldn't stand to see me the lethargic way I was. It wasn't until after I repeated those exact words to Thompson that the tears really did start flowing from one of us. I ended up taking him to the vet. I recognized the woman at the records desk almost immediately as a high school classmate. I didn't want to let her know that I recognized her however for God know whatever reason. When I told her my name she identified herself and told me she had seen my name in the files. She asked what I was up to and I told her I worked for Hennepin County Elections. She shocked me by saying she had looked for my name on last fall's ballot because I had told everyone in our high school that I was running for president in 2004. I couldn't believed she remembered that.

The next day Thompson lost his voice so being a rather vocal cat things around here seemed sadly quiet. He opens his mouth to let out a meow and nothing comes out. It's the same thing I have seen for two years now when I get home and see him looking out a window and I peer in at him and he lets out a meow that I can't hear. Only in this realm there is no glass between us and my heart sinks wondering what is going on.

For the third bit of bad news I was at work and came across a name that reminded me of one who tortured and turned on me 19 years ago, the one I spent so much capital trying not only to forget, but to forgive for turning our relationship into something much worse than it ever was until she turned it into something 10 times worse than anything I'd ever dealt with before- that one- her name turned up on the missing CNN Americans Tsunami list. I shouldn't have had mixed emotions but I did. Legally I shouldn't have any emotions at all- but I was stunned to see her name again. The end all those years ago was sudden enough but this seemed ten times worse.

Sad to say I stopped being a praying man but I must admit I did say a prayer this week for all those who strayed across my mind. In the end that part about saving spit for the flames inside my home seemed like an eerie foreshadowing for a week that just wouldn't let go.

What Ever Happened to the Girl in Me?

News last fall of the closing of First Ave didn't make me as sad as it maybe should have. It's not a venue I've ever terribly enjoyed seeing a show at, from being jostled and groped and surrounded by really bad dancers and people who think their conversations are more important than the music on the stage, to the dark and smoky atmosphere, it's a place that I'd always tolerated watching a show more than anything else. If it weren't for the intimacy of the place- and the quality of acts it attracts- and the historical significance of the club- I'm not sure I would have missed it all that much if it never opened again.

Sure I've seen plenty of memorable shows there- from L7 in 1993 to Freedy Johnston in 1998 to the Jayhawks, Liz Phair, Wilco, and Lucinda Williams in various appearances but I'd never seen a great show there until last Friday night.

Growing up we had a term for rock music that was sonically impressive. We said it blew the roof off the dump. Friday, the Ike Reilly Assassination blew the roof off the dump during a scorching set that had everybody boppin and singing along.

From the opening reflective "St. Joe's Band" to the chaotic closing cover of the Pogues "If I Should Fall From Grace with God" where Ike did a passing Shane MacGowan imitation (right on down to being in a rather lubricated state), the IRA never let up with penetrating rocking good guitar based music that held your soul hostage and proved if nothing else great rock and roll music is as good a reason to exist in this world as anything else.

Reilly is as charismatic a performer as he is a songwriter, a nearly impossible trick to pull off. In song after song he creates a world of chaos and disorder where drink, drugs, and attitude help make some sense of politics, women, and all the trouble lacking (and sometimes having) money can cause. His music makes one want to get into the car, crank up the tunes and live the life of whatever is to be, no matter where the road ahead leads. In recent years I've come to use Ike as my standard to judge how good a music store is. If they carry his CDs I can proceed to shop. If they actually have his CDs in stock, they clearly are paying attention to what they need to be paying attention to.

The first highlight of the show packed with so many was the second song that may have been new (or really old) which had a refrain about maybe how an assassination could be OK if you apologize afterward. Reilly poured his heart out in the bit about how the union girls didn't like paying their dues that were put towards buying uniforms especially since shortly after the factory closes down. With an unexplainable lack of business success the working class message in many of Ike's songs takes on added authenticity.

My favorite song of the evening however was a cover of Dylan's "From a Buick 6." Reilly has covered the song in every show I've seen of his and each time the song gathers more and more power. It's the only Dylan cover that for me is better than the original and the original is darn good.

I also particularly liked the version of "Holiday in New York" my favorite song from the latest CD, Sparkle in the Finish. The song takes us on a typical Reillyesque journey of lusting after a toll booth worker and some sexual difficulty to a cynical look at a particular Memorial Day experience to an ultimate drug based encounter with an old friend. The refrain of the song "It's starting to look like a con game to me now..." was sung with stinging sincerity.

Before launching into "Last Time" Ike explained the band was against two things- racism and sexual malfunction (or at least one of the two for the past four days). He said the song was about the importance of always speaking your mind and then the band managed to raucously live up to that revelatory introduction.

2004+10 = 40

10) Wilco at the Orpheum- The guy behind me kept saying in an overly loud voice, "This is the best f%^king show I've ever been to." He may have been exaggerating a bit but the band, so hopelessly obsessed by studio trickery proved that it could rock with the best of them. I didn't like Ghost is Born so much but after hearing the live version of "Spiders" I was reminded that Wilco is a band I'll always listen to no matter how much they may initially annoy me.

9) Brian Wilson Smile- Finally finishing and releasing the long awaited (over thirty five years after it's scheduled release) lost masterpiece we finally got to hear what all the fuss was about. It's a great piece of music- a song cycle that takes us all across America, through time and through the heart of a great songwriter. Seeing Brian perform the entire thing live at the Orpheum was a magical thing.

8) Lucinda Williams at the Minnesota Zoo- She had recently canceled a few shows on the tour due to the death of her mother but Lucinda seemed in terrific spirits as she joked about playing in such close proximity to the animals. When she sang one of my all time favorite songs, "Am I Too Blue?" I almost fell out of my seat. So simple, so beautiful, so true (and blue too).

7) Prince at the Xcel Energy Center- Good lord almighty the little fellow can put on a show. From his searing guitar playing to his fantastic singing to his eye opening dancing he ran through most of his hits in his catalog. At times stunning at all times terrifically entertaining, it's a show/night that I'll thankfully never ever get out of my system . I only wish I had bought tickets for the other two shows at the same venue. That I got to go to the show with the still most beautiful soul I've ever known was an appropriate linking to Prince's inspired performance.

6) Creative Nonfiction Class at the Loft- When the fairly recently graduated Blue-Eyed Editor mentioned that she was interested in taking a writing class at the Loft with me I jumped at the chance. For me it was an opportunity for some structure in a never relenting nagging hobby. When the instructor asked us why we were taking the class I said something about writing this newsletter for the past ten years and how that meant I was pretty much writing the same thing over and over. My classmates chuckled. I wasn't exactly joking and the class did afford me the opportunity to stretch some muscles that were in the need of working some kinks out.

5) Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol. 1- I must admit I sorta cringed upon hearing that Bob was writing his memoir. Despite all the astounding music he has written and performed in over 40 years it remains doubtful how much we truly know about who he really is. Dylan seemingly knew from the start that the best way to avoid failing to meet expectations was to continually leaving those paying attention wondering what to expect from him next. This autobiography is perhaps the best auto biography I've ever read (even better than Miles Davis' or Charles Mingus'). Dylan takes memories of his past, that may or may not be entirely accurate and follows them wherever they lead. It's like dropping a big glass ball on to the floor and following each and every chard wherever it lands. His mind is so unique and his writing ability is truly something to behold no matter the medium.

4) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind- I loved this movie because it explored why we remember the things that we remember no matter how much they bother us. I loved this movie because it was also about how the things we forget can ultimately be the things that hurt us most. I loved this movie because behind its visual beauty it was ultimately about holding on to the things that may long be gone because they are what bind together the fabric of who we are and will forever be.

3) The Upper Wing- I finally got around to finishing the attic of my house into a master bedroom and bathroom. It's something I've wanted to do since buying my house eight years ago. My contractor did a great job and as I lie night after night under the stars that peep out from the skylights I can sometimes even allow myself to marvel at the wonder of it all.

2) Ike Reilly Sparkle in the Finish- I waited a long time for this CD to arrive. When Ike's website went online in early 2003 it said that the CD would come out in the fall. Two falls later it finally did and the wait was well worth it. Ten terrific songs from a terrific songwriter that rock and roll and are just as great to listen to as you wait in traffic as they are when you finally hit the long lost road.

1) Turning 40- It was in grade school when I began having a recurring dream/vision that I wasn't long for this world and I wouldn't make it past 40. So this was a rather big year for me. That I'm still chugging along surprises me and I'm even able to occasionally admit that where I'm at now is a good thing now and again.

The Reilly Factor

I was on the Channel 4 news this week talking about how tired I am. No lie, it's not a good thing when you make the local news because you are so damn tired (OK the news story really was about how incredibly busy election officials are throughout the state).

There have been a lot of disappointments recently so maybe the most telling sign of how tired I feel is how dejected I felt when I asked a co-worker to bring me up a late night snack from the downstairs vending machine. I wanted Milk Duds. I had to have Milk Duds. I craved Milk Duds. I told my co-worker if the poorly stocked machine didn't have any Milk Duds left to get me something close. What was sent up was a Three Musketeers candy bar and I just about lost it. How is a Three Musketeers anything close to being a Milk Dud? You tell me.

Yup, I have spent so much time at work the past couple of months that I've unfortunately had to miss a lot of things I otherwise wouldn't have missed for the world (I think I remember what it used to be like to have a life). At the top of that long list was having to miss both Ike Reilly concerts last week. I got good reports about both shows, Friday night at the 7th Street Entry and Saturday night at my neighborhood Turf Club. The Ike Reilly Assassination apparently put on their usual stellar live show despite the frontman being a bit ill.

The shows celebrated the release of Reilly's long awaited brand new CD, Sparkle in the Finish. I got my copy in the mail after a long work day and though the routine has suddenly become hopping into bed immediately when I get home, this night I plopped on the CD to listen to as I lie in bed.

I must say it was great hearing new Ike Reilly songs. It's been two long years since his debut CD, Salesmen and Racists came out and the blue-eyed editor turned me on to the CD. It remains the all time crank it up in yer car and sing at the top of your lungs music that I've ever heard.

In between the two CDs was a terrific four song EP. All four of those songs appear on Sparkle in the Finish albeit in different arrangements (much less raucous).

Reilly's music is a combination of tough yet sensitive guy lyrics, catchy guitar based melodies that sear through you like a breath of crisp autumn air. Reilly's vocals top off the in your face rock- one of the best rock and roll singers since John Lennon.

My favorite of the brand new songs is "Holiday in New York" that contains the apt line, "Beautiful girl do the government hustle/Got your job in the fix with big city muscle..." The song seems to be about a trip through New York City but it comes off as a sardonic lament about people with lots of troubles. "It's starting to look to me like a con game now..."

Cohesively Sparkle in the Finish doesn't hold together as well as the songs on Salesmen and Racists nor does the energy of the songs sustain themselves throughout. Yet Reilly's skill as a singer and as a songwriter shine through without question. Typically the songs are impressively complex. The moody "It's All Right to Die" shifts tempos quicker than a leaf tumbling in front of a blistering wind. The refrain "It's all right to die everybody, it's all right to die..." is sung with so much conviction that it probably is all right to do just that.

This is the third really good disc released in the past three weeks joining Brian Wilson's Smile and Tom Waits' Real Gone as music that would make any and all personal music collections infinitely better. "Cars and girls and drinks and songs make this world spin around," Ike sings. And for once no one has to vote on it to know it's true. If nothing else with so much wondrous new music available to anyone who wants to listen, the long hours, the struggles with not having enough time in a day to get all that needs to be done, done, can actually make some sort of senseless sense because nothing can hold down a spirit uplifted by a great song or two.

Go Tigers!/War Eagle

I've done a fair amount of traveling in my day. I've been to both coasts and all around the world to Japan. Still there is so much of this place that I still hope to see someday. I think China has to be a must see. The Middle East intrigues me almost as much as Australia/New Zealand (the place that exists in a faraway fantasy). And the book I'm currently reading, Theresia Lewis and Louis Bittrich's Betrayal in Mexico has certainly opened up my heart to that sunny dreamscape.

Yet in this mindset of wanting to be someplace else I have to admit I never thought I'd find myself in the American Deep South. Further I must also admit that I am a less than wide eyed bigot because just about all my thoughts about that region of our country have been influenced by Gomer Pyle, Green Acres, Jeff Foxworthy, and the Dukes of Hazzard. Thus when my boss and employer paid for and sent me to a class at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama my nagging (and growing) bout of agoraphobia hit me stronger than ever before.

Part of my anxiety was due in part to having to fly into Atlanta alone and rent a car to drive two hours to Alabama. It was the most economical route to take. My first big break came in arriving at the Atlanta airport (billed as the busiest airport in the world) and asking the gal at Thrifty Rent a Car if they had anything with a CD player. (I needed to blast Ike Reilly as some kind of northern-rooted statement). All they had was some type of SUV and a Sebring convertible. I chose the latter though I'm not the type anyone will ever miss going topless.

On my way down I shunned Ike and blasted Liz Phair instead. The drive through the mostly tree-lined landscape was pleasant although I noticed that there were more than the usual fellow travelers that didn't seem to grasp the concept, the importance, especially on a four lane interstate, of slower traffic staying to the right. Danger came once in awhile as a large barreling semi tried to weave through the unnecessary congestion caused by someone unwilling to get over to the right.

Auburn is a city that is certainly centered on its university (and its university centered on its football team). The university is right smack in the middle of town and all the shops and restaurants are in walking distance of the campus. I stayed at the Auburn Hotel/Conference Center that was located across the street from the college's library. I arrived late in the afternoon and walked into town to try and find a bite to eat. I found a Chinese restaurant that had a most excellent shrimp dish- a combination of two dinners, one spicy the other tastefully spiced and I brought it back to my air-conditioned room and watched an awfully English dubbed TNT presentation of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Still etched in my mind were the embedded stars in the sidewalks of town that honored Auburn alum. Far from Hollywood I was glad I came across stars for Charles Barkley, Frank Thomas, and Bo Jackson. If only I had a camera.

The class I was taking was about the history and philosophy of democracy and not only did I find it endlessly fascinating it also reinforced the importance of my day job as an election official. Still what played on my mind was a question. What is the deal with none of the local TV anchor people having southern accents? If I were from that region I'd be offended that the Northerners got the better jobs while my Southern kinfolk were mere reporters at best.

I did have one hidden agenda on my trip. I wanted to for the first time taste grits. TV's Flo used it as an expletive and now I can honestly say I understand why. I had a side order of the dish with my over easy egg breakfast and I must say I wasn't too impressed. My cheesy grits were like really gritty malt-o-meal only with less taste. Later on I had some Cajun flavored crawfish that more than made up for that other southern based food. I was equally impressed by the hotel staff that demonstrated where the term "southern hospitality" came from. The attractive young southern belle who was the hostess of the hotel's restaurant remembered my room number (that they used to charge my meal to) by the third day of my stay. Yeah perhaps it had to do with I was the only Asian face in sight but she sure was nice.

At the hotel was also a group of Russian speaking guests and I really wondered why they were there. I didn't wonder too hard as I breathed in the intoxicating perfume of a rather attractive Russian blonde with more than Bullwinkley drawn good looks who sat close next to me on the hotel lobby couch one evening. Trotsky has nothing on me.

On the last day of class I had to give a presentation of a chapter of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Knowing nothing better I nervously stepped to the podium and made a lady from Louisiana nearly hack up a lung when I opened my presentation with, "Chapter five is a short chapter so I have a short summary to give and I'm a very short person."

The return trip home to Minnesota was marred by the folks at Northwest Airlines. I arrived back in Atlanta two hours before my flight home and waited in the airport watching the folks walk by. About forty minutes before takeoff there was an announcement that the flight had been canceled. The airline put me up in a room in the nearby Sheraton and gave me some vouchers for food. I was able to enjoy one more memorable meal- a seared tuna fixed to perfection. But my rescheduled flight was scheduled to takeoff at 6:40 a.m. Eastern time meaning I had to wake up around 3 a.m. Central time in order to get back to the airport and get through security temporarily shoeless to catch my flight.

Thankfully the waiter at the Sheraton restaurant sensed my state of mind and alleviated my agitation and tenseness. Being one of the few dining and with a slight delay in getting my food the waiter came over and told me the reason for my wait was that the tuna I was going to get was "this thick" (holding his forefinger and thumb more than an inch apart). Sure enough when my last meal for the trip arrived it was as advertised. "You were right it is thick," I said more out of trying to be socially polite than anything else. "Yup that's Charlie," he said making me chuckle in a rare moment of knowing in this life exactly what someone else meant.

The Split Tip Jar

I'm always a guy looking at my career options and with that new (well new to my house anyway) musical instrument (my sister's baby grand piano) nestled securely in the corner of my living room, I've decided now is the opportune time to use my nine years of piano lessons to make me some money.

Since I learned much of how to play the piano by playing Barry Manilow songs, I don't think it would be very authentic to bill myself as a rock star. For the same reason I'm hardly qualified to be a classical musician. There is of course that Japanese fiddler in Branson, Missouri, so country may seem like an obvious choice. Unfortunately my current life isn't so much about cigarettes, whiskey, and wimmyn but more accurately about coffee, parking, and kitty litter.

Another handicap might be that I really only play passable versions of two songs, Barry's "Mandy" and Paul McCartney's "You Gave Me the Answer." Beyond that I can do "Let it Be" OK, and if I'm in the right mood, John Hiatt's "She Loves the Jerk," and Brian Wilson's "Caroline No." Stephanie Jane thought I did those last two songs with a little bit too much conviction.

So maybe I won't have much of a career as a professional piano player. Still there are other options. I could always stay at home and teach piano lessons all day long. Two drawbacks to that fallback option: 1) I don't especially like children and I'd probably end up giving lessons like my elementary band teacher Mr. Binstock who used to read the newspaper while I was playing my versions of the scales on my trumpet. 2) If you haven't noticed I thrive on the unconventional and thus would much rather have my students play like my cat Diego-san who dreamily strolls up and down the keyboard oblivious to what the rest of us in the room may think of his music. He may not be melodic but he's going to play the way he is inspired to play. Teach that method to some paying suburban snotty "I don't want to be here but my parents are making me" kid and I'm not sure their mom will continue to send over a check.

So yes, perhaps a rational person given the above choices would keep their day job. Well no one has ever accused me of being rational. So this past week as the one who saunters and I went to see the Matrix Revolutions (a movie that answers the question just what can make Keanu/Neo not mutter "whoa" but rather, "shit!") I did a lot of ruminating. If the reality of the matrix is either a physical world or a computer program can life outside the movie theater be about anything that doesn't happen within the walls of my house? If a cat plays (or pounces) on a piano and there is no one there to hear it ('cept a three-legged cat) is it really music? And when it comes to home repairs is the one who thinks I'm next to worthless really right?

Speaking of things to ponder, if as Ike Reilly suggests, we are all going to be judged on garbage day wouldn't it be prudent to have one's garbage disposal be working and working well? Thus it bugged me when my disposal stopped grinding and I thought to myself I could probably learn to live without it since as a kid our family never had such a luxury. The problem was that the disposal was connected to the lone drain to my sink and without it my sink didn't drain so well.

After I was done doing the dishes one night I pulled the plug (so to speak) and the dirty dishwater just sat there. I was reluctant to leave the kitchen sink (so to be paralyzed) knowing that an overly curious kitty would no doubt want to check out the unusual new situation. Sure enough minutes after I left the kitchen Diego was up swatting suds in the air and tasting the contents. So I spent the rest of the evening watching whether the water level was dropping and then bailing the water out and dumping it into my bathroom sink. Fearing a pricy repair expense I nonetheless called the resurrection number. I was advised that before they sent someone out that I should hit the reset button on the bottom of the disposal. So I did. And it worked. Grinding again! I'm such a handyman!

The next day my car sounded louder than normal. I looked around and saw a small hole in my muffler. Another hole to deal with. It's always something new and old that not even a piano can cure. Or can it?

Room 477

Last time I saw Ike Reilly the world was a whole other place. Last time I saw Ike, Elisabeth Filarski wasn't a co-host of The View named Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Last time I saw Ike, my blue-eyed friend didn't have a college degree. Last time I saw Ike, I didn't have a black cat sorta seeking luck (of any kind) and a tripod companion to neutralize whatever feeling that was supposed to inspire. Last time I saw Ike, my tasty interior designer didn't have a baby grand piano or baby to deal with. Last time I saw Ike, our newest taxpayer hadn't posed nude. Last time I saw Ike, the saunterer hadn't taken a fall and gained a scar (or two). Last time I saw Ike, that same saunterer hadn't lost her grandmother and her mentor. Last time I saw Ike, I hadn't seen Scarlett ask Bill if it gets any easier and Bill replies that it doesn't. Last time I saw Ike, I hadn't enjoyed this morning's cinnamon scone. Last time I saw Ike, I hadn't had my most recent (and last) public meltdown (right here at First Ave!). Last time I saw Ike, Jazzy and Pumpkin had a loving mother/roommate and the roomie's mother hadn't written me a nice card thanking me for my memorial donation (including a 'more questions than answers' admission/reaching out) while trying to figure out why her daughter would take her own life. Last time I saw Ike, I wondered if she'd come the next time, because of all we shared music wasn't something we discussed.

Writers, education administrators, and secret folk rock stars, all hanging out in a downtown bar...

********

I've been working a lot of hours. Not because of any due compensation or sense of accomplishment. Sometimes you just need something to take your mind off things or keep your mind on anything else. The only thing I allowed a distraction from the long work hours was the ticket in my desk drawer that would admit me to Ike Reilly's appearance at First Ave this past week. So late one evening when I finally got home I gathered up my day's mail and while expecting something wholly different I saw a small envelope with unfamiliar personal handwriting scribbled on the outside. From previous experience (a time or two) I knew the insides contained some type of card though I knew not who it was from since there was no return address on the envelope. Weary of tricky junk mailers I nonetheless anxiously opened the baseball card sized envelope. Inside was an obviously somewhat thought out about card thanking me for a recent charitable donation I made. It was the least I could do and my eyes clouded up when the writer admitted to me, a complete stranger no less, that she had more questions than answers about why her daughter would take her own life.

********

We only saw each other one time. A friend of a friend of a... When I finally called her up I was in the middle of watching my dear feline friend gasp for the last breaths of his life. I wasn't exactly in the mindset of meeting someone new yet I needed something to distract my mind (catch a recurring theme here?) so I dialed the number I had tucked away. She seemed friendly and somewhat enthusiastic to meet me and we set up a time to get together. I didn't tell her what was really on my mind because how do you know how someone will respond to the revelation that your pet is dying and you are out of your mind and yet you know that you must do the human thing and remain somewhat social? Our first meeting I called to cancel because I had just brought Mr. Max home for the final time and I couldn't devote any less time in watching him and trying my darndest to make him comfortable knowing that really wasn't on the agenda anymore. She was OK with that, and after I told her what was going on she even seemed sympathetic.

A week after Max died we got together. She was kind enough to ask about him and I told her the news and she comforted me and I quickly changed the subject less I started to bawl my eyes out. But she then confessed she had a couple of cats and she couldn't imagine making the decision I had to make. She encouraged me to think about getting another cat or cats because there were so many in this world in need of a good home and having seen mine she knew what I needed to do. We didn't see each other again after that night, though we emailed and meant to get together again. Months later when I did indeed adopt a pair of cats I meant to tell her that her encouragement played heavily in my decision. Then the news came down that she took her life and I thought about how she could do that, how she could, at the very least, leave her two cats alone in this often times cruel cruel place? Should I have called? Could I have made a difference? So then recently I found the tribute her Mom posted on a cat care web site about how her daughter had devoted much of her life to taking in and taking care of lost cats because she had this kind kind soul and couldn't bear to see her intuitive friends suffer at all. And that's when I sent in my donation because I didn't know this side exactly and yet maybe, just maybe it's why we met in the first place and yet maybe I'm reading more to the story and I'll never know. Or maybe soon I will.

This time... it really no longer is about whether one is an angel or a whore or whether my friends are wasted or not or whether Commie drives a Nova or a Crown Vic. My head is bangin' and it has nothing to do with the music anymore. So just when is garbage day anyways?

Just Your Ordinary Average Everyday Sane Psycho Super Goddess

"I still take the trash out/Does that make me too normal for you?"
-Liz Phair

Life is quite hard the day you become a parody of yourself. The one moment of my life I was vain enough to consider myself a "writer" (even though I didn't wear a beret at the time) was when I was obsessed with writing my novel and I was working at the warehouse and a thousand thoughts raced through my mind constantly and I found myself jotting down notes on little pieces of paper and stuffing them in my pockets and when I got home I'd unload them all into a cracked yellow plastic basket and later on to my roommate's (the pharmacist Pistol Pete) Apple computer.

I wasn't writing because I wanted to, I was writing because I needed to (and desperately)- I was bleeding words. So you can imagine how unbearably pretentious that novel became. My most familiar critic has since made the observation that the difference between then and now is I used to be inspired by such things as Love and God and Beauty and now I'm inspired by three-legged cats. Point well taken. "Moderation is a memory."

So I may not be capable of doing it with my words anymore (like I was ever any good at that in the first place dammit) but for awhile I did make it one of my missions in life to introduce as many people as I could to Liz Phair's music. It was the least I could do and of course I've said many times, never let it be said I didn't do the least I could do. Thus I was pleased last summer that when I gave Exile in Guyville to the blue-eyed intern now soon to be a world renowned editor (and the one who God bless her introduced me to Ike Reilly) that the CD has become one of her favorites. Cool beans is all I can say (and oh- also can a guy ever eat too many tomatoes? I ask this 'cuz I planted six tomato plants last spring that are now bearing the results of my haphazard gardening efforts so I'm eating tomatoes morning, noon, and night!)

I went to Liz's concert last Thursday in the stifling over-heated air of the unair-conditioned First Ave with my favorite wordsmith (who I must admit I'm insanely jealous of because of her abilities to write circles around lil old me) and I asked her to go because: a) I knew she was a respectful Liz Phair fan (despite hating the newest CD) and b) because if you're going to listen to songs that you absolutely love (and believe it or not due to my rather nondiscriminating tastes- there aren't that many in my life that qualify) who better to share the experience with than someone who can write ovals and figure of eights around your weeble little mind? C'mon people! Am I the only one who has been tempted to make the jump to Mars seeing it is as close as it is and given the state of this world at this time?! Are you with me or against me?

Did I say I love Liz's songs? Lemme clarify that a bit. I'm in love with Liz's songs. When I left my sheltered little Roseville life for the big world of a precious Macalester education (not exactly like one of them public institutions like Marshall State or St. Cloud State or the University of Duluth) what I was expecting (or was that dreaming?) was to meet my future wife-to-be, a woman who would strum a guitar (or plunk a concertina or know at the very least how to yodel) and play me excerpts from her diary. And while Liz Phair ain't exactly that woman she's the closest I've been exposed to, a familiar facsimile that exists (did I mention when the Teutonic Garden Lover and I were leaving our parking space in the urine soaked Target Center Parking Ramp we got behind a blue American made car that had a bumper sticker that was pro-clone and encouraged all its readers to support multiple lives?).

As for the concert itself let me say that despite my many growing neurosis (my concert partner scolded me that she is keeping me from sinking deeper into the insanity abyss "I think I'm losing my soul," Liz sings in "Only Son"), and despite ending up standing behind a girl with the most shrill voice (the type that could quite adequately take a coney-dog order through a tinny speaker) I quite enjoyed the music. From the efficacious opener of Exile's "6'1"" to the most recent attempt at a hit "Why Can't I?" the show was great fun. "Whip Smart" rocked, "Uncle Alvarez" proved what a great writer Phair is and she sang all her new (and highly criticized) songs with a great deal of passion. One of her new songs "Favorite" that is her singing about the virtues of her favorite piece of underwear somehow was most entertaining while on the new disc, ironically entitled Liz Phair, comes across as someone trying to be, in almost a desperate fashion, one who thinks those paying attention expect her to be. Somehow live it fit in with who she probably really is (in real life!). In other words it was like a favorite piece of underwear one might find one self singing about.

If nothing else she proved in concert that she knows that there is a difference between a stupid pop song and a bad pop song. Even at her simplest, at her most uninspired she can't help herself, Liz just has to be like no one else before.

Tick Tick Boom or Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

"It's mighty funny, the end of time has just begun/Oh honey, after all these years you're still the one..."
A certain intriguing Victoria's Secret Salesman

It wasn't exactly Fitzgerald and Hemingway getting wasted over wine (and more) in Paris discussing the meaning of life and talking about their dreams and destinies but one of the fondest memories I have in my Cheapo career is the time former Cheapo employee Christina Schielske (from Tina and the B-Sides) and I were sitting around talking about our lives. Tina was frustrated with her lack of progress in her musical career and I was in the middle (with no way out) of writing a pretentious little novel wondering what the end would be. Somewhere in the middle of our conversation Tina looked over at me and smiled and said it would be just our luck as one of us, or both of us were hitting it big we'd be hit by a bus.

As the bombs are dropping across the planet I decided I would immerse myself in something this country doesn't have to be ashamed about (who'd thunk the day would ever come where I'd find myself muttering the following in public: "I wholeheartedly agree with a Dixie Chick.")- our culture and inspiring art.

Thursday night I made my way through the Minneapolis skyway watching the peace protests on the street below as I headed over to the Pantages Theatre to see Jonathan Larson's tick, tick... BOOM! with my still inspiring boss. Larson of course is better known for his play Rent and TTB was actually put together after his death at the age of 35 (the night before Rent opened on Broadway). The play's story revolves around Jonathan (Christian Campbell) a struggling playwright who is about to turn 30. In his mind it is a landmark birthday as he wonders if it is time to give up on his dream and get a practical (and paying) job. His roommate Michael (Wilson Cruz) has made the move from the theatre to a successful career in marketing. Michael is doing well enough to buy a BMW (complete with seat warmers!) and think about moving to a better apartment (where you don't have to step over anyone on your way in!). Jonathan's girlfriend (Nicole Ruth Snelson) is pushing for another alternative- moving out of New York to Cape Cod to raise a family.

The performances of all three actors carried the sometimes predictable script (and I wasn't all that impressed by the songs) and the play raised a number of the kind of questions that keep you up at night. Having just made a career move partially for security reasons I must admit one of the hardest things about walking away from my last job was the fact that right there on my business card was the title "writer." More than once I wondered what Tina would have thought if she saw that. At some point in your life you really do need to either realize what you've always wanted to do or accept that your dreams might just be fantasies and it's time to become more practical.

One wonders if that day might soon be arriving for Ike Reilly. Just why isn't this guy the biggest thing going in the music biz? The night after seeing the thought-provoking TTB I once again headed further downtown to First Ave to meet up with my friend, the blue-eyed intern, to see Ike perform as part of a benefit show for Multiple Scerosis. The blue-eyed intern was the one who introduced me to Ike's music last summer and after having seen him at the Turf Club last month I told her she just had to fly up from North Carolina to see him live.

We met up before the show and had a quick dinner at TGI Friday's. As always I enjoyed our conversation as we talked about love and life and I couldn't help but hark back to that certain talk with Tina and how having just gotten out of college everything seemed possible if not just beyond my grasp. The blue-eyed intern graduates from Duke this spring and though I have no doubt she'll go far I'm not sure she quite knows what to do next. I had called her earlier in the week and she seemed more than a tad stressed out so seeing Ike, I thought, might just be a much needed escape.

After his Turf Club show I felt so inspired- he gave such an intense performance. This time around it wasn't quite the same. For one thing he and his band were clearly drunk. There were times he nearly fell over, as he was stumbling all over the stage. The performances of his terrific songs certainly wasn't noticeably sloppy and seeing an inebriated Ike was certainly better than seeing just about any other performer yet there was something a bit off in the show. He opened with the appropriate "Duty Free" with its sing along refrain- "Gotta get out of the U.S.A." I also loved a raucous version of "I Don't Want What You Got Goin' On" where despite the events of the week Ike convinced me that "cars and girls and drinks and songs" really are what makes this world go around.

Yup my heart may have hardened to the point where it can't feel love as deeply anymore but turning to art (and friends) still inspires me in a way that nothing else can.

Lou'd

They're not booing. They're chanting "lewd... lewd..."

To continue the morbidity of last week this week I found myself craving a certain CD I hadn't listened to in years- Lou Reed's Magic and Loss. The CD is Reed's 1992 tome about contemplating the process and meaning of death. I found it then and I still find it now, difficult to make it through the entire painful disc (with song titles like "Gassed and Stoked," "Cremation," and "No Chance") but the second song, "What's Good" has long been one of my favorite Lou songs.

"Life's like Sanskrit read to a pony/I see you in my mind's eye strangling on your tongue/What good is knowing such devotion/I've been around- I know what makes things run..."

The song if full of probing nonsensical questions and answers ("What good's a disease that won't hurt you? Why no good, I guess, no good at all") that show that for the singer a death of a loved one has transformed his life into a whirlwind of feeling not only a loss but also feeling completely lost.

At the end of the song the whimsy turns to bitterness and resignation. Death isn't choosy who it picks next and often time that choice doesn't seem reasonable. "What good is life without living/What good's this lion that barks/You loved a life others throw away nightly/It's not fair, not fair at all." What I like most about the song however is that Lou ends it with an affirmation (albeit a qualified one)- "What's good? Life's good- but not fair at all."

So the song becomes the theme of the week but one must move on and if one must, one moves on alphabetically (nothing else would make much sense to do). From Reed to Reilly, there was a second disc I spent the week immersing myself in- Ike Reilly's Salesmen and Racists.

Like Reed's song "What's Good" Reilly's songs are full of lines that I'm not sure make much sense but tend to linger on so long that they pop in one's head at the weirdest times. I remember last summer when the blue-eyed intern introduced me to Reilly's disc I popped it into my car stereo, cranked it and found myself singing one line over and over in the middle of a snarly traffic jam: "Hey mother fucker kiss the ground..." I was pleased that when I told this to the blue-eyed intern she confessed that she too often found herself singing that line out loud.

Bar none Salesmen and Racists is the all time great hit the road, crank up the tunes, disc. I'm not sure I can ever relate to Reilly's party hard until you drop (or drop out) lyrics but his words can be like shrapnel drifting in and out of everything you'll ever see again after you heard his songs.

Other singer/songwriters like Jack Johnson and Ryan Adams have gotten more attention and acclaim but I like Ike. I'm sure if we had gone to high school together he is the type of guy that would have hated me as a wussy bleeding heart intellectual. And I probably would have been afraid of him.

They found the Winter Carnival medallion within spitting distance of my house and days later Ike Reilly played not too much farther away at the Turf Club. When I arrived the line was shockingly long. Good thing I had my ticket in my coat pocket because I eavesdropped on the conversations around me and heard that others didn't have a ticket. Sure enough a guy came along and told those of us on the guest list or with a ticket to step into another line. When I got inside I situated myself behind a girl in a chair near the stage. It turned out to be an incredibly wise move because by the end of the night that chair was the only thing separating me from the moshers. At one point I ended up with a young blonde in my arms and before I dropped her she smiled and tapped my wrist.

Ike was great. Hidden by his shades he was kind of like the inscrutable guy I aspire to sometimes be. His new songs particularly stood out and blew the roof off of the dump. If I had to pick a theme to my life, as it is now (can I say all I want to do these days is stay home but coming home to an empty house is not only a new experience but a sad one), it would be Ike's song "Garbage Day." "Hey everyone I meet makes me think of you and I get so lonely/Well I believe you when you say that I'll be judged on garbage day/Baby you've been on my mind..."

He closed with a rocking cover of Dylan's "From a Buick 6" that I must admit matched the writer's version. The next song alerted us all that it was "all right to die." Made me think of the Lou song stuck in my head. Made me think of so much more.

It Sometimes or Always Ain't the Way it Seems

There have been times over the past few years when my friend, the now more than ever buff non-buffy (but still quite the blessed demon fighter in her own right- THANK GOD) has frustrated me more than infuriated me either with something said or done or something not said or not done. This no doubt is more of a reflection on my often times overly sensitive and paranoid and always moody nature, but it has at times helped me gain perspective and a greater appreciation for her as an actual person rather than some ideal dream figure made up by a flickering imagination. I like her for her faults rather than in spite of her faults.

Long before I met her I developed a theory that the number one sign that there was something terribly askew with our society was that people not only were paying money for the sole purpose of being tan, but worse yet people were actually plunking down large sums of cash to buy the equipment needed to create and maintain a tan without ever having to spend a second in the sun.

The first time I ever saw the then not as buff non-buffy was towards the end of a winter and her impressive golden tan made her stand out in a room otherwise filled with typically pale looking Minnesotans. I couldn't take my beady little eyes off of her yet years later I learned it wasn't the tan that held my attention. She in return looked my direction but more through me than at me.

She maintained her tan over the entire beginning of our friendship and the first time I was over at her place on a Pebbles and Bam Bam day (she has a sunny disposition but likes to moon people) I saw she had a tanning bed in one of her rooms. So for the times over the years when I felt like I liked her a little too much, I merely had to keep reminding myself that she was one of those people that years before I had railed against and that was definitely a strike against her.

I found out Tuesday that the tanning bed wasn't hers. It belongs to her sister who didn't have room in her own home to store the contraption. My bad. (I was man enough however to apologize for my presumption even though she had never heard my presumption before.)

But as was recently pointed out in another circumstance I am not exactly a model of consistency in life. I was reading my morning copy of the St. Paul Pioneer Press (only 25 cents!) and looking closely as I am wont to do at last week's Nielsen ratings. I was dismayed to see my least favorite Sandra Bullock movie (well besides Ms. Congeniality) Time to Kill (co-starring Matthew McConaughey who is described by the person who scares me as "the cute boy who sweats so well") actually finished as the third most watched show of the week while at the same time a far superior movie Sling Blade finished 31st. I was outraged. "This is what is freaking wrong with America," I declared to no one but was overheard by the Ike Reilly lovin' blue eyed intern who sits next to me. I guess she can't help but listen to my increasingly disturbing lunatic rantings every once and a while.

She was surprised that I didn't like Time to Kill a Sandra Bullock movie that people actually seem to like. I explained that it always disturbed me that the movie's message tried desperately to justify that sometimes murder is OK. She looked at me deeply for a moment and said, "Isn't the message of Sling Blade the same?" I thought about it for even a briefer moment and realized she had more than a point... she was right damn it. Oops, my bad again.

But that's OK because I'm going insane. The other night I had a dream where I was a contestant in the Miss America Pageant (I think I was still a guy but I'm not entirely sure). All I do remember is that I finished second which surprised many people and was a great disappointment to myself. I woke up with an overheated moaning kitty beside me and thought to myself, "Well that was rather disturbing. I wonder what that meant?"

The only other thing I remember about the dream is that there was a cameo appearance by a recently departed co-worker, the one who actually used to laugh at my jokes once in a while, the one smart enough to list Ted Williams' book of hitting on her all time favorite books even before he became a sad frozen stiff. I'm not sure what she was doing there and I'm not even sure what role she played in all this. After not sleeping for the rest of the night (of course) I thought about something this co-worker and I discussed during the legislative session, an idea others might think another typically forced spitting into the wind by me, but she thought was rather amusing if not clever. It is my goal for the state of Minnesota to secede from the union and form its own country after annexing the Dakotas for more land. The name of my new country? East Dakota of course. In East Dakota there would be no taxes while you live, but everything that's left when you die goes to the government. In East Dakota we would only fund K-11 because everyone blows off their senior year. In East Dakota everyone would live in peace and harmony even the hypocrites and heartbreakers.