Lost Forest After Dark

I'm off on a 72 mile bike trip on this glorious sunny day. I am training for a two-day 160 mile trip later this month and a one day 110 mile trip in August. Here's a Top 10 to get me going.

1. So High -- Elvis Presley
2. Video Killed the Radio Star -- Presidents of the Uniteds States of America
3. Jamaica Sky -- The Specials
4. Down by the Highway -- Bob Dylan
5. John Henry -- Bruce Springsteen
6. Cheap Reward -- Elvis Costello
7. The Imposter (live) -- Elvis Costello
8. Sin City -- Uncle Tupelo
9. Hero -- Ministry
10. Heartbeat -- Wire

Bonus: One Tree Hill -- U2

You don't see Elvis singing gospel and Ministry on the same list very often. What's your top 10?

Photo via of MN Daily

For some reason June just blows by. It seems like the month just starts and boom, its gone and we are making plans for the 4th. This year was a particularly memorable June, here are the highlights:

Mr. Franken goes to Washington. It took over eight months but we finally have our Senator. The writing's been on the wall with this one for a couple of months now but the slow as molasses pace and then all of a sudden it's over was breathtaking. Sure Franken is a goof but he is taking the job seriously and has some bona fide political chops. I think Republicans will be sorely mistaken if they underestimate Franken's ability to do a credible job and connect with ordinary Minnesotans.

Michael Jackson dead (and Farrah, and Ed, and Karl Malden, and Billy May, and Jay Bennett...) Wow bad month for celebrities. I can appreciate Michael's obvious musical talent with the Jackson 5 and his early solo stuff but the guy was a confirmed child molester. The crushing weight of celebrity and his own demons turned him into a freak at the end so he gained some sympathy there but don't forget: the man slept with little boys.

Timberwolves and Wild changing gears. Man I wanted Ricky Rubio and Stephen Curry together in the backcourt and was that >< close to seeing it happen. I am not sure if Rubio will play for the Wolves this year, but I think he will play eventually. This team still has a lot of holes but the excitement over Rubio should demonstrate to the Wolves "braintrust" that this is a real NBA market. Give us a team that is exciting, shows us some promise for the future, and we will come out and be there with you. Wild lose Gaborik which is no surprise. Now lets rebuild this team and get a goal scorer or two.

Twins. Aaron Gleeman has a good article describing the Twins first half of the season. Essentially Young, Tolbert, Punter, Buscher, and Gomez are a negative balance to the nice seasons Mauer, Morneau, Kubel, and Cuddyer are having. The starting pitching are slightly coming around as are the relievers. A nice right handed reliever is still needed but the Twins are blessed by playing in a flawed division. However can they compete in the playoffs?

New Wilco album. I really wanted to have a review ready today but just haven't been able to give Wilco (the album) a good listen or two. Reviews are mixed and the first couple of songs haven't exactly grabbed me. I love however the first single, You Never Know. If the whole album is like that, I will be raving. Look for a review next week.

No Beer at TCF Bank Stadium. The state legislature says everyone gets to buy booze or no one does. The Regents decided no one. I don't have a problem with this as virtually no college football stadium sells alcohol to the general population. Legislators get on their high horse and say they are looking out for the "common folks" who can't afford a fancy stadium suite. Too bad they don't worry about the common folks when they pass legislation that favors corporate interests over working families so spare me your faux populism.

So 2009 is halfway in the books what else happened in June that I missed?

For about 16 months I have been pretty religious about going on the exercise bike at least 2-4 times a week. My secret is that I have set up a portable DVD player and watch DVDs of TV series that I missed during their first runs. I have picked shows that are more serial in nature so that I am motivated to keep watching. My first show was Battlestar Galactica. Last week I finished five seasons of The Wire.

The Wire played on HBO and was an extremely gritty portrayal of Baltimore, its drug trade and police and government reaction to the drug trade. The show was very cynical as it demonstrated that our institutions are just as corrupt as the drug runners they are responding to. What was really interesting is that each season the show focused on one institution as it responded to the urban ills of the early part of this decade. Season One concentrated on the Police; Two looked at the Unions and dock workers; Three examined City Politics; Season 4 took on the Schools; and 5 focused on the Newspaper industry. All was interwoven with the drug trade in Baltimore, the guys who controlled the drugs and the thugs who sold and controlled the street.

One was drawn into the series because of the characters. Characters, whether Police, drug thug, or politician were shown warts and all and you could be sympathetic to a character even though he was a ruthless murderer, a stats-juking bureaucrat, or a cynical politician. Also there were no sacred cows. Favorite and key characters would be killed off or shown cheating on their spouse. Characters were shown as complex people with conflicting motivations who sometimes made mistakes. Just like people in real life.

Season 4 was especially devastating. It concentrated on the schools, specifically four 8th grade boys as they tried to go to a school that is underfunded and sitting literally sitting in a war zone of the drug trade. My own kid was also in 8th grade as I watched that season and believe me his life is completely different than those kids. These four were also followed in season 5 and only one made it through as anything considered safe. But one became so attached to these kids that it was a kick in the gut to see how they turned out. In fact I even uttered a sad "oh Michael" when one of the kids made his first killing (shooting a street thug who had been on the show from the beginning).

As I mentioned above, The Wire is extremely cynical and dark. Its message really is that our Cities are failing, our institutions are failing, and that we are in an endless loop. We can eliminate some drug thugs, but others are ready to rise up and take their place. We can eliminate our urban slums but the things that make those places slums, just move to someplace else. Good people may try to fix things but The System beats them down and corrupts them so that in the end nothing happens. It sound pretty sad and grim and in a sense it is. But the stories are so rich, the characters so real that I heartedly recommend anyone to seek out The Wire and dive in.

Up next for the Exercise Bike? The Sopranos