Rest in Peace Mr. Carneal

When I was much younger, and before I learned that not everyone is destined to be a professional athlete, I used to lay in bed listening to Minnesota Twins games on the radio. As I struggled to stay awake until the final out, I'd imagine that Herb Carneal was describing me on the field, making that final out or hitting a game winning home run. A long time has past since then, but Herb was still an integral part of the Twins, and therefore Minnesota culture. Bob Casey isn't around anymore to warn me to not smoke, Kirby Puckett's slow descent into post-baseball Shakespearean tragedy ended last spring, and now Herb Carneal will no longer be painting a picture clearer than any HD-TV with his microphone. It will never be the same again.

Thou Shalt Not Cover

When I was growing up, mostly due to the influence of my father, I listened almost exclusive to music from the 60's. I had most of the Beatles catalog memorized by age 10, knew that any mention of Otis Redding should be prefaced by "the late, great" and was ready to debate anyone about who was the greatest blind piano man of that era. While this created a solid foundation on which to build my musical tastes, it didn't lead to many live music opportunities. All the bands I listened to were either broken up, mostly dead, reformed but beyond recognition, or charging $2/minute to hear how thirty years of sex, drugs, and rock and roll can ravage vocal cords. My music taste really didn't expand until college, when I finally began attending concerts.

I may never be able to top my sophomore year. The combination of easy classes, few expenses, and friends with cars lent itself wonderfully to seeing whatever band was in town. I've been fortunate enough to see some truly memorable shows in all sorts of venues, and have rarely been disappointed.

Friday I was disappointed.

A Wisconsin-born friend of mine suggested that we see The Gufs at The Nomad. I really didn't have anything better to do, and at least it was an opportunity to visit a venue that I had been hearing good things about for a while. I didn't have an opinion on The Gufs, and after seeing them live still don't, though to understand their appeal I need to better understand the Tim Mahoney phenomenon.

The venue was what one would imagine a world pub to be; slightly art-deco divey with beer and bar food from around the world. The sound system was bad, but with barely enough room on the stage for a drum kit, I wasn't expecting much. If only the sound system was the worst part of the night.

I have no desire to be in an opening band. By definition, hardly anyone is there to see you, few pay attention to what you play, and if you do get lots of attention it is often the wrong kind. The unholy trinity of horrible (but not good-horrible) cover songs got my attention.

Covering a song, especially a well known song, can be a delicate task. There are generally a few paths to follow when choosing a song to cover, and choosing a method in which to cover a song. The safest may be to cover a song that has already been covered so many times that no one will care. "Free Bird" or any Dave Matthews Band song from the mid-90s fall into this category. Another option is to cover a song much in the same way the song was originally performed, allowing a bands unique vocals and instruments to enhance the original. Of course, it इस also possible to completely reinterpret a song to such a degree that it nearly becomes its own entity. Finally, there is the option to unapologetically butcher an already terrible song to the point that it becomes tolerable.

There are of course songs that should not be covered. Songs by the greatest band ever, dead people, and current and immensely more talented bands fall under this category. On Friday night, patrons of The Nomad were inundated by the Beatles "She Said, She Said," "Last Goodbye," and "Shot in the Arm." The most truly impressive thing about these covers is that they all sounded the same. Thankfully the excessively buzzy bass, over amplified guitar, and muddied vocals had already damaged my hearing enough that at I was a least somewhat protected from these musical sins.

While the music was truly ghastly, the worst part of the night was that the band never said their name. Doesn't every opening band know that they are required by law to mention their band name at least a dozen times, and that they have CDs for sale in back a dozen times more? If they had at least done that, I wouldn't be so worried about accidentally hearing them play again।


EDIT:
Thanks to the power of google, you too can hear the worst band ever, "Empire Garrison". I hope you have some ear plugs...

Minnesota's War on Cold Sufferers

Despite not eating as healthy as I should, and only working out when I am being chased (a thankfully rare event) I rarely get sick. Once or twice each year I'll catch a cold that slows me down for a few days. Last summer I was knocked on my back and nearly in the hospital by some sort of illness that reduced my voice to the sound of rusty lawn mower. I almost made it through this winter without getting sick, but with less than a day before the start of spring, I woke up with dull pain in the back of my throat, and went to sleep with my nostrils carrying out an evacuation that would make FEMA blush. Perhaps trying to prove that I am invincible to all germs, I went to work. As the day wore on I gradually felt worse, but it certainly was nothing to justify a sick day. Unfortunately I was out of cold medicine, and my girlfriend was kind enough to pick some up for me at the local grocery store.

Getting effective cold medicine in Minnesota is a process that few decide to undertake. In fact, it would be much easier for me to pick up some cocaine, a little marijuana, and few doses of heroin on the way from work to my car than it is for a law abiding citizen to get sudafed that does what it is supposed to do.

I don't know if I should blame an overly ambitious attorney general, the lack of anything to do in the quasi-suburbs of Minneapolis, or take the easy way out and blame the meth addicts who blow up houses as often as they blow their chances at doing anything positive with their lives, but when getting sudafed is harder than getting into Canada, I want to blame someone. For all I know, my girlfriend is now in a national registry of sinus pain sufferers. They have her name, drivers license number, and now the beginning of her history of buying cold medicine.

Big Brother, you don't have to watch, you can here me sneezing a mile away.

Overpopulating the Internet, one failed blog at a time.

What the world needs now is not another 24 year old who thinks he knows all the answers espousing, his supposedly infallible beliefs anonymously through cyberspace. Well, everyone has their faults.

This is certainly not my first blog, and probably won't be my last. I sometimes have a short but passionate attention span; passionate enough to think the world desperately needs to know what I think about a myriad of subjects, but short enough for me to move on in an equally attentive way. My past blogs have attempted to reinvigorate independent politics (done better here), expose the world to music that isn't ruined by commercial radio (done more pretentiously here), enlightened the masses about ignored parts of the world (while never leaving a moderately cosmopolitan city), and drafting a candidate who could be the last bastion of rational thought in Minnesota politics. These all clearly failed, except for those who love to post millions of links to nothing in the comments sections of these long abandoned blogs.

But I am back with a simple goal: keep writing. In the recesses of my mind I have always envisioned myself to be a writer. I think like a writer, I talk like a writer, but I do not write...at all. The words leave my mind during rants to coworkers, or become lodged between gray matter and white matter, lost in a series of could'ves and should'ves, until now. There of course is not much reason to believe that I will be any more successful at this than I have been inthe past, but I will be making a few changes. The first is that this will be broad, sweeping, all encompassing. Lambasting Meredith Viara in one post while questioning South Africa's lack of involvement in the worsening crisis in Zimbabwe...why not?

I have something to say about everything, a lot to say about a few things, and enough occasional outrage to go through the process of creating a new blog every month or two. Can one blog be many things to one person, and still be interesting enough for complete strangers to waste a few minutes of their increasingly busy lives? We shall see!