Category: Letter

I went to Benchwarmer Bob’s and picked up my first copy of The Rake, and I found the article about Ray Dandridge [“Stranded on Third,” July]. It was most interesting to me, since he is the only ballplayer I ever asked for an autograph. It’s still a vivid memory, climbing out of the stands at Nicollet ball park and meeting Mr. Dandridge along the right-field line as they were walking off the diamond, the bright lights, the very green grass. As a little kid from Northeast Minneapolis, I wasn’t into racism or politics. All I knew was that I saw a great ballplayer.
Virgil Nelson
Burnsville

Amy Hartman’s tales of horror about the adult cabaret industry [Letters, July] have about as much relationship to reality as George Bush’s tales of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Randall Tigue
Minneapolis

Joe Pastoor’s fine article [“Beer Town!,” July] omitted one aspect of the new Grain Belt Beer: the taste. The original Grain Belt was the first beer I ever tasted. The enchanting, spicy bouquet from one bottle poured into a glass could fill the entire kitchen at home; a few pitchers could fill an entire tavern hall, intoxicating drinkers before they took their first sip. Ted Marti is an amazing brewer. He has kept his tiny family brewery open against all odds, but he is now faced with a dilemma. If he continues brewing the Grain Belt recipe that he inherited from Minnesota Brewing, he can hope to maintain the loyal customers who have become accustomed to the rather unremarkable taste of its St. Paul incarnation. But does he have enough customers to support this beer? I propose that Braumeister Marti brew a Grain Belt according to the original recipe. But what the market does not need is another “expensive microbrew-packaged” beer. Simply paste “Urtyp” on the original-recipe beer cases and see which beer the public likes. What we need is a beer like the original Grain Belt: simple package, great beer. Like the old Grain Belt ad said, “You be the judge. Try a case.”
Bjor Kenner
St. Paul

Thank you for your favorable review of Unplugged, my novel about depression and recovery [The Broken Clock, May]. I appreciate the attention your column brought to my performance and signing at Ruminator Books—and, more important, to the cause of suicide prevention. Your piece did, however, contain one error. I am not a “lifetime victim of depression,” having been spared until the age of 33. More to the point, I reject the label “victim,” preferring to call myself a depression survivor. Were I a “victim of depression,” I’d never have been able to write (and tirelessly tour on behalf of) a book of healing and hope that goes toe-to-toe with mood disorders and the stigma surrounding them. Indeed, given the way I’ve responded to my illness, it might be more accurate to say that depression is a victim of me!
Paul McComas
Evanston, IL

I loved the article on the Subaru Baja [“Dude, where’s my truck-like car thing?,” July]. The article mentioned the trouble all car manufacturers are having as they chase the Gen X, active-lifestyle, mountain-biking crowd. That crowd is not interested in most of these vehicles! Charlie Rassouli admits that older folks and “part-time gardeners” are buying the Baja. This is the same problem Honda is having selling its boxy lifestyle auto, the Element. The Element is selling to a much older demographic, mainly older dog owners who swear by the roomy cargo area. Not exactly what Honda was hoping would be stored back there. Pontiac has had the same problem with the Aztec—though that vehicle was hit so badly with the ugly stick the designers should have been arrested.
Steve Roth
St. Louis Park

Please spare me the kinder, gentler spin on Pat Awada [“Is This Woman Ruining Our State?,” July]. As state auditor, her responsibility is to oversee $17 billion in local government spending. As the previous owner of Capital Verification, a telecom industry oversight company, she failed consumers to the tune of $222,000 in her clients’ fines and complaints in seven states. She is hardly fit to be state auditor. “The industry is sleazy,” she tells us. “Every telecom has these problems,” she says. As auditor, would she accept similar excuses from any of the cities she audits? If Pat is the “Future of Minnesota,” then Minnesota is in for years of failed oversight from its state auditor, and possibly years of faulty leadership from its governor, senator, or whatever position the Republican Party anoints her to run for next.
Tom Madden
Minneapolis

The picture of one of my favorite officers of the state caught my eye as I eyeballed the magazine shelves at Barnes & Noble in Edina. There was Pat Awada next to a great question: “Is our spunky state auditor making a Republican out of you?” I hope the answer for the majority is a resounding “Yes!” I’m one of those “anti-tax” Republicans who lives across the freeway from the Awadas and found myself at odds with Pat, the mayor, when she was pushing the community center onto Eaganites, who had just approved her community pool a couple years before (though I didn’t object to the pool as much as I did the community center). But now that it’s built, I’m succumbing to the thought that perhaps it was a good idea. I’m actually an “Eagan ambassador” now, and I led tours through the center when it first opened. Pat has always been an aggressive, competitive, and forward-looking person who has a creative mind, which I hope she uses to expose the waste in the 4,300 units of local government she is overseeing. If she can save us taxpayers a mere 10 percent of the $17 billion, she will be worth her weight in gold.
Alice Kreitz
Eagan

I feel there was one essential fact missing from the article about Minnesota’s current state auditor: Her name is Pat Anderson Awada. It was good enough for the election ballot… I wonder why it isn’t good enough for the office’s letterhead. Ah! At this time, there is no need to manipulate the citizens of the state to get elected!
Chris Olson
St. Paul

Thanks for your article on Pat Awada. It was the first article I’ve seen in the local press that was free of total negativism. It read more like a good short-story characterization. I got a feel for who she is, perhaps for the very first time. She is controversial. So, apparently, am I. In fact, I’d be interested in what Pat has to say about an ad campaign we’ve been running for the City of Excelsior in your magazine (placed right at the end of her article). Some people are reading this as “anti-business,” but the opposite is true. Excelsior simply wants unique businesses that go against the grain. Kind of like Pat Awada. How you read her depends on what is written about her. Thanks for an article that allowed me to decide, instead of told me what to decide.
Chris Birt
Minneapolis

If you had any clue at all about Aron Ralston, you would know that you are the dope for writing such a rude article [Motley Krüse, June]. Aron is a nature lover. Whoever told you he quit his job because of a movie is full of it. He quit his job because he was tired of the corporate world. He wanted to make a career of being a guide. He studied hard, he climbed hard, and luckily he lived to tell about it. If you knew anything about climbing, you would know that what he did, with the exception of not leaving an itinerary, was the norm. By the way, he did have a rope. This climb was kindergarten stuff to him. Fate stepped in, and, as they say, shit happens. Aron is one of the brightest and most responsible people I know, and I really resent the crap you wrote about him.
Sandy Sciota
Rio Rancho, NM

Your article was worth no more than drunken smack talk coming from a table with four empty pitchers at the C.C. Club on a Friday night. You compared Aron to Evel Knievel and the guys from Jackass. Tell me how hiking a trail in the mountains is like jumping the Snake River Canyon on a dirt bike, or standing in an outhouse that is being turned upside down? How do you know he is a thrill seeker? Your ideas on insurance premiums are also a bit inflated. If you had actually done any research at all, you would have found it’s the people who don’t get enough physical activity that have all the health problems. Heart disease and diabetes are at alarming rates because of this. It is inactivity that causes people to be overweight and unhealthy, and to drive up health insurance premiums. I’m a climber, hiker, and cyclist. In my entire life of 35 years, I’ve been to the doctor about seven times for things outside of regular checkups. In the last seven years, I’ve been there twice. Tell me how I am driving up your insurance premiums. How many times have you been to the doctor in the last seven years? Here are the facts: Aron could have left an itinerary. Aron is an experienced hiker and climber on familiar terrain. Aron was pinned down by an 800-pound boulder when he was hiking on a designated trail and found himself in the unfortunate position of having to make a decision that you and I simply cannot comprehend.
Shawn Jeppesen
Robbinsdale

“Dirty Dancing” by Sarah Luck Pearson [June] presents a very one-sided view of the people who are impacted by strip clubs. For the past ten years, through my work at an organization called Adults Saving Kids, I have learned a side of stripping that most people never hear about and is seldom expressed in the mainstream media. I carry with me the stories of many different kinds of people: There are the women who have survived the drug abuse, harassment, and prostitution and who are sad for the women they know who are still trapped in stripping. There are the women whose pimps shipped them around the country to various strip clubs and consigned them, like some tradable commodity, to club owners and their customers. There are the men who are recovering from sexual addiction who have spent thousands of dollars on their strip-club fantasies, only to lose those they really loved. There is the former strip-club manager who clearly articulates the manipulation and deceit that goes on at the strip clubs, and lives and struggles with the fact that he helped destroy lives. There are the devastated parents and siblings of young women whose lives and careers got derailed because of being manipulated into stripping and from there into prostitution. There are the women who work downtown who feel the harassment from their male co-workers who have just returned from a business lunch at a strip club. There is the child who was left in the car in the parking lot for several hours while daddy was inside the strip club living out his fantasy. Fortunately, all of their stories are also protected by the First Amendment. Unfortunately, most folks do not hear these stories because strip clubs and other sexually oriented businesses dominate the media with claims of their First Amendment rights being attacked. It seems that if we are really concerned about protecting First Amendment rights, we first need to give a voice to those people who have been silenced, damaged, and destroyed by “harmless” activities at strip clubs. Once we have a complete and balanced picture of what’s really going on, each of us can judge for ourselves whose rights are being violated.
Amy Hartman
St. Paul

Regarding “Dirty Dancing” [June], Richard Jacobsen is a savvy and genius businessman. People dislike him because “whining” is out; creating a science and business out of a morally controversial profession is in. His businesses are tightly run in comparison to other clubs in the industry. Correction: Gentlemen’s clubs DO NOT sell sex, they “sell” fantasies. Bottom line: Exotic dance clubs are legal. It’s about supply and demand. It’s about people supporting themselves and their children. After reading this article, I feel compelled to run into the nearest strip joint and yell, “Quit your job and go on welfare!” I’ll take you inside the mind of an exotic dancer: The number one most popular comment made by patron of the clubs, “If I were a woman, I’d do it.” The number two most frequently heard comment, “If you are as intelligent as you say, why are you here [at the club]?” I don’t struggle with this question anymore. I want to know, “Why DOES a talented, educated, good-looking and intelligent woman need to dance to survive?”
Name Withheld By Request

Thank you, O Rake, for daring to treat the current disassembling piece-by-piece of the place where I used to live with just a dash of humor. Why not? I used to live in a state whose schools were considered second only to California’s (but that’s another story), whose voters participated in elections at a higher rate than the national average and chose leaders respected far and wide for their depth, humanity, courage, and intelligence. Bars closed a tad earlier and we paid a bit more in taxes than many other places, but we enjoyed a quality of life others envied. Progressive political and social ideals were realized by an energetic partnership among enlightened business, non-profit groups, and educational entities both public and private. Without moving, I now live in a state where poor children have been newly denied health insurance; the government wedges itself more and more into one of the most private and painful areas of people’s lives, the decision whether to have an abortion; discrimination on some bases is newly protected; class sizes in the schools are forced up while teachers are forced out; programs for youth are defunded, police and social services are cut back; and on and on. My governor smugly crows that my taxes have not been raised. Not only would I gladly pay more for a better state of affairs; his claim isn’t even true. I’ll be paying plenty more in local taxes and fees, as regions, cities, districts, and counties struggle to cope with the mess we have been handed. And the guns… oh, God. So why not add a little levity to this ugly situation? As the governor has said, the sky is not falling — only people, hope, and our standard of living are falling. Thanks for the poster.
Jo Devlin
Minneapolis