The Rake Magazine

Month: May 2007

  • From Milan to New York to Minnesota

    DINING
    A Rake’s Tour of World Flavors: Milan

    TreVina2.gifChef William Salvador, born just north of Milan, brings a taste of authentic Italy to Minnesota. TreVina features a menu where everything is made from scratch, from breads and sauces to gnocchi rolled by hand to steaks and fresh fish butchered in house. Enjoy dishes with distinct flavors expertly paired with wine. Join The Rake, Whole Foods Market, and The Wine Company for a monthly food and wine experience. Travel to the best restaurants in the Twin Cities and sample wine and cuisine from regions far and near. Includes a multiple course tasting menu and wine pairings.

    6 p.m., TreVina Italian Steak House, 200 North Concord Exchange, South Saint Paul; $40 (plus tip), reservations required.

    MUSIC
    Casual Classics: All That Jazz

    3308327469.jpgDavid Alan Miller completes his eighth and final season as conductor and host of The Minnesota Orchestra’s Casual Classics with a concert featuring conversation and New York-style jazz. Snap, swing and dig into cool with pieces ranging from Ellington and Bernstein to Gershwin’s quintessential Rhapsody in Blue. Then join Miller in the lobby for a champagne toast and salute.

    7 p.m., Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis; 612-371-5656; $19.25-$44.25.

    FILM
    It’s That Time of the Month Again

    lounge_main.jpgIt’s the third Wednesday of the month again, and if you’re a film freak like me, you should know what that means by now. It’s time for Cinema Lounge again — independent short films from Twin Cities filmmakers. Stop by and see short films by SleepyEye; Rick Fuller and Tim Buckley; Koerner, Ray, and Glover; and John Fleetman. Have a drink, hear from the filmmakers, ask any questions you like, and schmooze with other film folks.

    7 p.m. (doors at 6), Bryant Lake Bowl, 810 West Lake St., Minneapolis; 612-825-3737; donations accepted.

    BOOKS & AUTHORS
    Beneath the Surface

    0873515781f.gifDo much fishing? Wanna improve your game? This may be one of the few book readings that can help. Join Bruce Carlson and the Minnesota Historical Society Press for a reading, discussion, and signing of the new book Beneath the Surface: A Natural History of a Fisherman’s Lake. After fishing and studying Ten Mile Lake in central Minnesota since 1955, Carlson explores how the dynamics of a lake shift from day to night and from season to season. He outlines the effects of a storm on the wildlife below and explains the intricacies of a beaver’s lodge design. And through special chapters that reveal the rhythms and constraints of various species of fish, Carlson shows anglers how to hone their techniques to heighten fishing success.

    7 p.m., St. Paul Public Library – Highland Branch, 1974 Ford Parkway, St. Paul; 651-695-3700; free.

    ON THE NET
    Boys Will Be Boys

    Warning, some of this material may be inappropriate for work. You might want to make sure your boss isn’t looking over your shoulder — just in case.

    Good Magazine: Internet Porn

    Taking Sports Too Far

    What Is It about Xerox?

    Real Men Knit

    How To Shower: Women vs. Men

    Dear Penis

    The Big Woo

  • wikifood

    itm_headerSite.JPG

    Food & Wine has launched a Chowhound meets MySpace kinda thingy called Food & Wine Across America.

    Does it feel like they’re using locals to ferret out story ideas?

    Well, check it out … there’s an interactive map and everything!

  • Mistake By The Lake: Game One In Cleveland

    I’ll have to do some more digging around to figure out what exactly happened, because I left the room for what seemed like five minutes during tonight’s game, and when I came back Jesse Crain was gone and the Indians had tacked six unearned runs on the board.

    I used to think I had a pretty good understanding of the rule covering unearned runs, but I’m still having a hard time figuring out how a guy could give up six unearned runs on 25 pitches. It sort of hurts my head to think about it.

    It’s never nice     to know one of your guys is hurt, but I guess it’s still sort of nice to know that Crain has been pitching hurt, if only as a way of explaining his lousy performance in the last month.

    Ramon Ortiz was     not just disappointing tonight, but alarmingly disappointing. He looked absolutely nothing like the guy who pitched so aggressively and with so much enthusiasm in the early going. Maybe that’s the problem now; Ortiz works so quickly, and is so aggressive in going after hitters, that it seems like the scouting report is encouraging opposing batters to be equally aggressive in their approach against him. The guy gave up six runs on just 34 pitches.

    How nice of     the Twins to pick this particular night to slug four home runs. The real problem, though, was that those home runs might have actually meant something if Glen Perkins hadn’t come in to relieve Ortiz and given up three runs of his own (two IP, four hits, two walks, 48 pitches: that line would represent a bad night for Sidney Ponson). Those three runs, and Crain’s later blowout –aided by Nick Punto’s first error of the season– made moot Minnesota’s late mini-rally.

    It was nice to see Garrett Jones, though, and Morneau’s two homers moved him into second place in the AL (now just five back of Alex Rodriguez). And the offense had a pretty decent night overall –every starter but Hunter had a hit– but with all the injuries, the offensive inconsistency, and the recent struggles of most of the starting rotation, this is increasingly a team that looks to be in a serious bit of trouble.

  • Guild Expected to Accept Buy-Out Terms Today

    Pressured by a small group of colleagues inclined to take the buy-out offer presently on the table, Guild employees at the Star Tribune are expected to accept company terms in a 4 p.m. meeting/vote today. A similar vote yesterday fizzled when Guild members had too many unanswered questions to vote.

    The offer from Avista Capital Partners offers an additional three months pay to the maximum, plus six extra months of COBRA coverage on health insurance. The Guild had asked for a year on the latter, along with several other small concessions, like staggering pay-offs to diminish tax implications, but the paper rejected those requests.

    If the buy-out is accepted today, Guild employees will have two weeks, starting tomorrow if accepted, to make their decision to leave or stay, and another 45 days after that to rescind a decision to leave.

    The company is looking to cut 50 positions out of the present newsroom. Best guess-timates at the moment believe the buy-out offer will get something less than 20 takers, leaving the company and union poised to battle over the remainder.

    If laid-off, a Strib Guild member would get essentially the same compensation package as 24 former colleagues took in early March.

  • Drive More. Do More. Be More.

    This is just in–from Scarborough Research. For the uinitiated, this is the R&D group that Advertising Agencies use as the God’s (…as we understand hewm..) Truth.

    “This analysis demonstrates a very simple but compelling point: the more time consumers spend on the road, the more likely they are to have the latest media and information technology devices– MP3 players, DVRs, PDAs, and HDTV,” said Carol Edwards, vice president, Out-Of-Home Media Services, Scarborough Research and Arbitron Inc. “

    In other words, those who drive drive the rest of us. Unless, of course, you are a Luddite and drive uhm, I dunno, like one of those new Chryslers (pathetic, absolutely pathetic use of mettalurgy.)

  • What To Watch When You're Watching At Home

    thirdman1.gif

    Lots of great (or intriguing) DVDs coming out this week: Pan’s Labyrinth, Army of Shadows, La Revue des Revues, something freaky called Woodenhead, and Darren Aronofsky’s baffling Fountain, which I walked out on because it was so incomprehensive. And stupid.

    But today marks the 102nd birthday of the great Joseph Cheshire Cotten (thanks to Steve Monaco for the reminder). Cotten’s one of my favorite actors, and appeared in two of my favorite films: Citizen Kane and The Third Man, the last of which just recently received the Criterion treatment all over again. Cotten was a close pal of Orson Welles and had a significant role in the big boy’s Mercury Theatre–in fact, Joe was pressed into writing the screenplay for Journey Into Fear, some scenes of The Magnificent Ambersons (when Welles had vanished into Rio to film It’s All True), and was a go-between for Welles and RKO over the Ambersons mess (all of which is a long, long story for another day).

    Cotten was a likeable onscreen personality, with nary a whit of sex appeal, but perfect in the role of The Third Man’s Holly Martins, the bumbling guy who can’t get the girl. Cotten was an everyman, but one with a terrific sense of humor, a biting wit, and whose frustrations bubbled just beneath that weary smile of his. He made his name in theater first (originally a critic), playing the Jimmy Stewart role in the original Broadway production of The Philadelphia Story. He starred in Hitchcock’s personal favorite of all his films, Shadow of a Doubt and his menace there is palpable. Other greats, many of which are available at your library or local video store, include The Farmer’s Daughter, Duel in the Sun, and Gaslight.

    Oddly enough, Cotten also is present in the very opening of Kane, playing one of the reporters in the shadows–you can see him there, grinning, eager to be a part of that crazy production. Above all, he looked like a man who relished being in the movies, and giving us a solid night’s entertainment. Priceless.

  • Books Are the Best Music of All

    BOOKS & AUTHORS

    Nonfiction, Neoliberal Globalization, and Social Change

    border03.jpgDavid Bacon spent 20 years as a factory worker and union organizer before becoming a photo journalist in the mid-80s. Since then, he has published numerous essays and photo essays documenting farm labor, immigration, and the impact of the global economy on workers. Bacon represents American working-class journalism at its finest, exposing stories seldom picked up by mainstream media. Tonight Bacon will be discussing a border that few North Americans know anything about — a working-class fight for survival on the unequal playing ground of NAFTA, where labor rights are often dishonored and where activists often end up blacklisted, jailed, or even desparecido (disappeared). Children of NAFTA: Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border investigates the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement on those who labor in the agricultural fields and maquiladora factories on the border. And since union organizers are in fact the heroes in Bacon’s story, he will be joined this evening by Javier Morillo-Alicea, president of SEIU Local 26. (You’re likely to have heard of him as the organizer behind the recent janitors’ strike.)

    7 p.m., Metropolitan State University/, Dayton’s Bluff Branch Library, Ecolab Room, 645 E. 7th St., St. Paul; 651-793-1699; free.

    Choose Your Own Adventure

    PLM_1_-100x150.jpg“Child of the ’80s that she is, when local writer and independent public-radio producer Heather McElhatton decided to write a book, she chose to resurrect the literary model made famous by Bantom Books’ classic Choose Your Own Adventure series. The result, Pretty Little Mistakes, is a novel with 150 endings to choose from, where adults can refuse marriage proposals, experiment with substances, and indulge their bi-curiosity.” Join The Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library this evening to celebrate the book launch of McElhatton’s new novel. The program will include an introduction by Kevin Kling, a reading by McElhatton, guitar accompaniment by Robert Bell, and a reception of complimentary desserts, a cash bar, and book signing.

    7 p.m., Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis; 612-630-6174; free.

    Ink Runs from the Corners of My Mouth

    Hasse copy.jpgThe Carol Connolly Reading Series continues tonight with performances by poets Margaret Hasse and Richard Solly. Author of Stars Above, Stars Below, New Rivers Press and In A Sheep’s Eye, Darling, Margaret Hasse will be performing poems from her latest collection, Milk and Tides. Now a St. Paulite, Hasse works as a consultant to arts and community organizations. With three books to his credit, Richard Solly will read from his newest, From Where the Rivers Come, a gripping collection about loving and rising from the depths of illness and mere consciousness. Whew! That’s a mind-full.

    7:30 p.m. (5 p.m. for dinner with reservations), University Club of St. Paul, 420 Summit Ave., St Paul; 651-222-1751; free (dinner not included).

    Read “Boundaries” by Margaret Hasse.
    Read “White Point, Nova Scotia” by Richard Solly.

    MUSIC

    It’s no secret that Branford Marsalis is playing tonight at the Dakota. In fact, the show is sold out. But great as Marsalis is, he’s not the only music in town. Irish singer/songwriter Damien Rice is playing a 7:30 p.m. show at Northrop Auditorium, and The Killers are playing at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium at 8 p.m. These are all good acts to catch, but again… no real secret there.

    Classical String Instruments in Decidedly Nonclassical Projects

    930227284_m.jpgThe hot musical secret of the night is the Ponytails & Ivory show at the 331 Club. Liz Draper, of Black Blondie fame, and Jonathan Kaiser, of Blackthorns fame, come together for an evening of double bass and cello duets. Ponytails & Ivory — a reference to the horsehair and ivory used to make the bow of a stringed instrument — gives the two string musicians a forum in which to play 100% improvised music. They never discuss any plans before they start playing; and no two performances are alike. Thus they are able to smoothly incorporate any influences that seem right on the spur of the moment — simple lyrical melodies, percussive rhythms, or even atmospheric sound experiments. Tonight’s show marks their third performance as a duo.

    10 p.m., 331 Club, 331 13th Ave. NE, Minneapolis; free.

    RAKING THE NET
    Goings-on Around Town

    Thanks to a hot new local blog full of great daily secrets, I got wind of JimmyOgraphy’s new video project. See what you’ve been missing around town.

    Wondering how to spend the day at work?

    Here’s some fun for you: the perfect time waster. Isn’t it beautiful?!

    Have a secret to share? Send it to cristina@rakemag.com, and don’t be afraid to comment here, folks. This one-way interaction is getting a bit stale.

  • If I Were A Readers' Rep …

    Being a fellow of modest dreams some days all I want to be is the Readers’ Representative for a big city newspaper, like the Star Tribune. If my dream came true I’d write something like this:
    .
    .
    .
    Hi, everyone. By now you’ve probably heard of big changes at this paper you’re reading.

    It is all true. There will be a lot more lay-offs, and they follow the firing of some very pleasant ladies at our switchboard who have lived in the Twin Cities for decades and knew everyone in the building and provided a nice human touch to our customers’ first interaction with the paper. In the newsroom people will be getting switched from beats they’ve worked and studied for years and know very well to beats they don’t know much if anything about. And that’s THIS YEAR. Next year we’ll have to duke out a new contract, and I’m telling now that that’ll be bloody.

    Then there is our publisher, the one who is being sued for plotting his switch from our major competitor across the river to this paper while he was still in a position to do significant competitive damage to the paper over there. (And yes, to put a point on it, that very same fellow is currently charged with assessing the return-on-investment needs of HIS employers here and if that means depriving 150 middle class Minnesota families of a very large portion of their livelihood in order assure those investors that they will not have to find cheaper dockage for their yachts in Naples this coming season.)

    Obviously I won’t being saying anything about our publisher’s problems, ever. Nor will I comment on the propriety of someone under such a cloud inflicting the kind of financial and emotional damage he is on Minnesota working families. Why? Well, because that would be pretty incautious and imprudent of me, wouldn’t it? A lot of us in newspapers are just trying to run out the clock to the reasonable, modest retirement we had planned for ourselves before our new owners decided our retirement incomes would look better in their pockets.

    But that said … the way I look at a Readers’ Rep’s job is this: My job is to observe and analyze the performance of all levels of this newspaper without fear or favor. If the influence of newspapers depends on our reputation for being reliable truth-seekers and truth-tellers, my job is to be transparently candid as to whether my colleagues and superiors are living up to what is, let’s face it, a critical social responsibility. I mean, look around, we seem to be living in a time when every other news source except maybe Bill Moyers is playing back and at half speed to avoid taking the kind of criticism that is supposed to come with the territory.

    One criteria for being a really good newspaper is the desire and ability to go after stories that effect the largest number of citizens. That’s why it is extremely important that we always follow the money. When lots of money starts piling up in one corner of the city or another you have to be able to depend on us to snoop around and ask the kind of annoying questions that always make really rich people speed dial the publisher and complain about our impertinence and threaten to pull advertising if we don’t knock it off.

    We sure screwed up on UnitedHealth in all those years leading up to Bill McGuire’s back-dated stock option scandal didn’t we? It was pretty embarrassing to watch the Wall Street Journal dig that story out of our backyard, start a national reexamination of executive pay “techniques” and win a Pulitzer Prize for it, no less.

    But, to be honest, we can’t get into that kind of thing.

    I’d like to be able to promise you that we learned a lesson on the UnitedHealth story. But the fact is we’re playing a much different game than the half-dozen or so real newspapers left in the country — the Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times and — well, maybe there aren’t a half dozen anymore. Papers like that still see the whole country and the world as part of their beat and they still assign their own people to cover it. A paper like we are today, with investors demanding pre-internet levels of profit — through attrition, not growth — all we can do is pick up what they write a day or so later. Sure, most of you who are really interested in that kind of reporting have already read it on line or in the paper edition the Journal and the Times deliver to your door at the same time as ours. But, I’m trying to be honest here, that’s just where we’re at. We can’t play with the big boys anymore. The best we can do is pretend.

    Just as we gave up on reporting from overseas years ago, and just as we have now pretty much given up on reporting on anything national … other than sporting events, which of course doesn’t make any sense since only Paris Hilton’s breast augmentation and suspended driver license gets more coverage than big sporting events … we are now pretty much getting out of the kind of “enterprise” reporting that might upset very influential local companies and people.

    It’s been years since we had enough people for that kind of thing, and after our investors take this latest round of cuts, we’re going to have even less for the kind of stories that take longer than a day or two to report, because we’re reassigning a 100 or so reporters to the suburbs.

    Some of you keep asking, “What’s with this suburbs deal? Who cares what’s going on in the Bloomington school district. Don’t they have their own Sun newspapers to cover that stuff.” Well, of course they do, and those Sun papers do a fine job. But, with Macy’s and other advertisers starting to slide dollars over to the internet, the fact is we need to poach the Sun papers’ advertisers more than ever.

    We need the mom and pop stores in Bloomington and Eagan and Woodbury and Blaine, and in order to get them we’re sending reporters out to write stuff about class sizes in Bloomington, etc. and the stars of the Bloomington Jefferson track team and the Blaine tennis program, etc. Nothing too critical, you understand, because then we’d just have a smaller version of the same problem we get into with the UnitedHealths of the world. But, still something we can call “coverage”, you know. By that I mean, “facts”. How many votes for. How many votes against. No snarky “analysis”.

    We’re also getting rid of our TV critic and our architecture critic. Because, well, we can get stories about TV shows from the Associated Press or a hundred other places, and we know they’ll be timely and positive and fun and that the people who wrote them won’t go howling to the copy desk when we cut them from 30 inches to 6 to fit around a really cute picture of Lindsay Lohan fresh out of treatment and promoting her new movie.

    We will continue “coverage” of local media. But again, the snarky tone you read on websites and blogs is nothing but a real pain in the tuckus when you have to make small talk with radio and TV people at luncheons and seminars. They don’t like us telling our readers they screwed up. Who would? Not us. So we’re going to just stick with “reporting” who got hired and the latest ratings. We don’t think you’re interested in anything more than that.

    Again, I’m just being honest with you, here. I could say something like how all our reporters are looking forward to the “challenge” of “covering” the Shakopee Planning Commission meeting and that research shows a tremendous hunger among readers to find out if Shakopee really is going to approve that 48-unit Skunk Guano development … but who’d believe something as transparently false as that?

    Oh yeah, the architecture critic? Well, again, we know you’re interested in what’s going on with big building projects you see all the time. But frankly, like a lot of this stuff, we’re betting you won’t complain about what is not in the newspaper, and after a while you’ll stop caring it’s gone. Besides, we need one more reporter to cover the Lakeville gymnastics team.

    Finally, it is true we haven’t even explained to our own reporters who exactly owns us and what they intend to do with this newspaper. We should be covering the hell out of it, since it’s another “follow the money” story with relevance to hundreds of thousands of local citizens, but we won’t. And I’m not going to demand it. It’s just too risky. I mean, people are getting laid off left and right.

    We are however hoping the Wall St. Journal or the New York Times sends some reporters out here and finds out what in the hell is going on. Once they do, we might run a heavily-edited version of their story. That is if there’s any room left in the news hole after the update on re-paving Hwy. 101 through Minnetonka.

    I repeat though, I’m just trying to be honest here.

    Your Readers’ Rep-for-a-Day.

  • From Idea to Paper to Film (or Video)

    FILM
    Get Ready to Make Your Own

    The secret is out. Anyone can make a “film” these days. Granted, many of them bore the pants right off me after only ten seconds; but then as long as the pants are off, who cares? Have you tried your hand at video yet? Be brave and see what you can do in just 48 hours. (Who knows? It might even be a lesson in humility.) This year’s 48-Hour Film Project will take place from June 8th to the 10th. Attend an information session tonight to get more info on registering, watch past films, and talk to producer Ira Livingston in person.

    6 p.m., IFP Minnesota, 2446 University Ave. W., St. Paul; 651-644-1912; free.

    Yielding to the Great Filmmaking Abilities of Minnesotans

    755393970_m.jpgWhile the 48-Hour Film Festival might produce some amusing results, a film worth watching usually takes at least six days — or sometimes eight years. See what an accomplished filmmaker can do with his time. Wholecrue Productions invites you to an evening of art, cinema, drink, and song. The evening will begin with drinks, mingling, and an exhibition of works by local artists, followed by the premiere of writer/director Gregg Hortgrewe’s Unhinged. Hortgrewe shot this short thriller as a feature last summer, in just six days, and then cut it down in length. But the evening isn’t about this short. Not really. The main event awaits until after dinner. We can’t have our bellies growling during the movie, so fill them up to the music of Coach Said Not To. Once your belly is full, settle into your chair for the world premiere of Holtgrewe’s second feature film (yielding to) a willing breath. After eight years, Holtgrewe’s truly low-budget ($3,500) film is finally bringing local actors Paul Cram, Charles Brin, and T.Mychael Rambo to the forefront with this story about a man coming to terms with the death of his girlfriend. Enjoy the film, and stick around afterward for a question and answer session with Holtgrewe and producer Michael D. Howe.

    6 p.m., Suburban World Theater, 3022 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-822-9000; $20 with dinner.

    READING AND FILM
    Yet Another Piece of the Puzzle

    photo_bios_jcl.jpgClearly, most feature films are not a result of 48-hour projects. The screenwriting alone can seem to take an eternity (and often does). So imagine how frustrating it must be to finally complete the screenplay and still have to wait years to see it in action. Get a sneak peak of an upcoming film tonight, before it goes from paper to film. Minnesota actor John Carroll Lynch (Fargo,
    Zodiac    , and “The Drew Carey Show“) will direct a workshop reading of his next film, Remember Minnesota, a story about the 1987 University of Minnesota Crew team who came from their rusted corrugated tin hut on the Mississippi banks and, for the first time in their history, went all the way to the coveted rowing regatta championships to compete against the most powerful teams the Ivy League had to offer.

    7 p.m., The Ritz Theater, 345 13th Avenue NE, Minneapolis; 612-659-8292; $10 (free to Screenwriters’ Workshop members).

    BOOKS & AUTHORS
    Spiritual Deterioration

    Of course, you could always just leave the whole film “thang” to the visually obsessed and go for something more malleable? Two great authors are in town tonight to read from their latest novels. Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting will read from The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs, and Minneapolis native Arthur Phillips will discuss Angelica.

    3795120020.jpegThe Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs is the story of two men locked in a war of wills that threatens their very existence. Troubled restaurant inspector Danny Skinner sinks into alcoholism tortured by his mother’s refusal to reveal the identify of his father. Suspecting the answer may lie with celebrity chef Alan De Fretais, Skinner relocates to San Francisco, where he meets his nemesis, inspector Brian Kibby. Danny finds himself consumed by a seething hatred of his clean-living rival until, during a drunken and vitriolic interior rage, he enacts a hex. Now Danny can drink, fight and snort with abandon and Kibby’s body, not his, pays the physical toll. Welsh’s work is a defiant parable about the great obsessions of our time: food, sex, and celebrity.

    7:30 p.m., Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-822-4611.

    3487524739.jpegAngelica follows a lowly London stationery clerk who senses the presence of supernatural evil in her house and turns to a spiritualist to help her. As she watches her domestic life deteriorate into disorder and perceived danger, Phillips offers four sections, each taking a different character’s point of view, that delivers a parallel and sometimes conflicting interpretation of her reality. Follow along and see how nothing is as it seems, but how everything fits together. Phillips will sign copies of his book following the discussion. (Read an excerpt from Angelica.)

    7 p.m., University of Minnesota Bookstore, Coffman Memorial Union, 300 Washington Ave. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-625-6000; free.

    Looking for some good music this evening. Go check out Tyrone Wells with Ernie Halter at 6 p.m. at the Varsity Theater ($10/$12), or go to First Avenue for The Tragically Hip show ($30).

  • Blind Man In The Bleachers: A Different Sort Of Lost Weekend

    First of all, let me say this: the new radio home of the Twins sucks.

    I spent much of the weekend driving. I left Friday night with the game underway, and before I was even properly out of the Twin Cities I had lost KSTP’s signal, and spent the next two hours –headed south along the Mississippi the entire time– going up and down the dial in search of a local affiliate in vain.

    It’s ridiculous. I remember plenty of times in the past when I could pick up the Twins for, at minimum, a hundred miles in any direction. Hell, I can recall listening to the Twins in the Badlands, and also in the Wisconsin Dells.

    I apparently didn’t miss much on Friday or Saturday, other than continued offensive ineptitude, the implosion of the bullpen in the series opener (and another frustratingly inefficient performance from Johan Santana), and Sidney Ponson’s by-the-book swan song in Saturday’s matinee.

    Mercy, mercy on that bit of news. Thank God we’ve finally seen the last of Big Sid.

    I got back in time to catch the Sunday night game, and maybe it’s just a coincidence, but the Twins played like a team that had just had surgery to remove a large cancerous tumor from the top of its spine. And I’m not going to complain, but it would have been nice if the club could have found a way to distribute some of those thirty-one base runners throughout the three-game series.

    It was a laugher, sure, but it was a laugher this team desperately needed, and was pretty entertaining as well. How often do you suppose a ball club manages to strand thirteen runners and score sixteen runs in the same game? All eleven guys Minnesota sent to the plate had hits, and the Twins chewed up Detroit’s bullpen just as the Tigers prepare to head to Boston for a series.