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Tea is a crop we could grow in Minnesota, but the end product would be so foul that no one with working taste buds would go near it. The mountainous soils of Nepal, though, produce some damn fine chai, as they call it. Swadesh Shrestha and his brother Saujanya serve it at their Uptown Minneapolis shop, Himalayan Chai. The black, green, and ayurvedic teas are robust and flavorful. They are typically steeped loose, in the cup, and they are actually quite toothsome. You find yourself enjoying the sensation of leaves in your mouth—like steamed greens. The practiced customer will discreetly give the gums a whirl of the tongue before grinning in pleasure.

But there’s more in that cup than just edible dregs. Drinking at Himalayan Chai is an inherently political act. Here’s why: The tea shop is owned by Nepal Natural Tea Industry, a company that was started twenty-five years ago by the Shresthas’ father, Saumendra. Already a tea grower and exporter, and very well-to-do by Nepalese standards (he owned both the first truck and the first printing press in their hometown of Phidim), Saumendra decided he wanted to do something for the people of his native country. He enlisted a handful of families to launch a tea garden cooperative. Each family contributed some land and set to work cultivating the crop that grows so well at the village’s seven-thousand-foot elevation. Today, there are nearly two hundred families in the cooperative. Phidim now has a school and a bridge. Life is good.

The Shresthas tell me that everything that can be done by the cooperative is kept within the country. Instead of importing tea boxes from China or India, the Shresthas employ a Nepalese family to handcraft their unadorned but elegant boxes from recycled sawdust. The teas are grown organically. Cooperative members handpick the tea three times a year, and hand-deliver it to the processor in the valley. Large quantities of tea are exported to Germany, and smaller shipments go to Australia, Japan, and the United States. In Minneapolis, the Shrestha brothers are enthusiastically hoping to turn people on to chai. Swadesh went so far as to give away all tea drinks, no charge, during the first two weeks the shop was open.

Inside the tiny, marigold-colored shop at 713 W. Franklin Ave., there is the familiar hum and twang of Eastern music. The slight, 32-year-old Swadesh is eager to please and such a detail-oriented capitalist that it’s tempting to think this kindhearted cooperative is all a front. Maybe the brothers plan to take the money and run. Nope. Almost every business transaction conducted in the shop benefits the people of the tea cooperative. The profits from the brightly colored wool sweaters for sale go to a group of women living in stone huts on a Himalayan mountainside. Profits from tea sales go directly to the producers. Even the tips the Shresthas gather are sent home. The $100 collected each month is enough to send two more Nepalese children to school. This collision of good works with Western consumerism has been such a success that the Shrestha brothers are now opening a second shop, at 25th and Hennepin. —Katie Quirk

The Hamm’s Club brewery show this past September was pretty much what one would expect: a few dozen vendors in the parking lot of a defunct brewery hawking beer collectibles to each other. Some sold genuine antiques, some had kitsch, some not-yet-kitsch, and some never-would-be-kitsch. A guy named Jerry from Fort Worth offered Styrofoam Hamm’s bear statues for $495. A carved wood Leinenkugel’s oar could be had for $45. In this unpredictable market, the table doing the most business was selling hot dogs, chips, and soda.

Business was also brisk at the Hamm’s Club tent. What looked like a thin crowd was, in fact, “a great turnout,” said Jon Morphew, Hamm’s Club chief counsel. The Hamm’s Club has controversial opposition to thank for some extra attention. After raising $12,000 for a six-foot granite monument to the beloved Hamm’s bear, and after securing Park Board approval to place it in Como Zoo, the Hamm’s Club took a slap in the face when the St. Paul City Council voted to table final approval, offering little by way of explanation beyond church-lady mumblings about “indirect promotion of alcohol” from council member Jay Benanav.

Morphew showed me the monument design as he speculated about prospects for its future. It’s a carved headstone, essentially, designed by Bill Kelley, the “Michelangelo of the Hamm’s art world,” according to the club website. The club will gladly accommodate the city and remove the word “beer” from the monument. Morphew also said they would consider placement at the defunct Stroh’s brewery site on the East Side, assuming redevelopment leaves something more than a warehouse or a crater there. If the city does not come up with a placement that satisfies the club, he said, “the bear becomes a free agent.”

Hamm’s Clubbers at the show seemed disappointed but undeterred by this setback. Mary Penning of Inver Grove Heights understands the current of cultural disapproval against which the bear is swimming. She was buying shirts featuring the Hamm’s bear playing hockey. “My kids can’t even wear these to school,” she noted stoically. “We’re so politically correct,” groused a guy called Pat who declined to give his last name. “It started with Joe Camel.”

“They probably don’t even remember who paid for Hamm’s Falls in Como Park,” accused clubber John Husnik.

Jay Benanav wasn’t taking the anti-beer bait anymore when I spoke to him, pointing out that, at age 52, he certainly has “something to show” for his time in the pints. He also seems mindful of the 856 liquor licenses currently held in the St. Paul city limits. But Como Park is in his ward, and he just doesn’t want a headstone there. “It doesn’t have anything to do with being afraid of beer,” he said. “The overriding factor is that it’s a gravestone. Como Park is not an appropriate place for a grave marker. If we don’t have some standards, what’s next? A gravestone to the Cootie Bug?”

Council member Chris Coleman also declined to take an anti-beer stance. He just hates the bear. “This bear has a white belly. What kind of bear has a white belly? We just don’t need schmaltz art in our center park. Now, that little oven mitt that’s advertising for Arby’s is pretty cute. Maybe I’ll see if we can get one of those for the park. Actually, I’d like to have giant statues of the Simpsons all over town, the way we have the Peanuts now.” Coleman was clearly not seeking reelection when I reminded him of the deep feelings many in the Hamm’s Club have for the bear. “Can any of them see their toes?” he asked.

At the brewery show, Kevin Burke had choice words for the City Council. Burke’s uncle was a Hamm’s distributor. He couldn’t say for sure whether the bear will become an endorsement issue in Benanav’s next campaign, but he made the following promise: “I’m gonna jump him like a dime-store pony.”—Joe Pastoor

A yellow electric scooter lies on its side in the middle of 38th Street and Park Avenue. It’s just past 2 a.m. (hooray, new bar time!), and I swerve my Mazda into construction to keep from running it over. The scooter lies among flashing orange-and-white traffic horses and chunks of broken pavement, like a glowing offering from the street gods. I stop in the middle of the road and get out to inspect it as if it were an injured kitten I need to swoop up and rescue. There are no scraps of mangled metal. There’s no evidence it was involved in a collision with another vehicle or wayward street sign. Instead, the poor thing is just abandoned. Alone and dejected. Like a culprit in a recent crime spree, left behind to defend itself.

If the murmured rumors around my Powderhorn neighborhood are to be believed, this little motorized scooter is an awesome new tool for petty crime, a mode of transportation that’s quick (maximum speed: twenty-two miles per hour) and untraceable (it doesn’t require a motor-vehicle registration). They’re cheap, easy to get, and—apparently—easily ditched.

My interest was piqued: Why have these vehicles suddenly appeared all over the city? Why don’t their drivers need to be licensed? Where can I get one? Like any informed and cost-conscious Twin Citizen, I assumed I could find answers at Target. Making my semi-regular visit for Frappuccinos, refrigerator magnets, and overdue wedding gifts, I saw a crowd gathering around rows of boxes the size of a guitar case. There it was: The “E-Scooter,” ready to unfold, charge up, and take on a crime-free joyride. Yes, enviro-friendly transportation now comes in a box for the bargain-basement price of $199.99. Battery included!

Leoch, the makers of the E-Scooter, began licensing their product to Target earlier this year. According to the China-based company’s sales manager, a friendly woman named Anne Daisy, Leoch’s sales have increased by fifty percent during the last year. “Our scooter keeps gaining popularity because of its convenience and fashionable style,” Daisy said. And what about its effectiveness as a getaway vehicle? “I haven’t heard anything until now,” she said. “People mostly use it for amusement and shopping.” The Minneapolis police couldn’t confirm the crime rumors, either. “I haven’t heard anything,” said a Third Precinct officer. “If someone hasn’t figured out how to do it yet, I’m sure they will soon,” he said, with a tone of world-weary resignation. He didn’t thank me for introducing the idea. —Molly Priesmeyer

Scientists argue about a lot of things that most of us don’t care about. But the researchers who observed about ten years back that sperm counts were falling—nationally, about one and a half percent per year—found themselves in the news. Naturally, the average guy on the street worries about his sperm being headed for extinction. Since then, there has been a lot of scientific squabbling, and Minnesota sperm have figured prominently in the controversy. As it turns out, one of the nation’s oldest and most respected sperm banks is located in Roseville. The latest information issuing from such places could gestate for hours at your next dinner party.

Where you live seems to matter. Minnesota men have sperm counts sixty percent higher than men in Missouri. Minnesota also beats California hands (tails?) down. Not only are our sperm more numerous than in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s adoptive home state, but they also appear to be healthier swimmers than California’s microscopic surfers. Though the research is cloudy, Minnesota sperm counts may be going up; at worst, they are holding steady.

It seems that Minnesota is a sperm-friendly place to live. Dr. Bruce Redmon is a professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School. He teaches urologic surgery and is a Minnesota sperm specialist. “Men in Minnesota, at least those living in the Twin Cities area, appear to have good semen quality compared to other urban areas in the U.S.,” he told me the other day. Perhaps we’ve stumbled on a new angle for the local tourism board: Impaired sperm of the world, come to the Twin Cities!

Why exactly is the Twin Cities such a sperm-friendly environment? Dr. Redmon’s studies suggest that environmental factors like pollution “raise a red flag.” One theory is that the especially toxic herbicides and pesticides used to grow fruit in California may have some nasty side effects on male fertility.

Alternatively, Minnesota winters may have something to do with it. Sperm are one of the few living organisms that thrive in winter. Some of the highest sperm counts on the planet are in frigid Finland. Researchers know that sperm counts tend to fall in warmer summer temperatures—which might explain why California, the land of endless summer, has such a lethargic sperm population. One researcher at Columbia University has correlated hard winters in Minnesota with higher sperm counts—and subsequent baby booms. In other words, if this year’s winter is especially harsh, we can expect a bumper crop of new Minnesotans next year. There is no guarantee that they won’t grow up to complain about the weather, though.—Debora Geary

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to do some fill-in work at a radio station. Handed a pile of standard forms to fill out, I sat staring at question number four. “List three people to call in case of emergency.” Three! Didn’t it used to be one? Just how dangerous is this gig? I thought I’d be plugging in headphones and back-selling Ella Fitzgerald. I didn’t realize I’d also be milking the venom out of snakes.
Eureka! I’ve got a boyfriend-he’ll be first on my list. Now, anyone after this becomes comedy. Dad? I think he still believes the telephone to be a new invention, which might explain why his “phone voice” sounds like someone rounding up cattle. Besides that, he hasn’t answered the phone since 1995. Siblings? All screeners. Besides that, three out of five won’t drive if there’s a freeway involved. One is paralyzed with social anxiety and doesn’t leave the basement; moot point as he doesn’t have a driver’s license anyway. “Hurry, I’m bleeding! Snort your Ritalin and hop on your bike!” Not likely. Friends? I feel like I’m putting them out when I ask them to coffee. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable asking any of them to identify my headless body at the morgue.
I lived alone for years and would often wonder: What if I were to slip on the Irish Spring in the shower and hit my head? How many days would it take for someone to notice I was “missing”? Very tricky as a freelancer. If it happened on a Friday, God help me, it might be a week. My agent would call, but would she honestly come rushing over to bang on my door? Come on Eileen, I don’t think so. Unless she hadn’t gotten her ten percent that month. Now that I think about it, I realize living like a flake could really work to my disadvantage. “Oh, no one’s heard from Lucia in a month. But you know, that’s just her.” I do have cats, but as of yet I haven’t been able to train them to dial 911. (We’re still working on “GET DOWN!” from the top of the television.) It got me thinking that some enterprising person should offer their services as someone’s in-case-of-emergency contact. You could hire someone on a year-to-year basis. They could have multiple clients. They would only need to be sober, own a pager, and not have an irrational fear of doorknobs. 1-800-I-AM-SANE.

One recent afternoon in south Minneapolis, we looked on in horror as a torch-wielding mob chased a pale, fedora-clad man down an alley past the grease-clogged kitchen vents of a Chinese restaurant. Rounding a corner ahead of the mob, the fugitive ducked through an oddly small lavender-colored door in a nearby storefront. As the mob continued their search in the wrong direction, we ducked through the diminutive door and found none other than Lemony Snicket catching his breath in a shabby wingback chair, surrounded by cats, a banty hen pecking about his feet. The reclusive author recently completed The Slippery Slope, the tenth in his Series of Unfortunate Events books documenting the tragic affairs of the Baudelaire orphans. As the clamor of the mob receded in the distance, Mr. Snicket agreed to tell The Rake what he would bring along if stranded on a desert island. Though in Snicket’s case, the question may be when, not if.
1. “An up-to-date atlas.”
2. “A sturdy, easily steerable raft, preferably designed by Thor Heyerdahl.”
3. “Alice Waters. Founder of the famed Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse, known for concocting delicious dishes out of local materials. I should hasten to add that Ms. Waters would be along in a purely professional context, in a non-romantic way.”
4. “Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project. It’s a thousand-page long philosophical treatise-long thought to have been destroyed-on window shopping in France. I’ve always wanted to read it, and a desert island might provide me ample time for cracking its spine without cracking my own.”
5. “Sun Ra’s collected singles. A magnificent collection of music that spans nearly every emotional flight of fancy so that regardless of my mood it could be interesting to listen to. If there were no stereo system available on the raft, I think the closest thing to musical entertainment would be a very large bottle of Germaine-Robin, preferably taken from the musty basement of a trusted friend or manservant.”
If no one stops him, Lemony Snicket will appear at the Mall of America Barnes and Noble October 4.

You’re probably most familiar with Tom McCarthy from his acting roles in Meet the Parents and TV’s Boston Public, but you may soon be hearing more about him as a director thanks to the impressive Sundance debut of his first behind-the-camera film, The Station Agent, which picked up both screenwriting and audience-favorite awards. It’s a quirky, character-driven comedy about friendship, with an unlikely hero in Finbar McBride (the excellent Peter Dinklage), a taciturn dwarf and “railfan,” or train hobbyist, whose life changes when he inherits a disused railway station in New Jersey. The film opens October 17 at the Uptown Theater.

THE RAKE: You lived in Minneapolis for a couple of years when you were first getting started as an actor. Do you have fond memories of our town?
McCARTHY: I lived here in college in 1988 and 1989, acting in an improv comedy troupe called Every Mother’s Nightmare. It was great because you could exist without that much trouble. It wasn’t that expensive. Minneapolis has always been a special place for me, because it’s where I started. In college I wasn’t thinking about becoming an actor. I got here and there were great people, musicians, so many artists and actors. My next-door neighbors were Dave Pirner and Marc Perlman, of the Jayhawks.

THE RAKE: How did you find the transition to directing? With the tight schedule of an indie shoot, you must have had to learn on the fly.
McCARTHY: You have to. Basically you’re the captain of a ship and you don’t understand how the ship runs. But luckily you have all these people around who are experts at what they do. Your cinematographer, your sound, your grips, your actors, your producer. You rely on them. You have to make the decisions and get it done, just trust your gut.

THE RAKE: It’s interesting how much the story grew out of your random discovery of the film’s railway station, before you had even started writing a script.
McCARTHY: I grew up about half an hour away, and one of my brothers bought a lake house in that area. I was up there visiting him, and I drove past that depot and I said, man, what a great location for a movie. I slipped a note through the door and I said, give me a call, I’m a writer. So this guy called me. He was a railfan, really excited. He invited me to these railfan meetings like you see in the movie. I plunged myself into learning about trains. I was fascinated by the role that depots played in history, and specifically the station agents. These guys became the unofficial mayors of their community. So I thought it’d be interesting if a guy who inherits this depot unwittingly inherits the social responsibility to connect the community.

THE RAKE: It’s a nice irony that despite his physical differences, Fin is otherwise the most ‘normal’ guy in the movie.
McCARTHY: Totally. It’s very much a nod to Steve McQueen or John Wayne or Gary Cooper as the mysterious stranger who rides into town and immediately attracts the attention of the townspeople. He’s one of those classical Western heroes. The way he dresses, walks, talks, moves. He says what needs to be said and doesn’t waste time with a lot of words.

THE RAKE: Peter Dinklage must have been pleased to get a role where his height wasn’t the main focus.
McCARTHY: We decided that this would not be a movie about being small, about being a dwarf, but about a guy who’s disconnected and how he connects with the community. In some ways being a dwarf was a catalyst, but he could have been a one-armed gunslinger; it’s just anything that makes him different. I think it gave Peter an opportunity to make people forget about his dwarfism and just revel in how good of an actor he is.

“Those gals look pretty darn nice in them,” quipped Minnesota marathon legend Dick Beardsley, referring to the extremely short shorts that elite women marathoners seem to prefer. “To me they look uncomfortable.” They are commonly called bun-huggers, but on the package, they’re called running briefs. While most of the guys along the Twin Cities Marathon course will be covering as much leg as possible, the fastest women will be wearing obscenely skimpy shorts. Nobody seems to know why women wear them and men don’t, but who can explain fashion, let alone sports fashion? Probably it has to do with animal instincts. Everyone believes that a pair of shaven, muscular thighs has the ability to psyche out the opponent. (This seems to be especially true in track and field, volleyball, and tennis—but not, curiously, in women’s basketball or soccer.)

There’s talk of spawning a bun-hugger movement, and it’s not a conspiracy hatched by male oglers. “We’re trying to get more people to wear them,” said Sharon Stubler, an elite runner who, at 38, concedes that she may be too old to be wearing her underwear in public. For reasons of modesty, most citizen runners opt for longer shorts, popularly called “fat boys” or “baggies.” Novices in the sport believe that these shorts will cover the unsightly, fleshy inner thighs. But in truth, they have an annoying tendency to creep up in the middle. If you wear a pair for the long haul, you’ll spend the better part of 26.2 miles yanking out snuggies and tugging at the hem of your shorts.

How to avoid this frumpy fate? Bun-huggers! These little shorts are guaranteed to stay in place because they take the opposite approach to the problem: They’re supposed to stay tethered to your crotch and stuck up your behind. You’ll end the race just as you started it: with your voluptuous thighs nakedly exposed.

The very first time I successfully jogged around Lake Calhoun without stopping, it occurred to me: I should run a marathon. It was late fall. I was wearing an oversized T-shirt and sweat pants cut off at mid-thigh. I imagined my training would earn me svelte, long legs that looked great in more revealing shorts. But as the marathon neared, I realized that my inner thighs had maintained some of their famous curves. My first reflex was to reach for the fat boys. Cover them up! As my mileage increased, my tolerance for shorts that rode up decreased. Soon, I found myself standing at the start of the Twin Cities Marathon in lewdly short running shorts. Dick Beardsley would not have been so impressed.

At the sporting goods store, I encounter female marathoners grappling with the running-short dilemma. The beady eyes of an average runner dart up and down the aisles of the apparel department, searching for some compassion in a sea of blue, black, gray, and white stripes. Wives shout to their husbands from behind the dressing room door: “No, I won’t come out. I look like a hippopotamus!” Serious running shorts are a wardrobe of intimidation and accusation. When it comes down to it, the emasculating designers at Nike and Adidas have no sympathy for biology.

The average woman at the running store is built with thighs that rub together when she walks or runs. Unless harnessed or eliminated, fat deposits will cause her inner thighs to rub raw during a marathon. Her dilemma: Bun-huggers leave her thighs in harm’s way, fat boys ride up. She is just about to throw her hands in the air and take up cycling, where her legs can cocoon in a pair of biker shorts.

As an aspiring marathoner hoping to emulate the go-fast crowd, I took another tip from the elites and turned to a skin lubricant. Most runners, including Dick Beardsley—whose thighs do, in fact, rub together—slather this stuff onto their inner thighs before each run. With lube, even I could wear bun-huggers. Last year, my legs happily swished along for the entire race. Just to be on the safe side, I greased up again at around mile 19, where the National Guard made generous offerings of Vaseline. On I went, gracefully gliding along Summit Avenue, turning heads all along the way. —Christy DeSmith

Try as we do, we can’t always see eye to eye with our friends in outstate Minnesota. (Hell, we don’t even see eye to eye with our spouses always, but that’s another story.) We hate to add fuel to the fire of the present urban-rural dissension, but how can we help it? Now a few greedy Minnesotans have managed to convince the state court of appeals that their local rails-to-trails bike path should be closed, the land fenced and turned over to them for their exclusive use. One imagines it took just minutes after the controversial decision for the rustic mob to turn out with their pitchforks, torches, and No Trespassing signs.

Lawyers representing three land-owners adjacent to the Paul Bunyan State Trail near Walker have filed suit based on technicalities, claiming that the Burlington Northern Railroad never owned the land to sell it to the state—they only had easements dating back to the 1890s. Never mind the fact that in almost every similar case across the country, easements are as transferable as titles and must explicitly be abandoned. And never mind the fact that this sort of ugly selfishness has no place in civil Minnesota society. Their claim is a transparent land grab, and a fine example of not-in-my-backyard softheadedness.

Minnesota has 1,300 miles of trails converted from railroads—a happy state of affairs endorsed in precincts as far away as the U.S. Supreme Court. At the same time that railroads were being decommissioned in the late seventies because of the rise of truck and air transport, courts recognized the value of railroad corridors and acted almost universally to ensure their continued preservation in the interest of the public. That commitment to “railbanking” proved to be prescient. Virtually every community in the nation that has created one of these paths has seen its investment returned in a bounty of tourism, recreation, and community spirit. Property values increase, the tourist economy takes off, people are agreeably sociable, everyone wins. Except the hardbitten redneck who would sooner shoot his own foot than abide city slickers in Lycra.

It gives us pause to consider how this situation is handled in the Old World. In Scandinavia and in the British Isles, for example, private property has an even more storied and sacred past. And yet in places like Scotland and Norway, there are explicit “Freedom to Roam” laws that make it illegal to prevent law-abiding, nature-loving citizens from walking harmlessly through one’s “private property.” Nature is seen as a national treasure and inheritance. Access to it is a birthright. And even in the more ill-tempered counties of England, there are national holidays known as “Trespassing Days,” where roaming is encouraged and supported as a noble principle.

And now three “property rights” bumpkins up past Brainerd may have the courts tied up for years to come, threatening the continuity of every public trail in the state. Imagine the daydreams of shameless litigators, hoping to cash in on the deep reservoirs of misanthropy, xenophobia, and yuppie hatred that are as much a part of the rural landscape as creosote, mullets, and grain elevators. And this surly mob may effectively reduce the state’s trails to a fractured system of dead ends. Mike Sandberg, of Guthrie, was one of the few landowners who was willing to speak publicly on behalf of the Covetous Three. Resorting to the time-honored babblings of anti-government paranoia, he said of the state, “They think they can do whatever they can do. They want the land.” We have news for you, Mr. Sandberg. “They” is us. There are more of us than there are of you. And yes, we want our trail back.

Posted October 2 by The Rake

Men are obsessed with boobs, and Kelly is pretty steamed about it.