Deep question.

Rome from Maryland has sent me one doozy of a question and, unike many of the queries I receive, this one is pretty serious. First to get this you must know that stand up comedy is a love of mine, I have been doing it on and off for years and dealing with a deep, sick, love/hate relationship with comedy and audiences. That said, on to the questions.

Rome asks this: "How'bout a battery of questions on the same subject? Why stand-up? I realize that it isn't the only thing you do but it's something you seem to like. You don't exactly come across as a "people person" so showing your wares to an audience is kind of odd when you think about it.

Who are your influences? I know, typical rock band shit but I find it to be even more important when it comes to comedy.

Who are your secondary influences? Writers, musicians, actors, and the like who brought you to the idea of performing in the first place.

What's your style? Steam of consciousness, joke telling, observational...

Is there an objective and if so what is it? What's a show like? Do you have a journey you're trying to take with the audience? Are you trying to piss them off or win them over?

I think that covers it."

Well if I may bare my soul to you all I will gladly answer this barrage of askings. A people person, I am most certainly not. I have always held firm that only five out of a hundred people are worth talking too and only one of those people is worth hanging around with and I think that is a liberal estimate. There have been several days in my life that I have considered giving up on civilization, hiking into the woods and writing a book about how much squirrels piss me off. That may sound like a joke, which it is but it is also something I have actually contemplated. It would be fun, in a strange way, to live in the woods for a few years, only leaving for supplies and constantly work out and maintain physical hygiene. That way the folks in that small backwoods, mountain town would have these strange stories about an incredibly buff, well groomed, mountain man that would appear once a year and say,"Hell of a workout today huh?", or "Pork bellies are up but I would steer clear of oranges" and then fade back into the mist. I believe that something like this would cause people to have to shake out the cobwebs that have grown in their heads and let a spark of thought flicker. To me there is no length too far to go for a good, deep thought provoking joke. That is part of why I do what I do. I try to get up in front of people and allow them access to my dementia. The disappointing part always falls when you know people aren't getting it. That was my biggest problem in San Diego. It is a college and military town and no one wants to hear about how horrible the government is or, they just want dick, fart and titty jokes. They don't want to think, thinking is scary. Well I am not Dane Cook, or Carlos Mencia, both of whom I thought were funny at first but then they fell from grace by not doing anything new or interesting. Which is what made them popular with the masses of brain dead college jocks and young Wall Street execs. That is why I have deep respect for Dave Chapelle, he realized that his show was just doing the same thing over and over. Recycling joke and stereotype observations, so he canned it. He could have beat that horse until it paid off in the hundreds of millions but he had a thing called pride. I respect that.

Influences are a different thing. I will break the major ones down for you. First, in my youth, there was always Abbot and Costello and the Marx Brothers . I grew up on their movies and watch them to this day. Now the general public likes Oliver and Hardy, or the Three Stooges more but I don't really care for them at all. Why? Because they didn't use words, they used slapstick, which, granted so did the A&C and the Marx Bros. but they also used words, puns and circular logic in some of the most beautiful ways. Abbot and Costello doing "Who's on first", or Groucho telling his story about his trip through Africa in Animal Crackers. "One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know." That is my starting point. As I got older and found more daring stuff, Mel Brooks and George Carlin came onto my radar. I still watch Young Frankenstein, the original Producers (Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder version) and Blazing Saddles religiously and do not think I could ever get tired of anything Carlin has done, even that weird stuff from the seventies that wasn't really funny, is still good. Now, if you are intelligent and anti-social, you must put Bill Hicks on a pedestal as well. He was one of the best big minds of comedy and that is why he was not truly accepted by the masses. That is, until Dennis Leary took about half of his jokes after his death and tried to push them off as his own. I know there is no such thing as original thought but there is a thing called verbatim recitation and there is also evidence. To shorten this I will list more influences without too much explaining. Monty Python, The Young Ones (Adrian Edmonson and Rick Mayal, see also, Filthy Rich and Catflap, The Dangerous Brothers Present and Bottom to name a few). Richard Pryor, Jackie Mason, Rodney Dangerfield, Steve Martin, Tim Conway, Harvey Corman, Rowan and Martin, Bob and Doug Mackenzie, the list can go on. Currently Zach Galifinakus, Patton Oswalt, Dave Attel, Dylan Moran(Black Books) and The Upright Citizens Brigade to list a few.

What about other influences? Well CNN, FOX news and the government in general are always great ways to find humor, if you can avoid getting too pissed off to think once the rhetoric really kicks in. I have always found , people in general to be the best comic motivation, face it, people suck and they should be laughed at for it. I read a lot and writers like Terry Pratchett, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Rankin and the folks who keep rewriting the bible to suit their belief system, are among my favorites.

Finally, my style. I don't really have one I guess. It is more like I go up with a few people inside my head and then one of them fights to the front and we see where that takes us. I have been off the comedy wagon again for a while but since I am in Minnesota again I feel it will soon be time to start getting up there and doing that voodoo. I have a comic theory, it goes like this, " I will speak, you will listen, if you don't laugh it's your fault, not mine". I know it is a pretty egotistical view point but you have to be pretty cocky to walk infront of people and bare your psyche to strangers.

I hope that answers your question, it's the best I could do.

Bible timeline literalists

I do have a couple questions to answer that readers have sent me but first I want to talk about an upfront question someone handed me. This person was a believer in the "Young Earth" theory. You know those folks that think that the Earth is only six thousand or so years old, give or take four or five thousand years for mathematical inaccuracies. They do not believe in carbon dating. They don't believe that dinosaurs lived millions of years before man. They believe that the bible is the word of God, no questions and, if you trace back the generations of the bible you get, roughly, six thousand to ten thousand years of planetary existence. No Pangaea, no Triassic, Jurassic or Cretaceous periods, just a handful of measly millennia between Adam and us. The important point about the beliefs of this, rather large, group of people is this. The bible is literal, there are no allegories or falsehoods in it. That is important to remember.

After a short debate wherein I realized that there was no way for logic to smash past the rock hard shell of ignorance that had been placed between this guy and reality. I gave up and turned to my beer, oping he would go away. Instead he asked me a question, thinking he had won the battle through the clever use of stupidity. The question I got from the Young Earther was this and it was in a very cocky tone.

" So, you give up, are you willing admit that I am right and the bible is the literal word of God?"

Now I hate people that think quiet thought and reflection is a sign of quiting and I really hate people that think just because they are louder than you, they are somehow, smarter than you. So I turned to him and I said "No". I also told him that if he was willing to give me a day to think about it that I would give him an answer that he could not argue against. I also gave him this site and said I would write it since talking face to face with him again would involve me breaking his jaw. So I sat down and did some research and then some reading and I decided that I would take a few of his ideas and pick them apart.

First, dinosaurs. He said that there is evidence of dinosaurs and man walking together so that proves that the periods were not separate and that dinosaurs died out during the great flood. Bad logic anyway you look at it. Sure maybe a flood would wipe out the land mammals but then the great water creatures would thrive with all that roaming room and food everywhere. The likelyhood of the ocean having several Nessy's would definitely be higher. That is just one simple observance of mine. I checked out the King James Version of the bible to see what it said about dragons or monsters. The English had a crazy history with dragons and the KJV has the most references pound for pound of monsters and dragons of any of the more than 50 separate bibles you can find. The most famous monster may be the Leviathan which many have considered to be one of the great ocean dinosaurs that lived among man. That is proof enough for a Young Earther. Well it is an ancient creature to be sure and a descendant of dinosaurs, it is called a Crocodile and the Nile river is swarming with them. You can also imagine that they were kinda big back then when man didn't have the technology, weaponry or the balls of Mr. Dundee, to go into that murky water and fight them. People were just a wee bit superstitious back then and tended to blow things out of proportion. Look at my ancestors, the Vikings, Whales and fog were sea monsters and dragons, that is , until someone found out that you could power a lamp with sea monster fat and use it to scare away the glow worm from the hills. Young Earth folk also do not believe in the fossil record. Yes it makes more sense to them that God would put all those little fossils in the ground to test human faith then to think that maybe God is like a home brewer and lets nature take its time for a more well balanced product. I can't even begin to argue Carbon dating with these people because they absolutely refuse to believe that carbon atoms break down at a distinctly measurable rate. Proof you could burn into their retinas and they still wouldn't see it.

that argument aside, I realize that that is just my own way of seeing things and not anything that can fight the "literal vs. allegory" issue. I found one thing though and I will share it with you now. It is from the KJV of the bible. I checked several others and the basic wording is pretty much the same. It has to do with Adam in the Garden of Eden, God is telling him about the tree of knowledge and it goes like this.

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

That's it, it's that simple. He ate it and didn't die that day. instead, the story goes, his innocence died. His favor in God's eye died and he was relegated to a life of poor white trashery. See, if you are a biblical literalist then you do not actually exist because the human race was cut down and destroyed by God on that day when Adam ate the apple. The bible starts and ends at Genesis Now, on the other hand, if you can handle allegory, then perhaps you still exist.

I have had several disagreements in my lifetime, with people like this guy and every time I ask them if they have read the bible. Every time I get the same answer. A resounding "no". Usually followed by the words, "My pastor tells me what to believe". That scares me. This guy I speak of said the same damn thing. I hope you read this man and feel free to respond, I am not a big fan of being overly serious but I will trade jab for jab with you if you want and will not back down from printing both sides of the argument. As for my loyal readers, I am sorry for all the recent seriousness and promise to get funny again soon.

I will leave you with the word, titfart. Late.

It's question time.

As you all know from time to time I enjoy answering questions for my loyal readers. That being said, I will be taking questions from you this weekend and answering them during the week. Remember no topic is taboo so let's get those questions arollin'.

Anti-Temperance in America

As some of you may know, not only do I enjoy writing but, I also enjoy drinking. I feel that this puts me in the company of several of the greatest authors in the world. Now, if only I was more talented. I recently founded an organization by the name of the Anti-Temperance League of America. Our main goal, to share the joy of alcohol with people who have similar interests. We do not advocate binge drinking, unless it is competition style. We do not advocate being overly drunk, again, unless it is a competition. We at the League, as do many of you, simply enjoy alcohol. In the early nineteen hundreds our country went through a rough patch as far as booze went. That era, known as prohibition, was what I feel to be the greatest act of government mandated oppression ever practiced on the American people. It is a right of freedom in this country to choose to drink and the government took that away. Why? Because of religious purists that worked their way into public office and used their authority to sway government lawmakers. That is what it comes down to in a nutshell. The American people eventually took back their rights but not until hundreds of people went to jail, needlessly or, were killed, again needlessly. I bring this up because I feel it can always happen again, look at our President. Even though he was busted for DWI in college and was a known cocaine user. He is also a member of the United Methodist Church. With twelve million plus members, the UMC is one of the largest, most powerful churches in America and the largest supporter of the *Wesleyan Movement during the onset of Prohibition (*for John Wesley, who's teachings were a basis for several temperance societies). The UMC supported the temperance movement and prohibition throughout the era and still states that it "affirms our long-standing support of abstinence from alcohol as a faithful witness to God's liberating and redeeming love for persons." Even today, in this modernized so called, civilized society, there are large organizations that believe in abstinence instead of simple self control and that scares me.

Now we have a guy in Alabama named Dan Ireland. A former Baptist minister and honorary chaplain of the Alabama Legislature. I know, honorary chaplain, what ever happened to not mixing church and state? Dan is also Executive Director of the Alabama Citizens Action Program (ALCAP) and, what I feel is the ATLA's truest enemy. Alabama is one of the few states in our country were it is illegal to drink any beer containing an alcohol content of more than six percent. The state is attempting to repeal this ridiculous law, in order to allow sales of craft beers, many of which have an average of more than six percent alcohol. Old Dan, along with ALCAP are fighting the repeal. Here is a quote of the dangers of higher alcohol beer straight from Dans mouth.

"My major concern is that this would be an inducement to teenagers, underage drinkers, to get their hands on it. You know, technically speaking, one beer, that much alcohol, could conceivably get an average teenager drunk."

Idiot, dumbass, moron logic if I have ever heard such. First off, teenagers are poor and want to get drunk fast and cheep. Therefore they are not gonna go out and drop twenty bucks on a bottle of St. Bernardus ABT 12 ( I highly recommend this by the way). They are gonna take that twenty and purchase cheap liquor and a bottle of paint thinner, hoping they have enough left over for a fast food burger at the local Stop -N- Plop. So, Dans reasoning there can be thrown out of any window, preferably a high one with spikes at ground level. I found another quote from Danny boy and I feel this gives a decent bit of insight into his view points on alcohol.

"I'm a total abstainer. I'm 78 years old, and I never tasted an alcoholic beverage. I just don't think there's any good quality about an alcoholic beverage,".

Now there is the gigantic asshole statement of the decade. I absolutely hate it when people tell you the bad points of things they have never done. He knows nothing of the fragrance of hops, the soothing flavor of malt. He has never experienced that fantastic sensation you feel after a sip of a fine whiskey. It is a wrong headed, way of speaking and thinking that the people at ALCAP use and I despise it fully. These people blame alcohol for the drunk driver, the gun for the bullet hole and the vagina for the bastard, never self control. They feel that they have the right to control your freedoms and keep you under their wing so they won't be uncomfortable. Screw these holier than thou crack pots. using religious pressure to control government and thereby, control us.

The big thing they miss is that they cause more problems with their heavy handed control issues than would be caused by just being less repressive. If it wasn't for prohibition, organized crime would not have gotten so powerful as fast as it did. However, rum running became a big trade and big money that really boosted mafia finances. Face it, not letting people have stuff makes them want it even more. Marijuana isn't a gateway drug but ignorance of the facts sure as hell is. The ATLA wants you to, not be ignorant but more importantly, we want to keep fighting the ideals of associations that think we can't handle ourselves. Speaking of handling ourselves. This is another golden moment from Dan Ireland. During an attempt by Rep. John Rogers, D-Birmingham, to strike the 1998 prohibition on the sale of sex toys in Alabama, a law which prohibits the sale and manufacture of items "designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs." No kidding, real law. Dan Ireland said this.

"Laws are made to protect the public. Sometimes you have to protect the public against themselves."

Protect the public from themselves? Wow what an asshat way of thinking. Well, I have a question Dan. If dildos are illegal in Alabama, why haven't they locked up you and everyone that thinks like you? You are by far, the biggest dildos of all.

On the Subject of Tom Cruise.

I believe that I have had about enough of someone and I must put my loathing on record. That person is, you guessed it, Tom (I love Katie Holmes) Cruise. If I have spelled either of their names wrong, I am not sorry, I hate them both, oh so very much. This isn't about Katie Holmes, however, just about the lunatic that is siring her, space cadet, flipper freaks. What the hell is wrong with that guy? I am one of those people that tries to stay up on what is happening in the world and that means I spend an awful lot of time on the internet. Sometimes I find really interesting things and I write about them but usually I just find more evidence of the fat headed, stupidity of the world around me, that tends to get written about more often than not. Well, this time I happened across a video of old Tommy Boy at a party that was, apparently thrown in his honor by that wonderful organization, The Church of Scientology. Oh, did I say wonderful? Sorry, I meant to say by that, elitist, money grubbing, brain washing, vile, deceitful, obnoxious, ill conceived, religion that follows the teachings of a half assed, barely literate, fat headed moron with less writing talent than Ayn Rand after a frontal lobotomy and being dead for over a decade. Sorry, tangent, you know me, when I hate, I really hate. Anyway, back to the jackass. I have and never will be a fan of Tom Cruise. Most of the rednecks in the Mid-West that lie about being abducted by aliens and probed to cover up their late night sodomy trysts with Uncle Grandpa, are better actors. Of course there is all that speculation that he is gay, I don't care about that, it makes no difference to me. I do have to point out however, that he was in the gayest movie ever made, I of course refer to Top Gun. God, that movie was gayer than a German gay bar in the heart of the Castro in San Fransisco. Yes Val Kilmer was in it but it was still extremely gay. Granted the movie did help "out" all those closeted Airforce pilots so they could openly date/ probe drunk, homophobic, yet curious, rednecks from the Mid-West. To this day Toms acting remains as wet and stale as a big box of "Mama Nasties Old Stankass Urine Crumbles", yet somehow people continue to go see his films. I don't understand it, I figure it works like Bushes Approval rating, if twenty percent of the population loves you, that would be over sixty million people in the United States that approve of you. That does work into my theory that one out of every five people is an ass head. Anyway back to the video, so Tom is dancing and singing and flopping around and all I could think while I watched was that he didn't even seem human. It was like watching a person that was being controlled remotely the way he danced all spastically and sang off key, not that I expected him to dance like Gregory Hines or sing like Frank Sinatra but he was moving like an epileptic Stretch Armstrong. That was when it hit me. Maybe these Scientologists are on to something. Maybe Tom is is not their spokesman by choice but perhaps, by force. Makes sense doesn't it? The poor motor control, the weird speech patterns, aliens man from that planet they say that they come from. They got a hold of him, put a remote control in his nervous system and are using him to slowly take control of the elite in the American entertainment business. Then, after they have full control, they will bombard us with ill conceived plot lines and mind numbing story lines until we are but intellectual putty in their hands. That has to be it, either that or he's just and ass head. That seems more believable.

P.S. For legal purpose, this is parody. Asshead.

Treat me like dog dirt.

I was walking through the park with the dog today, a typically uninspiring and non-thought provoking daily mission, when I happened upon a rather large pile of dog feces. This meant little to me at the time but as the day moved along, this substantial heap of canine excrement began to form in my mind as a new ambition. I know this sounds weird but stay with me while I explain. If you have ever witnesses human interaction with poop you find, for the larger part, that people act as though said poop might suddenly leap forward and attack them. Think of the gap you strive to place between yourself and big, steaming, lump of dog guano. People are so cautious around it, they move so delicately over and past it. They do everything they can to ensure that bringing their foot to rest upon the Earth will not, somehow end up squishing into the large, primary fertilizer placement and also avoid any possible misstep into a hidden biscuit. People give dog bombs the amount of respect and fear that one would give to a land mine. So, what is it that I find so enviable about this treatment of poopus? It's the space of course. I am by no means, a small person. I am tall enough, broad enough and have enough muscle mass, that you would think would force people to give me room. Sadly, this is not so. In fact, I am astounded on a regular basis, usually at the grocery store, when people actually walk right into, not only my personal space but my body as well. I have had old ladies hit me with their carts more times than I can recall. People suddenly needing to get to and item that is directly in front of me and forcing themselves into a position that puts pressure on my skin. This is what I envy about the power of poop. Truth be known, poop is far less dangerous at any given time than me. If someone tried to stuff me in a bag while I was laying in my front yard, you can bet that they would be in for one hell of a dust up. I am also sure that the slight case of diarrhea one could suffer from while handling feces would be far preferable to the absolutely horrible bought of constipation that they would have to tend with while having a pair of snow pants and a lawn mower removed from their rectum (damn near killed 'um). You don't even want to imagine what I could do to your ground water supply if pushed. So what am I saying? Just this. I am more dangerous than dog poop. I am far more unstable than dog poop. I am far more mobile than dog poop. So please just give me the space that you would give dog poop. I could just remedy the whole thing by smelling of poop or carrying around a poo stick but, this is about having personal space, not being a stinky freak.

Sometimes it's okay to cry.

I think today I felt fine shedding a small, manly tear as I clicked the TV over to ESPN. There it was, the press conference every Green Bay Packers fan has been dreading, Today Brett Favre made his retirement official. I guess everyone in the football world was waiting for it but it still came as a bit of a shock. Now, I know many of the people who read this page are either, not interested in football or, more than likely, Vikings fans from my home state but this isn't so much about football as it is about the end of an era. It was the second game of the '92 season when coach Mike Holmgren benched starting QB Don (Majik man) Majkowski put in his back up, Brett Favre. His first regular season pass for the Packers was against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, it was deflected back to Favre who caught it for a loss of seven yards. Hell of a way to start out a career, they lost that game 31-3. After suffering a ligament injury in the next game, Don Majkowski was again removed and Favre came in struggling and was being booed off the field by the home crowd. Favre shut them up with a touchdown pass to Wide Receiver, Kitrick Taylor with thirteen seconds left in regulation for the win and the beginning of a wild roller coaster ride for Cheeseheads around the word. He was called a "Gun slinger", a loose canon with a canon for an arm. At the age a of 38 it was said that he could still hit the field goal post, dead center from 50 yards. For sixteen seasons he helped keep the cheese, kraut, pork and beer from clogging our arteries by making our hearts beat half way through our rib cages. Watching a really close game was like calisthenics, you could be exhausted from just sitting there, watching him throw sixty yards off his back foot or perform some kind of underhanded, flip pass into triple coverage while simultaneously, being wrapped up by a Line Backer and scoring. Then you would have the days when it seemed like nothing was going right, by the fourth sack, the second fumble and the third interception all you wanted to do was drown your head in a bucket of Leinenkugels and die. Most of all, Favre was tough, cracked ribs, broken thumbs and fingers, concussions, none of that mattered because it was part of the game to him and that is the saddest part of his retirement to me. It not only signifies the end of the Favre Era but, the end of real, hard nosed football. Face it, we live in a world where being tough doesn't count for as much as being famous, rich or pretty. The Ray Nitschke's, Jack Tatum's, Dick Butkus's, the guys with the any day, any weather, any injury, any time mentality are leaving the sport now add Brett Favre to the list. He was tough, he never missed a start in sixteen seasons and if you actually know how hard an undefended QB got hit on a clean blitz you may appreciate that statistic. I get it that now players are worth so much money that they are more of an investment property that a player. There aren't too many guys out there that would sacrifice a finger tip, ala Ronnie Lott, just to get back on the field and hit somebody. Oh there are a few out on the field that won't let a bloated toe bench them for ten weeks and know what ankle and wrist tape is for but they are sadly in the minority. That is what bites me most about the end of Favre's career. It seems to mark the end of the Tough Guy Era of football. The bad boys are gone and the pretty boys are taking over, broken noses are being replaced by metro hairdos, scars are being concealed or surgically reduced, some one has given the warriors Nerf swords and it burns me to my soul. I think I speak for all Packers fans when I say, Thank you Brett, you will be missed but never forgotten. Thank you for the good times and the bad, the ups and the downs. Most of all, thank you for being loyal and tough and making us remember the purity of that old Lambeau magic. It won't be the same without you but we all wish you the best. Having said that, I would just like to add... Go Pack Go!

Beer Void.

This sucks. I am a beer lover, not macro brew monsters like MGD or Budweiser, anyone who calls themselves a beer lover and then drinks that leper piss is simply a buffoon. When I talk about beer I speak of the flavors, the aromas, the colors of true craft beer. I adore it in a way that I adore nothing else. Whether it is prying off the top of a Rouge Dead Guy, or popping a cork from a Belgian Triple, I love every part, every moment, of a really good beer. The way a truly fragrant hop awakens your senses, the way the carbonation make the beer taste spicy, I would pour it on the floor and roll in it if I didn't love drinking it so much. Friends of mine often ask me why I love living on the West Coast, well, it's not just because of the ocean, which is nice. Nor is it only due to the weather, which is unbeatable. It is mostly because of the of the beer market, which is the best I have ever experienced. There are over forty breweries in San Diego County alone, which makes for some mighty fine drinking. "But wait, there's more. More? Much, much more!" (spot the movie reference and win my approval) If you travel up the coast of our nation, you will run into countless craft breweries, actually you could probably count them and, if you can fund the trip, I will gladly go on a West Coast brewery census tour with you. Such a huge market for breweries tends to make a bigger market for bars in which you can find a wide variety of aromatic, intoxicating, hopped and malted libations. I am in a beer void now and hurting to my pancreas, my liver having lost all feeling years ago. You see, I am in the Mid-West, not for an extended stay I hope but for long enough. I am without all my old bars, the places I knew I could go for some good beer and relatively relaxed surroundings. I now have to adapt to a situation that takes me out of my canteen comfort zone. Alas, I know I will adapt because I can and I must, not just for myself but for the people that count on me to hunt down beers and drink them. I must be like the U.S. Postal Service and be stopped by neither rain, nor sleet, nor hail, nor dead of night shall I be stopped from my appointed beer rounds. Also, since I am in a state that closes it's liquor stores on Sundays, I will have one more thing in common with the mailing system. just had to blow off some steam, I love you beer, see you soon.

Minnesota nice.

Alright, if you know me you know that Minnesota is my home. I was born and raised here, hopefully I will not die here but if I do, I hope it's warm in Valhalla because it certainly isn't here. I am not going to complain about the weather though and I will spit no venom at the welfare system, not just yet at least, I am saving up. At this time I would like to write about a little phrase that, really has always bugged me but lately it's made my blood boil. That phrase is "Minnesota nice". Why does that phrase fluff my dander? You may wonder. Well, it's because of this. All my life that phrase had one very simple meaning. Being Minnesota nice meant you were nice to a persons face and then, cheerfully talked about them behind their back. As it was and still is, Minnesotans are a passive aggressive sort and rarely just let someone they don't like have it to their face. Minnesota nice was a mainstay of what being a Minnesotan was about and, if you wished to rebel against the status quo, you must begin by not accepting one of it's greatest precepts. This is what my friends and I did. In our high school years, we really started to notice that there was an awful lot of Minnesota niceties flying around. People in a clique would be best friends to one of their own until backs were turned and then, the attack. Friend would skewer friend but never openly and funny as it is, in a repressed system, people would talk behind the backs of people they openly disliked. I will not say that I, nor my friends, were innocent of this sad, stupidity but I can say this. One day we just got tired of being hypocrites and we started to not be Minnesota nice. It was a revolution in thinking, if we had something to say, we would say it and face the music for our actions. Now it is many years later and someone is trying to spin this phrase into something like, "Southern hospitality", which it has nothing in common with. Minnesota isn't the land of,"You can sleep in ma' hay loft but keep yer yankee hands offin' ma' three lonely daughters". Minnesota is the land of," I can't believe I let that low dirty Bill marry my daughter, Oh hi Bill, I was just telling Mary how nice it is to have you in the family". That is the Minnesota nice I know and love because as long as it's around, when I tell a person they can go to Hell or throw their cellphone in a coffee pot because they won't just shut up and order their damned latte, it still has shock value and it wakes people up from the doldrums of their usual, non-thought process. No, Minnesota nice doesn't work as an upbeat phrase. It is a phrase that is used to describe how centuries of Lutheran guilt and Bi-Polar disorders can take it's toll on even the heartiest of psyches. It is a phrase that holds a deep warning about how an ancestry can be broken. Minnesota, being settled, mostly by Scandinavians, sons and daughters of Viking warriors and clansmen, who once would have thought nothing of smashing an enemies face, flaying their skin and, literally, wearing their ass for a hat, are now a people that won't even tell a person off to their face. That is why I want this phrase to be left alone because, as long as it's meaning holds true, hopefully people will continue to fight being Minnesota nice.