doodledee

The rumored [Grateful] Dead reunion tour was announced last week and I'm not exactly jumping up and down. In case you missed the dates, here they are.

  April 12 Greensboro NC Greensboro Coliseum
  April 14 Washington DC Verizon Center
  April 15 Charlottesville VA John Paul Jones Arena
  April 17 Albany NY Times Union Center
  April 18 Worcester MA DCU Center
  April 19 Worcester MA DCU Center
  April 21 Buffalo NY HSBC Arena
  April 22 Wilkes-Barre PA Wachovia Arena @ Casey Plaza
  April 24 Uniondale NY Nassau Coliseum
  April 25 New York NY Madison Square Garden
  April 26 Hartford CT XL Center
  April 28 E. Rutherford NJ IZOD Center
  April 29 E. Rutherford NJ IZOD Center
  May 1 Philadelphia PA Wachovia Spectrum
  May 2 Philadelphia PA Wachovia Spectrum
  May 5 Chicago IL All State Arena
  May 7 Denver CO Pepsi Center
  May 9 Los Angeles CA The Forum
  May 10 Mountain View CA Shoreline Amphitheater

In a prior life I would have plotted them on a google map so you could see that all but like 5 of them are in the Northeast. (Thanks for the Midwest love!) Though I honestly have no idea if Philly counts as Northeast or what – I normally just go there for the ballet – but that's not the point, the point is it's a silly tour. April in Albany? I love Buffalo in the springtime? Really? Whatever, I'm not travelling to see that.

Also this: Phil is like 70 now. Seriously. Ok, 68? 69? It doesn't matter, he's basically 70. And he's on like his 4th liver. And at what point does it get to be a little weird? I mean sure, he's Phil. He stood in front of the Wall of Sound in 1974 and blew minds and dropped bombs so hard that it opened new fault lines along the San Andreas. But that was '74. To say nothing of '69. Or '72 or '73. Or '77 or '78. Or the '91 rebirth. I mean there's so much greatness for sure. But come on, aren't we a little embarrassed by now? Yes we are. I mean for real, read this blurb from the official announcement:

So gas up the Tourmobile, get out that really wild tie-dye--you know, the one with the red spiral melting into the purple and green that's in a heap of clothes in the back of your closet--and start getting into Show Shape!

Ugh. That's all I'm gonna say. Also: really? And maybe ugh again, just in case you missed it the first time.

And that doesn't even begin to deal with the setlist issue. Check out the list from the Obama rally "reunion" show last October. Uh huh. There's your Help -> Slip -> Franklins. And there's your St. Stephen – no wait, it's a Dark Star –> Stephen -> Unbroken -> Other One -> Stones -> Playin Reprise, of course – a run of songs that had it happened any time after 1975 would have instantly been listed on every Top 5 Shows Since The Hiatus. And by 'Top 5' I mean 'Top 1'. And now it's just some cliché setlist. Like, hey, we could all die tomorrow, may as well play the fantasy show every night, right? No wait, seriously, we could all die tomorrow. Omg Phil is like 70 now.

Assuming they have to do it – or just that they wanted to – I'd have preferred to see it as a stripped down classier type of deal. Just say we're old, we're not going to dig any t-shirts out of the back of any closets and gas up any tourmobiles. We're gonna play some theaters and stuff and we're gonna do it well. Sorta like that BCT benefit show in '94 only, yeah, with fewer technical issues. But really, you listen to a show like that today and you know what you realize you miss the most?

Jerry.

Obvs.

So anyway, I hope it's a good time. Some of my Deadhead buddies are talking about a meet-up at one of the shows. That could be fun. And just to be clear, if the Target Center was on the tour list, I'd be going, if for no other reason than I'd feel obligated. Funny how that works.

Here it is, the 92nd annual 'best of' list. Sorta late, but not crazy late. 2008 just wrapped, afterall. Drumrolls, go.

• Sausage of the Year - This is easy, it's Clancy's little breakfast chub things. Porky and sweet and delicious in most every way. I always overbuy on purpose, just so I have a few extras cooked off in the fridge should the mood strike me. Such as at breakfast time, maybe? With a lovely bowl of Grape Nuts and some coffee? Yes please.
• Album of the Year - Fleet Foxes you knew this was coming whatever. And yeah, whatever, I still say most of the backlash against Fleet Foxes sources from people wanting to use the word 'pastoral' to sound smart. Geniuses. I'm sure Neil Young is crying. But screw them, the album is great, and it plays well live, and come on, what's wrong with a little postoral? Nothing. Deal with it. Runner Up: Several runners up here, including the notably under-appreciated Cloud Cult joint from last spring/summer and - of course - Lucy and her Velvet Lapelles, who put out the record you wish your city would have and everyone gushed yet somehow it didn't get a lot of end-of-year love and that's just silly because yep, it's great.
• Water Cooler Moment of the Year - Gathering everyone around an LCD monitor in a cube in corporate America to watch a European video feed of the Olympics in China where a Jamaican sprinter ran a 200-meter race faster than any human ever had before. I stood up. It was fantastic.
• Strike of the Year – I know it started in late 2007, but the television writers guild strike was a real liberator for me. No offense, writers, I'm sure your webisodes are awesome or whatever and you totally deserve to get paid for them, but yeah, having no new tv for like 4 months pretty much broke the last lingering s of my habit. And that's probably somewhat of a bummer and somewhat not. Either way, even though my parents still think I watch 19 hours of tv a day, I'm more or less free from its grasp at this point. Except for the good stuff. Like 30 Rock, for example, even though it was awful last season because now it's kinda funny again and it's crazy popular and I just hope it doesn't slide back to being too random and lazy.
• Transportation of the Year - With all due respect to perennial favorite 'the scooter', 2008 was clearly meant for motorcycles. More specifically, 1981 Yamaha 650 Specials, with their pleasantly unrefined English tendencies, aging suspension, and thirst for oil, I've never had more fun on the parkways at sunset. Hooray for everything. Runner-up: the scooter. Duh.
• Local Bummer of the Year – The Timberwolves. They're awful and they've become irrelevant and it kind of bums me out because I used to really dig watching and/or listening to the games and maybe even going to a few. Now I'd have to wear a bag on my head. Though wait, that might be kinda fun. But whatever, we can rebuild a fallen interstate bridge, but we can't rebuild a basketball team. There's a whole post waiting to be written on what would have happened if McHale had been in charge of the 35W bridge reconstruction. He would have traded our best cement mixing prospect to Portland for $1MM and a pretty good cement mixing prospect that turned out to not be that good at mixing cement. HEY-O! Then later he would have fired the construction manager and taken over himself. HEY-O AGAIN! Also: ugly seaters for everyone! DID I SAY HEY-O?! HEY-O!
• Local Awesomeness of the Year – The Winter Kite Festival Thing at Lake Harriet. Smiling people flying kites on a frozen lake in the city that embraces the season like it's supposed to be embraced. Just really really neat. I think last year was maybe the first year it happened? Who knows, that's not the point, the point is that it was new to me and it's coming up again in a few weeks and you should totally go because it's mint. Then we can look forward to the loppet and the Valentine's Day 5k and the Winter Carnival and the rest of the hell-yeah-it's-winter fun stuff that goes on around here. Book it. Runner-up: LynLake construction finally ending. At least I think it's wrapped.
• Concert of the Year - Wilco at the Civic Center in Rochester. Back in my old neighborhood. Outrageous. The 'Via Chicago' easily ranks in the top whatever hall of fame concert moments of a lifetime. I'm still slackjaw speechless dumbfounded riveted to the floor frozen in place watching it all happen. I know you find that hard to believe, but it's true. I also really enjoyed the Old Crow Medicine Show at the Prairie Home meatloaf supper street dance thing . Not exactly the same, but a total hoot nonetheless. There were others, too. Lots of good stuff last year, actually. I should just have done a 'worst show of the year' or whatever. I think Moe did that. Or maybe biggest disappointment? I'll say Tapes 'n Tapes at First Ave was probably that. No offense!
• Download of the Year – In all seriousness, this category should be way more popular than it is. I mean everyone is out there listing their top10 albums of the year and stuff, right? Yawners! Where's the live download love? It's right here. All this stuff getting posted to torrent sites and stuff, coming out of the woodwork. I should do a follow-up entry with my top10 downloads. I'll make a note. In the meantime I'll just say that if you didn't download Ella Fitzgerald and the Jimmy Jones Trio – 1/25/67 when it softly circulated earlier this year, you really missed out. And that's to say nothing of all the other great jazz and the 2-day old live stuff you didn't get to see because it was in some other city and then there's the never ending flood of upgraded Dead shows that at this point you have to officially be a weirdo to get excited about. (Guilty!)
• Favorite Blog Trend of the Year - Sketching. And save the "welcome to 2004" jokes, this was totally the year of the sketch, you know I'm right, go back to your photoblog. It's all about urban sketching, random sketching, quick painting, etc. I loved it. I'm totally gonna start a sketchblog in 2009. It's gonna be sketchy. But not that way, the other way. No, not that way, the real sketchy way, like with pencils and drawings and stuff. We'll see how that goes. Nostradoodle predicts it goes: embarrassingly. But hey, who doesn't like mediocre sketches done by a corporate stooge? Aaaand scene.
• Drink of the Year – Homemade Irish Cream. I had this every night when we went to Vaughn's Irish Pub in Hartford while I was travelling for work. I haven't tried to make it. They wouldn't give me the recipe, either, so maybe that's part of why. But there are lots of recipes online, and they're all equally easy yet charmingly bad for you. But whatever, at Vaughn's you'd kick back, watch some tube, break down your day, have a meatloaf sandwich and a pint and then wrap it with an irish cream. Perfect. Then the next morning you go face down in a 6'er of blueberry cakes from Dunkin' and the locals wonder who the crazy-eyed consultant from Minnesota is and why they don't have Dunkin' where he's from. And he wonders the same thing. Soon enough, though, right? Right.

• I'll end on a looking forward note: Fancy Word I Won't Use Anymore In 2009 - Ecosystem. I used to really like it. I still do. It sounds so symbiotic and stuff. So yeah, I probably won't be totally able to drop it. But now everyone is all 'landscape' and stuff. And that seems old and less profound, but maybe that's what I am now, so hey, I'll conform.

So that's the list. I think I normally come up with a few more? Not sure. That can be a resolution for 2009, too. All part of my ecosystem.

Also: you'll note there aren't many (any?) links in here. Real bloggers use links. I just write lists. Sorry if you were looking for links. Most of this stuff is probably findable on Google. If there's something your dying for me to link up - like a cool sketch blog, maybe? - lemme know and I'll try and remember how to do HTML again.

2009 go go go!

Here's three good recent instudio stuff you should listen to in your copious free desk time on Friday. It's all downtempo and simple and it's perfect for a cold December Friday. So have at it. Unless you work for a giant corporation that blocks your internet, obviously. In which case: sucks to be you!

• Dan Wilson - Interview and 3 songs, including a cover of Dylan's "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" which isn't as good as I wanted it to be. But still, it's Dan Wilson and you have to listen because you live here.
• Blitzen Trapper - This is from an in-studio that happened the same night they played the Turf Club which happened to be the same night of Maren's wedding so I didn't go to the Turf Club I went to Maren's wedding instead. She had a DJ. I requested Michael Jackson. I danced. It was fun. But enough about that, let's talk about how great this version of 'Furr' is. And how the whole thing is so Dylan meets The Dead and it's so great and you should so totally listen to this one, too. But yeah, I'm still not sold on the loon.
• Calexico - It's exactly what you want from Calexico. Mellow voices and soft trumpets and guitars and basically just fantasticness in your headphones. It's so easy. It shouldn't be, but it totally is.

Have fun.

While clipping coupons over coffee, toast and kid babbling the other morning, I noticed a subtle shift in the marketing universe: a new emphasis on unit cost. I snapped this picture to prove it. Warm biscuits at home for less than $0.30! Freshly glazed perfect holiday ham for $4/person! Since when did they do the math for us? Isn't the whole foundation of rube consumer exploitation (rubesploitation?) built upon the theory that we don't – nay, can't - do division? I seriously thought it was. But now we're all counting pennies and they're gonna help. Supergreat.

In related news: $4/person for ham seems kinda steep, no?

Here's Lucy and her Velvet Lapelles on stage late Friday night at the Varsity over in Dinkytown. They came on after 3 or 4 "techno" type acts played. I put techno in quotes because I have no idea if it was really techno or what, but as someone who doesn't know anything about anything, it sorta seemed like they were. They had laptops and drum machines and stuff. And the headliner - who went on right before Lucy because of some scheduling issues - was wearing a vest made out of old cassettes. That's gotta be techno, right? Also: it was kinda fun. I don't need to track that stuff down every weekend or anything, but in the right circumstances I don't object too strongly. This would be one of those times.

Then Lucy and Team came out around 1. All cello and upright bass and accordion and drums and guitar and piano and stuff. "Thanks for staying awake," she says. "Wow those bands were great, huh? Like dance party 5000." And they open with Postcard and it goes from there. Fantastic. A bit unrefined - not overly so, really - but isn't that sort of adorable? It totally is. And maybe that comes around and maybe it doesn't. I'd bet it does. If they stick with it. Here's hoping they do. Nice.

Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles [myspace]

Saturday. Seriously, how great are these sunny early winter days? Super great. Twenty degrees and big blue sky and it's still totally winter, it's just not the cold inhospitable dark reality that is capital-W winter in late January. And look how we're all out enjoying it. We stomp around the yard. We futz. We fill birdfeeders. We brush off the car. We make note of all the stuff we didn't get done before the snow hit. Which is a pretty big list. Is that another pack of daffodils that I forgot to plant? Whoops. But who's counting. Let's shovel the walk and talk to the neighbors and dig out the sleds and go for a drag up and down the sidewalk.

And then you go for a run to the lake and the paths are snowy and just a bit slippery and it sort of feels like you're running on a beach. But yeah, the wind is blowing and the water is still open and if you let your mind space out you can sorta convince yourself that the cars slowly driving past almost sound like waves crashing on the shore. And look at that guy sitting on a bench reading a magazine like it's late summer. Warm jacket and hat and fingerless gloves and a thermos of coffee by his side. Damn straight. And the walkers with their little hiking pole things? Or the ones with the long down puffy trench coats? And everyone is smiling. Because winter is here. And hell yes we're outside.

See you there.

Saturday night was the annual "omg the holidays are here!" Leo Kottke concert down at the State Theater in Minneapolis. It used to be at the Ordway, but they moved it to Minneapolis in the last few years. I'm not sure why. Maybe he's not as big of a draw anymore? Who knows, he's still spellbindingly great. This year was no exception, despite the fact that he stuck to more or less the same songs as he always does. Though maybe that's what makes it a 'traidtion'? The grumpy stories, the amazing fretwork, the whole "I'm just gonna sit here and play this guitar and blow your mind" vibe? Yeah, it's great. Hope you made it down there.

But enough about Leo, let's talk about David Hidalgo and Louie Perez - of Los Lobos and stuff - who kicked off the show by playing a 50 or so minute set of absolute gems. They opened with 'Saint Behind The Glass', which included Hidalgo's kid (?) on bass and some other dude sitting and playing a box drum (!!). It was ridiculously great. Wow. Then they went on and had fun and played tunes and sang harmonies and joked around and it was very much right on. And lucky you, the whole set is already available to download. Go go go? Yep, you should.

Sorry no pics.

Leo Kottke [leokottke]
Bream's take [poplife] - tho he bailed before it was over to go see Shelby Lynne at the O’Shaughnessy. Sortajealous.