PRESS RELEASE: Micycle returns to blogger

I used to type these blog things almost every other day for quite a while. But then real life intervened and every other day became every other week... and every other month... and then that turned into a year, and so on. It's time to change that!

I have no idea where to begin. So much has happened over the past couple of years. Allow me if you will to present some of the highlights in a neatly organized bulleted list format:

• I got married to a very cool and very hot momma, putting a permanent end to my "IS EVERY WOMAN OUT THERE A FUCKING NUTJOB??" woes. Just like I'm sure it is with boys, I discovered that the answer to that question is yes. You just have to find the proper frequency of fucking nutjob-ness in that other person; one that is properly in sync with yours.
• I got a new job. And then I was laid off from that job. And then I got a new job 4 months later: my old job at the same place, but with better pay. So technically my new job wasn't "new" per se; I already had it at one time and then someone else did it for a while. So maybe I should call it a gently used job. I like my job. Lots.
• I fulfilled a lifelong goal of actually setting foot in New York City. Twice in the past two years and hopefully much, much more in the future. We first went for our honeymoon in July of 2007 and let me tell you what: the second we emerged from the humid, dark, reeky subway terminal up into the narrow, noisy streets of Manhattan, I felt like I was home.
• Another goal fulfilled: Owning a hollowbody Gretsch guitar. The Wifey bought me my first one as a surprise Thanksgiving/Can't Wait Until Christmas gift in 2007, and my other one came home with us from Manny's in NYC in 2008. You know when you try a pair of jeans on and they fit perfectly? That's how those guitars are for me. If I play any other kind of guitar now it feels unnatural and I feel like I'm cheating on them.
• I stopped playing acoustic guitar pretty much altogether. I'm sick to death of hearing those Finnegan songs and haven't felt like writing anything new, so my acoustic guitar is in hibernation until whenever I decide to bust it out again. Who knows when that will be. When I tell people that, they say "Ooooh, but that stuff is so gooooooood!" Thank you! So are pancakes, but that doesn't mean you want to keep eating them and eating them every day.¹
• I've been in a creative dry spell for a year or two now and feel a strong need to bust out of it, hence my dusting off the ol' virtual blog pen and typing this today. I need a creativity enema.
• In another attempt to break the creativity block, in addition to Iced Ink last fall I joined a new band called fe-rah'go. I am very fortunate to be playing in 2 bands with extremely talented musicians who are awesome people.
• I have lost a lot of patience and hope with the local music scene here in Minneapolis.
• I never, ever thought I'd go to Mexico. I never really had the desire, much less the opportunity. All of my life that was always something in pictures and on TV that other people did. It turns out that when given the opportunity to go to Mexico for the mere price of airfare and food, the desire was kicked up a few notches. We went last month and it was awesome.
• Whilst baking in the sun by the pool in Mexico, I read Nikki Sixx's The Heroin Diaries; a compelling and disturbing conglomeration of journal entries he wrote in the late 80's at both Motley Crue's peak as well as the peak of his heroin addiction. The book made me realize that I used to write journal entries on this here site and made me miss it a little. It also made me thankful that I've never tried heroin and therefore never wrote a journal while on the heroin.
• Last Halloween I was Mork and shaved off my goatee for the first time in about 12 years.
• I am now a beer snob. (Gee, thanks a lot Joe Berkman on bass!)
• BLOG. I've never liked that word, and it's starting to sound a little dated now. So I think I'll just call this a journal.

That's alls I've got for now. It's a good start. My goal is to have another meatsmoothie.blogspot.com spewing posted within the next 48 hours. Can you handle the suspense?

_{1 Subtle Mitch Hedberg reference}

Van Fuckin' Halen, bro. (Part Uno of Dos)

When I first heard that David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen finally buried the hatchet and were going on tour, I pert near soiled my pants with joy, much like the whole KISS Reunion 12 years ago. I was a bit torn when I learned that Eddie's son Wolfgang would be taking over the bass duties and that the band (a.k.a. Edward) had basically written Michael Anthony out its history. You know that chick you hear doing backup vocals in all of the VH tunes? That's Michael Anthony. That and his overall stage presence were a major part of the Van Halen experience for me. I got mad and disowned this new incarnation of Van Halen, David Lee Roth or not.

Until the day of the show rolled around, that is.

On the way into work on 3rd Avenue in downtown, I heard the words Van Halen, Concert, Tonight, and Target Center on the radio. My heart reminded me that it was in my chest by making me feel as if it were an overinflated beach ball that just burst at the seams and and was getting cold and shrively. I haven't missed a Van Halen show since I was old enough to go to concerts, and sadly for me, my concert-going ripeness arrived a year or two after Roth was no longer in the band.

About an hour later, my lovely wife forwarded me an email from her co-worker trying to off her nosebleed Van Halen tickets. I got my hopes up and asked her to pursue, but by the time we heard back, the tickets were gone like a fart in a windstorm. We both wanted to go to the show now, and I was in full-throttle Van Halen Ticket Acquisition Mode. I made numerous Ticketmaster attempts and decided I didn't be raped upwards of $130 to sit up in the few remaining high altitude/limited stage view seats.

Enter: good old trusty Ebay.

It was high noon and I found a pair of 32nd row floor tickets that were going to the highest bidder at 3PM. Ebay "will I win" euphoria was power-vomiting itself through the cockles of my heart. 3:05 rolled around and I was still the highest bidder at $150 for both tickets. Hell yeah! Just ONE of those tickets cost $147.50, not to mention additional TicketBastard fees. I called the dude whose name was Ryan and he sounded legit. He closed the auction and the tickets were mine. I wanted to Jump - JUMP! Go ahead and Juuuump.

Ryan needed his money before he could email me the tickets, so he got all of my contact info and my Ebay ID and sent me an invoice for me to PayPal him his loot. I never got an invoice so called him after 20 minutes passed. "Well I sent it twice now... you didn't get anything? Okay. Let me look into this and call you back in 10 minutes."

A half an hour passed. Nothing. I called him back and he suddenly developed an intense case of verbal constipation. "Um, well, looks like someone placed a bid before I closed the auction so the tickets went to someone else. Sorry!"

Turns out I was outbid by $7.50 and although the winner clearly wasn't me, Ryan took up permanent residence on my shit list by giving the other guy, who bid at 3:22, (AFTER I talked to him the first time and gave him all of my info, mind you) the tickets. And he was too much of a meow-meow to have the decency to call me back and tell me. Just for that, don't ever buy a car from a guy named Ryan at Eich Motors in St. Cloud. Oops, did I say that?

So yeah, I was hella pissed. I found one more set of 23rd row main floor tickets on Ebay available for over $300. I sent him a best offer of $150 which of course wasn't going to happen, but at least I tried.

I drove home ticketless. I travel directly past the front side of Target Center every day on the way home from work. That day as I passed and sat at the red light on 7th and Hennepin, to my left I had the Hard Cock Cafe cranking Van Halen and people sitting outside nursing delicious beers before the show. And to my immediate right was the Target Center, and the fenced off Van Halen tour buses.

I rarely cuss out loud, especially when no one's within earshot, but I recall mumbling "Fuck off!" at that moment. It was similar to Pee Wee sitting on the bench bikeless and everyone biking past him.

I got home and checked my email, and saw a new message that told me YOUR BEST OFFER OF $150 WAS ACCEPTED. Well I'll be danged, there is a Gawd after all! And his name is Edward Van Halen... and we were going to be watching him from the 23rd row in less than 3 hours.

Um.. Ryan who?

Part II: Concert and people-watching review to come soon.

Separated at birth?

Not sure whether or not this has been noticed yet, but I can't be the only one that sees the resemblance.. is James Lipton actually a Gibb?

Today is my Mom's anniversary of being born!

Today my Mom turns.. um.. I don't know? Good job, Mom! You're the best mother I've ever had, and not only am I incredibly thankful that you rule so much and you're such great phone support when I have a cooking question, but I'm also incredibly thankful that you had such awesome kids.

I ponder what my Mom's pre-husband and kids life must have been like when her birthday rolls around, and it's really bizarre for me to imagine. It's hard to believe that my Mom was freshly born at one time and was not housebroken. At one time in her life, my Mom weighed less than a sack of pataytas and my Grandma was wiping her poopie butt and changing her diapers. I have pictures to prove that she was once that small; but still it's fooking strange to think about my Mom being younger than me.

I remember Mum was driving me around running errands when I was a youngen. I asked her how old she was, and she said 32. I'm 32+1 right now, and I get the heebie jeebies when I think that I'm as old as my Mum was when I asked her that question. She already had gotten married and had kids long before that, and damn.. that's just weird. Kind of like when I was 27 and got a copy of my person receipt (a.k.a. birth certificate) - it said that my Dad was 27 when I was born. (insert Twilight Zone music here)

At any rate, as anyone who has met the lady knows, my Mom toadilly rules. If there were a Best Mom In The World contest, she would win, hands down. You think your Mom is cool? Nah-ah. Outside of her Mom, my Dad's Mom, the Mom of my nephews and niece, and my future Other Mom, all other Moms suck eggs. Lela's Mom is pretty awesome too now that I think about it, so I'll give her Mom immunity as well.

Let's just hope that the less fortunate egg sucking moms are sucking on my Mom's homemade deviled eggs. It will give them an idea of how they should taste next time they try to make 'em.

Enjoy your day of birth, Mom!

Past Blogs of Birthday Mommery:

2005
2004

It's not Bluetooth.. it's StupidlookingEar

I'm starting to see a consumer trend out there when I'm running errands and standing in line at stores. More and more people are popping those little Bluetooth headset doodads into their ears. I recently spotted a run of the mill 40-something mom at Walgreen's, and she somehow managed to look even more absurd than this dork in this photo I found on Google to show you what I'm taking about:

Can we please stop this, people? Do you know how fucking lame you look walking around with these things in your ears? It's like you just came from a Star Trek convention where you were all dressed up in character and then forgot to take that one little piece out of your ear when changing back into your Earthling clothes.

I think we're starting to forget the simple things in life. Call me old fashioned, but here's what I do when my cell phone rings: I take it out of my pocket, unfold it, and guess what I do then? I hold it up to my ear and talk into it! Novel concept, wouldn't you agree? There's no need to stick a plastic beetle on the side of my noggin. Those things at the ends of my arms.. um.. oh yeah, my hands - they're great for doing things like answering phones. Bluetooth users would likely disagree with me: But Micycle. What if I'm doing something with my hands like carrying groceries up the stairs or doing the dishes and my phone rings? Here's what you do: you let it go to voicemail and then call the person back when you're done. It's that easy, mate! Unless it's a matter of life and death, who really needs to have a phone on their head at all times?

It's just like back in the day when pagers were all the rage: I'm sure about 95% of the users really don't need the technology, but buy into it because they saw someone on MTV with it or someone else walking around with it. I saw a young dude walking down Lyndale last night. He had the ear thing in and was yammering away at someone on the other end. People wearing these things have two strikes going against them: 1) They look like dorks because there's a piece of plastic on their head, and 2) They look like even bigger dorks because unless you can see the high tech gadget affixed to their head, it looks like they're talking to an imaginary friend.

It's all further proof that technology owns us instead of us owning technology. I'm really thankful that I grew up in an era without most of this poot, because it learned me real good that my life doesn't have to depend on it. If I forget my phone at home, then so be it.. I'll get to whomever calls me later. Sometimes I'll purposely leave my phone behind and just BE. It feels good - try it sometime! I don't know about other cell phones, but if anyone calls when I'm not near mine, when I come back to it, it says MISSED CALLS and the caller ID tells me who it was and if I have voicemail. Wow, it's almost as if that's why those features are on there!

If you're on the market for the Bluetooth headset, I have a special money saving offer for you. For $10, I'll duct tape your phone to your head, and for an additional $5 if your phone has it, will help you set up the voice recognition so you won't ever have to touch the thing again. Keep those hands free for more important things, such as managing the information on your Blackberry.

Guitar Center Ate My Balls

I loathe Guitar Center. A few years ago I even went so far as to put together a "song" named with the very title of this journal entry. Ever since the late 80s when they opened up a store here and my mullet and I went in to peep the place, I always got a used-car salesman vibe from the place. Remember the scene in Fargo where William H. Macy tells the customer he'll go back and talk to his manager to see what he can do? And then he talks to his manager about the hockey game and runs back out to the customer and closes the deal? Yeah, like that. Some people can deal with that, but personally, I can't stand it. I'd rather pay slightly more and know my money is going to a local shop where everybody knoooows your name. [insert piano ending of Cheers theme here]

If you've never been, GC is a big more-is-more American chain store, which means you're pretty much forced to go there when you need something ASAFP. Reasons being because

1) they can afford to be open when the smaller independent shops can't,
2) they're conveniently located, and
3) they have just about everything under the sun in stock.

Those three factors have pretty much killed off their smaller competitors over the years that I used to support. I still do all of my binnit at smaller stores and only go to GC when I absolutely have to, which is very rarely. Last week I needed a mixer for recording Fish Pudding and ended up scoring a closeout floor model from GC. Got home, plugged it in, and the bastard didn't work.

I called the other location in town to see if they had any left. In the token overly zealous GC duder voice, I was told "Yeah, those are great little mixers! Hold on man, let me check!" Mmm hm… Minutes later, GuitarDude popped back on the phone and said "All right, man, looks like I have one left in stock. I can get you a killer deal on it too 'cause it's a floor model. 10% off!" It's a 15 mile drive to the store and I couldn't afford to pass it up ($30 vs. $70?) so asked him to hold it for me until the next day when I could come in.

"Oh no worries, dude, it'll be here!"
"Great.. but can you set it aside for me?"
"Um – well if you're coming tomorrow, it'll be here. Just ask for [insert boy name here that's likely misspelled on purpose, i.e. "Jaysin"] and I'll hook you up!"
"Well can I give you my credit card number to buy it now and be safe?"
"Nah – just come on in tomorrow!"

Ugh. FINE. I took the chance and hung up.

Goldie and I went in the next day and looked through the clusterfuck of gear in the Pro Audio department for my $30 mixer. No dice. I asked one of the three dozen Pro Audio salesmen on hand where it was. GuitarDude checked, and it was still listed in their inventory. I breathed a sigh of relief as he scurried off to hunt it down. 10 minutes of unbearable Metallica/shitty razor blade distortion two handed tapping riffs later, Dude came up to me and said "Toadilly sorry man, I have no idea where it is… I don't know what to do."

Out the door we went.

Over a beer and pizza lunch a block away from there, I decided to not make the trip a total waste. I'd just go back, buy the expensive mixer and just return it after the couple of hours I needed it for, telling them it wasn't what I needed. It's the least those fuckers could do for me for suckering me into driving out there for nothing.

I ran in, bought a new $70 mixer, and took off like a Bat Out of Hell Part II. When I got home, I carefully opened the box, took out the power supply, and plugged it into my old mixer that didn't work in the first place just for shits and giggles. It lit up like a Christmas tree and worked like a charm.

Today, Guitar Center can and will eat my balls yet again when I return the $70 mixer with the old shoddy power supply for a full refund. After all is said and done, I'm ending up with my original mixer that works again… so that's the glass is half full side of this. Thanks once again for the inconvenience, Guitar Center.

Grand Theft Parking Lot

1 shot in Conn. Playstation waiting line

My darling brother Chuck and I went to Best Buy on Wednesday and there were people already camping out in front of the store with their tents set up waiting to buy PS3s. It was prolly only 40 degrees out, and I'm guessing there were a good 2 dozen folks out there waiting. It looked like they'd been there for a while already and had 2 days to go yet.

EEDIOTS.

Not that I'm in favor of ass cappage, but maybe in this case, it's a blessing in disguise:

1) The situation probably made the people in line realize that maybe life is a little too short to be standing in line for days in a row for a fucking VIDEO GAME CONSOLE.

2) Hopefully at least a fraction of the people's memories were refreshed on the lesson that we're told time and time again by crime experts: just give them what they're asking for, or take the risk of having extra holes put in your person. Give 'em your credit cards; you can cancel those out. And if you're dumb enough to have $400 the thing costs right there in your pockets in the form of cash money, then maybe you deserve to learn the hard way, you stoopid shit.

I dunno. I guess it just makes me sad that people will go this far out of their way for things (both on the camping out side and the ass-capping side.)

Maybe some good will come out of all of this: the first thing that comes to my mind is a shooter game for PS3 called Grand Theft Parking Lot. Just don't get shot while waiting in line to get it.