Rocks Off: The Exiled on Main Street Weblog

2008-05-12T15:06:00.004-05:00

Cinema's Secret Influence?

Three great movie scenes from the past ten years:

1) Kevin Spacey sings along with "American Woman" in American Beauty.

2) Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs in Almost Famous ... his scene starts 2:28 in, and the below quote starts at 3:03. If you don't have the patience to wait for the clip to load that far, he says:

"The Doors? Jim Morrison? He's a drunken buffoon posing as a poet. Give me The Guess Who. C'mon - they got the courage to be drunken buffoons. Which makes them poetic."

3) Micheal Cera (he's Canadian!) sings "These Eyes" in Superbad.

2008-05-11T22:54:00.009-05:00

Insert "Here Comes A Regular" Lyrics Here

The new Esquire has their annual feature on the best bars in America. No Twin Cities bars made the list, the only Minnesota bar that made it was one up on the North Shore. The feauture does have some entertaining sidebars, including one about the regular bar. An excerpt:

We started thinking about how you cultivate a relationship with a bar. We came up with some criteria for a regular place. It needs to be within walking distance of where you spend most of your time. And you have to get generous drinks there. You just do. And the bartender has to be there every night. If he goes on vacation, you have to notice. And you have to be able to get a seat at the bar, like, 85 percent of the time. And it really helps if there is a charming woman there who kisses you on both cheeks every single time you walk in. And she needs to be good at consoling.

2008-05-10T22:15:00.005-05:00

This Crack Is Directed At Twin Cities Fans Of A Certain Boston Player

I'm cheering for the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Boston Celtics in the NBA playoffs. Wally Szczerbiak and Joe Smith deserve a championship.

2008-05-10T01:09:00.007-05:00

Don't Know Where All These Red Sox Fans Came From All Of Sudden, But I'm Sure Glad They're Quiet Tonight

Howard Sinker, who I read in the pages of the Grand Forks Herald thirty years ago or so, has a nice recap of the Twins beating the Red Sox in the bottom of the ninth on Friday night.

A note to Howard (who I dig): I was oozing confidence when GoGo was up to bat. Young had already gotten a hit off of Papelbon, why not Gomez? I was thinking he was going to go yard or at least hit a double (oops, that would be a triple for GoGo) into the gap. Instead, he drew a walk - I think FSN said it was only his fourth of the season - and then stole second. I love this kid!

I was up saying "GoGo! GoGo! GoGo!" all during Gomez's at bat and then kept repeating "Twins win! Twins win! Twins win!" after Lamb drove in the winning runs. I live alone, so it was left up to my cat to give me funny looks, of course it didn't help that I was also doing a PA-via-Common "Ballgame!" while pointing at her.

2008-05-09T00:16:00.004-05:00

Tuomala Retracts A Pretty Good Cheap Shot

"A few years back I bought The Best of Badfinger and now only program three songs on my CD player - "No Matter What," "Day After Day," and "Baby Blue." But I guess anthology EPs would be asking for too much from the recording industry."

I wrote the above back in 1998 and need to double back on myself (yet again.) This year I popped The Best of Badfinger back into the CD player and love it. I know ten years ago I didn't "get" the Beatles and so certaintly didn't "get" some powerpop like Badfinger. But these days ... well, it's spring and I might have to spin side one of Raspberries' Best before I hit the hay tonight.

2008-05-08T23:51:00.004-05:00

Dear Landlord

I sometimes am asked why I don't buy a house. Here's a typical off-and-on discussion that I have with nosy busybodies in my life:

You should buy a house.

I don't want a house. I don't want to mow a lawn, prune trees, shovel snow, or have neighbors that I am obliged to talk to over the backyard fence.

Oh, then you should buy a condo.

I would be paying more per month to live in something smaller than I am in now, and it wouldn't be in this neighborhood that I love.

But you need to build up some equity!

Fuck that. And just to double down, I'm gonna lease my next car!

And these days it turns out it saves me $200 a month to rent over buying ... plus I'll be getting three hundred large in a property tax refund this summer. Sure beats mowing the lawn or paying association fees.

2008-05-08T01:38:00.003-05:00

To The Bar

This week I ~~realized a lifelong dream~~ did something I thought of last week and set up a bar in my writing office. Inspired by Chad's new bar and a couple of other friends who have set up bars in their basements, I decided to set up a bar also. Why always go beer and vodka neat when there's a whole world of drinks out there? (New fave: rye and ginger.)

Alas, there is nowhere to sit at the bar - it's simply a place for booze and mixers and glasses. I live in an apartment and don't have a basement. I do have a basement storage space and considered setting up a little bar down there complete with barstools and a transistor radio so that we could listen to the Twins, but as it tends to be the case with preparing cold drinks too far from your kitchen: the logistics of ice got too complicated.

Currently I'm having a dirty martini. No clients tomorrow, just writing and reading. No idiot barfly next to me blabbing on and on. This is sweet (though the drink is salty.)

2008-05-08T01:08:00.007-05:00

Did He Just Compare Himself To Frank Pembleton?

After loving the Homicide book, I recently started watching the Homicide series on DVD. Frank Pembleton immediately reminded me of somebody - he reminded me of me, back when I had a real job in Corporate America.

Oh sure, he's black, I'm white. He's incredibly handsome, I'm dopey looking. He's articulate, I have a North Dakota accent so thick that was asked in 1996 if I adopted it after watching Fargo. He dresses well, when I had to wear a tie my fashions were from JC Penney. He invesitagates murders and interrogates suspects, I processed applications for payment and withheld payments to subcontractors over lien waivers. So what's the similarity, other than that he listens to Emmylou Harris and I once bought an Emmylou Harris LP mostly so that I could gaze at the album cover?

It's that Pembleton is accused of not being a team player; instead brilliantly going his own way with his work and shunning social contact with his colleagues. I also had the "team" bullshit thrown in my face (a top three Tuomala wisecrack ever at that job: "I'm too good to play on the junior varsity") (thanks to Turk for the line) and shunned social events with my coworkers (at least the accounting ones.)

It's probably a good thing I didn't watch this show when I had that job as I would have likely adopted some Pembleton mannerisms - like become a sharp dresser and start smoking cigarettes. I would have been out some serious dough and would now have a hacking cough.

Please send no series spoilers my way ... but if Pembleton's fate is anything like mine, he'll be lied to and stabbed in the back by management. But keep going your own way, Frank.

2008-05-05T01:34:00.004-05:00

4 OTs!

I watched that Stars over Sharks in four overtimes game tonight from 8 pm until it ended at 1:24 am. Great game and a great cure for the typical Sunday Night Blues.

2008-05-05T00:57:00.003-05:00

Just Ask Humbert Humbert

This? This? This is the Miley Cyrus photo from Vanity Fair that is causing all the hubbub? The prudes in this country (the photo was referred to as "child pornography" in the letters section of Sunday's Strib) apparently have just been informed that fifteen-year old girls have skin on their backs.

My, how times have changed. Back in the day, we needed naughty fifteen-year old Brooke "Commando" Shields to stir up some controversy. And being just a few months younger than her and hence also being fifteen at the time - I loved those Calvin Klein ads.

And to bring things full circle ... Shields portrays Cyrus's mom on Hannah Montana.

(A dorm buddy of mine at UND went on to graduate school at Princeton the same time that Shields was there. He informed us that she had tried to jump him as he walked out of the chemistry lab, but fortunately he had on a tearaway jersey! Love those jokers from the dorm!)

2008-05-04T21:57:00.004-05:00

New Podcast Is Posted

Exiled Radio #17

2008-04-30T20:33:00.005-05:00

Score!

Roadrunner Records is having a sale through Sunday - 15% off of new stuff and 20% off of new. They mailed me a postcard and by returning it along with my email address I got an additional 5% off. So this afternoon I went and bought used six LPs and only spent fourteen bucks and change! I haven't listened to all of 'em yet - the turntable is in the living room and here in the writing office I just have iTunes, online streaming, and a regular ol' radio.

And I think this is the year that for the most part purchased CDs come to an end for me. I was hesitant to buy too much off of iTunes because the lack of liner notes freaked me out. But you know what? Liner notes in CD booklets are getting too tiny for my old eyes to read, and I just got a new eyes prescription last fall. Plus booklet designers are hung up on the white-type-on-black-background thing, and that is tough enough to read even if you have young eyes. So I think 2008 will bring up an interesting combo in my music purchasing: Old-school vinyl (cheap and fun!) and digital downloads (easily be burned to a CD to play on the stereo or in the car.) Now I understand those "CD, RIP" articles I saw earlier this year.

2008-04-30T14:35:00.004-05:00

New Game

Randball has come up with a Twins/office game. Today may be the only time since heading to self employment that actually wished I worked in an office. (Then again, I slept past noon today so there goes that theory.)

My contribution would be these:

- When Joe Mauer slaps a single to the outfield, slap a co-worker.

- If Justin Morneau hits a home run, crack open an oil can of LaBatt and say: "Ah, good ol' trustworthy beer. My love for you will never die."

- When Carlos Gomez gets on base, make a The White Shadow reference. If he steals a base, hum the show's theme song.

2008-04-24T01:18:00.005-05:00

From Looking At The Potential Source Material, This Sitcom Could Run Forever

I finally got around to watching The Accountants, the 2006 mini-episodes web-only spinoff of The Office (which is merely the best sitcom since Seinfeld.) They were pretty good, two thoughts:

- In the last episode, we see that Dunder-Mifflin logs accounting entries into ledger books. Personally, I haven't seen this type of accounting in twenty years as pretty much everything has been done with software since the late eighties. I was wondering why it took them so long to find a $3,000 gap in the books.

- Accounting boss Angela is so hot! Five-foot one (she shops at Gap Kids and American Girl), blonde, and always angry. If she were my boss, she would drive me nuts and I'm not talking about work here.

- Accountant Kevin is really starting to grow on me, the kicker was when he took money from petty cash to bet on The Detroit Pistons. Plus he's the one who refers to the five tenants of the building as "The Five Families" and to the company heads as "bosses." If I worked with him I guarantee you that I would have seen his bands Scrantonicity and Scrantonicity II, and I don't even like the Police that much. He could be a candidate for the Accounting Hall of Fame.

2008-04-22T00:12:00.007-05:00

"What's So Civil About War, Anyway?"

Guns n' Roses performing "Civil War" at Farm Aid IV. Last performance by the original GNR lineup. Most GNR attention goes to Axl Rose and Slash, but Steven Adler played better funk/disco beats than the guy who replaced him and Izzy Stradlin was easily their best songwriter. Anyway, great song and cool to hear a metal band performing an anti-war song in the Midwest halfway through Bush I's first term. My research indicates that this edition of Farm Aid occurred in April of 1990, but I swear being dragged away from this performance at my parents' cabin that summer to go to the bar. It must have been a repeat on Fargo PBS or something. Yeah, that is probably it - pre-Internet days and I had read about GNR playing this song at Farm Aid and was trying to watch the repeat when bar time came.

Also from same show: GNR covering the UK Subs "Down on the Farm." (Any punk rockers sniffing over a metal band covering a punk song should consider how GNR's Appetite album out-punks just about all comers plus it swings also, care to say the same about the Ramones?) Rose introduces the song by saying something about being from the Midwest and that it's the only "farm song" they know. Farm Aid IV was held in Indianapolis and Axl and Izzy Stradlin were both from Indiana - wonder what kind of homecoming this was for them?

2008-04-21T23:29:00.002-05:00

Go Gomez Go

I became a Carlos Gomez fan once it was decided (by Ron Gardenhire, I think) to call him "GoGo", because that is what Kenny Reeves called Ricky Gomez on The White Shadow. (I also called Scott Gomez "GoGo" during the 2006 Winter Olympics.) The Twins will probably end up around .500 this season, but this Gomez kid will be fun to watch for years. Yesterday's catch indicates what to expect. GoGo, yes!!

2008-04-19T23:37:00.003-05:00

What Would Be Great Is Schlitz Returnables Cases For Under A Sawbuck

The big-boy article on the front of today's Strib business section was about Schlitz and how Pabst Brewing is bringing it back in bottles in an attempt at retro marketing. Last year they started selling it in bottles in Tampa, Florida and in the Twin Cities. I saw the Schlitz bottles a couple of times last fall - at the MGM near Lake Calhoun and at McDonald's Liquors near Lake Nokomis - and bought a twelver at the MGM. The article touches on how I felt: The beer is too damn spendy for what you are getting. I believe the twelver was $10.99, hard to swallow (pun intended) when I used to buy Schlitz in cans for less than six buck a twelve-box. For $10.99, you are in the Summit and Sam Adams range plus Red Stripe or other imports when they are on sale. (Red Stripe and St. Pauli Girl regular and dark is always $9.99 a twelver at Chicago-Lake Liquors.) As for Pabst's claim that they have brought back the 1960s formula that made Schlitz the country's top-selling beer, I swear they said this years ago when I was buying it in cans at a much cheaper price.

This year business has been great. I'll stick with the Heineken eighteen-box bottle special at Chicago-Lake. The price works out to be less than a penny more per bottle than Schlitz.

2008-04-18T13:50:00.003-05:00

The Top 30 Rock Books I Own: #9 Country: Living Legends and Dying Metaphors in America's Biggest Music

Title: Country: Living Legends and Dying Metaphors in America's Biggest Music
Author: Nick Tosches
Year Originally Published: 1977
Edition I Own: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1985

What They Say: 1) The Village Voice: "What makes Tosches' opus so fascinating is that much of the esoterica he reveals has never been printed anywhere before. As a result, almost any page you look at leaves you stunned. Crazy-brilliant." (No link, this is on the back cover of my edition.) 2) The Houston Post: "An absolute steamroller of a book (with some of the juiciest, grittiest passages ever found in any C&W study). Goes for the jugular of what the music is really about." (Ditto on linkage.) 3) The editors of The Rolling Stone Record Guide (the first red one): "Tosches is one of the most hilarious writers who has ever commented on American pop ... Breaks every one of Nashville's social taboos, with as much panache as Presley and Lewis did with musical ones."

Tosches in his preface to my edition: "Full of half-forgotten country stars, faded honky-tonk singers, obscure rockabillies, and black musicians of bygone generations." And: "I had wanted to explore the darker areas of country music's history, not its current popularity; to write a book for those who were interested more in where country music came from and what it was than in what it had lately become."

Tuomala's Attempt At A Take: I bought this at Rag & Bone circa 1998. The blurbs above say enough - I've read this book twice (maybe three if you count all the times I've picked it up and just start reading random chapters or pages) and it's awesome.

2008-04-17T20:05:00.003-05:00

How I Spent My Vacation

Late last night I was bored. Not tired enough yet for bed and having already finished a book in the afternoon, I didn't feel like starting the one I had bought that night. I'm taking some time off and figured I deserved some late nights watching nothing much so I cruised through the cable guide, looking for something to kill my time for a couple of hours. I found a perfect candidate - 54, a movie about Studio 54 that came out in 1998 was showing on the Indie Plex channel. I had never had any hankering to see this movie before, but the guide said it was only ninety minutes long (meaning no commercial breaks) and Salma Hayek was in it.

The movie turned out to be a sub-Boogie Nights exercise in mediocrity. Working-class teenager (Ryan Phillipe) goes against his parent (this time the father) and moves to city and finds a surrogate family (the exact phrase used in the cable guide) when he becomes a bartender at the hottest disco in the country, a decadent scene filled with sex and drugs. The rest of the movie goes like this: The bartender does coke, the disco owner is piling money away tax-free but taunts the IRS on a talk show, bartender returns home for Christmas but is rejected by his father, he meets the girl of his dreams (a soap star) and they hit it off, a few days later at the disco's New Year's Eve party the bartender is rejected by the actress in the prescence of her boyfriend, same night this elderly lady who is a regular at the club dies on the dance floor from a coke OD - this of course symbolizes the end of the club and the era. The owner has the body removed from the dance floor and immediately fires up the party again, the bartender thinks that they should take time to grieve the old chick and refuses to go take care of VIP guest Princess Grace which is a big deal as his understanding sister back home is named after her, the IRS shows up this same night also (time is running short in the movie) and busts the owner for tax evasion. As the bartender leaves the disco the soap star pulls up in her limo and apologizes for snubbing him. Postscript: The disco owner does time and returns for a party at the club where we find that the bartender and his friends have cleaned up and lead straight lives.

Ryan Phillipe is a total blank, boredom personified. Nobody else in this movie can act except Hayek and Mike Myers as the club owner, whose role is wasted (pun intended): Is he the bad guy or the meanie with a heart of gold, or a Do What I Gotta Do Burt Reynolds-in-Boogie-Nights-type? He gives a little speech at the end of the movie that I think was supposed to sum up the movie and What It Taught Us, but I was bored by then and doing physical therapy stretches and not paying the best of attention.

Despite having that era's prime time family soap hottie (Neve Campbell), that era's prime time MILF hottie (Sela Ward), and a slamming hottie in ANY era (Salma Hayek); none of them get naked. Sela Ward comes closest with a reverse cowgirl scene with Ryan Phillipe. Salma Hayek wears some awesomely sexy outfits - the best one is when she is giving disco dance lessons - and always does something different and great with her hair, so there is a little compensation.

And if I've learned anything from Boogie Nights, Behind the Music, and every bio-pic of a musician made in the past few years (which are pretty much Behind the Music anyway); Ryan Phillipe should have acquired a crippling drug habit and he should have had sex with Salma Hayek, thereby betraying his friendship with Breckin Meyer. After checking the web this morning, I see that scenario #2 did happen in the director's cut version of the movie and this scene took place in a bathroom. Of course.

2008-04-15T20:46:00.005-05:00

Tuomala Joins The TV Haves, Could Care Less About People With Old TVs And/Or No Cable

Last night's Wild vs. Avalanche game was a tough one to watch. Because the Wild once again didn't score until the third period? No. Because the game once again went to overtime? No. Because it started at 9 pm and didn't end until after midnight? No.

The game was tough to watch because it was on channel 45 and wasn't offered in HD. I bought myself an HDTV for Christmas and sports looks amazing in HD. How does a regular cable sports airing look now? As I sniffed last week at my sister's while watching the Kansas vs. Memphis championship hoops game: It's tough watching sports on a regular definition TV.

To make it worse, channel 45's picture looked even grainier than a normal cable picture. In fact, I don't think I've seen such a grainy picture for a hockey game on TV since watching Sioux games in the dorm in the mid-eighties with a beat-up Zenith using rabbit ears. C'mon channel 45 - enter the 21st century and get an HD channel! Or else the Wild/NHL/whoever decides these things should take up Joe Anderson's suggestion today on Dan Barrerio's KFAN program - don't black out the Versus HD broadcast and let Twin Cities viewers watch that one if they choose.

No problem tonight: The even-numbered games in the series are on FSN HD.

2008-04-14T11:08:00.006-05:00

Or Else They Are Wayyyyy Early

I don't make many jokes about the postal service as I think being able to mail a letter anywhere in the USA for 41 cents is a pretty good deal. However, this came in the mail on Friday.

Update: On Monday, the postal service jammed all my mail into my tiny mailbox and used extreme prejudice in doing so. This resulted in a fat check (fat dough-wise, not letter-wise) from a client getting ripped and my bank not accepting it. The kid gloves are off now, USPS: What kind of clown outfit mails a "Get your holiday stamps" flyer in April??

2008-04-13T23:43:00.002-05:00

Don't You Think This Guy's Overdoing It A Bit?

This was the opener of Neil Justin's column today in the Strib:

Imagine dating someone for more than a decade, falling madly in love, convinced you'll be together forever and ever. And then, one night, it's over. No goodbye kiss, no phone call, not even a text message.

That's how lots of fans felt about how WCCO seemingly handled the dumping of popular meteorologist Paul Douglas ...

As someone who hasn't regularly watched any local news in years, being a fan of a meteorologist seems downright silly. Especially when that meteorologist is a bore like Paul Douglas. Growing up in North Dakota on WDAY and WDAZ I was blessed by an honest-to-goodness "weatherman", Dewey Bergquist. He was a weatherman because that's what they were called back then and if memory serves me correctly, Dewey wasn't a certified meteorologist anyway. Dewey was odd and goofy. He gave the next day's weather a letter grade, accompanied by a wacky cartoon. He hosted the Saturday afternoon matinee movie and/or showing of The Little Rascals, we're talking real Floyd Robertson territory here. Once at a keg party across the hall in the dorm, those suitemates and a few other of us turned off the music so that we could watch Dewey's weather segment. There was an outcry about the music until we yelled: "Fuck you! We gotta watch Dewey!" This resulted in another handful of guys yelling "shit yeah!" and joining us with beers around the TV set.

Dewey Bergquist, now there's a weatherman to fall in love with.

2008-04-12T00:29:00.004-05:00

Dr. Phil (Hey I Didn't Say It, The Grand Forks Herald Did)

Phil Jackson is returning to UND this summer to receive an honorary doctorate degree. The Herald story has an interesting nugget of a quote from the vice president of UND's Alumni Association that is left unexplored:

"Phil said he was looking forward to spending time with students in the classroom.�

So will Phil Jackson be spending time in the classrooms at UND or is he going to get his honorary degree and then immediately fly back to La-La Land? C'mon Herald!

2008-04-12T00:09:00.003-05:00

The Baby Shower Issue: I'm Further Vindicated

I have stated that I don't have to go to a baby shower I'm invited to because I'm a man. Miss Manners gives us all a blanket exemption, saying you don't have to go at all:

Nor need you worry about not attending. However overblown showers have now become, they are not ceremonial occasions.

In your face, societal pressure!!

2008-04-11T22:36:00.003-05:00

Finnish For Beginners

A note to those who work the broadcasts of NHL games:

"Teemu" is not pronounced tee-moo. It's tay-moo.

"Mikko" is not pronounced meek-oh. It's mick-oh.

And in Finnish the accent always comes on the first syllable. Always.