A revolution needed at Minnesota State Fair

I think I agreed last night to go to the Minnesota State Fair on Monday. Yes, I think I actually agreed to spend a precious Monday off, a holiday to boot, walking around a crowded, semi-paved temporary city in the middle of St. Paul. Not even a free thing. No, instead I'll have to pay eleven bucks for the privilege to walk around a bunch of crowded streets populated for only twelve days each year.

I've never understood the concept of paying to gain admission to a place where everything you want to do inside costs yet more money. What is free inside the Minnesota State Fairgrounds? There is some interesting entertainment. I know of a few free stages where you can watch bands. A few radio stations and TV stations are at the Minnesota State Fair. I, for one, always make it a point to stop during lunch time at the KFAN display because that's when Dan Cole The Common Man is on the air and despite the station being billed as a sports station - he doens't talk much sports and he's actually entertaining because he's so self-deprecating. He makes people think he's the joke but in reality the joke's on them.

I guess I could park my ass on the curb and watch the daily parade. Maybe I'll pick up another yard stick or check out some of the quarter-million-dollar farm equipment on the ever-shrinking machinery hill. But the real draw of the Minnesota State Fair is the food. Face it, you know the only reason you go to the fair is because it's an escape from your never-ending diet and the simple fact that everything is fried is just another excuse to let go for a day. But the cost of the food is harder to stomach than the gut full of greasy goodness you'll have at the end of the day.

I'm listening to the radio right now and the host is mocking his intern for having paid four bucks for a cup of root beer. That makes the all-you-can-drink milk for a buck a great deal (if you don't end up puking later). There is a place serving a relatively decent breakfast for three bucks but something like that is the exception. Oh sure, I complain plenty but I'll be waiting in a line of twenty sweaty fair-goers as I eye some six dollar cheese curds. I'll reluctantly pry open my wallet when, at the end of the day, my old lady looks longingly at me as she suggests getting a bucket of Sweet Martha's chocolate chip cookies - for just $14. I'll hold back even though I desperately want to tell her that $14 would make about sixty dozen chocolate chip cookies at home and they'd taste just the same.

Maybe it's time for a revolution in fair food prices. Hey, everyone deserves to make a living but do you really need to charge five bucks for a soda so you can send your kids to Harvard? I have a kid too (at 9 months she should get int eh gate at the fair for free, right?) but she's destined for Hennepin Tech only because I don't have a food booth at the Minnesota State Fair.

By now you should know the drill. Check out the latest in Minnesota happenings - via photos - at MinnPics!

Now THAT'S a dick in a box

Check out this funny blooper during a live report on KSTP channel 5 St. Paul about a drug bust in Maplewood, MN.



Yes, that was a huge dildo.

2009 predictions - #1

I could spout off about a hundred predictions for the upcoming year but instead I'll slowly throw them in to the mix here from time to time. Maybe even before the year is up.

My first prediction has to do with the media landscape. Being from Minnesota and, more specifically the Twin Cities, my first peek in to my crystal ball has to do with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

If you're unfamiliar with this newspaper, they are the largest daily in Minnesota but have been missing debt payments and just announced that they are axing their B section for the month of January as an "experiment". My guess here is that while people will notice and, yes, even complain about the combination of the main news and metro sections but the investment group owners won't react outside of axing still more content in print.

This loss of content translates to a loss of pages and, in turn, leaves behind less value and less of a reason for the increasingly financially pinched average Joe to throw down 50 cents for a smaller paper.

Thus begins the slippery slope leading to a Minneapolis Star-Tribune that nobody will recognize or one that won't even exist.

What little money I have is on the Minneapolis Star-Tribune becoming web-only with a bare bones staff of full-time employees who will write and edit the content, shoot and edit video content and shoot their own photos. A small, free Sunday-only printed piece will still exist on racks as a vehicle for delivering those stacks of printed inserts because that is all that's left that still makes money. While this would leave behind the paper's hundreds of thousands of subscribers, the investment company currently running the newspaper doesn't care because if it lines their pockets, it's good business.

Another scenario leaves the Minneapolis Star-Tribune to be swallowed up by the neighboring St. Paul Pioneer Press. Five years ago I would have punched myself for thinking something so ludicrious could ever happen. Maybe now, though, it's time for this to happen as it would leave the stronger weekly papers whose business models are more nimble to succeed and grab more advertising dollars and actually add subscribers - something the trudging behemoths have almost certainly failed at.

Less doom and gloom exists at the safe-haven known as MinnPics. Check out the stunning photography from Minnesota's finest Flickr-using photographers.

Remember the RNC?

Sure, it's been five whole days the majority of Americans have already forgotten about the Republican National Convention but plenty of Twin Cities media outlets, some of whom experienced the police presence outside the Xcel Energy Center firsthand, are now brilliantly writing of their encounters.

City Pages writer Matt Snyder arrested during final night's unpermitted protest.

City Pages video of roughed up protesters.

MNIndy asks if medics outside the RNC were targeted by police

MNIndy's own post-RNC roundup

What is your take after watching and reading? Did police overreact? Did a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch?

RNC recap (the first two days)

Has the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul lived up to the hype?

I think so. With vandalism, protests, marches, concerts and the media's attention focused squarely on St. Paul, MN, the show outside the show is what people are talking about.

Not too many folks seem to be discussing last night's via-satellite speech from Geroge W. Bush seen by scant-few viewers due to its strategic timing outside of the primetime coverage of the major networks. Instead, viewers were treated to droopy-faced, unenergetic Fred Thompson.

Compared to Monday's lack of activity, last night was a damn carnival.

The real action, and the events garnering media attention, are happening outside the Xcel Energy Center.

Just yesterday, as I tooled home from Rochester, I heard news of an impromptu Rage Against the Machine concert taking place within an hour at the Minnesota State Capitol. My only comment was "huh, that's gonna be interesting". Little did I know that it was truly interesting as the authorities shut the show down but went on with only a bullhorn and an ill-advised march turning what had been a hippie-like peacefest into a miniature riot. Rage Against the Machine truly lived up to their legacy as a political protest band.

And then there was the situation outside the convention last night with teargas and flash grenades. Make your own decisions as you watch it unfold...


And lastly, if you read only one account of what is truly happening in St. Paul during the RNC, Aaron Landry's is, by far, the best.

Fun not gone during the RNC

In case you've been living under a rock, the Republican National Convention comes to St. Paul, Minnesota beginning Tuesday. It's inevitable that some of the stodginess of the Republican party will spill into Minneapolis and many Twin Cities suburbs but that doesn't mean it's going to be all gay airport sex and high-end prostitutes with the guys paying for these services publicly berating these exact same behaviors.

Above and beyond Jon Stewart bringing "The Daily Show" to town, there's going to be a plethora of killer music (and fun) to irritate the stuffed shirts of the "do as I say, not as I do" party.

The biggest name coming to town and likely to ruffle some feathers with their rather politicized lyrics is Rage Against the Machine playing Wednesday at the Target Center in Minneapolis.

However, a little heard of mini-festival hits St. Paul's Harriet Island on Labor Day. Entitled, ironically enough, Take Back Labor Day featuring the likes of local rapper Atmosphere, Billy Bragg, Lupe Fiasco, Steve Earle and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello as The Nightwatchman. Of course if comedy's more your thing, foul-mouthed and angry comedian Lewis Black takes to The Orpheum Thursday evening and one can guess that his routine will have a certain current bite to it to poke fun at the convention across the river.

See, just because the Republicans have managed to shut down a chunk of downtown St. Paul with barricades doesn't mean that the fun is taking a week off in the Twin Cities.

Be sure, too, to take plenty of photos and post them to Flickr because it's folks like you that keep MinnPics going!

Good lord, another book review!

A few days back I reviewed the Historic Photos of Minneapolis photography coffee table book and today it's time for the companion book featuring St. Paul.

In the time I've had to page through and read both of these books, I found them informative to say the least. Seeing the two side by side lets the reader truly compare and contrast Minnesota's Twin Cities and if you are lucky enough to read both of these photo books, you'll know that St. Paul and Minneapolis couldn't be more different. St. Paul, to me, has a much grittier past and it is a much more grounded and well-balanced city in current times.

Particularly interesting to me was knowing that Northwest Airways (now Northwest Airlines) had its humble beginnings at downtown St. Paul's Holman Field. One not-so-surprising tidbit was knowing the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (now 3M) begin in the city as well.

A bit of praise is that Historic Photos of St. Paul tends to give at least general and sometimes specific locations for each of its photos. Kudos to author Steve Trimble for meticulously compiling all of this information from both the Ramsey County Historical Society and Minnesota Historical Society. This book seems to be of higher quality than that covering its twin city with more succinct information and more details and is almost worth the MSRP of $39.95 (although I'd prefer about $10 less).

If you're interested in meeting the author -- historian Steve Trimble who wrote the captions in this book -- Thursday, August 21 is your lucky day. Be at The Rathskeller at 318 Summit Avenue at 7 PM. Be sure to RSVP (info is in the link above). I wish I had the time on Thursday to drive across town and meet a very meticulous researcher and fine author to share how I enjoyed this book and pick his brain on his techniques.

Oh, and if it's photos you like, MinnPics is the place with stunning photos from across Minnesota and a whole gob of pics from a recent air show in a certain southwest suburb. Oh, and if you're looking for camel toe or nipple photos from the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, they'll be right here soon enough. It takes a lot of research.

A victory speech of sorts

Tonight at 7 PM, the doors of the Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota open for what many are expecting to be a victory speech of sorts by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

I am one of a few who feels that Obama will not go as far to brag about an outright victory in the primary and caucus circuit of 2008 but his speech once he takes the stage at The X will be one to pump up his supporters and bring Hillary supporters into the fold. I feel that Obama is above the bragging and boasting that I'm sure has been the downfall of some politicians but I'm not above predictions and crystal ball gazing.

Hillary will suspend her campaigning by the end of the week and become one of the people on Barack's short list of running mates; likely at the top. He would be doing exactly what he has promised by surrounding himself with experience and knowledge to make up for what some feel as a lack of experience from the presidential hopeful.

I do like the choice of venue for what is essentially Obama's semi-finals victory. Expect plenty of painfully minute analysis over the next few days by talking heads, heads that talk and people who have no business being in front of a camera and will refer to Obama as "that there black boy".

Proof that women rock

Much is said (that I've heard) about the lack of women in rock music. To those people I have one thing to say: you aren't paying attention. Sure, much of normal terrestrial rock radio ignores the very fact that half of the worldwide population is female and even though that percentage does not translate into half of all musicians being females doesn't mean that they don't exist.

Forming my musical tastes of today, I came to discover female-fronted bands such as No Doubt and Hole, both of whom came to wide attention after the male-dominated grunge era and some would even sale that Hole frontwoman Courtney love roade the coattails of her husband Kurt Cobain. Whether she did or not doesn't detract from the very fact that she made her all-female band a successful rock act for the better part of a decade.

After the alt-rock era of the mid- to late-90s came and went, female rockers did seem to vanish. Alas, after that period I'd rather not remember consisting of bands such as Korn and Limp Bizkit polluting the ears of rock fans whose palletes may have been better suited for alternative music, it seemed to be reborn not long after the turn of the century.

After indie rock took the forefront, I took notice of a wide variety of bands who gained traction outside of the United States before making a splash 'round here.

Canadian twin sisters, Tegan & Sara, have a bit of a lighter sound but can also bring the rock in their own way. The very fact that they sound as well live as they do in their studio recordings is a testament to their talent. Check 'em out performing The Con at 89.3 The Current's St. Paul studios.





Of course if your particular flavor of rock is, well, more rocking, there's always California band Rilo Kiley with Portions for Foxes




And if the Twin Cities scene is your thing, local stalwart Mary Lucia is nothing short of an icon when it comes to local radio. Here she is in The Current studios interviewing Tori Amos.

The tale of the foot-licking mugger

First off, to get a sense of this guy, check out his mug shot.

Got that out of your head? Good. Leave it there for a minute.

Thye real meat of the story is that he took the keys and cell phone of a woman leaving work early on Saturday morning in St. Paul and, to add insult to injury, then demanded that she remove her shoes because "I'm gonna suck your feet".

Obviously, Captain Crazy Eyes has some problems. The least of which is his penchant for robbing innocent women. There are probably far more petty robbers roaming our streets at 1 AM on a Saturday than you care to imagine. But the real issue here is the foot sucking. Who, regardless of how deranged, demands to suck a random woman's feet?

I can almost imagine him muttering, in almost incoherent English with toes stuffed in his greasy, slimy mouth "This wittle piggy went to, mmmm, this little piggy went, ughh, umm, ahhh, mmmm, yethhhh."

Remember that face. How could you forget it? And keep your eyes peeled as people like this are usually out roaming the streets again long before they ought to be.