Author Archives: The Night Writer

Tonight on ESPN

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I have this picture in my mind of Barry Bonds frantically peddling a racing bike through the French Alps as he’s chased by pit bulls, all while an NBA referee uses his cellphone to check the scores before deciding whether to call traveling or not.

There are so many crash and burns going on in sports right now you’d have to be a NASCAR fan to keep track of them all. This year in the Tour De France the yellow jersey isn’t given to the leader, but to the guy who collects the urine samples.

At least there the teams have the decency to shove their disgraced cheaters over a cliff. In San Francisco Giants fans embrace Barry Bonds — or they would if they could get their arms around head, that is. I’ve had my differences with MLB Commissioner Selig over the years (though I thought his son-in-law was a real nice guy when he was with the Twins and I worked for the Sports Commission), but I give Bud credit for not wanting to be anywhere near the stadium when Bonds breaks the record.

The only reason I would go would be for the chance to catch the record-breaking ball — so I could call a press conference the next day, use a big ol’ hypodermic needle to inject the ball with gasoline and then set it on fire. (Sure, I’d miss out on a lot of money, but on the plus side I’d never have to buy myself a drink for the rest of my life). I know, you can’t “prove” that Bonds is a juicer (though his post-career endorsement options may be limited to Hamilton Beach and the Waring Company) but who are you going to believe — Barry, or your own lying eyes?

I remember 30-some years ago when Hank Aaron was closing in on Babe Ruth’s record and how much hate mail he received from folks who didn’t like the idea of a black man breaking the mark. Those fears seem even more ridiculous today when a cheater is about to do it.

As for Michael Vick, I have no doubt the Feds put a lot of heat on his lower-level associates in order to bag him and I think he’s (justifiably) in serious trouble and in for serious jail-time…unless he now becomes the key to blowing the whole dog-fighting sub-culture in professional sports wide open by naming names. Somehow I just don’t think he’s the only young athlete with a lot of time and money on his hands and a taste for violence and gambling. I remember an article in Sports Illustrated a couple of years ago that focused on how a number of NFL players loved raising pitbulls. It was all positive on how much they loved these dogs, but now you’ve got to wonder.

If there’s anyone who’s got to be sweating about tips of icebergs, however, it’s Daniel Stern and the NBA. In a game who’s rules have always seemed rather whimsically officiated, the reactions I’ve seen to the fact that a referee will be indicted for fixing games has been less, “You stink!” and more, “Ya think?” No worries, though, Mr. Stern; Pro Wrestling is still packing them in and they’ve got the trifecta: steroids, mad dogs and pre-determined outcomes!

Cap’n Not-Very-Crunch

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The Mall Diva and I went grocery shopping together Monday evening for our sustenance. Usually the Reverend Mother does this after first drawing up a very meticulous list; she doesn’t deviate from the list and prides herslef on getting in and out of Cub in less than an hour. The Mall Diva also created a list, which we followed, but I’m more of an impulse buyer. This explains the chocolate-flavored Cap’n Crunch cereal we (I) bought.

I’ll try just about anything once if it’s chocolate-flavored, so I poured my first portion of this breakfast confection this morning. It wasn’t bad, but as usual I can’t eat Cap’n Crunch without remembering a certain incident that happened 20 years ago. As it turns out, this incident wasn’t “about” 20 years ago — it was 20 years ago today.

I was working for an advertising and promotion agency in St. Louis Park and on that Thursday evening we managed to finish our Ad League co-ed softball game under ominous skies ahead of The Storm. I even got home before the highway flooded so I wasn’t greatly inconvenienced and none of my property was damaged. Things were a bit different at work, however.

The good news: we’d just recently landed a large account to promote Quaker Oats cereal in the institutional market. The bad news: the “product” didn’t come in cute boxes like in the grocery store, but in large plastic bags almost as big as me. Many bags of “product” had been delivered for a catalog photo-shoot and were waiting patiently in our cool, dry storeroom. A cool, dry storeroom that happened to be at the lowest corner of our building and was no longer very cool and definitely not very dry.

Picture, if you will, the image of several hundred pounds of Cap’n Crunch and other cereals swelling and bursting out of its containers and washing across the floor like a great, rising, golden wave of something that looked rather like hominy. Do you have a picture in your head? Great. Now, imagine the smell.

Fortunately I already had scheduled the day off from work, so I’m not sure how long it took others to shovel out the effluent blob of not-so-goodness. I do know that the scent lingered well into winter.

I’m all aloooone…

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The Reverend Mother and Tiger Lilly are gone (see previous post) and the Mall Diva went to Duluth Friday afternoon with some friends for a weekend women’s retreat, leaving me to kick around the big house by myself.

What to do…what to do…what to do…

I might take myself out for dinner and movie tonight if I can decide what I want to eat and see. Tiger Lilly also emailed to remind me to pick up the new Harry Potter book for her since she’s not going to be able to get one herself for awhile (unless she wants the Transylvanian translation, that is).

I went out earlier this afternoon and picked up the book from the big stack at Walmart, along with a few bachelor snacks (mmmm, pork rinds!). I suppose I could spend the evening reading the book.

Or, I could just read the last few pages ….

*flip, flip, flip*

Hmmm. Mmm-hmmm. Huh. Well, that’s certainly interesting! I never expected Harry and Voldemort to suddenly apparate in the midst of the Soprano family in a New Jersey diner in order to fight their last duel!

The Road to Romania

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Tiger Lilly and the Reverend Mother left for Romania yesterday morning though it will be a few more days before they actually leave the country since they have to undergo some training and orientation at the Global Expedition headquarters in Garden City, Texas, including meeting the other members of the group.

The Mall Diva and I got up at 3:30 Friday morning to take them to the airport for their 5:30 a.m. flight. RM and TL were up well before that (if, indeed, they slept at all the night before leaving). Just about everything was packed and loaded into the car the night before, including two fully-stuffed suitcases so heavy I seriously wondered how they were going to manage these without me. A lot of the weight and space is taken up by bedding that they have to bring along and which will ultimately be left behind at some point. I’m not sure why a 5:30 a.m. flight was necessary and apparently neither was Continental Airlines because they ended up canceling the flight after we dropped the missionaries off. They were ultimately delayed only a couple of hours before getting on their way, but it would have been nice to have spent those hours in bed.

Driving home from the airport the Mall Diva said, “Let’s go to breakfast!” That sounded like a good idea for, oh, three or four seconds, but my eyes felt so gritty I said I just wanted to go back to bed. To my surprise I was actually able to go back to sleep and when I got up we did go out. I’m always amazed at how much Eggs Benedict and hash browns the Diva can put into her tiny frame. There wasn’t any rest for the travelers, however, who still had a two-hour drive from the Dallas airport to get to their destination. At one point the Reverend Mother had to pull over on a quiet road to try and take a 20-minute nap.

No such luck. After about five minutes a truck stopped to see if they needed any help. The situation was explained and the truck drove off. Two minutes later another truck slowed for the same purpose and was waved off. Nice, friendly people those Texans. Fortunately the ladies arrived safely and Tiger Lilly emailed me the details. Their luggage was so full that in the end they decided not to take the laptop along, but they will be sending updates and/or posting from wherever they can find access in Texas and Oradea, Romania (which supposedly has numerous internet cafes).

“No controlling legal authority…”

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Well, that’s a relief. It turns out that the endangered Chilean sea bass that Al Gore and others dined on during the rehearsal dinner for his daughter’s wedding were not so endangered after all (though the particular entrees in question might choose to quibble). While the Chilean sea bass (aka Patagonian toothfish) species as a whole is clinging to survival as desperately as the McCain campaign, it turns out that the ones invited to the Gore table were special:

But the fish enjoyed by the Gores were not endangered or illegally caught.

Rather, the restaurant later confirmed, they had come from one of the world’s few well-managed, sustainable populations of toothfish, and caught and documented in compliance with Marine Stewardship Council regulations. The Gores’ spokesman, Kalee Kreider, admitted that the fish has been on the menu, but said: “The Gores absolutely agree with this humane society and the rest of the environmental community about illegally caught Chilean sea bass.

(HT: The Far Wright)

I’m sure that further investigation will show that the Marine Stewardship Council regulations also require that the fish enjoy government-funded universal health and dental benefits, lifetime education in government schools, and are harvested only by electric hybrid and bio-diesel equipped trawlers. Though not native to the U.S., the toothfish were here as “guest workers” and were happy to pay for a better wedding after Gore personally assured them that there was no “controlling legal authority” and that it “was for the (my) children.”

I also look for the Gores to announce they are purchasing “tarpon offsets” to counter their conspicuous consumption.

Leaving on a business trip

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“Missions trip” has a certain connotation in religious circles, denoting a special status for what really should be viewed as an every day outlook on life. (Our pastor has said, “God will send you across the world, but He also wants to send you across the street.”) I suppose you could say Jesus went on the ultimate “missions trip” when He was sent to us. At one point during this mission He said, “I must be about my Father’s business.”

Later this week Tiger Lilly and the Reverend Mother will therefore be leaving on their own business trip to Romania, with a stop in Texas for some training and orientation on the way. It’s a trip that was researched and instigated about a year ago by Tiger Lilly through Global Expeditions. Some time after she had committed to go her mother was also led to join the group. TL was ready and willing to go it on her own with the Global Expeditions team, but is glad to have her favorite mom along. Despite being “just” 13, this is her second overseas trip, having gone with her mother to China for three weeks the summer before last. (Details here, here and here).

I hope Tiger Lilly will have time before they leave to put up a post on how and why she chose this trip and how she was able to raise enough money not only for this trip but to also set some aside for the next one, whenever or wherever that may be. She and the Reverend Mother are taking a wireless laptop along and the digital camera and should have relatively good access for posting as the trip goes on. Stay tuned.


Last Sunday our church prayed for our latest missionaries.

MOB Action

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The whole family made it over to Keegan’s Saturday night for a lovely evening with many of our fellow bloggers from the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers. I didn’t wear a Hawaiian shirt, despite Kevin and Ben’s attempts at peer pressure which didn’t work because, well, they’d have to be my peers. Anyway, since a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s about a month’s worth (at my recent pace) of blogging:


Surly Dave rode his new Moto Guzzi to the event and was “Kindly Dave” enough to let a long-time biker,
the Reverend Mother, take it for a spin.


Mocha Momma and Kingdavid from The Far Wright joined the festivities. (That’s Dan Stover, the Northern Alliance Wannabe in the background.)


Jennifer and Brad Carlson made their debut at one of our official MOB functions.


I think Learned Foot is beckoning the photographer to come closer. Either that or he’s ordering a beer and a shot, hold the beer.


After two years of trying, Kevin finally snuck a beer past me to the Mall Diva. (Don’t worry, Mr. Keegan, she gave it back.)


The Reverend Mother spent part of the evening eavesdropping on Mitch Berg. “He’s really interesting,” she said. “Is there anything he doesn’t have an opinion on?” If so, we haven’t found it. I do know he likes Springsteen and, along with Strommie, the Mall Diva.


Diamond Dog (Scott Brooks) from Freedom Dogs and King Banaian from SCSU Scholars.

While this post might give you the impression that all I did all evening was run around and take pictures, that would not be correct. I spent the evening talking with the folks shown above and many others, including John and his wife from Roosh Five and Jeff Kouba from Peace Like a River and Truth vs. the Machine. The photos were taken by Ben from Hammerswing with my camera, however. I’ve emailed a lot of the images to him for him to post so you might want to check over at his blog in the next couple of days to see what he has added.

Saturday night’s the night I like

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Tonight normally would have been my night for going to Keegan’s for trivia, but I’m holding off on that (and the delicious cheeseburger and potato wedges) until Saturday night and the MOB’s grand summer event.

I expect the entire Night Writer blogging consortium (Reverend Mother, Mall Diva and Tiger Lilly) to be there as well so I’ll be easy to spot. Not because I’ll be wearing a Hawaiian shirt, but because I’ll be the guy surrounded by beautiful women. Unless, of course, I actually do wear a Hawaiian shirt, in which case my wife will come nowhere near me and the Mall Diva will likely just stay in the car. Tiger Lilly would probably come in, but mainly for the possibility of carrot cake.

See you there!

Pull the plug, pull the plug, Buddy gonna shut you down…

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Not too many people were shocked when Al Gore III was pulled over last week for speeding, drug possession and having a trunkload of counterfeit carbon credits. What was surprising was that he was clocked at more than 100 mph in a Prius! I’m not a motor-head like Jroosh, but that’s a speed I thought was approachable only if the car were dropped very high from a crane at the Sturgis Bike Rally.

Obviously there are a lot of easy jokes that can be (and were) made. I appreciate it when someone works a little harder for the humor, which is why I especially liked Nancy’s musical treatment at Away With Words:

I feel a song coming on (in the spirit of the Beachboys, the Daytonas, and Jan and Dean):

Hybrid Synergy Racin’ Machine

I was cruisin’ downtown in my Toyota Prius
– Cruise, little Prius! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Doing 50 mpg, just like they guarantee us.
– Conserve, little Prius! Whoosh! Whoosh!
When a big bad Hummer came up alongside
Said, “Hey, Granola–ready to ride?”

I said, I know what you’re thinking–I’m an herbal-tea wuss.
– Rev, little Prius! Shush! Shush!
And I’ll never catch up in my Toyota Prius
– Glide, little Prius! Shush! Shush!
Yeah, my engine is silent–but it’s deadly, too
So buckle up, baby, ’cause I’m gunnin’ for you.

Girl’s voice: “No, Al! No, Al! No, Al! Nooooooo!”

[refrain]
Well, I run on electric and I run on gas
Ain’t nobody here gonna kick my ass.
Prius is green–yeah!–but Prius is mean,
It’s a hybrid synergy racin’ machine.

I push-button-started and began to roll
– Go, little Prius! Zip! Zip!
Passed the Hummer, a Porsche, and the Highway Patrol.
– Fight, little Prius! Zip! Zip!
I was doin’ a hundred on the southbound 5
Lost the Hummer on a curve, more dead than alive.

[refrain]
Well, I run on electric and I run on gas
Ain’t nobody here gonna kick my ass!
Prius is green–yeah!–but Prius is mean,
It’s a hybrid synergy racin’ machine.

Whoa – talk about your little juiced coupe! I wonder if there’s any coming back from Dead Man’s Surge? Oh well, I guess Al III will have fun, fun, fun ’til Daddy takes the Prius away!

There oughta be a law?

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The Sunday before the 4th the Mall Diva joined her cousin’s family up at their cabin near Crosby, MN. The plan was to spend a couple of days on ATVs, dirt bikes and paddle boats and then come back on the 4th so MD could be at work on the 5th. Her cousin drove.

Late Wednesday afternoon I got a message that the Diva and cousin were going to stay up in Crosby to watch the fireworks and then drive home — a 3-hour drive. Well, they missed a very fine fireworks display right in my living room when I got that word. Even without all the teenage drivers slaughtering themselves or being slaughtered by others on the roads at night lately, the thought of these youths driving home after midnight following a day of fun in the sun — and sharing the road with a bunch of other yahoos who had been enjoying fun in the sun and drinking — seemed like a spectacularly bad idea, especially with Al Gore’s kid on the loose.

Fortunately I had the numbers for just about every cell-phone up at that cabin and I left messages on a couple before I got through to the cousin, who just so happened to be right next to my daughter. My message was direct and well-received by MD; unfortunately she wasn’t the one with the car. No matter: “I will come and get you if you don’t have a ride,” I said, figuring I had enough time to get up there and back before midnight and I was well rested. A few minutes later she called back, letting me know they’d be heading home shortly. As it turned out, she was home by 11:00 without incident, though her cousin wasn’t especially pleased that my parental grappling hooks had so much reach. Believe me, I can live with it. I’m not afraid to be the bad guy for a good cause.

As much as MD and her cousin may have rolled their eyes at me, however, it cannot compare to how much I rolled my eyes at those clamoring for Minnesota to pass more laws restricting teen drivers, even though doing so put me – for probably the first and last time – on the same side as Minnesota legislator Tom Rukavina, though probably not for the same reasons. While the article I just linked to strongly suggests a correlation between Minnesota’s “scofflaw” (compared to other states) approach to driver restrictions and the amount of teenage carnage on our roads, I reject the knee-jerk reaction that three or four more laws are the best way to “do something.” That is precisely the type of useless do-goodism and deep-as-a-dogdish thinking that lets people feel good about themselves without addressing the underlying issues of personal and parental responsibility while at the same time promoting the all-caring, ever-expanding nanny state mentality.

That’s not to say that I don’t think teen drivers don’t need guidance and restrictions. Teens are not inherently bad drivers; they are, inescapably, less-experienced drivers. I agree, something must be done — and my wife and I did it. When the Mall Diva first started driving we placed our own “laws” on hours and passengers which were gradually reduced over the past two and a half years. Other expectations have also been communicated and she has demonstrated that she is a responsible and effective driver. And, as indicated above, we continue to take an active and involved interest in her driving (and riding) career, even if it’s wildly inconvenient. (We also put her in 3,000-pounds of sheet metal and we pray a lot). I know MD totally believed me when I said I would come and get her, and not out of reproach but from commitment.

I recognize that that isn’t always enough to keep our children safe, and my heart goes out the the parents who have suffered these wracking losses this year. More laws, however, aren’t a guarantee either. One of the legislators in favor of more laws framed it in terms of “giving parents better tools.” Well, thank you very much, but my tools work just fine, especially when I use them. (I wonder how many of those legislators that want to “help parents” by restricting teens who want to drive are just as adamant about there not being any parental involvement or restrictions on teens that want abortions.) I suppose some parents might feel their position is strengthened if they can cite the law as if the matter was out of their hands. If your children aren’t going to listen to you (who they have to face every day), however, I don’t know if they’ll adhere to a law.