Tough Day At The Races

Hey people. So remember that race I went to last Sun? Here's a Video I made of it. The song is by Brad Sucks, "Look and feel years younger."

It's pretty chronological footage. It was such a hard slog for those guys. They apparently have the same weird thing I do where they semi-enjoy that feeling that you're about to die of a heart attack. Look for a pirate flag near the end if you really want to see someone coming into the finish line on heart alone-- It's my pal Rich, who hadn't eaten enough before the race and had run completely out of gas.



They're having another race Sun that I'll probably miss. I'm driving 1400 miles with Dan to buy a 10 year old used car. Don't ask. Hopefully it will wind-up being just what he wants-- a cheap, no frills, all-wheel-drive car to drive to work and back.

Remember-- next week "Gettin' it on Feb" starts-- oh screw it. I like Effin' Feb better. Actually, I like the more profane version of that better, but by next week I might be in a better mood. So we'll just have to see what I call it--- but whatever--- Prepare yourself for some bangin' tunes. Literally.

Just a ps-- This trip is a friggin NIGHTMARE so far, but more on that later... assuming I make it back north of the Mason-Dixon line at some point.

Get your doll on

Hey people. Couple of doll things for you today. First up is THIS LINK (sorry, pic didn't want to cooperate). It takes you to this woman's site who makes babies out of marzipan that are completely amazing. They look totally real. Not sure how she does it-- or more bizarrely why, but they are worth a look for sure. (Thanks Judy- who sent me the info.)

Next up is a video of a local punk band, "Babes in Toyland." Their wiki says their last activity as a band was a reunion tour & album in 2001, but they were kind of a big indie deal in the 90's. This vid features creepy dolls behaving badly so i knew you'd dig it. The song, "He's my thing" is kind of a preview of Feb. Kind of. Mostly it just goes with my current mood. More after the vid-- (Thanks Maery, for reminding me about this song.)

Babes in Toyland |MTV Music

In other SueNews:

I'm not into Valentine's day, but for some reason have gotten it into my head Feb should be "Gettin' It On Feb" here on the blog (because "effin' Feb" is just a little too coarse.) So all month I'll be featuring music to get busy by, along with other stuff. If anyone has any questions or wants to be set up or anything, I'll see what I can do. I'm quite the lay-relationship therapist. ;)

Writing is going good. The latest novel, "Threat Level Amber" is on track, for now.

Art is going awesome. I was wielding mondo mojo the last week or so making a little heron for a client's birthday and it came out swee--eet. You can check that out on the art blog later today.

Been kind of a tin foil beanie week around here. "I am the greatest man that ever lived..." "I suck and suck and suck and suck and suck." Probably not a bad thing I'm leaving for a few days to go pick up a car Dan bought in Fla. Poor Dan will be trapped in a car for hours and hours with head case me though. Send him good vibes. I should probably make him his own beanie.

My dumb tibia is being an ass again. I went running one day and now it hurts to walk. I'm super bummed. I'm going to go back to the doctor and try to get some better imaging done. Last time I had it checked YoungDoctorHandsome just pressed his thumbs up and down it torturing me and said, "We should have put the rod in," and turned me loose, saying, "It might always hurt." Not effing good enough. I'm pissed about this in case you can't tell.

Fri a Vid will post from the mountain bike race I went to last Sun. More Brad Sucks, who is awesome, so check it out.

Keep voting for the team name from the last post-- Team RAWR is in the lead so far.

That's it. Later peeps. Stay cool, and weird.

Hillside Hijinx, and-- help me and Pam pick our team name

Hey people. They were at it again yesterday-- the nutballs at the mountain bike trail (Hillside Park in ER) had another race. Last time it was below zero. Yesterday was nicer as far as extremities not solidifying and falling off, but the warmer temps softened-up the trail. Riders reported it was like riding in 10 to 12 inches of mashed potatoes.

Hard slogging to be sure. They came prepared, and a little snow and ice is not going to stop these guys (and two girls), but, conditions being what they were, only people with specialized large wheel bikes called pugs could race. Everyone who showed up with a normal mountain bike was out of luck. One guy made it one lap on a regular bike out of sheer craziness & stubbornness & apparently legs of iron, but the race was a lap and a half so he only got the bragging rights for his effort.

Even the pug riders-- generally the most elite/serious of the racers-- were practically passing out at the finish line. Well, not all of them. A few managed to bust out a wheelie, but they were certainly less frisky than they usually are after a race. It spanked them pretty hard yesterday. I'm always amazed at what they're able to do. Incredible. Legs + heart + a little craziness = mtb racer.

I just went to hang out and take video (I'll post that when I finish it, later in the week (?) ). I'll take about any excuse to tromp around in the woods, and like the vibe of the mtb crowd. Since I'm not good enough to really race (or even ride in the winter yet), it's fun to watch them. And, turns out, I like making videos. So I hung out with scratched racer Samantha and Kristin (Mrs. CoolTrailBossRich) and invented peep brule. (I don't know how to make that little accent deal over the "e". Peep "broolay")

The peeps weren't really in favor of this idea.

Unfortunately, some peeps were harmed in the making of this treat.

People scoffed. But they were an intoxicating combination of revolting and delicious. I think they'd have been even better if they weren't 2 to 3 years old and hard as peep rocks.

In other SueNews:

Remember when me and TPam rode the Urban Assault Ride last year? Our team name, you may recall, was "Finger Twist Of Doom", named after my trademark menacing pointy gesture.

Well, saddle up. We're doing it again. We have to sign up by Jan 31 to get an entry fee discount and need a team name again. Here are the finalists. We're letting you guys vote, so tell us your favorite, or if you have any other really good suggestions. We need to pick by Thurs a.m., because I'm leaving town for a few days.

Here's the list (in no particular order):

Pedal Pushers
Famous & Adjacent
Playing to win
Nacho Mama
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Team RAWR (random, awesome, wicked rowdy)
2 fools, 2 bikes
Off The Edge
Trophy Wives
Dorkalicious
As Yet Unsigned

Devil cuts loose...

Hey people. Today's pick for Fav Music Friday is totally unexpected. I was reminded of this song last night when I met with a bunch of people from my last major employer. We all worked for a small chain of furniture stores where there was specific approved music that could be played. Occasionally an employee's personal music would make it into the mix. This was one of those songs, and it was so out of place, when it came on it would almost be like someone just shot off a cannon in the store.

By my last year at this place I was so thoroughly burned-out, I absolutely HATED it. When this song would play it would be one of the few flickers of life in my day. I'd be super pumped someone was actually allowed to scream at the top of their lungs and get away with it. Check out Bjork--



It was really fun seeing these guys last night. It turned out to be only a small group, and I knew everyone except one gal, who seemed really fun. (She said she remembered me, had started about two weeks before I left. Our only exchange apparently involved me telling her "I fucking hate this place." Nice huh? Not very awesome of me.)

I haven't worked there for about 15 years. Funny how memory works. I was there for 10 years (gulp), and most of that time was spent being super into it. But after I *won at managing* and decided that wasn't the field I wanted to be in, I did spend one or two of the longest years of my life waiting for my profit sharing to vest so I could quit and not walk away from big dough.

The people there last night never even knew awesome me, only sick of the place, hating her job me. They all seem like really cool funny people, but I never even really bothered to get to know them because I was so mentally out the door. They were all really nice and acted glad to see me anyway.

The person I was especially happy to see, was an old, really good friend-- the guy who invited me to this shin-dig. We actually were friends in high school, and have somehow managed to keep cropping up in each other's lives. He still looks great and handsome and happy, and is living in the same cool old south Minneapolis home with his partner- another former co-worker.

It was fun seeing all those guys, and I'm glad everyone seemed to have happy lives now, including me. :) Maybe now I'll quit having those nightmares about this place, and those dreams where I'm beating the crap out of my old boss. Closure anyone?

Weird, but cool-- and just plain weird.

Hey people. This first Weird Wed item falls into the amazing category, more than the usual run of the mill "weird" zone. A friend sent it to me, and with how helpless and kind of hopeless I've been feeling this week, it kind of came along at a good time. Check it out:

A palindrome reads the same backwards as forward. This video reads the exact opposite backwards as forward. Not only does it read the opposite, the meaning is the exact opposite. This is only a 1 minute, 44 second video and it is brilliant. Make sure you read as well as listen forward and backward. This is a video that was submitted in a contest by a 20-year old. The contest was titled "u @ 50" by AARP. This video won second place. When they showed it, everyone in the room was awe-struck and broke into spontaneous applause. So simple and yet so brilliant. Take a minute and watch it.

Maybe there is hope yet huh? This resonates more with how I usually feel about things. I think I'm just having an off week.

Something is going on tomorrow that is bound to be pretty darn weird. Some of you who only know the present day me might be surprised to learn back in my regular job days I actually took "my career" very seriously. I didn't do art, had set that aside as something I was good at but was useless, and only wrote procedural or policy type stuff. I had, like, a whole staff of people etc. At one point I had 18 employees (it was a small company, not, you know, 3M or anything).

Okay-- yeah, that was never really my style. But I was intent on being "the best," and eventually became known as someone who could fix problems. I was given the most problematic locations, and employees, at one time assigned to reprogram a demoted manager. I was all about operations (policy), and gross profit margins, and motivation.

Totally weird to me now.

Anyway, I'm supposed to get together with a bunch of ex-employees of this company tomorrow night. I have no idea if anyone there will have been from any of my staffs, or if I'll even remember them. But it will be pretty freaking weird getting tossed back into that world for a night. The blue hair is bound to freak some of them out.

Glad I can just go back to my new life afterwards.

I so could care less "who they are wearing".

Hey people. This post is going to be "one of those" because I'm feeling a bunch of stuff this morning that needs to come out. I'm pretty scattered. Bear with me. Sometimes you just have to roll with it.

First of all, I didn't want to write about Haiti, but then again, can't stop thinking about it. Seeing all that suffering is horrible, and I feel so much empathy for the doctors who rushed down there, and are now drowning in a seemingly limitless ocean of injured and dead, without the proper supplies or enough personnel to help. What a nightmare.

When I see the footage of the fallen buildings, I can't imagine how they'll ever get the rubble cleared away, much less rebuild. What no one is talking about-- yet-- is that if there was some kind of magic time machine to put everything back the way it was before the quake, Haiti would still be an awful, poverty stricken, corrupt, shit hole. It's so depressing-- the thought that the whole world is down there desperately trying to help, when the best case scenario is to get it back to being super shitty.

Sorry to be such a drag, but that's how I'm feeling about it this morning. The colonialism/slavery that so many societies were born of has left scars I'm not sure can ever be healed. It all just seems so broken.

Deep breath.

Shake it off.

On a more positive note, I saw the coolest documentary this weekend on PBS. Check out the trailer first, then I'll tell you what I liked so much about it.



"Should I stay or should I go now" "It's always please, please, please. You're happy when I'm on my knees." OMG-- that song used to be my total anthem. (one of them anyway) (loved screaming along)

Old people scare the crap out of some of us don't they? Actually- specifically-- mortality does. And old people remind us of our own.

If you've always liked rock/punk/alt, I think you'll find the way these people-- many of whom are facing the end of their lives-- interpret these songs-- which are completely foreign to them-- extremely moving. If you are not a rock person, I think you'll be surprised at the emotional power these songs contain, when you hear them filtered though this very different perspective.

The thing that really struck me about the old people in this film, was how even though they are physically breaking down, they remain open to new things-- music in this case, and recognize leaving their comfort zone, while difficult, is extremely stimulating. They are trying to stay plugged in to the world in whatever way they are able-- right up to the end. Track it down if you can. You won't be disappointed.

It's scary to think about aging, and losing physical prowess, but reassuring to see that even when/if that happens, there is still adventure and brand new things you can expose yourself to, to feel like you're plugged in. I think it's something you have to consciously pursue though.

I had more for today but this is already long and kind of heavy, so that's it. Have a good Mon. Think about staying open and maybe getting out of your box. Tell me what you think about all this.

I am the greatest man that ever lived. Yeah, I said it.

Hey people. Today's Fav Music Friday pick is one I've been saving since I first found it back the the warm months. Some of you know I like me some Weezer once in a while. Their song, "I am the greatest man that ever lived" never fails to lift my mood. The unabashed, tongue-in-cheek swagger of it makes me laugh the same way the book title, "A heartbreaking work of staggering genius" does (and if you can picture a woman in her forties stomping around her welding shop singing along, that is pretty funny too.)

Enjoy the amazing, gravity defying skiing in the vid. More on that after.



I love watching footage of people doing things like this. For one thing, they have to be a little crazy, but it's way more than that. I see the same essential thing when I watch really talented boarders, skaters, riders, and surfers--

They have internalized the physics of their bodies falling through space. They get how they are weighted, and have an internal clock ticking off their hang time. In many cases they understand this intellectually-- they have to, to some extent, to be able to self-correct etc, but I suspect that knowing, pales in comparison to the inarticulate certainty inside them. They go by feel I think.

A couple other things- They've shed their fear. I'm sure it's still there to some extent, but they're so focused on chasing the high of when it feels totally perfect- that overrides it. The joy/energy buzz is stronger than their fear.

Also, they look where they're going or where they want to go. Look at some of the footage again. Their heads turn very decidedly in the direction they want their bodies to go.

Warren Miller (entertainment) shot this footage. He's a ski film legend who spent his whole life skiing and surfing, and making one feature length ski film a year since 1950. He's been indie the entire time. Now he's in his eighties and isn't really involved in doing the films anymore, but his company, now run by his son, goes on, documenting amazing skiers and boarders.

All this-- following something you love doing, sharing it with the world, feeling yourself falling through space and time, trying to let your joy override your fear, trusting your instincts, and looking where you want to go, all sounds like really good advice on how to live your life to me.