Amen, Brothers & Sisters

Jason says it right, man.

How to Lead the Perfect Life in Nordeast Minneapolis: Flick Friends

I have tried to have this conversation with non-Netflixers and, well...
don't do it. It will only make you cry.

Cabin Weekend Revisted: Fun with Gravity

Well, yes, that is a beer bong, kids. And, yes, that is a Miller Light.




GO! GO! GO! (Really, we did that).





Excuse me.
I just propelled 12 ounces of carbonated liquid down my throat with F5 force. I feel kind of strange.


The beer bong, ladies and gentleman.
For the times when shot-gunning your Miller Light is simply not quick enough.

The Science of Sleep

My little buddy Jason shared this film trailer with me the other day, thanks J, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since.

I'm really thrilled for this film, hitting US theaters in September. The trailer actually makes me tear up a little bit, but also brings smiles and a couple real laughs. It also makes me want to ride a bike really fast and then lay around in the backyard, cuddled up with a cute boy and drinking pink lemonade -- so, maybe don't listen to me.

The Science of Sleep is Written/directed by Michel Gondry, the mastermind behind some of the best Bjork videos, the "bullet-time" technique (think Matrix), and the fantastic Eternal Sunshine or the Spotless Mind.

And we get Gael Garcia Bernal, suckas.

Naughty, Naughty Pine

The annual cabin weekend (sorry for the uncreative titling, but that's really what we call it) is over. Boo. The entire crew, minus a few key cast members, hauled our cookies up to the Garrison/Aiken area of northern Minnesota and loved on each other for a couple of days.

Lake swimming, dock sitting, magazine reading, burger eating, beer bonging, afternoon napping, shot taking, fire building... all ensued. Due to the extreme heat and the beer bonging, not so much volleyball, badminton, or even track ball was played amongst the crew, which was fine because this year we had the Fun Station.

"11 Feet of FUN," it claims. Ollie may beg to differ.

Many thanks to Joelle & Scott for bringing it, inflating it, and allowing us to pee right in it instead of getting in and out. Okay, just kidding about peeing in it, but it was quite the (extremely unsexy) endeavor to mount the thing. I have bruises to prove it.

Cabin weekend is easily one of the best things of the summer, not only because it's beautiful and peaceful, a perfect mix of relaxation and fun & games, and- well, not work. It's great because it just keeps happening, every freaking year, and for the most part, everyone goes. Each year (this is my 10th year! suckas) it gets better (being that it's increasingly difficult to get the gang together and we all need relaxing weekends away more than ever) because it's more appreciated.

Man, these trees just get to live here, all the time. Lucky.

Thanks for having us, Mel. Is it too early to start planning next year?

Ciao, buddies.
-Nina.

Back By Questionable Demand

Breaking News

After enjoying a brief hiatus, during which she did nothing productive, Nina Friction has decided to re-open the Blue Light Cabaret.















People are excited.

The Cabaret is closed.

That's it, kids. The Blue Light Cabaret is closed for business (at least for now). You'll just have to get your sin-juice elsewhere.

I have yet to decide if I'll still blog now that I'm home, but for now - consider the show over.

Thanks again for the vocal support of this little project. I've enjoyed it so much and I highly recommend that you blog your next travel adventure, whatever it may be.

Take care, my little chippendales.
-Nina.

P.S. If you have just stumbled upon this blog - - grab a martini, a camel light, and sit back and have a read!

Start from the bottom (click June archive & scroll to the bottom) and follow us through 11 days of childhood reminiscence in Indiana, hippies and Radiohead in Tennessee, Elvis and drunken pontificating in Memphis, and baseball and new best friends in Cleveland.

Road trips rule, buddies.

And you think I'm a big baseball fan.

"One! Two! Three stikes, you're out, at the old ball game!"

Come along and ride on the....

I hope it doesn't take away from the your reading pleasure too much to know that I'm home now. Or, that I'm typing this from work. All too true though. It's really much worse for me than you, unless of course, "you" are Shorty. If so - HI Shorty. I miss you.

I have a few more pictures I'd like to share from our fantastic voyage in Cleveland - - enjoy.



Completely kickass surf&turf meal at the Metropolitan Cafe downtown. O, and Shorty's giant... uh, lobster tail. The wine, you ask? BV 2000 Beauzeaux Signet Collection = very, very good.

This should be written on the back of every single bathroom stall door in the world.

Watching my boys at the something-Pig bar downtown. We met the first of our new friends, Neal and J, because we were wildly cheering when the Twins beat Clemens and the Astros. It was *a bit* out of place.

The dining room at the Brownstone Inn. We really enjoyed staying here - I would do it again in hearbeat. Plus, it was a complete steal at 80 bucks a night!

Ciao, buddies.
-Nina

I heart Jacobs Field

Fantastic little balcony seats along the first base side.


From our seats with no zoom. Our seats were $14.00, suckas.


Glassed-in, white tablecloth-type dining room along the third base line.


From our seats, with zoom zoom.

The Indians played pretty flat and they lost, but they still shot off cool fireworks after the game.
Super fun. Nice work, Cleveland.

Ciao, buddies.
-Nina

P.S. In true Cleveland style, we made a bunch of friends at the game. It's almost weird.

Photo update: Louisville, KY

Churchill Downs.

Honestly, I was rather unimpressed by the place. But, I don't know the first thing about horse racing or the facilities surrounding horse racing... so maybe it's cool. Apparently, in Louisville, the Kentucky Derby is THE biggest deal, ever. Ever.


This is inside Ann & David's amazing Victorian home they are simultaneously living in and fixing up. They have put a tremendous amount of work in so far (everything: plumbing, electric, gutters, plaster work, fixing water damage, floors, tearing down wallpaper, paining, gutting, yardwork, etc.) and, sadly, have tons more to do. This foyer, the living room, kitchen and one bathroom are finished. The rest is... not.


An original Rodin on the U of Louisville campus.


It's hard to see - - but, it's a giant Louisville Slugger baseball bat. Colonel Sanders is also from Louisville. O, and I think Diane Sawyer.

I know, I'm sorry, I don't care either.



Ann & David's fantastic kitchen.

Ciao, buddies.
-Nina

P.S. It is popular in Kentucky to play this backyard bean-bag-toss game... and it's called Cornhole. Ick.

Graceland, part III

Sad.

The story of the last years of Elvis' life and his horrible, pathetic death always breaks my heart a little bit.


Fan art.



The piano where Elvis sat and played the night before he died.



Okay, this is what I had been waiting for most - - you know it, it's the leather outfit from the '68 Comeback Special. I LOVE that era Elvis and I LOVE that special. Truly, it's the guy at his vocal best and sexiest.

This concludes my tour of Graceland. I have many, many more pictures if you are interested.

Ciao, buddies.
-Nina

O, I could do this all night

I have more Graceland & Cleveland photos to share, but I am pretty tired and it's time for bed. When you read all of these new posts, start from the bottom (Sun Studio, part I is the first one from this whole new set).

Our trip is pretty much over now. We're in a hotel in downtown Milwaukee. Shorty is sleeping, someone is revving up a Harley outside, and I am about to shut down and turn out the light.

We went out for a nice dinner at a little Cuban place - - I don't have much more than that to share. I'm tired and kind of sad, and at a total loss for insight at this point. I can't believe I'll be back at home tomorrow and this whole thing is over. Wow.

Goodnight, kids.

Graceland, part II

Yup.

The collection of memorabilia is really quite amazing and probably more fun to see than the house itself. There are some things, if you know and love Elvis at all, that when you see, you either start giggling or nearly lose your breath.



Yes.


The King's gun collection (one of the things that made me giggle).


Their wedding clothes. And, yes, one of the things that took my breath away just a little.


That freaking gold suit.

Wanna see Graceland? part I

The "living room," so they called it. This was actually one of the fancier rooms in the house; clearly a place where guests were received. In general, Graceland was much less over-the-top decorative and large as I had always assumed.



One of the walls in the Jungle Room.


Visitors are not allowed upstairs, just as they weren't when Elvis lived here. He was intensely private about the upstairs of the house. It's also up there where he died.


The kitchen was surprisingly plain, however it was one of my favorite rooms because it felt very lived-in and personal. During that part of the audio tour, Lisa Marie was talking about how they would all gather in the kitchen and how much quality time with her father was spent there.

Sun Studio ruled. part II

Man, can you even imagine?


One of the coolest things that ever happened at Sun was an impromptu gathering of Elvis (after he was with RCA and about to take over the world), Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash & Jerry Lee Lewis in the studio. They jammed together for hours and the whole time Phillips was sitting in the booth and, unknown to the jammers, recorded the whole thing. It's 40+ songs as well as the chatting and storytelling. The disc is available for purchase, fyi. Please let me know if you have this or have heard it - I'm really interested.

That day, Phillips also called his Memphis reporter friend, who ran right over and got a great shot (dubbed the most famous rock photo ever taken) and ran it on the front page of the Memphis paper the next day. He named them the "million dollar quartet." I wonder if really he had any idea of what was to come for these guys?


This is just an X-marks-the-spot on the floor where the singers would stand, facing the upright bass players and with their backs to Phillips in the booth, so as not to get distracted. It's really hard to get your head around what really happened in that room, on that X.

The Sun story is really amazing - - and, even more shocking is that it was only in operation for 10 years. Phillips had to shut it down due to money issues and a copyright infringement lawsuit from years before. The building sat empty, aside from refrigerators housed there for a neighboring business, for years, and amazingly untouched. When interest was regained in the place many years later, they found it exactly how it was, with even some of the same instruments, mics and recording devices.

The revival of Sun was, I think, in the early 80's with the "Class of 55" collaboration, which included Cash, Orbison and others who had recorded there previously. Since then it's been nonstop with recording (U2, Beck, Emmylou Harris, George Harrison & many, many others, some very recent) as well as the tours and gift shop stuff.

Ciao, buddies.
-Nina

P.S. Thanks for bearing with me as I dork out over this place. It was a great tour and I am a bit in love with the history of Sun. I also think it can stand in as an interesting microcosm for the history and story of the Memphis music scene, Memphis in general, and maybe even the history of American music and race relations. I can talk about this for hours... let me know if you are interested and we can go out for ribs, figue it all out, and save the world.

Sun Studio ruled. part I

Sam Phillips first called Sun Studio "Memphis Recording Service." All kinds people would come in (or they would come to you) and make recordings; weddings, commercials, messages for people overseas... and of course the throngs of Memphis musicians. Two of the earliest were Howlin' Wolf & BB King, who had already been playing in and around Memphis - but only in the black community. Everyone else was still listening to Perry Como.


People came in a lot to make quick recordings during their lunch breaks, as did one shy 18-year old Memphis kid - - you know who I'm talking about. He recorded a couple of songs for his mom's birthday and then just left. But the very wise "secretary" at Sun (she was actually Sam Phillips' business partner but no one ever really knew that. I have forgotten her name already, sadly, just like everyone else) knew there was something special there and got Elvis to come back in and record more songs. Sam Phillips never even met Elvis for a full year later.




When Sam heard Elvis, he liked it, but said it was too slow and no one wanted the sweet little love songs or the gospel-tinged southern dirges anymore. That wily secretary made it all happen by running across the original recording of That's Alright Mama by the woman (forgot her name too, sorry!) who wrote it and thought it would be a good match for that Elvis kid. And from there, after a helpful Memphis DJ, Dewey Phillips played the single for 3 hours straight.... well, you know the rest.

But I bet you didn't know that Elvis only recorded 5 songs at Sun and then Phillips sold his contract to RCA for 30,000 bucks or something like that.

If you can get your hands on it, I very highly recommend hearing the Elvis recording of Blue Moon, which was one of the early things he did before Sam ever met him. It is absolutely amazing. And hot.

... to be continued in next post.

You should go ride the bull

Hola, duckies.

Cleveland, Cleveland, what can I say. We were your biggest fans - but you have let us down. I'm not mad at you.... just, disappointed.

Yesterday, as well as the early evening, was great, but then something seemed to go terribly wrong and we ended up in the ugliest frat boy bar scene since that one time I accidentally went to Sally's. "Do you two want to go home with me and we can take a shower and stuff?" was the general tone as well as an actual question we received last night. Gross, ish & yuck.

But, I think I'm going to chose to forget the end of the night and remember Cleveland for the "friendliest place on earth" vibe we were riding up until spring break '06 broke out. We started the day at the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame, which was interesting and an impressive display of artifacts and memorabilia. It was good; not great, but good. I think because we had just come from Memphis - the living, beating heart of rock and roll and music as this country knows it - the R&RHOF, in all its glassed-in shiny & newness, could only be .... meh.

There were some things that stood out as just pretty awesome: John Lennon's Sgt. Pepper's jacket, Roy Orbison's handwritten lyrics (and his shades), Bjork's kimono from Homogenic, things like that. There was quite the impressive collection for the big Bob Dylan exhibit - two floors and then some. For a big Dylan fan, it would be amazing.

We went over to Little Italy and had a really great pepperoni/mushroom/onion pie and some decent house sangria. It was really cute over there, as Little Italies always are. We drove around the campus of Case Western a bit (beautiful) and then headed back downtown to Jacobs Field for the ball game. We couldn't find any good music on the radio, so Shorty popped a mix cd of mine, cleverly named "very, very guilty pleasures," and we car-danced the whole way. Little moments like that - sunroof, sunshine, smokes & singing along to (loud, very loud) Britney Spears music - well, those can be some of the best times, no matter where you are.

We went to the crazy-packed sports bar across from the field and made more friends. It was crazy scene (think Hubert's before and after a Vikings game), but still fun. The game was pretty dull, but that stadium is *gorgeous.* I loved it and am very excited for 2010 and the return to outdoor baseball at home. We left in the 7th and went back to the something-Parrot sports bar and hung out with our new best friends for a bit before heading over to the Tremont area, where in is more hipster scene. This is where things went wrong. Tremont was quite cool, just what we would have been looking for, except we were in more of a party-party/meet people mode. It just didn't work, so we left right away and headed back to the Warehouse district - the frat boy scene mentioned above - and then everything fell apart.

It completely sucked and I don't even want to talk about it.

Overall - Cleveland: good.

We're off to our last stop (I cannot believe that! This week and a half has just flown right away from me), Milwaukee. Fun.

Ciao, buddies.
-Nina

We're jitterbuggers.

Hola, munchkins.

I have so much to show you... but, I can't. I'm having some pretty severe technical difficulties here in Cleveland, so - you will have to just wait for the rest of the Memphis pics.

We are having a total blast in Cleveland so far. Yeah, I know. We had some amazing surf&turf, tomato bisque soup & a bottle of superb red wine at the Metropolitan Cafe in the "Warehouse District" (the hotspot-downtown-type area). We just loved it - THANKS ALISA, great recommendation. We were in a pretty goofy mood and giggled through a lot of dinner. I almost choked Shorty with my cleverness - - look out, I'm dangerous.

We stuffed ourselves even goofier and then headed out to the busy street to walk it off a bit, but were quickly distracted by the imagine of three giant flat screen plasmas broadcasting the Twins game from the something-Pig bar. That was such a fun surprise. I forgot that Clemens' big comeback game was to be against the Twins and that would surely bump it to ESPN. We cheered on the boys as they won 4-2. It looked like an amazing outing for the wonderkid, Liriano.

We met a couple of fellas who were perplexed by our out-of-place and vocal Twins fandom (thanks for playing along, Shorty) and ended up hanging out with them for most of the rest of the night until handed off to a bunch of Sherwin-Williams paint salesmen who were in town for a convention. They were dah-runk, friendly, offensive at times, and pretty entertaining. We shut the warehouse district (and the paint sellers) down settled in to our cozy B&B for a few hours of sleep.

The B&B proprietor, Robin, made us eggs and snasage (terrific) and coffee, and loaded us up with maps and directions for the day. We're going first to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame first (I am SO pumped for the Roy Orbison exhibit!), then to Little Italy for lunch, Euclid Ave to stroll the millionaire's (think Rockefellers) homes, to Jacobs Field to the Indians-Reds game, and then to the Tremont area for a late dinner and more vino.

Well hooo-weee, shoot, that all sounds fun.

Ciao, buddies.
-Nina

P.S. Meanest thing I said yesterday: "Ya know, I just hate that theater-dork turned waiter guy. You know those guys - they are everywhere. And I hate them."

Now, who am I again?

Hola, dolls.

Guess where I am?

Cleveland, Ohio! Really. I am sitting on fluffy white bed, surrounded by shabby-chic B&B decor, wearing a freaking bathrobe, and writing to you from Ohio. Wow.

I feel as if in a bit of a dream sequence at this point. Yesterday morning we were in Memphis - and have since toured Louisville, Kentucky (in a car, albeit, but still saw it all - and by all I mean, not much), read half of a book, driven through a pretty torrential downpour (nice work, Shorty), caught up with an old friend, and learned about Victorian home renovation. I am having a hard time getting my bearings and I have to literally remind myself where I am right now.

It was fantastic to see Ann again. For those of you who may not remember her, Ann was my old boss and the former Registrar of Hamline. She moved down to Louisville with her partner, David, somewhere around 2.5 years ago because he was offered a tenure track position at U of Louisville, which I now know is a lovely campus in the "Old Louisville" area. I've always really liked Ann and was very happy to see her again and see her new life. We were good co-workers and also friends. You can't beat that. I wish she liked it more down there, but sadly, she's not too impressed. I can't say that I blame her.

So, I have some photos to post of Louisville and Ann & David's AMAZING, giant, turn-of-the-century Victorian home that they are fixing up. I also will post some of the promised Graceland and last day in Memphis photos - - but in a minute. I'm going to go shower and run around in some dude's bathrobe for awhile first.

Ciao, buddies.
-Nina

P.S. Best sign of the last couple of days: "Hell Is Real"

"Let's go to Beale Street and get in a fight."

Hola, funky chickens.

Memphis, the beautiful beast, has had her way with us and now we are off to.... Kentucky. Louisville, Kentucky. There, I said it.

I have tons of great pics from yesterday but don't have time to load them all up and deal with the technical difficulties too. As soon as I can post them, I will.

Yesterday was really, really fun. We were complete tourists - and had a blast. We started with the Sun Studio tour and it was FANtastic. I loved every minute of it and was bummed when it was over. I absolutely love that period of time in music and the story of Sun Studio is soooo cool.

We caught the free shuttle to Graceland and I geeked out for an hour and a half. I know it's cheesy, campy, touristy.... whatever, but it is also quite awesome. I took about 80 pictures in there, partly so I can show my mom every bit of it. I never pictured myself at Graceland without her. Mom, I gave Elvis a wave at his grave for you.

Then we went to the other big tourist hotspot, The Peabody Hotel, and watched the ducks and the fancy people. The ducks were anticlimactic but it was fun to see that famous old hotel. O, and momma had her first mint julep. Yum. We left there and stumbled upon Automatic Slims, where we quickly realized - - hey, we found he cool kids! There is a hipster scene in Memphis (I had doubts) and it is at Automatic Slims.

We drank a carafe of sangria and pinballed down to Rendezvous for... you guessed it, ribs. Fantastic, delicious, spicy ribs with slaw and the whole deal. Good stuff, but I am ribbed out and jonsin' for some vegetables or something not bbq'd.

I hope our late-nite post didn't sound like we aren't enjoying it here, because we are. I've never been someplace where I've felt more.... ghosts, I guess. Memphis is an amazingly complex place - beautiful & brutal - and it has given me a lot to think about.

Ciao, buddies.
-Nina