I've had about four blog entries I've abandoned. They were about my man-love for Tim Barry, Kurt Vonnegut, and my best of 2008 list. But they were too long and uninteresting to anyone who wasn't mocked as "Snarl Pencil" on the playground as a kid. So to sum up my prematurely aborted posts and with a New Years Resolution to be more concise-

Tim Barry- Saw him with the revival tour. I loved Avail. Like...a lot. There's never going to be another Avail. But as I've witnessed a few times recently, Tim Barry solo is about as great as live music gets. Chopin had a quote “Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.” Thanks for playing music, Tim. Same goes for Chuck Ragan, while I'm at it.

Kurt Vonnegut- every time I read a book for the first time or re-read a book, I find something new that reminds me and basically ridicules any budding author I have inside of me. The first thought is "it won't be as good as Vonnegut" and then I give up and go back to writing blogs.

Best of 2008. Minneapolis rules. Doubt me? Well then,

1) not liking Dillinger Four makes you an asshole.
2) The new Atmosphere record is proof Slug and Ant are still at their sharpest. Sure, they were instrumental in creating a genre whose live shows are completely unattendable without a machete or at the very least, a bazooka. But like POS, it makes me glad that Minneapolis, once again with independent hip hop, like punk (Suicide Commandos), hardcore (Husker Du) and rock (The Replacements) before it-they are defining an era and a genre.
3) The Hold Steady-they're a Minneapolis band. I don't care how many music journalists had to fight the urge to jizz in their pants when they read the name of the band or hear anything that rhymes with "Craig", and the competing urge to correct me that "they're from Park Slope" or whatever hip neighborhood in Brooklyn they're all trying to move to right now-but they're from Minneapolis. Always will be. If Husker Du or the Replacements moved to New York after a decade in the Minneapolis scene, they'd still be Minneapolis bands who moved. And I'm one of the few people who can claim to have skateboarded down to an empty "Quarry" ("take Lowry East to the quarry") and actually participated in teenage miscreant behavior prior to "Quarry" turning from an empty field with rocks and shit to a strip mall. So there.

Now, to my former home state-

Seriously, there's only approximately/officially (for now) 225 of you that prefer Al Franken over Norm Coleman? Really? After the last six years and what would've been a Wellstone victory in 2002, you had to pick one registered asshole over one confirmed asshole. But was it really that tough? Norm Coleman did THAT good of a job? Seriously?

I'm reminded of a kid in my wife's grad school program. Father of three, all under the age of 5. Wife is stay at home mom with a master's degree in music with professional teaching career prior. He's getting his Masters in Fine Arts living off student loans and welfare-definitely the working poor and with an MFA, it's a long while before that turns into a lucrative endeavor. But he still voted for McCain. He didn't agree with the "distribution of wealth" or "socialism" that Obama was endorsing. Dude...your kids haven't been sold to a wealthy landowner BECAUSE of that distribution of wealth. Your wife is a stay-at-home mom BECAUSE of that "socialism." I get conservatism, and fiscal conservatism, but I also get irony.

Some people just don't pay attention and they just don't care that they don't pay attention. Thanks to Sarah Palin and her supporters who still mind-bogglingly exist, we now have what appears to be a glib, smiling equation of "literacy" to "elitism." It seems like 2008 MAY be a possible turn for the better. Here's hoping.

So "Thanks" to the 225 more of you exist this time around. If you email me and voted for Franken, I'll send you an Anger Regiment CD signed by Matt Breen.