Bye bye, Pinto.

After a good 4 year run with the Pinto (thanks to Cookie handing me the keys in exchange for a batch of my sugar cookies), I did what I thought I would never do yesterday: sold it.

No kidding! I thought I would never part with the car, but then again I never thought we'd be moving across the country so soon to a city where having a car is a humongous and expensive pain in the ass, so there you have it.

The Pinto was the most awesome car I've ever owned. Nearly every time I drove it I would see people laughing at it (which if you're me is a good thing) and more often than not I'd get a honk and a thumbs up. Sadly it quickly began deteriorating the more it was used. The car was a '74 and Gramps used it primarily as his leisure cruiser so it was in pretty good shape when I got it. Thems old cars are fragile though, and 4 years was about all it could take before it started falling apart. It was starting to completely rust out on the bottom, needed new tie rods, brakes, seats, carpet, paint job... basically it needed a new 1974 Pinto.

The final curtain call was this last May when it was sideswiped by some dumbass hauling a massive trailer on a side street. He was changing lanes and had no idea he hit me - he just kept on going and disappeared into the sunset. I got out of the car thinking maybe he scuffed it, but it turned out that the entire drivers side quarter panel was pretty crunched in and there was a massive black scuff on the door where the faux wood paneling was erased. Even if we ever did find the driver and his insurance covered it, it wouldn't have been the same. May 15th will forever go down in my mental calendar as Death of My Pinto Day.

Even though I was pretty emotionally attached to the car, it was obvious that it was time to take Ol' Yeller out back to the shed and shoot 'er dead. I hadn't driven it but 5-6 miles for the past 8 months, not to mention we're moving at the end of the month. #1. It was not driveable, #2. I wasn't going to be able to afford to fix it anytime soon, #3. it would cost way too much to store, and #4. Why store it in the first place if I wasn't sure if I was ever going to fix it?

Craigslist to the rescue. Or so I thought. Several unsuccessful tire kicking/no show responses later I remembered a note I'd saved that someone stuck on the windshield of the car a few years ago which said If you need parts or want to sell, call me with a name and phone number. I wrote a blog about that but am too lazy to find it and link to it. Would be funny to read in hindsight now though.

So anywho, I called the guy and it turns out that he has 15 or so Pintos and was still interested in buying the car. We met yesterday afternoon, I gave him the key, the car, and he gave me cash money - and there you have it. No more Pinto. I wasn't able to get much for it due to the rust and severe disrepair the car was in, but I'm happy with what I got for it - and that I got anything at all. Not to mention the tabs were going to expire in a week so I saved $50 right there. It's nice to know it's not going to be used in a demolition derby like many Pintos are (oh for shame!) - it's going to live in its "retirement home" at this guy's place up in Rogers, MN happily ever after.

This is the first time in 19 years that I haven't been attached to a car and it's a pretty awesome feeling. No more paying for insurance that I've spent thousands of dollars on over the years and never really had to use (either that or it conveniently didn't cover what I needed it to when the need was there). No more worrying about where gas is going to be cheapest. No more tabs. No more harvesting garbage out from under the seats every 6 months. No more brake jobs, oil changes, breakdowns on the highway, worrying about a parking spot.. the list goes on. It's going to be an adjustment trying to lug heavier things around (i.e. an amp and guitar) via taxis and subways, but if a billion other people there seem to be able to do it there's no reason why I won't be able to.

Thanks for the memories, Pinto - you were an awesome car. The Wifey's Jeep gets picked up by the guy who bought it this Wednesday, and POOF. We'll have two large blank spots behind our place where our cars used to be. The only vehicle that will be in our possession is a 16' moving truck, and that will be out of our hands come next Sunday.

Keep/throw/keep/throw/keep/throw...

Friday, August 21: I'm sitting at my desk thinking 1 week from now I will be thinking 24 hours from now we'll be in a moving truck crammed full of our stuff and cats headed towards the MN border. And when that time comes, I'll be thinking 1 week ago I was sitting at my desk thinking about how in a week and a day I'd be doing what I'm doing now. Brains are weird.

Saturday, August 22nd: It's getting to the point with packing now where I'm trying to decide whether or not to get rid of incredibly important things. Things like my disco ball. I think I've officially decided that's going in the KEEP pile. I mean, come on... it's a fucking disco ball! A real one, too - not one of those deals you see at Target and Spencers.

And then there's my Zero Blaster. This was something I remember I HAD to have when I read about it. I went to 3 malls before finding a store which still had them in stock. Intressting thing about my Zero Blaster is I never, ever use it.. yet feel this inexplicable need to hold onto it. Some day at some point in my life, a time will come where I'll think "Dang... I'm glad I held onto my ugly purple zip gun that shoots fog rings."

The Zero Blaster may very well someday save my life. Therefore as of right now I have officially decided that it's going in the KEEP pile. How exciting that this moment has been immortalized in my blog. I'm glad you could be here to share this moment with me. I've thrown/sold/given away tons of shit over the past few weeks, but for some reason I can't bring myself to part with my trusty Zero Blaster. Even though it's got a nice skin of dust growing on it and the last time I shot fog rings was probably a couple of years ago when I first got Frank and wanted to see what he'd do with floating zeros. He watched them, turning his head very slowly as they'd float by. You could tell he was thinking about swatting at one, but he held back and just watched. Just like with the laser pointer, he gave it a few minutes and then once he figured it out, BORRRRING.

Also recently spared from the giveaway/sell bonanza was the infamous green davenport that I more or less inherited when Gramma Gertie passed away a few years ago. It's this beautifully hideous vomit green 1950s sectional full of family history. Lots of Christmas presents unwrapped and pictures taken while sitting on that sucker when we were kids. It was tearing me apart thinking of potentially seeing it go to someone on Craigslist. Wifey to the rescue - she called me at work and surprised me by saying we're splitting a storage space with her parents for a year for dirt cheap. The couch (and her set of dining room chairs) will not only be able to live in there, but her dad Buffalo Bob will be wrapping it 3x in heavy plastic to protect it from being chewed apart by small rodents. THANK YOU, WIFE... and to my parent-in-laws!! Yous guys are the bestest.

Today is the day I thought would never happen: someone is coming to look at the Pinto and might very well buy it. I've reached a point with the car where I'm okay with selling it. It's rusting out and beat to Hell now, just shell of the awesome babe magnet of a wood paneled station wagon it once was when I first got it. It served its purpose and I loved the time I had with that car. It's time for us to part ways now. If the guy who is looking at it today takes it, that will be a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders - not only because it's the last "big chunk" we need to get rid of before moving, but also because he seems like a good guy. I would be happy to see the Pinto go to a good home. Keep your fingers crossed.

In 7 days we'll be on our way, and there's still a lot to do between now and then. Time to go make me an iced mocha and get shit done. To quote my hero Navin R. Johnson: "What do you think I do, sit around and write letters all day?"

Things I'll miss out on by not living here

Little random things keep popping up that I realize will no longer be a part of my life after we move. I guess they're not necessarily things I'll miss in a "boo-hoo" kind of way, more so just little things that I probably pay too much attention to and am just now realizing I will soon be 1200 miles away from.

• The word slut written in cursive in massively drooled lines paint on select street corners
• The offensive and pungent B.O. of the clerks at Hums Liquors
• Convenience store clerks who hate their lives and never make eye contact or talk to you
  
• Seeing Scott Seekins on the bus or walking on Hennepin and trying to look at his perplexing fake hairdo without being too obvious
• Whatever that food is I smell that's always cooking in between 22nd & Pillsbury on my bike ride home from work. I have no idea what country it's from but damn that shit smells good. And they sure eat a lot of it.
  
• Dick Enrico: I'll miss your sexy tan and sweet accent on your fine commercials. I'm now kicking myself for not stopping you for an autograph when I saw you walking around Lake Calhoun a few years ago.
• The smell of the stairwell I walk down during my lunch break at work (mentioned in previous blog entry)
• You know how you look at someone and think it's someone you know, but the closer you get you realize it's not that person? I'm horrible with remembering faces so do that all of the time. I'll definitely have a clean slate in that regard.
  
• Seeing the two Weird Beard homeless guys I've seen walking around the city since first moving to Uptown a decade or so ago. They're still walking around and look exactly the same. Will they still be that way (or alive) the next time I come back?
• The portly old bald guy with the orange beard who wears suspenders and walks down 22nd St. to SA every day for a 2 liter of Mountain Dew. He doesn't seem to trust his suspenders - he's always holding his pants up with his left hand. He almost qualifies as a Weird Beard, because you can tell he's not all there (he's constantly chewing on nothing), but his beard is well groomed and he appears to have clean clothes and a home. Sorry dude, no Weird Beard status for you.
  
• The horrendously thick Minnesota accent of the bald floor supervisor in the DT Target. I always hear him yapping over his handheld radio to his "team members" when I'm walking through there on my lunch break. The dude's voice is a carbon copy of William H. Macy's in Fargo.
  
• The Papa John's pizza fumes secreting through the walls when looking for a movie to rent at the neighboring Blockbuster Video
• Buying Caribou Coffee's espresso beans. Out of Dunn Bros., Caribou and Starbucks, I loves their beans the most. Every single time I go buy a pound, I ask for whole beans... and when I pay for 'em the barista always asks if I want those ground or whole.
  
• Dunn Bros. iced mochas. God damn are those good. The espresso shots are like syrup. I don't get them very often because they use tiny ice pellets rather than cubes which melt faster and water the mocha down. That pisses me off when paying $4 for a drink - but every few months or so I'll break down and deal with it.
• TV ads on all of the local networks featuring Twin Cities news anchors pretending to be friends behind the scenes. You're so white that you're clear, and please tell your bosses that you're not actors.
• People saying "melk" and "Jeez".
• Our incredibly loud neighbors who live across the alley behind us who I've never seen. They have a 5' tall fence so it's always been a mystery. I heard a circular saw going in the backyard at 1am a few months ago. That was interesting.
  
• Driving the Lake St./Hennepin intersection and always pointing out like a grumpy old man how commercial it is and how much it sucks now

I'm sure I'll add more as they happen and I run across them over the next 9 days, but those are the major ones.

The Moving Chronicles: Chapter I

HUGE progress was made yesterday while sneezing from the dust we're stirring up packing everything and shuffling things around as we sell them: Bryn sold her Jeep-mobile! The person who bought it filled out a business check (he appeared to be a small-scale car dealer) for the amount she was asking for and will be back in 2 weeks before we leave to transfer the title and pick it up. Cha-ching... there goes another nice chunk into our savings account.

Speaking of the Jeep, one thing people axsk us quite frequently is whether or not we'll have cars in Brooklyn. NOPE. It would just be one more expense to worry about, and an incredibly impractical one at that for where we're living. And the parking... what a nightmare that would be. It would be like constantly trying to find parking at the mall during the final days of Christmas shopping. We've wasted enough precious minutes of our lives sitting in a car circling the blocks of Uptown and cussing thus far in life, so there's no need to do it any more at this point. We'll get around just fine via our bikes and train/bus rides... we're smack dab in the middle of about a dozen subway and bus stops, so what we can't walk or bike will get done one way or another, and quite easily.

We also have those often overlooked things located at the end of our legs called feet. Not only are they weird looking smelly things that we cover up with shoes, but they're good at taking you pretty much everywhere you need to go in the city. That's one thing I'm really looking forward to - the walking. Each week we've stayed there Wife and I prolly put more miles on our Chuck Taylors than we do in any given month here in Minnesota, and it feels good.

It will be very liberating to not have cars to say the least. I've been living sans car for almost a year now thanks to putting money in savings for this move instead of into my vehicle, which is in severe disrepair, and hell if I'd want a new car payment at this point in the game. It's been good practice for when the Jeep goes bye bye forever and we REALLY have no car. Plus my key ring will be about a pound lighter which is cool... it will lessen the elementary school custodian/Jingle Bells effect when I walk around with them clipped to my belt loop.

---

Today I took notice of something that I'm really going to miss when I'm no longer working at the Outsell office. I walk the Riverplace skyway over Hennepin to get outside for my lunch break walk. In the building across the street there's a stairway I take to get down to the street level and I use it specifically because of the way it smells - there's this intense crispy, industrial cement aroma which always reminds me of the way the stairs leading to the vending machines in the Cottage Grove ice rink smelled. I always get a few extra good huffs in on the way down and suddenly feel like I'm 8 years old again and stumbling around on ice skates. I can hear Stevie Nicks and Don Henley singing Leather and Lace on my dad's Marantz stereo receiver when I smell that. Those nostalgic lunchtime stairwell huffs are now numbered.

We obtain the moving truck in less than 12 days. We still have piles of stuff to get rid of, but we will. It feels good to cleanse the palate. Final Iced Ink show on 8/28, then we wake up bright and early 8/29 and we're adda here. I'm all, like, "Dayum, gurl!"

Sadly, there's much Les Paul in the world as of today.

You hear that sound? That's the sound of billions of people all over the world typing "RIP LES PAUL" on message boards and social time wasters.. er.. networking sites on the internets. I won't waste my time repeating what you can certainly read elsewhere about Les Paul other than saying the dude was pretty much a genius.

In June of 2008 Wifey and I reserved tickets a month in advance to go see Les at the Iridium Jazz club in NYC on our wedding anniversary. The show happened to fall exactly on our anniversary date (July 7th), so that was pretty much a no-brainer. Sweet!

A month later we walked to the Iridium a couple of hours early which was just a few blocks from our hotel in NYC. Our hearts sank a little when we saw that there was a pretty long line already started to get in, and seating was first come first serve. While were in the long line to get in and sweating our tails off, a cartoon bubble popped up over my head of us sitting behind a big concrete post (the club is in a basement) and having to lean over for the entire show to see anything.

Wifey mentioned in passing to a woman ahead of us that we were there for our anniversary. She told us to hold on, went past the line and into the bar with her son, and 5 minutes later her son came out and said "Come on." It turns out she had a connection at the club and smuggled us in. We caught the tail end of the early set in the back of the bar (he always did two - an early and late set). At the end of the tune we walked in on, it was encore time and Les announced that he had a special guest he'd like to invite on stage... Steve Miller and a few of his band mates. Lo and behold, Steve Miller walked right past us (I could see the stubble starting to grow in from his shave earlier that morning) and cranked out a mellow version of "Fly Like an Eagle" with Les. That fuckin' ruled.

The bar cleared out and not only did we get to stay for the second set (the one we made reservations for in the first place), but the bar was toadilly empty and we had our pick of where we wanted to sit. Damn! We sat right smack dab in front and for the next 1.5 hours sipped on overpriced blue martinis while watching the most humbling guitar playing that I've ever been privileged enough to experience at a live show. Complete with another Steve Miller encore, which was a surprise to that crowd but at that point we were thinking "Pssht... that's soooo two hours ago." (Kidding.)

Afterward there was a meet-n-greet and Les hung out at a table with a beer by his side and signed stuff/took pictures with fans (including us). He didn't stop until every last person was taken care of. I think it was around 1:30AM when we got out of there. Not too shabby for a 93 year old!

Even though we were probably just a blur to him in a long line of fans, it was one of the coolest things ever. We walked up and out of the bar and walked aimlessly around Manhattan trying to keep our jaws from hanging open from all of the awesomeness we'd just taken in. We ended up at Ray's pizza and each ordered a slice from a life-long Ray's pizza serving associate who beared a striking resemblance to Sloth from The Goonies.

Good stuff.

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Thanks for making the music world what it is today, and for the memorable anniversary. Tonight we will raise our glasses to our framed napkin and bar tab which we had Mr. Paul sign. In between packing up boxes I will play my Les Paul until my shoulder hurts... which I'm guessing will take about 20 minutes. Them things is heavy, yo.




Money shot of Les' pedalboard taken from where we were sitting (click for larger image)

It's as if pirates were made to be videographers

Think about it.. typically they've got a patch over one eye, so all they have to do is put the camera up to their good eye. No one-sided squinting necessary.

Maybe that's why Sammy Davis Jr. was so into collecting cameras...?

Hey, I know... Let's move to Brooklyn!

There's so much overdue correspondence in regards to this move of ours it's not even funny. I guess that's to be expected when you decide to quit your job, pack up and move 1200 miles away to one of the busiest cities in the world... in three weeks.

Rather than say and type the same thing over and over a few dozen more times, I'm taking the more efficient route and just doing it via this journal entry on the internets. That said, if you've ended up here by chance, welcome. On the other hand, if I've sent you a link to this entry as a result of you saying something along the lines of What the Hell... they're really moving? Are they crazy? Here's the pooper scooper:

First off, let's get the two frequently asked questions out of the way right now:

Most frequently asked question #1: Do you have jobs?

Nope. We've got savings which should last for a good while as long as we're smart with it. Aside from that, we'll figure it out when we get there.

Most frequently asked question #2: What's in NY?

That's a loaded question with a billion answers. The biggest one for me personally though is the kind of music I like to make is a bit... Abby Normal. Minneapolis is great and all, but I've always felt there's something more out there for what I like to do. Since going to New Yolk, my gut tells me whatever it is, it's probably there waiting for me. Thankfully I have a wonderful and supportive Wifey who feels the whirlwinds of creativity in the air there as well and is 200% behind living there, so POOF. Off we'll go at the end of August into the sunset in a 16' truck full of our crap and 2 cats... which will coincidentally be full of their crap as well (and hopefully hold it between potty stops).

Wifey and I are at an age now where there's a fork in the road, and we can either take the comfortable and relatively predictable road and keep doing what we're doing like people are programmed to do, or we can take the other, not so traveled one. We've opted for the latter of the two. We honeymooned in NYC a few years ago and the moment we emerged from the smelly, humid subway terminal up into the busy streets of Manhattan, that was it. Remember that scene in The Jerk when Navin R. Johnson heard the ultra-white swing music in the middle of the night and he suddenly came to life and had to move to St. Louis? That's pretty much what it was like.

Unlike Navin who took the hitchhiking route, we started saving up money after the honeymoon and secretly made our last trip to Brooklyn this past July a quest to find an apartment. It was a pretty brutal week of searching but on the last day we found our new home. Tuesday (Aug. 4th) we got the call that we were given the thumbs up to rent an apartment in the lovely Park Slope area of Brooklyn. We received the lease via Fed Ex that Thursday and signed/sent it off the next day. You only live once, so what the fruck... ya know?

We are determined to make this work. If this ends up chewing us up and spitting us back out to the Twin Cities, which I don't think it will, at least we tried... and that's much better to me than not trying at all. Human beans are taught to abide by tradition. Well... I guess we're not traditional!

Family, band members, and friends: you all know that I already miss you like crazy. Fer reals. That's the hardest part of this all. I will be adamantly journaling this whole transition and the wackiness that ensues as a result on this here blog though, so bookmark it now and check back often.

It's time for us to live. The STOP sign at the end of our street in Minneapolis pretty much says it all:





Hell NO we won't.