That sound you hear is many Minnesotans putting a shotgun in their mouths

It is opening day of baseball season. Yesterday it was 55 degrees. I woke up this morning to see a god damn blizzard.

Why do I live here? It's like living on Hoth.

Update: Because of the snow, my satellite dish is covered. When I turn on my TV I get the all too familiar "Searching for Satellite Signal" message that I get on any day when the weather is not 81 Degrees, mostly sunny skys, with a 7 m.p.h. wind coming out of the southeast. So now I can't stay in and build a fire and watch the Twins opener. I can still build the fire, but only for survival purposes, not for adding to the atmosphere of watching television indoors.

An Announcement

I wasn't sure if this was the appropriate forum to let this be known, but I decided to post this anyway. I decided to post it because, darn it, I am feeling something I have never felt, and when you feel something like this you just want to run to the highest of mountain tops and scream to the world.

I have met someone new, someone pretty special. We have been talking about marriage, kids, a honeymoon in Sturgis, the whole nine yards. I don't mind telling you I am feeling downright GIDDY!

I want you all to meet her and I figured the best way to do that would be to show you this video I took of her when we went to a concert recently.

I don't recall which concert it was exactly, it may have been a production of Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" or it may have been the orchestra doing Mahler's fifth symphony. Or come to think of it, it may have been Dokken.

Fantasy Baseball 2008: The Quest for Mediocrity

Slate had a great article on Fantasy Baseball and I recently had the draft for my league. In year two of the Dome Dawgz Fantasy Baseball League, The St. Paul Surly Drunks are moving into their new $500 million dollar stadium on the riverfront (paid for entirely through a unanimously approved state-wide sales tax on non-alcoholic beer, marshmellow peeps, and Hannah Montana tickets). The team has also unveiled a new mascot for the 2008 season:



Meet "Shaky" Jake O'Donovan, former longshoreman, Korean war vet, frequent plasma donor, father of five or six, and mascot for YOUR St. Paul Surly Drunks. Shaky Jake resides at The Last Chance Saloon, located right around the corner from Surly Stadium. After extended negotiations he has reached an accord with management that he can stay at the bar as long as he "keeps quiet and quits bothering people." Please forward any correspondence (as well as any unwanted sandwiches and things of that nature) to him at that address.

We also have a new corporate sponsor.

This year the Surly drunks are a unique blend of inexperienced players and veterans well past their prime, guys that are injury prone, and guys that only get hurt some of the time, players who are underachievers and players who underachieve slightly less drastically.

This year the Surly Drunks roster looks something like this:

Extremely talented guys who signed big contracts and whose weight problems are likely going to go from "moderate" to "severe" (Miguel Cabrera)

Guys who theoretically have enough talent to carry a Fantasy Baseball team but because they are on my roster likely will not do so (Alexis Rios)

Guys coming off bad years: (Vernon Wells)

Still more fucking Blue Jays for some reason: (Roy Halladay)

The second best pitcher in baseball (Jake Peavy)

Guys that we will be able to trade to contending teams once our team is mathematically eliminated from the playoffs on May 15th (Jonathan Papelbon)

Guys that we targeted because there is every indication that they are headed for a breakout season and will put up BIG numbers.....or not. (Jeff Francoeur)

Guys we picked because all of the sudden we realized that we didn't have someone at that position and there was nobody else worthy of choosing (Kenji Johjima)

Young guys that are hurt (Scott Kazmir)

Old guys that are hurt (Carlos Delgado)

Guys that we are only vaguely familiar with who they are (Ian Kinsler)

So another season is upon us. The Surly Drunks, who have their spring training facility not in Florida or Arizona, but in Halifax, Nova Scotia (thus making it difficult to find opponents for exhibition games), break camp with the commonalities that all baseball teams have at this time of year: a profound sense of optimism and an alarming number of paternity suits levied against them.

Play ball!

Excuse me while I get the 400 lb. gorilla off of my back

My list of things that are giving me ulcers has decreased from 1,000,000 to 999,999.





I have found summer employment!



I found a clerkship at a small firm that practices in several areas in which I have an interest.



Now if I can just get the rest of my life in order.....

The Things She Carried

I hate to pile on. Oh, who am I kidding? I love pile on.

The story of HRC misspeaking (lying) about coming under sniper fire on arrival in Bosnia during a trip she took when she was First Lady. (It was a trip she took with singer Sheryl Crow and Comedian Sinbad.....Sinbad)

LGM has an excerpt (culled from the comments of Yglesias' blog) of the war diaries of Hilary Rodham Clinton.

Brilliant.

"As bullets clawed the air around us and screams echoed down the rubble-strewn tarmac, I felt almost peaceful.

It was a simple mission, they had told me – get in, shake a few hands and mouth a few platitudes, get out. Simple. Yeah.

Things had started going wrong while we were still in the air and only gotten worse from there. So here we were, pinned down, choking on the acrid tang of cordite and the heady scent of human blood. The mission was even simpler now: survive.

Whatever the cost, survive. There was a grunt and a clatter of equipment as Sinbad threw himself down at my side. Sweat glistened on his bare arms, and I could see tendons contracting and relaxing as he squeezed off bursts from his M14. The motion was hypnotic, like a snake about to strike. Perhaps, when all this was over-

No. Concentrate. Focus on the mission. Survive.

A shout from my left drew my head around. Sheryl Crow, guitar still strapped to her back, had taken cover behind a haphazard pile of decaying corpses. Her hair, once lustrous, now lank and greasy, was held back from her eyes by a dirty red headband. Her slim nostrils flared in the dirt-smeared oval of her face, seeking air free of the funeral taint shrouding the airfield. Still, I saw a fierce exultation in her expression that I knew mirrored my own.

Her lithe, nimble fingers stroked the top of an M67 frag grenade, strumming a chord of impending doom. With one quick, economical movement, she plucked the pin free and sent the deadly payload sailing toward the ridge concealing our enemies. My eyes traced the arc, willing it to fly true, to rain death on-

“There!” Sinbad shouted. “The convoy!”"

Numbers

The Baseball Analysts have the Vegas over/under line for team wins for each major league team with a commentary on each.

The Twins over/under is 74, which seems about right to me. My amateur analysis (guess) puts them at 76.

David Brooks

Though I don't think Brooks is the best person to play the role of democratic party strategist, his piece today is spot on.

High Fidelity

MinnPost has an interesting article (with accompanying video) on the resurgance of vinyl records among the "mp3 generation." (God, I hate that term)



I have just taken the jump into building a vinyl collection myself. I purchased an inexpensive turntable for my inexpensive stereo system awhile ago and since then I have been hitting the streets in earnest, hunting through the local record shops that remain in town. It's been fun.

My funds, shelf space, and musical tastes are quite limited. I don't have a strategy as far as what I am going to collect, though I am more interested in the music itself than whatever value the records do or do not have as collectibles.

Thus far I have picked up almost exclusively jazz records and I have limited those to "essential" recordings, Coltrane's "Blue Train" and "A Love Supreme," Sonny Rollins' "Saxophone Collosus," Cannonball Adderly's "Somethin Else," Lee Morgan's "The Sidewinder." Things like that.

I already have all of these on CD, now I have them on vinyl as well. Any recommendations on resources for the neophyte collector would be greatly appreciated.

What I have been thinking about lately

So lately I have been finding myself thinking alot about Laura Linney. Or, more to the point, I have been thinking about how much in love I am with Ms. Linney. It's not because she is beautiful. Though she is. It's not because she is immensily talented. Though she is.



There is just something about her personality, or to be fair since I have never met her it would be her persona, that is just completely beautiful and alluring.

Seeing her recently in "The Savages" and at the Oscars started this late Linney fascination for me and the flame has continued to burn as Ms. Linney has been playing Abigail Adams in the HBO miniseries John Adams. I haven't been able to see much of the show, but what I have seen has been very good. Paul Giamatti gives a great performance and the production values are top notch.

In a little bit that I saw, Ms. Linney's Abigail is on screen and she appears to have some sort of boils or something on her face. This makes sense, because 18th century medical care was slightly less refined as we are used to today. So it would make sense that all sorts of ailments would befall just about everybody. So we have Laura Linney with boils on her face. I get it. Bravo for having the courage to portray history with a sense of how things really were. A history with warts (or boils) and all.

But I am forced to confront my emotions honestly and I have come to the following statement of truth for me.

"Yeah, Abigail Adams, with the boils on her face, makes me hot."

It's my blog, I'll post what I want

Just because.

"With a perty girl dancin' to jugband music..."

Bracketology

Here are my Final Four

East: Tennessee
Midwest: Kansas
South: Texas
West: UCLA

Semis: UCLA over Texas
Kansas over Tennessee

Finals: UCLA over Kansas

What to watch for: (a) Michigan State upends a Memphis team that I just don't trust
(b) St. Joe's over Oklahoma
(c) I love The Drake
(d) Fear the Cheese: Wisconsin as a three seed is very dangerous as is WA State coached by former Badger Dick Bennett.
(e) The only thing interesting about a USC-Kansas State matchup will be to count the guys with clipboards and NBA team logos on their polo shirts as they watch Mayo and Beasley
(f)Purdue gets bounced first round
(g) Note to self: find out where in the hell Coppin State is located
(h) Somebody needs to tell Cal State Fullerton this is the basketball tournament, not the College World Series

Programming Note

The Bad Plus is performing on Conan tonight.




Have a good weekend!

Clinton Campaign

New Pornographers and University of Phoenix

I have never been one to get my undies in a bunch over the commercialization of music and I have never once used the term "sell out." But still, this is disappointing. One of my favorite bands is using one of their songs for an ad from the on-line degree mill the University of Phoenix.

That being said, the bit they used, the crescendo from "Bleeding Heart Show" is quite catchy and works will in the spot. At least enjoy the song.

HEY LA, HEY LA, HEY LA, HEY LAAAAAAAA

Quick Link

Gleeman has the roundup of the Twins top 40 prospects. With the exception of Deolis Guerra, who is still a long way off, I can't find one name on the list that gets me too excited. But
then again, this is an organization that has Delmon Young at the Major League level, so there is reason to like the Twins' future.

"...the life of kings"

It ended. The series finale of the greatest show in the history of television, "The Wire," aired last night.

I will need to wait for it to come out on DVD and I can do a couple of viewings before I can offer any astute commentary. By that time this will be ancient history and none of you will care what I have to say about the show.

"But Father Hennepin, we already don't care what you have to say."

Silence!

Let me throw you some links on some of the reactions. Peruse them as you wish.

Yglesias.

Slate.

Salon. (w/ and interview with David Simon)

Lawyer, Guns, and Money.

And for a humorous slant on what I may be doing, McSweeney's

Rule of Thumb

Here is a good rule of thumb we can pull from today's news.

If you are going to have your name associated with a prositution ring, it's good to have the words "high-priced" come before the words "prostitution ring." You want to appear to have refined taste.

At least you have that going for you, Eliot.

She may not be a "monster" but that doesn't mean she isn't really, really, scary

I admire the hell out of Samantha Power. Her book "A Problem from Hell" is required reading. I was extremely pleased that she had taken an advisory role in the Obama campaign.

Well, she is in some hot water over some comments she made about HRC. I don't have a comment, I'll leave it to the reader to determine the seriousness of the infraction.

Between The Bars (Elliott Smith cover) acoustic

Music break. One of my favorites, Emily Haines, covering another one of my favorite, the late Elliott Smith

This is good news

According to Pitchfork, Tom Waits, the namesake of this blog, is planning on a summer tour.

"No dates yet, but to be on the safe side, you probably want to start lining up outside your local ticket vendor now."

Done and done.

Book Blogging (Again)

So many people have recommended Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist" to me over the years. The most recent endorsement came from someone whose opinion I highly regard and who called it "life changing" a description oft repeated from those who enjoyed the book.

It's the simple story, more of a fable really, of a young Andalusian shepherd who goes off to Africa in search of a treasure. The conceit is that it is a story about following your dreams in spite of whatever obstacles that life throws in your way.



Blah. Blah. Blah. Whatever.

Maybe it is better when read in its original Portugese, or maybe one needs to be younger, or older, or less cynical, or a shepherd, or any number of things that I so clearly am not for this story to resonate.

This book did not change my life. Quite the opposite. Perhaps I need to be a touch more proactive but I could not help but notice that upon finishing this book my life was not changed in the least.

I still sit in my underwear, listening to old Lee Morgan records and yelling at the idiots on CNN.

Book Blogging

A friend of mine gave me a copy of David Rakoff's "Fraud" as kind of a thank you gift. It's a collection of disparate personal essays ranging from Rakoff's experience in places like a new age seminar lead by Steven Seagal, a trip to Tokyo, and taking a week long class on animal tracking and wilderness survival.



It was a great gift. Thanks, KJ.