dimland radio 9-2-17 show notes

Welcome To High School And Welcome To The Curb

I still feel so stupid. More on that in a moment.

Thursday night was a welcome freshmen and parents to their new school. My son Hayden starts high school on Tuesday. My wife and I are a little nervous about it, but I'm sure he'll do his best. I didn't talk much about the presentation to the parents (the kids were sent off to some other part of the school).

I did note an odd perceptual thing, at least on my part, when looking at people standing at the front of an auditorium. It might just be me, but those people tend to look taller than they are. Is it just me?

It was what happened after the event at the school that made the night a royal pain in the ass and made me feel so stupid. On the way home I took a slight detour to show Amy and Hayden something. It was pretty much on the way, so I figured why not.

Getting back to our route home, my attention was not as sharp as it should have been. I was concentrating on the oncoming traffic during a turn onto the on ramp for the Interstate. I didn't notice I had cut the corner just a bit too sharp.

WHAM!

I hit the curb dead on with the front driver's side tire. The tire blew out.

So, god damn stupid.

Guest Appearances Of Other Podcasts

A couple weeks or so back, I participated in a group discussion of filmmaker George Romero. The discussion was on The Assault Of The Two-Headed Space Mules podcast, hosted by my friend Douglas Arthur. He had enough material to split it into two parts. Please check them out.

The other podcast was more recent. It's called A Topic A Month and is hosted by Adin Briggs who resides in Duluth, MN. Or as Minnesotans call it: Dah-loot. Adin had me on for about an hour to discuss conspiracy theories from a skeptical angle. Please check it out.

Yes, You Have The Right, But There May be Consequences

Tuesday morning the local free weekly newpaper, Cities Pages, broke a story about the owner of a bar in Minneapolis' North Loop section having donated $500 to the 2016 Senatorial campaign of David Duke. Yes, that David Duke.

That news has had a ripple effect. Part of which is the MN Skeptics group will be taking our business elsewhere for our monthly meet-ups. For the past six to seven years the MN Skeptics have headed to Club Jager, after having dinner at Be'Wiched, a way cool deli that has been very good to us. None of the members of MN Skeptics wishes to remain patrons of Club Jager.

We feel badly for the employees of the bar. We never got any hint of the apparent attitude of the owner from any of the staff. Most of them were very cool. (There is a blog from almost ten years ago telling stories of some racial and anti-Semitic troubles by patrons with the bar seeming to look the other way.) But we needn't have worry. By the closing time Thursday night, the entire staff had quit.

The owner remarked that he was exercising his right to donate money to whomever he wished. True. He can do that. The $500 just cost him a whole lot more, because his staff and patrons are exercising their rights.

Pedantic Moment: To Serve Man

I blogged about this at Warehouse Find, the official blog of Nostalgia Zone. It occurred to me earlier in the week that an episode of the classic television sci-fi series The Twilight Zone offers a couple pretty worthy Pedantic Moments.

Read here to get those moments.

Top Three Cool Things Of The Week

Here are the Top Three Cool Things from this week.

3) Victims of the "satanic panic" of the 1990s, Dan and Fran Keller served 21 years in prison for satanic ritual abuse of children in their day care. They were innocent. They have been released and received $3.4 million.

2) I found an excellent source online for identifying fake news on the internets.

1) MN Skeptics taking their business elsewhere and the staff of Club Jager deciding their principles were more valuable than their jobs.

Movie Recommendation: None

I ran out of time, so you are on your own this week.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Tabazan' by Killing Joke & 'Homebreakers' by The Style Council

Second ad break bumpers: 'Entre Nous' by Rush & 'Respectable Street' by XTC

Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle

That's it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com you can also download my show from the z talk show archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

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concert memoirs pt. 34 - duran duran & elastica

Duran Duran

8/18/00 New World Music Theatre w/Amy, Sarah & Sean Ticket Price: $26.50

Yep, that's right. Duran Duran. Hard to believe I would see this band, right? Guess what else. The New World Music Theatre is in Joliet, Illinois! Uh huh, we drove all the way to Joliet to see the "wild boys". If you're thinking a woman was involved, you'd be right.

I think Duran Duran has a few good songs, but I'd never buy one of their albums or go to their show if it weren't for Amy. Amy and her friend, Sarah, are lifelong fans of the band and they'd never seen them, so, when Sarah heard they'd get as close as Illinois on that year's tour, she convinced us to go. It didn't take much to convince Amy, but they had to suggest making it a weekend in Chicago to convince Sean (Sarah's boyfriend at the time) and I to go.

Sarah got the tickets to the show and tickets to a Chicago White Sox game (something for the boys), while Amy found lodging. So, off we went, Sean and Sarah in their car, Amy and I in ours to take in the glory of Duran Duran (and the White Sox and whatever else Chicago had to offer).

It turned out to be a pretty good time. We saw the sites in Chicago and were fortunate to be there the weekend of the big air show that takes place there every year. We took in the Museum of Modern Art, the Field Museum, the world-famous fountain, and the Hard Rock Cafe (ok, that last one was rather pedestrian, but still).

So, the big show! Well, we all piled into Sean's car and headed to the outdoor amphitheater. As we were queued up in the car waiting to get into the parking area, I was treated to one of the more bizarre moments in my life with Amy.

We were waiting there when a long, black limo drove past us heading toward the venue. I spotted it and said, in all innocence, "Maybe that's them in the limo."

"SHRIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKK!!!!!!!!"

The sound came from the backseat of the car where Amy and Sarah were seated. I slowly turned to look at my girlfriend, "Was that you?"

She was so embarrassed, but, yes, it had been her who had shrieked. I had never before nor since heard her make that sound, even after she had recently been surprised by a mouse in our kitchen. Very interesting.

So, Duran Duran hit the stage and were greeted by a lot of shrieks. There were an awful lot of female types in the crowd. I think it was one of the few shows I'd been to where the women outnumbered the men. I wonder why that would be?

The show was pretty good. I've admitted that I do like a few of their tunes. I don't think Sean was very interested, though. Judging by his mullet and the kind of car he drove (some muscle car, I forget which), I think Sean was more interested in Toby Keith style country music or 80's hair bands, maybe both.

But, Amy and Sarah were in heaven. They were thoroughly enjoying themselves. The venue was outdoors and the sun had gone down so the conditions were fairly comfortable. However, I noticed that Amy and Sarah seemed to be glistening. They weren't sweating profusely, but had this light sheen to their skin. They seemed to glisten more during their favorite songs, as well. Sean and I weren't glistening.

The show over, we headed back to the car and got in one of the lines of cars heading for the freeway. As we slowly made our way out, I noticed that a jeep we were coming along side of was sporting an intriguing license plate. The personalized plate read "N RAYGUN". I was so excited to see Naked Raygun fans, I shrieked liked a certain Duran Duran fan...

No, I'm kidding. I didn't shriek, however, as we came along side them, I called out, "Naked Raygun kicks ass!"

The occupants of the jeep wholeheartedly agreed.

It turned out to be a very good eventful weekend in Joliet and Chicago. And Duran Duran didn't suck.

Elastica
9/26/00 First Avenue w/Amy & Mark Ticket Price: Unknown

As you can see, the ticket states that this was "the long awaited return of Elastica". That may have been true, but it was a disappointing return.

They were late in taking the stage. As soon as they had started to play, the drum kit had a malfunction. Something on it had broken. They stopped playing, apologized, and then excused themselves while the crew made repairs. So we had to wait another 15 minutes or so.

Another long awaited return later, they came back to the stage. Their set was rather lackluster. The energy and fun of the last time I'd seen them (First Avenue, 6/4/95) just wasn't there that night. Partly due to the fact that their second album, 'Menace', was also on the lackluster side. Despite the presence of Mark E. Smith, 'Menace' didn't pack the same punch as their debut album.

A couple years after this show, City Pages, a local weekly newspaper, had an article about people's memories of First Avenue, the famous Minneapolis nightclub. I think the article was prompted by the brief closing of the club at that time. One of the contributors to the article remembered Elastica's members' desperate search for heroin. So, that may have been one reason for the poor quality of the show.

There was an additional member to the band's line-up for the show. A young gal who occasionally played keyboards and shouted a few backing vocals. However, it seemed that the main reason she was there was to dance around and shake her boobies. Boobies barely restrained by a thin t-shirt. (Yes, Amy, I noticed)

Our friend, Mark, commented after the show that Miss Boobies must have been the girlfriend of someone in the band.