Memory Day: Extremely tardy edition

Welp, I should have seen this coming after last week's close call, but now I done gone and missed Memory Day altogether. By several days. Sorry kids. I also have noticed that I'm averaging like two posts a week now. Obviously that is unacceptable, and I will make a strong effort to write more from now on. It's harder not having a camera, because usually taking pictures of interesting things will inspire me to write something. Maybe I'll just start getting disposable cameras.

But anyways, this week's Memory Day, huh? I'm still going to do it, even if it's late. So what do I remember? Something about being late perhaps?

One time when I was in fifth (sixth?) grade, my mom got tickets to some sort of dessert tasting at the convention center downtown. I don't remember exactly what the event was for, because I was 11 years old I couldn't have cared less. All I thought was hey, free dessert! Unlimited sugar! Cakes! Pies! Ice cream! Pizza! No, wait, not pizza. Cookies! Brownies! Chocolate rivers! Everlasting gobstoppers! Television chocolate! Fizzy-lifting drinks!

pretty much what I envisioned.

A quick note about my mom and I: we are late for everything, all the time. I would wake up late every day, I would show up late to the bus stop every day. After missing the bus, my mom would drive me to school and I would be late. Eventually, my mom agreed to let me skip the bus stop charade and drove me to school every day. She got me there later than ever before. That's just one example out of countless instances. I don't know, it's in our blood.

As I recall, the dessert tasting was supposed to start at 6 and go until 8 or something. Yeah, sure. We showed up at probably 7:55. Most of the guests had already left, and several of the booths were packing up to go. I didn't think they would even let us in. We were going to miss the whole thing, right down to the great glass elevator.

To my surprise, they waved us in! Everyone at the event was supposed to get three tickets, which could be exchanged for three different desserts. It wasn't going to be the Wonka-esque unlimited sugar bonanza that I had envisioned, but three desserts is three desserts. When we tried to exchange our tickets, it got interesting. Nobody would accept them.

All of the various chocolateers and pastry chefs and dessert wizards had piles and piles and piles of leftovers. Rather than taking our paltry three tickets, they just said screw it and let us have however much we wanted. It really was a sugar bonanza of Roald Dahl proportions! Jumpin' Jehosaphat, it was madness. Gourmet, coconut encrusted, hazelnut filled, chocolate covered, frosted madness with whipped cream and cherries. We got more dessert than we could handle, and only because we got there late.

So, the moral of the story? Good things come to those who wait? Slow and steady wins the race? It's good to be late? No. I actually hate being late, it's just how I was raised. I don't endorse tardiness in any way shape or form. The only real moral here is that dessert is awesome. I dare you to disagree.

On the best show on television

I like television. I really do. Even though I was an English major in college and studied the finest literature, even though I pretend to be intellectual by writing book reviews, even though in high school I wrote a report on a book titled "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television," I watch TV like it's my job. And I'm not joking when I say that, because I'm still unemployed and actually watch TV in lieu of working.

On Saturday night I had a running discussion with several friends about what the best show is. Since I am an avid TV watcher, I had lots of input. But the suggestions from other people were terrible. Roy said that it's Jon and Kate Plus 8. Katie said that it's The Real Housewives of New York. I don't think I need to tell you that both Roy and Katie are completely wrong. I mean, Real Housewives is tasteless exploitative drivel, giving unnecessary attention to the most useless and immature people in the world. And Jon and Kate Plus 8 is just so unnecessary. Yeah, they have way too many children, but who cares. Oh, she makes twenty sandwiches at once? Better set the TiVo! Obviously my friends aren't qualified to judge what the best show is. But I am.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mantracker. The best show on television.

You may not have seen, or even heard of, Mantracker before. It's from Canada and it only airs in the U.S. on the Science Channel, which I guess is a weird offshoot of The Discovery Channel. But seriously, this show is amazing.

The Mantracker is a guy named Terry Grant, who is the most badass dude in the world. He's basically what you would get if Chuck Norris had a baby with John Locke from LOST and raised him in the Canadian wilderness. In each episode, two contestants are dropped in the woods with a map and a compass and have 36 hours to reach a certain location. They get a small headstart, and then it's Mantracker time. With the help of a local guide, he finds their tracks. They try taking their boots off to avoid leaving footprints. He hunts them. They try doubling back to confuse him. He stalks them. They try cutting across a stream to break the trail. He spots them. They get within sight of the finish line. He gallops in on a motherflippin' horse and it's game over. If he gets within lassoing distance (he doesn't actually have a lasso, but he should) then he wins.

Sure, the whole thing may seem a little ridiculous, and it kinda is. The presentation is pretty corny with all of the camera tricks and set shots and weird graphics. And there are some serious questions as to the authenticity of the chase (they just pretend like the camera crews aren't there?). But just look at this guy:

You can't tell me he doesn't look intimidating as all hell. Man-effing-tracker. The best beard on television. The best show on television.

And in case you don't get the Science Channel, or don't want to bother waiting for it to come on, there are tons of clips on youtube. Here's a taste:



Even though it's already decided that Mantracker is the best, what do you think? Is there a different show that you (incorrectly) feel is better than Mantracker? Do tell in the comments!

Memory Day: Waldorf edition

Jeez, I almost forgot, it's Memory Day again!

This is going to be less of a concrete memory, and more of a vague mix of childhood recollections brought on by my sister's reminder of her early Waldorf days. If you are not familiar, Waldorf is a weird pagan cult renowned educational philosophy that brainwashes teaches children using wood and fabric instead of computers and science. My sister was so thoroughly hoodwinked by enamored with the Waldorf cult method that she has gone full circle from a Waldorf acolyte student to a Waldorf hierophant teacher. I myself have a little Waldorf experience under my belt, as I attended a Waldorf preschool.

Since I was only 4 or 5 years old at the time, my memories of the time are a little fuzzy. So fuzzy that they might as well be made of felt. Wait a minute... felt? It's all coming back to me!

We didn't have real toys to play with at the Waldorf preschool. We had felt. And we had beeswax. We had a jungle gym made out of logs and sticks. Honestly, being in a Waldorf classroom is sort of like being stranded on a desert island: you have a bunch of rough natural materials, and you have to figure out how to combine them in order to survive. You want to play a game of checkers? Draw a board on a piece of felt and make some pieces out of beeswax. Want to play kickball? Make bases out of felt and a ball out of beeswax. Want to play a computer game? Make a computer out of felt and a moniter out of beeswax, and then make an Oregon Trail floppy disk out of sticks or something, I don't know.

Alright kids, here's some felt. Have fun!

Maybe things have changed in the 18 years since I attended, but all I really remember is felt and beeswax. Specifically what I remember is making knives out of beeswax with my friend Oliver and having battles on the log jungle gym. Part of what Waldorf does through the use of arts and crafts is to promote peaceful and nonviolent play. Although I can't remember specifically, we likely had our beeswax knives taken away. But it doesn't really matter if it's a lump of beeswax or a scrap of felt, if you give it to a five year old boy he's going to turn it into a weapon. I suppose it does speak well for Waldorf that the only things we had to smack each other with were soft and malleable. Nobody gets hurt with wax and felt. Thank goodness I started public school the next year, where we had plastic and metal toys and violence was encouraged!

On my blog reaching a powerful audience

Yesterday was a very big day in the history of Knowledge Dropped. Very big indeed. But before I get into the what and why, here's a little history lesson:

• Monday, August 25th, 2008: In what is only this blog's 6th post, I discuss the moral implications of the use of Santogold's music in the commercials for the disgusting lime-flavored Bud Light.

• Monday, October 6th, 2008: After being shocked and disturbed by the number of people finding the August 25th post by searching for information on Budweiser's idiotic 'drinkability' ad campaign, I write an obviously facetious manifesto declaring my blog "Official Drinkability World Headquarters".

• Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008: After being fed up with the extraordinary amount of people continually searching for Bud Light commercials and finding my blog, I write a very bitter post bemoaning the fact that the only thing people are actually reading is the post I put the least amount of creative thought into.

Nowadays there aren't as many drinkability commercials on the air, and thankfully the one with the Dave Chappelle lookalike is gone for good. But I still get a decent amount of traffic from people searching for drinkability and finding my World Headquarters (recent keywords include: 'drinkability ridiculous' and 'coors drinkability drink'). Which brings us to yesterday's momentous event:

• Monday, April 20th, 2009: According to my StatCounter traffic meter, at exactly 04:30:40 PM, someone from Anheuser Busch Companies in St. Louis, Missouri logged onto my Official Drinkability World Headquarters post.

click to enlarge

Now it's clear that I shouldn't jump to any conclusions as to who exactly it was in the Bud Light parent company that read my sarcastic post about their lousy beer commercials, but I'm going to anyway. It was obviously Dave Peacock, the CEO of Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. He personally trawls the web looking for any and all references to his low-quality products, and was positively giddy with excitement when he stumbled upon my little send-up of the Bud Light advertisements:

"I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again: mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note," he said as he read the part about the drinkability commercials being hilariously comical.

"Thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me on the first view to say, to swear, I love thee," he said as he saw the "Boycott Coors" and "Boycott Miller" pictures.

"Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful," he said as he saw the picture of the otter. Once he reached the bottom of the page, where I said I was on my way to buy a 24-pack of Bud Light, he called forth his assistants:

"Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed! Fetch me the dude that writes this Knowledge Dropped blog, he's hilarious and he could write advertisements that are way better than all this stupid drinkability bullshit."

On Winkie

First of all, do you notice the amazing little customized site icon up by the address bar? I hope so, because it took literally minutes to figure out how to get it.

Now then, moving on... did somebody say book review??? Yeah, me. I said it. I'm saying it right now. Book review. I'm doing another one. Don't worry, this one will have fewer spoilers than the last one.

The book is Winkie, written by Clifford Chase, published by Grove Press.

In case you can't tell from the cover, it's a book about a teddy bear named Winkie who comes to life and is subsequently arrested by the FBI as a suspected terrorist. It's a little weird.

Based on the quotes on the back and inside covers, you would think that Winkie is a scathing send-up of the War on Terror. Many of the blurbs call the book political satire. The critic from Entertainment Weekly went as far as to call Winkie an anti-Bush book. That's really a stretch. Sure the book satirizes the justice system, but it's so broad and so far over the top that it's closer to parody than incisive political commentary. I mean, a teddy bear put on trial? It's a great conceit, to be sure, but it's really more of an excercise in absurdism and surrealism than it is an indictment of the Bush administration. And as soon as the actual trial starts, it descends into downright silliness. It's hilarious and charming, but it's not exactly biting. Really, all of the judicial satire, the whole terrorism angle, it's all something of a comedic addendum to what is already a fascinating and heartfelt story.

The real meat of the story concerns the long and painful transformation of Winkie from an inanimate, yet fully conscious, teddy bear to some sort of fantastical new lifeform. Clifford Chase is an unbelievably poetic writer, and all of Winkie's thoughts and experiences are described in very strange, inventive detail. There is the occasional overwritten sentence, but for the most part Chase's prose is really quite mesmerising. Part of the beauty is that Chase is not afraid to get a little weird, e.g. my very favorite passage:

One afternoon while walking in the forest, the little bear considered entering another dimension, and indeed in the sad, golden dusk slanting along the path, he soon began to flicker, turning briefly harsh and trapezoidal under the naked trees.

That sentence basically just comes out of nowhere, and I don't know about you but I think it's absolutely brilliant and I really wish I had written it. And I have to say that Winkie is now one of my favorite characters of all time. He has such an alien perspective on things that Chase brings to life so effortlessly, and for all his weirdness it's impossible not to love him. He comes to life, and the first thing he wants to do is to learn how to poop. The FBI arrests him, and all he wants to do is give people hugs. He's adorable!

Another interesting thing about Winkie is that it is at least semi-autobiographical. In addition to being a story about Winkie the bear, it is also the story of Chase's own family, to whom Winkie belongs. The stuffed bear is in the family for generations, and is a silent observer to all of the Chase eccentricities. I'm not exactly sure where the line is drawn between Chase's actual childhood memories and what is fictionalized for the story, but I do know that the book does not have the traditional disclaimer saying "this is a work of fiction, any resemblance to actual people, places, purely coincidental, etc." which likely means that there is some truth in there. Some of the quotes on the back compare Winkie to the works of David Sedaris, and I can definitely see the similarity.

So yeah, there you have it. Clifford Chase wrote a weird and wonderful little book about his family and his childhood teddy bear who undergoes a metaphysical transformation and is forced to endure some crazy judicial antics. In summation, it was great.

Memory Day: Sandwich edition

I remember on Sunday when I was in Tacoma visiting my college friends and we went to MSM Deli and it was the greatest sandwich I have ever eaten.

Yep, that's it.

On my field trip

...and I'm back.

I had a grand ol' time visiting all the kids at my Alma Mater, but I feel like I missed a lot while I was gone. I mean the whole standoff between the Somali pirates and the navy followed by high seas sniper action? Ca-razy! And the Twins getting carved up by the White Sox in Chicago? Actually, I'm kind of glad that I missed that.

Now before I get into my trip, a quick apology: I'm sorry that instead of interesting Twitter updates I just threw up some Joanna Newsom lyrics, and I'm sorry that I didn't take any pictures because my cell phone camera is a huge hassle to use. But here's a picture from college, you can just pretend I took it this weekend:

It's a stray cat that lived on our porch last year. We named her Mei Mei, which is Chinese for Little Sister. She had a stub tail and we think she got pregnant and had kittens at some point. She would sit on our doorstep every day and yowl until we fed her. Then she disappeared and we never found out where she went.

Now, as for the trip: it was good. I went to the biannual Repertory Dance Group performance, and just missed out on a sold-out performance by a bunch of Tibetan monks who were doing something somewhere on campus. Nothing else I did was particularly noteworthy (eat an easter brunch? eat a sandwich? play Star Wars videogames? go to a coffeeshop? buy banana flavored beer?) it was nonetheless great to see people I have missed for the past year. It also made me realize how nice it is to not have to do homework anymore.

Actually hold on, let's back up a bit. I said that nothing else I did was noteworthy. The sandwich I ate was extremely noteworthy. It was from MSM Deli, a.k.a. the Magic Sandwich Makers. It's a dilapidated convenience store with a grimy deli counter and all of the charm of a local jail. But those boys don't eff around when it comes to making sandwiches. I had the deli club with nice soft French bread, warm turkey, crispy bacon, cool avacado, fresh tomato, crisp lettuce, tangy mayo, and oh holy Mary mother of our lord Jesus Christ am I hungry now. I had the opportunity to go back on the way to the airport and get one for the road, and I declined. What the hell was I thinking??? I would step over the burning corpses of all of my friends and family to get another MSM sandwich right now.

Knowledge Dropped Spring Field Trip

Fare thee well, fair readers, for by my troth I am off. As it has been foretold since days of yore, I am journeying to the mystical and storied lands beyond the Rocky mountains, to the sparkling jewel nestled in the shadow of great Mount Ranier. In other words, I'm going back to visit my ol' college stomping grounds in Tacoma, WA.

I haven't been on campus since graduation last spring, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it hasn't changed at all in the past year. I just wish I had a camera to take interesting and/or hilarious pictures to show you. I'll do my best with my cellphone camera, and I'll be sure to send in frequent inane twitter updates that will keep you frantically refreshing this page to see what wacky things I will say next.

Have a good weekend, troops.

Memory Day: Baseball edition

This is going to be a recent memory, not one from my childhood. And since the baseball season just started, and since I'm still riding high after attending last night's awesome Twins game, I'm going to talk about the greatest baseball game I ever attended.

It was June 14, 2006. Twins vs. Red Sox. The day after an incredibly dramatic victory in which Jason Kubel hit a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the 12th. I went to the game with my sister.

We had decided that we were going to get on TV and be circled by Bert, so we made elaborate signs before we left. My sister's sign was about Joe Mauer and how he was worthy for the upcoming All-Star Game. My sign said 'Bircle me Cert.'

Mission accomplished.

After getting circled in the 2nd inning, the rest of the game just seemed like a bonus. As it turned out, it was a very entertaining affair with Jason Kubel hitting a home run to give the Twins the lead, Justin Morneau hitting a grand slam to solidify the lead, and Brad Radke pitching very well all the while. The Twins won the game handily, 8-1.

But there was another yet another spectacular moment that ocurred. At some point in the middle innings, two yokels hopped the fence and ran onto the field during the middle of a David Ortiz at-bat. One of them ran to center field and tried to get a high five from Torii Hunter, who for some reason actually gave it to him. The other one started running the bases, and finished with a textbook head first slide into homeplate. Right after he picked himself out of the dirt, this happened:

The bat boy just flies in out of nowhere and wraps the dude up in a tackle that would make Jared Allen proud. The entire stadium erupted. I think people may have cheered louder for that tackle than for Morneau's grand slam. It was an incredible moment in a fabulous day.

On the best day of the year

I think that baseball's opening day is the most exciting day of the year. If I had a job, I probably would have stayed home today. As it was, I just sat on the couch and watched game after game.

For whatever reason the game of baseball often inspires mediocre sports writers to write long meaningless diatribes filled with cliche purple-prose aphorisms about the true meaning of baseball (yeah, I get it, it's a father son thing) and poorly formed metaphors (baseball is not like ballet ever).

If I had remembered to write something earlier today instead of just sitting there watching baseball, I might have done the same. If I had remembered to write something half an hour ago, I would have found some hilarious examples of the terrible articles I'm talking about and made fun of them. But the Twins game has already started, and I don't want to do anything else but watch the game, so I'm not really going to write anything at all.

I will, however, share my all-time favorite baseball photo of all-time: Johan Santana striking a mid-80's b-boy pose at the 2006 All Star Game.

Johan Santana is more hip hop than Juelz Santana.

On superheroes and fish eggs and Germans and drugs and

Once upon a time, there was a superhero named Hera who was friends with a German fellow named Owen. Owen was from a very important German royal family, but he liked to come to America to visit his friend Hera whenever he could. He loved to stay at a special rabbit/fish egg themed hotel during his visits. One day, Hera promised Owen that she would cut off all of her hair and give it to her German pal. Owen was so excited that he did a whole bunch of drugs to celebrate. Unfortunately for Owen, Hera decided at the last minute that she wanted to keep her hair. Owen's hotel had a nice little pond with row boats for rent, so Hera decided to take him on a boat ride to soften the news. As she rowed Owen past a very disturbing decorative sculpture of a tree made entirely out of grass, Hera told him that she was keeping her hair. Owen was understandably upset.

"You're a hair-owin' heir-rowin' heroine," said Herr Owen to Hera, when on heroin by the harrowin' hay rowan at the Hare Roe Inn.














Aaargghhh what the hell was that? What in God's name did I just write? I'm sorry you had to read that. This is what happens when I stay home sick on a Saturday night. My mind goes weird places.

Just a reminder...

My story is playing today on the Banjo Brothers twitter feed.

So come on and chickity-check [it out for] yo self before you wreck yo self!

twitter.com/banjobrothers

*****EMERGENCY UPDATE!!!!!!*****
The story is also available HERE!!! CLICK IT AND READ IT NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

Memory Day: I was a hilarious prankster edition

Since today just happens to be April Fools Day, I figured I should do a very special April Fools Memory Day. I have pulled some really great April Fools Day shenanigans in my life, and here are some of the very best ones:

April Fools!

Ha ha ha, and so forth. That was my big April Fools Day prank this year, tricking you into thinking I was going to be sharing April Fools Day memories. Gotcha! The sad reality is that I am terrible at pranks, and have no interesting stories to tell of any April Fools Days past or present. I do, however, have a memory of some general mischief I once created.

When I was in first grade, my friends Jarl and Drew and I discovered that if you took a crayon, inserted it between your middle finger and your index and ring fingers (fig. 1), and brought it down upon your knee (fig. 2) the crayon would break in a fiery explosion of crayon parts (fig. 3). Okay so maybe it was more of a gentle snap than an explosion, but we used our imaginations. It was super fun for some reason, so we broke the crayons. All of them. First grade classrooms generally use a lot of crayons. Hundreds. Maybe millions. Oh how we laughed and smiled, breaking crayons all the live long day.

As it turned out, teachers don't really like it when you break every single crayon in the classroom for no real reason. We got super busted. I believe that was the first and only time I ever got a call home about my behavior. Jarl, Drew and I each had to buy new sets of crayons for the class, and personally apologize to our teacher. I'm guessing he had to spent a fair amount of his own money on new crayons too.

After the crayon breaking fiasco, we learned our lesson. Actually, what we learned was that we had to be sneakier with our crayon mischief. We figured out that in the winter, when the heaters were always on full blast, if you took a crayon and stuck it in one of the radiator vents the crayon would melt and emit a horrible smell. I remember doing that all the way until middle school.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't very exciting mischief. But I already said that I'm bad at pranks, and that stunt pretty well defined my first grade experience. If anything, I hope you at least liked the pictures I drew. I'm no artist, but I do what I can.