Midwest Burlesk 2011

Last night I went to the Midwest Burlesk 2011 after dinner at Nye's.  This is the third year I've gone.  The first year I talked Kyle into going, and then urged my wife to attend the next day with Sarah and Pete.  Last year, despite misaligning with Kyle, he added Matthew and his brother in law and my wife added my sister and Cookie Queen.  And this year we added Ming and my wife added a friend and a co-worker of mine.  I list this ever growing roster of attendees as supporting documentation for my yearly assertion that the festival is one of the best events in town and that it's not some sort of event (only) for oversexed 40-somethings.

The acts were, once again, hilarious, although according to my wife we missed out by not getting to see the little person, Viva LaMuerte, doing burlesk.  Pooteewheet said the act wasn't great as far as burlesque, but it was unique because of Viva.

We did see The Bon-Bons, Coco Dupree doing an act with a safe (great dancer), Ophelia Flame doing an office burlesque that involved a copier that transmitted to the big screen (nice beaver), Midnite Martini who could remove one stocking seductively with her opposite foot, Nadine Dubois the host singing I Feel Like a Natural Woman while the Stage Door Johnnies were behind her all Kali-like, Sizzle Dizzle from New York, Sweetpea in a rather fascinating gold pantsuit (don't think of a 70's pants suit...it was nothing like that), Minnie Tonka, and a few others, including a burlesque dancer dressed in a plastic trash bag doing a fan dance with fans made of refuse.  Burlesque as social commentary!

The male dancers - boylesque - ran away with the show, however.  I believe it was Jett Adore of the Stage Door Johnnies who did an act featuring an outfit with numerous strings which prompted host Nadine Dubois to remark, "Who'd have thought an ass corset could bring you to tears?  This is a great job!"

And then there was The Evil Hate Monkey.  He's actually a duet, Trixie Little and The Evil Hate Monkey, although he performed solo as well earlier, engaging in a series of ballet moves (real ones - on the toes, good form, et al) that brought to mind what the Nutbuster should have been like.  Trixie and the Hate Monkey were mesmerizing.  They opened to Total Eclipse of the Heart, and appeared in and out of the darkness, including disappearing from the stage and into the audience, and then moved into their act which included all sorts of acrobatics you'd normally expect to see at Cirque du Soleil, all while incrementally disrobing with plenty of humor.  I almost got beaned by the humor, his banana peel flying straight at my head (I ducked and let the person behind me catch it, although it would have been amusing to bring home for Pooteewheet).  I'm disappointed a can't buy Kyle his very own Hate Monkey t-shirt for his birthday (they exist, they're just sold out).

A great show!  Here's Trixie and the Evil Hate Monkey performing, although it was much better in person.

Crop Top

I was doing some research and surfed over to the "crop top" article on Wikipedia.  It has a picture subtitled, "A braless model wearing crop top," and links to whale tail and lower back tattoo.  I think the author has some assumptions about what type of person wears a half shirt.

Mirror Prank

My parents sent me an amusing link to a German mirror prank video.

Snrky.com

Ming pointed out that it wasn't obvious that I was involved in snrky.com. I admit, a stick figure comic isn't exactly ground-breaking territory, but Erik and I have been having fun, and I think there have been at least a few that are good humor.

Tasmania

I found this Tasmania post by the Nerdist to be very humorous. A warning, it's probably not safe for work (NSFW) at all.

Change in Habits

I'm signed up for the Lake Minnetonka Triathlon in June.  .5 miles of swimming, 15 miles of bicycling, 3 miles of "sprinting" (yeah, right).  Not a very ambitious triathlon, but my first and probably my last.  My toes have never recovered from the last time I trained for a triathlon in 2001, right before my sister's wedding.  Since then lots of running makes them radiate pain across the tops of my feet and up my ankles.  I didn't learn until a few months ago that it even had a name, Hallux Rigidus.  The doc I saw back in 2001 told me it was simply a lack of cartilage in the toes and that was good enough for me.  End of running.  End of tennis.  End of basketball.  Anything that flexed the toe.  Bicycling was still good because your foot stays pretty flat the whole time, particularly in bicycle shoes. Although I'm more likely to wear tennis shoes, but they still stay pretty flat.

So training is important, but I feel the most important thing I can do to get myself ready for this thing is lose 40 pounds.  That's a lot.  I haven't weighed that little since I first started dating my wife.  But that would take at least some of the pressure off my feet.  I'm a bit nervous about committing to that sort of a weight loss. My lifestyle doesn't do much to drive me toward good eating and healthy living.  My habits include my job in an office (glorified cube), fun on the internet (currently learning PHP with some some stylesheet work, scripting, HTML5/CSS3, and Objective C, plus coding up a Java app), and (sort of) playing the guitar.  If I didn't climb on my bicycle every now and then, walking the dog would be my primary exercise.

But I'm down about 14 pounds in three weeks (fluctuating, I suspect because of the bicycling), and I've managed to develop better eating habits that don't preclude beer or scotch.  So the direction is good, and I can now worry about how my tendency for being cheap will keep me out of a gym pool as I wait for the lakes to be warm enough to train in.

I Suspect

I suspect most people who live in warmer areas would find it incredibly strange to see me taking the dog for a longer walk in my ski jacket, gloves, and cargo shorts.  It's actually a nice cool down if I'm still generating heat from exercising on the bike trainer.

Certain Qualifiers

I was on the stairs at work today and overheard the following exchange:

Her: "She's really sexing it up, short skirts and high heels."

Him: "So she's trying to be in the milf category?"

I don't think using "category" makes "milf" any more appropriate.

Kyle's Christmas Sake Cup - 1750

We got Kyle another sake cup for Christmas this year, so now he officially has a collection.  The way I figure it, if he ever wants to go on some sort of midlife bender, a collection of historic sake cups won't lose their value and should be able to fund a nice vacation. Or perhaps he can impress a mail-order Japanese bride with them. And they look pretty on a shelf until then.  I suspect they're cool for drinking sake from as well, although perhaps he feels nervous drinking out of something older than the United States.  I would.

In case his nephew isn't suitably impressed, he should point out that this is a mystical cup that appeases Gojira and keeps the world safe.  Then again, maybe not.  Depending on how much J. wants to see Godzilla in person.

I wanted to put the details out here, so Kyle can find them if he ever needs them.

Blue and White Ko Imari Soba Choko Cup Mid 18c (see below - estimated 1750).


"The size of Soba Choko: 3" Dia x 2 3/8" High. Japanese Blue and White(Sometsuke) Porcelain Soba Choko Cup from 18 century. The Soba Choko cup is made from finely made porcelain body with straight line. It has Ichimatsu pattern and mesh design pattern. It is simply yet attractive design. The condition of Cup is very good, there is no crack and no hairline, except noting there are some foot rim with some Kamadashi Ato(original kiln flaw spots when removed from kiln) and old nicks. You can see from photos. Otherwise excellent condition. The age of Soba Choko from mid 18 century around 1750 (Horeki Period, Middle Edo) which we guarantee the age."

Wherein I Read Many Humorous Books by Women

Kyle bought me two books for Christmas. My Secret Santa bought me a book. And I bought myself a book. All four of them were humorous. All four of them purported to be autobiographical...of sorts.

Book 1 was Olivia Munn's suck it, wonder woman.  First in the list, but perhaps the least of the four books, which is difficult to say because I really like Olivia and enjoyed her immensely on G4TV's Attack of the Show, at least whenever my cable channel would allow me to keep it instead of taking it away at random.  Perhaps some of it wasn't as interesting as I'd already read bits of it in her magazine (which Kyle also got me).  But aside from a few introspective moments at the beginning, including where her grandmother dies while she's around, it just doesn't go very deep and focuses on high school friendships (and lack thereof) and aspects of her relationship with her fans.  In summation, I'd say it came across more like a light blog than like a book (now she'll never go on RAGBRAI with me to eat pie).

Book 2 was Sarah Silverman's The Bedwetter (stories of courage, redemption, and pee), also a Christmas present from Kyle.  This was a much better book.  Sarah's got a good writing style and she doesn't cut too many corners talking about herself.  While the end of The Bedwetter also slides a bit into some commentary for fans (e.g. The Sarah Silverman Program), it does go behind the scenes and offers a glimpse of a workplace that explains much about the tone of her show.  There are obviously personal facets she leaves out: boyfriends are referred to generally and in passing, but without much depth, and her reasons for moving from relationship to relationship (and getting around, as she admits to at one point) aren't explored.  But she does dig deeper than Olivia, and her stories about her childhood bedwetting and inappropriate joke about the death of her baby brother (despite having not known him) give you a sense of where some of her darker and more inappropriate humor originates.  I did feel horrible when she talked about her father would try to wake her up when she was taken to the toilet in the middle of the night, yelling for her to wake up so she'd know she was using the toilet, hopefully spurring her to wake up and go herself at future points.  This struck a little close to home, as I used to yell at Eryn, "Eryn, wake up! Wake up!" as she'd pass out on the toilet when we were training. It never worked, and it just made both of us feel bad.  I read The Bedwetter several years too late.  There's also a nice story about her friend picking her up and giving her a kiss that made me laugh out loud.  Her voice really comes through and you get a feel for why she can pull off some of her humor.

Book 3, The Guild, by Felicia Day (and Jim Rugg).  While it might not seem like it belongs in the same category as the other two books, this graphic novel, a prequel to The Guild, deals with Cyd's (Felicia's character in The Guild) life before MMPORGs.    Like Felicia, Cyd is a violinist, which leads you to wonder how much of the rest of Cyd's story about heartache and finding a home in gaming and generally geekery mirrors Felicia's own.  Apparently, not all of it, "I probably know other characters' origin stories better than Cyd's, because Cyd is me in a sense," she said. "But I didn't want her journey into video games to be anything like my personal journey into video games." (MTV).  Definitely enjoyable, although not as much as the web series.

And finally, my Secret Santa bought me World Champion Judah Friedlander's An Instructional and Inspirational Karate Book: How to Beat Up Anybody.  By far the best of the four.  Absolutely hilarious.  It purports to be autobiographical, but unless Judah really owns a time traveling spaceship, the accuracy is in doubt.

It's worth a quote or two to capture the spirit of the book. "...I've included a lot of photos in this book.  They say 'a picture is worth a thousand words.'  So I'd say this book has a billion words in it."

"When I was 6, I ate the playground jungle gym, then shit ninja stars out of my asshole for 5 hours straight."

"225 pounds is the perfect fighting weight, no matter how tall you are.  Always weigh 225 pounds."

"Ninjas are masters of hiding.  Ninjaism is a hidden art.  Now that you know how to beat up a ninja, you can make him stay hidden forever."

Believe me, it's funnier after you've been subjected to over 200 pages of it, even with a few weaker bits mixed in.  You'll learn to fight one armed men.  Three armed men.  Men dressed as one armed men.  Dinosaurs.  Gangs.  Bigfoot.  Ninjas.  Unicyclists.  And the Duke of China.

The fact that two of the last four books I've read have flipbooks for animation in the corner, and two have pictures of body parts (one dingle, several breasts), probably gives you an idea of my state of mind as of late, but next up I should be finishing Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything and a book on iPad development, so I do move beyond this phase.

Some late Christmas tunage

Nathan Fillion (of Serenity) shared this link for North Point's iBand:


Which in turn led me to this post at Fandomania about 12 Songs for a Geeky Christmas. I like Chris Hardwick's hair band tune "All I Want for Christmas (is to Rock) by Sniper" (very Jack Black), the microphone with Christmas Balls and the Axel Rose shimmy are nice touches.

And I think Kyle's nephew will appreciate the Doctor Who cast singing a Christmas Carol:

In Which I Prove I'm a Racist

Know how you're never supposed to ask a woman if she's pregnant?  Because she might just be fat?  I have another truism to add to the list...

This morning I was on the elevator, on the way down from my cup of coffee, and there was a guy on the elevator with me clutching his copy of the U.S. Constitution (I guess "copy" wasn't really necessary there).  A serious elevator chatterer because it feels like a place that needs conversation - just this morning a remarked to a packed audience in their winter coats, "you're all radiating cold" - I asked him, "Are you studying for your citizenship test?"

Pause.  "No."

Oh....damn it.  Quick, find a fall back position....

He beat me to my back pedal, "I'm already a citizen."

Argh!  Keep trying.  How about, "Usually when someone's carrying around the Constitution, it's because they're studying for the test."

"I just think it's interesting reading."

Come on...first floor....come on...

"But I wouldn't want to take the test, it's probably hard."

Whew...we can move on.  If he's talking to me about generalities, the conversation can probably be saved.  I opine, "They have some pretty good versions for smart phones and the iPad."

"I don't have a smart phone or an iPad.  I haven't been able to afford one."

Shit.  I'm racist and some sort of class elitist.  First floor is here, cut and run! "Have a nice day!"

"You too."

I spent the rest of the way back to my space wondering if I would have asked someone white if they were studying for their citizenship test or if I would have assumed they were programming a new Constitution-based app.  There are some white non-citizens in house and I know the person who coded the Constitution app, so I'm going to give myself the benefit of the doubt.

Skype-i-ness

My sister discovered Skype.  So I thought it was time I posted a few photos from recent Skype sessions:

Ming, trying to break the rumors/stereotypes about Malaysians.  This is his idea of "really really big".


My Dad.  Obviously unfamiliar with how Skype works.


e and daughter, e-jr.


Babies love the camera.  It's delicious and fun to smudge.


My niece, happy about her new shirt.


Her new shirt, a unicorn pooping marshmallows.


My niece, channeling Eric Conveys an Emotion.  I believe in this photo she's being a haughty, evil queen.


This is her crazy look.  She also had a big-pimpin look where she was showing me a roll of benjamins, but I lost the photo.


My sister and her girls, a totem pole of sorts.  Although it's more Mount Rushmore-ish.  But I can't think of a Mount Rush-blank joke that's funny at all and, even if I could, it'd probably end up being inadvertently racist.


LissyJo, NO DUCKFACE!!!  (alt. no duckface link at The Chive).

Yesterday, I Married Someone Else

We missed our annual New Year's festivities with friends this year, as it was raining when I came home from work on Friday, and driving up to Monticello in sleet and ice seemed like a bad idea. Not that we haven't done the drive in stupid weather before. One year, during a snow storm, the car even temporarily died on the side of the road, giving us a bit of a fright. So New Year's wasn't nearly as exciting as in years past, but I also didn't lose $20-$40 playing in-between all night.

Despite not being in Monticello for New Year's Eve, we did travel up there on the first, because I had a wedding to perform. My first ever. Dan'l's sister was getting remarried and wanted a very low-impact wedding, on all fronts, so she asked through Dan'l if I'd be willing to perform the ceremony. I was a bit nervous, but pulled together a script that the bride liked based on some I found on line, with some rework and Dan'l participating with a reading. It was very short, but did the job, including the whole family (remarriage for both parties, with kids from both sides), and in a modern twist, I used the iPad instead of tucking the pages in a Bible or copy of Shakespeare. Certainly not the first person to do it - there are videos on youTube where the iPad is the star, not the couple - but I felt clever for thinking of it without any prompting and delivering the script to myself via DropBox and kicking it up in GoodReader.

Good scripts were difficult to find, so if you're looking for a short one, I'm including mine here as an example, although it's tailored for a remarriage with children.  But I broke out the sections so it's easy to tailor and insert readings or music.

1. Entrance, processional & music

2. Introduction
Hello and welcome! We are gathered together here in the presence of friends and family to celebrate Pam and Jody’s love for each other. To give recognition to their decision to commit their lives to each other and to learn how to help and to understand each other. To acknowledge their resolution to build a family and travel through life together.

Standing here, in this place, brings to mind an appropriate quote.  [anonymous]
I dreamed of a wedding of elaborate elegance,
A church filled with family and friends.
I asked him what kind of a wedding he wished for,
He said one that would make me his wife.

And I’d add, one that would make him my husband.

I won’t be asking if anyone has reservations or would like to speak up. Those sentiments are appropriate before a wedding day. What a couple wants to hear from this moment forward is that you will always be their friends and their family, and that you will always support and encourage them as they discover the commitment and dedication needed to make marriage work. That is why you are here today.

3. Readings, songs, activities and/or prayers
Optional. Dan’l does his reading.

4. Questions of intent ("Will you have this man/woman?)
Pam, Jody: Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end. It is to voice that intent to love in the moment, and to make that moment last as long as you can, that I ask you each this question:

“Pam , will you have this man, Jody, to be your wedded husband, to live together in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love him, comfort him, honor him, and keep him, in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep only unto him so long as you both shall live?"
If so, answer, “I will.”

[Bride answers: I will.]

“Jody, will you have this woman, Pam, to be your wedded wife, to live together in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love her, comfort her, honor her, and keep her, in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep only unto her so long as you both shall live?"
If so, answer, “I will.”

[Groom answers: I will.]

6. Wedding Vows
Do we have rings?

Jody as you place this ring on Pam’s hand, please repeat after me:
[may insert own vows]
"I, Jody, promise to love and cherish you, Pam. To give you strength, to help you in good times and in bad. To respect our individuality, to make our home one of love and understanding. I will be open and honest with you. I join you in seeking the fulfillment of our lives. I promise to be faithful to you, giving you all of myself, all of my tomorrows, all of my life."

Pam, as you place this ring on Jody‘s hand, please repeat after me:
"I, Pam, promise to love and cherish you, Jody. To give you strength, to help you in good times and in bad. To respect our individuality, to make our home one of love and understanding. I will be open and honest with you. I join you in seeking the fulfillment of our lives. I promise to be faithful to you, giving you all of myself, all of my tomorrows, all of my life."

7. Readings, songs, activities and/or prayers
Khalil Gibran said of marriage, “You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore....but let there be spaces in your togetherness. And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.” Marriage is about togetherness. And marriage is about individuality. It is about two being more than their sum. And in this case, it is about bringing together two families to rejoice in their individuality and their togetherness.

Kaylee (Pam), Marissa (Jody), Mitchell (Pam), and Tyler (Jody). Will you stand with your parents.
Pam and Jody, will you please repeat after me:

“Kaylee, Marissa, Mitchell and Tyler. This wedding is also about you. About being a family. This moment is a symbol of our commitment to be the best parents we can be. It is a symbol of our love and our concern, in the good times and in the bad. When you do well in school, and when you don’t. When you are hurt, and when you are healthy. Whatever life may bring for our family.”
[ask children to step to the sides].

8. Introduction of the couple, recessional and instructions for receiving line.
Jody. Pam. A famous calligrapher wrote:
[Kuan Tao-Sheng]
You and I
Have so much love,
That it
Burns like a fire,
In which we bake a lump of clay
Molded into a figure of you
And a figure of me.
Then we take both of them,
And break them into pieces,
And mix the pieces with water,
And mold again a figure of you,
And a figure of me.
I am in your clay.
You are in my clay.

[Note - this is all official - a ceremony is a ceremony and there's no official wording - signing the paperwork is the most important act.  Everyone can just stare at each other for five minutes in uncomfortable silence if that's preferred.  But if you care to drag the State of Minnesota into it so it sounds suitably official, you can say at this point, "By the power vested in me by the State of Minnesota, I now pronounce you husband and wife."]

While you can’t exchange your clay, you can exchange your first kiss as a married couple. [Kiss – prompt if no one is moving].

I am honored to present to you Mr. and Mrs. *********.

And I am honored to present to you their union as a family Jody, Pam, Kaylee, Marissa, Mitchell and Tyler.

Thank you all for your participation. Everyone may now come forward to offer their hugs and personal congratulations.