Being An Accountant Back Then Must Have Been Hell

I've been writing and typing up some notes on an essay the past few weeks. Last week I thought my ramblings had turned into what would likely be two essays, this week I think that it could work as an essay in two parts. So tonight I am doing something I rarely ever do as a writer: I am making an outline for the essay, just like we were taught back in English class. Thing is, I'm actually using Roman numerals, just like we were taught back in English class. Generally, I mock Roman numerals as example #1 why the Roman Empire fell ... who the hell could ever do math with these?? (God bless those Arabs!) These days you only see Roman numerals in Super Bowls and credits of old movies (maybe new ones too, I haven't checked), but for whatever reason they make the outline I'm working on look like it has some authority.

On a related Roman note, after hearing Frank Pembeton speak Latin I thought it would be cool to learn Latin. File this under heady things I would like to do (but won't) like learn to be a good chess player.

"I'm A Capitalist, Nat! I've Got Untapped Reserves. I'm Rich!"

I just watched The Lost Weekend, a movie about a struggling writer who enjoys rye. (Why does this sound familiar?) The movie inspired me to come up with a list of ten great places to hide a bottle. Some are from the movie, some I came up with on my own:

Top shelf of the bedroom closet (movie)

In the light fixture (movie)

In my brother's suitcase (movie)

In the big bag of cat food (me)

In the vacuum cleaner bag (movie)

Behind the vinyl, top shelf (me)

Under the mattress (movie)

Behind the family's Finnish-language bible (me)

Tied to a rope, hanging outside your bedroom window (movie)

Behind that little door in the wall that leads to a space where you can work on the plumbing for the bathtub (me, inspired by the movie)

The Quiet American

I just finished reading The Quiet American by Graham Greene. It was mentioned in the last Vietnam book I read, Dispatches. This book is brilliant. Highly recommended, and a quick read. Written in 1955, it's a short novel that describes the French's failures in Vietnam and also foreshadows America's fiascos there over the next twenty years.

Oddly, while reading on the net about the book, I found out that the President actually quoted the book last summer in defense of his failed Iraq war (i.e. the new Vietnam War.) I guarantee you that Bush has not read this book, and probably nobody on his speechwriting team has either. Thinking about this Bush-quotes-Greene thing is totally tripping me out, and it's not just the rye and gingers I'm enjoying tonight kicking in. In The Quiet American, Alden Pyle - the earnest "let's bring democracy to the childlike Vietnamese" CIA agent idolizes an author named York Harding, who advocated a way of bringing democracy to Indochina that was questionable on paper and would fail miserably in the field. York Harding, fictional father of the neocons. Alden Pyle, forerunner of George Bush. That's not just me saying that last one, it's also on the pages of The American Conservative:

Back in 1987, Greene was one of the most vocal critics of the Israeli government following the abduction of Mordechai Vanunu from Italy by Israeli agents. Vanunu’s “crime,” in the eyes of the Israelis, was to have exposed the fact that Israel possessed nuclear weapons that, by any stretch of the imagination, can be described as “weapons of mass destruction.” Why is it, one wonders, that some countries in the Middle East can possess weapons of mass destruction, with Bush’s blessing, while others cannot? Why did previous American governments arm the Taliban and Saddam Hussein in the name of “Freedom” and “Democracy”? Why did Bush’s own government declare war on the only secular government in the Middle East capable of resisting Iran? These are questions that only George W. Bush or Alden Pyle could answer. The rest of us remain baffled.

Bush quoted a character in The Quiet American who said of Pyle that he had never known a man “who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.” Like Pyle, Bush is well-intentioned. Like Pyle, he is dangerously naïve. Like Pyle, his noble motives have caused a lot of trouble. And, like Pyle, he needs reminding of the old adage that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Cinema's Secret Influence?

Three great movie scenes from the past ten years:

1) Kevin Spacey sings along with "American Woman" in American Beauty.

2) Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs in Almost Famous ... his scene starts 2:28 in, and the below quote starts at 3:03. If you don't have the patience to wait for the clip to load that far, he says:

"The Doors? Jim Morrison? He's a drunken buffoon posing as a poet. Give me The Guess Who. C'mon - they got the courage to be drunken buffoons. Which makes them poetic."

3) Micheal Cera (he's Canadian!) sings "These Eyes" in Superbad.

Insert "Here Comes A Regular" Lyrics Here

The new Esquire has their annual feature on the best bars in America. No Twin Cities bars made the list, the only Minnesota bar that made it was one up on the North Shore. The feauture does have some entertaining sidebars, including one about the regular bar. An excerpt:

We started thinking about how you cultivate a relationship with a bar. We came up with some criteria for a regular place. It needs to be within walking distance of where you spend most of your time. And you have to get generous drinks there. You just do. And the bartender has to be there every night. If he goes on vacation, you have to notice. And you have to be able to get a seat at the bar, like, 85 percent of the time. And it really helps if there is a charming woman there who kisses you on both cheeks every single time you walk in. And she needs to be good at consoling.

This Crack Is Directed At Twin Cities Fans Of A Certain Boston Player

I'm cheering for the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Boston Celtics in the NBA playoffs. Wally Szczerbiak and Joe Smith deserve a championship.

Don't Know Where All These Red Sox Fans Came From All Of Sudden, But I'm Sure Glad They're Quiet Tonight

Howard Sinker, who I read in the pages of the Grand Forks Herald thirty years ago or so, has a nice recap of the Twins beating the Red Sox in the bottom of the ninth on Friday night.

A note to Howard (who I dig): I was oozing confidence when GoGo was up to bat. Young had already gotten a hit off of Papelbon, why not Gomez? I was thinking he was going to go yard or at least hit a double (oops, that would be a triple for GoGo) into the gap. Instead, he drew a walk - I think FSN said it was only his fourth of the season - and then stole second. I love this kid!

I was up saying "GoGo! GoGo! GoGo!" all during Gomez's at bat and then kept repeating "Twins win! Twins win! Twins win!" after Lamb drove in the winning runs. I live alone, so it was left up to my cat to give me funny looks, of course it didn't help that I was also doing a PA-via-Common "Ballgame!" while pointing at her.

Tuomala Retracts A Pretty Good Cheap Shot

"A few years back I bought The Best of Badfinger and now only program three songs on my CD player - "No Matter What," "Day After Day," and "Baby Blue." But I guess anthology EPs would be asking for too much from the recording industry."

I wrote the above back in 1998 and need to double back on myself (yet again.) This year I popped The Best of Badfinger back into the CD player and love it. I know ten years ago I didn't "get" the Beatles and so certaintly didn't "get" some powerpop like Badfinger. But these days ... well, it's spring and I might have to spin side one of Raspberries' Best before I hit the hay tonight.

Dear Landlord

I sometimes am asked why I don't buy a house. Here's a typical off-and-on discussion that I have with nosy busybodies in my life:

You should buy a house.

I don't want a house. I don't want to mow a lawn, prune trees, shovel snow, or have neighbors that I am obliged to talk to over the backyard fence.

Oh, then you should buy a condo.

I would be paying more per month to live in something smaller than I am in now, and it wouldn't be in this neighborhood that I love.

But you need to build up some equity!

Fuck that. And just to double down, I'm gonna lease my next car!

And these days it turns out it saves me $200 a month to rent over buying ... plus I'll be getting three hundred large in a property tax refund this summer. Sure beats mowing the lawn or paying association fees.

To The Bar

This week I realized a lifelong dream did something I thought of last week and set up a bar in my writing office. Inspired by Chad's new bar and a couple of other friends who have set up bars in their basements, I decided to set up a bar also. Why always go beer and vodka neat when there's a whole world of drinks out there? (New fave: rye and ginger.)

Alas, there is nowhere to sit at the bar - it's simply a place for booze and mixers and glasses. I live in an apartment and don't have a basement. I do have a basement storage space and considered setting up a little bar down there complete with barstools and a transistor radio so that we could listen to the Twins, but as it tends to be the case with preparing cold drinks too far from your kitchen: the logistics of ice got too complicated.

Currently I'm having a dirty martini. No clients tomorrow, just writing and reading. No idiot barfly next to me blabbing on and on. This is sweet (though the drink is salty.)

Did He Just Compare Himself To Frank Pembleton?

After loving the Homicide book, I recently started watching the Homicide series on DVD. Frank Pembleton immediately reminded me of somebody - he reminded me of me, back when I had a real job in Corporate America.

Oh sure, he's black, I'm white. He's incredibly handsome, I'm dopey looking. He's articulate, I have a North Dakota accent so thick that was asked in 1996 if I adopted it after watching Fargo. He dresses well, when I had to wear a tie my fashions were from JC Penney. He invesitagates murders and interrogates suspects, I processed applications for payment and withheld payments to subcontractors over lien waivers. So what's the similarity, other than that he listens to Emmylou Harris and I once bought an Emmylou Harris LP mostly so that I could gaze at the album cover?

It's that Pembleton is accused of not being a team player; instead brilliantly going his own way with his work and shunning social contact with his colleagues. I also had the "team" bullshit thrown in my face (a top three Tuomala wisecrack ever at that job: "I'm too good to play on the junior varsity") (thanks to Turk for the line) and shunned social events with my coworkers (at least the accounting ones.)

It's probably a good thing I didn't watch this show when I had that job as I would have likely adopted some Pembleton mannerisms - like become a sharp dresser and start smoking cigarettes. I would have been out some serious dough and would now have a hacking cough.

Please send no series spoilers my way ... but if Pembleton's fate is anything like mine, he'll be lied to and stabbed in the back by management. But keep going your own way, Frank.

4 OTs!

I watched that Stars over Sharks in four overtimes game tonight from 8 pm until it ended at 1:24 am. Great game and a great cure for the typical Sunday Night Blues.

Just Ask Humbert Humbert

This? This? This is the Miley Cyrus photo from Vanity Fair that is causing all the hubbub? The prudes in this country (the photo was referred to as "child pornography" in the letters section of Sunday's Strib) apparently have just been informed that fifteen-year old girls have skin on their backs.

My, how times have changed. Back in the day, we needed naughty fifteen-year old Brooke "Commando" Shields to stir up some controversy. And being just a few months younger than her and hence also being fifteen at the time - I loved those Calvin Klein ads.

And to bring things full circle ... Shields portrays Cyrus's mom on Hannah Montana.

(A dorm buddy of mine at UND went on to graduate school at Princeton the same time that Shields was there. He informed us that she had tried to jump him as he walked out of the chemistry lab, but fortunately he had on a tearaway jersey! Love those jokers from the dorm!)

New Podcast Is Posted

Exiled Radio #17

Score!

Roadrunner Records is having a sale through Sunday - 15% off of new stuff and 20% off of new. They mailed me a postcard and by returning it along with my email address I got an additional 5% off. So this afternoon I went and bought used six LPs and only spent fourteen bucks and change! I haven't listened to all of 'em yet - the turntable is in the living room and here in the writing office I just have iTunes, online streaming, and a regular ol' radio.

And I think this is the year that for the most part purchased CDs come to an end for me. I was hesitant to buy too much off of iTunes because the lack of liner notes freaked me out. But you know what? Liner notes in CD booklets are getting too tiny for my old eyes to read, and I just got a new eyes prescription last fall. Plus booklet designers are hung up on the white-type-on-black-background thing, and that is tough enough to read even if you have young eyes. So I think 2008 will bring up an interesting combo in my music purchasing: Old-school vinyl (cheap and fun!) and digital downloads (easily be burned to a CD to play on the stereo or in the car.) Now I understand those "CD, RIP" articles I saw earlier this year.