The Rake Magazine

Category: Blog Post

  • Grand Theft Autopilot

    Here’s the problem with Grand Theft Auto (and a solution).

    Its not that Grand Theft Auto is stealing minds. The problem is that the program allows you to experience fear in an artificial context. I have found that fear is much more exhilarating and useful when it is real. I took up mountaineering, for example, to experience the imminent fear of disaster. (In addition to my job.)

    The real issue with ultra-violent, pornographic video games is sensual isolation. Far better to feel the imminent threat of lightning on a mountain-top (which will kill you) than on a monitor. As any pilot will tell you, flight simulators just can’t beat flying.

    Not to overuse the metaphor, but there is nothing uplifting about Grand Theft Auto. It can’t even lift your blood pressure as high as a real fight with the opponent of your choosing. Which is why I suggest the following adrenaline-upgrade during purchase.

    Bring back Shinders and stock all the copies of GTA IV in the "back room." This way healthy underage young people and really sick older ones can experience the dread of being caught in a spot they really don’t want to be.

     

  • Travels with Mel

    Now that I
    have been in Scotland for a bit I have begun to notice the great shadow
    the infamous creator of Braveheart still casts over this hilly
    northern country. If you venture into any bargain store in Edinburgh
    or Glasgow you will find many bric-a-bracs aimed at spend-happy tourists. These items range from the relatively funny "kilt beach towel" to
    the aggravating "William Wallace doll." Now, there’s nothing
    wrong with the historical figure of William Wallace. The man heroically
    stood against the English in order to defend Scottish independence,
    and this I can respect. And I really can’t judge the people
    who are making money from the dolls themselves; far be it for me to
    begrudge anybody the right to strike gold by abusing national symbols.

    No, the William
    Wallace doll is an abomination because it is just a little version of
    that big schmuck, Mel Gibson. It is a vivid rendering, capturing
    accurately even the most Jew-hating contours of the man’s face (from
    an era before the expert ironist decided to grow a strange Abrahamic
    beard). I know Braveheart is one of the most profitable
    things that has happened to Scotland since whisky became the local manna,
    but when you hold a lil’ Mel in your hands you do not want to fight
    for your freedom, you just feel sorry for all the civilizations Mel
    Gibson has ripped off and made a mockery of (e.g. Scots, Mayans, ancient
    Israelites, and counting).

    I could forgive
    this if it were a phenomenon confined to shops that sell inflatable
    heart-shaped mattresses and "I’m not as think as you drunk I am"
    t-shirts, but unfortunately Mel Gibson has managed to worm his way into
    actual history. I went to the city of Stirling one day, and visited
    the National William Wallace Monument, a great 19th-century
    century-built landmark perched loftily on a lovely, green hilltop.
    After making my way down from the summit, I encountered something that
    morphed my good feeling into outright disgust. By the foot of
    the hill stood a big stone statue of Mel Gibson, mace in hand, screaming
    triumphantly. It seemed like stone-Mel knew he was ruining my
    time in Stirling and that there lied his ultimate victory over me. The word "FREEDOM" carved into the rock mockingly reminded me of
    how very trapped I was in the Mel-universe.

    Next to the
    statue there was a plaque with the story behind the work written on
    it. Some poor guy carved the thing because when he was down in
    the dumps (slowly dying from some horrible disease), he watched Braveheart,
    and the movie had been able to fill him with national pride and confidence. I thought it was strange how the one thing that made this sculptor so
    hopeful in his final days was the source of so much unpleasantness for
    me. Why couldn’t the guy have seen The Mary Tyler Moore Show
    on his deathbed and carved a statue of its namesake, like the one that
    dazzles in the streets of the fine city of Minneapolis, Minnesota?
    I guess some people just aren’t lucky enough to get Nick at Nite.

  • That's Why They Play Nine, You Communists: Meet Your First Place Minnesota Twins

    AP Photo/Hannah Foslien

    I’m not a fair weather fan. Honest to God, I’m not.

    Seriously.

    I’m not.

    This season, however, I am trying very hard not to let the game eat me alive. I’m also trying very hard not to allow the game to eat up so damn much of my time. It’s a hard habit to break, though, and so far it’s been a rough balancing act. I was in New York for a week –the Yankees were out of town, but I did get out to Shea to see the Mets– and I had promised myself that while I was out of town I would limit myself to a brief perusal of the boxscores each morning. No Baseball Tonight. No channel surfing. No sitting in front of a computer tracking the Twins on the internet.

    I didn’t do so well on that last one, but it really could have been a whole lot worse.

    I was at Shea the night Morneau hit his grand slam to put the Twins up 5-0 at Texas. They flashed that bright bit of news on the scoreboard. It seemed like fifteen minutes later I looked up there again and saw that the score was suddenly 5-5.

    I should have kept that night in mind on Sunday afternoon, when I turned off the game after the first inning –with Boof and the Twins down 6-0– and headed off to the May Day festivities at Powderhorn Park. Throughout the afternoon, whenever I saw somebody wearing any sort of sports apparel (rare, this), I’d ask them if they’d heard a score for the Twins game. I got a lot of blank stares and shrugs. Eventually I encountered an old fellow sitting on a blanket, wearing a Twins cap, and listening to a transistor radio.

    "Do you have a Twins score for me?" I asked.

    The guy scowled. "They were getting killed," he said. "I turned it off."

    It was a beautiful day to be outside, even without baseball, and even though I was surrounded by thousands of communists and hippies (just kidding, comrades; like millions of other people, if I could really believe in the things I think I believe in I could be one of you, just as long as you didn’t ask me to ride around on one of those Dr. Seuss bikes or forsake Mountain Dew and Twizzlers).

    At any rate, it was wonderful to come home, call up the ESPN page on the computer, and discover that the Twins had come back to knock off the Tigers.

    And if you’re paying enough attention that you’re paying attention to me and my blather (which means, obviously, that you’re paying way too much attention), then you know that our local nine has now won five straight at home and moved into first place in the Central, a division that is suddenly –at least through the season’s first month– locked up in a pleasant and almost inexplicable parity scrum.

    I like this Twins team. Right from the get-go I thought they were going to be fun to watch for the long haul, won-loss column be damned. And they haven’t disappointed me so far. Do they look or feel like a first-place team to me? No, honestly, I can’t say that they do. Not yet, at any rate. But neither do any of the other teams in the Central at the moment.

    This is crazy, I’m sure, but I’m ready to write off the Tigers. A month isn’t a large enough sample size, I know, but this is a team with some serious problems, a blockbuster roster with a severe identity crisis. They seem to have a different problem every night, and I don’t think that bodes well for either them or for Jim Leyland’s sanity. Only three teams in the AL have scored more runs than Detroit, but only one (Texas) has given up more runs –the Tigers have surrendered 174 runs, 44 more than the Twins. And all those runs Detroit has scored have come in bursts; they’ve also been shutout four times, and scored just one run on four other occasions (true to their schizoid nature, they’ve also scored ten or more runs four times). The starting pitching has been miserable. The bullpen is worse than it’s looked –even though it looked plenty shaky against the Twins. The defense is sketchy, and has been made even worse by Leyland’s insistence on playing guys out of position.

    There have been plenty of encouraging things about the Twins performance thus far, but this is by far the most encouraging number to me, particularly given the insane unbalanced schedule: they’re now 12-6 against the Central. Detroit is an astounding 4-12, and everyone else is hanging around .500.

    I’ve also been encouraged by the starting pitching, the Liriano debacle notwithstanding. Livan has been Livan; living large and dangerous, and fun to watch when he’s spotting his fastball [sic] and working in that outrageous 60-mph shazam special. I know I made the Ramon Ortiz comparison early on, but the difference here is that even when Hernandez has been mediocre in his career he’s always been a freakishly healthy innings eater.

    Most surprising to me has been the poise of Bonser, Scott Baker, and Nick "The Milkman’s Mauer" Blackburn. You saw it from Bonser on Sunday; after getting nicked and knocked around in the first –and throwing, what? 48 pitches?– he managed to gut out five more shutout innings (without walking anybody) and get the game to the bullpen. Baker and Blackburn have done the same thing time and again. Even at their worst they’ve all pitched; they just keep making adjustments and mixing their pitches and grinding, and it was a huge thing for the offense to come back on Sunday and hold up their end of the deal. For the most part the entire rotation has been performing like crafty veterans, and that was a whole hell of a lot more than anybody expected back in March.

    The starting pitching may yet be the serious concern we all thought it would be –particularly if injuries become even more of a factor– but right now the more obvious worry is the offense, and that seems to me to be one thing the Twins could reasonably address. I worry about an American League team with an on base percentage of .310 and a slugging percentage of .374, and a team with the second fewest runs scored in the league. I worry about a team whose one and two hitters are tied for the team lead in strikeouts.

    Carlos Gomez is worth the price of admission. He’s serious fun to watch, and, at 22, promises to be even more fun to watch in the years to come. When he gets on base he might already be one of the most exciting players ever to wear a Twins uniform. Despite being a pretty crummy bunter, he’s on a pace to obliterate the team record for bunt hits in a season. But, fun and exciting as he is, Gomez is not a leadoff hitter. A guy with 26 strikeouts, three walks, and a .297 OBP is not a leadoff hitter, particularly when he’s generally being followed by a guy –Brendan Harris– with 26 strikeouts, six walks, and a .315 OBP. This is just basic baseball logic, and you’d think it would be more widely accepted by now.

    What do you think the over and under is on Gomez’s 2008 OBP? I’d be delighted –and surprised– if he cracks .325.

    This is the third year in a row I’ve harped about this, and maybe the problem here is that it just makes too much logical sense, but Joe Mauer should be leading off for the Twins. Every night. I know he just seems to be getting comfortable in the three hole, but tough shit. That sort of thing is hogwash anyway. If a guy can really hit, he can hit anywhere in the lineup. Mauer now has a .396 OBP; he doesn’t strikeout much, has pretty good wheels, is one of the most fundamentally solid baserunners on the club, and he’s not yet –and may never be– a consistent middle-of-the-order run producer. What he would be, though, is a damn good leadoff hitter. He already leads the team in runs scored batting in the two and three spots.

    So, dammit, move him up. Start there, move Gomez down to ninth, and he’ll still have Mauer batting behind him every time he’s on base and wreaking havoc. Go ahead and bat Harris second if you want –I can’t think of anybody else, other than Mauer, wh
    o’s suited for that slot– and why not toss Jason Kubel into the three hole and see if he can get some better pitches to hit (and learn to be a lot more selective)?

    Watching the Chicago series last week, I was a little bit astonished by how incredulous Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven were by the fact that Nick Swisher, with his .220 batting average, was leading off for the White Sox. They couldn’t believe it. How long, they wondered, would Ozzie Guillen persist in this folly? Never once did they mention Swisher’s walk totals, runs scored, or on base percentage (23, 20, and .354 as of this moment).

    It amazes me that so many apparently serious fans of the game –and so many people within baseball organizations (including managers)– still don’t seem to get it.

    Why not try to assemble a fucking batting order that actually makes baseball sense and is designed to maximize production?

    Why the hell not?

    What do you have to lose besides games?

  • Cinco de Mayo

    The Corcoran Neighborhood Organization invites you to celebrate Cinco de Mayo today with Kalpulli Ketzal
    Coatlicue, an Aztec drumming and dance troupe.

    6 p.m., Corcoran Park, 3334 20th Ave. S., Minneapolis; free.

    THEATER & PERFORMANCE
    Minnesota Fringe reconstructs Romeo and Juliet

    Five
    local performing arts companies — Brave New Workshop, Commedia
    Beauregard    , Zealots and Mystics, Rockstar Storytellers, and Four Humors
    — break Shakespeare apart and glue him back together in Five-Fifths of Romeo and Juliet tonight. This is the fifth annual Five-Fifths of…
    performance to benefit the Minnesota Fringe. Each participating company
    received one-fifth of a script and reinterpreted their part as they saw fit. Companies haevn’t discussed each of their parts with
    the other four companies, so the results ought to be quite amusing
    — a coherent piece with divergent (sometimes conflicting)
    interpretations.

    7:30 p.m., Theatre de la Jeune Lune, 105 N. First St., Minneapolis; 612-872-1212; $35.

    ART
    Roots of the Future — a College Of Design Senior Show

    The
    College of Design graduating seniors have each selected one or two
    examples of their best work for the 2008 Roots of the Future: College of Design Senior Show. Participating students are from
    academic programs including: Architecture, Clothing
    Design, Environmental Design, Graphic Design, Housing Studies, Interior
    Design, and Retail Merchandising. The exhibit features poster presentations of research, 3-D projects of clothing and
    architectural designs, and PowerPoint presentations displayed digitally
    of their design process. The Awards Ceremony, on May 16th, will feature
    awards from professional designers who
    will review the exhibit work and select winners.
    There will also be a special Peoples’ Choice Award for which exhibit attendees can vote.

    10 a.m. – 4 p.m., The Goldstein Museum of Design, 241 McNeal Hall, 1985 Buford Avenue, St. Paul; 612-624-7434.

    MUSIC
    Sweet, Sweet Music

    Apparently, DJ
    Breckheimer     is getting tired of making his way into Minneapolis for live music. According to his email, he has been hoping and wishing that we had a bit more live
    music down "South of the River," so he finally decided to invite some of the great acts and artists to Apple Valley for an evening of music at Luxury Sweets candy store. (It sounds so wholesome.) Head on down and enjoy the sweet sounds of Stook, Chastity, Erin Kate, Katey Bellville, Roger Flyer and Carl Franzen.

    7-9 p.m., Luxury Sweets, 15322 Galaxie Ave #105, Apple Valley.

    Also tonight, enjoy one the hottest young Latin bands — Grammy-nominated Tiempo Libre — at the Dakota (7 p.m., $30).

    FILM
    Frida

    The Parkway is bringing Frida back — the triumphant motion picture about an exceptional woman (and artist) who
    lived an unforgettable life. Enjoy Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina, Antonio Banderas , Ashley Judd, Edward Norton, and Geoffrey Rush in this fabulous film that was nominated for six Academy Awards. For whatever reason, tonight’s screening is free!

    6:30 & 8:55 p.m., Parkway Theater, 4814 Chicago Ave. S., Minneapolis;
    612-822-3030; free tonight.

  • If you don't like this blog then you are a BOOBIE

    photo by Jessica Hegland,

    Hair by Jon Richards. Make up by Leilani Baker, Make up Artist Goddess.
    Wardrobe from Melly’s Closet of Phases: Dress-BADGLEY MISCHKA-purchased at the DAYTON’S 2day warehouse sale during my lunch break at KSTP TV. Price for me to know and you not! Shoes: don’t have a clue because someone stole them from me when I took them off to dance at some random club downtown.

    I am so sick and tired of people making fun of people they assume do not have an appreciation or sophistication for the FINER THINGS IN LIFE. I have had the great PRIVILEGE of traveling to places most people only dream of, eating food that makes my mouth feel like it’s having a big old party in there, and best of all, seeing beautiful ARTWORK every day. So what is my problem?

    I am sorting through a lot of "things" right now that are valuable and deciding what I should do with them. I am in no hurry to sell anything, but I am in a hurry to make sure the right people are given some of the great privilege that I have been given all of my life so I can put the same smile on their faces that they have put on mine.

    So when I recently met with "X" and expressed my frustration and confusion over starting this process, I was given that "look" of disgust when I was talking to her about ART. Apparently, being the unsophisticated person that I am, I was not using proper "Art Speak" while I was talking.

    Who made this random person the "Chief of Art Speak"? I will tell you who did. SHE did. And since I am now "Chief of the things that I have been blessed with," that gives me the right to say that she can go take a flying leap, and I hope that her perfect hair looks the same wet as when it’s dry. I am guessing it probably looks more along the lines of something a bunch of rats would enjoy calling home.

    Insult after insult, I sat there and took it like a trooper, and then I got in my car (paid for with my own money) and went home and looked around my house, appreciating even more the beautiful ART that my husband and I have.

    As to the kind of ART that we enjoy looking at every day, it consists mostly of My Mother’s artistic genius.

    The so-called valuable pieces that Mrs. "Snotty Butt" would love to impress her Clients with will be given to people in my life who DESERVE the choice as to whether or not they want to hang the work on their walls or sell it on E-Bay.

    I found it beyond comprehension that I was being frowned on because I was not B.S.ing my way with small talk and essentially saying what comes natural to me. In other words, I was being Melinda Jacobs, the person who wakes up the same way every day with hair that is starting to gray from wasting MY VALUABLE time on phony baloneys.

    So, where the heck am I going with this?

    Remember, blogging — thank god — is still one of the few ways that we can ALL express the person who we really are without a certain code of conduct. That is why I love it. In fact, I am passionate about it! It’s ART to ME.

    What is beautiful to you, what wakes you up in the morning and gets your heart pumping, your energy going… that feeling of Passion is truly your choice. And if someone tries to diminish that or hurt you, just because they think they know more than you or are better than you, here is my suggestion:

    Next time you get "the look" for being authentic and being yourself, look that person straight in the eye and say "Boobies." It has done a lot for me in being able to weed out the phonies and reel in some treasures of pure gold.

    Enjoy the picture of this statue that I have sitting in my office. That is a piece of ART that may have dollar signs on it, but to me it’s not only a metaphor of my life but a priceless one in so many ways.

    By the way, it’s for sale.
    (I am kidding.)

    —Melinda Jacobs

  • Cabaret: Tits, Ass, and Monopoly Money

    In the 1972 Bob Fosse film Cabaret, an American Sally Bowles, played by Liza Minnelli, falls in love with a rambunctious Englishman who is — as she is — having an affair with her bisexual boss. Whereas in the 1966 stage play Cabaret, it was Sally who was English, her boyfriend who was American, and there was a wholesome subtextual storyline about their elderly landlady’s romance with a Jewish fruit merchant.

    In the Ordway’s current production of Cabaret, there’s a little bit of each mixed in.

    Putatively, this Cabaret is the stage play of ’66, with an English Sally and a regal German landlady (played by the absolutely magnificent Suzy Hunt). But it also alludes to the male-on-male dalliances of its hero, the American writer Cliff Bradshaw, which is confusing because the complications here are completely ignored. In fact, other than the single reference to his cruising days, Bradshaw, as played by Louis Hobson, comes off as a well-scrubbed prude. And when Sally turns up pregnant with a baby she claims could be anyone’s, he immediately volunteers — no qualms about her decided female-ness — to make her his wife.

    In between there are dance numbers introduced by the "emcee" (Nick Garrison), a shiny-headed bald man wearing lipstick with an impossible loud and grating voice. He’s impossible to love at first, as he descends from the ceiling in the Cabaret sign’s "C," but by intermission he is impossible not to. A feat that Garrison effects by being alternately funny, self-deprecating, clownish, and sad.

    There is also that strident back story about the Nazis: they are infiltrating the club through the person of Ernst Ludwig, Bradshaw’s patron and friend. Ludwig is a tall, ebony-haired Aryan who somehow riles the entire club into raising their arms to the Third Reich. The fall-out comes first when gentle Herr Schultz, the fruit seller, has a brick hurled through his window. And then when Bradshaw, the stalwart American, gets beaten because he refuses to put up with all that Gestapo guff.

    I wish I could say that I loved this play. I do love the Ordway; I think it’s as stately a theater as the Twin Cities has. The set was amazing: morphing from nightclub to modest rooming house with the twitch of a few items, by evening’s end lit with colored bulbs that gave it a festive, garish air.

    There were some truly outstanding performances — the best by far by Ms. Hunt who infused her Fraulein Schneider with imperious yet tentatively regal carriage. Her voice was pure starch and honey. I could have listened to her all night. Unfortunately, though, most of the songs were sung by Tari Kelly who played Sally Bowles. And while she was a dead ringer for Minnelli (at least from Row S) her theory seemed to be that sheer volume would make up for feeling or finesse.

    The dancers were lovely and scantily-clad in a pleasing, authentically bawdy 1930’s Berliner sort of way; God knows, I like hot pants and fishnets and sequined bras as much as the next red-blooded American girl. There’s even a very charming moment during Money Makes the World Go Round when Monopoly money drifted from the rafters and into the audience, twirling in the twinkling lights.

    But in the end, as the curtain came down, I felt as if all the brilliant parts of the Ordway’s Cabaret had not quite added up to something as whole and extraordinary as I would have liked. True, they missed the mark by a very small margin — and this may be fixed by Tuesday, the official opening night — but as it is there are uneven edges. The first act was too long; the second felt incredibly rushed.

    More important, the story was not consistent. I wanted either a playboy love interest or a wide-eyed gee golly one, not a weird mish-mash of the two. And without that, the production fell just short of what it should.

    Not that you would have known to see the audience at the end. I know. . . .I’ve been beating this drum for years. But NOTHING to my mind marks Minnesotans as more universally ignorant than the standing ovation, which is obligatory at every single concert, opera, comedy routine, and play. I am sick and tired of going to shows that are good but not great and watching everyone around me jump out of their seats like so many obsequious, brainless cows.

    Yes, I feel strongly about this. But to my mind, it’s like over praising a child for efforts that fall short. How is a toddler to learn if you keep showering kisses down because he or she piddled almost in the potty? By doing this, you simply reinforce the puddle on the floor.

    And so it is with the stage, where standing ovations for performances that are almost but not quite extraordinary, like Cabaret, lower the bar. Which given the talent and resources and venues we have here in town is a goddamn shame.

  • Starting Out in the Evening

    Remember those days when you would wait for your parents to leave the house so you could invite your girl- or boyfriend over for an evening of videos and cheap wine and illicit sex?

    Well, here’s a funny thing. Those days return, when you’re 42 or so. . . .You discover there’s a Friday evening coming up. The kids are going to be out — one at a sleepover, the other doing whatever high school seniors do — and you plot. You get a DVD from Hollywood and a cheap bottle of wine and think about how you’re going to have the house all to yourself.

    Ah. . . .the romance of middle age.

    My husband and I recently ran into just such a Friday night. Teenage daughter at a friend’s house; adult son out for most of the night. We ran out to rent a film we’d been wanting to see ever since it hit Uptown for about ten minutes last winter then disappeared and opened a bottle of Tiziano Chianti 2005.

    The film was called Starting Out in the Evening, a sleeper from 2007 that sprang from a book by Brian Morton, whose entire canon I happen to have read.

    Morton is a fascinating writer. Around 50, Jewish, a New Yorker. He clearly has some personal demons to excise. Each of his books covers much the same ground: There is some combination of an older, Jewish, intellectual writer — a contemporary of Bellow’s and Roth’s — a 40-ish woman who is grappling with her desire to have children, a leftist, and an aged but understanding therapist. Morton is, in my experience, the most formulaic writer on the planet today. Yet what he produces is at once readable and fresh. Each time he enters the same territory he has something strangely new to say. He comes at it from a different facet. He makes this single story work, over and over again.

    So it is with this film. It’s the story of a 70-year-old novelist (Frank Langella) whose books have all fallen out of print. He is trying to finish that one last novel that will become his legacy when a graduate student (Lauren Ambrose of Six Feet Under fame) appears at his door to tell him she is writing her thesis about his body of work. Meanwhile, his daughter and — for all intents and purposes — best friend, played by Lily Taylor, is turning 40 and debating whether or not to trick her childless-by-choice boyfriend into an "accidental" baby.

    There were rumors Langella would be nominated for an Academy Award for Starting Out, and I think it’s a shame he was not. He is a burly, bullet-shaped elderly man, yet he managed to turn from obdurate to frail after his character suffered a stroke. The scene in which his daughter’s boyfriend must haul the old man out of the bathtub — chest to chest, dripping wet; in some way getting the "child" he was so determined never to have — was worth an Oscar nomination alone.

    But back to the evening, OUR evening and the wine. Chianti generally is made out of Sangiovese grapes. It is the cousin of other richer Tuscan reds, such as Montepulciano and Carmignano. But Chianti tends to be smooth and forgettable — a thin table wine with no real character.

    This one, however, blew me away — especially for the price, which is around $9 a bottle. Sweet strawberry and honey married with a sturdy, dry, deep forest oak, it’s a light but sophisticated wine. A perfect match for the quiet, poignant film. Exactly right for two exhausted parents grateful simply to be sprawled across each other like puppies in a large chair, drinking in the quiet on a Friday night.

  • NBA Second-Round Playoff Preview

    Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images

    First, some accountability on my first round predictions. Right now I’m technically five out of seven with the Celts-Hawks still incredibly yet to be determined, but I’d rather not be that simplistic–the devil (and angel) is in the details. For example, if the Celtics do prevail, I’ll have been "right" in my pick of Boston, but like most everyone else I was apparently foolish (and wrong) to automatically discount Atlanta and call for just a five game series. Ditto Detroit and Philadelphia: I called a Pistons sweep, and although the Sixers didn’t really elevate their play in the postseason, Detroit’s overconfidence and lethargy gave a couple away.

    Where else was I wrong? Well, I had the Wizards over the Cavs in 6 and the Rockets over the Jazz in 7. The first one was flat-out bad prognostication, although I did correctly point out that the injection of Gilbert Arenas into the mix would ultimately hurt Washington at least as much as it would help them. The Utah-Houston series, as I’ve said before, was a sentimental pick for the Yao-less Rockets, with an acknowledgment that Utah was capable of taking it in 5 (they won in 6). I enjoyed cheering on Houston, and don’t mind the inaccuracy here. But inaccurate it was, and you bet I would have strutted if the Rockets had prevailed.

    On the plus side, I was right to be baffled by the pundits mostly going for Dallas and Phoenix despite their lack of home court advantage and, not coincidentally, their ill-advised trades for stars long past their primes. I gave Steve Nash and Phoenix too much credit–and, despite being a huge fan of their grit when it counts, too little credit to the Spurs–in predicting a full 7-game set. But of all the series, I had the Hornets-Mavs sussed perfectly, nailing the length and tenor of the 5-game blowout. That leaves Orlando-Toronto and LA-Denver, two series I mostly had right, calling the victor and being just a little opmistic about how many tilts the loser would take.

    Things get a lot tougher to call here in the second round, especially after the desultory showings by the Celts and Pistons and the better-than-expected peformances by the Magic and Cavs. There’s really only one series I am pretty confident about, and even that one may go 6 or 7 games. And that’s where we’ll begin.

    Utah (5) vs. L.A. Lakers (1)

    Pivotal Points: Has Ronnie Brewer progressed enough during the season to be even halfway able to deter Kobe? Mehmet Okur and Andrei Kirilenko both played way over the heads vs. Houston–Okur on the boards, AK-47 via shooting. These three members of Utah’s starting five are crucial, because the Lakers won three of four during the season–including a March win at Utah without either Gasol or Bynum–by letting Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer essentially get theirs on offense but outscoring the Jazz anyway. How chippy will these games get: Utah fouls more (and perhaps harder) than any team in the league and the Lakers move the ball so well that we’re apt to see some nasty collisions. How will the Lakers–especially Lamar Odom–fare under pressure, something they never really faced vs. Denver?

    My guesses: Williams and Kobe are going to have huge series, as there’s nobody to stop them on the opposing side. Kobe’s presence really hurts Utah’s ability to use Kyle Korver, a huge minus for the Jazz. In their own way, this is the Lakers’ reprise of Showtime and Utah needs to muck it up with Harpring, Milsapp and their other bruisers, then hope Williams can carry them in the clutch. An uptempo pace favors LA and the forwards are vital: Gasol and Odom are suspected for being soft and a bit of a choker, respectively. If they can hold their own in the paint at both ends, Utah is in serious trouble. It will be interesting to see how Phil Jackson guards Okur: If he’s still on a roll, I’d think about Odom, or even Luke Walton, guarding him outside to deter the trey and to react with alacrity on the pick and rolls. Bringing Gasol out plays into Utah’s hands.

    My pick: A lot of people are on the Jazz bandwagon but I just can’t see it, especially against this large, quick, Lakers team. LA in 5 or 6.

    Orlando (3) vs. Detroit (2)

    Pivotal Points: Can Rasheed Wallace keep his cool enough to help neutralize Dwight Howard? Will he work in the paint and eschew the trey enough to perhaps get Howard in foul trouble? Will we see hack-a-Howard near the end of quarters in close games? Did Chauncey Billups just go through a bad patch vs. Philly or is he past his peak? Can the Pistons keep their focus through a semi-tough series? How much will Flip Saunders utilize his depth?

    My guesses: The Magic has no good matchup for Billups–Jameer Nelson and Keyon Dooling lack size and grit and Carlos Arroyo barely played vs. Toronto–but something about Billups looks funky lately and I don’t think he’s ready to take full advantage. Keith Bogans had much better luck guarding Rip Hamilton in the regular season than did starter Maurice Evans, so expect a quick hook there by Stan Van Gundy. Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu both had great passing series vs. Toronto and could create open treys if Detroit (necessarily) gets too preoccupied with Howard down low. Saunders has got to use his bench, especially Maxiell and Ratliff to help on Howard, and go with Stuckey to spell Billups. The evidence is that Detroit was scared straight by the losses to Philly and are ready to reassert. If they win both games in Detroit to start the series they could indeed roll. I think they’re ripe for an upset, but a couple stats hold me back: Detroit was second in the NBA in opposing 3pt shooting %, negating an Orlando strength. And Orlando had more turnovers than assists this season–not a good sign against a Pistons defense that can plays well together when the going gets tough.

    My Pick: Detroit in 7.

    San Antonio (3) vs. New Orleans (2)

    Pivotal Points: Will this fulfill its potential as one of the greatest second-round playoff series of all time? The refs are absolutely crucial because the Spurs pound the paint and the dropoff from Tyson Chandler to Hilton Armstrong is precipitous. If Chandler defends the rim without whistles it’s huge nod to the Hornets–and foul trouble for the big man means curtains for New Orleans. Can Jannero Pargo, a poor man’s Ginobili in the Dallas series, match up with Manu, because MoPete or Bonzie Wells ain’t gonna get it done. Can Bruce Bowen prevent Peja from getting open looks? How will Pops play West and Chandler with Duncan and Thomas/Oberto?

    My guesses: Neither Chris Paul nor Tony Parker will be as dominant as in round one–but they’ll still put on a hell of a show. The Spurs’ Boy Who Cried Wolf foul protestations will slowly but surely start to penalize them with the refs, but Chandler will still get in foul trouble at least one or two games. I absolutely love the way both of these teams play and am rooting less for one or the other than for both to perform up to their potential. If that happens, I think it comes down to veteran poise and crunchtime experience–don’t be surprised if Finley/Horry/Barry stick a dagger in at some point during the proceedings. For all the talk about Jason Kidd and Shaq, the Kurt Thomas pickup is second only to Gasol among contenders this season, and his ability to keep Duncan fresh and on the court, plus my ongoing belief that you don’t bet against the Spurs until you see that stake through their hearts, has me leaning toward the Spurs. But forcing them to win it in a Game Seven in the Big not so Easy would be extra sweet.

    My pick: San Antonio in 6 or 7.

    Cleveland (4) vs. Boston (1) [or Atlanta (8)]

    Pivotal Points: Is the luster off the Celtics’ confidence or
    is getting the stodgy Cavs after the uber-athletic Hawks all the elixir they need to reassert their primacy over the East? Uh, who the hell guards Lebron James; Mr. Posey, it is time for your super-closeup. Now that Doc Rivers has totally screwed up his rotation by deep-sixing Eddie House and Tony Allen while elevating the aged Sam Cassell, can Sam I Am at least hit some of those shots he clanked and then stupidly eschewed in the Atlanta series (because House would have made them)? Is Kevin Garnett finally ready to put all those whispers to rest and go at a past-his-prime Ben Wallace, or will he continue to get 22-10-7 and hurt his team with selflessness in crunchtime? Last but not least, what has happened to Ray Allen?

    My guesses: The Celtics will need to play really well–with much, much more poise and skill than vs. Atlanta–to pull this out in 6 or 7. LeBron is going to win at least one game all by himself and I think Z Ilgauskas, Wallace and Joe Smith in the paint plus Szczerbiak and Booby Gibson spotting up outside makes the Cavs dangerous on the offensive end and complements to the triple-teamed James. For the Celts to win, their erstwhile relentless D, led by KG and Rondo, need to create turnovers and transition baskets, plus Pierce and Allen need to compensate for their mediocre D (in Allen’s case make that horrible D) by proving they are indeed crunchtime stars. That will spread the floor enough for Garnett to work in the paint. But as a confirmed KG-lover I admit I’m rattled by what I’ve seen from this Beantown squad in the first round. It wouldn’t surprise me if both the Celts and the Pistons went down. I resisted the Pistons upset, but Detroit isn’t playing against the best player on the planet.

    My Pick: Cleveland in 6 or 7.

  • Gem of the Ocean

    Although it was one of the last plays he wrote, Gem of the Ocean falls first chronologically in August Wilson’s 10 plays about the black experience in 20th century America. It’s not his best — Fences and The Piano Lesson both won Pulitzers — but Penumbra Theatre puts on a solid interpretation at the Guthrie.

    Wilson typically keeps the action contained in one location: the setting for Gem of the Ocean is the parlor of a 285-year-old "soul cleanser," Aunt Ester (Marvette Knight), in 1904 Pittsburgh. Aunt Ester imparts the wisdom of a woman who has experienced almost 250 years of slavery and survived the Civil War. At the play’s climax, Ester’s parlor is transformed — through blue lighting, stark shadows, and befitting sound — into a slave ship, the Gem of the Ocean. She leads a young man, Citizen Barlow (Cedric Mays), through a mystical experience to the City of Bones, where he confronts slavery, the man who died for his own crime, and, ultimately, freedom. The scene reflects the play’s theme as articulated by Ester: "What use do we make of our freedom?"

    Unfortunately, the journey to the City of Bones has nearly as much gimmick as it does depth. Mays is convincing as he is shackled supernaturally to the slave deck of the Gem of the Ocean and as he faces the consequences of his past crime. But the device of this magical voyage accomplishes little that could not have been achieved in "reality."

    Wilson is a master at using more realistic, and more convincing, devices as the central conflict of a narrative. In The Piano Lesson, it’s a piano, co-owned by a brother and sister, carved with the faces of two ancestors. The sister never wants to depart with the piano, and her brother, eager to buy land, wants to sell it — a conflict of preservation of history versus moving on. In the first scene of Fences, a character tries to conceal a watermelon, a device that Wilson uses to reverse the racist connotation of the watermelon-loving minstrel. The Gem of the Ocean does not approach this level of subtle but powerful symbolism.

    Director Lou Bellamy, founder and artistic director of Penumbra Theatre, is well positioned to bring Gem of the Ocean to the
    stage. He won an Obie Award in 2007 for directing Wilson’s Two Trains
    Running     in New York City, and he directed Penumbra’s production of The Piano Lesson earlier this year. His comprehensive understanding of Wilson’s work is apparent on the stage. The characters are eccentric without going over the top, and the conversations they have in Aunt Ester’s parlor are truly engaging.

    Black Mary (Austene Van), who lives with Aunt Ester, is a jilted woman who nevertheless remains compassionate. Eli (Abdul Salaam el Razzac), who also lives with Ester, is agitated with Citizen in the first scene, but he eventually employs him to build a wall. Eli remains calm and relaxed throughout the rest of the show, saying, "This is a peaceful home," when people stop by to visit. He has frequent, long conversations with Solly Two Kings (James Craven), a man who once helped with the Underground Railroad and now sells dog poop as fuel, about the black community’s difficult adaptation from slavery to free society.

    Black Mary’s brother, Caeser (T. Mychael Rambo), is an Uncle Tom character who one can’t help but be angry with (and even sympathize with him a bit) for his deplorable decisions as an enforcer of the law. The only remaining character, Rutherford Selig (Terry Hempleman), is a white salesperson who fills only a minor role in the plot.

    Knight plays a lively almost-300-year-old, but because Ester is such a
    mystical figure, and because Wilson reveals in King Hedley II that she
    lives to be 366 — hence she has almost a century of life remaining in Gem of the Ocean — her youthful portrayal of an elderly woman is not distracting.

    Citizen’s transformation from a nervous young man in the first act to a
    confident man who confronts his demons could have been more delicate, but this lies more in how the play is written than how the character was acted.

    The play, about personal redemption, justice and the law, and the meaning of freedom, is not a must-see, but it is a strong production.


    Performances will run through May 18 on the McGuire Proscenium Stage at the Guthrie. There will be post-play discussions following the May 3 & May 14 matinees.

  • Table Maestro

    Table Maestro, a personalized answering service and remote booking service for the restaurant industry, is going national this week — offering their services across the United States. I’m not quite sure what the differences are between Table Maestro and Open Table, but they claim to be the only ones doing what they’re doing. (Isn’t that just the way it goes?)

    Here’s the press release:

    Charleston,
    S.C.
    – Table Maestro, the country’s only business to provide
    personalized answering and reservation services to the fine dining industry
    will begin this week to offer its services nationally.

    Beginning
    this week, Table Maestro will begin accepting new client requests from
    restaurants throughout the continental U.S., adding to its portfolio of some 20
    restaurants on the East Coast and Mid-Atlantic. The company marks the first to
    offer restaurants a reliable way to increase revenues by outsourcing the
    burdensome process of taking and confirming reservations, while offering
    valuable customer interaction at the same time.

    Table
    Maestro – which launched in 2006 to revive the bygone days of the
    restaurant maître d – serves as an alternative
    to the traditional hostess by answering incoming calls, making and confirming
    reservations, managing customer databases, and maximizing table turnover.
    The company offers restaurants all the advantages of an in house staff
    at less than the cost of minimum wage, providing a way to increase the bottom
    line while taking customer service to new heights.

    "The call for reservations is the first point of contact for
    restaurants, but so many of them are either missing the opportunity for
    bookings or are relying on web-based services that don’t provide
    personalized customer assistance," said founder and CEO Alicia Aloe.
    "Table Maestro offers a cost-effective way for restaurants to make sure
    each call is greeted within two rings by a friendly voice and with superior
    service."

    With 12 years of experience in the restaurant industry, Aloe
    created Table Maestro after noticing how many fine dining establishments lose
    revenue when no one’s available to answer phones.

    When
    a call goes unanswered, studies show that 65
    percent of diners won’t leave a message for a reservation. At the same
    time, the average reservation includes three people. Together, these
    statistics mean that answering just five additional calls a day during off-peak
    times could capture as many as 24 potential clients who would otherwise have
    hung up.

    Since
    launching operations at the age of 26, Aloe has remained committed to the
    belief that restaurants can return to an era of personalized hospitality while
    still meeting today’s mass needs. Her mission has helped grow Table
    Maestro’s business by 1000 percent in just two years.