SECURITY GUARD: No ma’am. I don’t see “itinerant band of Norwegian lutefisk wranglers” anywhere on my Approved Visitors list.

SECURITY GUARD: Oh yes, ma’am. Very sure. I don’t see anything about a “lady bloggers night” [...]]]> A few nights ago at the entrance to the vast, deserted, crumbling blog that was once Norwegianity…

SECURITY GUARD: No ma’am. I don’t see “itinerant band of Norwegian lutefisk wranglers” anywhere on my Approved Visitors list.

SECURITY GUARD: Oh yes, ma’am. Very sure. I don’t see anything about a “lady bloggers night” either. Are you sure Mr. G gave you permission
to stay here?

SECURITY GUARD: I ask because unfortunately we’ve had to tighten up security quite a bit lately. There have been… incidents.

SECURITY GUARD: Yes. Incidents. Somebody’s gotten in several times and vandalized the property while Mr. G has been away.

SECURITY GUARD: Yes. For example, according to the latest damage estimate, several very valuable music files containing hundreds of hours of Lithuanian broken-beat Mantovani have been completely destroyed.

SECURITY GUARD: There’s also a large stain on the rug in the den. It looks like somebody spilled an entire bottle of Rhubarb wine in there.

SECURITY GUARD: As if that wasn’t bad enough, someone was apparently eating Cheetos in the library and didn’t wash their hands before rifling through the priceless goatse collection.

Security Guard: Yes. Mr. G is quite upset.

SECURITY GUARD: Certainly.

SECURITY GUARD: Yes, well. Look, I’m sorry but you’re all going to have to leave now.

 

Welcome back, stupid Wege.

~~~ 

UPDATE:  Well, that was certainly an ugly little fiasco. I should have just gone with my original idea; I went digging in my old back pages and found something suitable for the occasion:

  

 

Groucho Marx.

Irving Berlin.

In 1972 Groucho Marx was 82 years old, and bored. He had not yet begun to decline into illness and senility, which marked the last 5 years of his life until his death in 1977. He was still mentally sharp, and retained a [...]]]> Naah. Not what you might be thinking.

Groucho Marx.

Irving Berlin.

In 1972 Groucho Marx was 82 years old, and bored.
He had not yet begun to decline into illness and senility, which marked the last 5 years of his life until his death in 1977. He was still mentally sharp, and retained a wealth of memories spanning back to vaudeville at the turn of the century. So, in one of the ways he decided to occupy his time in addition to showing up frequently on Dick Cavett’s late night talk show, he made a series of appearances in a one-man show titled An Evening With Groucho. The format was simple: accompanied on the piano by Marvin Hamlisch, Groucho sat in a chair in the middle of the stage and told stories and sang songs for a couple of hours.

Fortunately for us, one of those shows was recorded live at Carnegie Hall and released as a double album by A&M Records.
I have that album. Hadn’t listened to it or even thought about it for years, until yesterday, when unbidden I suddenly remembered a song Groucho sang called Stay Down Where You Belong. It was written in 1914 by Irving Berlin, who apparently was later embarrassed by the song’s anti-war sentiment.
The song is sung by the Devil, lecturing his son who’s bored in Hell and wants to go up to Earth to have some fun:

The Devil said ‘Listen lad,
Listen to your dear old dad’.
‘You stay down here where you belong.
The folks above you, they don’t know right from wrong.

To please their kings they’ve all gone off to war,
But not a one of them knows what they’re fighting for.
Way up above they say, that I’m a devil and I’m bad,
But the kings up there are bigger devils than your dad.
They’re breaking the hearts of mothers,
They’re making butchers out of brothers.
You’ll find more hell up there,
Than there is down here below.

I thought for sure the album would be on CD by now and still be in print, but it turns out it’s not available in nearly any format, and my vinyl double album is considered rare and hard to find.

I found a free download of the whole thing here.

And If I ever figure out how Word Press lets me post mp3 files, I’ll put up a clip from it, but in the meantime enjoy the complete transcript of the performance.

Don’t mention the comet. I did once but I think I got away with it.

UPDATE: Behold version 2. (It’s gotta be an improvement. I did version 1 on my lunch hour in about 3 minutes, using nothing but MS Paint. [...]]]> Alarming developments, post-Bell announcement:

Don’t mention the comet. I did once but I think I got away with it.

UPDATE: Behold version 2. (It’s gotta be an improvement. I did version 1 on my lunch hour in about 3 minutes, using nothing but MS Paint. Yeesh.)

I took Friday off and spent the entire day wandering from one delight to another, and just really enjoying the absence of deadlines and quotas and goals and imperatives. Ahh. Peace –it’s wonderful.

First was a gabby long breakfast catching up with a dear old [...]]]> This was a fun weekend. Will wonders never cease?

I took Friday off and spent the entire day wandering from one delight to another, and just really enjoying the absence of deadlines and quotas and goals and imperatives. Ahh. Peace –it’s wonderful.

First was a gabby long breakfast catching up with a dear old friend ; then an hour spent nosing around in the reference stacks at the Chan library; then to the EP mall to catch a bargain matinee of The Devil Wears Prada

[Meryl Streep plays the hands-down most scarifying, scenery-shredding , monstrous boss in movie history; what they used to call a "Boss Lady" in movies from the 40s and 50s; a part usually played by Joan Crawford or Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck. *sigh* I could watch La Streep for days.]

What really made me bust out in guffaws, tho, was the trailer for Running With Scissors, coming out this fall, and starring imo two of the most criminally underrated actors of all time: Alec Baldwin and Annette Bening. I think I’ve definitely gotta see this one as soon as it comes out.

After the movie I realized that I had two coupons for stuff at my local B & N. One for a free drink from the cafe and the other for an additional 15 % off one item, so there went another hour…

Finally, the day was bookended with another long gabfest/dinner with dear friends.

[Not only dear but also tolerant. While they discuss substantive issues of the socio-economic-political world, they smile benignly and nod at me as I lamely prattle on about how cool those "picture tube" thingies are in Paintshop Pro and now if only I could figure out how to use them....

Now that's tolerance, for which I am very grateful.]

After dinner at Erté we walked across the street to talk a while longer at our usual Thursday evening DL destination, the 331 Club. When the Crazy Uke, one of our favorite denizens of the wingnut fever swamp and FOL [Friend Of Lileks] made his usual appearance as he does every evening, we were sitting outside exactly where we’d been the night before for Drinking Liberally. We tried to convince him that we’d never left. Heh.

Gotta get to work. More to come, including: the sophisticated European ambience of — Minnehaha Park?

UPDATE: I don’t remember what happened Saturday. Alas! Another day lost forever to the unforgiving void! Ehh, so what.

I do remember that we spent Sunday afternoon at Minnehaha Park. It was Norway Day, altho I don’t know how anybody could have easily figured that out, considering the anemic little stage program and the paltry crop of merchants selling  swords and hauberks and shields and leather leggings and woodcarvings of tomtes riding on pigs and denim vests decorated with rosemauling and Lutefisk Chef aprons — you know, the usual.

We tried the Sea Salt Eatery, and agreed it was several jumps above the kind of place you’d expect to find operating in a Minneapolis Park Board refectory. The cajun shrimp po’boy sammiches SYTU* and I had were really good, but SETU’s** squid steak sandwich was even better. Definitely worth a return visit.

Maybe it was because of the World Cup final game showing on the mini-jumbotron TV in the refectory to a big crowd of mostly Italy fans, or maybe it was because of the corgis and daschhunds sitting calmly at their people’s feet under the bistro tables outside the Sea Salt — a common sight both inside and outside many European cafes, but pretty rarely seen in Minneapolis.

I don’t know why it was, but yesterday Minnehaha Park had a distinctive Modern Euro atmosphere that I’ve never noticed before. Gone, or mostly gone, was the geriatric white belt and golf pants set that has populated Norway Days and Svenskarnas Dags since the dawn of time. The doddering unfashionable oldsters have been replaced by large numbers of buff, tanned, over-60s bicyclists wearing Pearl Izumi and Under Armour. The place looked like the Senior Circuit of the Tour de France. When did that happen?

There was nary a feed cap nor a JC Penney polyester pantset to be seen in the entire park. Just crowds of elegant grandparents in batik strolling with their adorable grandbabies in organic cotton by Hanna Anderson.

Uhh, gee — can anyone tell I just saw a movie about the fashion industry?

*Surly Younger Teenaged Unit

**Surly Elder Teenaged Unit

Word to the wise, tho: you don’t want to get on Markos’ bad side. That rabid lamb venom f#cking hurts! [...]]]>
Well, that’s it. The jig is up. The secret’s out. It’s all true, my droogies. Every word of it .

Word to the wise, tho: you don’t want to get on Markos’ bad side. That rabid lamb venom f#cking hurts!

(Seen in the comments at YouTube): “Whoever thought up this campaign deserves a promotion, right now.”

Too right. Hilarious.. ~~~~~~

On the subject of viral advertising, a re-viewing of an old classic is definitely called for:

Nutrigrain…I Feel Great!

~~~~~~

Hmmm… gee, it’s hard to say which aspect of this [...]]]> Greatest. Coffee. Commercial. Ever!

(Seen in the comments at YouTube): “Whoever thought up this campaign deserves a promotion, right now.”

Too right. Hilarious..

~~~~~~

On the subject of viral advertising, a re-viewing of an old classic is definitely called for:

Nutrigrain…I Feel Great!

~~~~~~

Hmmm… gee, it’s hard to say which aspect of this video people will find most offensive: is it the mild blasphemy, or is it the disco music? Whatever; it made me laugh, anyway:

I Will Survive (Jesus version)

I liked the entries so much I ended up putting as many as I could on the cover. The end result, even I have to admit, looks pretty good!

Even better, I think Congresswoman Cynthia [...]]]> Thanks to everyone who left a comment suggesting a title for a new magazine hot off the Tild Newsstand.

I liked the entries so much I ended up putting as many as I could on the cover. The end result, even I have to admit, looks pretty good!

Even better, I think Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney would be proud.

Thanks to winners Gene, Tiny Montgomery, Charlie Quimby, and Jerry Mathers as the Wege.