Well another Story Slam goes off without a hitch. And they are seriously getting better and better with every iteration. The audience is larger and louder, the orators are more confident and the lines get delivered at the right time. It was absolutely great! This was seriously the best one to date, and gets me salivating when I think about when the next one will be. Talked to some of the regulars, met some amazing new Slammers and possibly made a connection that could get me into an underground I’ve been trying to get into for years - as a photographer of course.

If you aren’t coming to this thing, what in the hell is wrong with you? It’s awesome! I better see you at the next one; eat, drink, laugh, cry and have your fill of some of the best¹ slammers the TC has to offer!

And speaking of art and what not - starting Friday and going on all weekend it’s the St. Paul Art Crawl!! Hundreds of artists located throughout lowertown St. Paul will be swinging open their doors and letting you in to peek at their wares - and liberate you of any extra Franklins you might be carrying around. So go ahead and print out the map and start marking off where you’d like to go. And if you plan on stopping by the Rossmor building², be sure to let me know. We can have a few beers and play Super Smash Brothers on the Wii. I might throw out a few things this time, but it’s doubtful - both my neighbors are photographers and both of them are also exhibiting. Too many cooks and all that jazz. Besides, my website isn’t fully done yet and I’m busy getting right for a gallery exhibition I have all next month at the Black Dog.

Hoping to see you there! (Or here, even)

1. And, yes, some of the not-so-best [↩]
2. Link doesn’t go to the real website, because for some reason it isn’t coming up for me. WTF? [↩]

Just a friendly reminder - the 5th Story Slam from MPR is tonight at the Bedlam Theater¹ in Minneapolis. It starts at 7:30pm, free parking² but the event will cost you $10 ($5 if you sign up to tell a story, $1back if you get there without your car)

This slam’s theme is Achilles’ Heel - what that means is up to you!
Bedlam Theater has a full bar and menu, and will be serving food³ and drink before, during and after the show.

What’s the Story Slam? From the MPR website about it: “The In The Loop “Story Slam” is a live event (and version of our show) based around the simple formula of great storytelling from anybody and everybody who wants to take a crack at it. The Smarts and I will be there as your guides through the evening, but mostly it’s about whatever stories our talented audience brings to the table.”

Still unsure? How about listening to the last Story Slam (With pictures by yours truly) or checking out the entire “In The Loop” archive.

So I hope you’ll join me, our host Jeff Horwich, and the venerable house band “The Smarts” for what aims to be a night of story tellings, laughter, food and drink!

1. Google Map to Bedlam Theater [↩]
2. And it’s a stone’s throw from light rail [↩]
3. Bedlam Theater’s “Be Social” Polish-Fusion Cuisine - It’s AWESOME! Try the Pieorogis [↩]

Yes, yes you heard correctly. The final “In The Loop” is taping tonight - and if you don’t have tickets, you’re screwed - they’ve been sold out for over a week now. The final episode of the season is titled “The Year According to You” - it’s a year in review. The good, the bad, and everything in between - especially the things that the media might have overlooked. Remember anything? Let them know. I’m sure it will be a wonderful show as always, and then after words we’ll be at Fujiya where I’m toasting the end of the season with a 1.8 liter bottle of Sake AND meeting JACC and whatever rowdy crowd he brings.

It is a slight pain for me this time around - there will be 5 cameras videotaping the show for posterity’s sake and as such I have to get in during the rehearsal to take a lot of my ‘money’ shots. So it will be a looooong night for me. But that’s fine, it’s the last one and I have a short day working from home tomorrow to recover with.

So come for the show, stay for the Sake, and if you didn’t hear last weeks, then listen now.

The third to last taping of “In The Loop” happened yesterday - once again to another packed audience. So packed that we had turn several people away - I think it’s catching on!

The topic, quite timely mind you, was Flip Flopping. While based mainly on the current political flip flopping (Oh, hi Mr. Romney) it also covered personal flip flopping and when a flip flop can be good - including the ex-Catholic father whose entire life was changed when he left his small home town and went to college, and about a large and ‘evil’ corporation doing a few things that aren’t quite so evil.

The music was phenomenal as always, if not more so. The Smarts departed from their usual jazzy tunes and delved into the realm of Ska and the host Jeff Horwich even did some rapping.

Haven’t been to “In The Loop” yet? You’re seriously missing out! Dubbed the Prairie Home Companion for the Gen X crowd, it thrives on listener participation - each show is comprised of your ideas and features your words. The buzz is getting around, and you really should read the Loophole, the In The Loop blog and RSVP for one (or both) of the 2 remaining shows for this season. Feel like getting more involved? Join the insight network and get invites to our round table discussions where we tightly focus on topics and get your input and anecdotes.

And as usual, here are a few shots from the show - or check them out over at Flickr.

This weeks topic at In The Loop was Charity: What Gives? Did you know that the US is #1 when it comes to donating money, but only #8 when it comes to donating time? Listen to this weeks show Sunday 6pm on MPR (91.1FM for those of us in the Twin Cities - Find your station). There are only 3 more episodes left this season - don’t miss what’s being called “The Prairie Home Companion for Generation X”! We’re taking next week off, so the next taping will be on November 29th. Then it’s December 6th and December 13th. Sign up and come give us your opinion. Curious as to what an episode of In The Loop is like? Listen to last weeks show, Bullying for Grown-Ups - the most packed show we’ve had to date!

This entry is short and sweet.

Microsoft engineer is here at work all week and as such I’m deeply entrenched in things you care not about - such as the Notification Workflow Solution Accelerator add-on for Operations Manager 2005.
And, for some reason, DNS is ‘teh suck‘ at home and can’t reverse my domain, even though the girlfriends Mac can, so I haven’t done an update from home either.

Either way, tonight is Thursday, and as such it’s yet another taping of ‘In The Loop‘ at MPR. This weeks topic is “Democracy - Is it in you?“, a look at the concept of Democracy. Although it looks good on paper, how well do we put it into practice? It looks like it will be a fascinating show and I can’t wait to watch it unfold. I’ll be there, of course, Nikon in hand. Hope to see you there!

Tomorrow we’re going to go see Urinetown, and I’m going to try to snag some primo seats for Spamalot again - wish me luck!

By the way, it’s finally good to see the Lions Tap restaurant in Eden Prairie get some press - they literally make the best burgers - they have to, it’s all they make!

It’s time for the Pavleck.Com Weekend edition. A lot is going on and I’ll make you privy to it all!

First up, it’s that time once again - the St. Paul Art Crawl kicks off tonight at 6pm. I’ll be walking around my building checking out (and buying) some of the art the incredibly talented people in Twin Town can put together - will I see you there? I’m really hoping to!
See if you can find me or my work called “All my exes live on canvas” (A play on an old country song). It may or may not be there. The fun is figuring it out!

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a few days, and I apologize. Normally I steal some time away from work with which to write but time has been fairly short - not to mention, we’ve been taken things easy lately - beginning to wind down.

I may head to the Minnesota Music Festival today - it’s a mile away, well within walking distance. Not sure though, tickets are $30 a pop and there’s the 2 of us.

Today marks my month anniversary of not smoking. I’ve gained some weight - though I’m not sure if it’s because I’m eating more or because I no longer take the 5+ minute walk to the smoking area several times a day. It doesn’t matter, I’m taking care of it - need to exercise more, but the eating side is under control - a lot more water and a lot less soda. In fact, except for coffee I’m slowing down on the caffeine consumption as well.

I bought Mishka a couple dozen roses last week and a balloon. She’s spent a lot of money on me for my birthday, I can just tell, and I feel so guilty about it - no one ever really spends money on me, girlfriends included. So I had to ‘give something back’.

This is going to be a long post, so I’ll cut it short here - click to read the rest of it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, Saturday I got to the Dinkytowner at 8:30pm with all my gear, as the Unknown Prophets were supposed to go on at 9. Nine came and went. So did 10. Then 10:30. Then 10:45 I said screw it, lets get outta here - we have a big weekend and can’t be out so friggin late. So I sent them an email apologizing, hopefully they will allow me to reschedule and that they understood.

Sunday, that was Father’s Day. We went to go see Mishka’s parents, and gave him our gift - an elite Mork and Mindy Board Game, circa 1979. I was originally looking for some Bob Dylan screen printed gig posters, but didn’t really find anything I liked - not to mention we weren’t able to get her mom anything for mother’s day, and I didn’t want to make it seem like we were favoring her dad, which we aren’t, we just have the means this time.

New lease is almost finished and ready to be signed, 60 day notice is given - there will be a month were I am paying rent for 2 places, but that’s actually not a bad thing - lets us move on the weekend instead of Wednesday the 1st and lets us really spend some time cleaning the apartment - I’ve only been at this one for a year, and hadn’t really hung anything on the walls, so there isn’t much except some broken blinds due to the dang cat. Oh, and a Washer/Dryer combo unit I need to reassemble after a failed attempt to really really clean it. Oh, and the overlap allows Mishka to get to the new place and paint it - she’s got the color scheme all picked out and her mother to help her do it, so I’m quite happy. No way I was about to climb up 13 feet to paint pfffft.

Yesterday, In The Loop had a private show at the Dorothy Day center in St. Paul, and I was on hand as usual to take photos. I think this is possibly one of my favorite episodes thus far, and the people were great. There was even this homeless musician that played a mean jazz harmonica, with Jeff and The Smarts joining in - made of the most soulful shows to say the least. It was originally going to run from 2pm to 3:30pm, but ran until after 4 - and that’s with a lot of the pre-recorded pieces (all but 1!) removed. There was that much audience participation, everyone had something to say.

Sadly, there won’t be an episode of ‘In The Loop’ next month, and he’s really not sure if they will be given another season - so why don’t you voice your opinion and tell them that WE WANT MORE! I’d hate to see the younger, hipper version of the Prairie Home Companion laid to waste, cast of as if another animated FOX comedy.

All in all I took over 200 photos, and haven’t edited a single one. I’m quite happy with my new lens, though I forgot the lens hood turns, then ‘clicks’ into place. I forgot the ‘click’ part, so some of these have vignetting on the corners, which sucks but I’ll make I suppose. Though I think I’ll end up still buying Nikon’s 17-55mm f/2.8 lens for shows like this - it seems to pull in a significant amount of more light, even though it’s the same aperture. If you’d like to see the slide show, then feel free - or check out my photo set on Flickr - and comment on it damn it!

Oh, it also looks like I’ll be manning the MNArtists.Org booth at the State Fair again this year, come by and say hi! Other then that, not a whole lot more going on. Still trying to decide whether to chill all weekend, the first time in months, or to swing by the large pride parade in Minneapolis and take some shots. We shall see. Anyway, until next time!