After arriving in Paris yesterday afternoon on a very rough KLM flight from Amsterdam, one of the first things I noticed was the smell of tobacco smoke - like everywhere.  Not really any greasy food or car exhaust or barfy garbage sewer smell, but the smell of carpet and interior latex paint that has absorbed years of Gauloises and Marlboros. 

It's because in order to read/write poetry and drink coffee correctly, you have to be smoking. How else can you critique the smudged red mauve and black charcoal on canvas or the swirls in a tapestrie unless you are smoking while doing it?  There has to be something cool looking and semi-masculine to balance the lunacy of your words and actions, and there has to be something to help you think.  Why else call them "thinking sticks"?  "No it's ok that your painting reminds me of a rain soaked sidewalk in the fall along the eastern bank of the Charles where a lonely child has lost her red shoe... I'm smoking."

Add to this the fact that everything, and I mean 95% everything in Paris has some sort of swirly detail.  It's like the French Govt put a ban on anything that has no ornate carving or angelic cloud like wave pattern.  Thusly, the smoke from a cigarette would be inspirational and probably makes people feel like they fit in.

I'm not sure if this self imposed architectural unwritten(?) law is due to the sheer age of Paris, the fact that no one besides great artists and thinkers have ever lived here, or that Paris is just really really full of itself. Kind of like an Abercrombie clothing store at the mall of America.  I'm sure that it's some kind of cigarette smoke colored grey area.

Theres nothing I can add to this for a short description. St John's seen in the background.

If only the winter weather didn't suck so much... oh and yeah that whole 30 minute timezone thing - I'd seriously consider moving there, the people of Newfoundland are some of the best souls on Earth.. 

Six of us ate at Levains on Valentines Day. We made a reservation, showed up right on time, patiently waited while they shat themselves in trying to sit a table of six in a room full of two-toppers, and sat down really close to each other and had our meal.
The meal. Was, good? It was good actually, but honestly for the price, the(insert American overeater) amount of food was well disappointing. The service was as usual good, and the suggested wine pairings were of course perfect and new. However, this was not the typical experience we were so used to having at such an established fine jewel of 48th and Chicago south.  It was... ok.

Discontent with a single meal is one thing, but this was Levains! This was what we looked forward to. Everything about Levains has been better than good - great.  Just missed this one...

Not able to simply let things dissolve into potentially forcing ourselves to find greener pastures, we(Steph) sent an email explaining our dining experience that night to the establishment. Whomever might read it, we thought, would want to know this sort of thing. And that's what great about this place too, you get the impression they want to become better.  That just telling them, "yeah it was good" tells them NOTHING!

While I was away in Hanover MN(different story for a different time) F & Steph went back to Levains to celebrate Stephs new James Bond spy car purchase. Yeah, they went back. Of course they did, V-Day wasn't that bad, just could have been better.  They sit down at the table and the waiter comes over and the following conversation takes place:

Waiter: "Where you guys here on Valentines Day per chance?"
F & Steph: "Yep"
Waiter: (while glancing over his shoulder at the head chef) "Well, chef says your meal is entirely comped tonight"
F & Steph: "Huh?"
Waiter: "Yep so what'll ya have?"

They proceed to give their orders and finish dinner.  A mighty fine one at that.  The taste of free is always an enhancement to any sauce or simmer. Time for desert.

Waiter: "So, what's for desert then?"
F & Steph: "Nah nothing. We're totally fine"
Waiter: (again talking loud enough so that Chef could hear in the kitchen) "Nope you're getting a desert so what'll it be?"

They order a single desert and tell them they'll just split it. The waiter leaves and returns with two deserts, and claims it's a mistake! Whoopsy!

Now that's how you run a restaurant.  Chef not only remembered their faces from the several times they have dined in months past, but remembered their faces from one of the arguably busiest nights for a joint like this every year.  Not sure if he read the email or not, but even still... nice one chef.

Last Friday the Ska Kings headed into the studio with what seemed at the time to be a dubious task. Recording rhythm, horns and vox all in 2 and 1/3 days. Could we do it? At the very least the goal was to get Ryan and Cruzer on tape(disk) as they would be unavailable due to G-Dub's war. I'm happy to say that not only did we get them tracked, we got everyone tracked. All that's left at this point is adding some aux percussion and mixing/leveling by committee.

Perhaps needless to mention is how exhausted I am from tracking this last album. I wasn't there every waking minute, but to put things in a loose perspective, consider this:
 - Listen to your favorite 11 tracks that you know by heart; that is, beat, lyrics, solos, horn lines, guitar part
 - Listen to each one approximately 9 or 10 times in the span of an hour paying attention to a different part each time
 - Now perform 3-4 takes of each song playing each note as flawlessly as possible
 - Do this perfectly with 2-3 other people all playing perfectly, if one messes up it might mean another take
 - Sit for 3-4 hours listening to the other people doing the same songs
 - Sing a few of the songs(perfectly and in tune) lead part
 - Sing backup on the same or other songs
 - Arrive early the next morning to do the same thing
 - Repeat as necessary

Now, I'm not whining by any means. It's absolute joy when a song comes together and is exciting while you are recording it. It's your chance, you see, to make a mark on the world. However, not only will your friends/peers/family listen to it and tell you it was "good", YOU have to listen to it over and over. YOU have to be happy enough with it to not hate it in 3-4 months, because after that you definitely will.

I am happy with my performance. Happy, not excited or blazingly proud. And I think that's just going to be how it is with me.  Which, at the end of the day, isn't a horrible thing. It's the thing that keeps me practicing, trying, keep on keepin on.  Sounds lame, but Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Bill of Rights "the pursuit of happiness" for just such a purpose. Wow... ok that's good with all that.

Cocktails Before Funerals*
The Secondhand Ska Kings

1 - 400 Miles
2 - Ruder Than You
3 - Not That Kind
4 - Immediacy
5 - Good Dog
6 - Make Trouble
7 - Cheap Trixx
8 - The Ballad of Texahoma
9 - Over
10 - Chinese Newspaper
11 - Rebound

* Working Title

it's German email spam.

Lately my SAP inbox has been filled with it.

There must have been a breakthrough with the people who insist that email marketing works. They must have discovered this secret formula, after years of meticulous research and debate, finally, they have the ability to send me, a non-German speaking American, spam in German! Ye God's be praised!

Or perhaps in a move to keep the world's 3rd largest economy going, SAP, being one of DE's Fortune 50, relaxed ever so gently the spam filters so that it's 41,000 employees would have the opportunity to buy watches, software, and get their MBA - all from the comfort of their cubicle or domicile.

Which reminds me of something my American born German colleague once told me when I was in Waldorf.  Apparently, it's federal law that an employees desk be no further than 6 or so meters from an OPEN window, or a window that opens.  Damn. So much for that maligned mail room clerk swearing at the man from the depths of the furnace room.  Nope, in Germany you have the RIGHT to fresh air and natural light when you're at WERK!

Which brings me to my next point. For some reason, Last.FM insists on recommending I listen to German Ska. I know I'm a big fan of Dr Ring Ding, but I had no idea the Kraut's were this into Reggae/Ska.  And not necessarily the punk-ska that sounds more like Minor Threat that you might expect, the cheesy Real Big Fish hollywood Ska.

Dear Santa,
Please don't let the next Star Trek movie, number 11, be like the Muppet Babies of the Muppets. Please oh dear Santa, I've never asked for much.


Above: Remorse.

Below: My greatest fear. That chair's way too big for him.

Thank you to all the residents of the apartment building in Crookston that don't know how to configure their wireless router. Now I have wireless internet too. And if one goes shallow, there are 3 other ones to choose from.