The Rake Magazine

Category: Columns

  • Industrial Strength Consumer

    Over the course of my life I have belonged to several fringe groups: The Lutheran Church, the Actors Guild, and the Depot Bar’s Wednesday night dart league to name a few. Membership has its privileges, whether it’s 25 cents off tap beers between nine and 11, full coverage on tooth capping, or salvation with a pancake breakfast four times a year. But the main thing for me is belonging to a group. I like the feeling of being a part of something. Back in high school, I once tried out for the cheerleading squad because it looked easy and they wore matching jackets. But I didn’t have “spirit” and was rooted out immediately.

    Now I have joined a powerful confederation whose main objective is to change the way the world sees unit pricing. Like the Borg, I have assimilated. I scoff at your “convenience” stores. What are they but frou-frou luncheon meat boutiques? Shorter lines? How precious. Time is money and for my extra five minutes in line, I save an average of $75 a week. Bellyache all you want about suburban sprawl and the depersonalization of America, I freaking love Costco.

    Yes, part of the deal is bulk purchasing. I have 60 frozen waffles choking my freezer right now, but so what? I have at least three children running around my house at any given time. Twice that many on weekends for sleepovers. If the waffles aren’t gone by November, I’ll make wind chimes out of them and give them out as holiday gifts. (Though usually I prefer to work with “found” waffles.)

    As a parent, the colossal multi-paks make me feel safe and cozy all over. Looking at my 8,000-count industrial– sized jeroboam of Tylenol, I like knowing that my future grandchildren will never want for pain relief. I stopped short of buying the restaurant-style wagon wheel of toilet paper, but only just. If I could figure out how to jam it onto the tiny bathroom spool it would be mine.

    The appeal of being prepared in the case of a waffle crisis or Tylenol embargo brings out the survivalist in me. Chest freezers and back up generators can’t be far behind. In fact, they sell them at Costco, and for a handsome discount too. Now, all I need is a hooded sweatshirt, some mirrored sunglasses, and a manifesto.

    It’s not only the bargains that appeal to me, but the entire hoarding experience. It’s not shopping, it’s stockpiling. They have flatbed carts with all-terrain wheels — none of the quaint little Byerly’s “future customer” kiddie carts littering the aisles. This is serious business. If Junior can’t deadlift a 20-pound vacuum sack of Kalamata olives, he’s got to stay in the truck.

    And I love how they make you flash your membership card on the way in and out of the compound. It creates a kind of sexy military-police urgency, like you’d better damn well get that 5-gallon drum of chocolate sauce in case you wake up in Russia tomorrow. You might be able to trade it for vodka.

    But they have a liquor store at Costco too! Crates of it! Name brands! Piled to the 20-foot ceiling of a 3,000 square-foot warehouse room. The hooch annex is flanked by rolling salad bar-sized humidors that entomb several dozen brands of cigars. I poked around to see if there was a Costco whorehouse or firing range anywhere on the grounds, but maybe they saved those features for their Nevada location.

    Right by the customer service desk there are stacks of glossy pamphlets advertising the Costco vehicle buying program and corporate memberships. I am merely an individual member, though I am thinking of incorporating this year, if it will net me a discount on an M1 Abrams Tank in stylish Desert Sand. I can park it behind my poetry-writing shack. Also by the service desk are the Costco sunny vacation destination information sheets. I haven’t had a real vacation for years, but with all the moolah I’m saving on cigars and chocolate sauce, I might be able to swing a four-night stay in Mexico. If I really wanted to be thrifty, I could see if Costco has an organ harvesting division. I’ve got two kidneys. I could jettison one and pay for the whole trip. I only need one for drinking Margaritas and napping in the sun. And if the operation goes wrong, they can bury me in my chest freezer and invite my fellow members over to the memorial for waffles and an all night manifesto slam.

    Colleen Kruse is a Twin Cities actress and comedian. Send email to mscolleenkruse@hotmail.com

  • Pick that trash up, homeboy!

    Why does North Minneapolis, which boasts the Twin Cities’ highest concentration of black folk, appear to have the most trash on the ground? As a newcomer to the “North Side,” I have been shocked at the garbage strewn about my ’hood. When I complained to then Fifth Ward rep and Minneapolis Council President Jackie Cherryhomes about it, she told me I have trash problems because I live too close to the Broadway commercial corridor.

    If that were the case, then Kenwood and Linden Hills, both of which contain thriving commercial districts, should be choked with litter. They are not. Both neighborhoods are relatively litter-free. And, dare we say, both neighborhoods have relatively few young people of color.

    I have stood in the living room of my North Minneapolis home and watched young people deliberately drop trash on the street. My next-door neighbor, reasoning that a convenient trash can might encourage people to do the right thing, placed one in his front yard. The trash can barely made a dent in the amount of trash dumped in front of our houses. In fact, my neighbor has seen people saunter up to the trash can, look into it, and then drop trash outside the can.

    Most people I see dumping trash on the ground are young people of color. Mostly boys, but the girls make a sizeable contribution as well. Ironically, many of these same kids, who apparently think nothing of trashing their own turf, often take great pride in their $150 sneakers and their mega-decibel car stereo systems.

    Comedian Franklin Ajaye once quipped about being at UCLA at the height of the black power movement, jumping to the front of a registration line while shouting, “Get back, Whitey!” Instead of giving him the whacking he deserved, the white students said, “They’ve been oppressed, you know. We’ve got to make allowances.” And Ajaye, fearing no consequences, kept cutting in line.

    Oh, I can hear the apologists now—these are kids suffering from self-esteem issues. The system has beaten them down. They do not have effective role models. We need to gently steer them in the right direction. Blah, blah, blah. Poverty, oppression, teen pregnancy, and white racism—you pick the social ill. None of it excuses living in filth. This is one issue that black folk cannot blame on Mr. Charley. White people do not make these young people commit the ecological equivalent of defecating where they live.

    A few weeks ago, after watching yet another drop-the-trash-next-to-the-trash-can episode, I could not restrain myself. Like news anchor Howard Beale in Network, I was mad as hell and I wasn’t going to take it anymore. Before I knew it, I was outside in my J.C. Penney’s robe and matching house slippers, telling the two teenaged culprits to pick up their garbage. They paused as if in shock. After about three heartbeats of silence, they picked it up, placed it in the can, and said, “No problem man, it’s cool.” I do not know what their grades are like, if they live at home with both parents, or if they have other issues. I do know this: By placing the trash in the can, their actions belied the obvious—that it was not a problem to “do the right thing.”

    We as a community (and I do not mean just the darker side here) must confront these kids and hold them accountable for dumping trash. Ignoring it (and, for that matter, the trash talking) does nothing but (1) keep them from learning the crucial life lesson of personal responsibility; (2) lower property values; and (3) give the racially jaundiced more fodder to perpetuate racial stereotypes.

    Yes, it will probably feel awkward to confront the trashers. And some kids will get mouthy. If however we choose to say nothing, we become accomplices in the creation of neighborhood landfills and miscreant young adults.

    Clinton Collins, Jr. is a Minneapolis attorney and commentator.

  • If wine be the crime, then hang me

    Strong drink has a long association with immorality. There is an engraving of “Gin Lane” in 18th century London by William Hogarth (the artist also responsible for “The Rake’s Progress”) showing a sign: “Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence, clean straw for nothing.” From the same period is “The Beggar’s Opera,” in which assorted villains, cutthroats, footpads, highwaymen, and desperadoes (not to mention pimps and trollops) gather at a pub in one of the British capital’s less fashionable quarters to sing crude drinking songs. You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses. I suppose it’s obvious why so many people have made gin rhyme with sin. But intelligent wine-bibbing, it can be argued, actually increases moral refinement. It promotes honest introspection, accuracy and rationality; it promotes moderation.

    Think about it. Of all the five senses, taste is the most intimate. Taste is also the sense with the smallest vocabulary. No wonder wine writers are so often driven to peculiar metaphor and periphrasm. My favorite is the observation of Thurber on serving the cooking wine to guests. “A naïve little domestic burgundy; I think you will be surprised at its presumption.” But it is desperation with the inadequacy of the English language that drives us to say that a white wine “smells like wet dog,” or has “a hint of burnt matches in the nose.”

    This means that the first quality a serious drinker needs to have is honesty. If he does not note with care what is happening to his palate during the ingestion process, he has not got an earthly chance of describing it accurately. What is more, a mouthful of wine changes its taste all the time from first sip to final swallow (and aftertaste). So a second moral benefit induced by good wine is introspection. The unexamined life is not worth living and the unexamined wine is not worth drinking.

    Finally, these other fine qualities will not develop in the mouth or the mind of someone who has had more to drink than is good for them. Shakespeare’s Porter may be right in saying that drink is an equivocator with lechery (“it taketh a man up and it putteth a man down”). In excess, it is an outright enemy of intelligent discrimination, and if we do not discriminate we might as well be swilling White Lightning from a paper bag.

    These rather portentous thoughts sprouted on the first decent day of sunshine this extraordinary Spring. Sunshine seemed to indicate Chardonnay, so I fetched out a bottle of Chateau St. Jean Sonoma County Chardonnay (easily available locally for less than $15) and found immediate joy. Let me just say this: The promise of the nose was confirmed by the first bite into the wine, reminiscent of sinking the teeth into a crisp apple, fresh from the tree. I was inspired to open one of those bags of instant salad and grill a small steak. The wine made a pleasing counterpoint to the spinach and rocket, and masked the deadly dullness of iceberg lettuce. The common argot of wine-drinking says you should pair red wines with red meats, but that’s for the simpleminded. This chardonnay’s fruity flavor stood up really well to the meat. If we get any more sensible sunshine this summer (as opposed to burning heat followed by thunderstorms and snow) I will be opening additional bottles. You should too.

    Oliver Nicholson is a classicist at the University of Minnesota, and former Secretary of the Wine Committee at Wolfson College, Oxford.

  • The Receding Bikini Line

    Listen up folks. Bathing suit season is upon us. We have very little time. As the temperature rises, the threat of exposure increases. Soon we will be obliged to reveal the acres of tender flesh we have been farming lo these past seven months. And ready or not, after Memorial Day, we will hit the sand in jiggling herds wearing little more than sun block and a self-conscious smirk.

    I am a solid citizen. A size 12. I tip the scales at about a buck-fifty. I left behind the idea that I needed to be rail thin a long time ago. Some might call me full-bodied, I say I’m Midwestern. That way it sounds reassuring, like something good to hang onto, not something to try to hide. My weight is substantial, but not unhealthy. It looks good on me. I have places to go and things to eat and I can’t be bothered with someone else’s idea of beauty. When I step out of the shower and look in the mirror, I like what I see.

    It’s when I have to stuff my goodies into one square foot of patterned spandex and traipse out in public that the trouble starts. With a swimsuit, there are all sorts of problems. I have yet to find a suit bottom that stays put. Even the new boy-cut surfer shorts that are all the rage. I can’t take five steps from beach blanket to shore without making the entire back of my suit disappear. Alacazam and Presto! It’s my special magic trick. I could wear a thong, but something in my working-class DNA prevents me from spending 20 bucks on an item of clothing you can hardly see. I’d rather draw one on with a Sharpie.

    Another concern with the change of season is sun exposure. Have you ever read all the precautions that dermatologists want you to take before you step out into the great outdoors? Is it my imagination or does the list get longer every year? Sun block, check. Big hat, check. Sunglasses, check. Lip balm, check. You can still see a few defiant souls flash-frying themselves here and there, around the lakes, in their yards, going for that St. Tropez glow. But until “Fruit Leather” becomes a sought-after skin texture, I’ll just be sitting over there, under that tree, wearing my Standard Government Issue anti-gamma ray poncho and boots.

    Actually, for the last couple of years, I have been involved in several self-tanning accidents. I have worked my way through every brand of bronzer; from high-end cosmetic counter green-tea infused cinnamon butters, to discount chain-store brand paste, with the same results. I follow the directions, exfoliate, moisturize, and smooth on using quick upward strokes, allowing time to dry thoroughly before putting clothes back on. Golden, sun-kissed color will appear two to three hours after application. Repeat as necessary every two to three days to maintain color. Hmmph. I have created a new art form in tan lines. The first time, I gave myself my very own pinstriped birthday suit. The second time? Handprint-sized blotches appeared that looked like severe bruising under the fluorescent lights at Cub. I finally figured out a system, though: several applications over an intensive 48-hour period where I remain naked (shades pulled) in my house, standing in front of the TV holding my arms out as each application dries. Repeat every other week when the kids are gone visiting Dad.

    While I’m drying, I worry. The thing about summer approaching is that the kids will be out of school and they will require attention. My kids, ages 11 and 14, are in that wondrous age when they are too old to have babysitters, yet too young to be left at home alone for any length of time. Without the stabilizing influence of a regimented school day, the ever-present threat of boredom looms.

    Every year at this time, I start the summer with hopeful thoughts of all the free activities the kids and I will partake in. Park festivals where there are giant puppets and dancers! Bi-weekly jaunts to the public library for mind-enriching literature! Evening bike rides to the rose garden where we will breathe deep the perfume of night-blooming varieties. Homemade sandwiches enjoyed while listening to street musicians busking for change. In none of these scenarios do I imagine unlimited-ride wristbands, or steady visits to Taco Bell. I don’t envision children who are forced to spend an extra 10 hours a day in close proximity renegotiating the terms of their relationship with purple-nurples and hurts-donits. I don’t think of rainy days and the struggle for control over the TV clicker. No, I dream of 10,000 lakes, and a suit bottom that never rides up.

    Colleen Kruse is a Twin Cities actress and comedian. Email her: mscolleenkruse@hotmail.com

  • Free The Jackson Five!

    What do Norm Coleman, Clem Haskins, and 70s soul man Billy Preston have in common? They all understand that “nothing from nothing leaves nothing—you gotta have something, if you want to be with me.”

    On first blush, it looks like both Norm and Clem are getting something for nothing. Clem got paid to leave a gig. Norm is getting paid to join a gig—the Winthrop & Weinstein law firm, even though he has an inactive law license and is never at the firm anyway because he’s running for the U.S. Senate. Clem got $1.5 million to leave ahead of schedule. Norm is probably getting six figures to chill with his homies at Winthrop.

    Please, please, please sign me up for a piece of that action. Imagine getting paid win, lose, show, or no-show. Most of us ordinary nose-to-the-grindstone legal eagles have to show up to get paid. Law firms usually have what is known euphemistically as “billable hour requirements.” Plain English—lawyers have to crank out enough legalese to pay their salaries and the overhead necessary to support them. Firms often require at least 30 hours a week of billable time. For the honest lawyer (I realize this is an oxymoron to many God-fearing Minnesotans), that means at least 45 hours a week in the office, since much of a lawyer’s time (lunch, potty runs, emailing office gossip, chasing ambulances, and so on) cannot be billed.

    The thing is, Clem and Norm are providing something of value to the people who signed their checks. Surely these people expect more than simply a big toothy grin and “thanks” for the cash they’re doling out to Clem and Norm.
    Clem Haskins’ troubles are well known even to the most sports-challenged. He engaged in various academic chicaneries during his tenure as University of Minnesota basketball coach. When the rubber hit the hardwood floor, U. president Mark Yudof instructed Mark Rotenberg, general counsel, to get Haskins off the plantation. In short order, they coughed up $1.5 million and Clem was gone with the wind.

    According to some insiders, the U knew Haskins had (as we say in the business) “unclean hands” pretty much from jump street and decided to cut its losses. Now, the Yudof/Rotenberg twosome, facing heat from “Greater Minnesota” legislators, incredibly claim that Haskins bamboozled them. Now they self-righteously want their dough back.

    What does this have to do with Norm? Think about it for it for a moment. Norm has a few things someone might want. Like a wide-ranging Rolodex and a bright political future. Winthrop realized that Norm could use his public service contacts to reel in some big fish, and be the trump card for the lobbying end of the firm’s practice, especially if he ousts Sen. Paul Wellstone in November. If that happens, Norm’s adopted law firm will be only a phone call away from a Republican U.S. senator whose friends include the sitting President of the United States.

    Remember the 1974 pet rock craze? California salesman Gary Dahl reasoned that people will pay for anything they perceive is trendy, cool, and well packaged. (Any similarities here to certain political figures are entirely coincidental.) He sold over a million “pets” for $3.95 each, scoring a half-page in Newsweek and two Tonight Show gigs along the way. Am I saying that Norm is like a pet rock, trendy and well packaged? Not really. Actually the point is this: Gary Dahl was right. People will pay for value, either real or imagined.

    Like Clem Haskins’ name off the letterhead. Or Norm Coleman’s name on the letterhead.

  • Strong Drink for General Washington

    Imagine yourself loaded into a watertight cask and rolled down into the deepest hold of an 18th century sailing ship. You are buffeted about in a sea-voyage of many months. The warmth is oppressive, even in the belly of the ship, and the humidity is worse. From time to time, you hear the scrabbling of ship rats—black rats, the sort that carry the bubonic plague, but in your barrel they can’t get at you.

    Sounds foul, doesn’t it? But this rough treatment is how Madeira wine was first made. And the process (well, maybe not the rats) is still simulated in the estufas of that beautiful island, 400 miles from the nearest mainland, out in the broad Atlantic. It’s no wonder that all four sorts of Madeira, from the driest (Sercial) to the sweetest (Malmsey), are a fine nutty brown color. Madeira in its raw state is a white wine, but by the time it’s ready to drink it’s been cooked—“maderized”—in fact and it’s this cooking that produces its distinctive flavor. There are four varieties of Madeira, named for the four grapes involved: there’s the unctuous sweetness of Malmsey, the less sugary savor of Bual, or the more austere Verdelho and Sercial.

    Verdelho is often known in America as Rainwater, although it would have to be rainwater off a pretty rusty tin roof to match the color. Rainwater is wonderful when you drink it with a plain cracker (try the English biscuit known as the Bath Oliver) or perhaps a piece of Madeira cake on a cool spring afternoon. Rainwater also makes a pleasant substitute for sherry as a drink before dinner, since it doesn’t disturb the stomach the way a dry sherry can.
    Malmsey is good after dinner. If you go to Mount Vernon in Virginia, by all means admire George Washington’s wooden false teeth. Then go downstairs to see his dining room, which is set up for an 18th century after-dinner dessert. This would consist not of cake or pie, but of fruit, nuts, and sweet wines. You can imagine the Father of the Nation talking treason against the British and sipping Malmsey from the small glasses set on the table. Good Malmsey is not just sickly-sweet, it sets a Haydn symphony of sweet and sour playing in your brain.

    The Romans knew about maderizing wine. But we have 18th century America and England to thank for the nectar we enjoy today. The island of Madeira was a convenient mid-Atlantic harbor in colonial times. (Readers of Patrick O’Brien’s novels about Nelson’s Navy will know Madeira simply as “the Island.”) His Majesty’s Government in England would not permit trade between the American colonies and other European nations, and the 18th century was punctuated by frequent wars between France and England. The absence of French wines made early Americans thirsty.

    One could argue that Madeira was not Europe but Africa. Besides, it belonged to Portugal and the alliance between England and Portugal is the oldest diplomatic alliance in the world, dating back to the Middle Ages. So when they found that the unappealing white wines of the island, which had previously been used as ballast in the bottoms of ships, could be made palatable by long sea voyages, vine-growers and merchants hastened to supply the Colonials’ favorite lubricant.

    You can sip your way into all this history for as little as $15 a bottle, and you don’t have to drink it all at once when you’ve opened it. After all that abuse in its manufacture, Madeira has the patience to wait for you to enjoy it.

  • A woman and her SUV? Nope.

    Hey, I’m luxury-minded. I understand the finer things in life. Pleasures can be simple, like a dish-soap bubble bath, for instance. Quiet time to read, perhaps. The fetal position.
    Life’s joy can be measured in things that cost big, too. Like telling someone what you really think, or buying produce at Lund’s in April. I understand value. And I understand that sometimes you’ve got to spend if you want to save. So it was with this attitude that I walked into the car dealership looking to buy myself a new, or even pre-owned car.

    Right out of the gate, the guy had my number: Mom. Two kids. Dog. Needs to buy a car because the old one is wrapped around a tree on Minnehaha Parkway after skidding on a patch of ice. He steers me to the SUVs because, presumably, I need a space shuttle to haul my purse around. He tells me that women have single-handedly made the SUV the most popular vehicle in America because they feel safer while driving them. I climbed into a floor model. I admit, sitting up so high in the saddle was a bit of a thrill. Why, I could buy a smart green uniform, install a coin counter by the passenger door, and start a route up and down Lake Street for beer money.

    One thing stuck with me—the safety issue. Searching for “safe” cars on the internet, I saw a whole new twist on the luxury vehicle: the armored sedan. Cadillac designed them with politicians in mind, and other people who inspire random acts of violence. But now they are the new must-have extravagance for post-9/11 conspicuous consumers. You know, for those times when your Humvee is just too sporty. The sedan has run-flat tires, bullet-resistant windows, and a modified chassis to support the extra weight of the car. I couldn’t help thinking that a few features are missing. I mean, if you have defense, you’ve got to have offense. How about a flipping wedge and whirling titanium juicer blades? Of course, the smashing mallet would be optional, along with the butt-warmers in the winter package.

    How safe do I need to be? Say I make it through gunplay, shrapnel, and a high-speed chase. What happens when I have to get out of the car for lunch? Maybe I can hire Tom Ridge to wash my salad greens. The meek might not inherit the earth, but as far as I can tell, they have access to just about everything you are likely to put into your mouth. And if anybody starts doing sustained background checks on entry-level, minimum-wage workers, forget it. There won’t be enough qualified personnel to staff a Starbucks.

    I ended up buying a younger version of the same car I wrecked. A stationwagon. I can fit my purse in it, and I feel secure knowing that other motorists and pedestrians will never suspect me of spending more for less. Some people can buy the illusion of safety. The rest of us buckle up.

    Colleen Kruse is a Twin Cities actress and comedian. Send safety recommendations by email to mscolleenkruse@hotmail.com

  • Free The Jackson Five!

    Before dreadlocks and cornrows, there was the Afro. The Afro was 15 percent hairstyle and 85 percent political statement. Armed with my Afro, I was a true “brother.” I grew my first ’fro in 1971. I was a bad–ass 13 year-old Denver kid just itching to help free the oppressed—Angela Davis, the Chicago Seven, even the Jackson Five. When I got into Harvard College in 1977, my dad made it clear—there would be no second mortgages to fund my eastern pilgrimage. Meanwhile, Uncle Sam offered to provide m-o-n-e-y if only I would join Air Force R-O-T-C. I was torn. How could I be a true brother in a military uniform, shorn of my Ultra Sheened crown? For a week, my stomach went through moves that would put the brothers on Soul Train to shame. However, the allure of Ivy League chic was too seductive to resist. Two days before I left for Boston, I went to Ray’s House of Hair and ordered the military cut.

    Stripped of my ’fro, I was sure I was marked for excommunication from the brotherhood. I truly believed that everything in America was about race. Therefore, all my decisions—where to go to school, who to date, what profession to enter—rested, on some level, on race stuff.

    I shudder to think how often I let “race stuff” skew my decision-making process. While I was in college, I supported Edward Brooke, a black Republican senator from Massachusetts. I liked his politics and I liked his style. Yet I worried. Could a true brother be a Republican? According to one wag, a black man voting Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders. Could a brother be “down” and have a white wife? Many folks, especially African-American women, will privately (and some, not so privately) say hell no. I am ashamed to admit that I have almost let such narrow thinking about skin color trump my heart’s desire.

    Today, I have no ’fro (not that I could grow one if wanted I to), I have voted for Republicans, and I have a terrific, thoughtful wife, who just happens to have blond hair and blue eyes. If that means my “brother card” gets revoked, so be it. Over the years, I have learned that being a real brother is not as important as being a real man. Real men think for themselves and live with the consequences of their decisions.
    American politics is like a big engine that runs on the fuel of self-interest. Race, gender, party labels are important additives to the fuel mix. The political engine actually runs smoother, the richer the mix. However, the political engine will not run at all without a strong base of self-interest. Failing to acknowledge that group identity is a critical component of self-interest is naive. But believing it to be the basis of self-interest is downright stupid.
    Consider the recent ouster of Denny Green from the Minnesota Vikings. Some think Green got canned for being an “uppity nigger”—confident, talented, and unwilling to kowtow to certain sports columnists.

    A more likely explanation is this: Green forgot the first rule of American politics. Self-interest trumps racial loyalties. I think even Ray Charles could see that star receiver Randy Moss was out of control. For whatever reason, Green would not or could not take him to the woodshed. Vikings owner Red McCombs (a.k.a. “the Man”) apparently did not believe Green could look past the politics of race and focus on the politics of self-interest. Green’s fate was sealed.

    Sounds cynical, doesn’t it? Perhaps. Self-interest drives most of us more than we might care to admit. Ten years ago, I chaired the Minnesota Minority Lawyer Association’s annual scholarship dinner. I wanted a military color guard to open the show. Some of the “brothers” threatened to boycott the event because they weren’t comfortable with the “military baggage.” The color guard got canned. In 1998, some of the same lawyers wanted to lure the primarily black National Bar Association convention to Minneapolis. The NBA wanted a military presence. Suddenly, waving the military colors became a very cool thing to do. The NBA got the color guard and Minneapolis got the convention. Hypocrisy? Perhaps. But I like to think it was the brothers getting hip to self-interest.

    Clinton Collins, Jr. is a Minneapolis attorney and commentator.

  • Ain't She Sweet?

    By Oliver Nicholson

    Things seem to be getting serious. She’s convinced her parents to ask you to dinner and you’re scared stiff. It’s not that the grub will be bad. Her mother has a great reputation as a cook. But how will you ever convince them you’re good enough for their little girl?

    First impressions count, and only a clod would show up empty-handed. So, what will it be? Chocolates? Too impersonal. Flowers? Ditto, unless you grew them yourself. Hot dish? Hardly, when she’s such a good cook. Wine? Her father is one of those meek little men who mows the lawn and does the dishes in rubber gloves. He undoubtedly knows the perfect wines to go with the perfect cook’s perfect grub. He probably has the wine all mapped out: a nifty little Mersault for the truite meuniere, Aloxe-Corton for the Beef Wellington.

    Wait, though, what about wine for after dinner? A fine idea. You go to the wine shop and look down the shelves. Port? Too complicated. Besides, the really good ones need to be kept for years, filtered into decanters and left to settle, hardly the sort of thing you can hand over after you’ve hung up your coat with “I thought you might like to try this.” Madeira? Where is Madeira? And then there are all those yellowish wines, said to be sweet. Might do for drinking with the Perfect Pudding or with fruit and nuts afterwards.

    OK, which? My advice is to go for the one called Beaumes de Venise. Why? For a start, it tastes good. Not just good but interesting. Odd things happen to the roof of your mouth when you drink it slowly. For another thing, it comes from an interesting place; it may get her father talking about their holiday in the south of France, which will cheer him up, whatever it may do to you. Best of all, it’s not expensive. A half-bottle, which is all you’ll need, costs around $12. Can’t be bad.

    All the Beaumes de Venise in the world comes from one pretty village in southern France. Provence was the first area of Gaul to be annexed by the Roman Empire, more than a century before Christ. The small Muscat grapes from which the wine is made grow on sandy terraces laid out along the hot hillsides northeast of Avignon. These grapes probably came to Provence even before the Romans. Ancient writers tell how the people of Iron Age Gaul were so keen on wine imported from the Greek and Roman world that they would sell their own daughters into slavery simply to get their hands on a bottle of it– though of course it might be tactless to relate this at dinner with your future in-laws. Anyway, when the good people of Gaul began to grow grapes for themselves it was likely the Muscat grape they planted.

    The Greeks have a saying that you should enjoy your wine with all five senses. I’m not sure how touch or hearing come into it, but Beaumes de Venise held up to the light, even on a grey March evening in Minnesota, has a pleasing smell and a pale gold glint. The tastes are delicate, reminiscent of several sorts of fruit. Maybe that’s why I’ve seen it commended for use in recipes for fruit salad with mangoes, strawberries, and pineapple. But frankly, that’s a waste. The flavors of its own fruit are too complicated to mask with such strong alien tastes.

    If you like Beuames de Venise, you’ll be in godly company: The Popes enjoyed it when they lived at Avignon in the 14th century. I’m not sure if this fact will make you seem more virtuous in her parents’ eyes, but it certainly can’t hurt your reputation–nor that of this excellent wine.

    Oliver Nicholson is a classicist at the University of Minnesota, and former Secretary of the Wine Committee at Wolfson College, Oxford.

  • Motley Krüse

    The problem with being a mother is that the definition of success is too damned narrow. You’re either a good mother, or a bad mother. No in-betweens, no wiggle room. If we can accept gray areas in politics and potlucks, why not parenting? I say this, of course, as I bury another body in the backyard. Under cover of darkness, before my daughter gets home from the weekend away at her dad’s house. I don’t know what I’ll say when she gets here, I don’t know what would make a difference. As soon as she climbs the stairs to her room, she’ll know. Her screams will fill the house. She’ll run down to me, stupid in her grief, tears in her eyes. She’ll desperately cry, “Where is he? What did you do to Pongo?” She’ll collapse and she’ll moan and repeat these questions over and over again, even though she knows the answer. I, her mother, have killed again.

    I didn’t mean to! It was an accident! How many times can something happen before accident turns into “on purpose”? Three times? Four? Under my watch, no less than six beloved creatures—animal companions, I guess you call them—have died needlessly. This time, the bird in question, Pongo, waited in vain for his water dish to be filled. I missed one day, and his beak dried shut. I swabbed it with a Q-tip dipped in olive oil, whispering prayers to St. Martin. Pongo seemed resigned to his fate, lying on his side, eyes blinking, until they closed for good.

    In my defense, I’d like to note here that we have both a dog and a cat, which are thriving. I just can’t be responsible for pets that live in cages, bowls, or tanks. That’s where I get into trouble. If I forget to put water in the dog dish, he’ll belly up to the toilet like it’s happy hour at T.G.I. Fridays. If I forget to change the cat litter, she’ll poop in my shoes. Sometimes, she does this anyway to let me know who’s boss.

    There were fish once, I remember, that were purchased for a child recovering from strep throat. Bright and soothing, they floated, dipped, and swirled through their underwater jungle gym of glow-in-the-dark skulls and treasure chests, surfacing for just a pinch of protein flakes, measured out by the child who loved them. Their water dimmed, until a cleaning couldn’t be put off. As the child slept, I carried the tank into the kitchen, scooped out the fish, and put them into a large mixing bowl full of treated water. I emptied the dirty tank, scrubbed it, and carefully replaced the skulls and treasure chests. I put the drops in the tank. Then I refilled it using water from the hot tap rather than the cold, realizing my mistake seconds after I tossed the fish back in. It was after midnight, when a lot of those crappy household tasks get underway in the home of a single mother. I sat on the counter, patting myself on the back for a dirty job well done, watching them swim furiously for a couple of moments. Until I saw the steam rising from the tank. I plunged my hands into the tank, but it was too late. I flushed their tiny bodies down the pipes and made up a half-baked story the next day. But everybody knew.

    There was a time when I thought digital pets might be the answer, but it’s not the same. When my daughter gets home tonight, my only recourse is to tell her the truth, and hope to God the Buddhists are wrong.

    Colleen Kruse is a Twin Cities actress and comedian who knows how to deal with stalkers, so don’t even try.