The Weekday Ramble is a daily dose of sports, music, culture, and more from Rambling On founder Erik Ritland. For more information check us out on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or at our website.


Friday September 4, 2015
So this is it – my final daily Weekday Ramble for the foreseeable future. I’ll continue the series on a random Tuesday or Friday (or any other day), and maybe by next summer I’ll be ready to do it every day again, but for now harvest season calls.

Our new schedule: Sports Ramble early in the week, Music Ramble (featuring mostly reviews of new music) late in the week, and hopefully a podcast beginning Fridays in October.

To finish up the Weekday Ramble machine here’s a hodge podge of stuff I want to highlight for no real reason. “Goodbye” is a loose theme that I sometimes stick to.

Thanks for reading the Weekday Rambles, everyone. I love and appreciate all of you.

King Harvest has surely come

The Band are one of the best, most important, and most influential rock groups of all time. They killed psychedelic rock with their backwoods Americana aesthetic. Each member is important: piano player, songwriter, sometimes drummer, and Ray Charles-like singer Richard Manuel; sweet voiced bassist Rick Danko; rustic, beautiful, soulful drummer and vocalist Levon Helm; sound and production genius and organist Garth Hudson; and nuanced lead guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson. Most bands would kill for one of them. Each of them together is breathtaking.

I chose “King Harvest” because we’re in harvest season now. It's still an important, meaningful time of change.

Goodbye, my love

Paul McCartney wrote this song (“Goodbye” in case you can’t tell) quickly to capitalize on the popularity of Apple Records signee Cilla Black. That he could dash off songs this fun and catchy like nothing is pretty incredible. It has an India/White Album feel.

Classic

I’ll never skip a chance to bring up Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman and inventor of country music. His performances in this short movie shows why he was so popular – he’s putting his whole body into his singing and it’s entrancing. “Waiting for a Train” and “Blue Yodel #1” are two of his best songs. We’re lucky this has been preserved. The movie is cutesy and kitsch-y, too.

Let’s get dark

The Wall is an undisputed classic. It’s a bit overbearing in how dark it is, though. Waters got a lot better with being emotional and meaningful without being as uniformly dark on his opus Amused to Death.

Built around a deceptively simple riff and melody, Gilmour’s warm voice smooths out the rough edges of “Goodbye Blue Sky.”

Nothing like some sloppy wet pizza

I explained my love of comedy trio Stella in a recent post. It’s nice to see that David Wain, Michael Showalter, and Michael Ian Black are still keeping busy, most recently with the re-boot of cult favorite Wet Hot American Summer.

Their fun, irreverent, clever humor is in full display on Internet short Bored. The opening segment, Michael Showalter reading a script, Michael Ian Black’s heartfelt version of “Free to Be You and Me,” the pizza guys line, the trio’s show in the park, and David Wain’s tip are all classic bits. It has to be seen to be believed and is not for the faint of heart…

My boys

It’s somewhat surprising to most people that I really love the My Chemical Romance album The Black Parade. Emo music has never appealed to me (the genre, at least) but this album is more Queen, Sgt. Pepper, and Ziggy Stardust than Dashboard Confessional. “Famous Last Words” ended it on a big, catchy note. One of the best singalong choruses maybe ever.

Sleepy John

Sleepy John Estes’ compilation I Ain’t Going to be Worried No More: 1929-1941 was my introduction to the blues. Estes isn’t as well-known or as creative as more popular counterparts like Robert Johnson, but his laid back style is original.

The man

We’ll end with Jack White’s favorite song, emotive Son House spiritual “Grinnin’ in Your Face.” No words necessary.

Erik Ritland is a writer and musician from St. Paul, Minnesota. His blog and podcast Rambling On features commentary on music, sports, culture, and more. He was also Lead Staff Writer for Minnesota culture blog Curious North. Support Erik's music via his Patreon account, reach him via email, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.

The Weekday Ramble is a daily dose of sports, music, culture, and more from Rambling On founder Erik Ritland. For more information check us out on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or at our website.


Thursday August 13, 2015
Today we get fun and quirky with a Quote/Picture/Video about a serious subject: infidelity.

Respect
I told my wife the truth. I told her I was seeing a psychiatrist. Then she told me the truth: that she was seeing a psychiatrist, two plumbers, and a bartender.
― Rodney Dangerfield

A classic line from the master. No analysis required.

Heartwarming infidelity

The point of this blog is to be lighthearted about something that is very serious. This is definitely the cutest picture ever on the subject of infidelity.

When You're Screwin' Other Women (Think of Me) – Doyle and Debbie

Okay, twist my arm, I'll tell you: I built this entire Weekday Ramble around wanting to highlight this song. I'm usually not a fan of mocking the country aesthetic but Doyle and Debbie do it well. Gotta love Doyle's nudie suit, too. And any reason for a pedal steel guitar is good enough for me.

Erik Ritland is a writer and musician from St. Paul, Minnesota. His blog and podcast Rambling On features commentary on music, sports, culture, and more. He was also Lead Staff Writer for Minnesota culture blog Curious North. Support Erik's music via his Patreon account, reach him via email, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.

The Weekday Ramble is a daily dose of sports, music, culture, and more from Rambling On founder Erik Ritland. For more information check us out on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or at our website.


Tuesday August 4, 2015
A week of our new #AlbumTracks feature continues with Muddy Waters and Waylon Jennings.

I Just Want to Make Love to You – Muddy Waters
from the 1968 LP Electric Mud

Surprisingly, Jennings' classic “Waymore's Blues” was never released as a single. The second verse is clever in the best hard country sort of way:

If you wanna get to heaven, gotta D-I-E
you gotta put on your coat and T-I-E
Wanna get the rabbit out of the L-O-G
You gotta make a commotion* like D-O-G
Like D-O-G, like D-O-G, yeah.

Dig that wordplay, man. Jennings is at his laid back best here, his swagger off the charts.

* Most lyrics sites online say that this line is "You gotta make a cold motion like a D-O-G" but that's stupid so I put what is cooler, makes more sense, and sounds like what he's saying.

Erik Ritland is a writer and musician from St. Paul, Minnesota. His blog and podcast Rambling On features commentary on music, sports, culture, and more. He was also Lead Staff Writer for Minnesota culture blog Curious North. Support Erik's music via his Patreon account, reach him via email, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.

The Weekday Ramble is a daily dose of sports, music, culture, and more from Rambling On founder Erik Ritland. For more information check us out on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or at our website.


Monday August 3, 2015
We begin an exciting new feature at Rambling On this week: Album Tracks! Each edition will highlight two or three deep cuts worth investigating. Today: Soul Asylum, The Cure, and Porter Wagoner.

New World – Soul Asylum
from the 1992 album Grave Dancers Union

The opening verse of honk tonk weeper “The Agony of Waiting” is evocative:

This room is like a tomb quiet and still
I can almost hear my heart breaking
But it won't cause there's a chance I might see you tomorrow
But oh the agony of waiting

The stoic, assured voice of Wagoner and some warm pedal steel make this a lost classic.

Erik Ritland is a writer and musician from St. Paul, Minnesota. His blog and podcast Rambling On features commentary on music, sports, culture, and more. He was also Lead Staff Writer for Minnesota culture blog Curious North. Support Erik's music via his Patreon account, reach him via email, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.

The Weekday Ramble is a daily dose of sports, music, culture, and more from Rambling On founder Erik Ritland. For more information check us out on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or at our website.


Friday July 31, 2015
We wrap up another fun Quote/Picture/Video week with a look into paradise.

Les Miserables
An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.
-Victor Hugo

If you have a choice between paradise and hell, always choose paradise. It's never stupid to choose paradise. If a “stupid paradise” exists it is a mirage, as any true paradise would not be stupid. I get Hugo's point, though: it's better to be smart and deal with the consequences than have your head in the clouds and think it's paradise.

Which is related to another quote I considered for this from Henry David Thoreau: “It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.” I'd say it's best to know where you are in a concrete way, but I never stayed in a cabin in the woods within walking distance of my parents place so I could raid their pantry at will. So what do I know.

Para-para-para-paradise, whoa-oh-oh-ohoh-oh-oh

The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Pieter Paul Rubens. As far as I know the latter is not a distant relative of Pee Wee Herman.

Gorgeous

“Paradise” by John Prine is my third favorite song of all-time (behind Dylan's “Desolation Row” and The Band's “Tears of Rage”). It's a simple, beautiful folk song about the true story of the Peabody Coal Company ruining the town of Paradise, Kentucky. On this recording Prine is backed by traditional country and southern music heroes Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives.

Erik Ritland is a writer and musician from St. Paul, Minnesota. His blog and podcast Rambling On features commentary on music, sports, culture, and more. He was also Lead Staff Writer for Minnesota culture blog Curious North. Support Erik's music via his Patreon account, reach him via email, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.

The Weekday Ramble is a daily dose of sports, music, culture, and more from Rambling On founder Erik Ritland. For more information check us out on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or at our website.


Tuesday June 23, 2015
On the ill-advised second coming of Patsy Cline. Or anyone (except, you know, Jesus).

Eternal rest: denied
When I heard that a 2Pac hologram was appearing at the 2012 Coachella festival I thought it was a bad joke. Unfortunately imaginary 2Pac did indeed take the stage with Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, and others. The results were what you’d expect: weird, creepy, and unnecessary.

The company that brought 2Pac back from the dead (if he is dead – dun dun dun!) is now bringing country icon Patsy Cline back to life for a planned tour. The Onion’s AV Club had fun with the announcement, as many did, referring to Cline as “the first country singer – and first woman – to be denied her eternal rest by Hologram, U.S.A.” and wondering if the show will include “onstage patter like ‘please let me die’ and ‘seriously, these songs were sad enough when I was alive.’”

It’s in the name
A hologram of Buddy Holly is scheduled to “appear” in Texas next year. Which begs the question: would it be called a Buddy Hollogram or a Buddy Hollygram? Since the second option sounds like a bad greeting card service (think a guy dressed up as Holly serenading a young lady) I’ll go with the former.

Stop the insanity: exhibit A

Doesn’t this video just give you the willies? Hearing 2Pac talk to the crowd and “interact” with a positively weirded out Snoop? It doesn’t help that it’s painfully obvious that the people onstage can’t see the hologram.

Erik Ritland is a writer and musician from St. Paul, Minnesota. His blog and podcast Rambling On features commentary on music, sports, culture, and more. He was also Lead Staff Writer for Minnesota culture blog Curious North. Support Erik's music via his Patreon account, reach him via email, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.

The Weekday Ramble is a daily dose of sports, music, culture, and more from Rambling On founder Erik Ritland. For more information check us out on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or at our website.


Friday June 12, 2015
Garth Brooks’ opinion about selling his music online, a vintage ad from Hee Haw

Good old Garth
Garth Brooks is the biggest musical act that doesn’t allow his songs to be sold on iTunes or any other digital retailer. He claims it's because he doesn’t like the single song downloading format: ”Let’s take No Fences. For us, that has ‘Friends in Low Places and ‘(The) Thunder Rolls’ on it. But it also has a song called ‘Wolves’ on it that’s way too not commercial for radio but changes people’s lives when they hear it. Well, I think that’s important too. So the whole thing comes out as a piece, I want as a piece.”

While I agree that the single song format of internet downloading has devalued music, and especially the album format, I’m not sure Brooks is being sincere. It has to be at least in the back of his head that, given the choice, people will buy his hits and not his whole albums. It’ll be a blow to his ego. Plus as long as people have to buy his entire albums, well, they’ll have to buy his entire albums.

By all accounts Garth Brooks is a good guy. I used to dislike him because he brought a contemporary pop and rock sheen to traditional country music. Looking back on his catalog I realize that he was more country than I gave him credit for. Heck, he practically singlehandedly kept Hee Haw on the air through the ‘80s. Plus, as popular cuntry radio today shows, things can be a lot worse than a bit of pop/rock sensibility.

My main man Roy Clark

Speaking of Hee Haw, here’s an ad for the 25th season that mentions ol’ Garth. Those were the days. Roy Clark is one of my heroes.

Erik Ritland is a writer and musician from St. Paul, Minnesota. His blog and podcast Rambling On features commentary on music, sports, culture, and more. He was also Lead Staff Writer for Minnesota culture blog Curious North. Support Erik's music via his Patreon account, reach him via email, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.

Dale Watson 
Call Me Insane (Red House 6/9/2015) 
Essential tracks: "A Day at a Time," "Burden of the Cross," "Jonesin' for Jones," "Mamas Don't Let Your Cowboys Grow Up to be Babies"


 
Dale Watson is country. Because that term is so misused today he refers to his music Ameripolitan, a genre he essentially invented. Not as rock oriented as Americana, not the uncreative re-hashing of retro/traditional country, and certainly not the pop stuff that’s played on the radio, Ameripolitan is new, original music influenced by honky tonk, rockabilly, western swing, and outlaw country.

So like I said, Dale Watson is country.

Call Me Insane touches on all the major tenets of Ameripolitan with subtlety and swagger. “Bug Ya for Love” and “Everybody’s Somebody in Luchenbach, Texas” are fun Western Swing, “I’m Through Hurting” is classic honky tonk, “Burden of the Cross” is dark and folky (like a combination of “Long Black Veil” and “Eyes on the Prize”), and clever “Heavens Going to Have a Honky Tonk” explores the Mexican influences of Texas roots music.

Like classic country of the ‘50s – or even outlaw albums of the ‘70s, which are more tender* than you might think – the album is also filled with simple, affective love songs. “Crocodile Tears” and “Forever Valentine” are the sort of slow dance songs that aren’t written enough anymore. “I Owe it All to You” and “Hot Dang” are a bit more upbeat and fun, the former strengthened by clever lyrics (“she’s mine now/and I owe it all to you”).

The point of Ameripolitan is to create new, fresh country music with a connection to the past. Watson shows this intersection especially on three tracks, heartfelt George Jones tribute “Jonesin’ for Jones,” the Merle Haggard influenced workingman’s blues of “A Day at a Time,” and album ending Waylon Jennings update “Mamas Don’t Let Your Cowboys Grow up to be Babies.”

Call Me Insane, like Marty Stuart’s 2014 double album Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, is keeping country music alive by reinventing the genre, as opposed to uncreatively re-hashing tradition or following the latest trends.

*Evidently “tenderer” is a word, but how clunky is that?

Erik Ritland is a writer and musician from St. Paul, Minnesota. His blog and podcast Rambling On features commentary on music, sports, culture, and more. He was also Lead Staff Writer for Minnesota culture blog Curious North. Support Erik's music via his Patreon account, reach him via email, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.

The Weekday Ramble is a daily dose of sports, music, culture, and more from Rambling On founder Erik Ritland. For more information check us out on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or at our website.


Tuesday May 26, 2015
To celebrate my 100th Weekday Ramble I’m spending a few blogs highlighting 100 facts about me. Fact #1 should have been how humble I am, right? Check out #1-25, #26-50, and #51-75.

Topics for this last installment include my biggest addiction, taste in women, biggest rap influences, earliest songs, biggest intellectual influence, biggest songwriting influence, favorite Atari game, and a lot more.

76.   I’ll always have a soft spot for the Digital Underground and House of Pain, two rap bands that first got me into the genre. They’re mostly known for “The Humpty Dance” and “Jump Around” respectively. The thick funk beats and sense of humor of the Underground is just cool. Everlast and the House of Pain were often funny, regardless of whether they were trying to be.

77.   If I could be a part of anything in history it would be Bob Dylan and the Band’s Basement Tapes. I could have been, like, a recording engineer or something. Or the guy who ran to the liquor store to buy Richard Manuel’s bottles of Grand Marnier.

78.   Dub step is a bad direction for music to be going in. If abrasive electronic music is the wave of the future, count me out.

79.   I like Beatles for Sale. It’s the most underrated Beatles album. "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party"? "I'm a Loser"? "No Reply"? "Baby's in Black"? "What You're Doing"? Not to mention hot shit versions of Carl Perkins "Honey Don't" and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby." Sure, it isn't Rubber Soul, but few things are.

80.   Jobs I possibly had in a past life: ditch digger and lamplighter.

81.   I don’t watch a lot of TV. Other than wrestling and Adventure Time of course. Other shows I’ve liked: the first few seasons of the Simpsons, Seinfeld, Arrested Development, the first few seasons of The Office. That’s about it…

82.   I like Led Zeppelin but I’ve never had a huge Zeppelin phase. I love how dirty and blues-y they are, and that they grew as they went along, there just isn't a lot of subtle stuff there to keep my attention.

83.   I recorded a lot of terrible songs on a cassette four track in high school. One was a protest song called “Society’s Song.” All I’ll say about it is that it was incredibly condescending and pretentious. Really bad keyboard drums on that one, too. I also had a 7 minute song called “Giving In” that was about as un-commercial as anything I’d ever written but I was completely convinced that it would have been a hit if people only heard it. I'm glad they didn't.

84.   The first song I ever wrote was called “The Real Good News.” I think. It’s a simple thing with nondescript wordplay. Not as terrible as a lot of stuff I’d write after it but not much to brag about. The chorus: “and the real good news is no news at all/I hope it doesn’t disappoint you/and when the answers finally found/it won’t take long to lose.” Chipper as always.

85.   I’m sad that the type of music I like, write, and play is dying. Rock and folk music don’t have a huge following. Even Beatle-y rock music isn’t much there. It makes me sad because music is the one thing I think I can do well. If there was an audience for it I could maybe do what I feel like I was born to do. Not that I’ve actually tried hard enough to find out if there actually is an audience for me. Gah. This goes back to #54 on this list

86.   Sure, I drink, smoke sometimes, and have done drugs, but my biggest struggle addiction-wise is with food. I’m a fat kid at heart.

87.   My philosophy about life being better if you enjoy a variety of things is also the foundation of my taste in women. Beautiful women come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, colors, body types, and the like. It’s a myth that men want all women to look a certain way. There are a lot of different ways for women to be beautiful.

88.   If I could get rid of any movie it would be Despicable Me so I wouldn’t have to deal with all those obnoxious minion memes. If I could get rid of one band it’d be the Black Eyed Peas. Or maybe whatever band paved the way for the rise of dub step.

89.   My biggest intellectual influence is English author/poet/Christian apologist/political thinker G.K. Chesterton. He wrote about everything and was almost always right. His visions of what culture would become are vivid and prophetic. He predicted our current perils over 100 years ago.

90.   Argentinian poet laureate Jorge Louis Borges and contemporary fiction writer Jonathan Lethem are the only two post-Chesterton authors that do much for me. Check out Borges' Ficciones and Lethem’s Fortress of Solitude for some of the best fiction writing of our time. The late ‘70s New York that Lethem creates is vivid and startling.

91.   Bob Dylan is by far my biggest songwriting influence. He knows that what he creates goes beyond himself. Steeped in the folk tradition, he isn’t afraid to emulate his influences and subsequently surpass them. His music is part of something bigger than himself. He gets it.

92.   I wish I could have hung out with Muddy Waters and Holwin’ Wolf in the ‘50s. Two of the coolest cats of all time.

93.   I’m unhappy that music from before the rock n’ roll era is so neglected. Especially folk, country, and blues of the ‘20s, ‘30s, and ‘40s. There’s lots of life there. Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, the Weavers, Woody Guthrie, Charley Patton. Reality.

94.   My favorite Atari game is Frostbite. I don’t blame you if you’ve never heard of it. I only played it when I had a mod-ed Xbox for a short time. All you do is cross a river on pieces of ice. It’s like a slightly more involved Frogger.

95.   Pitchers are my favorite position in baseball. There’s a lot involved psychologically with pitching. You have to know the strengths and weaknesses of each batter and how to adapt quickly to different situations.

96.   “96 Quite Bitter Beings” by Camp Kill Yourself was one of my favorite songs when it came out. I still love that riff.

97.   My favorite game as a kid was Oregon Trail. They just don’t make them like that anymore. Nice, simple, and filled with character. Video games have gotten too involved for my tastes.

98.   My favorite Pink Floyd album is The Final Cut. It’s often seen as their worst album because it was mostly a solo Roger Waters thing (and contained mostly songs left off The Wall). It has a dark, emotional edge that the overly dramatic Wall sometimes lacked. It was somehow more emotional but less dramatic. Though people say it’s like Waters first solo album the drumming of Nick Mason and explosive guitar work of David Gilmour are an indispensable part of what makes it work so well.

99.   I feel like youth is overrated. Age has nothing to do with worth.

100.           I like basketball better than hockey. Though I may just be saying that because I’m surrounded by hockey rubes in Minnesota.

Erik Ritland is a writer and musician from St. Paul, Minnesota. His blog and podcast Rambling On features commentary on music, sports, culture, and more. He was also Lead Staff Writer for Minnesota culture blog Curious North. Support Erik's music via his Patreon account, reach him via email, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.

The Weekday Ramble is a daily dose of sports, music, culture, and more from Rambling On founder Erik Ritland. For more information check us out on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or at our website.


Monday May 25, 2015
100 facts about me to celebrate 100 daily blogs continues with #51-75. Check out #1-25 and #26-50 if you like.

Topics today include what I’d like to change about myself, my first shows, why my neighbor lady hates me, traits I like in people, why I’m afraid of getting an office job, why I’m a Packer fan, the Midwest vs. the east and west coasts, defending pro wrestling, and my favorite season, authors, books, fast food restaurant, beer, and hard liquor. Whew.

51.   My dream car is an old orange ‘60s microbus. I’d live out of that darn thing.

52.   I believe that swearing can be useful but that it’s totally overdone. Especially in movies and on adult television shows.

53.   Some cassettes that shaped my pre-Jr. high existence: Green Day Dookie, Offspring Smash, Soul Asylum Grave Dancers Union, Nirvana Nevermind and Unplugged.

54.   If I could change anything about myself it’d be my lack of ambition.

55.   I love that there are so many great record stores in the Twin Cities (and there always have been). Cheapo in St. Paul is still my favorite. I can also get behind Eclipse, Treehouse, and Electric Fetus.

56.   I played my first show at a now-defunct coffee shop on Snelling Avenue called Cosmic’s. I played my second show a few weeks later at White Rock coffeehouse in Highland Park (also closed). I really miss the White Rock. It was home-y: well lit, comfortable couches, good music, friendly staff. Now it’s a place called Quixotic that’s nice but just a bit cold and sterile. But I suppose that’s in now. Can you at least turn up the damn lights a bit?

57.   Baseball is, always has been, and always will be my favorite sport. I love that it moves fast enough to keep me interested without any cheap thrills (smashing and such). Its subtleties and strategies that are easy enough for any schlub to pick up on (unlike soccer).

58.   I own a house that needs a lot of work. My neighbor lady hates me because I cut my grass so rarely.

59.   Traits I like in people: reasonableness, intelligence, intuition, calmness, being okay with silence, silliness, lack of pretension.

60.   God help me if I ever got an office job. My weight would most likely double in the first year.

61.   I love Cold Stone Creamery but I haven’t been there in forever. I always got birthday cake ice cream with angel food cake, peanut butter, and marshmallow. Damn. I might have to head out there.

62.   Chipotle is by far my favorite fast food restaurant. The food there actually tastes fresh and good, the prices are reasonable, and it fills me up for pretty much the entire day.

63.   I grew up a Vikings fan but became a Packer fan once they let go of Randy Moss the second time under Brad Childress. It sort of started out as a bit but it grew quickly into faux-legitimacy.

64.   I loved sports when I was a kid but lost interest when I discovered music and MLB went on strike. Due to my dad’s influence I began to think that all sports players were, in his words, “high paid prima donnas.” I couldn’t get myself to enjoy something done by people I didn’t respect. I still watched every Vikings game, though. Football is easy to enjoy because it’s so lowest common denominator.

65.   The more variety of stuff I like the happier I am. When I was younger I was really snobbish about music. Once I began liking hip hop, classical, jazz, ‘80s pop, and metal my life opened up. I also like olives and onions. Live a little, man.

66.   I like professional wrestling because it completely lacks pretension. If you’re an idiot that thinks it’s stupid because it’s fake, I suggest you stop watching movies and television then you hypocrite. Because that's all fake too. Dummy.

67.   The first place I ever traveled to was Milwaukee to see my oldest brother Mike graduate college. I barely remember that.

68.   The first trip I remember taking was to St. Louis my freshman year in high school. The adventure of getting there, and being somewhere I wasn’t used to, made a huge impression on me. I still enjoy the understated coolness of St. Louis.

69.   I used to be really pro-Midwest and anti-East and West Coasts. I understand now that there’s a mixture of genuine and pretentious people everywhere. There are more frauds in New York and California from what I’ve heard, but that makes sense if only because a lot of people go out there to try and make it because they think they’re great. That’s not the fault of their geographic location. Also, it's not like there aren't a lot of self-involved Midwesterners who think they're better than everyone. The best song on this subject is Local H's “California Songs.”

70.   My favorite season is autumn. Sunsets and trees are their most gorgeous and temperatures are cooler but comfortable. October is by far my favorite month. You can feel the spirit world invading the physical so intimately that it's almost uncomfortable. But it’s always cool. Like Halloween.

71.   Faulkner is my favorite American author. Books are best when the author creates an engaging universe that you feel like you’re a part of. I become a part of the worlds that Faulkner creates. The Sound and the Fury is one of the best mind fucks of all time.

72.   “Staring at the Sun” by TV on the Radio scares me. In a good way.

73.   Salinger's Catcher in the Rye is the first book that made an impression on me. Reading it changed my entire perspective on life. It helped me begin to understand how the con(temporary) world works.

74.   I like beer. A lot. Mostly anything is fine by me, too. Hamms and Grain Belt are my go-to local Minnesota beers (okay, so Hamms is now out of Milwaukee, but it used to be brewed on my east side of St. Paul so its spirit will always be here). I can do light beers, dark beers, hoppy beers, stouts, IPAs, EPAs, whatever. Budweiser, High Life, MGD, Summit, Deschutes, New Belgium, Sierra Nevada, Bells, Lagunitas, Paulaner, Modelo. Once again, the more you allow yourself to enjoy in life the more you’ll get out of it.

75.   I also like hard liquor. Jack Daniels is my go-to but I like most whiskeys. Vodka is good with tonic or Red Bull. I can do rum and Coke. Fireball sucks.

Check out part IV here.

Erik Ritland is a writer and musician from St. Paul, Minnesota. His blog and podcast Rambling On features commentary on music, sports, culture, and more. He is also a contributor for Minnesota culture blog Curious North. Support Erik's music via his Patreon account, reach him via email, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.