The Rake Magazine

Year: 2006

  • Capulets and Montagues

    My neighborhood is solidly Democrat. As I walked through it one autumn day two years ago, I made a point of counting lawn signs. On one half-hour walk, I saw eighteen Kerry signs and only one for Bush. I made virtually the same walk the other day, for the same purpose, but with a different result. There are a lot of signs around for Democratic candidates Hatch and Klobuchar. I didn’t see a single one for Pawlenty, and I saw only one for Alan Fine — the same number I saw for Keith Ellison.

    Based on my unscientific survey, Independence Party congressional candidate Tammy Lee is going to win Kenwood. She’s got three planted on my route.

    Oddly, one of them was in the same yard as signs for Klobuchar and Hatch. Klobuchar–Hatch… Lee. So, we have a loyal DFLer in a solidly DFL neighborhood who is supporting a third-party candidate. Even though this is Peter Hutchinson’s neighborhood, the only evidence of support for him I’ve seen is an orange bag of leaves printed with HUTCHINSON in the corner of one yard—his own.

    What gives?

    The argument one hears repeatedly against voting for a third-party candidate is that it’s a wasted vote. Sure, there are those who opine that no vote for a candidate you truly believe in is wasted, but I sometimes wonder if those who voted for Nader in 2000 ever regret their small role in the election of Bush.

    Of course, Minnesota has recent experience in electing a third-party candidate. That was indeed a strange night in 1998. (I’m still waiting for someone to explain how Norm Coleman could get only thirty-four percent of the vote when running against Jesse Ventura but fifty percent when pitted against Fritz Mondale.) I’m pretty sure I understand, though, how Ventura beat Coleman and Skip Humphrey. Jesse was positioned perfectly by his ad campaign, but the most important factor in his election was that he represented the perfect storm of voter convergence. Each of his competitors was repugnant in his own way, so a vote for Jesse, even though nobody believed he would win, wasn’t truly a wasted vote. In the minds of most voters, it wouldn’t have made much difference which trite ideologue replaced the very likeable and moderate Arne Carlson, and given that ambivalence—and even indifference—Jesse seemed like a reasonable choice.

    That perfect storm could be rising again in the Fifth District.

    There is no danger of casting a “wasted vote” there. Alan Fine is mere political kibble being served up as this year’s Republican sacrifice to the DFL ogre. (His health-care position paper includes the startling suggestion that we should all exercise more and eat fruits and vegetables. We are also impressed that he can do sixteen pull-ups.) He has no chance to do anything other than try to smear other Democratic candidates by trying to drag them into the Keith Ellison mess.

    The Fifth District is such a DFL stronghold, and Ellison—despite his well-publicized ability to screw up a two-person parade—is so far ahead that even if every evangelical Christian in the district voted for Fine twice, Ellison would still win.

    But how many times have you heard your friends claim they are “socially liberal but fiscally conservative”? Just as often, probably, as you’ve heard them say they don’t want to throw away their vote on a third-party candidate, especially if it means there’s even the slightest chance they could be tipping the outcome in favor of an undesirable contender. They need not worry about that in the Fifth District. Fine is a nonfactor whose best tactic was to obediently salute the Republican commanders and call Ellison a Muslim.

    I spoke to an Ellison supporter the other day who gleefully looked forward to sending “another message” to Congress, à la the one Minnesota sent with Paul Wellstone. “Wouldn’t it be great if Minnesota were the first state to elect a Muslim to Congress?” she said. In other words, the best endorsement of Ellison she could offer was to call him a Muslim, too.

    However, for all those good Democrats who despise Fine, there are those who loathe the idea of replacing the avuncular Martin Sabo with the two-dimensional cardboard caricature of a liberal that is Ellison.

    All the national polls reveal that Americans have an even lower opinion of Congress than they do of George W. Bush. Even so, we’re going to reelect most of the venal clowns anyway.

    If Minnesota wants to send a real message to the nation, wouldn’t a stronger one be the election of Tammy Lee?

    “A plague on both your houses” would make a good subject line.

  • Dr. John

    Charity comes in strange packages: Dr. John is raising some cash to aid New Orleans reconstruction efforts by selling his underwear. However, it should be noted that the good Doctor’s briefs are brand new, and emblazoned with a snazzy souvenir New Orleans logo. (He wears size large, by the way.) The Crescent City legend has also undertaken more conventional fundraising efforts; he’s been an omnipresent figure on the benefit-concert circuit, supporting wetlands reconstruction, displaced NOLA musicians, and a variety of other Katrina-related causes. Known to his mother as Malcolm Rebennack, Dr. John’s piano-driven blues is one of the most distinctive flavors of the diverse New Orleans music scene—making him a fine ambassador for NOLA, if not a great underwear salesman. 1010 Nicollet Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-332-1010; www.dakotacooks.com

  • The Decemberists

    It’s one thing to buy a band’s album; it’s another thing entirely to buy them new instruments. (Isn’t that what parents are for?) But something in the Decemberists, a sort of homely ensemble of indie balladeers from Portland, Oregon, must bring out the inner nurturer in their followers. When the band’s tour van and gear were stolen a couple years ago, fans helped raise cash to get the band back on its feet. And how did the Decemberists repay that generosity of spirit? By signing to a major label and making The Crane Wife, a delicate, multilayered set of songs inspired by history and literature, and influenced by a host of musical forebears, including Robyn Hitchcock, Elliott Smith, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Waterboys, and the Handsome Family. 612-332-1775; www.first-avenue.com

  • Tom Waits

    Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards, CD available November 21
    This is what we want for Christmas, even if the leathery, Beetlegeuse-ish Waits is more a Halloween kind of guy, and even if we probably can’t wait that long. A career retrospective (not a greatest-hits collection), this three-disc set compiles twenty-four rarities and thirty new songs by an artist absolutely without peer. In other words, Orphans offers a treasure trove for longtime fans and a splendid introduction for new converts. Many of the tunes from Waits’ catalog of spooky, minstrelesque ballads—concerning such subjects as love, death, dogs, and booze—would sound like sweet little carnival gems if they weren’t sung in the gravelly croak of a well-marinated carny. And plenty manage to be beautiful all the same, wrecked pipes be damned. Then there’s Waits’ version of bonus tracks: his bizarre interpretations of songs by folks like the Ramones, Daniel Johnston, and Leadbelly.

  • Beethoven Festival

    The SPCO hits the road for a three-week tour of the Twin Cities, celebrating the works of that cranky genius Beethoven, a man whose love life was a series of trysts with one married lady after another. Commitment phobic or just unlucky in love? Either way, he died single after channeling his romantic energy into a body of work that seems crafted for the heart as much as the ear. This year’s festival is devoted to his symphonies—all nine get a workout—as well as the piano concertos. For its finale, the SPCO will wrap things up with a performance of Ode to Joy at the Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis, which ought to really get the bells ringing in the old Beaux Arts landmark. 651.291.1144; www.thespco.org

  • Carolina Chocolate Drops

    Formed by young, classically trained musicians, Carolina Chocolate Drops aim to carry on the tradition of Southern black string music, which largely died out with the birth of the recording industry and the ascendance of the blues. Most folks today think of old-timey music as bluegrass played by white people from Appalachia, but historically, the music belonged equally to African-Americans from the Carolina Piedmont (central North and South Carolina). The banjo, which originated in Africa, is at the band’s center, but the mix also includes guitars, fiddle, harmonica, and the occasional fife, snare drum, or jug. Some of the Drops’ tunes are slow and soulful, but many are stomping party tunes, designed—just as when the music was born—to keep the audience dancing. The Drops’ performance here will be filmed by John Whitehead, a local at work on a documentary chronicling the black string renaissance. 416 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-338-2674; www.thecedar.org

  • Ray LaMontagne

    In many ways, Maine is something of a coastal Minnesota. It has loons, moose, and a stump-studded northwoods. It has a Plymouth, an Orono, a Medford, and a Northfield. We have Granite Gear; they have L.L.Bean. It’s like the two states were separated at birth—by glaciers. But you don’t hear much about the hot Maine music scene. The state’s only star of note is Ray LaMontagne, a guy with a mythical-sounding backstory: One night, after his shift at the shoe factory, he hears a Stephen Stills song on the radio and has an epiphany: He should make music, not shoes! So he quits his job on the spot and starts writing songs. Minnesota has produced Prince, the Jayhawks, and Bob Dylan, and LaMontagne’s sound borrows a bit from all three, as evidenced by his rootsy, sexy 2004 debut, Trouble. The fellow is notoriously shy, which has made touring difficult, but perhaps he’ll feel at home here. 651-989-5151; www.hennepintheatredistrict.org

  • Fast Food Nation

    Director Richard Linklater’s love of the 1970s may have reached its zenith with this film, which would fit well with the paranoid classics Coppola, Pakula, and Altman made some thirty years ago. Adapting (with author Eric Schlosser) the controversial non-fiction account of the fast-food industry, he avoids the hysterical polemics of, say, Michael Moore, for a much more engaging—and infuriating—story. The film follows a teenaged worker at the Mickey’s chain undergoing a political awakening; a burger exec facing a crisis of corporate faith; and a group of Mexicans whose lives are wrecked so that we may eat cheaply. “The machine don’t give a shit,” one character laments, and like the cows in the meat-processing plant, the people of Fast Food Nation are, in fact, devoured by the system.

  • Hail the Conquering Hero

    Even though chronic hay fever keeps him from service in the Marines, Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith tells everyone that he’s fighting overseas. All the while, he’s hiding out in a distant city, working in a munitions factory. When a group of down-on-their luck leathernecks hear the truth, they usher poor Woodrow back to his hometown for a hero’s welcome to ease his mother’s worried heart. Arguably Preston Sturges’ masterpiece, Hail the Conquering Hero is a film so ripe for remake it almost hurts. In classic screwball fashion, it takes on patriotism, the media, and politicians who manipulate war for their own benefit—and in the process, lampoons contemporary wartime culture in an almost frighteningly prescient way. Part of the seven-disk series: Preston Sturges: The Filmmaker Collection.

  • For Your Consideration

    At first, it just sounds too good to be true. But as rumors persist that the independent film Home for Purim is generating Oscar buzz, the entire cast and crew—triumphs of mediocrity, each and every one of them—slowly begin to unravel. Christopher Guest’s mockumentaries are always good for an evening of belly laughs, although his acerbic wit seems to have evaporated in his last two films and been replaced by mawkish sentiment. With For Your Consideration, Guest is back in form, skewering a subject well worth roasting: Hollywood and its obsession with self-congratulation. He has rounded up his crew of stalwarts—Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Eugene Levy, and the brave Parker Posey—and brings in Ricky Gervais, creator of The Office, who could raise the embarrassment level to new highs—or drop it to new lows, depending on your outlook.