I think Bob Mould [The Broken Clock, March] deserves to do whatever he wants, and I know that no matter what he does I am going to respect him as the talented songwriter he is. What he has produced on Modulate is interesting; there is that underlying Bob Mould attitude that he will never lose, and that I love. He is always honest with his fans, and those of us who have been following him for a while know this is what he has wanted to do. I, for one, am happy for him and I hope he never stops.
Steve Perry’s story on Carl Pohlad and the effort to eliminate the Twins was interesting and well written, but Perry could scarcely hide his contempt. That’s fine, but I think he inadvertently gives these old men way too much credit. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that these people are simply bumbling dilettantes who want to play Monopoly with real money. They keep trying to apply real-world economics to a fantasy world, and somehow it just never quite translates. For example, I’ve heard their arcane rules allow them to depreciate the value of their assets, which in this case are their employees. Human beings. Who else gets to depreciate their workers? The irony, of course, is that no one is depreciating faster than these senile old duffers.
As a native provincial, until recent years I’d always maintained the private notion that our city was smart rather than nice or mean (or nice and mean). But without a free non-monopoly press it hasn’t been possible to hear the voices of real individuals like I had been used to. The current formula of the weeklies is to print only insultingly poor writing and then complacently publish the complaints sent in by readers who don’t know any better. We desperately need a paper like The Rake that could reflect some true indigenous intelligence again, if only for the entertainment value.
To quote Maggie Smith in Gosford Park—“Yummy, yummy, yummy!!” What a splendid opening entre! Indie writers unite! Thanks especially for Billy Golfus’ memorial piece on Larry Kegan [“Last Song from the Big Chair,” March]. I didn’t know he’d left us and what a day to go! I’ll miss Larry around the planet. Looking forward to your next issue. And bless you!
In your review of the Xena DVD [The Broken Clock, March], your writer suggests that the Xena series paved the way for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon type films. I am writing to remind you that wirework fight scenes involving women and men have been utilized in Hong Kong cinema far before Xena existed. And while Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger may not be a direct product of the Hong Kong film industry, it and the other films like it (i.e. The Matrix) owe their influence more to the Hong Kong action genre than Xena. There has been relatively little attention to the fact that Xena’s creators ripped off Hong Kong action cinema.
You may recall a sampler CD that I sent to you last week containing 8 songs from Weezer’s forthcoming album, Maladroit. Please ignore that CD for the time being as I wasn’t supposed to have sent it yet. I was overeager for you all to hear it and I jumped the gun. Unfortunately, there is still no release date to announce for the album. If you are a radio station, it would probably be best if you wait to play any of these songs until you have been officially serviced by the record company. Thanks, and sorry for the confusion.
Rivers Cuomo, Weezer Los Angeles
We’re not a radio station, but thanks, Mr. Cuomo. Don’t be sorry.
Thanks for Steve Perry’s honest assessment of the post 9/11 prettification. If the experience is edited down to the fiery explosions, a few brave men raising a flag, and a sweetly stoic wife, you’ve got a Bruce Willis movie. The horror that is the reality is, I suppose, depressing and therefore un-American. I worked across the street from the WTC and after we evacuated our building I looked up from the street and saw people plunging from the towers, some of them flailing arms and legs wildly as if something, someone could stop their fall. My colleague looked away and asked, “How can you watch?” But how could I not? I think I said something like, “This is what is happening.” I was thinking, this is it. This is the truth, and it’s terrible. Of course, my colleague and I eventually did turn our backs, literally, to flee up the West Side Highway. But it sometimes seems to me that as a country we want to turn our backs to everything that doesn’t suit our group psyche.
If you think Walter Mondale’s presidential campaign was the last time Minnesotans were considered a threat to their fellow Americans, guess again. According to fans of public radio here in California the Gopher State, and in particular Minnesota Public Radio President Bill Kling, are squandering one of our most precious intellectual resources. “The daily advertisement for the wonders of corporate socialism called ‘Marketplace’” is how Salon’s Lorenzo Milam described the Los Angeles-based program MPR purchased in 2000. “Minnesota belongs in Minnesota, not in Los Angeles,” the owner of a Santa Monica public radio station famously complained. “I view Bill Kling as a barracuda in the public-radio waters,” a Pasadena academic said in an article that labeled Kling “Public Radio’s Darth Vader.”
When elephants fight, the grass suffers. My own work history has played out entirely in the private sector, so I had barely an inkling that an innocent (if unnecessarily grueling) series of job interviews at “Marketplace” would be a window on an ugly clash of cultures.
Sure, the occupation in question-webmaster and official excitement-generator for the program’s deadly dull web site–didn’t look like anybody’s dream job. With a sense of design worthy of the DMV, Marketplace.org attracts about 2,500 page views per week. That’s fewer than any schoolboy can generate by posting a few dozen J.Lo scans on his home page. The radio show, by contrast, attracts four million listeners each week. MPR wanted my expertise in figuring out how to leverage those numbers.
For my part, I did my best to reflect what seemed to be a popular feeling around the office-that “Marketplace” host David Brancaccio is a colossal genius whose shoes I was unfit to carry. (But by God I’d try!)
All the nasty stereotypes about Minnesotans-the slow-talking, mind-numbing mannerisms, the blandly liberal, vitamin-enriched mindset-were on shocking display among these Angelenos, who seemed worried that North Star Corporate was encroaching on their wild and crazy party. Hired out of the Minnesota office, I would always be an alien presence. Worse still, job details from my Twin Cities-based supervisor hinted at a dark future as a Pacific-coast mole for my Midwestern overlords. No wonder the radio people viewed me with contempt and loathing (beyond the fact that I happen to be loathesome and contemptible, that is).
In the end, though, they went with some other candidate, one who already lived in L.A. Was it a victory for Brancaccio’s holdouts? An olive branch from Minnesota to the City of the Angels? I’ll never know. Around the “Marketplace” office, it’s hard enough to find a pulse, let alone a telling display of emotion. Perhaps this place really is an outpost of Lutheranism worthy of its Minnesota landlords.
I’ve kept tabs on Marketplace.org since getting rejected, however, which furnishes this story’s one bright spot: In the months since my rival was hired, the site hasn’t changed a pixel.
That glimmer of hope you see on the springtime motion picture horizon could be the return of Robin Williams from his teeth-hurting escapades as Sad Clown of the 90s. Patch Adams, Jakob the Liar, and Bicentennial Man—a cinematic trifecta from Hell. We are thankful Mr. Williams appears to be seeking redemption. In January, the Sundance Film Festival premiered the R-rated One Hour Photo, starring Williams as Seymour “Sy” Parrish, a nebbishy photo-lab employee who becomes obsessed with a family whose pictures he develops. Before Photo’s April release date comes Death to Smoochy, in which Williams portrays Rainbow Randolph, the host of a children’s television show. When Randolph is fired over a bribery scandal, his show is taken over by Smoochy, played by Edward Norton (Fight Club) in a fuscia rhinoceros costume. To make matters worse, Randolph finds out Smoochy is sleeping with his ex-lover, a top programming executive played by Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich). Randolph begins to plot his revenge. Death to Smoochy also features Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) as a network president, choreographed midgets in rainbow wigs, costumes Liberace and Elton John would have clawed each others’ eyes out for… did we mention Edward Norton as a fuscia rhinoceros? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, Robin. Don’t screw this up.
Like Prince and Loni Anderson before him, Hollywood It-boy Josh Hartnett is proving to the rest of the free world that Minnesota can pull its weight on the breakout-sex-symbol production line. As we see in Black Hawk Down and the underappreciated Virgin Suicides, it doesn’t hurt that Josh can actually act. Oddly, his real debut as a big-time romantic lead (we don’t count Pearl Harbor) casts him as a recently dumped dude who swears off sex for Lent. As if the hormonal ramifications of his sudden celibacy weren’t grave enough, he’s got a new drop-dead gorgeous love interest in the picture to crank up the temptation quotient—A Knight’s Tale’s Shannyn Sossamon. With an R rating attributed to “strong sexual content, nudity and language,” it’s unlikely that 40 Days is a glorified instructional video for born-again virgins, if you know what we mean. Knowing Miramax, we think they’ll not only find a way to bring Hartnett’s character back into the carnally knowledgeable world, but they’ll do it with panache. Teen-movie slump be damned, we haven’t been this excited about a local boy making good since Apollonia’s skinny-dip in what she thought was Lake Minnetonka.