The Rake Magazine

Month: July 2005

  • Back Against the Wall Street

    These days at the complicated intersection of Washington and Broadway, the downtrodden God-Bless-You gang works in shifts along the stoplight medians. There’s a steady stream of traffic, and the location offers proximity to plenty of bars, fast food, and, perhaps most conveniently, the Jug liquor store across the street. There’s a guy with a cardboard sign on every island and corner at the intersection, some days six guys holding down every possible point of access to motorists. There’s also a gaggle of characters waiting on the sidelines, so to speak, sitting along the concrete freeway barrier and on the bus stop benches. It’s like pick-up basketball.

    You tend to see the same panhandlers every day. They appear to use each other’s signs. “Stranded,” one says, and nothing else. There’s the standard, “Homeless. Please Help. God Bless.” And “Homeless Veteran. God Bless America.” I also saw this virtuous variant recently: “I’m Trying to Get Back on My Feet.”

    “Three Children in Texas” seemed to strike an odd note, and I was uncertain whether the appropriate reaction was sympathy or scorn. I do feel sympathy, or rather compassion, for all of them, especially now that there seem to be more of them every day. My guiding principle is that if I encounter one of them at a red light, I give him some spare change or a buck, and each one has been unfailingly polite.

    These characters have become a fixture at street corners all over the city in recent years, of course, and some local authorities aren’t terribly happy about the situation. In April, Minneapolis Police Chief William McManus, in an effort to curb and manage aggressive begging, floated the idea of licensing panhandlers. The idea, which has already been enacted in such cities as Cincinnati and Dayton in Ohio, would require panhandlers to apply for a license at the government center and wear a photo ID at all times when working the sidewalks and intersections of the city.

    The regulars at Washington and Broadway didn’t seem terribly concerned when informed about McManus’ proposal. Most of them are veterans of the streets and downtown homeless shelters, and they’re inured to all manner of hassles and inconveniences. Scrutinizing the nuts and bolts of city code isn’t much of a priority to them. Finding a place to crash and rustling up enough cash to maintain their nomadic existence is challenging enough.

    I walked down there one sweltering afternoon. As usual, a handful of sign-wielding men was spread out at various corners of the intersection. A stocky, middle-aged guy was holding down the prime piece of real estate on the stoplight median at northbound Washington. He was wearing a heavy U.S. Army camouflage jacket with the sleeves cut off and a matching hat, and it was clear from his attitude and the apparent deference with which he was treated by the other regulars that he occupied a position of seniority. His name, “John,” was tattooed prominently on one of his forearms.

    “What the hell am I going to do with a damn license?” John asked. “They’re just looking for another way to waste taxpayers’ money. I already got a green book downtown that’s thicker than the Bible. I’ve been out here since ’96, and I don’t care if it’s raining or its twenty below, I’m out here every day monkeying around. This is how I live. I’m not gonna lie to you; I get drunk and eat, eat and get drunk, and then I look for someplace to pass out for the night. Sometimes it’s comfortable, sometimes it’s miserable, but I don’t have any use anymore for the bullshit shelters.”

    There is, apparently, a sort of unspoken code among the panhandlers at Broadway and Washington. A guy is given an opportunity to hold down a spot and make some cash, but everybody seems to have a clear concept of when enough is enough; when somebody’s obviously wearing out his welcome, the others who are waiting around won’t hesitate to let him know. I heard one guy haranguing a panhandler who was slumped against a light pole with an attitude of supreme indifference. “Come on, man,” the guy said with obvious exasperation. “You’re not even working it.”

    There’s also a weird sort of camaraderie among the panhandlers. Many of them have known each for years. “I can’t stand most of these assholes,” John told me. “But we eat and drink and get drunk together, and a lot of us will pool our money when we get low.” On the day I stopped by to talk, he had a modest goal. “Maybe some of these people come out here thinking they’re gonna get rich,” he said. “Plenty of them don’t have any damn sense. If I get $6.50, that’s enough to get me through the day. Some days I do a lot better than others. People aren’t all bad, I can tell you that. There are lots of good ones out there.”

    One day in July, in the rain, I saw a motorist hand one familiar member of the God-Bless-You gang a pizza box through a car window, and a few days later, as I waited at the stoplight, there was a guy who was holding an entirely blank piece of cardboard. “What’s your sign say?” I asked. “You know what it says,” he said, without the slightest hint of hostility. He was, of course, absolutely right.—Brad Zellar

  • The Sweet Taste of Liberty

    Until June 14, Camp Gitmo, the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was a controversial prison—to some, a necessary response to the war on terror; to others, a Bermuda Triangle of legal rights where suspected terrorists serve indeterminate sentences—but still, in pretty much everyone’s mind, a prison. Then, Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, likened the interrogation techniques that Guantanamo’s proprietors sometimes employ to those used “by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime.” Critics of this assessment responded quickly, emphatically, and with a surprising degree of culinary discernment. Not only was Guantanamo not a gulag, they insisted, it was actually a world-class vacation resort and a great place to eat.

    Rush Limbaugh dubbed it Club Gitmo, “a one-of-a-kind resort on the west coast of Cuba overlooking the bay” that served as a “tropical retreat from the stress of Jihad.” Dick Cheney took his cues from Limbaugh, claiming that the prison’s detainees were “living in the tropics” with “everything they could possibly want.” Duncan Hunter, a Republican congressman from California, lauded Gitmo’s spa-caliber cuisine and the kitchen staff’s free hand with portions. Detainees get “double vegetables and two types of fruit,” he boasted. “The inmates in Guantanamo have never eaten better, they’ve never been treated better, and they’ve never been more comfortable in their lives than in this situation.”

    Throw in two fifteen-minute showers a week, spacious eight-foot-by-eight-foot detention suites, and some relaxing enforced solitude, and, well, you can see why the editors at Condé Nast Traveler are kicking themselves for ranking this suicide-optional luxury hideaway so low on their 2005 Hot List. If anything, though, even Gitmo’s most avid boosters have been selling the place short. Why? Because along with the sumptuous chow and the breezy island ambiance, there’s also enough booze at Gitmo to drown the French Quarter. “On average, people will increase their alcohol consumption by three hundred percent when they come here,” explained combat stress control specialist Sgt. Michelle Olson in an article recently published by the American Forces Press Service.

    The prisoners’ favorite drink? The Gitmojito, of course. A refreshing twist on one of Cuba’s signature cocktails, it’s made with fresh spearmint leaves, limes, sugar, rum, and a generous splash of urine. Okay, just kidding there. Guantanamo detainees are sometimes rewarded with candy and ice cream, but alcohol is strictly reserved for U.S. military personnel. Why are the guards so thirsty? Not because of stress, that’s for sure. Instead, as Rush Limbaugh or Dick Cheney could tell you, it’s because this parched, semi-arid paradise, with its lush bowers of razor wire and acres of pristine land mines, is even more fun when you’re not chained to the floor and forced to crap on yourself. Still, an important question remains: Are Gitmo’s bartenders using premium rum, like Bambu or 10 Cane? If not, then somebody call Amnesty International! Plain old Bacardi Superior is torture.

    —Greg Beato

  • Shimmering Surfaces

    The three best reasons for being an academic, as is well known, are June, July, and August. Especially on the occasions when the University of Minnesota conspires with the McKnight Foundation to allow one to spend those months reading and writing about a really genial poet for instance, a character from the Later Roman Empire called Ausonius.

    There is a serious side to this enterprise, of course. Ausonius is a wonderful case study of an intelligent Roman who went Christian at around the time most Romans were going Christian, during the fourth century A.D. Watching him integrate ancient science (astrology, for instance) into Christian cosmology is as interesting as considering the relationships between religion and Darwinism. (Am I alone in wanting one of each kind of fish symbol to stick on the back of my car?)
    But there is also a fun side to old Ausonius, something agreeably fin de sircle. Sometimes I fancy I can hear him calling to posterity in the way that James Elroy Flecker appealed to a poet a thousand years hence:

    But have you wine and music still,
    And statues and a bright-eyed love,
    And foolish thoughts of good and ill
    And prayers to them that sit above?

    On one level, then, a poet who promises a summer of roses and wine. Which is as it should be. Roman emperors in those late days lived not at Rome, but on the frontiers of Empire, where they could face down their Germanic neighbors, folk who spoke limited amounts of Latin and smeared butter in their hair instead of scented olive oil (a little dab will do ya). Ausonius was tutor to the son of one such emperor and so spent much of his adult life at Trier on the Moselle, then as now famous for its vineyards. His roots, however, were in Bordeaux, and to this day a well-known wine chateau in Saint-Emilion on the right bank of the Gironde is named Chateau Ausone in his honor (but you know what they say about the wines of Bordeaux—if you have heard of a claret, you can’t afford it).

    For a poet so associated with wine, Ausonius was singularly fascinated with water. Icarus falls into it and Christ walks on it. Ausonius enjoyed looking through and across its shifting, shimmering surfaces since, like many a poet, he was interested in fishing; he was amazed, too, at the speed and ease with which a boat could carry him back and forth between his country villa and the city of Bordeaux. In fact, his longest poem is a dreamy description of the Moselle: The river cuts a canyon through the landscape, barges pass up and down, the bargees exchange badinage with men cultivating the hillsides. And in a contemplative passage, the poet wonders at the way fish cannot breathe out of water, while fishermen cannot breathe in it. I have a theory that Ausonius’ interest in water has to do with his shifting sense of himself, and so with the sort of Christian prayer that formed in his heart as he stood before the Most High God of the philosophers.

    But that is another story. More immediate is the fact that he would certainly recognize the modern Moselle, its vertiginous hillsides still planted with lines of vines and crowned with country mansions. And I feel sure he would enjoy, as I did the other night, a white wine made from the Riesling grape, available locally in the characteristic slim green Moselle bottles at around twelve dollars. (I do not know the exchange rate for denarii, but I do know a good story about a long-haired barbarian chieftain exchanging his daughter for an amphora of Roman wine.)

    This Riesling is the 2001 vintage of Robert Eymael’s Mönchhof estate. The name Mönchhof (monk court) comes from the Cistercians who owned this vineyard from the twelfth till the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Napoleon annexed all of this border region for France and the Eymael family acquired the vineyard. The result of this long history of cultivation is a wine that is on the sweet side, but would be pleasant with many sorts of cheese, fish, or poultry. The color is a consistent pale yellow, but each sip recalled a fresh sort of fruit. I thought I had it down as reminding me of pineapple juice when the next mouthful recalled apples.

    Plus ça change, shimmering surfaces indeed. There is also a clear, uncloying aftertaste. What is it about this grape that makes it so infinitely various in its flavors? There’s a question to talk over with Ausonius on an August afternoon.

  • It's Not The Size of Your Skyscraper…

    Has Minneapolis gone crazy for cantilevers? We humbly submit proposals for other buildings that could benefit from this glamorous architectural amenity.

    1. Keep an eye on rising gas prices while enjoying your double-dip cone—inside the new Loon grocery/gas station/ice cream parlor at 28th and Lyndale.

    2. In 1967, the Yippies wanted to levitate the Pentagon. If they’d only had an engineer and a cantilever!

    3. Safety solutions at Ground Zero. Why not turn the Freedom Tower on its side? Voila—the Freedom Walkway to New Jersey.

    4. Putting a stop to needless, hurtful speculation.

    5. The next phase of Cedar Lake’s Flatpak House eliminates double-decker bikes from the gene pool—or at least from Kenilworth Bike Path.

    6. Sex World’s “West Schwing” arouses envy. It is not allowed, however, to actually touch Choice Gentleman’s Club, across the street.

  • Rough Hewn

    Are you over flip-flops, baseball caps, and gauzy summer skirts? Well, it’s high time you left your 50th & France or Grand & Victoria turf. That was our realization, after we got an eyeful of downtown Minneapolis nightlife recently. There, we found bold bicep tattoos, curvy chrome two-wheelers both motorized and human-powered, and heads wearing the most daring of chapeaux! But what is the requisite tough-on-the-town fashion statement? No, it’s not the gang-inspired “I’m down with the Midwest!” sign, as flashed by the blond bicyclist cutie here. It’s sunglasses. After all, as Petula said of downtown, “The lights are much brighter there.”

  • Naming in Vain

    If you casually mention at a social gathering that you think little boys are more destructive than little girls, most people will probably agree. Even those who do not will probably give scant notice to the fact that you were making assumptions about behavior based on a physical attribute—a practice more commonly known as stereotyping. Now, what if you said something like, “There’s a new boy in my kid’s class named Da’Quan—I bet he’s poor and black.” Assuming you run in a politically correct crowd, you will be called a stereotyper, a racial profiler, or worse.

    Yet whether we openly admit it or not, we do conjure certain images for certain names. I admit that when I hear “Demetrius” or “Marquis,” I do not expect to see a kid with blond hair and blue eyes.

    What’s in a name? Plenty, according to economists Steven Levitt, who is white, and Roland Fryer, who is black. They decided to see if African-Americans with distinctively “black” names like DeShawn or Precious had harder lives than others. The researchers used birth certificate data from the sixteen million children born in California since 1961, including name and gender, along with the parents’ marital status, ZIP code, and education. They discovered that in the early sixties, blacks and whites drew names from the same general pool. With the advent of the black power movement, that quickly changed. In 1970, girls born in black neighborhoods received names that were twice as common among blacks than whites. Today, four out of every ten black girls born in California receive a name that none of a hundred thousand white girls receives. And a third of the black girls born there have a unique name.

    Levitt and Fryer concluded that a person with a distinctively “black” name does indeed have a worse life outcome than a Claire or a Luke. They reasoned that the demographic profile of the parents of uniquely named children—who themselves are unmarried, poor, undereducated teenage mothers with distinctive black names—doomed these kids to lives of poverty. However, they blithely attributed the mothers’ willingness to bestow “black” names as an attempt to show “solidarity” with the black community.

    That may be true, but there is perhaps another factor at play. These young, single mothers cannot give their children the security, education, and material comfort of more successful families. Perhaps bestowing a unique name on their children is a naïve attempt to leave a legacy—an asset, if you will—to kids to whom they can give little else.

    As far as I know, no one has yet analyzed the kinds of names that relatively affluent, educated black parents give their children. Among my family and close African-American friends, there is a Joseph, two Alexanders, and a Quinn, a Brooke, a Carson, a Colin, a Melanie, a Mitchell, and a Johnny. None of their names makes the California top twenty “blackest boy” or “blackest girl” name lists. And, though it may make me sound like an assimilationist, I take comfort in that. I thought long and hard about how my sons’ names would play when they were adults. In fact, I used to joke that they would make a great impression on letterhead, or being read aloud at a college graduation. I did not want their names to broadcast their ethnicity to the world—or camouflage it. I also did not want them to be unfairly judged before they ever recited their first alphabet in class.

    Another study, from the University of Florida researcher David Figlio, confirms what African-American parents have long suspected—that teachers’ expectations of their students are based in part on names. According to Figlio, black students with unusual (i.e. “black”) names are less likely to be placed in gifted programs than black students with more mainstream (read “white”) names. He also found that students with Asian names were more often placed in gifted programs than siblings with similar test scores and common American names.

    In other words, there is an academic pecking order in our schools that appears to be linked to students’ first names, but is really tied to expectations. What self-respecting teacher would admit to doing this? Can you imagine an employer conceding that it screens prospective employees based on their names? There is empirical proof that it does happen—both in education and, according to several resume-screening studies, on the job.

    I think stereotyping based on names is wrong. I also think we all do it. Given that reality, the efforts of poor, single mothers to leave a legacy by giving their children “black” names are sadly misguided. Unwittingly, they are making an already tough road for their kids tougher yet.

  • On a Steel Horse

    Former St. Paul Police Chief Bill Finney likes to tell people that in a past life he was a pistol-slinging, wild-West lawman. This deep, hidden history, he says with a wink and a smile, explains his long career in police work, his impressive collection of Colt six-shooter “peacemakers,” and his garage full of motorcycles. (Unfortunately for him, he’s allergic to horse dander.)

    Finney’s love for motorcycles emerged back in the 1960s, when he was an impressionable teenager. He heard an ad on the radio that ended, “You meet the nicest people on a Honda.” Finney rented a Honda for a weekend outing and was immediately hooked. Traveling in the open air, under bright blue skies: To him, motorcycles came to represent freedom and independence. It wasn’t long before they were demanding his full attention.

    Every August, Finney makes a pilgrimage to Sturgis, South Dakota, home to the nation’s most prominent annual motorcycle rally. Last year, just a few months after retiring as police chief, Finney rode out with the Posse, a group of friends who are mostly law enforcement officials themselves. He chose his 2004 Boss Hoss three-wheeler for the trip, which sports a 385-horsepower V8 engine. Finney customizes all of his bikes, and this one is painted a deeply glowing ruby red and embellished with flame graphics and a gold star that says “El Jefe—St. Paul Posse.”

    All of Finney’s bikes have two things in common: They have a distinctive, truly Finneyesque look—and they are American-made. The others include a 2000 Harley Davidson Road Glide, which is distinguished by its large, skirted front fender, mag wheels, and custom black paint job; a 2004 Swift Bar Chopper; and a 2002 Indian Chief. Finney refers to the last as the “police chief,” since he’s painted it black and white and added flashing red lights like those on motorcycles ridden by 1950s-era traffic cops. He even pulled over a van once while riding it. (The van had a flat tire, and he called a tow truck for the driver.)

    Given the chance, Finney waxes philosophical in describing the camaraderie of the road and the beauty of the countryside, seen close up and at high speeds. “It’s not about getting there,” he says, “it’s about the journey.” Just as in the days of wagon trains and search parties on horseback, a little rain never gets in Finney’s way. “People don’t live in the weather,” he says, “they adapt to live through the weather. Riding in the rain can be, and is, a fantastic experience.”—Pat Lindgren

  • Retail Therapy

    Maybe I’m just jealous because my therapist has never given me a flat-screen TV, but it seemed that for a while, every time I turned on the Dr. Phil show, someone who’d struggled to face his or her demons was being rewarded with merchandise from Circuit City or a travel package from Orbitz.com. I’ve long admired Dr. Phil, but over the last year I began wondering what had happened to the big, balding man I’d come to think of as a friendly sort of sage with a heavy Texas drawl—a cognitive behaviorist cowboy, slinging sound advice and shooting down denial. Had he been swallowed whole by Bob Barker? Tell them what they’ve won, Bob! The Price is Right. The Pathology is Right. The Life Lesson is Right. On one episode, Dr. Phil reunited a twenty-something with the mother who’d given her up for adoption. “I never stopped thinking about you!” the mother cried, or something like that, and embraced her daughter. They were sent off on an all-expenses paid trip, and I thought, I’m not sure I’d want to vacation with a stranger I just met, and who also happened to abandon me as a child. Moments later, and with more clarity, I thought, What’s my problem? It’s a vacation. I’d go anywhere Dr. Phil would send me.

    Dr. Phil launched his televised therapy career on The Oprah Winfrey Show, the year the focus of that show was “Finding Your Spirit” and Oprah hauled in a succession of psychologists and therapists in an effort to help us all, en masse, knock down whatever blocks were preventing us from becoming our most “authentic selves.” That era of Oprah brought Gary Zukav, author of The Seat of the Soul and The Dancing Wu Li Masters; it brought Iyanla Vanzant, author of Yesterday I Cried and One Day My Soul Just Opened Up. And then there was Dr. Phil’s “Get Real Challenge,” during which a group of people were sequestered for a week of therapy boot camp with the doctor. Their hard work and epiphanies were videotaped and aired throughout a season of Oprah, as Dr. Phil and Oprah commented on the happenings like those two old Muppets in the balcony.

    It was great television. The folks in the “Get Real Challenge” sobbed and confronted, spoke the truth and got real and left with a lighter psychological load, carry-ons instead of heavy-duty Samsonites. And Dr. Phil and Oprah were explicit about their intention—the point of airing everyone’s dirty laundry wasn’t to engender any kind of schadenfreude in the audience, but instead, they hoped, to provide models of insight and bravery for us couch potatoes. Maybe we would see something of ourselves in those stories of marriages gone awry, of family feuds, of feeling disconnected. Maybe it would get us off our butts to get real, too.

    But what did it mean to “get real”? While Oprah was finding her spirit and we rooted around for ours, we were encouraged to be grateful for small daily blessings, to come to terms with our painful pasts and live in the present with clarity, and to take responsibility for our choices. The effect was a sort of “Free to Be You and Me” for adults. (Remember when Rosey Grier sang, “It’s all right to cry. Crying gets the sad out of you”?) Soon, it seemed that every celebrity who appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show needed a Kleenex. Promoting his darker drama, The Majestic, Jim Carrey burst into tears; when Oprah acknowledged John Travolta’s good heart, he, too, turned on the faucets. Halle Berry got real about ex-hubby Eric Benet’s sex addiction, but then later showed Oprah and the studio audience how to use a bullwhip (Catwoman was about to open). Tom Cruise, of course, recently did perhaps the ultimate job of getting real, unleashing all those pent-up emotions and bouncing away on Oprah’s couch.

    Everyone was getting real, and then suddenly everyone—real folks like us—was getting presents. Sure, Martha Stewart has her good things, but they usually require some elbow grease, pinecones, and a staple gun. On Oprah’s first “favorite things” show, a stunned and ecstatic audience left with thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise, and they did absolutely nothing. And in perhaps her best-known giveaway, an entire Oprah audience left with Pontiacs.

    This spring, Dr. Phil, whose show is produced by Harpo Productions, Oprah’s company, celebrated his five-hundredth episode. And since her appearances on Oprah, Iyanla Vanzant has become the lead therapist on Starting Over, a reality show in which a group of women live in a house together and beat their demons to a pulp, and whose tagline is Life Has Never Been More Real. Hasn’t life always been real, even if it’s been shitty?

     

    Somehow, while trying to figure out what goes into getting real, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs popped into my mind. My rudimentary understanding of Maslow’s work is that he placed human motivation and development on a sort of ladder. On the bottom rungs were basic physiological requirements—air, food, water, shelter, sex. Higher up came needs for safety, then social needs like love, belonging, and acceptance. Once those needs were met, Maslow believed humans were driven to meet a need for esteem—to behave in ways that allowed them to feel respect and achievement. Finally, at the top of the ladder sat self-actualization: the need to become all that one is capable of being. To be one’s most authentic self, as Oprah might say. To Get Real.

    According to my college psychology textbook, Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and Eleanor Roosevelt had all climbed to the top of Maslow’s hierarchy. (So much for sex.) This led to my assumption that anyone reaching self-actualization would be poor and/or have no fashion sense and/or have wrinkled skin and glasses. But Oprah has self-actualized—she is living to the fullest and giving back to the community. Who knew that giving back meant Pontiacs and Wacoal bras and Josh Groban CDs?

    Could it be that, in America, the top rungs of the ladder have collapsed on themselves? Have our social and esteem needs become conflated with self-actualization? When Oprah was finding her spirit, I sobbed along with everyone else who felt lost and empty and was looking to connect with the world in a more profound way. When Oprah found a good bra, I got on the Internet and ordered it. The transition from internal satisfaction to, shall we say, external support had been, ah, seamless. Then Dr. Phil, along with handing out advice, began giving out the goods, too.

    Couples on Dr. Phil’s “Premarital Boot Camp” shows ran through obstacle courses together, dealt with surprise visits from the in-laws (another kind of obstacle course), cared for fake babies, and answered tough questions about religion, money, and their expectations about sex. (One guy wanted to do it two or three times a day once he was married; his bride-to-be was terrified.) The boot campers were rewarded for their efforts with cash, electronics, and honeymoons. On the “Desperate Spouses” show, a harried househusband with five kids lamented his one-hundred-pound weight gain. He had given all of his energy to the children, and eaten all of their leftover food. To help him “reclaim” himself, he was rewarded with golf at a local club, a gentleman’s day at a spa, and a one-year gym membership.

    On what was billed as “the most intense Dr. Phil ever,” the good doc confronted Sheila, who had nearly beaten her alcoholic husband to death and had contacted the show in desperation after seeing Dr. Phil help an abusive alcoholic. Then he delivered a caveat regarding “getting real” on TV. “I’ve never been under the misapprehension or illusion that I’m doing eight-minute cures or one-hour cures on this stage,” Dr. Phil told Sheila, her husband Steve, and the audience. “I’m trying to be a mental-emotional compass. I’m trying to point people in the right direction.”

     

    Maybe I was just bitter. But was I the only one getting confused by the maddening jumble of makeover shows—Trading Spaces, Queer Eye, Ambush Makeover—and the talk-therapy/life-makeover/self-improvement shows like Oprah and Dr. Phil? Had self-actualization in America come to include freshly painted walls, designer active wear, and teeth whitening? Because it really did seem that the less screwed up you were, the more likely you were to leave the Dr. Phil show with presents.

    In search of answers, I turned to my own expert. Kirk Olson works at Minneapolis’ Iconoculture Inc., where he brings together research and psychological and semiotic theories, all in an effort to understand what captures our attention and makes us open our wallets. I asked him what he thought about the conflation of game show-style giveaways and authentic therapeutic or spiritual progress.

    “A plasma TV is not about self-actualization; it’s about esteem,” Olson said, suggesting that when Dr. Phil gives someone a television, he’s recognizing the progress that person has made. But shouldn’t the progress be its own reward? “The reality,” Olson gently reminded me, “is that Dr. Phil, though he may be a psychologist, is also an entertainer. And Oprah as well is an entertainer.”

    Olson also revealed some new thinking about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. “We don’t look at it as a ladder,” he started off. A person living without safety, he explained, is certainly able to think about God (one of the higher concerns formerly reserved for the self-actualized), “and it doesn’t mean that they aren’t capable of working toward making their neighborhood a better place.” The ladder, he suggested, is really something more fluid, and scholars have since added some rungs. Between esteem and self-actualization now exists the need for self-expression, and beyond self-actualization has emerged transcendence, a position concerned with helping others.

    “There is a desire among people to be recognized,” Olson said, and so when Dr. Phil gives away a TV, “in the viewer there is a feeling that they’re watching someone with status be generous; they’re watching him give back to others. And with Oprah,” he continued, “people do feel that it’s coming from a genuine place.” It’s true—I recalled that all those audience members who drove off in their Pontiacs had been chosen specifically because they were hardworking folks who really did need cars but couldn’t afford them. And that the guests on Dr. Phil (and even Montel, who’s been bringing in his own doctors lately) are getting therapy after they leave the show that they probably wouldn’t be able to pay for themselves.

    Maybe Oprah and Dr. Phil—along with the host of other shows devoted to making our lives more productive and aesthetically pleasing and mentally healthy—have picked up where our government has left off. The corporate-sponsored, advertising-subsidized makeover/therapy shows have reached out to give the public a helping hand. Making us feel like we belong to a more generous society, eight minutes to an hour at a time.

  • Going It Alone

    Anybody who’s attended a Fringe Festival knows the drill. In the first days, before word-of-mouth reviews get out, you flip through the program, scanning for provocative or otherwise attention-grabbing titles (see this year’s I’m Naked and I’m Ready), which might indicate a show worth taking a chance on. Last year, scouring the listings, I zeroed in on Whiskey Bars, not really for its title, but because it promised two things that tickle my fancy: Kurt Weill songs and cabaret.

    Fifteen minutes into the show, my friend was drumming her palm against her knee, trying to help this poor fellow (an out-of-towner, by the way) keep time. With no rhythm and, worse, no pitch, he butchered Weill’s songs. Even more painful was the narrative thread, a story about a past-his-prime performer making backstage confessions to a ghostly critic. In other words, this was a show about the woes of being a bad actor.

    As with so many art forms, just because theater can be done solo doesn’t mean it should be. “Why do they often insist on doing at least three of the following tasks themselves: writing, directing, performing, composing, and design?” That was a question posed earlier this year by New York Times critic Margo Jefferson, in an essay called “Words to the Wise Performance Artist: Get Help. Collaborate. Grow.” Human beings, she argued, are endowed with but one gift, two if they’re lucky (three if they’re Meredith Monk). Thus, artistic expression is better served when artists with complementary gifts collaborate—see Gilbert and Sullivan, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Mozart and da Ponte.

    Whiskey Bars neatly showcased Jefferson’s point. This performer, who had an impressive opera resume, had shouldered many tasks outside his realm of capabilities. His text luxuriated in solipsism. His interpretation compelled him to flit about as if he had swallowed Mexican jumping beans. That, in turn, buried all musical rhythm or pitch.

    Much of this could have been avoided had he engaged with a real director—someone to camp out in the sixth row during rehearsals, shaping the show from the perspective of its audience, rather than the performer. Theater cannot exist without an audience; even when the impetus to create a solo show is to exorcise personal demons, why put your work onstage if you don’t envision some sort of payoff for those watching?

    Judging by the growth of one-person shows at Fringe Festivals here and around the world, the numbers of people who want to get up onstage and gamble on that payoff are, to say the least, not subsiding. Ease and economy are two prime factors—shows like extended monologues and unaccompanied acts are among the least expensive and most easily produced forms of theater. It follows, then, that the low-tech, nonjuried Fringe Festival environment (for which acts are chosen by lottery) is a natural breeding ground for them; this year, about one in five Minnesota Fringe productions (August 4 through 14 this year) is a solo show. The Minnesota Fringe Festival, the biggest in the U.S., even helped spawn a handful of solo celebrities, like the provocateur Heidi Arneson, ancient tale-teller Charlie Bethel, shtick-man Ari Hoptman, and the hilariously self-loathing Amy Salloway. Even Kevin Kling counts in a way—National Public Radio made him famous, but scores of fans look forward to his annual Fringe show.

    As a genre, the one-person performance is hardly monolithic. A single performer might play multiple, even dozens of characters, as in Becky Mode’s Broadway hit Fully Committed (produced to much acclaim by the Jungle Theater two years ago). Then there’s the lonely cabaret singer, stringing together songs with simple and often innuendo-laced narrative; and performers who blur the lines between theater and standup (see Margaret Cho, Billy Crystal, and even Dame Edna). But the largest subspecies of one-person performance, the one propagating within Fringe Festivals with the most vigor, is the theatrical cousin to literary memoir, or even reality television. These shows often are written, performed, and directed by a single person and mostly or wholly concerned with that person’s life. At this year’s Festival, Esera Tuaolo, the gay former Vikings football player, is slated to perform For the Rest of My Life, and Kling will dish up another helping of home-state stories in Dick da Tird. Salloway, who had a local and national Fringe Fest hit with Does This Monologue Make Me Look Fat? will relate tales from her summers at Jewish camp in So Kiss Me Already, Herschel Gertz!

    In an age of DIY everything, this surfeit of self-involved theater comes as no big surprise. Glancing across the larger spectrum of pop culture, it’s easy to find what’s fanning the flames of our performance fantasies: home recording technology, desktop video- and music-editing suites, and, more pointedly, the glut of reality television series and makeover shows. It may be a stretch to say everyone’s an artist, but surely we can all be actors, or at least performers of some sort. Maybe the private citizen is becoming obsolete; our struggles—with intimacy, with weight loss, with marriage—are no longer deemed mundane. Depending on how much of ourselves we are willing to expose, if we’re willing to perform our problems, we’re sure to attract at least a few voyeurs.

    From the audience perspective, confessional theater appeals to our often prurient sense of curiosity. In that respect, among last year’s tell-alls, Salloway’s Does This Monologue Make Me Look Fat? did not just go the farthest; it was also one of the best. The audience knew all along that the insufferable main character was Salloway herself; still, they laughed raucously (and some cried) because her stories—late-night supermarket binges; an attempt to find self-acceptance at a convention of obese lesbians, even though she’s heterosexual—were as devastating as they were sidesplitting. Salloway is apparently one of those doubly gifted artists, having written and performed her show (she also apparently got lucky in going without a director). The script was stacked with witty turns of phrase and conversational stylings, but more important, it was clear that Salloway the performer managed to detach herself from Salloway the person (as, of course, any good actor must do). She treated herself as a character, and offered a perspective on that character that was neither glamorous nor protective.

    It’s not just acting and writing that draws us to solo performers, despite the considerable chance that we’ll be disappointed by what they offer. There’s also something noble about their perseverance. In some cases, such as Salloway’s, these folks consider themselves outcasts from the larger ensemble theater world. Salloway is obviously a capable actor, but she doesn’t fit the two most popular actress prototypes, the ingénue and the “comforting aunty.” Thus her longtime battle to get cast in ensemble productions. Yet passion pushed her on to make a name serving up one-woman sideshows.

    Also, it can be mighty lonely up there onstage. Many of us have a distinct fear about public speaking, let alone baring all, emotionally at least, before a live audience; this feeds our admiration for people who do. And in my case, I suspected seeing a show about a fat actress (this was well before Kirstie Alley’s TV show) would leave me feeling better about myself. Somehow we take comfort in knowing there are people more messed up than we are, and luckily for us, they’re everywhere these days.

    But beyond all that, first-rate solo performers can challenge us to have a more engaging theater experience. After all, they have no one to rely on except their audience, whereas in ensemble productions, the actors create energy among themselves. At last year’s festival, local storyteller Dave Mondy seemed to be talking directly to his audience in This Love Train is Unstoppable and I Am the Conductor—but it was less an incarnation of the dreaded “interactive theater” than it was a nod to solo theater’s kinship with cabaret, standup, and one-on-one storytelling.

    These forms are bound together by performers who “fake” trusting relationships with their audiences, which can elicit a more passionate response and sometimes make the whole experience rather volatile. It’s the rare solo show that can trick our imaginations to go outside the playhouse. Suddenly, we can become less interested in our own entertainment and, instead, more invested in the well being of its star. In the instance of Salloway, when I eventually spoke to her, long after seeing her show, I had to repress the desire to ask about her personal life. After all, while her performance was certainly drawn from real life, it was also necessary to remember that it had all been an act.

  • Hot Times in Fun City

    Back in the 1950s and 60s, a day trip to Excelsior, the waterfront town along the south shores of Lake Minnetonka, was the highlight of summer for many a city kid. The main attraction was the widely hyped Excelsior Amusement Park, which was inspired by Coney Island and had opened in 1925. Proprietor Ray Colihan was an astute promoter, luring fun-seekers with a harrowing wooden roller coaster that, like the one at Coney Island, was called the Cyclone, and with teen concerts at the Danceland ballroom. (The Rolling Stones played there in 1964, on their first North American tour, and rumor has it that “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is the result of a conversation between Mick Jagger and a local character, “Mr. Jimmy.”)

    Excelsior Amusement Park was demolished in 1974, a year after it closed. Not surprisingly, high-buck condominiums and a restaurant now occupy the site. Certainly, Excelsior always had its exclusive side. In the late 1800s, it was a resort destination whose visitors included wealthy Southerners looking for cool breezes and raucous yacht parties. These days, the town is more sedate, but that’s not to say it has lost its independent spirit. Two years ago, it unleashed a small but notorious ad campaign, “Secede From Starbucks Nation,” which was conceived to play up its old-fashioned main street and concentration of locally owned businesses. (Dunn Bros Coffee has an outpost there, as does the one-and-only 318 coffeeshop/bistro.)

    Sure, there are gift shops and candy stores a-plenty, but there are also a host of unique businesses in historic buildings, like the three-story International Order of Odd Fellows building, which is crowned by carved I.O.O.F. initials and houses the Minnetonka Music instrument store. Although neighborhood drug- and hardware stores have gone the way of the Cyclone, stalwarts like the Dock Theater, a discount art-house cinema, and the steadfastly independent Excelsior Bay Books still do a brisk business. Other idiosyncratic ventures include the sixty-five-year-old Old Log Theatre, Adele’s Frozen Custard, and Cynthia Rae Dress Code, a “Bold, Hot, Young” boutique that carries plus-sized clothing.

    Still, for throngs of beach goers and other connoisseurs of summer fun, the real draw in Excelsior is Lake Minnetonka. Excursion boats moor at a dock at the downtown marina or even at a lakeside bench on Excelsior Commons, the sprawling park that hugs the waterfront. Families congregate at the ice cream cart and the playground. Couples picnic on grassy knolls. With promenades and park benches offering strategic views of Excelsior Bay, the Commons is the perfect place to soak up summer.

    —Christy DeSmith