I just read your article on strip clubs [Sex & The Married Man, “Should Married Men Go to Strip Clubs?” August]. Strangely enough, someone posted it on our bathroom stall in my college dorm. So your friends regularly attend strip clubs. Good, wholesome fun, right? They’re not hurting anyone. I could not disagree more. One question I raise to men and women who go to strip clubs is, Did they ever think about the actual person inside of that body? I doubt it. I don’t know all the reasons why people choose to strip, but I know some. Although strippers probably say it’s good money (or “I’m so hot why wouldn’t I show off my body”), I think they are all neglecting to dig deeper for the real problem. All female strippers have low self-esteem and this is how they make themselves feel better. A backwards way of doing it, if you ask me. Because by showing off their body to these men who call out to them, fantasize about them, call them “baby,” they are objectifying themselves completely. They are losing their identity and being valued solely for their fake breasts and painted faces. And your friends, you say they are capable of healthy relationships. I disagree. If they objectify these women so often and so callously, how could they truly value their wives? And what about how their wives feel? Do you think they enjoy being compared to an unreal standard of beauty? By going to strip clubs, they are disrespecting their partners.
Jenna Sophia Hanson
Minneapolis
Month: November 2003
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No Stuart!
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Go Stuart!
Stuart Greene [Sex & The Married Man, “Dancing With Myself”] has guts. Yes, we all do it. No, we never admit it. And I think his statement that sometimes sex for men is just a physical thing is true. That doesn’t mean we can’t have deep loving relationships, and we prove it all the time. As he said in a previous column, any men who claim they never “go solo” are either liars or politicians or both. Hell, let’s all pretend we never watch TV while we’re at it; it’ll make us seem smarter and more responsible than we really are. Just don’t get moralistic on me, or I’m liable to go all Kiefer Sutherland on your ass.
Nick Harding, Roanoke, VA -
The Wind and the Wire
Bravo to The Rake on its series of stories on shipwrecks [“Too Deep, Too Dark, Too Cold,” November] These were very well-researched and well-put-together articles and I very much enjoyed reading them. As a result of your articles, my husband and I will be attending the Gales of November conference in Duluth next weekend and we are considering making the trip to Michigan for the Ghost Ships conference next spring as well. We have a sailboat on Lake Superior, which provides us an intimate link to her, and we always enjoy reading these stories.
Karen Brown
Andover -
Who’s in Charge Here?
Remember those low-budget horror films from the 1950s? Other-worldly music would play, and then a creepy creature would land its spaceship in a swamp in the middle of nowhere, slither out, and tell the first startled Earthling, “Take me to your leader.” Now, as then, we laugh at the idea that there could possibly be “one leader” of anything—unless you’re talking about black people. Sadly, most white people and even a few misguided black ones expect that there must be one, two, or maybe three individuals who speak for all black people. This is a stupid, racist, outmoded view of the world that must be discarded once and for all.
During slavery, “Massa” would often appoint one or two trusted field hands as overseers of the other slaves. Instead of having to interact with many slaves, Massa would simply give the word to the “head nigger in charge,” who would take it from there. For slave owners, who viewed black people as simple-minded chattel, the system made perfect sense. Why deal with fifty to a hundred darkies when one could easily limit contact to a manageable one or two? Underpinning this system were two concepts—first, that the HNIC was selected, not elected. Second, and more important, the HNIC was merely a go-between for the white and black folks. The HNIC could never really serve as an advocate for fellow blacks and sure as hell could not tell the white folks what to do.
Now, many people think things have changed. We have Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice—African-Americans who have risen well above HNIC status. But when it comes to the bread and butter stuff that most of us care about, the impulse to find the HNIC is still pervasive, at least here in Minnesota.
Consider one of the most recent examples—the fallout from the allegation by Stephen Porter that Minneapolis cops sodomized him with a toilet plunger during a drug raid. In the tense days that followed, a number of good ol’ white boys openly questioned who speaks for black folks (in other words, who’s the HNIC) in this town. Mayor R.T. Rybak got publicly sliced and diced at a North Side rally. Referring to Spike Moss and Rev. Randy Staten, he asked aloud, “Who do these people represent?” Rybak probably thought he was asking a legitimate question—who do you speak for? Why should I listen to you? He failed to grasp that, given our country’s shameful racial legacy, any white person asking that question in a racially tinged crisis about black community activists would hit a nerve of deep resentment and distrust. Once again, black folks made Massa mad for failing to have him anoint the next HNIC.
Star Tribune columnist Doug Grow, picking up where Rybak left off, decided that by venturing into what he perceived as hood central, a North Minneapolis barbershop, he could talk with a few brothers and, working on the presumption that all black people think alike, verify who the real HNIC is.
Think about that—imagine me going to an Edina barbershop and telling the locals there the equivalent of, “Hey, white people, take me to your leader.” Who would take me seriously?
I am not trying to beat up—at least not too much—on the well-meaning Doug Grow or our politically challenged mayor. After all, there are those in the African-American community who do believe that we should march in political lockstep. But that doesn’t excuse Rybak. His blundering attempt to find an “authentic voice” of the African-American community is arrogant and unenlightened. I do not think that Spike Moss or Rev. Randy Staten speak for all black people in Minneapolis, any more than I believe Rep. Arlon Lindner (who seriously believed that gays were not persecuted during the Holocaust) speaks for all white Minnesotans.
Hopefully, people like R.T. Rybak will come to understand that they cannot expect to act like Massa on the plantation and talk to one or two trusted HNICs to find out what the field hands are thinking. He, along with the Doug Grows of the world, must learn that African-Americans in this town do not think, talk, or act as one big monolithic block. Bottom line: Y’all ain’t Massa, and we ain’t slaves.
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Ok, We’ve Moved On
I really enjoy your magazine—except for the fact that you apparently worship the insufferably smug Al Franken as some kind of god [“Al Franken Is a Big Fat Genius,” October]. He impresses me not at all, and never has. I never thought Franken and Davis were even remotely amusing when they were on Saturday Night Live. This man has no talent whatsoever, except for being an irritant. I agree with Peter Kind of St. Paul [Letters, October], who wrote you about the childish Limbaugh-Franken feud. After Franken’s book Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations came out, some friends of Limbaugh’s wrote their rebuttal, Al Franken Is a Buck-Toothed Moron and Other Observations. While I agree with both assessments, I find this infantilism nauseous. As Kind says, neither sways my opinion. There are those of us who don’t need anyone to tell us what to think or how to live.
Jerry Westermann
Fridley -
Credit Where It’s Due
It was great to see Brenda Weiler’s 400 Bar show recommended [Broken Clock, November], but her most recent album wasn’t recorded or produced in her new hometown of Portland, as the blurb states. It was recorded in Minneapolis at City Cabin by local talent Darren Jackson (Kid Dakota, Alva Star), John Hermanson (Alva Star, Storyhill), and Alex Oana (producer for Spymob, Semisonic). It’s on the album notes, I swear! Hey, it’s hard enough to get good press for local musicians—let’s not export the accolades when we don’t have to!
E. Anderson
Minneapolis -
Penny Royalty
Your article about music licensing [“All Shook Down,” November] was timely and important, but I’d like to make some additional points. All business owners should be aware that playing copyrighted music without permission or a license is a violation of federal copyright law. If such a violation went to court, the violator would have a hard time not getting convicted. The area of negotiation and problems is with the way these organizations disburse the money they collect. They pay it out primarily by sampling what is played on the radio, which is controlled by a few corporations. The people who play at a coffeehouse do not sing songs that get played on these stations. So the license money paid by the coffehouse does not go to the songwriters whose songs are used. In Europe, song lists are turned in to an agency and the money goes to those whose songs are used. This could be done in the U.S., but I think American performing rights organizations are too lazy. With email and Internet, this could be easily done. Another issue is the fees they charge. They are capricious and unreasonable. I think there can be some challenges to these folks, but it has to be done correctly or they will simply take the club to court for copyright violation and burn them as an example. One other copyright issue that may be useful is that copyright is dealt with in the original Constitution. It clearly states that creations (now called “intellectual property”) may be protected by the creator for a limited amount of time. The copyright law of 1906 protected songs for seventeen years, with a renewal possible for an additional seventeen years. This was something clearly intended in our Constitution. The rewrite of 1975 extended that to the life of the composer plus seventy-five years. This was obviously intended to cover any family and estate. This was still reasonable, in my opinion, but it was pushing the envelope. Recently, however, the major corporations that own intellectual property have gotten this extended again to cover their older property. Now it covers the life of the artist life plus ninety-five years. This is the Sonny Bono Extension of the copyright act, and I think a serious argument can be made that this is unconstitutional.
I think that clubs should do what the networks did. They said, “We’ll pay you specifically for each piece we use rather than buy a blanket license.” Then the money would also be credited directly to the real composer. Also, the agents who go after clubs often lie. They will tell them they need a license to do any music live. That is false. Public domain songs can be used, original songs by the performer can be used, and songs for which the performer has permission from the writer can be used. The rest you can cover on a per-song basis, if there are any. If nothing else, this tactic may force them to offer a more reasonable blanket license.
If BMI and ASCAP were forced to actually collect royalties for the songs used, rather than using the radio survey, they might tell small clubs to forget it, or they might charge a nominal fee. A very strong case could be made that they can collect a list of these songs and that they should, since small venue music is seldom played on the stations where they do the sampling.
John R. Kolstad
president, Mill City Music
Minneapolis -
Ex Marks the Spot
My teenage daughter hurt my feelings the other day, and this bizarre thing happened. The light in the room shifted, there was a faint static, and a tremor ran through my body. Suddenly, I was channeling my brother-in-law’s Jewish mother (odd, since she is still alive and well in Louisville).
“Sophie,” I heard myself lament. “Can’t you see this from my perspective? I carried you, I gave birth to you, I nursed you and took you to work with me, I breastfed you during meetings in front of rowdy young sales guys, and then I quit the job to raise you—which was not always a cake walk, I might add.”You see, Sophie was easily the most stubborn child in world history. “How did this happen?” I remember thinking to myself back then, during the car ride home after a particularly harrowing tantrum at Grandma’s. “We’re reading all the best parenting books, we’re raising her with love, patience, and respect, we’re doing everything right, and still, she’s plotting to destroy us.”
Sophie, three years old and unnervingly silent in the back seat, read my thought and promptly pulled out a tuft of her baby brother’s hair. “I’m gonna win this one,” she screamed, as her father pulled the car over and I unclenched her fist from the baby’s wispy golden locks, one chubby finger at a time.
Even Sophie remembers some of the highlights of those years. But she insists her vexing tendency to pull out her brother’s hair was not entirely her fault. “I always had a reason. And besides, it comes out very easily,” she explained recently. “It’s very poorly rooted.”
Only during the aftermath of my marriage to Sophie’s father did I gain insight into my daughter’s dogged resolve to take life by the throat and shake what she wants out of it. I gleaned this insight through basic (if belated) observation of my own and my ex-husband’s behavior. If I had wanted a docile, easygoing child, her father and I should have had personality transplants. Of course, I never really wanted an easy child. I loved the feisty one I got as if she were an aching piece of my own heart, fragile and exposed, pounding mightily, forever seeking shelter within the safe cavity of my ribs.
Last week I had coffee with my ex-husband. Those who know us will undoubtedly be stunned to hear this. Three and a half years after our separation, we are still not the “let’s chat over espresso and biscotti” sort of ex-spouses. We are the “isn’t it nice that we’re so flexible and reasonable with each other, but you make one false move and I’ll make you regret it forever” kind of ex-spouses. We’re both Aries, and evidently, Aries-to-Aries matrimony does not make for tidy divorce.
“Your mistake,” I told Sophie’s father as we sipped bad coffee and took turns picking off each other’s scabs, “was that you grossly underestimated my obstinacy.”
“Not at all,” he said. “I’ve always known full well how obstinate you are. We’re two of the most tenacious SOBs on the planet.” Yes, thank you very much. How else would we have gotten so much done in our eleven-year marriage? Two postgraduate degrees (his), two book deals (mine), and three kids plus several foster children in four different houses (ours), just for starters. It takes a stubborn streak to get things done. But to mix it with conflict is to concoct one bitter, obstreperous cocktail. We have this perverse and unreasonable resistance to control. Under the wrong circumstances, we behave like poorly trained cairn terriers, who must stupidly insist on having everything be our own idea. We like to win more than we like to admit among more evolved company.
My ex-husband and I had arranged this coffee talk in hopes of further improving the way we work things out on behalf of our kids. And toward that end, we didn’t get all that far. Instead, we sidetracked ourselves by reminiscing about all the horrible things we’d said and done to each other during our breakup. He even shared a few gruesome ideas he hadn’t managed to carry out. We both laughed. Only as our meeting began to close in on itself—bound by the expectations of those who waited at home, worrying—did we gingerly reveal our ugliest scars and most enduring regrets. All the while making sure to point out repeatedly how much more perfect and idyllic our lives are now. Hey, what did you expect? Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.
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Send More Leaf-Blower Puns
Excellent article on leaf blowers [“Rake Against the Machine,” November], just one of so many completely unnecessary, stupid new power tools and technologies that we can live without. Most of the dunderheads that operate them have no idea that the leaves under the shrubbery (mulch) are necessary and protective and should be left there to eventually nourish and protect the plant. You pointed out all the microns of mold and filth that pour into our air. And how much greenhouse gas is added to the planet’s already heavily polluted atmosphere? If only we could get this message to our mayor, governor, or legislators, maybe we could pass laws similar to those passed in L.A. Unfortunately health and longer life is not one of our priorities.
Don Johnson
Minneapolis -
Alma Mater? Don’t Know Her.
Aw, hell. You won’t believe what I got myself into. So I’ll just tell you. I’m going to be a guest speaker at my old high school for career day.
Delicious irony #1: I never completed high school.
Delicious irony #2: Either they never bothered to check this fact, or they don’t care.My dilemma came about innocently enough. Last week a favorite old teacher of mine (Home Economics—easy A) contacted me through the dark magic of the Internet and asked if I’d like to share the secret of my success. Hmm. Instantly, a cartoon devil and a cartoon angel appeared on my shoulders. The demon, as always, spoke first. “Righteous! That is soooo cool! You have to do it—just make it up as you go along—half of those snot rags won’t be listening. And you’ll get welcomed back to your old stomping grounds as a hero! You’ll probably even get to drink crappy coffee in the teachers’ lounge!”
And the angel whispered: “No, Colleen. It would be wrong. The other half of the snot rags would be listening, and it would be unethical for you to pretend that your creative successes in life have had anything to do with basic education.”
In the face of such brutal logic, the proud demon raged. He puffed out his little cinnamon-colored chest and scraped at the filthy sawdust floor of my brain with his cloven hoof, kicking up dirt and leaving all rational thought clouded in a sandstorm of bitter, congestive arrogance. “Don’t be lame!” He bellowed. “What are you, chicken?! BOK-BOK-BOK-BOK!”
Reeling, I hit reply, typed in an affirmative, and hit send. The angel shook her head sadly and floated away in the turquoise mist of higher aspiration, to the place where DVDs are returned on time, and vegetables are eaten at every meal.
“Wicked sweet, chica.” The demon paused and gave me the thumbs up before heading out the door. “I gotta go. Got to…uh, polish my horn—but when you get to school, tell the lunch lady I said hi. And tell her to keep playin’ that Powerball, ’cause ya never know!” Poof.
Now I’m stuck. The only way to redeem this situation is to tell them the truth. So here it is, kids. I hate to puncture those rock-star daydreams with a sharp economic truth, but your teachers are right: No high school diploma + no secondary education = twenty-odd years of minimum wage. Folks like me in the non-graduating class are more likely to bear children outside of committed relationships, and those children are susceptible to a veritable Russian roulette wheel of bad fortune. Substandard health care. Dangerous neighborhoods. Neglect. And the longer you wait to go back to school, the less likely it is to make any sort of difference in your income. (Pretty tough luck in the job market to be a forty-five-year-old with a brand-new associate’s degree.)
I can tell them about the regularly recurring intervals of social fear that I encounter in conversation with minds more educated than mine. How I pray the frozen smile and glassy stare will cover my ignorance until I can change the subject to something I’m well-versed in, like back issues of People. How I’ve made a spare living from tips, and from making comedic sport of every foolhardy choice I ever made. That when you make five bucks an hour, you can’t afford to be too proud—because wearing that neon dunce cap has paid the rent for me more than once.
Would I be on a different career path if I had earned my diploma all those years ago? I suppose not. Would I be better off? I’m sure of it. That little piece of paper is a building block, a support beam. A place to plan, to nurture life passions that can sustain us through to the end of one goal, and then another. I’ll tell them that in life, rarely are things so beautifully cut and dried, so simple, as showing up between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. and working hard. Earning your marks. And if there’s one thing I learned to be, it’s a hard worker. It’s what makes me what I am. An unqualified success.