Show Me The Way

Tao.

In Taoism, one of the great religions of ancient China, "the Tao" translates into "the way," or "the path." The Tao Te Ching is its most important text, a simple yet profound book of wisdom.

Over the years, people have applied the Tao to other areas, in books such as the popular The Tao of Pooh (as in, "Winnie the..."; didn't you know that Pooh was a closet Taoist?) and The Tao of Writing, aimed at tapping one's creativity.

For the purposes of this blog entry, however, Tao refers to a hip, happening nightclub in Las Vegas. Forgive me for being so shallow.

On my recent trip to Sin City, members of the group I was with discussed spending an evening at a club, perhaps reserving a table and getting European bottle service, which is a fancy way of saying you're gonna pay through the nose if you want the privilege of "owning" one of their tables for several hours during the night and partying like a rock star.

I pushed for Tao, quite honestly because of its name, and the fact that I'd read the club had such lavish interior touches as a 20-foot Buddha, and also hundreds of mini Buddhas lit by candles surrounding one of the club's three bars.

I'd also read that among the hip and trendy clubs in Vegas, Tao was considered by many to be the hippest and trendiest. If I was going to party out of my league anyway, I may as well party all the way out of it, right? Right.

Members of the L.A. Lakers hold events there, rappers are known to drop in and hang out, celebrity A-listers show up and mingle, or retire to private VIP skyboxes. Paris Hilton spends time there, dancing sans underpants.

Anyway...by the time our group made its final decision on Saturday night, there were eight of us, and we were headed to Tao. Three-bottle minimum for a group that size, and I doubt I'll ever pay that much for two bottles of vodka and a bottle of Captain Morgan again. (until, you know, the next time I go back.)

At the entrance to the club, there were more than a dozen hosts and security people and ushers and...you name it, they were stationed there. We were herded into an elevator that took us up one floor, and when the doors opened, the first thing we saw was the bar with the 300 little Buddhas. I returned to that spot more than a handful of times throughout the night, just to stare.

The club was fairly empty when we got in, because we were advised to arrive early, or there was no guarantee that our table could be held. (someone with a handful of Benjamins could have come in, and our names would have mysteriously disappeared off of the guest list.) But within an hour, the other tables were filling up, as were the aisles and bars and every other available space. During its peak time, about midnight to 3 am, the place was jam-packed, and the bass-heavy, high-energy music was thumpin'. I was on an adrenaline high the entire time I was there.

There are two main rooms in the club, and I spent my time traveling between the two, going to the one in which our table was located to fill my drink, and then maneuvering back into the main room with the dance floor and an outdoor terrace with a view of The Strip.

The smallish dance floor could not have had any more people on it than it did. You didn't exactly have to be "dancing" when you were out there, you just had to bob up and down a little bit, and you looked as hip as everybody else. Seriously...sardine companies should contact Tao to get tips on how to more effectively pack their tins.

In the elevator on our way up at the beginning of the evening, the attendant told us to make sure and catch the show at 3 a.m. Someone asked, "what kind of show is it?" and he replied, "just catch the show."

I was in the main room at 3 a.m. to catch the show, and I still don't know what I saw. On one of the platforms off to the side of the dance floor was a guy dressed in a full-length Native American headdress, waving a five-foot scepter along with the music, and next to him was a stuffed animal of some sort...a lion perhaps? Don't know. Those two bounced along to the music, revving up the crowd, along with several gorgeous Tao dancers, of course. And then...shaved ice started falling from above the dance floor. So it was essentially snowing on the crowd.

No wonder the elevator guy couldn't tell us more about it. He didn't have a clue, either.

Here's where my story gets good...

During the snow and the headdress guy and the stuffed mascot guy, a girl standing next to me on the dance floor turned to me and yelled in my ear, "Do you have any idea what this means??" Possibly the most profound question of the night. I yelled back, "I have no idea! I've never been here before." (didn't want her to mistake me for an A-lister, ya know.)

I got a grin out of her, and she grabbed my hand and led me a little farther out on the dance floor. I wasn't complaining. So we're doing the dancing thing for a couple songs, bobbing up and down among the crowd, enjoying the, umm...atmosphere. I think (soon you'll find me questioning my thought process) that she's digging me, and I'm digging her. After about 10 minutes or so, she leans in and yells to me, "Are you from Vegas?"

And I say, "No." And before I have a chance to lean in and continue, "I'm from Wisco.....," she lets go of my hand, turns away from me...and a quick move here and a shimmy there, and she's four or five people away from me. A few seconds later, she's gone.

Apparently...........the correct answer to her question was, "Yes!" (I swear, next time I'm out in Milwaukee or Madison or anywhere for that matter, if someone asks me where I'm from, I'm gonna say Vegas. I learned my lesson, boy.)

So not only did I get to party at Tao. I also got rejected at Tao. Score!!

I was a bit confused, but unscathed. My goal was to stay until closing, and a buddy and I did just that. On many of the Web sites I've seen, they're supposed to stay open until 5:30 on Saturdays. But they closed down the room with our table at 4, and then closed the main room at 4:30.

As everyone was clearing out and it was easier to hold an actual conversation, my buddy and I stopped to talk to a security guy, and asked him if we could sneak upstairs for a minute or two and check out the VIP boxes. He said no, in a very friendly manner. I asked him if that was where Paris spent her time when she was at the club, and he informed us that, no, she liked to get her VIP table right near the dance floor, and every time she got up to dance, the DJ would announce her as "Princess Paris." Awwww. He also told us that she was there the night before we were there. Don't know if that's true or not, but who am I to say she wasn't? When we asked him if any big-name celebs were there during our Saturday night, he mentioned something that he thought one of the Wayans brothers had made an appearance.

So, not the cheapest night I've ever spent partying, but would I do it again? In a heartbeat. I would have stayed until sunrise if they'd have let me.

A little time spent in the casino at the Venetian before we left and a stop at the lounge in the middle of Mandalay Bay when we got back, and I didn't get to sleep until after 7 am the way it was. Only to be awakened two hours later, to get packed up and pointed toward the airport to catch a flight.

Can't wait to do it all again. Whenever that may be.
This time I'll remember........I'm from Vegas.

"The Tao is so vast

that when you use it,

something is always left."

—Tao Te Ching

Time To Hang The Sign

This past week went zooming by so quickly, I don't think I even heard the, "Whooshhh!" Did anybody else?

In the interest of avoiding the embarrassment of posting back-to-back Sunday Squibs with nothing in between but background, I figured I would use this space to post the following lame—but completely acceptable from my perspective—explanation for the dead calm around Ton-Fifty-ONE as of late.

The last several days at work were some of my busiest and most brain-frazzling of my year, as they are every year. We put together a 60-page commemorative program for a local sports hall of fame banquet each spring, and with all the award winners and bios and enshrinees and advertisers and etc., it's like one big puzzle, with pieces sporadically walking in the door over a period of a couple months.

And I shouldn't really toot my own horn, but what the hell...it's my blog, right? Here it comes: Guess who's in charge of puzzle piece organization and page layout and book design and overall "gotta make it look somewhat professionally done"ness? (Toooot!!)

This week, all those puzzle pieces finally came together into one pretty good-looking book. Everything that needs a spot has one, and there are once again 60 pages in the book (for printing and binding purposes on 11x17 paper, your page total has to be a mutiple of four. And if it's not, then you need to imaginatively "create" extra pages, or scrunch two down into one, or whatever.)

So while the banquet isn't until next week, the book is officially out of my hands, and metric tons of stress have been unloaded off of my shoulders. And it feels soooo good. And I'm tired.

I've got to rejuvenate quickly, however, because in a few short days I leave for a four-day weekend in Vegas. (and ask me how many times I'm going to be thinking about my blog...or my job, for that matter...while I'm out there. go ahead, ask me. that's right...zero. which is coincidentally the exact same number of poker tournaments I'm going to win, slot machines that are going to spit more than a handful of coins at me, and "dates" I'm going to acquire on a rent-me-by-the-hour basis.) (that...was one long long parenthetical aside.)

It's been quiet for a week, and it'll be quiet for one more. And for that, I apologize. I'll be back, though...perhaps with a dozen blog posts filled with tales from Sin City, because ya know...the whole, "What Happens In Vegas, Stays In Vegas," slogan might make for good commercial marketing. But what happens in Vegas almost has to make for good grist for the blogger mill, as well, don't you think?

For now, I've got shit to do, and not a lot of time in which to do it. And I've got a couple columns to churn out, too. And my brain is still a little more than slightly frazzled. I need to recharge. So I'm...

"In Vegas, I got into a long argument

with the man at the roulette wheel

over what I considered to be

an odd number."

—Steven Wright

Hey, Buddy...Got A Light?

So now smoking not only causes cancer...it might also cause the next movie you see to be rated R.

Anti-smoking groups are pushing the Motion Picture Association of America for all movies that feature smoking to be slapped with an R rating.

I'm all for trying to keep today's young people away from taking up the nasty habit, and steps like raising the cigarette tax are fine and swell with me. But to treat smoking in the movies the same way you treat blood and gore and f-bombs and bare breasteses?

That just made me stare at my screen with a rather puzzled expression.

Next up...R ratings to all movies that feature inattentive driving, or skipping school.

"We know [smoking tobacco] is not

good for kids, but a lot of other things

aren't good. Drinking's not good.

Some would say milk's not good."

—Bob Dole

A Creatively Worded Compliment

I...hate...creative people.

By "creative people," I mean those people who have cooler blogs than mine (note: everybody's blog is cooler than mine), or who are better writers than I am, or who are more tech geeky than I'll ever be, or who can take a blank piece of paper and a No. 2 pencil and create more than stick figures, or who can make a musical instrument spring to life, or who see things through a camera's lens in a way I never could.

And by "hate"...I, of course, mean "admire more than all the words in the dictionary can say and want so desperately to be like."

I'm in the process of updating my sidebar, if you haven't glanced in that direction...adding some more blogs that I visit regularly or on occasion, or some that have made a good enough first impression on me to warrant a link in the hope that I'll return to visit again. That list will be ever-growing and changing, as will the other categories of hobbies or topics of interest or related miscellany.

It never fails to amaze me the things I find when I go off on a random link-clicking romp through the internets, jumping from one blog to the next, looking for something to catch my eye and hold me there for more than a quick scan of the first few posts.

I find laugh-out-loud funny, utterly flawless writing. And I find people who obviously know what the acronym HTML stands for (Howard Taft Made Lasagna. right?), because their sites are crisp and clean and all neat and tidy 'n stuff.

And I come back to this little corner I call my own, and tell myself I better learn a few more five-syllable words. And then I try to bribe my tech geek buddies into giving me free pointers on how to be a killer code jockey. (see? I can't even make up cool nicknames like that on my own. I stole that from an e-mail I got a year or so ago.)

This little rant was born a couple weeks ago, but was reaffirmed last night as I was trying to place the golf photos in my previous post, along with captions, and make everything look all copacetic in its end result. Blogger wasn't being very cooperative, and was mocking me by proving that it'll do anything it damn well pleases with the hard return, no matter how carefully you insert them. It's not a difficult concept, is it? Hit the "Enter" key on your keyboard, and a space should appear. Or not. Or...sometimes two spaces appear.

After more attempts than I'd care to admit, and many f-bombs dropped, I finally got something resembling a visually acceptable post. And then I went and had a nervous breakdown, clutching an HTML 4 manual in my carpal-tunneled hands.

But I digress.

There are wheelbarrows of creative talent all over this big wide InterWeb. And as I discover more and more, I expect my sidebar to continue to stretch vertically.

Some are writers of the highest caliber, who don't even write for a living. Some take breathtakingly gorgeous photographs. Some discuss ideas that make you stop and think, and then think some more. Some are outrageously funny.

And some...are all of the above, rolled together into one big creative über-stud.

Those are the people I really hate.

And I couldn't be more grateful that they're there to help carry me through my day.

"Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity."

—Edwin H. Land

"A hunch is creativity

trying to tell you something."

—Frank Capra

It Looks Like A Mirac...It's In The Hole!

It's Masters week.

I came home from work yesterday and today and flipped over to the USA Network's coverage before I did anything else...before I took off my shoes, even before I checked my e-mail! This is serious stuff.

Yes, I'm talking about golf. The Masters is as important to me as the Super Bowl. More important than March Madness, way more important than the World Series, far surpassing the NBA Finals. Golf ranks a close second on my list of favorite spectator sports, behind only football.

When I come home from work during the first two days of a major golf tournament, I get a little twitchy while I wait to see where Phil Mickelson is on the leaderboard...or if he's even on it! This year...he's a few shots further back than I'd like him to be, but at least he's around for the weekend. He's seven shots behind the leaders, so there's hope, but somethin' really cool's gotta happen for him to get into contention.

Of golf's four majors, I love The Masters most. The history, the reverence with which the announcers use every word they speak, the immaculately manicured landscapes, the crystal white sand in the bunkers, the way almost everything on the grounds has a name: Hogan Bridge, Butler Cabin, Amen Corner, Rae's Creek, Sarazen Bridge, Magnolia Lane, Nelson Bridge, the Several Landmarks Eventually To Be Named After Tiger. (Woods' Woods, perhaps?)

As cliché as it sounds, every inch of Augusta National Golf Club is as close to hallowed ground as it gets. Someday, I'd like to say I've been lucky enough to visit and walk the galleries, and see the great tradition that is The Masters.

If given the opportunity to play the course someday (don't worry...it'll never happen), I don't know if I could accept. I'd be too afraid of bruising it, or leaving it permanently scarred with my golf *ahem* style. *ahem* While the pros have a fade and a draw and a punch and a bump-and-run, I've got.........a duff. And a hack. And a "kindly deposit your putter in the drink after rolling that three-footer two feet past" putting stroke.

— • — • —

Time to go off on a tangent. I know this started out as a post about The Masters, but now we're moving on to the PGA Championship, because I've got photos!

In August 2004, the biggest names in golf descended upon tiny Haven, Wisconsin, (or Kohler if you want to give ultra-cool guy and big-wig owner Herb Kohler some free pub) to play one of the four biggies at Whistling Straits. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, I bought a week pass to go see the superheroes of golf teeing it up just a hop, skip and a half-hour drive away from my own backyard.

Monday through Wednesday were practice rounds, where autograph hounds could hound all they wanted, and amateur photogs could click their shutters. I snapped more than 330 shots in those three days with the hopes that I'd get one or two worth saving.

And then Thursday through Sunday, things got a lot more serious. No cameras, no yelling, "you da maaan!" until after the golfers had hit the ball...they were playing for real, and keeping score and everything! Electric stuff. (Yes, I just used the word "electric" to describe a golf tournament. Shut up.)

I logged more miles and walked more hills during that week than I thought I would, and it was so worth it. Can't wait to do it all again. (see next paragraph.)

Wanna know how well our fair state did in hosting such a monumental event? Well, the U.S. Senior Open is playing here in July, and the PGA Championship is coming back in 2010 and 2015. And pending the availability of enough hotel rooms, the Ryder Cup matches are coming here in 2020.

Northeastern Wisconsin. Golf mecca of the world. (and I'm only half joking when I write that. there are some very impressive, very serious golf courses in this area. courses that would require me to surrender an entire week's paycheck just to step onto the first tee. that serious.)

The shot of the Augusta National Golf Club flag up above is obviously not one of my photos, because I haven't been there. Yet. But the pics below are from the 2004 PGA.

There's just something magical about a gorgeous golf course. I'd rather shoot a 53 on a course that looks like a work of art created with earth movers and bulldozers than have a chance to shoot a 43 on a wide open course that's got the occasional tree and shrubbery.

I watch golf. On TV. And in person.
And I love it.

(comments are enabled, as always, and I put on my extra-thick skin before I published this post. give me your best shot.)

"It took me seventeen years to get

three thousand hits in baseball.

I did it in one afternoon on the golf course."

—Hank Aaron

Fooled You.

I just won the lottery!

The Detroit Lions are 2:1 favorites to win the next Super Bowl!

Random House just signed me to a four-book, $20 million book deal!

Eva Longoria recently announced, "Screw Tony Parker, I want Gregg!"

— • — • —

Happy April Fool's Day, everyone. I really had you all going there, didn't I? One after the next after the next. Boyyy did I pull one over on you guys! (believed 'em all but the Lions one, you say? yeah. thought so.)

I figured a good squib for today would be a little history of April Fool's Day. Apparently, if you enjoy playing pranks each year on this day, you can thank the stubborn and gullible French, who just said, "non," in 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII ordered the adoption of the new Gregorian calendar, which moved the New Year's Day to January 1, instead of April 1 in the old Julian calendar.

Well...that's one theory, anyway. Another theory claims that the French were actually first to initiate the change in the calendar, but many failed to keep up with that change. (scroll down to the "calendar-change theory.") Regardless of which theory you believe, or how many others you find, it looks like the French deserve most of the blame. Or the praise.

There have also been many, many hilarious pranks pulled over the years...much more elaborate and original than the ones I've listed above, surprisingly enough...collected here in the Top 100, ranked according to notoriety, absurdity and number of people duped. I haven't gone throught the entire list of 100, but the first one is funny enough to make you want to keep reading.

Happy April First...fools.

"The first of April is the day
we remember what we are
the other 364 days of the year."
—Mark Twain

A Travel Tale of Two Cities

So dart league is over for the year, and once again I closed the season without that elusive "ton-fifty-ONE." No six-dart-out for me for the second straight year. Maybe I'm getting old. I used to notch one or two a season.

That's not really the direction in which this post is going, however. I got to thinking this week about my favorite dart story, seeing as how I didn't have to go out and actually shoot any, or drink any beer, or eat any chicken wings. (oh, how I miss dart night.)

My favorite dart story doesn't involve hat tricks or triples or perfect games. It involves two airports. Last April I went to New York City to visit a friend, and had strict orders to bring my darts, thinking that during our long weekend we might go in search of a Manhattan bar with a dartboard, on which I could show off my finely tuned skill in how not to shoot a perfect game.

We filled our weekend with many touristy-type activities and never gave darts a second thought. Turns out there's a lot of stuff to see in New York City. Who knew?

The tale begins at the security checkpoint at Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee. Not wanting to hassle with checking luggage, I had a backpack and a big duffel with me as carry-ons. My duffel went through the X-ray machine, and a woman watching the screen stopped it to take a closer look, and called another security person over. She pointed to something on the screen, and he nodded and whispered, and then he pointed to something also, and I heard the woman say, "Oh, those are just darts."

So apparently the darts were fine. I had forgotten that I had a scissors in my shaving kit, though, and that's what caught her eye. She told me she had to open it up and check it, and got nothing but cooperation from me. Once she found the scissors, she measured its length and found it to be within the acceptable limit. And she never even thought twice about checking out my darts. So my shaving kit, my scissors, my darts and I all got on the plane together.

Fast-forward through the four-day weekend, to me standing in the security line at LaGuardia Airport, shoes and belt off, pockets emptied, duffel going through the X-ray machine. The scissors had been deposited in the wastebasket of my hotel room before I checked out. I had no interest in giving the aiport people a reason to go shuffling through my duffel.

Deja vu: the woman standing at the X-ray screen stops it to stare a bit, and motions for another security person to come take a look. They both stare, confused, and the woman asks, "Sir, what are these?" She points at the screen as I see my darts among all the other non-terrorist items I have packed in my bag.

"They're darts," I answer.

"...what?" is her reply.

(I begin to think that we may not have found a bar with a dartboard if we had decided to go bar-hopping.)

"Darts," I repeat. "English darts."

"I'm going to have to take these out and see them," she says with authority.

"That's fine," I say, as I watch her take out the dart case and open it...upside down...sending a spare dart tip or two scattering to the floor.

After a bit of examination and discussion, and an inspection by their immediate supervisor as well, I'm told that I can't take my darts on the plane, and that I'll have to either put them in a bag to be checked, or else go to the post office located within the airport and mail them to myself.

I ask both the man and the woman if I can throw everything else away and keep only the barrels of the darts, because those are what cost the most money. The flights, shafts and tips can all be replaced for a total of five bucks. I was willing to disassemble them and leave the pointy tips behind.

Once again, they go over to discuss it with their supervisor, and come back with a big fat, "No." At this point I'm considering just surrendering the darts and getting on the plane, and buying a new set when I get home. But...see those little ridges and curves on the gray barrel of the dart in the photo above? Those are called knurls, and my fingers know those knurls sooooo well, and they like them very much. Those knurls and my fingers have combined to throw more triples and bullseyes than I can even begin to count, and being more than a few years old, I wasn't sure if I'd find a set exactly like that one.

So the kind people at the security station led me to the line to check my bag, and once my bag was safely on the right flight (I hoped), I went back through the security checkpoint...sans weapons.

It was shortly after I got through security for the second time that I realized I'd left my camera in one of the end pockets of my duffel when I checked it. Wonderful. Crush a $400 camera to save a $50 set of darts.

The story has a happy ending. Everything made it back to Wisconsin in one piece. Well...except the scissors. They got to live out their existence rusting away in a landfill somewhere in Midtown Manhattan. (note: there's no roooom for a landfill in Midtown Manhattan.)

Next time I travel with my darts, I'll separate them into as many pieces and corners of my luggage as I'm able.

And before I get any hate mail from people who read the wrong tone into the words of this post...I may poke a bit of fun, but I have absolutely no problem with the very minor inconvenience I was caused at the airport in NYC. The people there were just doing their jobs, and doing them well. The fun part of the story comes in comparing the "oh, those are just darts" attitude in Milwaukee to not even being able to bring the barrels back with me from LaGuardia without checking them.

Lesson learned.

"Our only security is our ability to change."

—John Lilly

I Give You...A Squib.

Welcome to the first installment of what I hope might become a regular feature on this blog.

I learned a new word the other day, which immediately triggered this idea. It even inspired me to create the corny little graphic you see above. If all goes according to plan, that should appear just about every Sunday, followed by something resembling a short blog entry. (it would look a little out of place on a Wednesday, for obvious reasons.)

The word came from one of those word-a-day, page-a-day calendars. And so did my first entry, incidentally, as a little trivial fact at the bottom of the page of another page-a-day calendar. I thought it was interesting enough to share.

— • — • —

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote nine books in 1939, and was paid a total of $33 for them.

I don't know if this is true or not, because I can't find anything online to support it. But...there it is, black on white, on March 25 of Uncle John's Unstoppable Bathroom Reader page-a-day calendar (which I don't keep in the bathroom, by the way. I keep it at work). Maybe he sold them, but they were never published, I dunno. He died in 1940.

Anyway...Thirty. Three. Dollars. For nine books! (and how do you write nine books in one year? that's a lot of words.) This is the author responsible for The Great Gatsby, one of the great classics of American literature. (Gatsby didn't become popular until after Fitzgerald's death, however.)

Stephen King probably tips more than thirty-three bucks when he goes to get his morning bagel and cappuccino!

Remind me again why I've got such a desire to be a writer?? Oh yeah...poverty, loneliness, despair, alcoholism, rejection, depression, insanity, a disorganized brain overcrowded with characters and ideas and plot points. Never mind. Those are all the reasons I need.

The average annual salary in Major League Baseball is about $2.9 million. That's...average! Why couldn't I have had a serviceable hanging curve ball instead of a knack for spotting a dangling participle?

"No man can be happy

without a friend,

nor be sure of his friend

till he is unhappy."

—F. Scott Fitzgerald

PVC: For Plumbing or Percussion?

Sunday night, as I rolled over many miles of pavement, I pondered what words to put here. Not “what words” in the writer’s block sense, where I’ve got nothing to say. But instead how I could describe what I saw last weekend.

I was in Chicago to attend a show by the cult phenomenon known as Blue Man Group. And when people ask me how I liked the show, I don’t know what I’ll say. Because, “...it was really, really good,” doesn’t even begin to shed the right light on it.

How do you explain a group that runs an LED single-line scroll bar on the sides of the stage before the show, announcing that there will be no intermission, so to avoid inconveniencing other audience members, it would be best to make a trip to the “comfort stations” before the show begins?

What do you say about a group that also forces you to take a “no-photos pledge,” threatening the use of ejector-seat mechanisms in your chair should you break that pledge? (my camera was around my neck, but the lens cap never came off.)

How do you explain a show in which arm-length strands of white crepe paper are handed out to all audience members before the show without instructions, and 85 percent of the crowd instinctively wraps them around their heads as headbands. Makes for a pretty cool-looking group when the black lights are turned on.

How do you explain a trio of bald men dressed in loose-fitting black sweatshirts and sweatpants, their heads covered in blue latex paint...wide-eyed, silent yet expressive, quizzical...banging on PVC pipes and paint-splattering drums to create some of the most infectious rhythms around?

How do you explain an audience-participation skit in which a teenage boy is nabbed from the audience, dressed in white coveralls and a black snowmobile helmet, led backstage and strung up by his ankles, his front side slathered in blue paint with rollers and brushes, and then swung against an empty white canvas to make abstract body art?

How do you explain the Blue Men attempting to woo another audience member by impressing her with gifts such as romantic candlelight, fine art, flowers, Twinkies and...Jell-O. (Speaking of which, how do you explain a group that has on its staff an actual Jell-O consultant?)

And how do you explain getting a glimpse of the jealous side of the Blue Men, and their actions when they turn against each other in their fight for the young lady’s affections?

How do you explain a skit featuring almost exclusively the amplified crunching sounds of Cap’n Crunch cereal?

How do you explain a 40-tube pipe organ/xylophone-type thing named simply, “the PVC instrument,” which mysteriously changes from white to pink and orange and lime green and blue under the black lights, and when struck with foam rubber paddles can play tunes from the likes of Ozzy Ozbourne, Madonna and Lynrd Skynrd?

How do you explain a thundering bass from an instrument that is just as simply named, “the Big Drum”? It’s description in the CD liner notes reads: “...a really big drum that is hit with a really big mallet.” How big is the mallet, you ask? In response to the clichéd question, “Is it bigger than a bread box?”, the answer would be, “ohhhh yes it is!!”

How do you explain roll after roll and stream after stream of white crepe paper being unrolled and passed from the back row of the 650-person audience all the way up to the stage, row by row, while being bombarded with strobe lights and more booming bass and PVC rhythms?

How, I wondered, as I replayed the concert over and over in my mind. How do you explain all of this, and so...much...more?

You don’t.

You simply tell people to go buy a ticket, and prepare themselves for the oddest, most entertaining, most uniquely percussive assault on their senses they’ve ever received.

(Please share any and all accounts of firsthand sightings of the Blue Men in the comments section. I'm anxious to hear about what other people have seen.)

Random final thought: Do the members of Blue Man Group have Blue Man Groupies?

[By the way, two of the photos in this entry were taken by me. And two...were not. I'll let you decide which are which.]

“Blueness doth express trueness.”
—Ben Johnson

A Grammar Lesson With Dan Patrick and Me.

The other day, I was listening to The Dan Patrick Show on ESPN Radio, as I am wont to do on a Wednesday afternoon drive to get our paper printed. Best sports talk show on the airwaves (with Colin Cowherd running a close second). A-list guests, great back-and-forth exchanges, informed opinions. A very, very comfortable listen.

Patrick's former Sportscenter co-anchor, Keith Olbermann, who moved on to MSNBC several years ago after a battle of egos with ESPN, is now joining him for an hour each day, and Patrick has taken to calling that hour, "The Big Show With Dan and Keith."

On Wednesday, Patrick commented on something during the first hour about a guest that was appearing, and he said, "That's all coming up on The Big Show with Keith and me."

Ten or fifteen minutes later, he read an e-mail from someone who wrote in to chastise him for using bad grammar on the air, saying, "C'mon, Dan...it's Keith and I." Patrick half-heartedly apologized for upsetting English teachers everywhere, and went on about his business.

Meanwhile, I sat and stared at the radio (shoulda been staring at the road instead, seeing as how I was, um, driving, I know. But this was a grammar issue. Serious business!), wondering if Patrick or anyone on his staff would catch the fact that the e-mailer who took the time to correct Mr. Smooooth Sportscaster was actually wrong!

Dan Patrick was correct all along, when he said, "...coming up with Keith and me." You know how to test this? Remove "Keith and" from that sentence to simplify it, and see which one sounds correct. That's the one to use.

For example:

Correct: "Barry Bonds spent an hour making excuses for his extraordinarily large cap and shoe size while talking with Keith and me, denying any steroid use."

Correct (simplified): "Barry Bonds let it slip while talking with me off the air that he loooves the juice!"

Incorrect: "Brett Favre told John Clayton, Chris Mortensen, Keith Olbermann and I that he might play for another seven to ten years."

Incorrect (simplified): "Brett Favre also told I that he hopes Randy Moss will lead them to three more Super Bowls before they both retire on top."

See how that works, Mr. "I Before Me" E-Mailer Dude? The following examples also hold true:

Correct: "Keith and I often argue over who the best radio show host is during The Big Show hour."

Correct (simplified): "I know what the answer is, because the show's named after me, and I've got the best hair."

Incorrect: "The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, the Oakland Raiderettes, the Seattle Sea Gals and me took a week-long bus tour of several NFL stadiums."

Incorrect (simplified): "Me didn't care where we were going, me didn't want that week to end!"

I just sent an e-mail to Dan Patrick, correcting the grade-school grammarian who wrote in to correct him. I doubt I'll get a reply, because Dan's got better things to do with his time than drag out an "I vs. Me" battle over two or three days. But it made me feel better.

Sad, isn't it? On the day of the year when I should be listening attentively for insider tips on which sleeper teams to send deep in my NCAA bracket, I spend my time yelling at the radio over a grammar issue.

Me think me have I priorities a bit bass-ackwards.

"I never made a mistake in grammar

but one in my life and

as soon as I done it I seen it."

—Carl Sandburg

Rhymes with "Rogue"

So my buddy Adam turns to me last Friday night, and says in my ear over the blare of the music, “I remember when bands used to play good music...(long dramatic pause inserted here)...like this.”

We were in a small, intimate concert venue in Milwaukee called Shank Hall that had a capacity of about 300 but was barely half full, being treated to some good ol’ southern rock by The Bottle Rockets, a group well past their prime that I knew and had actually purchased one of their CDs in the mid-90s.

Adam hadn't heard of them before and didn't know what to expect. I'd listened to their disc, The Brooklyn Side, plenty of times and hoped that they still had it in 'em to sound the way they did a decade and a half ago. And they did.

Three guitars, one drummer. Rock. And. Roll. Hard-driven rhythms and smart lyrics. They didn’t do anything flashy up on the tiny stage, and their drummer looked more apt to be a middle school science teacher than the pulse of a rock band (bottom left in the photo), but he could keep a beat, and the other guys in the band knew their way around their six-strings and mics, too.

They were playing for the love of being musicians, and, I suspect, because they had bills to pay. The tour bus parked outside was their only mode of transportation. There was no limousine ready to whisk them away to a private jet after the show.

The lead singer served as his own roadie, plugging in cords, testing foot pedals and bringing out his own guitars.

And I bet the last time they played a 10,000-seat arena was right around the same time I bought that CD. And the arena just might have been half empty.

But you can’t deny an hour and a half of good music when you hear it. That’s what we heard, and I was more than a little thrilled to be able to add them to my list of concert “have-seens”.

In between songs, they’d hawk their CDs and T-shirts and direct members of the audience over to the merchandise table “so we can keep playing small shows like this and keep our crowd sizes down, and don’t have to go back to playing big stadiums.”

Uh-huh. Right. I heard the sarcasm dripping off the mic as he said that. More like, “Please buy our stuff because there are only 200 people here tonight, and sales of that merch helps us afford to keep on rockin’.” I bought a live disc.

That concluded the first half of the night. What was to come was the real reason Adam wanted to attend, and I'd listened to this new guy's CD a time or two, as well, and was interested to see him live.

If The Bottle Rockets show was a glimpse of a hard-rockin’ band on the downside of its career, then the headliner was a complete one-eighty, a singer/songwriter trying to establish himself and catch a lucky break on his way to fame and fortune.

And from what we heard out of him and his band, he’ll get that break sooner or later, and quite a few more people will have heard of Will Hoge (rhymes with “rogue”). My goal going in was to find out how he pronounced his last name, whether it was Will "Hogue" or Will "Hodge" or...whatever. So after his opening song when he stepped up to the mic and said, "Good evening, everyone, my name is Will "Hogue,"...I turned to Adam and said, "Well, that's good enough for me. I'm outta here." But of course...I stayed. And was handsomely rewarded with one of the greatest shows I've seen in quite some time. And I've seen my share.

Adam was more familiar with this guy than I was, finding his music online and reading a few reviews that said he puts on a pretty good live show. The phrase “pretty good” does not do justice to what we saw and heard. “Blown away” might be more accurate, or possibly “jaw-dropped awe.”

He had kind of an Edwin McCain sound and style to him, but perhaps even better.

Anybody in that room that night who wasn’t a fan when they walked in…had to be a fan when they walked out. Hoge and his bandmates gave it their all, and then about 20 percent more. Rock-and-rollers doing what they so apparently love to do. Rockin’. And rollin’.

Midway through the show, Adam went over and bought Hoge's new disc, and then after it was over and the lights were turned up, Will came over to the merchandise table to pose for pictures with his groupies and sign autographs. We hung around the bar area until the line of google-eyed girls dwindled to nearly nothing, and then got to shake hands with the future rock superstar and got an autograph for Adam's CD.

Earlier (much earlier) in the evening, Adam mentioned that if he was able to get an autograph, he had a profound thought about life that he wanted Will to write when he signed his name. But as we were chatting with him for a while, it became clear to Will that he knew what to write, and the CD came back: "Adam is NOT drunk!" followed by a squiggle/scribble thingie that was his autograph, I suppose.

Very astute observer, that Will Hoge. I might have to take a bit of the blame for that one, though, because I was probably the pace-setter early in the evening.

After Will went back to schmoozing with some of his other fans, we were graced with the presence of Erica, the band's promotional spokesperson/publicist/merchandise overseer/all-around hottie. While Adam pulled out the plastic to buy a couple more Hoge discs, she giggled at our levels of inebriation, regaled us with a few tales of life on the road with seven guys, and informed us that the very next night they were performing again in Chicago, a mere hour(ish) drive away.

While we strongly considered going the two-shows-in-two-nights route, in the end it didn't happen. But if you ever have the chance, I urge to you run…not walk…to see a live Will Hoge show. Simply one of the best sixteen-dollar adrenaline rushes you'll ever find.

Bottle Rockets.
Will Hoge.
Shank Hall.
Yeah, I can say it was a pretty good Friday night.

"Rock and roll: Music for
the neck downwards."
—Keith Richards

I Would Like To Thank The Academy

In the interest of not having the motivation to string several coherent paragraphs together that convey one common theme or idea or life lesson (because really, isn't this the first place you turn when looking for life lessons? thought so.), I give you bits and bytes of randomness from last night's Oscars:

• I realize that Jack Nicholson was in "The Departed," which won Best Picture, but doesn't it seem like even during a year in which he doesn't make a movie, he'd still get a reserved seat in the front row, center? He's like a fixture there. And what was up with him making Diane Keaton read all the nominees for the award they presented together? Was his vision a bit blurred, perhaps? Hmm.

• Joan Rivers had a Red Carpet Pre-Oscar special on the TV Guide channel, or whatever it's called, which I unfortunately caught a few minutes of as I was channel surfing. Will Smith was very gracious while being interviewed by her. (He gets extra-credit Oscar points for that.) If Joan has one more facelift, her ears are gonna touch. Someone should really tell her that her 15 Minutes were up twenty years ago.

• Ellen DeGeneres...rocks.

• Will Ferrell and Jack Black were hilarious in their song about why comedians like them are never noticed for an Oscar, and John C. Reilly (who was in "Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny" with Black, and "Talladega Nights" with Ferrell) joining in to tell them to broaden their acting horizons was a classic touch. Reilly was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Oscar for his supporting role in "Chicago" in 2002.

• Al Gore looked about as comfortable as Al Gore can look as he schmoozed with the Hollywood A-Listers and shared in the Best Documentary Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth."

• Speaking of which...the highlight of the night for me (I even gave it an audible "Yesss!" and a fist pump if I remember correctly) was when Melissa Etheridge won the Best Original Song Oscar for "I Want To Wake Up," which appeared in "An Inconvenient Truth." Etheridge performed an abridged version of the song during the show, and really put herself into it. Up against three different songs from "Dreamgirls," and a Randy Neuman/James Taylor song from "Cars," I figured her to be the underdog. Good for her. Great song.

• I will not rent "The Departed." I will buy "The Departed." (Nicholson, DiCaprio, Wahlberg, Damon, Baldwin, Sheen. How can you go wrong?)

• While Forest Whitaker deserved to win for Best Actor, from nearly everything I've read and heard, I really wanted to hear Will Smith's acceptance speech. Will Smith has more style than any one human being should be allowed to have.

• Other acceptance speeches I was hoping to hear were from Mark Wahlberg, and Meryl Streep. No matter the awards show, no matter the award, when Meryl Streep gets up to speak in front of a group like that, you just know you're gonna laugh. She's subtle and smart and ridiculously witty.

• You know that Oscar has some pull when he can get Jerry Seinfeld out from whatever rock he's been hiding under to present the award for...(wait for it)...Best Documentary. (with a few minutes of stand-up thrown in as a bonus.)

• You know how else you know? Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg all appeared on stage together to present Martin Scorsese with his (finally!) Best Director Oscar.

• Serious "Hubba! Hubba!"s go out to Reese Witherspoon and Portia de Rossi, and to Emily Blunt, whom I didn't know before the show began, but I certainly noticed during the show. She's Brih-ish, and gorgeous, and was in "The Devil Wears Prada."

And the fact that I can rattle off this many random Oscar notes and know that the show was only fifteen minutes shy of FOUR freakin' hours long proves that I spent way too much time on my couch last night in front of the TV. I'm so ashamed.

"Whoever invented the meeting must have

had Hollywood in mind. I think they should consider

giving Oscars for meetings: Best Meeting of the Year;

Best Supporting Meeting; Best Meeting Based On

Material From Another Meeting."

—William Goldman

Whoa.

So.

Not so much with the posting lately, huh?

When this brand new year began, I set myself a couple goals for what I wanted to do with this blog (those goals including: a) write something in this blank white composition box; and, 2) hit that cute little orange "Publish" button from time to time), and as is illustrated by these 12 days of silence, I'm failing miserably in achieving those goals this month. However, in my defense, February has at least 2,880 (and sometimes as many as 4,320!) fewer minutes than all the other months on the calendar. So time was most definitely working against me.

I'm in a bit of a February funk, and every evening when I thought maybe I should sit down and put some words here, I pondered the self-indulgence of this blog project...always talking about "I" and "me" and "my" and more with the "I" again...and my mind always flashed to the catchy title of that fun grammar book, "Woe Is I."

Instead of focusing on the "I" part of that title—"I like chicken wings," or "I think Matt Millen's a big goofy clod," or "I wish coffee grounds would stay buried in the, um, ground"—I spent more time focusing on the "woe." I've had a February filled mostly with woe. And I figured no one really wanted to read about the woe, I didn't feel much like talking about the woe, so my solution was to stay away from the blog so as not to reveal the woe.

Don't get me wrong, I like talking about "I" and "me" as much as the next guy, and more of that is soon to follow, to be sure. And I've been doing a few things that needed doing in order to say "Whoa!" to the woe, and get back to rambling about odd topics and attempting to invent B-grade jokes to include in these paragraphs.

Went and spent some "just hangin' out" time with some of my very favorite people, and saw life from a 5-year-old's perspective. You know what's important to a 5-year-old? Duck Duck Goose, hopping around on one foot, and playing tic-tac-toe. (Or should I say...winning at tic-tac-toe. Because every time we played, she'd start, and I'd always block her first attempt at three X's in a row, and then she'd creatively add an extra row to the grid, or sneak an extra X in there somehow, or erase my O. Little did she know that I would have let her win a couple moves later. But the game never seemed to advance far enough for that.)

Anyway...today, I've just been out to run a few errands and gather some essential supplies—bread, water, duct tape, roll of 6 Mil plastic sheeting, beer, pork rinds, 55-gallon drum of cooking lard, red felt-tip markers, one gross of AA batteries, and the entire Britney Spears discography—and plan to spend the rest of my weekend hibernating and watching it snow.

For now, I'm going to go and organize my bookshelves. (shut up. it's therapeutic.)

"Whoa! to the woe."

Million-dollar mantra that will one day be the cornerstone of a motivational speaking empire rivaling that of Tony Robbins? Or ridiculous use of homonyms that'll never even sell a dozen bumper stickers?

(Don't answer that.)

"Talk happiness.

The world is sad enough

without your woe."

—Orison Swett Marden

Buffaloes Have Wings?

I'm getting pretty well-versed in the language of chicken-wing lingo. And I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I can throw around ordering terms like "wet" and "sloppy" almost like a pro; you can put the hottest flavors of sauces in front of me and I won't flinch or request an emergency beverage; and I've just recently done the research to discover what the mysterious third "W" stands for in the nickname "BW3" when referring to the popular national chain, "Buffalo Wild Wings."

This is a bit too much time spent on the subject of chicken wings, I fear. But yet...they're ohh, so gooood.


I first got the taste for chicken wings maybe a few years ago, but it wasn't until the last year or so that I think I've become addicted. If there's a place with wings within a few miles, I say let's go!

BW3's is gaining greater popularity, and is a cool place to go and hang for a sporting event, with their big-screen TVs and 23-oz. beers. And the cute waitresses aren't exactly a deterrent, either.

The hottest flavor at BW3's is called Blazin'. And they used to have a Blazin' Challenge, where if you could eat a dozen of those wings in six minutes or less, you'd get, like, a t-shirt. Alas, that challenge is no longer available at most locations. So I'm unfortunately sans free bright orange t-shirt.

A buddy and I were at the B-Dub's in Green Bay last fall, and I told him I thought I'd order a few Blazin' wings just for fun. And his response was, "You're not gonna eat thooose." Which, of course, made me more determined to order them. Our waitress, who was clearly being extra flirty to secure a bigger-than-20-percent tip at the end of our stay (which she got...I'm not saying, I'm just saying), saw that I was handling the Blazin's quite well, and told me about their "Atomic" wings, which weren't on the menu, but were even hotter than the Blazin'. I told her I'd keep those in mind for next time.

Next time came, and while the lovely Elizabeth (yes, I remember her name) wasn't working that night, I asked our waitress if they still had Atomic wings. And she told me they stopped serving those because of the lawsuits that had been threatened. Don't know if I believe that or not, but who am I to argue, right? I asked her, "If I promise not to sue, can I get some Atomic wings?" She, of course, said no. But she said she could serve me some "sloppy" Blazin's, which is just wing-speak for slathered around in the sauce a little bit more than normal.

Speaking of cute waitresses (scroll back up...it's up there somewhere), I haven't been to Hooter's since I've been on my wing kick, and I think I've only had one or two of their 911s in my life, many many years ago...so someday I'll have to stop in there and compare Blazin's to 911s. Yeah, that's why I'll go in there. For, umm...research.

Down here near the end of this post, though, I'll share a little secret with you all. If it's the best wings you're after...not big-screen TVs, not a distracting waitstaff, but just plain ol' great wings...then Legend Larry's is the place to go. With locations in Manitowoc and Sheboygan, their wings are almost twice the size of BW3's. They don't have as many different flavors as B-Dub's, but if you want hot hot hot sauce, order the D.O.A.s, and get 'em "wet." And have a beverage handy. Or a sno-cone. Or a piece of dry ice.

If you value your lips and your tongue and would like to keep them a while longer, try their medium or hot flavors, and you'll be hooked.

It's kind of a sad commentary that I can write this much about...chicken wings...isn't it?

"Living at risk is

jumping off the cliff

and building your wings

on the way down."

—Ray Bradbury

Sometimes New & Improved...Isn't

I've had about enough of "new and improved."

So many things tout themselves as "new and improved" these days, that the phrase has lost its meaning. Instead, some should be advertising, "slightly different, but not quite as good as it used to be." But marketing like that isn't gonna move a lot of product, now is it?

Case In Point No. 1:
Diet 7-Up has recently given a slight modification to its plastic bottle labels, adding the phrase, "Now more Lemon Lime taste!**" And if you twist the bottle around, eventually you'll find that the "**" in that phrase refers to a, "**New Formula." Pardon me, guys, but did you consult your regular drinkers before you went and messed with a good thing? Maybe some of us don't want more lemon-lime taste. Maybe some of us were perfectly happy with the way the taste was for years and years. If we wanted more lemon-lime taste, we'd drink Sprite!

I can see Sprite's new marketing campaign coming a mile away.
"Now tastes more like 7-Up than ever before!"

Needless to say, I'm not entirely pleased that some suit who probably sits around drinking Tangueray and tonics all day instead of the soft drink that made him filthy rich has decided to fuck with the formula of one of my regularly consumed carbonated beverages.

And it's not the first time. Oh, no. Which leads me to...

Case In Point No. 2:
Several months ago, Diet Mountain Dew started adding the slogan, "Tuned Up Taste," to its packaging. Not to beat a dead horse, but...the taste wasn't broken, so why fix it?? Why take a perfectly delicious citrusy beverage, and tweak it so that when people crack one open and take a drink, they stare at the can and say to themselves, "Hmph. What did they do to that?"

Please leave my soda pops alone!

(Neurotic Grammatical Aside: If Diet Dew is gonna advertise its new taste, shouldn't it be written as "Tuned-Up Taste"...with hyphen inserted as such? I mean, a "small, green ball" can be broken down into a "small ball" and a "green ball," so no hyphen is necessary. But it's not "tuned taste" and "up taste". It's "tuned-up" taste. Compound modifiers, people. Let's use them correctly, shall we? Alas, no hyphens on their packaging. Perhaps the people at Dew would like to hire me in a newly created position as Aluminum Can Proofreader.)

If you think this rant is limited to only carbonated beverages, read on.

Case In Point No. 3:
Several years ago, I wrote a column on mustard. (believe it...it can be done.) A well-known mustard brand that shall remain nameless so as to avoid scandalous defamation lawsuits (French's) advertised on its yellow mustard bottle a "new stay-clean cap!"

Hooray! said I. No more molten lava mustard ooze from the old-style, cone-shaped, twist-up caps (that's three compound modifiers in a row!! stop me before I modify again!) where after squeezing some onto your brat or burger and placing it back on the counter in the open position, whatever residual mustard that was left in the tip would creep out of the top and down the spout.

This new cap has a concave shape and looks better suited to teeing up a golf ball than it does to dispensing a condiment. And it might be a "no-more-ooze" cap, but it's far from "stay-clean."

Inside of that concavity are four flexible plastic flaps that direct a stream of mustard toward its intended target. However, after the first use, it forms that dry mustard "skin" thing that awaits you on its next use. So you're forced to break through that barrier with an extra-firm squeeze, which can throw off your mustard aim by several inches. So instead of Mustard On Rye Bread Awaiting Summer Sausage, you've got Mustard Art On Microwave Oven Door, or Mustard Stain On Shirt Previously Being Worn To Work.

I firmly believe that the people at French's are in cahoots with the people at Bounty paper towels. Because any day now I expect to see Bounty's new slogan:
"Now able to tackle more mustard spills than ever before!"

Look. All I'm saying is that if all you marketing and R&D geniuses out there want to spend your workdays "improving" something, concentrate on the things that need improvement. If you're stuck for ideas, I've got a few to get the ball rolling:

• The current White House administration. While a new one won't effectively take office until 2009, that gives you plenty of months to work on improving the one we have now. Please work quickly...for all our sakes.

• My salary. This one should be easy. Simply take any old spare zero you have laying around somewhere, and insert it immediately to the left of the decimal point. And take the rest of the day off for doing such a good job with that one.

• My golf swing. (FORE!!)

• The Detroit Lions. (uhh...this one may take some overtime.)

• My internet connection. The only reason I still have dial-up is to afford myself the opportunity to use the verb "slog" on a regular basis.

"Marketing is the science of

convincing us that what you get

is what you want."

—John Carter