KGB Pizza

Ever go into one of those businesses that looks fine on the outside but on closer inspection, you maybe start to notice some things? There's a new pizza place near where I work, and I was really happy given the odd schedule I keep to find that there might be more food available in the area (I can only eat so much tom yum goong soup). It looks non-descript enough, with a sort of Italian color scheme in homage to the motherland of pizza (mama mia!) and there are pizza boxes stacked everywhere and employees standing at attention, there's just one thing missing. When I run in out of the cold trying to grab a quick meal in between shifts, they never, ever have any f***ing pizza. Usually there's a long line of grumpy looking customers waiting with ever decreasing patience and an empty rack where they tell me they sell pizza by the slice, and some cheerful employee telling me if I just wait a bit they'll cook more pizza, but I can't help but wonder how long that's going to take with 20 people in line ahead of me.

But then as I'm ready to turn on my heel in frustration and look for another restaurant, I start noticing some things. Like despite being so busy they're completely sold out of pizza, the glass and aluminum rack for the slice line is so clean it's gleaming in the sunlight, not a drop of pizza grease or a crumb to be seen. It's possible they've got sucha JIT supply chain of pizza that every slice is cut and served within seconds of the pizza coming out of the oven, or maybe that they're just so far behind that their hungry walk-in customers devour whatever comes out of the oven, snapping like jackals. I could see that at lunchtime, but day after day business in the slice line has never slowed down enough to put a single pizza in the rack?

Amstelbooij's New York to-do list

1. Pop over to the Meadowlands to pick up tickets to see the New York Jets.
2. Head out to Shea to get my tickets for the New York Mets
3. Cruise by Atlantic Yards and think about getting tickets for the New York Nets
4. Slip down to the OTB and place some New York bets
5. Spend my winnings at a tapas restaurant ordering some New York croqettes
6. Remember to pass by BofA and pay my New York debts
7. Stop by Arthur Ashe on the way to play some New York sets (better loosen the nets so I'll get some New York lets)
8. Find a French-Canadian bar and watch the CFL with my New York Alouettes
9. Walk the beach and see some New York egrets (bring my speedos and get some New York wets)
10. Stop by the pet store and get some New York pets (and get them checked out by New York vets)
11. Reserve a venue and hire a caterer for my New York fetes
12. Got a sore throat, better find a bodega and pick up some New York sucrets
13. Head out to Sunset Park with my Vietnamese buddies and celebrate some New York Tet
14. Visit the Bronx Zoo and feed some New York marmosets
15. Because whatever Amstelbooij wants... New York gets.

Clippers 120-95 Timberwolves

Last night as I was watching the surprisingly listless Wolves get pummeled by the LA Clippers (I know, really?) it was kind of sad to watch the current Wolves be outplayed by a team stocked with former Wolves. I loved watching Sebastian Telfair coming off the bench, undersized but scary quick, but I did remember last night why I loved him, and why we traded him: after faking out a Wolves guard last night so badly he fell down (wow) Telfair couldn't come up with a way to take advantage of that besides an entry pass into the high post (er, wow?). But it got me thinking about this summer's Wolves-Clippers trade, where they traded Sebastian Telfair, Craig Smith, and Mark Madsen to the Clippers for Quentin Richardson, who the Wolves promptly to Miami for Mark Blount.

Trying to see how that trade worked out in the end, I started searching for who the Wolves had moved Blount for or when they'd cut him, and I was shocked to realize he was actually still on the roster. I hadn't noticed him down there through a third of the season, honestly. So they traded Telfair, a quick change of pace point guard; Smith, an undersized yet tough power forward who used quicker feet and crafty moves to create match-up problems; and Madsen, who had really suffered career ending injuries. Blount was theoretically at one time a center with a nice jump shot who could draw out opposing big men and open up room for a dominant low-post player, but really they just traded those guys away for a fresh start and cap room at best.

Cardinals 30-17 Vikings, or the Secret Scandinavian Sense of Doom

Since I got home from work after midnight last night, I got up this morning and watched the end of last night's Timberwolves-Jazz game and to my great shock they rebounded, didn't break down on defense under pressure, weathered their usual third quarter reversal of fortune and hung on for a win. I couldn't help but feel this creeping sense of dread as the Scandinavian blood in my veins insisted that it would be too much to ask to see two Minnesota wins in one day, especially after seeing the suddenly lucky Wolves tied their longest winning streak of the season (that would be one game).

The funny thing is my tivo tried to warn me, crashing during the first half and taking forever to reboot, like it secretly hoped I'd look for another distraction and get lost in Lego Indiana Jones 2. But like Tyr with his hand in the Iron Wolf's mouth, even knowing that the agony to come will rob you of a part of yourself that you'll never get back, you just have to smile and embrace the pain. I hope that crumpling at the first division leader they've met this season isn't a sign of things to come, and I hope the Vikings are better prepared for a potential rematch in the Metrodome (at this point I'd expect the Cowboys or Cardinals to come calling, followed by a trip to New Orleans). So what was so painful?

Amstelbooij's To-Do List for moving to Jersey City

1. Find new anthem to replace “Sweet Home Chicago”. Slim pickings for music fans under 60... perhaps Don Henley's “New York Minute”?
2. Say goodbye to all the guys at Steamworks... I'll miss you most of all, Scarecrow!
3. Get ready to ride The Fairy from Jersey City. Oh yeah, baby... wait, what do you mean that's a boat?
4. Buy new flippers. Boy, the complete lack of aquatic life in the river will be much less distracting when scuba diving!
5. Get a cheaper bicycle with fewer gears, because there's no hills to climb in Jersey unless you hit a landfill.
6. Pick new football team, either the Giants or the Jets, or ummm... the Eagles or something. Fuck it, who's winning this year?
7. Learn the rules of baseball. (All I remember from Chicago baseball is Old Style beer and churros.)
8. Buy tickets on the Chinatown bus to New York... 800 miles for $4. (Or maybe just catch the Ang-Mo Town bus from Singapore.)
9. Get a map of the Pine Barrens so I can find the Jersey Devil and blow him. (Again with the gay jokes? Seriously?)
10. Get ready to live in a well-governed state where the last Governor isn't a punchline. Okay wait, maybe we should live in the City... no that won't help either. Damnit.

It's a stripper, it's a call girl, it's a... naked clothing model?

This is seriously the best ad ever. An escort service offering you the opportunity to take this girl's pants off (for a negotiable fee) would almost certainly get the phone ringing. Or if it's for some sort of nude panty hose or an invisible thong which conveys some benefit oddly unrelated to hiding your privates, I guess they've made their point. But really the reason it's so spectacular is the ad is promoting the f***ing bag.

It's like they're trying to tell us "This bag is so expensive I couldn't afford pants... but it's so groovy I just don't care!" I suppose if the ad was for that hat that might make sense, like it's the hat that keeps you so warm you'll find the rest of your clothes to be overkill. Or maybe it's the bag only used by people with a body so good they want to share it with the world... she's just smirking at you to say "Oh you have a body so good people can't stop staring? Well then where's your stripey bag?"

Sadly somebody already succinctly captured the lunacy of American Apparel advertising much better than I ever could, take a look.

Of Bears and Grizzlies, or "Hey look! My magic rock is working."

I was really glad to see the Vikings deliver such a crushing blow that they were able to once again let the Tardis finish the game. I don't know why there was such a requirement for the Vikings to only have quarterbacks with silly names... Tavaris, Sage, Rosemary, and Favre... perhaps the Superbowl is at Scarborough Fair? Tenuous attempts at humor aside, Vikings-Bears games are always head-scratchers, and after dealing with the crowd at the theater I scrambled over to the Dome just in time to watch the Vikings and Bears exchange turnovers, and the frustration and exaltation and general confusion of the crowd was like a warm, familiar blanket. Plus the company was delightful, but that's another story.

My favorite play of the game has to be the highlight sack in the red zone, although Allen grabbing the interception and forgetting which way to run is a close second. But watching the Williams Wall calmly pushing forward to efficiently collapse the pocket, forcing an alert Cutler to attempt to roll out to the right, only to bump into his own tackle who was giving up ground to Ray Edwards faster than Neville Chamberlain. Cutler scrambled left just as Jared Allen, who recently gave up drinking and immediately developed an addiction to quarterback flesh, broke free and came looking to kill him, and desperately seeking a port in a storm drowned in a sea of purple. While it was Kevin Williams who got his arms around Cutler, it was a sack that belonged to all of them, as they mercilessly closed in from all sides.

I ain't saying nothing, I'm just saying

Dear You Know Who You Are:

You know people are talking, I know you know that. And you have to know I know you know that. And they may not be saying all that, but they are saying things. And they know we're hearing what they're saying, even though they're not saying it to me, they know I'm hearing it all, here and there. It's a classic I know you know they know we know they know it situation, you know? I'm not saying anything about anything to anybody or everybody, and nobody's saying what they're saying to me but it's not like it's not being said... say no more. So like I said, I ain't saying nothing... I'm just saying. You hearing me?

Sincerely,
You Know Who

Of Sheep and Wolves (and possibly even Big Foot)

I think someday Wolves head coach Κυριάκος Ραμπίδης will figure out a starting line-up and a regular rotation, and I won't go to Wolves games wondering which players will be inexplicably buried at the end of the bench tonight. When the Wolves lose to a Rockets team without Yao Ming or Tracy McGrady on a Wednesday night in front of a few thousand people (and that one guy who totally looks like Szczerbiak has to actually apologize to the sparse crowd for the poor quality of the opposition) it's hard for me to watch a couple journeyman players get heavy minutes while rookies sit. After coming from behind to win their opener, the Wolves have lost 13 straight, with a high degree of correlation between the score and whether or not they remember to rebound. They really desperately need K-Love back, unless this is some really elaborate ploy to get the a #4 overall pick (not a big enough market for a lottery pick) and keep racking up the rights to European players with no apparent ambition to play in the best league in the world.

Dear Old Man Talking Loudly on his iPhone,

When you approach me talking on your surprisingly discreet iPhone microphone and earpiece, it's a bit confusing when you LOOK ME RIGHT IN THE EYE and tell me all about how you just wanted to check in with me and admit that you were overthinking things. With the glassy-eyed look and nearly empty cup of wine in your hand, talking nonsense directly at total strangers and meandering aimlessly, it really looks like the kids took Grampa out for a night at the theater, but you snuck away at intermission for a glass of wine and couldn't find your way back. I feel that I could also reasonably note that the fact that you won't pause to draw breath for fear of letting the person on the other end of the phone interrupt your monologging about the strange salespeople at the Apple Store (believe me I understand) does also contribute to the whole crazy man who's decided the lobby is a good place to talk to his imaginary friend or rehearse his one man show "Get Off My Lawn!" . So please, don't do that. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Rufus

Vikings 33 - 31 Baltimora, or Monkey Business on a Sunday Afternoon

This game certainly had an enormous swing of momentum from beginning to end, and over the course of four quarters the pendulum swung from the Vikings to the Ravens... ending up far away from nowhere, on its own like Tarzan Boy. In the first act of this rather tense drama, the Vikings struck quickly on the opening kick-off when Favre found tight end Visanthe Shiancoe slipping away from Ravens defenders, living in the open all alone like Tarzan boy. I always love the moment when the Vikings first score: a native beat that carries on, burning bright, a fire blows a signal to the sky as the crowd roars beneath the glow of fireworks shooting up the goalposts. After the defense stopped the Ravens cold, Favre connected with Sidney Rice emerging briefly from heavy coverage, a game of hide and seek while rushing across the forest, to put the Vikings up 14-0 just a few minutes into the game... monkey business on a sunny afternoon. Since Favre brought his leadership and gunslinger confidence to the Vikings, asking his teammates to "Take a chance, leave everything behind you, come and join me, won't be sorry, it's easy to survive," the difference in the offense is remarkable.

On Getting "Warm", an open letter to my friend with a broken furnace

The first hit is always free. Pretty soon they'll start talking about getting your stove working "just a bit better", and maybe cleaning your ducts, maybe a gas fireplace... you end up hauling a space heater and an extension cord with you everywhere, but at that point you're beyond caring what people think... your family give you these sad looks as you explain away your burned lips and hands that you're just trying to stay warm. At that point you might start getting secretive about it and start "hitting the pipe"... the water pipe that is, cranking up the hot water heater to scalding and just lingering in the steam with a bunch of horny bears (wait sorry that's a different story).

Eventually you know you've hit rock bottom when you're stealing people's catalytic converters and tapping your foot in the bathroom at the airport to buy just a few more cans of sterno. I quit cold turkey and had the whole furnace ripped out and I used the money to pay for a whole pile of blankets. Sometimes the old ways are best. Don't buy the hype about "getting warm", just because Hollywood portrays it as glamorous and normal. There's a reason our ancestors came to Minnesota, to stay free of the warm weather that has ruined every great civilization. I mean look at the whole Mediterranean, the Spanish Empire crumbled when they discovered the Caribbean and everybody just hit the beach, Carthage couldn't survive a single ski vacation in the Alps, Alexander's whole empire dissolved once the Greeks started lighting their cheese on fire (just to get it that little bit warmer), Rome was sacked by a bunch of proto-Vikings who were less concerned with keeping warm than keeping it real, Visigoth style. The Egyptians got it: when they were trying to stay cool wearing just a couple strips of white cotton that breathes and looks effortlessly sexy, they built the pyramids.


Shivering (and loving it),
Rufus

King of Shadows

King of Shadows is a good show. Spooky and poignant, this play about a grad student collecting stories from street kids until she meets one with a story she can't handle is full of supernaturalism and mystery, but subtly uses them to tell a much smaller and yet more powerful tale about the failure of its protagonist to make real connections to other people, no matter how many ways she thinks she's reaching out. I hesitate to even tell more of the story, because I walked in the door cold knowing nothing about the play and loved that experience, because really the only reason I went is that its director is such an amiable guy I wanted to support his work. Also Pillsbury House Theatre offering free tickets to arts organizations really helped, so I hope I can pay them back a bit by spreading the word about this show.

I've seen Randy Reyes put in great performances on stage, and while I am in no way qualified to judge his work as a director it felt to me like he got everything there was to be had out of this script. In my mind the script falls short of greatness but still lands somewhere very good and very interesting, and this production does a very nice job artistically and technically of bringing everything good about it to life. I must admit I've found it curiously difficult to judge some works when they're fresh in my mind, needing instead to find what still resonates in my head and my heart weeks and months later, like Marco picking up the chair or the journey to the City of Bones. I really liked Catherine Johnson Justice in what I would think has to be a difficult part, anchoring a play with a central character long on cold, abrasive edges and short on charm besides what the actress brings to the role. It is also somewhat gratifying to see new plays with a very different gender balance than a lot of older work.

I definitely recommend King of Shadows (or I would be if anybody was actually reading this) and in this case I'm not just shilling, because I really don't know anybody involved in this production beyond the occasional awkward wave in the hallway... I think if you offered Randy $10,000 for his next show if he could come up with my name within 3 tries his guesses would be "Gaius", "Rumplestiltskin" and "Mmmwhahamarumph... you heard me! Now where's my money?" Anyways, it's hard to beat getting a nice dose of culture and rich conversational material in such an intimate setting as Pillsbury House for $20 or less, and PHT seems to have quite a lot of options for getting into their show even cheaper like Wednesday pay what you can performances, and today I even got a parking place right in front of the theater, so really what excuse do you have? Seriously, even the cookies on sale at intermission were good.

King of Shadows

Oct 2 - Nov 1

Pillsbury House Theatre

3501 Chicago Ave S

www.pillsburyhousetheatre.org

As a post-script, it is funny how art ties together and the same themes come up in different works by different artists... as I sat in the theater waiting for the show to start I read the end of Dan Simmons' novella “Looking for Kelly Dahl” about the violent end to a teacher's failure to for all his good intentions to make a difference to the student who needed him the most, and the last show I saw was Jon Ferguson's new play Supermonkey, about a doorman's string of brief interactions with his tenants and his attempts to nurture them into something more meaningful (“Fruit plate!”) I wonder how much these other works affected the way I took in King of Shadows... fortunately I think I managed to tune out entirely the resemblance of one of the characters to the gay hustler with full-body tourette's from Crank 2: High Voltage (the least artistically redeeming work I've seen this year... seriously “Streethawk” was better).

My Morning, as told to Mr Earnest Hemingway

The sun was in the windows and on the floor. I got up to finish the film while I had my breakfast. The black girl was dancing and singing, the cereal too sweet and soggy, gaggable stuff. The phone rang, Zurich calling, like always.

"I'm on the tram. I have a meeting to get back to. This train is too slow."

"What are you doing out? It's 5 o'clock."

"I wanted to try going out in the sunshine. I wanted to try it."

"Were you at the Mariott? Did you stay watching the racy films too long? That's why you're late now."

"No. Why is everything about that with you?"

It was an old joke. We always made it. He moved on.

"Kevin Garnett. That man is amazing."

"He is the MVP. He will be. Did you see that Grasshopper lost? Lost in the cup? Their opponent, FC Wil or somesuch, has not won it for one hundred and four years."

"No. Did you speak to the Captain?"

I had known he would say it, before he did. The stupid joke came from the Captain. He who had not been seen by us since Christmas. Or before, maybe summer, in the Tuscan hills with the wine grapes we had fought. With my forehead still stinging from where I had been hit with the rock, I had gone to the train station. I hadn't known where I was going. It turned out to be Rome. Then La Spezia, and Riomaggiore, and Camogli. And then the hours back to Zurich on another train. We had fought again there. The call ended. I pushed the button again for the film.

The water was running now, hot on the dirty tile. I had a friend somewhere in Africa, under a cold, brown waterfall beating his clothes on the rocks. He liked doing that sort of thing. It took millions of dollars in the bank for him to be able to go do his laundry under a waterfall. And surely he would be playing his guitar while they dried.

I turned around to the mirror, and I saw her under the hot water, tucked up like a child in the protection of her mother's stomach. She was slick with soap and soaked to the bone, stillborn but for her eyes blinking. She stayed until the water turned cold. Her tears were hot but she still shivered.

I wiped the steam from the mirror. My towel would be wet now. The razor was dull, and I had no more shaving cream. I cut myself, but I was tired. I closed my eyes. It was time to go.

*-Sorting through my desk looking for bills I found a copy of this thing I turned into a lit class a number of years ago (apparently during the heady days of the Timberwolves only championship run) as my brief response to The Snows of Kilimanjaro. It amused me all over again (ça plus change, ça plus même) and made me think about starting a Hemingway kick for a while, in my often derailed quest to use literature as a form of mental rehabilitation although always leaving room for Rob Zombie, slasher movie auteur du jour. Anyways, the names have been changed to protect against implications due to my artistic license and missing detail in recalling certain events... basically what I'm saying is don't read this and take the implication that the Captain really threw a rock at my head, because he didn't (that was somebody else, and there were witnesses). As always, apologies in equal proportions to Papa Hemingway and to my faithful readership.

On Watching Too Many Horror Movies

I discovered the other night it's a bit difficult getting to sleep with John Carpenter's Halloween theme quietly running through your head. I decided this after a double feature of G.I. Joe the Rise of Cobra, and Halloween 2 or II... well whatever it is officially, the 9th Halloween movie, which to some would sort of make it Halloween Nein. That combination is enough to give anybody nightmares of being pursued through some deserted lonly place by a spectrish, barechested, drooling Marlon Wayans... you'd think the most upsetting thing from that double header it would be the long series of brutal murders, or maybe a redhead named Rachel (merging a few images from my dark past), but mostly it's just Marlon wayans as a male love interest that made me squirm in my seat.


I wish I could follow Rob Zombie's vision of how he wanted to improve on one of the modern horror icons, but in so many remakes a director must always blow your mind by taking whatever was iconic about the original and turning it upside down and inside out, and then deny that he just sort of missed the point. And then I think drop half his own story to get the project completed on time, which in this case was a couple months early, so the DVD would be out by Halloween... somehow that fills me with sadness to think of actual movie theaters as an increasingly pointless marketing exercise. I hesitate to analyze further, because I still have this vivid memory of over-analyzing certain vaginal images in the original remake (???) and being accused of mockery by the girl who'd invited me over to watch it. (Oddly when I tell that story nobody has a problem imagining that I would find esoteric sexual detail in that film worth over-analyzing, but they don't believe a girl would invite me over to watch it.)

Tigers 6-2 Twins, Vikings 27-13 Lions

I don't think I would have been able to take two losses to Detroit in one day, so I'm so grateful for the Lions tackles forgetting how to block in the second half, especially with Favre looking like the old man he is. Although still not so bad as Delmon Young nodding off in left field and needing to take a moment to rub the sleep out of his eyes before he could get the ball back into the infield. It's like he was having this beautiful dream where blondes in bikinis were tossing their beachballs at him (which he still couldn't hit) and then he was jarred awake by the crack of a bat and a ball hitting his glove. I still can't believe we gave up Garza, Bartlett and a bullpen prospect for this guy (given the Twins excess of outfielders and utility infielders with soft bats, the other players in that trade don't really matter).

I may have seen my last baseball game in the Metrodome today; with only one more series left at home and the Twins down three games to the Tigers in the division race as they embark on a 10-game road trip I don't know if I'll get tickets again before Target Field opens next spring. I thought I'd feel a bit more sadness at that, since I really do have so many fond memories of those blue seats. On the other hand it was a dump with like six bathrooms and I'll be back next week for the Vikings home opener. Kind of a pathetic farewell though: usually it's the Lions that put people to sleep on Thanksgiving (if they played after the turkey was served coma wards would have to be expanded) but today it wa the 87 lame pick-off attempts and generally sleepy pace of the game actually killed all my drive to pop back into work for a few hours.

This is the first football season in a few years where I've had a fantasy football team that I actually care about, and I forgot how much it distorts the way I watch football. This week I really need Favre to throw underneath to his tight end, because if he goes deep to Berrian my exultation at the Vikings touchdown is muted by the knowledge that the Rode Duivels have been scored on too. I also still can't believe anybody drafted Calvin Johnson, a player I still associate most with the phrase "Wake up motherfucker, it's our ball!" But the important part is the Vikings are up 2-0, and my undefeated fantasy team is coming off a week two blow-out. I'm feeling luckier than that time I fucked a leprechaun.

There's only one R in Kushner

For the last time... if you're talking The Empire Strikes Back, Robocop 2, Eyes of Laura Mars, Never Say Never Again... that's Kershner. If you're talking Exotica, The Black Dahlia, The L Word, Not Another Teen Movie, The Crow 2, that's Kirshner. If you're talking abuse of executive power and defaulting on IMF loans, that's Kirchner.

If you're talking A Bright Room Called Day, Angels in America, Slavs!, Caroline or Change, Munich, The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, East Code Ode to Howard Jarvis, Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy, Geraldine of Albania Meets Lucia Pamela on the Moon... for the last time his name is Tony KUSHNER.

Why must people who add an extra R to his name always do it with such smug authority? "I know all about him, except how to say his name." I mean really.

Annoying Timberwolves Update: Uh, who plays for them again?

Since the Wolves hit the Big Reset Button two years ago and traded Kevin Garnett to Boston, fans have been not so patiently waiting for young talent to mature, and for the team to dig its way back out of salary cap hell, and assemble something resembling an actual NBA team rather than Big Al and the seven dwarfs. Two years and a lot of trades later the Wolves haven't really improved, and are still buried under a mound of McHale-era contracts, but with every trade they did accumulate more and more draft picks this year and next. In order to sort it all out I felt like I had to write it all down, and at that point why not share it with my loyal readership-*?

Part I: What's changed since the end of the season?

The draft brought about another flurry of activity that had a few players join the Wolves and be traded away before they had a chance to be issued a number, or start to brush up on the local dialect and try some hot dish. And the Wolves had so many draft picks and potentially so many rookies coming in that they had to trade some of them straight up for picks in next year's draft. So now I'm trying to sort out for myself what they ended up with, and what this means for next year.

Pride

see more Lol Celebs

On Smokers

I hate cigarettes. Really, I do. I hate the smell of them, I hate the burning ashy sensation in my throat and nose whenever they're waved around nearby, and I hate that smokers are magically always able to stay upwind. I hate that smoking culture is so into littering, stamping out butts every place people gather, all over doorways and bus stops. (The one time in my life I got pulled into smoking was up in the tundra, where we stamped our butts out on our boots and packed them out so we could throw them away in Baker Lake six weeks and several hundred miles later). I hate watching people destroy their lungs, and it's really hard for me to watch some of my relatives risk having strokes or losing their eyesight for a puff. But the funny thing I've been realizing is that I really like smokers. And so I find when I need to wolf down garlic stir fry in between jobs that I do it out with the smokers, acrid tobacco swirling around and settling on my fresh ham and provolone sandwich.

So why are smokers such desirable companionship, despite their filthy habits? I think it's because in the sheltered doorways of the non-smoking buildings in this frosty state (the weather and the people) there's a thawing effect to the glowing red butts amongst those huddled outside sucking smoke into their chapped red cheeks. I think it's because you're there with something habitual to do, leaving so much social and intellectual capacity idle, that smokers can't help but talk to each other to alleviate boredom. And since you never know who'll be there depending on how your nic-fits coincide, maybe smoking just helps develop social skills. Or maybe they all just pretend to like me because they think someday I might be the only one with a lighter or a spare fag.

The funny thing is while I hate cigarettes, I do like cigars... perhaps I should take up smoking those, where you can get away with not inhaling. Because damnit, I really need a ridiculous affectation of one kind or another.

Singlish

What's really funny is how many ang mo (you know, round eyed devils) I know who've picked this dialect up from even limited exposure, and keep using it in North America. And yes, I know this means I'm in for cock jokes every time I order a soda.

I knew there was a reason I never trusted this guy...

see more pwn and owned pictures

On Jeffrey Wright

Why is it about Jeffrey Wright that makes him so captivating? I honestly haven't even seen him in that many films, but through these characters and the many changes he makes in his voice and his appearance, each of them carries somewhere deep in their voice the same lyrical murmur of Jeffrey Wright... and I can't look away. The dreamlike quality of that voice sounding like it comes from somewhere beyond the world made him perfect in Angels in America as the phantasmal travel agent Mr. Lies, navigating Harper on her drug-induced escape to Antarctica (through the refridgerator), sitting on a snowbank in a fabulous parka and playing awistful oboe. I hear it too in some of the smaller and less mystical roles, using a handful of lines to turn Felix Leiter into this larger than life American able to arrest a charging James Bond with nothing but a firm hand on his arm and that voice, a character that implies that his mind is somewhere else, located above the petty evils and trivialities of those around him, in Casino Royale with an engaged bemusement and in Quantum of Solace with a disgusted detachment, unmoved by either $5m or a hail of bullets. And really the most memorable supporting characters in QoS are him and Gemma Arterton, who have like eight lines between them. (I have a thing for redheads with funny names covered in oil.)

What has me realizing this about Jeffrey Wright is one particular performance in Mike Nichols' film adaptation of Angels in America. I saw the second part of that play (Perestroika) on stage at the Kennedy Center over a decade ago, and while that play is a lot to take in, it's also the kind of work that will burn into your brain with absolute vivid detail. The biggest change by far was not Justin Kirk's bringing a strength and prophetic fire I didn't remember to his portrayal of Prior, or Al Pacino's less sarcastic and more deranged Roy Cohn, it was Jeffrey Wright whenever he appeared as Belize, glittery gay nurse and completely, totally unrecognizable as Jeffrey Wright except in rare moments where in silence he adopts the familiar pose, face turned down and eyes looking up with a mix of sadness and patience, looking like he dropped about ten years, fifty pounds, and a huge helping of masculinity to create Belize. And it's so unbelievably good.

So in short, I defy anyone to watch Angels and even take their eyes off of Wright whenever Belize is speaking. 

Vikings Draft

Another glorious Vikings draft is come and gone, and once again not without controversy. The Vikings had some obvious needs in this off-season, like the basic tools of a consistent passing game. Really if they didn't come away with a wide receiver, a quarterback, and an offensive tackle to protect him the passing game was going to continue to suck.

So the Vikings addressed part of that by trading for Sage Rosenfels, a back-up quarterback from Houston who may or may not be a more reliable passer than the Tardis. And their second round pick, Phil Loadholt from Oklahoma where he established a name for himself as a monstrously huge man who likes getting up and pushing people around despite having a name like a 70's pornstar. So he'll hopefully add some menace to the right side of the line and make our running game even scarier than it already is. And of course, they did not fail to add some much-needed talent to the wide receiver position by drafting Percy Harvin out of Florida in the first round.

Harvin is undeniably talented, small but tough and capable of running about any kind of play in college, fearlessly coming out of the backfield or crossing over the middle, and on the basis of his football ability, he's a steal at #22 overall. One cannot help but be reminded of another talented wide receiver who fell to the Vikings at #18 in the '98 draft, who was so freakishly talented that he could change the course of a game with only a couple touches on the ball. Of course, Moss also had a bit of a problem referees, and with driving over traffic cops, and with marijuana. And Moss wasn't alone in making headlines for the wrong reasons, since the the Vikings have had some recent issues with players having floating orgies, parking in the middle of Fourth Street to toke up, getting it on in public places, and the like. So they draft a guy who has such poor impulse control that he partakes of the good herb right before going to the NFL combine where he will be weighed and measured, drilled vigorously, and of course, drug-tested. So now he comes into the league already subject to random drug tests by the NFL. If he gets he's in an ideal situation to stand out on a play-off team that desperately needs a receiver, and how easy it would be to blow it... he could be an outstanding weapon with Bernard Berrian stretching the field and Adrian Peterson keeping defenses honest.

The other glaring needs were mostly on the other side of the ball, since despite the strength of the Vikings defense, they really lack for depth in certain spots. Darren Sharper's departure leaves us with some weakness in the secondary and a wide-open battle for nickelback. There's not a lot of depth at linebacker, and it's possible the interior of the defensive line will start the season working off a suspension from last year. In any case, the special teams units were so horrible on coverage last year, I think anybody who knows how to tackle in the open field would be welcome. Addressing that the Vikings kicked off the second day by picking up Asher Allen, a physical cornerback from Georgia whose relative lack of speed will hopefully not be exposed playing in the Vikings system where he'll have a safety backing him up. Looking at the depth chart, I imagine he'll get playing time early at nickelback and we'll see if he's any good.

Still needing depth on defense and a kick returner, the Vikings just had a couple late round picks left, so they hopefully got some help by taking Jasper Brinkley, a linebacker from South Carolina, and Jamarca Sanford a safety from Mississippi. While Sanford may be an unspectacular benchwarmer as a free safety, Brinkley can provide some depth at middle linebacker and I hope both are the nasty kind of tacklers the Vikings need on special teams.

So what remains to be seen?

1. Can either Sage or the Tardis actually step up and play consistently at QB, or do we have to hope #3 QB John David Booty brings something to the team other than a few reps in practice and a funny name?

2. Do we have a kick returner, or is Childress nuts enough to let Harvin get his ass pounded running back kick-offs?

3. Will the secondary hold up without Darren Sharper, and can the defense survive four games without the Williams Wall up front?

4. Will adding Harvin's hands, Loadholt's blocks, and Rosenfels' arm to the Vikings offense open things up enough to make holes for Peterson and open field for Berrian?

5. Does the miracle of a Bears team with a QB (something we haven't seen in 20 years) make it all moot and put the division out of reach?

Fortunately the Vikings have an easy schedule, so this should be a lot more fun and less torturous to watch than a lot of last season. And if the answer to these questions turns out to be no, no, no, no and yes, Joe Dowling will be directing The Importance of Being Earnest, a spectacular comedy, a couple blocks away. Maybe that will take the edge off if the Bears record another album.

Pleasant Surprises, or allons-y a la creperie

In recent weeks I've been bumbling around with my filthy, scratched up glasses barely able to stay on my face and a devastating case of hat-head from bundling up to wade through snow banks (but at least I think I have a fairly cool hat). So I decided to do something about a couple of those problems and get a haircut and maybe replace my rather $@*%'ed up glasses, which involved a bit of stomping around downtown on a bitterly cold morning trying to figure out where the hell Moss Optical got off to since my last visit. Eventually I had to conclude it was too cold to search for anything without the use of a St. Bernard and I started the long, icy trek to the theater. But as I pushed forward, blinking away the blowing snow and burrowing my face further into my woolen scarf, like Lucy Pevensie plowing her way through mothballed furs in a wintery wardrobe I made a rather fantastic discovery.

Just as I was trying to think of an excuse to duck into a warm shop for a moment and desperately hoping there might be a warm shop where I could make some pretense of browsing and not the barrette and Christian bookstores that seem to crop up in every forlorn retail space during an economic downturn, like a clown wig at a funeral. But as luck would have it I noticed a doorway nestled next to the entrance of a large building, a doorway marked simply "La Belle Crepe". For a moment I doubted my senses to have stumbled on something so unlikely and so timely that it could only have been conjured by the Hogwarts Castle Room of Requirement, but I rushed through the door to find a jovial and engaging Frenchman whose persona I can perhaps best describe by asking you to picture him tugging fine, blonde hair off his chef's coat from last night's (or this morning's) lastest tryst, offering delicious crepes stuffed with ham and gruyere and countless other delights in little more than an entryway. It was a perfect little nook, just big enough to tease and please but not large enough to lose its focus, become infatuated with deep chairs and fireplaces and succumb to becoming a Starbucks.

I watched wide-eyed in wonder as like turkish delight emerging from a snowbank my fresh crepes took shape on the grill in the icy window looking out on the windblown snow, and as we discussed the surreal quality of such a place in the windswept plazas of Nicollet Ave and how it came to be, the proprieter cheekily confessed to me the secret ingredient to making fine French treats was cheap Canadian beer. A slight chill from the outdoors crept into me at this moment in a manner no doubt reminiscent of something from one of the children's series I just re-read, but as fear's raspy fingers danced up my spine like the Little Prince's rake across the starlit baobab roots of his lonely cold asteroid I found my mouth and my instinct to annoy people with running jokes had both gone dry.

I have always refused cheap beer, not out of snobbery towards the delights of the lower classes, but because it just so happens there are certain plants of the earth that cause so much alarm and confusion to my immune system that brother turns against brother, blue cell against grey cell, and the worst of these is the sinister climbing cones of the humulus lupulus plant. The last time I tried a deodorant that cheerfully advised me it was "Now fortified with extra hops!" it descended on my skin with the same terrible wrath of Mr. Fitzgibbon's plow on the rats of NIMH's rosebush and I vowed to never let that terrible plant near me again. At the very memory my skin began to crawl as if threatening to make an escape down the road with the dish and the spoon calling back over it's broad yet floppy shoulders "Count me out pal... and a little vitamin B once in a while would've *%&#'ing killed you?" (My skin is surprisingly less eloquent than my literary left brain but generally on a par with the furiously twirling stumbles of my right brain... which is unfortunately the part I seem to talk with.)

But just as you can't put fucking onions in my fucking omelette (like they do every time I eat at Key's) without breaking a few eggs, you can't make really delicious crepes without the particular yeast that brewers use to make their foamy golden poison, and once I've caught the smell of certain pleasures I'm lost... I had to have it. I took my crepe back to the theater where I reminded the stage door attendant of my extension and to please, please send help immediately should I call 911 from that phone because it would mean my throat was closing. And while my gamble paid off and I did survive the experience with only an almost certainly psychosomatic tension in my neck, I still think I still would have been licking the berries and cream off my lips as the paramedics burst in to jab me with epinephrine.

So La Belle Crepe is highly recommended, for both the fresh-made crepes and the rush of cheating death, and unlike Narnia you can return more than three times. Le Patron assures me that in the summer he will be offering outdoor seating and adding a fresh delight for pedestrians on an avenue that really needs a lift, and expanding to Uptown as well. But for me I'll always treasure the memory of that day when in the middle of winter I discovered there lay within Nicollet Mall an invincible summer.

La Belle Crepe

825 Nicollet Mall #100
www.labellecrepe.com

P.S. Of all the authors from whom I have stolen shamelessly to elicit groans from my loyal readershop, I apologize only to M. Albert Camus for nicking "Au milieu d'hiver j'ai enfin decouvert qu'il y a en moi un etait invincible" from Retour a Tipasa.

10 ways to spend my stimulus check

With my tax rebate burning a hole in my pocket, I'm really stumped as to where to spend it. Please look into your hearts and help me figure out what to do by voting for one of the following options on the poll in the right hand margin.

10. Maybe I can make a down payment on a round-trip ticket from MSP to Midway. (It's nice when your competitors go belly-up and you can raise prices 900%.)

9. I could buy this couch.

8. I could quit my job(s) and pursue my dream of being a full-time Acting Company groupie, following them on tour as they cruise around the country doing Shakespeare in those cool-ass multi-zippered leather coats straight that are half Project Runway and half Blade Runner. (And I still say Nym looks like Bryan.)

7. Convertible bond arbitrage, baby. With how badly that market's been devalued, I figure I can corner the market and have enough left over for pizza.

6. I could buy Dick Durbin's senate seat ("Oh no, it's not for sale", yeah yeah... that's what you said about the other one.)

5. I could do the responsible thing and put together a care package for the Blackjack Bandit on his tour of West Africa: clean syringes, fresh beans for his espresso maker, a book on Shiatsu massage translated into Tswana, some wood polish for his grandfather clock, and clean syringes.

4. Put it all on black 20 and let it ride until I have the 100,000 deutschemarks I need. (Euros are for suckers, baby.)

3. There's always the old standby of buying Merrill-Lynch shares at a 70% premium. (After all that is where all the rest of the government's stimulus money went.)

2. Spend it all on a 3-day binge of hookers and blow, only to emerge bleary-eyed from my hotel room and find I've accidentally become governor of New York. (Oh no, not again.)

1. I could buy anything really, as long as it's made in China and boiled in lead. (Again... that's where Walmart shoppers are spending the rest of the stimulus checks anyways.)

Eagles 26 - 14 Vikings

What happened to the O-line? They couldn't get a push in the running game, and eventually on every passing play the Eagles pinned their ears back and blitzed the whole house. With Peterson unable to get anything consistent going in the ground game and the Tardis unable to ever connect find a dump-off receiver over the middle, there was nothing to slow that blitz down, and it got ugly.

Not as ugly as the Eagles fans, many of whom had to be removed by the Minneapolis Police Department. No you can't throw your beer at a woman and stay to watch the second half. And I had to love the guy who got arrested but wanted to finish his beer before being cuffed. When the cop arresting him snatched the bottle out of his hand before marching him out with beer all over his face, she got the most applause of anyone in uniform that day. Classy bunch, especially the guy in the bathroom wearing a Harold Carmichael jersey yelling at the kid in front of him for taking too long at the urinal. Not just classy but also a real smart move in a bathroom packed shoulder to shoulder full of Vikings fans, to start hassling at a teenager who hasn't done anything to you.

The better team won, and really it couldn't have happened to a worse group of fans... even more mean drunks than the Brewers. I hope you all get pounded in the ass by the Giants next week (and not the good way).