My oldest friend of nearly 30 years, Dave, took his folks to the Twins game last night for the old man’s 80th birthday. They entered a contest for a chance to sit in the broadcast booth during the game and won. I’m nearly as pleased about this as if it were my own parents. Dave said the best thing was just watching his dad have a casual conversation with Bert Blyleven. For a MN sports fan, it’d be hard to top an 80th birthday in the booth. Coolest thing I’ve seen this month.
Note: Dick and Bert operate in the booth sans air conditioning, but keep the fridge stocked with Coors Light.
For 15 years, the Xperimental Theatre has operated out of the black-box theater in Rarig Center, producing a season of free productions selected by a student-elected board of directors. All work at the X is completely student-created with minimal influence from faculty advisers.
the closing of this space makes me sad. i did my first play there. i was terrible. the play was terrible. but that’s a pretty great thing, actually. having the chance as a student to do a show, when i couldn’t buy my way onto a mainstage (i was already 26), was an important step for me.
worse than the tangible loss of freedom and space, is the loss of freedom and space to do new work. new plays. mainstages are bastions of shit. the tempest? fuck, let’s do that! again! wait … wait, but let’s set it in — wait for it — NEW YORK CITY! now this is NEW shakespeare. fuck. shakespeare can kiss the fattest part of my balls. ok, no … i was young once, too. shakes can write a motherfucking play. and i enjoy reading them. i don’t particularly — ok never — enjoy seeing them produced. and mainstages will always produce him. and that’s ok. it’s good, even. kids getting the chance to work on a classic is great for development. but the X … the X was a place to not do shakespeare. to not do albee, or miller, or even neil fucking labute. it was a place to do joe sophomore’s new script, or jane freshman’s staged interpretation of a william blake painting. it was anything, and didn’t have budgets and suits lording over it, either.
“It’s not about numbers. It’s about giving students the power every single year to create something for themselves.” hear here!
now read this bullshit: “I think what we are trying to make is an organization where participation is from people who actually care. It shouldn’t be people who are doing this because they have some extra time on their hands and this is all that they can find.”
whathefuck? that’s what college is. that’s what it’s there for. to try things. you want to go to a trade school, go man, but the UMTAD is part of a liberal arts college … and even engineers and math geeks can like art. haven’t you seen a second of television for the last 13 years? sorry alpha betas, the nerds won.
the board admits this isn’t about money. it has it. it’s so cheap to run it’s scary. and the work created there is free. this is just bloody stupid, and i cannot see a legit reason for it’s closing. boo to this. /rant
"The tribes have 18 casinos in Minnesota. They have had exclusive rights for years. Now it’s time to share the wealth with the rest of the state. How many more decades do we have to feel guilty?"
—
Michelle Person supports reneging on treaties if it’s for a good cause, like subsidizing the Minnesota Vikings’s stadium construction costs. (via edkohler)
positively disgusting.
Minnesotans love their community celebrations both large and small, so it’s not necessarily serendipity that both the Strawberry Fest in Cottage Grove and Tater Daze in Brooklyn Park kick off today. And while these weekend-long events are clearly much more family friendly than, say, Wiz…
two defining memories from my hometown’s annual tater daze festival…
- 1986 - while stalking the game booths with a neighborhood chum, i happened by a pen housing maybe 30 rabbits. probably 15 white, 14 black, 1 lonesome-looking tan. along with the pen was a child’s wading pool filled with floating glass bowls. the game: bounce a ping pong ball into a bowl, win a rabbit. sparing you the drama, i won. i had to run home to asak permission from an adult, as the humane society (or whomever was putting this particular game on) did not want the bun to go to a home where it’d be eaten. for the record, i was appalled even at the suggestion, but i digress… a new hutch was erected, and within two hours, the lone tan bun who’d looked so lonely was home with me. we named him Carl, and he was the greatest. a big boy, he grew to well over 12lbs. i had him until i was 21. my heart is still shattered from the day i had to have him put to sleep.
- 1991 - the manager at the local domino’s — who also happened to be my boss — concocted the wonderfully awful idea to load up delivery drivers with $4 small pizzas and have us walk the parade route selling them to lawn-chaired (and often home-snacked/igloo-coolered) parade watchers. it was a catastrophic failure. people were there to see a parade of go-karted rotarians, child bikes with streamers, high school bands, festival royalty … not the poor bugger in the domino’s outfit, shilling crappy pizza. also, the pizzas only stayed hot for maybe 15 minutes. by the end i couldn’t sell them for a dollar, and those that did sell had their crusts hurled back at me as i made another pass. the manager fumed that it was due to lack of effort on my part, but that’s not what sits ill with me … no, what sticks like glue is the robust memory of my entire community staring at me like a leper in blue pants.
thanks for the memories, tater daze. the very good and the very humbling.
Bill Pulkrabek - i went to college for a while with this turd. didn’t know him real well, nor cared to. he roomed with my buddy shawn, who often referred to him as “nazi’. seems like quite a guy. click through to read about his problem with not throwing mistresses around by their hair.
"I’m happy that you’ve made the statement. But I cannot agree with most of my colleagues. See, I don’t think an adult of your intelligence ought to be commended for simply, at long last, telling the truth."
— Congressman Steve Derounian during the quiz show scandal hearings, speaking to Charles van Doren
dear @MinnesotaTwins, schedule a Harmon Killebrew night. now. don’t worry about bobbleheads or shirts or trading cards. tomorrow night, even. put it on television so he can see it. after the first pitch, call time, say his name and let everyone cheer. let them stand and cheer for as long as they like. let everyone who saw him, everyone whose fathers or mothers loved him, let the entire state cheer … and let him hear it. don’t wait. do it now while we can.
