Making time

July 23, 2013 Leave a comment

I certainly don’t have any super powers when it comes to time management but I do my best. Every moment of every day I’m doing whatever I can do. Sometimes that is more than other times. Sometimes it’s simply different things than I can do at other times. Sometimes is more than one thing at a time; although I usually find that multi-talking causes more problems than it solves. I just can’t stand sitting around or waiting. I’ve tried being more structured and scheduled in my activities but that doesn’t really work for me; I never know what I’ll be up for from moment to moment. All I can do is make the most of each one and call that, “as good as it’s gonna get”.

Through this process some things do fall by the wayside. Sometimes this means that opportunities get lost and sometimes it means that consequences get compounded but no one said life was perfect. Most of the time I find that life carries on just fine, even if it is a bit flawed.

Of course there are some things that really do have to get done no matter what. Yes, we all need to eat, sleep and shit, three things that seem to be a constant distraction from what I really want to be doing, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about bullshit administrative tasks that if they are not taken care of will cause everything else to fall apart.

In this case, I’m referring to my issue with the IRS. I know I’ve mentioned it before but here is a little recap and update. I electronically filed my tax return in February. In March I received a letter from the IRS stating that they needed more information from me and to call their toll-free number. After two hours on hold and an hour long discussion I finally got this matter resolved, or so I thought. They said my refund would be delayed another 6 weeks but I still haven’t received it. Adding to this problem is that my son’s financial aid application also got flagged and so needed additional verification. Specifically, they needed my 2012 IRS transcript which doesn’t exist because the IRS has not processed my return yet. I’ve tried several times to get someone from the IRS on the phone with no luck.

I was telling my parents about this last week, expressing my frustration with government agency incompetence and unnecessary policies which do nothing but compound the problems of an already troubled system. Their response was that I needed to take care of this. Right?!? Like I don’t have enough problems of my own without trying to fix the government’s fuck up.

“I don’t have time for that!”

To which they said, “Make time.”

Make time, huh? That is a fascinating concept. What if we could just make time? We have all these devices that are suppose to “save” us time,  not that I’m sure any of them really do, but what if we could actually “make” time. Now that would be awesome. It could be something like a bread maker; throw in a packet of magical time dust, add some water, a couple golden eggs and an hour later you get an hour of time that didn’t exist before. Wouldn’t that be nifty!

Failing in my attempts to make time I resorted to waiting for a moment to arrive in which I could actually do something about this little IRS kerfuffle. That day was yesterday. I had some time to kill while my daughter was at her summer camp so I spent the day downtown harassing government agencies for not doing their job. Oh, I was nice about it but I was insistent and persuasive. It’s funny how tactics that don’t work at all when hitting on a bartender or waitress will work wonders when dealing with government bureaucrats. Even so, the IRS is still going to take 6 to 8 weeks… fuckers!

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Don’t worry, I’m a professional

July 22, 2013 1 Comment

“Wow, that show was amazing!”

“Thanks, that’s what we do. I’m glad you enjoyed it”

Venus de Mars & All The Pretty Horses at the Triple Rock

Venus de Mars & All The Pretty Horses at the Triple Rock

At issue has been whether Venus de Mars is a professional artist or a hobbyist. For anyone who was at our “Audit Hell” benefit show Saturday night at the Triple Rock Social Club there should be no doubt that we put on a professional show. For the Minnesota Department of Revenue the only issue is whether we make money. Well, we made enough money at the benefit show to continue the legal battle so I guess we’ll see whether the court can determine what it means to be a professional. Another memorable quote from the evening:

“Don’t fuck with an artist, they’ll just turn it into art.”

The irony is that this experience may turn out to be a tremendous career builder. It is certainly turning out to be a great community builder. The Triple Rock really went out of their way to make the benefit a huge success. At least 100 artists, writers and musicians have come together to do their part in support of this issue. The local press has also done it’s part in getting the word out. We had write-ups in MN Post, Vita.mn, Star Tribune, L’Etoile as well as a wonderful piece on Minnesota Public Radio. Musicians have also come together to produce at tribute album is support of the cause.

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Life in the slow lane

July 19, 2013 Leave a comment

I’m still amazed at how exhausting this domestic life can be. Yesterday, I woke up and drove my daughter to her appointment. Then we went to visit her grandparents in St. Paul for a couple hours. I made a quick trip to Batteries Plus to get a bigger battery for my pedicab gig, then a trip to EMI to rent some lights for the benefit show on Saturday. After that I was done in and took a nap. When I woke up I made dinner for my daughter, we watched an episode of Doctor Who and was all I could do. It doesn’t matter how much I enjoy doing this stuff, it just saps my energy in ways that biking and performing don’t. I wanted to do some more writing last night but I didn’t have it in me. Instead, I slept for twelve hours; the whole time dreaming of hauling people around on my pedicab and performing with Venus de Mars & All The Pretty Horses.

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Don’t tell a soul

July 18, 2013 2 Comments

I have a secret. I’m really not into having secrets. I think that they cause nothing but problems. I know that most people have secrets. I actually hold a lot of other people’s secrets and I’m good at keeping secrets. But this is my secret. No one else knows what I know. I didn’t plan for it to be a secret. I expected to get caught. But I didn’t. So now I have this secret. What do I do?

Like anything else in my life I’m going to treat it as a gift. I’m going to see what I can learn from it. If I’m called out on this secret I’m going to come clean. I really don’t  believe that it is possible to keep a secret. Chances are someone already knows my secret and is keeping it for me even without my knowing about it. Everybody knows something that no one else knows and someone knows everything that is out there to be known and anything you think is a secret is probably known to someone whether you know it or not.

When I think about the current debate over public surveillance this is what comes to mind. I don’t give a shit about surveillance or what anybody knows about me. The fact is most people don’t really care what I’m doing. What does concerns me is that a harmless, loving person like myself still probably breaks the law 6 times a day whether by accident, through ignorance or with benign intent. If someone really wanted to label me a criminal, they could. Fuck, anyone could be labeled a criminal.

I think that we have created far too many laws and in doing so have made it nearly impossible for anyone to be a law-abiding citizen.  But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe laws are the only thing keeping us from plummeting into complete chaos and we really just need more of them. I don’t know but I’m up for a debate.

By the way, the thing I did which I am keeping secret is just embarrassing, not illegal.

*The title of this post is a reference to the 1989 Replacements album, the first to feature Slim Dunlap on guitar.  The Replacements released a new record this year titled, “Songs for Slim”, to raise money for the guitarist who is recovering from a stroke.

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This normal life is killing me

July 16, 2013 2 Comments

I’ve spent the entire day at home and I think that I have completely lost my shit and started screaming and swearing at thin air more times today than I have in the past year. Okay, maybe not in the past year combined, but more times in one day than I have in the past year. This domestic shit is just not for me anymore. There are way too many things to do when I am at home and I try to do them all at once which leads to one disaster after another.

Today I have managed to do laundry, wash dishes, mow and weed-whack my lawn, clean various things around the house, practice bass for the upcoming benefit show as well as my own songs just because I could. I also spent a substantial amount of time just hanging out with my 14 year old daughter. By the time I was done cooking and serving her dinner it was 6:30 and I was wiped out. I wound up taking a two hour nap.

Don’t get me wrong. I love having my daughter here and there is much about the domestic life that I really appreciate. It’s just the complete opposite of everything I am currently trying to achieve.

Still, I’m fully prepared to adapt if things were to change. There is a part of me that half expects my daughter’s mother to not return from her vacation. That is how I wound up caring for my son full time when he was her age. His mother left for Canada to visit family and never came back. I hope that is not what happens this time but the women in my life do have a tendency to try and outdo one another. It’s kind of fucked up.

In any case, I’m going to make the most of this week of semi-sortof-normalcy. If nothing else it will give me some perspective and a reminder of what I am trying to move past. I’ve been here, I’ve done it, it’s not the best situation for me so if I have the opportunity to change it I owe it to myself and everyone around me to at least try.

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This is serious

July 16, 2013 Leave a comment

I just got home from rehearsal for our fuck the taxman, “Audit Hell” benefit that takes place at the Triple Rock Social Club on Saturday. I’m completely exhausted but I just drank a Monster energy drink so I’m going to try and whip something out before I crash.

Yesterday (Sunday) was a killer day. It was my first day not working in a week and my last day to myself before my daughter comes to live with me for 8 days while her mother is out of town. It was time to get my drink on.

But first it was time to give back to the community. I signed up for a volunteer shift at the Bastille Day Block Party with People Serving People to help Eureka Recycling make the event a zero waste event. Everything served at the event was either recyclable or compostable. My job was to stand by the receptacles and make sure that people put their waste in the right container.

Sounds like an easy enough job but for me, standing in one place for two and a half hours is brutal. That’s like running a marathon for me. I have no problem biking around, carrying passengers on a pedicab, for 13 hours but two hours of standing still will do me in. After that I seriously needed a drink. Luckily compensation for volunteering was two drink tickets and a food ticket – not bad.

After that I headed to the 19 bar for a beer and a Sapphire Tonic. Then I stopped by BJs for a beer, with turned out to be two beers because it’s “buy one get the second for a dollar”, on my way to Grumpy’s northeast. I had a couple beers and a shot of whisky there. All told, including the couple beers I had before I left the house I drank 10 beers, 1 cocktail and 1 shot over the course of 12 hours.

That used to be pretty standard fare for me but since I’ve been doing the pedicab thing I’m not drinking as much as have lost a considerable amount of weight. These days twelve drinks in twelve house gets me shit faced wasted. There really is no in between for me. I either have a drink or two or I get annihilated.

Luckily, the only embarrassing thing I did this time was try to get one of my favorite First Avenue bartenders and his wife in a threesome. Actually, I do that everytime I see them together. I just can’t help myself. They are so fucking cute! I don’t think they really take me seriously which is good. I mean I’m totally serious. I’m always serious but that doesn’t mean I should ever be taken seriously.

A rare video of “This is Serious” by the Minneapolis Band and 1985 Star Search winners, Limited Warranty

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People before profits

July 15, 2013 Leave a comment

* Oops, forgot to post this before I left yesterday.

This has been an amazing weekend driving pedicab. The weather was great even if it was extremely windy at times. The Basilica Block Party was going on Friday and Saturday and Kenny Chesney was playing Target Field on Friday night so there were tons of people downtown. It was one of those weekends where you didn’t have to look for riders; they were lining up begging for rides. I gave a lot of fun rides and made pretty decent money. There are so many stories I could tell but I can’t fit it all in here. Still, let me see if I can sum up what I took away from this weekend in a few words.

This job has done wonders for me in so many ways. I’m in the best shape of my life. Every week I get stronger; hill that used to push me to the limit now barely cause me to break a sweat. It’s also improving my social skills and my ability to connect with people from all walks of life. These are both skills that I’m going to need as I move forward with my dreams.

Where I’m still struggling is with the issue of money. I’m making enough doing this that I’m worried about losing my Social Security and more important my health insurance. My motivation for doing this job is not the money but it is so tied to the job that at times it can be hard to separate the two.

After the Basilica Block Party let out there was a line of people wanting rides. All the pedicabs was called down to the concert but we couldn’t get cabs there fast enough to meet the demand. Figuring I would only be able to get one ride out of there because I was coming from the complete opposite end of downtown I decided to not take a ride for less than $20.

Before I could even pull up I had two couples wanting a ride. The first couple asked how much to Brit’s Pub and I told them $20. They thought that was too much which perhaps it was but tried to explain the economics of the situation. Taking a pedicab is a luxury, not a necessity. It’s something that you do for fun even though you could walk. They decided to walk.

I told the next couple the same thing and they also balked at the price. I’m sure that within five minutes I would have found someone that would have paid that or more but I was already feeling bad for not taking rides so I told this couple they could pay me whatever they wanted.

We were only going about five blocks but with all the traffic leaving the concert location it took some fancy driving and creative thinking to maneuver around and through all the cars. I was still hoping to be able to drop them off quickly and get back for another ride.

At one point the guy in my cab said to his wife, “he’s all about business”. I think he meant it as a compliment but it told me that my mind was not where I wanted it to be. I wanted my mind to be on giving my current passengers the best ride I could, not on my potential next ride. I quickly refocused and put my attention on my passengers. In the end he still tipped me $20 and when I got back to the Basilica everyone had cleared out and there were no more rides. Things turned out exactly as I thought they would but it didn’t happen by focusing on money. It happened by caring for people.

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Homeless or homefree

July 13, 2013 2 Comments

Working downtown I encounter a lot of people who are homeless. There are many different reasons why someone may find themselves without a permanent place to call home so I really don’t want to put them in one definitive category. For many it’s an absolute tragedy and a disgrace that we as a society can’t do a better job of caring for our fellow earthlings.

For some abandoning the shackles of a permanent residence is simply the best of the available options. Some may wish for better options but for some being homeless is a viable solution to the challenges life presents. I prefer to call these people homefree. Unencumbered by unnecessary belonging; physical, geographical and emotional ties, their daily needs for food, shelter and security are real, tangible and attainable. It may not be a perfect life but no life is. I don’t judge anyone for how they manage to survive so long as it doesn’t require hurting other people. When I look at all of the people downtown it’s not those we call homeless that are causing the most harm.

In a way I envy them. I look at the problems in my life and most of them have to do with maintaining permanence; my home, my possessions and my relationships. Sometimes I wish I had more important things to worry about – not to suggest that relationships aren’t importance, they are. It’s just that when it comes to maintaining relationships the problems seem to stem from the expectation and insistence on permanence. It might be better to accept, support and even encourage the inevitability of change.

Currently my biggest problem is a drippy faucet in my bathtub – a first world problem for sure. It’s a small drip but I still figure it is wasting five gallons of water a day. I have a bucket catching the water so that I can recycle as much as possible but that’s not a permanent solution. I know how to fix it, I know what I have to do, I just don’t know if I’ll be able to get to it before Monday or Tuesday and it’s really not what I want to be doing with my precious time.

Still, as I was biking home from downtown last night, rain beginning to fall as a major storm approached, I felt very grateful that I had a climate controlled and safe place to sleep.

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Instant karma

July 12, 2013 Leave a comment

Man I was spacey yesterday. I just didn’t seem to be able to get it all together. At no point was this more prevalent than when I was backing out of the parking spot after grabbing some food at Subway. I don’t know what I was thinking about or where my head was at but the next thing I knew I heard a crunch behind me and my van came to a stop. I looked back to see that I was butt to fender with a big blue SUV. I pulled back into the parking spot I had just attempted to leave and got out to talk to the driver of the other vehicle.

Out came a very distraught young hispanic woman. I told her how sorry I was and asked what she wanted to do. As it turned out it wasn’t her truck that she was driving so she got on the phone to call the owner. I stood by waiting to find out how this was going to play out. I was concerned because I was on my way to pick up my daughter from an appointment and I had no idea how long this was going to take.

It actually didn’t take very long at all. The SUV was blocking traffic that was trying to leave the parking lot so when I saw her pull out onto the street I figured she was just going to find a place to park so that we could finish our conversation. Instead she just drove away. I waited for a good five minutes just to see if she was going to return but she never did.

I felt bad because I really wanted to make things right. This wasn’t something that needed to be an insurance claim; considering that both of our vehicles were already a bit banged up it seemed pretty unlikely that there were going to get the minor dent fixed. Still, I would have liked to give her some money or something.

Yes, I was relieved that now I could now go get my daughter but I carried with me an unsettled feeling that karma was out of balance. I knew that I would have to do something to make things right with the universe.

Fortunately I have one of those jobs that gives me countless opportunities to help people. While biking down 3rd Avenue in my pedicab on my way to see if I could give rides to the theatre crowd when Pride and Prejudice let out I passed a woman crossing the street.

She hollered out, “How much do you cost?”

I circled back around. She was carrying a huge garbage back that probably contained everything that she owned.  “Whatever you can give me”, I answered.

“I don’t have anything.”

“Well, I guess it’s free then.”

I hate it when people ask me for a free ride, I just think that is rude, but I love giving them whenever I can. This woman was so overwhelmed that someone would stop and help her while expecting nothing in return. She simply couldn’t believe it. My attitude is that I am here to help as many people in any way I can and trust that the universe will provide me with what I need.

I must of spent half an hour with this woman. She didn’t know exactly where she was going and her phone had died so she couldn’t even look up the information or call anyone. I took her to Noodles & Company in Northeast Minneapolis which I noticed had outlets available where she could charge her phone. I waited with her until her phone charged enough that she could call her friend and then I waited with her until he arrived. She really wanted to give me something. I said that she could give me a hug which she did. Apparently, that was not enough because she began digging through her purse until she found a dollar to give me. I accepted it but later that night I gave the dollar to another person who was homeless and asking for money.

Five minutes after leaving my new friend I picked up a couple outside of The Bulldog NE. They wanted to go to the Gay 90’s for the drag show and wondered if that was too far. I told them, “Not at all, I would love to give you a ride to the 90’s”. They hopped in and off we went.

Once we reached their destination they asked me how much they owed me. I gave them my usual pitch about giving what they’ve got to give. The woman asked if a hundred dollars would be good. I said a hundred dollars would be very good. The man reached in his wallet and handed me one hundred and fifty dollars for the ride – the biggest tip I have received to date.

At this point I could have called it a night and gone home. It would have been a $60/hour night. But that’s not the way karma works. You don’t do one good deed for one person and the next person repays you. It’s an ongoing thing so I kept going. I took that love and gratitude and spread it around downtown Minneapolis for the next five hours. In the end it wound up being a $34/hour night which is still well above average.

 

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Armageddon It

July 11, 2013 Leave a comment

Is it just me or is no one getting laid these days? I remember when I was 19 or 20 I used to go out to the bars every night and I would say half the time I would hook up with someone. That may not be my objective when I go to the bar these days, I’m not sure it was my sole objective then, but it still is a primary objective for a lot of people when they go out drinking. It just doesn’t seem to be working.

What has changed? I realize that we have AIDS now but it was around in 1987. Furthermore, we know what to do about it. We know how to have sex more safely and we understand that there are a lot of different ways to have sex, some with no risk at all. It just seems like there should be more casual sex going on.

A friend last night suggested that with the prevalence and easy access to porn on the internet that people are simply meeting their sexual needs themselves. I think there may be something to that. I know that it is a factor for me. Life is crazy, sex is complicated, if I can meet my sexual needs without much effort I’m going to do it. I’m still the best lover I’ve ever had. I know exactly how I like it. I know exactly what to do and when. Still, there is something missing. There are some things you just can’t do alone.

I think another part of the problem is sexual anxiety and it’s a completely valid anxiety. By the time someone hits 30 (or even 22), chances are they have had at least one absolutely disastrous sexual experience. These experiences are traumatising and make people very wary of hopping into bed with someone again. No amount of booze or bass thumping beats can overcome that.

But come on people, we can handle this. We’ve all been there, we’re all in this together and we need each other more than ever. We need to remember that sex is fun and sex is important. We need to start talking to each other about it;  what we want, what we need and what we fear. We should be drinking to lower our inhibitions, not to forget that we’re not getting laid.

Of course maybe the only thing that changed since 1987 is that Joe Elliott has gotten old and the mullet has gone out of fashion. Here he is in 1987:

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