March Madness Begins

Slow this video down & freeze frame it for real scientific explosive action! Fun for the whole family!

Kids love old Arnold lines! The pen is mightier than…no.
Sorry. Have a blast this weekend.

A Hard Day’s Knight for Batman

DJ Doodles. He stands up at the kid entertainment center and changes CDs as he sees fit, gauging the mood of his father and brother, setting the tone for the playdates. His identity is not known to most of the kids at the ravedates as he tends to wear a ski-mask or other costume disguise. Rumor has it he is not even 4 years old until tomorrow. DJ Doodles’ fave song of late has been A Hard Day’s Night. I am guessing he thinks it’s about a knight who had a long day fighting dragons. Both Pablo y Doodles like a lot of Beatles tunes, so together we made a compilation representing their favorites. It might surprise you, but here are the 30 songs that fit on our Boys Best Beatles disc.

A Hard Day’s Night
She Loves You
Penny Lane
Help!
Can’t Buy Me Love
Revolution
Paperback Writer
I Saw Her Standing There
I Am The Walrus
Taxman
With A Little Help From My Friends
I Want To Hold Your Hand
Ticket To Ride
Here Comes The Sun
All You Need Is Love
Twist and Shout
We Can Work It Out
And Your Bird Can Sing
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Day Tripper
Drive My Car
Good Day Sunshine
Glass Onion
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Yellow Submarine
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Her Majesty
Boys
The End

What about you and yours? What are your kids listening to these days?
You want to trade mixtapes or attend the next ravedate? The locations are usually only disclosed hours before they go down.

Cotton Candy, Apple Cider, or…?

Mini Rock Band

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.
- Victor Hugo

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.
- John Keats

Without music, life would be an error. The German imagines even God singing songs.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

If music be the food of love, play on.
- Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water-bath is to the body.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
- Aldous Huxley

Metric

Wow. Metric at First Ave. Maybe I should have posted more from them earlier so you would have gone to the show, but enough of you (R, Jesse, Xian, Rox, Amber, Abby, Erin) did anyway and were treated to, as Pablo might say, a titillating time. My fave concert of the year so far. This one was a blast. Going to be hard to top.

Emily Haines is practically aerobic during their whole set. She combines post punk lyrical couplets like “Buy this car to go to work. Go to work to pay for this car. (repeat)” with an surpassed strut and swagger.

“Sick Muse” and a few others like “Twilight Galaxy” and “Front Row” sounded better live than on the album, Fantasies (my second fave of the year so far).
The energetic bandmates fly through this souped-up take on an already great rocker, now made rocket.

Stadium Love – our whole family loves this one. Listen to the lyrics.
At First Ave they declared it their/our new anthem: Metric and fans. I’d been dying to hear it live and it was a fist-pumping-chant-along.

Next up…Phoenix (current fave record of the year) at Varsity on June 23.
This will give you an idea of how close I want to stand for this one. Like the old days. R reminded me of how we always used to have stand front and usually center. Now we’re usually content to be in back, elevated and near the bar. But if Napoleon Says…

Books & Bars: BONK 6.9

118 people were in attendance as Books & Bars covered Mary Roach’s Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex on 6.9. With twenty people over fire code capacity we had our largest crowd (sneaking in) according to the Bryant Lake-Bowl servers.

In discussing Bonk, I allowed (encouraged) double entendres and sexual innuendos but warned you could get a shouted “BONK!” from the audience if you used one in your comments. It was a lot of fun with a seemingly still taboo topic for some people. A majority of the conversation was devoted to masturbation, perhaps not surprisingly, in our group of mostly singles.

Overall we enjoyed Bonk, though we felt it a little unfocused and slight on some of its topics. It may be hard to believe but we were ready for a more in-depth and serious take on the subject matters of sexuality and science. We usually do only one non-fiction book a year in our club. Non-fiction serves as a jumping off point for discussions, which end up being less about the book/author and more about the topics presented. Not always a bad thing, in fact they’re usually heated and informative debates, but after an informal poll we’ll continue reading mainly fiction.

Take a few minutes to see the video for the funny payoffs toward the end.

Next month we discuss Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen.
Thanks for reading.

Jeff Kamin, moderator/director/writer
Booksandbars.com
Mustacherobots.wordpress.com

For B&B attendees only:
Vanoosh?

Knights of the Bright Side by We Became Actors

Indie-pop-rock-new-wavers (and friends), We Became Actors
wrote a rousing fire-up tune about Pablo and Doodles inspired by the Bright Side Knights post. (I’ve also written a children’s story and poem but am waiting to hear if it either is published before posting them here.)

Watch the video. It sounds like the greatest U2 song they never did.

What do you think Jesse is singing? He hasn’t provided me with lyrics yet as they’re probably still being tweaked. But the mood of the song comes across loud and clear. The highest praise I can give were the evident goosebumps on my arms when I saw them perform it. They’ve told me they may even want to include Pablo and Doodles in the video.

When Pablo, Doodles and I listen to music we often air band jam together (especially in the car). Pablo plays lead guitar, so he said he was Christian in this video. I’m on vocals, so I got (had?) to be Jesse. (Don’t let it get to your head, sir.) And Doodles is on drums, always.

We’re extremely flattered. Thanks to Jesse, Christian and Paula (bass) for a song that gave me a chill.

Check out We Became Actors at the Stone Arch Festival on June 21st. Their EP, This is Where We Stand, inspired by INXS, The Cure, U2, Bloc Party, Tegan and Sara, and Metric, will be available this summer. Buy it.

Weekend Highlight Reel

Dodgeball, firepits, neighbors, BBQs, Mill City Farmers Market, Gold Medal Park,
Kingfield Farmers Market, bike rides, family fun, and sun. Great weekend. How was yours?
Here’s a highlight reel.

PJ Day

“Don’t call it nursery school. That’s for babies” – Pablo

It was Pajama Day at Pablo’s pre-school which meant all the kids and teachers wore pajamas to/fro’ and during the day. I was the only parent who decided to also show up in pajamas (same as last year).

The teachers honored it by allowing me into the private sanctum for a photo shoot. Doodles also played along this time and a few parents said they wished they did. Maybe they will next year if they get another chance. Why wouldn’t you go out for half a day in jammies if you knew it would bolster school spirit? And make a little boy’s heartlight shine just that much brighter for a day.

Jefe: Who had the silliest jammies at school today?

Pablo: You, Dad.

I wasn’t fishing for that answer, really, but it warmed the cockles on this otherwise rough day. (Had a lot of video editing and uploading problems for Books & Bars.)

Mrs. Healy said I never disappoint and Mrs. Kuehn said I was “the best”.
Honestly, that was totally worth it. For all the times I feel like Bad Dad, a little of this goes a long way. I feel I just made the grade like my 5 year-old-peers.

See the frenetic (as per usual) exit from car/entrance race to pre-school:

Hear Doodles’ theme song:

High Wire Hilarity: The Roast

Books & Bars and Uptown Kickball friends gathered to roast Dan for his 25th birthday. If you were (un)fortunate and ballsy enough to be on the dais, you were a sitting duck, too. Most of the best barbs were unleashed on fellow roasters like Jim, Eli, Patty, Jefe, Keith, Mike, and even our hostess/emcee HB. Because let’s face it, Dan is still one of the nicest guys we know. He wasn’t the easiest target.

Some of Dan’s top rips: born and raised in Edina, the lost semester at ASU, stalking Jess, importing girlfriend HB, Moobs (man boobs), his extreme height, huge ego, hair, tight shirts, mom jeans, excessive hugging, and general douchebaggery. Ok, so there are some rich areas to pinpoint.

We were still running a big risk of offending friends. I was initially hesitant to participate even though I love watching Comedy Central Roasts and old classics with Don Rickles. But you have to embrace what you fear and take a chance. I’m glad I did. HB, our dais, guest of honor, and friends in attendance pulled off a feat of high wire comedic magic. As far as I know, no one has suffered from it, yet. Mama’s jaw hurt from laughing so hard. (and she loved Mike’s comment about her being hot). Everyone I talked to had a blast. We party a lot for any excuse in this group, but this was different. High wire hilarity. In fact there is talk of a Gemini BD group roast. I think we all know what to expect and will handle it even better next time. Such as being prepared in the A/V department and the tone of the event.

Unfortunately, the only video clips I have are the first portions of Eli’s and mine. (Other than the rest of our sets and the first half of Keith’s you’re not missing anything really funny anyway. Oh, Snap! Is the roast still going on?) Did anyone else capture other parts they can share?

I liked Eli’s set the best overall. And it was a revelation because as Keith said, “He hadn’t made me laugh once in the year and a half I’d known him!” Eli knew Dan always dreamed of having an action figure of himself so he had a friend craft a Dan doll that was actually partially made from a douche. Keith’s “Omega Dog” theme was memorable but he ended up roasting himself the most, albeit hilariously. Hopefully he’ll get some dates from it soon. Mike played funny drunken answering machine messages he had saved from Dan’s lost semester at ASU. And the evening was heartfelt, too, with a great quote from Mike about friends being God’s way of making it up to us for our families.

Would you participate in a roast? Have you been roasted? Would you let yourself? Anyone interested in doing more of these with our friends here? I think the next person turning 30 should get roasted. (The people turning 40 are already feeling too sensitive.)

1st half of Eli’s/followed by 1st half of Jefe’s – 8 min TRT.
Not suitable for work or kids.