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).

Lions achieve historic perfect season

Many years ago some of the wiser heads of the National Football League including commissioner Paul Tagliabue and New York Football Giants owner Wellington Mara (whose granddaughter was that hot redhead at the end of Brokeback Mountain) started moving towards a more balanced league in which all 32 teams, from any size media market, had the possibility of putting together a Superbowl contender. Keeping football interesting across the country would get everybody a slice of a bigger pie and insure the NFL dominated the American sports scene every fall. Since then, many dominant franchises have crumbled, and nobody has stayed at the top for long, as even the Patriots can be beaten.

However, this year the Detroit Lions have finally done what was previously considered unpossible, and put together a season so inept that they couldn't find a single team to rise to the challenge of playing worse football than the Lions. Sixteen straight losses, something no NFL team has ever achieved in a single season. If the Lions can build on their ineptness through the draft and use the #1 pick on a disruptive headcase who will hold out on signing a contract until November and prevent them from signing any of their other rookies or free agents, they could get the 9 straight losses they'd need next season to tie the '76-'77 Buccaneers record 26 game losing streak and be assured of their place in history.

All kidding aside, why leagues continues to tolerate franchises that contribute so little to the quality of their product is baffling. And to be fair and not pick on Detroit, I said the same about the Twins teams of the mid to late 90's that wanted public money for a new stadium to showcase a glorified AAA team. But yikes, 0-16 and you haven't burned the stadium down yet?

Top 10 reasons I haven't updated my blog in 2 months

10. I've been sitting in the back seat of my car filling out ballots for Al Franken since October.

9. Blowing Rod Blagojevich's entire staff to lay groundwork for Senator Rufus (D-IL) took longer than I thought it would. Turns out all I got for it was gratitude... GRATITUDE?! Fuck gratitude!

8. I saw Shadowlands at the Guthrie, and then sobbed uncontrollably in my closet for several weeks over the death of Joy Gresham... bring her the magic apple, Douglas!

7. I've been working hard and contributing to the Gross National Product of this great country, which is more than I can say for certain CDO-squared selling motherf*****s I know who think it's funny to kick yuppies out of their starter castles at Christmas.

6. I spent a few weeks learn how to pronounce Amstelbooij's new Collateralized Diaper Obligation's name, eventually I just gave up and decided to call him Chocomelbooij.

5. I had a craving for a Misty Freeze, and I had to go all the way down Highway 61 to Baton Rouge to find a DQ that was open. Although speaking of DQ, who else suspects we may know the owner of this one?

4. Last October I accidentally said Macbeth in a theater and was beaten into coma by superstitious actors.

3. I just couldn't remember which of my half-dozen different jobs I was going to so I went to the scene shop and pretended to be a lamp-post for a couple weeks before they tried to bolt me to a stage.

2. I've been trying to fight the war on Hanukkah by saying "Happy Hanukkah" to as many people as I can. This "Happy Holidays" nonsense WILL NOT STAND.

1. And the real reason I haven't written anything on my blog in ages is Lego Star Wars, the most addictive game I've played since Tie Fighter. When I had a dream about Lego Star Wars, I decided maybe I'd had enough. So then I went and bought Lego Batman and Lego Indiana Jones.

Macbeth at the Garage

I went to the Theatre Garage with a surprisingly heavy heart, owing partly to how tired I was and partly to revisting the neighborhood of a star-crossed romance I had with a certain long-haired theatrical type (you know, one of those) who lived across the street. So a blood drenched show about intrigue, betrayal and evil women sounded like just the thing to pick up my spirits.

If the Guthrie is distinguished by its grandeur, and Pro Rata by being so provocative and raw, then the production company behind this show, Torch Theater, differentiate themselves by their dedication to accessibility in all forms. The obvious reflection of this is making every show accessible to blind and deaf patrons, but there's also such an apparent effort to shoo away the snooty veneer of... the thee-a-tah... and bring audiences into closer contact with the performance. When I called to make ticket reservations I was surprised to find that Lady Macbeth herself (Stacia Rice, Miss Jane Eyre herself for all you Charlotte Brontë junkies out there) recorded their daily automated message, but she is in fact a founder of that theater,
and her decidedly un-diva-like involvement in the daily operation of the theater really demonstrates their mission to fight snootiness and exclusion in all its forms. Plus I imagine her sexy voice is part of the reason people come to see her strut and fret her hour upon the stage.

And Stacia is great as Lady Macbeth, in a very Detroit minimalist techno sort of presentation with a stylish yet versatile black set and fabulous costumes. After Jane Eyre I had wanted to see Stacia in something different that maybe gave her a little more room to come out and play, so it was a treat to see her in a very focused, very modern show like After a Hundred Years last spring. Macbeth splits the difference between elegant period piece and stylish modern psychological drama represented by those two shows, but the immediacy of that tiny theater and the minimalist made this an actors show, it was really fun to see Stacia and Sean Haberle's presentation of the ruthless couple.

In the past, I've never really followed that transtition from level-headed schemer to raving lunatic in Lady Macbeth and the descent from noble soldier to paranoid preacher in Macbeth, either reading it or in Roman Polanski's film. (Out of Joint's west african production at the old Guthrie Lab had its own cohesive take on the story, but I've been told to stop annoying people by raving about that production.) In this production, Sean Haberle's Macbeth slips into almost rodent-like mannerisms whenever challenged make him a furious warrior pressed on by his gnawing insecurities, which makes it easier to believe his descent into tyranny. And Lady Macbeth's ineffectual attempt at an angelic intervention in Fife, helplessly watching the slaughter behind a white silk hood, bridges the gap between the childless woman who can talk casually about dashing her own baby's brains out to the gaunt, sleepwalking figure who aimlessly shuffles off the stage in Act V.

It's a good show, and I couldn't help but think as I was watching it I wish I could get more kids there. Back in our days at the Academy the Scottish Play was our first introduction to Shakespeare, and I wish I could slip a few kids into a show like this that's trying so hard to engage rather than to elevate. A theater that invites you to take your drinks back in with you and offers non-crinkly bags for you to put your noisier snacks in just seems made for people who are thirsty for a first taste of culture but maybe not aware of it. And it really has been great the last couple of nights I went to the theater to be in a crowd that was clearly having a fun night out, with much to discuss afterwards. So yeah, I'm sold on Torch and Pro Rata, at the Garage or the Gremlin or anywhere else, and I hope my vast readership gives Macbeth a chance. And really if your choice of Halloween entertainment is seeing Macbeth for $20-$30 or Saw V for $8.50, it's well-worth the extra money (and the snacks are more reasonably priced).

The Lost Boys: a case against GPS

Don't get me wrong, it was nice to see Corey Feldman was able to tap back into his scowling, growling persona of Edgar Frog 20 years after last performing the role. Actually I suppose all he had to do was put on that stupid headband. It's also funny to see Corey Haim's cameo, where the meth-face makes him look about twice Feldman's age. But wow, what a shitty movie. I accept that trashy cinema is going to be derivative, but the foundations of this movie were laid pretty bare, trying to update Point Break... only with vampires this time.

Bad things come in threes, so I thought I'd wash down that piece of crap with two more bad movies: the listless Prom Night, and the vapid remake of Prom Night. I did recently see a movie about a sleazy maniac who kills people for no apparent reason and the closeted lesbian who fights back that took a very old formula and did it right, so it's possible High Tension just spoiled my appetite for crappy slasher movies. But there's still no excuse for either version of this film ever being released.

I thought a comparison of the remakes to the originals, separated by decades, would be at least amusing and worth a decent rant. But it wasn't... just boring, sadly. There's not even a decent joke about dubbing Nicholas Cage into Cantonese to be had here.

"Wake up motherf***er, it's our ball!", or Vikings 12-10 Lions

Well that was certainly bizarre. Really, really bizarre. The Vikings beat the Lions in a game that at one point had most people around me thinking the Vikings might hold onto their 2-0 lead to win the game, unless a second half field goal by Detroit allowed them to squeak out with a 3-2 road win. When the Vikings entire scoring output consisted of Dan Orlovsky running a bootleg out the back of his own end zone (and still looking for an open receiver when he realized the Vikings pass rushers were already celebrating) I must admit I began to lose hope.

Both times the Vikings got a first down in field goal range after a big play, my dad sardonically suggested kicking a field goal then rather than trying to score a TD, and it was really sad that he was proved right when Adrian Peterson's fumble ended their first real scoring drive, and they later penalized themselves back out of field goal range (leading to a blocked kick). The Vikings only TD came when Bernard Berrian broke one open and didn't give the OC a chance to overthink things and choke. Facing 3rd and 20 in your opponent's half of the field, it's kind of clever to call in a running play to try and set up a field goal rather than go for a difficult first down. It's less clever when you telegraph it by putting in 2 tight ends and a fullback to block for him, and don't even send the receiver deep to pull off the safeties or anything.

I have no idea how the Vikings won this game committing so many offensive penalties and turnign the ball over three times, but somehow they did, partly because our defense was driving their skill position players into the ground like they were using them to build a fence. I would occasionally wonder why our d-backs could give a receiver so much room to catch a pass and get up to full speed in open space, until I'd see a linebacker and safety converge to high-low the guy and basically rip him in half. Somebody behind me set the tone for the game when a Calvin Johnson made a big catch, took two steps before disappearing into a purple Charybdis (thank you Oddysseus now go to Ithica) while Ben Leber picked up the live ball that came squirting out. As the trainers attended to limp, motionless heap that Ray Edwards and Ben Leber left on the field where Johnson had been standing, one of the drunks behind me shouted, "Wake up motherfucker, it's our ball!!"

Up next: Da Bearss, in that giant toilet bowl somebody left on Museum Campus Drive

Killer Joe at the Gremlin

Not knowing recently if my Guthrie adventure was coming to an end or just turning a page (or more likely entering a long murky denouement) I had decided to start sampling more of the local theater scene to see what I was missing with my usual obsessive tendency to over focus, drawing the universal from the particular, rather than distilling it from the mass of experience like everyone else (that may make no sense to anyone but me, but hey it's not like anybody's reading this). On my first sample of one of our smaller theater companies, I got everything I asked for and rather more than I bargained for.

Really it's not my first taste of what the rest of the local scene was doing, since Theatre Latte Da had just done such a wonderful production at the Guthrie of Old Wicked Songs and I saw Penumbra's operatic production of Gem of the Ocean here on August Wilson's birthday. So on Thursday when I mentally flipped a coin to decide between Torch Theatre's production of MacBeth at the Garage and Theatre Pro Rata's production of Killer Joe at the Gremlin, I figured it should be interesting either way (and boy was it ever). Ultimately my decision came down to needing to eat first, and when I couldn't find a parking spot on 4th to run into Pizza Luce for a slice or to dash into Koy to ask Kirby how quick he could get me a bank roll and a cuppa green tea, I decided to go to the theater I knew was across the street from a Mickey D's and wouldn't be full enough for anyone to notice my post-Big Mac gas attack. The winner was Killer Joe at the Gremlin.

The Gremlin Theatre is in St. Paul on University near Raymond Ave, home of Key's where they always put onions in my motherf***ing omelette no matter what I order. Seriously, if they would just knock that off and quit telling me "Oh, those are just white tomatoes" I might pop in there again... I've seen it happen to other people too, so I don't know why their kitchen is so fixated on making sure everyone is getting their daily dose of sulfites. At least the guy throwing up in a garbage can six feet from my table was a one-time thing, even if it did last 20 minutes. But don't let his review fool you, if they'd bring back the regular waffles ($3.95 with a second one for $1.00) I would totally hop on the #16 bus and go back.

And now that I've cleared that up, the Gremlin shares its building (and its bathrooms) with the aikido school next door, which meant that when I arrived at this University Ave storefront with empty display windows and a door that just directed me down a creepy hallway to a back room draped with black curtains, I was expecting to find a naked FBI agent sliding around silk sheets and Laura Palmer talking backwards to a dancing dwarf... and where the hell was Annie anyways? Oh dear, I may have wandered off on another tangent. The rough look of the theater was in perfect keeping with the set, which was a garbage strewn trailer in some Texas hell-hole. It looked like a tornado had just hit the theater and deposited all this crap on stage. As I settled into my creaky, threadbare seat (nicked from the ruins of the Loading Dock Theater) I thought these were dire beginings to an evening at... "the Thee-a-tah!"

But I was wrong. Killer Joe is the story of Texas trailer trash who concoct a half-baked scheme to bump off their mother for the insurance and live like minimum-wage kings, and that horrible looking collection of trash was exactly how those people lived, with biting ants on the floor and the constant flicker of NASCAR in the living room. It was a really great show, full of characters I couldn't look away from, sometimes because I was desperate to know what would happen next, and sometimes because they were like a sore I couldn't stop scratching. If Quentin Tarantino nd Robert Rodriguez owned a theater, this is the show they would open with (well, either Killer Joe or Titus Andronicus) because never have I seen anything crammed with so much nudity and raw sexual violence that wasn't direct-to-video. Apparently the playwright Tracy Letts also penned August: Osage County which won him a Tony Award earlier this year, and I hear those aren't easy to come by.

I was looking for something I wouldn't see at the Guthrie, so I was certainly intrigued when the first actor to cross the stage came out completely bottomless. As she and her son-in-law bickered about the appropriateness of her exposed bush in graphic detail, I had to admit Pro Rata had certainly delivered. The honest, uncomfortable nature of that presentation, the imperfect, quivering exposed bodies that sent a tingle up my spine and and the brutal violence that twisted me in my seat was so raw that by intermission I was chatting up the lobby staff about my vast expertise as a theater volunteer and offering my services. And it was only partly because she was cute and had a genuine, guileless quality that said, "I'm groovy-relaxed enough to be delighted by my haiku shirt and to possibly give you a chance" that I was talking to her, and mostly because of the art on display. (And given all the pain, confusion, and growing sense of horror that everyone who dates me seems to experience, I'm going to leave it to the cute of the world to amuse themselves.)

Killer Joe runs at the Gremlin (2400 University Ave in St. Paul) until Oct 19 with tickets on a sliding scale ($14-28), and I encourage anyone looking for a visceral theater experience to give it a try, especially since October movies are so dire (and there's only so many times you can see An American Carol, Captain.

http://www.theatreprorata.org/
Box Office: 612.874.9321

More On Vice Presidents (pun intentional?)

I havne't watched any of the Presidential debates this election season, mainly because I'm so bored with all of it. I feel like I made up my mind on Super Tuesday when I had to decide whether I was going to caucus for McCain or Obama, and I have yet to regret my decision. I did watch the Vice Presidential debate last week, because Sarah Palin's candidacy may have been questionable politically, but it did make for damned good television.

As I watched her face Joe Biden in the debate with all the questions swirling and most of America with one mind salivating for it to turn into a train wreck of one kind or another, there was just one recurring thought I couldn't keep out of my mind: Sarah Palin really didn't look so good in HD. I previously described her as the one part of Alaska's natural beauty that I'd like to drill, mostly for a chance to pull out that corny line (and because Jewel is too annoying) but the Maverick Mom did what most women do when they sense they're thought of as attractive: she pulled her hair back and slathered on make-up, covering over and buttoning down anything that made her look good.

Since her whole candidacy is based on being a Maverick Mom, the fact that she's ultimately an old-style corrupt politician who circumvents the rules to get her way, values her own lifestyle above anybody else's (like Nancy Pelosi, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Harry Reid, and the entire establishment she's bucking) doesn't make her much of a maverick. The rest of her claim is that she's raised a kid and that makes her a "real person", but most people don't shoot wolves from helicopters, and all the real people I know who had an opportunity to get an education also have a passport and used it before turning 40.

So now I'm back to being bored with all of it.

Black Sox 1-0 Twins

At the end of a tight division race, the Twins needed to take two out of three at home against the Royals to clinch the division title over the floundering Sox. This would have put them in the play-offs when the team that usually knocks them out, the Yankees, are finally missing a series for the first time in over a decade. (Apparently Joe Torre wasn't the problem.) So of course... they lose the series to the Royals 2-1, and go into a play-off against Chicago. In a nasty tight pitcher's duel, Jim Thome caught one pitch left up by Nick Blackburn and scored the game's only run on a solo homer. The closest the Twins came to scoring was Michael Cuddyer testing Griffey's arm coming home from third on a shallow fly ball and then tackling A.J. Pierzynski at the plate. It took a perfect throw to beat Cuddyer to the plate, but it was fun to watch him try it, and even more fun to see him take out Pierzynski.

The '08 Twins took a long time to sort out fielding positions and give the kids a chance over the tired veterans Smith brought in last winter, and Gomez's inability to get on base combined with the disappearance of Cuddyer and Morneau's power really killed them, but they were still in it until game 163, and a pleasure to watch in the second half of this season. Unlike the Black Sox, who play ugly, look ugly, won ugly, and have an ugly-ass stadium.

On Nazis, Skinheads, and the Dichterliebe

Q. What's green and flies over Germany?

A. Snotzis

I have to admit a lot of Nazis and skinheads kept popping up in my recent art and entertainment choices, and it's really left me in the mood for some light, happy escapist fare, but I couldn't help but be a little shaken tonight by some of the other recurrent threads in three films and plays about skinheads, Nazis and classical music, and the sensation of being numbly set adrift in icy cold water that is pervasive to all films about skinheads.

I've seen four that are worth a mention: Romper Stomper, American History X, The Believer and This is England, and without a doubt the strangest is The Believer. Ryan Gosling has this uncanny knack for rising way above the material, and there are some serious flaws to this film's aimless plot, its "incest andS&M sex kitten who wants to learn Hebrew" subplot, and above all its cop-out ending, but Goslingdoes a lot with the film's bizarre premise: a Jewish skinhead. The bitterness in Gosling's Danny Balint and the furious preoccupation with Jewish history and theology that twists into a strangely reverent loathing is absolutely fascinating, and the fact that Gosling is able to express all that internal conflict while retaining a cohesive performance is amazing.

I've raved at length elsewhere about the last Shane Meadows film I saw (Dead Man's Shoes) but I couldn't help but feel that there was something missing from last year's This is England. The performances of both films have this stark, genuine quality like Meadows went back to 1983 and followed some kids around with a camera and filmed them from the bushes without them noticing, making it a subtly powerful film. I couldn't shake a certain feeling of inevitability, as the film had to follow the same well-worn arc of every other skinhead film I've ever seen, and that left This is England somewhere just short of brilliant, but very much worth watching.

It did leave me pondering the lost children who become the monsters of these films, and the degree to which I find myself sinking into that same feeling of alienation recently, since I don't know what I'll be doing with my days in a few weeks. For that reason the way that feeling drifts like a fog out of every scene in This is England shook me so much, I took a walk down ironically deserted street where all the restaurants pull in their sidewalks on Sunday night, the pleasant chill of October mixing with a craving for pizza and deep melancholy.

It was an odd confluence of films, randomly popping up in my Netflix queue, when there's an amazing show playing at the Guthrie set in 1986 Vienna about a young American pianist who's lost his touch studying with an eccentric Austrian professor. Old Wicked Songs explores the same idea of putting on a costume to declare to the world who you are, with the hope that you can find that identity within yourself and fill out the costume. The play is set on the eve of Kurt Waldheim's election and so stirs up the legacy of Nazism in Ostereich, while most of the populace continues to bury their heads in the sand. I hate to describe too much of this play given the innocent seduction of the audience in the early scenes, but it's about wearing the clothes of a pianist, of a Jew, or of a Nazi, and finding that this may only magnfies the emptiness within. It follows the opposite trajectory of the skinhead films, wherein a character finds themselves by building their skinhead identity and then rejecting it.

I really wish more people could have seen Latte Da's production of Old Wicked Songs, but I get the same feeling about virtually every show I've seen in the Dowling Studio. I don't know how much longer my time at the Guthrie is going to last, but I see a Dowling Studio Package ($80 for four tickets usable at any show) in my future. I feel like I had so much more to say about all of this, but I'm just so damned tired with the emotional back and forth and the grind of being here every morning that has characterized my time at the theater recently. Here's hoping I can figure out what I'm doing past Halloween.

Don't Tell Me the Score!

Tomorrow night I will be at work until at least 9pm, meaning I'm going to tivo the Vikings season opener against Green Bay on Monday Night Football. I'm turning off my phone and not checking my email (or talking to any patron in purple) but I still know Amstelbooij's going to find a way to tell me the score this week and every week during the Vikings season when I have to work during away games (I love the theater, but not enough to miss a home game). Here are the top ten ways he'll do it, covering the myriad locations in which I might find myself working:

10. He'll send a singing telegram to my cubicle, that much is obvious.

9. A chinese dragon will parade through the lobby past the concierge desk, with "Vikings 24 Packers 17" written on it.

8. All prairie sky backdrops for Little House now have "Vikings 24-17 Packers" written into the clouds.

7. A mail order will be called into the store: "I need 24 Vikings and 17 Packers, could you verify with Rufus in the stockroom that you have that?"

6. A fax will be sent to the stage door of his newborn's son's birth announcement... informing me his the kid's name is "Vikings 24-Packers 17"

5. An improv class in the Learning Center will begin with a warm-up vocal exercise of yelling "Vikings 24 Packers 17!" loud enough for me to hear it at the desk

4. When Melissa Gilbert comes out to sign autographs after Little House on the Prairie, she'll also blow the Gjallarhorn in the lobby to announce a Vikings victory

3. The big musical number in Little House on the Prairie at the end of act I now concludes "I'll be your eyes... when we watch the Vikings beat the Packers 24-17 with a 4th quarter touchdown on a reverse by Aundrae Allison"

2. Amstelbooij will be poised to pop out from trap door in the thrust stage in a purple and gold mask like the &$*#'ing phantom of the opera screaming out "Vikings 24 Packers 17!"

1. During tomorrow night's concert, announcements over the PA intermission will go like this: "Ladies and Gentlemen, the call is places... the performance will begin on the McGuire Proscenium Stage immediately following the second half kick-off of the Vikings Packers game which the Vikings are leading 14-10"

On Vice Presidents

At long last, our national nightmare is over... the vice presidential picks are in, and we now know within a margin of error of about 5 Aaron Burrs on the left-right political scale who will hold that unique position in American government, who serves in two branches of government while having almost no influence over either.

On the one side is Senator Joe Biden, a man who had the top of his head surgically removed to give surgeons access to his brain... and then he had the procedure done a second time because the first time they couldn't find his brain (note to the Captain: Joe Biden told that joke himself on "Meet the Press", don't get all worked up). As chairman of the foreign relations, Biden has also famously taken meetings with معمر القذافي to discuss how most democratic countries don't have a President-for-Life, and advocated a Belgian solution to the problem of Iraqi governance, which I assume involves shipping over chocolates and starting a Michael Jackson "touch" football fantasy camp.

If you're from overseas and don't know what the Vice President does, or were educated in an American school and still don't know what the VP does, don't worry, because neither does the other candidate for the job. Every politician asked about the Vice Presidency, including Senator Biden, publicly denies any interest in the job, leading New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson whose name is constantly associated with the job to describe it as "the job nobody wants, but nobody turns down." When she was previously asked about the Vice Presidency, Alaska governor Sarah Palin brushed it off joking that she didn't even know what the VP did, which really was an unfortunate choice of words now that she's trying to follow in the footsteps of Cactus Jack Garner, Elbridge Gerry, and John C. Breckenridge. That's right, to get famous in that job, you either have to invent gerrymandering, have a stupid name, rebel against the government, or shoot somebody who's face is printed on money (a cookie to anybody besides the Captain who knows which bill that is).

As a former beauty queen and current governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin does have a few things going for her, the most significant being that she's not incredibly old and covered in melanomas, and is in fact the one part of Alaska I'd like to drill. She appeases the conservative base of the Republican party, because she is staunchly pro-life and skeptical of science, favoring teaching Intelligent Design alongside the theory of evolution... hey, it's not any dumber than that guy at SPA who used to teach about phlogiston. Governor Palin also brings executive experience, having been Governor of a state mainly populated by caribou for a couple of years, and having also been mayor of a town with fewer people than a Gopher hockey game. Sarcasm aside, she brings youth, executive experience, and a vagina to the Republican ticket, and I do like to think that there's a woman who's part of a credible bid for a federal executive office, and not a sacrificial lamb who won't even carry her own state like in '84. Part of the reason I like this is Hillary Clinton doesn't get to claim synecdochic representation of all women everywhere, and part of it is because Palin has a much better website devoted to her than Biden in www.vpilf.com

The job of the Vice President has generally been to help win an election and then make people less nervous about the President being incapacited. Given the fact that the President is likely to be an old cancer survivor or the biggest target for the ignorant and violent underbelly of our society since JFK went cruising around in an open limo to better grope passing women, the Vice President better be somebody who can take over while the President is recovering from a gunshot wound or has fallen and can't get up. I say that largely without mirth, but I do think somebody's going to do a big hit of meth and take a shot at hypothetical President Obama, and I'm glad he picked somebody with foreign policy experience who's made serious bids for the presidency.

The past two Vice Presidents have had serious policy portfolios rather than being a useless appendage: Al Gore was the public face of the government's work on NAFTA, and in charge of the effort to reform the federal bureaucracy into something more adaptable and just generally less stupid, while Dick Cheney has been secretly running the country from an undisclosed location for eight years while the President clears brush on his ranch. I don't know what sort of agenda we could expect from the two current nominees, if Palin will just drink orange juice and work out twice a day so she stays healthy "just in case" and Biden will be sent to out of the way corners of the world to tell dictators to suck it, or if they'll have something real to do, but I certainly am looking forward to this debate.

And a quick memo to the British press, it's Governor not "Governess", she's not teaching inbred upper class children how to fold their napkins and boning the ghost of their father in some circa 1800 windy shithole of a house in a marsh somewhere.

Olympic rings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or where have I been all summer

I've realized recently that I really started losing track of the 2008 election and stopped providing updates on it. One reason of course, is that I've decided to vote for General Zod from Superman 2, but also I found a much more interesting and occasionally more frightening clash of superpowers in the Beijing Olympics. And there have been some fascinating developments at the games so far, not least of which was the first complete WTF moment when news broke about the Spanish national basketball team's "slitty-eyed" ad campaign. Facing a serioius credit crisis, that's definitely a great way to court the Asian tourist dollar. Or euro, or yen, or baht or whatever else you got.

After the inevitable nuclear holocaust over oil resources, somebody will have to rule the barren wastelands, and I'm not betting on the mohawked Australians in football pads from The Road Warrior. I think the South Koreans will emerge to fill that role, spreading out from Busan and Koreatown to rebuild a feudalist society based on tofu. The reason I say that is that after decades of living a hop skip and a jump over the minefield from Kim Jong Il's nuclear program they've clearly started preparing the low-tech army that will rule a world without sophisticated manufacturing and electronics, by aggressively teaching the bow and arrow. Have you seen how freakishly good Koreans are at archery? The streak of bullseyes they smugly fired in against the Italians in the gold medal round was crazy, and Korean archers may have taken over from Norwegian biathletes as the scariest people to meet in the woods. (Who am I kidding, I'd love to meet a Norwegian bi-anything in the woods.)

As I was flipping through obscure Olympic events nobody but me watches I found a couple other real surprises, like the medal sweep by the US women's sabre team. It's been a hell of a long time since I lifted a sword in anger, but man is it nice to see that the rare women I used to fence against really succeeded in cracking the door open for women in our weapon. Also the chick who won the bronze is hawt. I can't help it, elite female athletes are already sex bombs but a redhead with a sword really gives me funny feelings in strange places.

It was also interesting watching the group play in women's soccer to see what a difference a year made when the US women played New Zealand. A year ago at the Women's World Cup (note to the Captain: the WWC was also curiously located in nnnnnnn-China!) when I caught the Football Ferns in action against Brazil they looked like a bunch of underdeveloped girls whose schoolbus had dropped them off at the wrong field and they'd been thrown in against full-grown women. But they were still fun to watch, especially their keeper Jenny Bindon crashing after loose balls with her knees up and Ria Percival in her paddington bear yellow boots. In the last year they've grown into their bodies and their game, and even though they got spanked by the US (4-0) they held their own against the Japanese and kept things close against Norway, which can't have been easy. Now that the Matildas are out of their region it's more or less inconceivable that there will be an international tournament without the Ferns, so I look forward to seeing them again in Germany'11.

But really the most surprising thing was the opening ceremonies. When I heard Zhang Yimou had taken over for Steven Spielberg as director, I knew that we'd be treated to an amazing spectacle, just based on his wuxias I've seen (Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and The Curse of the Golden Flower) but I kept waiting for the inevitable third act to such an epic: death and shrieking on an unimaginable scale. Seriously, with all those athletes standing exposed in the middle of the field and Zhang Yimou at the helm I kept waiting for the inevitable hail of arrows or ninjas with hooks rapelling from the rafters, all in smashing outfits. Then again, maybe he's saving it for the closing ceremonies.

Start spreadin' da news...

I told you all Brett Favre would not stay retired. (Next time pay attention!) After publicly carrying on for years about his imminent retirement and enjoying about five farewell tours while the Packers groomed his replacement for about three years, the Packers finally asked Favre "Are you really retiring this time? Really? So would you say that's like 95 percent sure, or only 75? You're really leaving this time, no backsies?" and he finally retired. Until summer. The Packers were so unexcited about the QB controversy that they offered him $25m to stay retired. Favre showed up to training camp anyways. Packers fans held a candlelight vigil at his home, and one of the most media-savvy players in pro sports turned on the charm, and the Packers finally accepted that Favre was back in the NFL... so they traded him.

Favre will play for the New York Jets next year, which I hear isn't as bad as it sounds since they massively overhauled their previously horrid roster. But even if he has one more superbowl run in him, I doubt it's with the J-E-T-S. Which is too bad, because I used to know a Jets fan inside and out, until she became a Raiders fan and I realized I didn't know her so well. It wasn't just about football, I also really am just about the most horrible person to fall in love with... find somebody who has something nice to say about the whole experience and I'll send you free theater tickets. Someday I hope to be able to separate love and sex from despair and annihilation, and most importantly from football. But I digress.

The Jets get Favre, Green Bay gets a conditional draft pick, probably a 3rd rounder unless Favre falls flat on his face. If New York, New York make the playoffs with Favre at the helm, it improves to a second rounder, and potentially the 31st pick if Favre was to lead them to the Superbowl. As expected, the trade also stipulates that should Favre be traded to a certain purple and gold rival, the Jets must forfeit three first round draft picks to the Packers, which should ensure that Favre will never ever play another game at the Metrodome. Despite the gnashing of teeth in the Chicago and Minnesota sports media, there is no freaking way the Packers were going to risk Favre coming back to their stadium in another uniform, and the trade conditions clinch that. Frankly I'm so sick of all the drama that surrounds him every year, I'm glad that as far as the Vikings are concerned, he might as well be retired. Bring on Aaron Rodgers.

2008 Timberwolves Draft

I know this is the time when I’m supposed to explain the Timberwolves draft strategy and their future prospects, but it’s been hard for me or anybody else to sort it all out. The Wolves essentially traded down again for money, although not as blatantly as they did two years ago when they swapped picks with the Trailblazers for $1m (less than 2% of the average NBA payroll). But the Wolves had three picks this year (#3, #31, and #34) and this is what they did with them, in my most optimistic analysis.

#3 pick – OJ Mayo (traded to Memphis)

After once again getting the third pick in a two-player draft, the Wolves drafted OJ Mayo, a point guard from USC who probably was the best player available. Issues were immediately raised about how to fit him into a line-up with so many guards, but really it wasn’t hard to see that Mayo had a bit more potential at that position than the passable Randy Foye, tiny Sebastian Telfair, and mercurial Marko Jaric. And I was looking forward to ten years or more of making jokes about eating French fries with OJ Mayo to Amstelbooij (btw, good luck in Brussels!).

Then around midnight, the Wolves traded Mayo for Kevin Love, the #5 overall pick. Love is a power forward whose strength is his versatility and whose weakness is he’s a bit light. The thing is, the one thing the Wolves have locked down is they have a great power forward signed long-term, and about the only other young players anybody’s excited about are the other power forwards who back him up. If Love is able to play off of Al Jefferson the way Kevin Garnett at one time played off of Tom Gugliotta and makes it difficult to quadruple team Big Al, then he could be worthwhile. And while the Wolves really needed a center so Jefferson could move back to power forward, I suppose it’s still an improvement over starting Ryan Gomes out of position.

That being said, they traded down to get Love, so you’d think there must have been something in it for the Wolves… and at least this time it wasn’t straight cash. The trade really breaks down into three parts, the hot prospects, the warm bodies/jackasses, and the role players. I’ve already explained the difference between the hot prospects, meaning the Wolves probably lost on that part, so one has to assume the rest of the trade made up for it. In the warm bodies component of the trade, a couple of big, long contracts got dumped for shorter, smaller ones, meaning the Wolves can look to sign big free agents in the summer of 2010. Basically this brings the whole process of clearing out deadweight forward a year.

For their warm bodies, Wolves threw into the trade the gigantic unhappy contract of Antoine Walker, as well as Greg Buckner, two guys who were unlikely to do anything this year but take up cap room. The Wolves also threw in another unhappy and overpaid guy in Marko Jaric, whose versatility in the back court got him a lot of playing time, but his inconsistency really made him impossible to build around or give him a role on a young team. The Wolves also got back Brian Cardinal as a warm body who ties up money but not as much as the players the Wolves dumped. If Kevin McHale can be believed, he also dumped some seriously bad attitudes when he got rid of Walker and Jaric, so the warm body / jackass part of the trade is a small but significant net positive.

The real positive is the Wolves also got back role players who actually appeared last year as something other than a garbage time novelty. The Wolves got something they needed in Mike Miller, a small forward with a three point shot who theoretically can stretch the floor out and punish teams for piling bodies onto Al Jefferson. They also get a true center in Jason Collins, who is legitimately seven feet tall and while he doesn’t score or rebound, can do some of the work inside. (Arguably Jaric fits in both categories as an overpaid, disruptive role player, but with the number of guards the Wolves have available he’s not that big a loss.)

#31 Nikola Pekovic (under contract with Panathinaikos)

With the first pick of the second round, the Wolves took this big Serbian center who everyone would be drooling over… if he wasn’t under contract for the next three years in Greece. Having the rights to Pekovic is a good thing assuming if they can ever get him to come over to the US when his contract is up, and nobody else would have passed on a chance to draft him in the second round. But he obviously won’t be doing much for the team any time soon.

#34 Mario Chalmers (traded to Miami)

When the Wolves picked Chalmers I thought it had to be a case of bringing in the best available player, because the last thing they needed was another combo guard, but then they traded him to Miami for a couple of 2nd round picks in next year’s draft, plus a pile of cash. I don’t know why they didn’t just keep him and send him to the Developmental League, because the picks they’ll get from Miami next year probably won’t be all that great and there’s only so many 2nd round picks you can get onto the roster.

Summer of 2009

It’s interesting to note that the Wolves may have a ridiculous number of picks in next year’s draft, if several reasonably likely conditions occur. If the Wolves pick is in the top 10 (and it will be, they’re going to stink) they’ll keep that top 10 pick, and if Miami challenges for a playoff spot, they’ll send their pick to the Wolves, and so will the Celtics. The Wolves give up a second round pick to Detroit as part of another trade but gain two from Miami, meaning in the summer of 2009 they’ll have five draft picks and a bunch of fat contracts in their last year, all of which are useful in trades.

But for the time being, there’s a draft pick with a lot to prove, five guys from last year to re-sign or replace and a lot of issues to sort out. Which I'm sure will require a lot of ranting and raving on my part.

Euro2008: Netherlands vs Russia

Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words, so here's a brief pictorial tribute to Holland crashing out of the last two major international tournaments in their first elimination game:

Things in Chicago that are free

In no particular order, here are my ten favorite free things to enjoy in Chicago, which can be visited for the price of an "L" ticket.

The Museum of Contemporary Photography

I've raved about this museum at length elsewhere, many times I'm sure. There's always something worth seeing tucked into a corner of this museum, and given the small size of the gallery, it doesn't take long to find. And it's on Michigan Ave in the South Loop, making it easy to pop in.

The Baha'i House of Worship

While it takes a while to make the trip out past Evanston, the Baha'i temple is a tranquil oasis out at the end of the Purple Line. Go in, sit down, enjoy the way the light enters the building and chill out for a few minutes.

National Museum of Mexican Art

Half the fun is getting there, because of the murals at the 18th St Pink Line Station near the museum, which put to shame any other attempt at public art I've seen in the Chicago transit system. I'm not a huge fan of the museum, but the Chupacabra room was very stimulating, and I have to admit I like their gift shop for all my Doogie Howser weird mask needs. (Don't ask.)

Tuesdays at the MCA

The MCA is a very hit or miss kind of museum, with the risk you'll wander in to an video projection of a child swimming while a hoarse child screams the lyrics to Chris Isaak songs. That one was maybe not worth the price of admission, which is why I try to go on Tuesdays and buy something from the MCA's rather fantastic gift shop if I feel like I should chip in. And I have seen some spectacularly neat stuff at the MCA like the dinosaur-sized cat skeleton they had looming over the lobby for a while like an eerie, alien counterpoint to the Field Museum lobby.

Chinatown

There's something delightful about the insular nature of Chinatown, which really feels like another country has sprung up in the space between the Orange and Red Lines, and it's hard to shake the self-conscious feeling of appearing different and speaking a strange language while walking around Chinatown speaking English. Plus I still say sauteed baby octopus and squid with lemon grass at Penang makes for a nice meal.

Signature Lounge

I've never been up to the observation deck on the John Hancock tower, and the all-dancing all-singing all-crapping on your car pigeons that narrate your trip to the top of the Sears Tower really make me hesitant to go back. But the Signature Lounge at the Hancock Tower is a nice place to stop in for a drink with the whole city laid out around you. (Just stay away from the oily focaccia.)

Lincoln Park Zoo

I do like a nice zoo, even on a hot summer day when the animals all get that kind of stoned, weary look that says "You brought me all the way from Africa so I could sit around in the 80% humid, 90 degree Chicago summer? Thanks, it wasn't hot in the Serengetti or anything, this is really great. And don't over-season my gazelle this time."

Garfield Park Conservatory

I like this conservatory for the same reason I like the Baha'i House of Worship, it's very beautiful and calm, and right off the Green Line. The fern room which recreates Chicago in the Cretaceous Period in this lush, moss-covered greenery overgrowing its brick paths with only the waterfalls and fat koi to break the stillness is really an amazing retreat from all the chaos that surrounds the park. And there's a lot else to be said for the Conservatory as well.

Lake Michigan

I do enjoy the shoreline between North Ave and Navy Pier, and the unbroken, open quality of the Chicago shoreline, which will soon be completed by the Calatrava bridge over the river near that sky-scraping dildo he's building in Streeterville. It is a lovely place for a walk, but don't tell anybody I said that or Amstelbooij will be trying to get me to bike to his sailboat in Calumet City (the one his wife doesn't know about).

Kenny Chesney Wake-Up Call

When you least expect it, you too can be roused for a Kenny Chesney pop quiz. Startled and disoriented, you will have no idea what is going on or who you're talking to, only that Kenny Chesney is involved somehow. This is a free service provided to any number in the 312 area code, any time after our operator reaches the office at 2:30am. For those outside the Chicagoland area, also see our 4:52am "What time does Perkins open?" emergency phone call service.

Spiritual Guidance

The Ugly One

Never have I been so entertained by the story of an ugly man than I was by the American premiere of Marius von Mayenburg's The Ugly One, other than maybe that red stripe commercial where he tells the guy he can make himself beautiful by standing next to a bottle of red stripe ("You sir, are very ugly!"). I'm sorry it's having such a short run here at the Guthrie, but I'm sure it will reappear many, many other places in America in the next few years. It was really cool to see Kate Eifrig back in the Dowling Studio, playing three different women this time instead of the nine she played in her last show here (9 Parts of Desire), and I still say she should have a website for her stalk-- her fans. Fans, I said fans.

The Ugly One has the virtues of being provocative, funny, and short, presented in a minimalist homage to Detroit techno with no backstage area and props just strewn about the edges of the room, until the actors filed in to the noisy house and began their performance. The whole show is about what happens when the world's ugliest man has dramatic facial surgery that makes him irresistibly beautiful, introducing drastic changes to his lifestyle, until he discovers that this process is infinitely reproducible, and everyone in the world starts to look like him. Through all these changes his identity and the sense of purpose and belonging in his life are lost, making this story as tragic as it is funny.

I was also amused at how German this play is even in translation, especially with the rather Euro-stylin' Nathan Christopher as Karlmann the assistant plug-tester and Karlmann the sexually confused boy who serves as his mother's boy-toy wrangler. The whole cast seems like people who ought to be on stage more often, and worth looking for when they are, despite not being diminutive ingenues and dashing, lithe dancers... well actually I think a couple have put in some time as glam rock magic faeries in scandalous tights in the other show as well. And against the three hour tours of Gem of the Ocean and Midsummer, The Ugly One's 55 minute run time made for a nice antipasto of culture.