An Evening of Local Celebrities - Drinking Liberally

I spent a few hours last night at Drinking Liberally at the 331 Club. Some initial observations - no, I did not try the frito pie as I had eaten a pancake before I went. No, pancakes and Bells Two Hearted Ale do not mix perfectly. No, Accident Clearinghouse wasn't necessarily better than Aqua City Motel, but they had a bass and a washboard - Erik needs to play the washboard.

As for the event itself, I sat across from Morris Professor, Pharyngula author, and City Pages cover child PZ Meyers (and later his son, both eating Frito pie) and next to Bob Malos. While sitting cattycorner to PZ was fun, even if it was incredibly difficult to hear anything at all over the band, Bob was the bigger surprise. I usually recognize a few of the bloggers at Drinking Liberally (MNObserver [currently bringing up the quality of Norwegianity in his absence], Rew and Smartie, Flash), but Bob isn't a blogger. Bob is an actor (and data warehousing guy), and an actor I'd actually seen in one of my favorite performances of the last several years, "2". Bob played the lead as Herman Goering at the Theatre in the Round production. Bob was there specifically to see PZ after seeing his cover on the City Pages and reading the article and chatted for a while about intelligent design, his own history hailing from Pennsylvania, and David Irving and Irvings recent arrest in Austria.

Bob had actually met Irving when he was in Minnesota pushing his books at Gastof becuase of his research for playing Goering, and had some amusing stories about that gathering. What followed was a lot of discussion between Bob, PZ, Leia the graduate biochemist, and myself about Irving, Fred Leuchter, holocaust denial and genocide in general. It was particularly interesting to me as I'd just spent a few hours at the Genocide program at the U of MN earlier in the day (I'll blog about that later when I can grab a few pictures off the other machine).

On the other side of me, because I always end up sitting in the middle of a group where I can't commit to one discussion or the other, was a spirited discussion about the special election (which only reaffirms my whole removal from the Wright County scene of my youth) and the changes in the party composition of the state government. Smartie seemed surprised that the Hopkins area had any Republicans, and I mentioned that there had been an article last year about a local (minor) uproar about the International Baccalaureate program in Hopkins or Minnetonka. It was Minnetonka - here's a link back to the relevant post.

Smartie was perhaps the only one to see me buy an Accident Clearinghouse CD for Leia the biochemistry student as well. Leia had just mentioned she really liked the band but wasn't buying a CD because she didn't have the money. I personally remember that stage in my life because it lasted so damn long. There was a significant stretch where I made $18-24,000 a year (working hourly wages, sometimes doing bulk mail in front of the television all night for a week to grab extra income and/or push it that high at all) which had to cover my apartment, gas and insurance or bus, food, computer, utilities, various school-related expenses (books/fees) and entertainment. Entertainment generally suffered and I drank in (with friends) far more often than I hit the town. Compared to other college students I knew, I didn't go out nearly as often. So now that I make a republican's income and can afford to put my wife through grad school without incurring any real loans, and can help start her in her own therapy practice, and yet still afford a nice house, a 401K and my own side business with my brother, I don't think twice about doing someone a favor when I can, particularly if it's something small that might make them happy. I dropped more on beer last night than I spent on the CD and I'll drop more on poker at TallBrad's house on Saturday then several CDs - so it's just a matter of perspective and priorities I guess. Hope she enjoys it.