The Cheap Seats

Twas the day of the Super Bowl, with plans set in motion, After Dad (the genuis) had gotten a crazy, wild notion. "In honor of teams from weed-friendly states in the big game, Let's have a Pot Party, no way this'll be lame! All the blacklights were hung in the mancave just so, in order to emit a pleasing purplish glow. Because (in case you're wondering) or actually care, this kind of party is a bummer 'neath a fluorescent glare. And Mom - rightly worried - was having her doubts, but held her tongue rather than endure Dad's shouts. "C'mom - weed instead of liquor - how easy is that? No beer, booze or belching, just a one-hitter bat." Mom acquiesced - mumbling, "Oh hell, what's the point, of fighting him any longer," so she snuck out a joint. "Start the party early," she thought to herself, reaching for her stash on the high closet shelf.  Now sufficiently...

I remember the first time I heard the term networking . I was fresh out of college and working for a small law firm in downtown Minneapolis. Not as exciting as it sounds, but to a 22 year-old kid it was seemed pretty cool. My boss invited me to join him for a networking lunch. I'm certain my first thought was that we were going to break bread with some local TV news anchors. I was disabused of this notion after two long hours of listening to lawyers drone on about class action lawsuits and attorneys' fees. Networking, I discovered, was not what I had thought it would be nor what it would turn into.   Fast-forward 25 years and the social network has become a beast with many heads - Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Vine, Pinterest, LinkedIn - just to name a few of the heavy hitters. Thanks to the PC and tablet and smartphone connecting is just a post/like/comment away. (For a change) I am not going to opine regarding the un...

I have reached that stage in life where haircuts are 15 minute/$15 affairs. The stylist asks me how I want it cut, I shrug my shoulders, and we proceed from there. Last weekend was more of the same except I decided to go slightly shorter than usual - largely because I intended to put off the eventual February haircut until early March. Priorities: avoidance first, aesthetic last. I now frequent barber shops where the wait time exceeds the actual haircut. Saturday was no different. Forgetting that I now have a smart phone to pass the time, I instinctively reached for any magazine off the rack that even remotely fit my age/gender demographic (there aren't many). With the pickings razor-thin I settled on Minnesota Monthly , and busily began a quick skim of its pages. My skimming was short-lived, however, because one page in particular had my undivided attention. At first I was confused. Was the ad as blatant as it appeared to b...

My son recently returned from a 10-day trip to Norway full of vivid stories of how - as he put it -  "the Norwegians have it all figured out." He ticked off one thing after another - an effective rail system, fuel-efficient cars, clean cities, modest diets, cultural frugality, healthy lifestyles, and a generous, family-friendly national government. No, this is not an impossible comparison between the United States and those pesky, homogeneous Scandinavians. We would suffer by contrast - with our far flung borders, super-sized lusts, crumbling infrastructures, craven consumerism, and a gridlocked government still driven by an antiquated 19th century notion of Rugged Individualism that has more contempt for the poor than compassion. Apples and oranges. Instead, this story is nothing more than a recollection of my encounter with a squirrel and his nuts. My deck overlooks a large backyard filled with numero...

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I am a minimalist. Actually that's saying it one too many times. Regardless, a lack of physical clutter appeals to me but - by extension - this philosophy has seeped into the intangible areas of my own memory. And I've decided that is no longer a good thing. I get it - memory minimalism is its own form of protection from the unwanted, scarring parts of our past. No one likes to feel pain, whether it is raw, numbing or mostly scabbed over. But the unhealthy byproduct of such efforts - intentional or otherwise - is that the essence of memories worth savoring are lost or fragmented in the sifting process. I sometimes wonder if that has happened to me. I have heard people retell detailed stories from their past and my first thought is, "How can they remember something so vividly that happened 30, 40, 50 years ago?" And I am jealous. No chance they are memory ...