July 2003

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Dead at the Fair

Filed under: Imported

My profile of heavy metal impresario Earl Root, "I Wanna F*&% All Night and F*&%  Every Day," (kudos to Maerz on the headline) runs in this week's City Pages. For those too lazy to read the story, here's the quick nut on Root. He's hosted the "Root of All Evil" metal show from 1 to 6 a.m. Sunday mornings on KFAI for sixteen-plus years now. He's also the owner of Root Cellar Records, in St. Paul, and the Root of All Evil record label. This Sunday, First Avenue will be hosting the "Six, Six, Sixteenth Anniversary Party," featuring 18 different metal bands, including Root's own outfits God-Awful and Aesma Daeva.

Here's one Root anecdote that I couldn't manage to fit into the piece.

Every year, while the Minnesota State Fair is underway, Root and his chief cohort, engineer Tim Honebrink, broadcast their special "Dead at the Fair" shows. Honebrink goes out to the fairgrounds and tapes some audio: screaming kids, barking corndog vendors, merry-go-round music, etc. They then use that as a sonic backdrop for the show and pretend to be broadcasting from the actual event--just like Paul Magers, Jason Nagel and all the other media bigwigs. Root and Honebrink further entice listeners by insisting that they're surrounded by hot, naked chicks and are giving away bags of money.

During a "Dead at the Fair" broadcast some years back, Root got a call from the Roseville Police Department. They'd picked up a couple of teenagers inside the fairgrounds who claimed to be searching for the Root of All Evil booth. "They jumped the fence and were wandering around the fair trying to find us," Root laughs. 

He's not certain what the Roseville police decided to do with the trespassing, mentally-challenged metalheads. "I think they let 'em go. I hope they let 'em go." 

Posted by Paul Demko at July 30, 2003 3:23 PM

 

World's Greatest Rock n' Roll Band

Filed under: Imported

That would be the Drive-By Truckers for you philistines. I traveled to Athens, Georgia this weekend for the band's CD-release party at the 40-Watt Club. This was, indisputably, a ridiculous indulgence on my part, especially given the fact that the band plays Minneapolis in a week. But it's the Truckers.

The show was, of course, two-plus glorious hours of sweaty, beer-sodden three-guitar rock n' roll. Even guitarist Mike Cooley--whose demeanor generally suggests a bitter, drunken loner--looked like he was having a decent time. Or at least he made it through the show without slugging anyone.

The only comparable music-inspired elation that I can recall in recent memory was seeing Springsteen last year in Miami (during which I got so excited that I nearly plummeted to my death from the upper deck of the American Airlines Arena). Like all the other DBT geeks, my brother and I were giddily pumping our fists and singing along right through the fourth and final encore at 2:30 a.m. You should not be permitted to burn through "Ronnie & Neil" in such a manner at that time of the morning.  

The fact that the Drive-By Truckers are the greatest rock 'n roll band in the world is starting to become more widely accepted. The band graces the cover of No Depression's most recent issue. Grant Alden's lengthy profile is a mixed bag. The reporting is top notch. My favorite quote is from David Hood, father of lead Trucker Patterson Hood (and a legendary Muscle Shoals session musician):

"At first I thought, gosh, man, he can't play for shit, can't sing," David Hood says. ... "I thought do something else. I've always been impressed with his writing, but they have worked at it so hard and so long that I'm very impressed every time I hear 'em now."

Thanks pop! Unfortunately, I found Alden's take on the Truckers' music to be less than astute. He holds up the song "Outfit" as proof that the band's new release, Decoration Day, is their "first great album." Now I certainly don't disagree with the conceit, but "Outfit" just happens to be the one stinker on the whole production. It's full of banal cliches and Woe-is-The-Southern-Man sentimentality. (For my own take on Decoration Day go here.)

The DBT's also pop up in the most recent (and possibly last) issue of the Oxford American. They're hailed as the "new Lynyrd Skynyrd." Frankly, I think it's fair to say that the Truckers have surpassed the artistic achievements of their musical heroes at this point. Nothing against Skynyrd, but any reasonable evaluation of their music has to conclude that they only produced about one album worth of classic material before the big plane crash. Here's an excerpt from Will Blythe's Decoration Day write-up:

Where other celebrants of the working life, Steve Earle and Bruce Springsteen, for instance, have appeared for a long time (maybe from the beginning) to be singing more about literary archetypes than real people--which they do well and movingly--the Drive-By Truckers seem to have ripped their songs directly from life, not a poetry book, not a Bob Dylan sampler. The language feels true (raggedy and inadvertently poetic), the situations more desperate, and the music ain't always pretty but it's always loud.

One other Trucker note. In 2001 Patterson Hood recorded a solo album, Killers and Stars, that was never released. At the time he'd just gotten divorced (again) and the band was on the verge of disintegrating. So he sat down in his dining room and laid down a slit-your-wrists soundtrack that he never intended to see the light of day (at least not in this raw form). Hood's never gotten around to revisiting the project, however, and eventually started burning off copies to sell at shows.

I picked up a copy at the 40 Watt. It's a messy affair. By all accounts, Hood is a throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks kind of writer. He certainly benefits from the competition and editing that is inevitable in a band with three songwriters. Some of the tracks on Killers and Stars should have been left on the cutting-room floor. That said, there are a handful of rough gems. I love the first track, "Uncle Disney," in which Hood basically blames Walt for his woman leaving him. "Belinda Carlisle Diet" ("cocaine and milkshakes") is a darkly hilarious rant. "Fire" provides a reasonable psychological explanation for how someone might be driven to arson. You can most likely pick it up at next week's show.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 29, 2003 6:27 PM

 

Oxford American

Filed under: Stories

Oxford American Official Press Release
16 July 2003

Because advertising revenues did not meet its expectations, the AT HOME
MEDIA GROUP of Little Rock, Arkansas, is suspending publication of THE
OXFORD AMERICAN magazine.

This is very painful news; nonetheless, THE OA's editorial staff has chosen
to stay together to do all they can to find new investors and continue
publishing the magazine, in one incarnation or another.

The AT HOME MEDIA GROUP is providing OA founder and editor Marc Smirnoff
with a temporary office in one of their buildings, along with a temporary
salary, so that a home base can be maintained for a few months while he and
his colleagues go about charting a new future for THE OA. With the belief
that THE OA can, in fact, be made financially viable, this group will pursue
all reasonable options (including the possibility of turning THE OA into a
not-for-profit entity).

The remaining former staff includes editor Marc Smirnoff, senior editor Paul
Reyes, associate editors Carol Ann Fitzgerald and Lauren Wilcox, editorial
assistants Lindsey Millar, Caroline Myers, and David Ramsey.

One option the staff is considering is to take on ownership of the magazine
from the AT HOME MEDIA GROUP, who are intent on helping THE OA find a new
home, and who have expressed a willingness to pass ownership to them
debt-free.

Editor Marc Smirnoff has issued the following statement:

"This is obviously a sad development. I hate to see the lives of the best
editorial staff I've ever had the honor to work with disrupted. And I hate
to see the magazine disrupted, and what that disruption means to our devoted
readers and writers. Upon moving to Little Rock, THE OA has become smarter,
more daring, and more relevant than it ever was before. It has continued to
collect and excite serious readers from all over the country. I am
personally very grateful that the owners of AT HOME MEDIA GROUP took it upon
themselves to bring THE OA into Arkansas. Nonetheless, the staffers who
remain don't think the story is over yet. What's prompting us to want to
personally dedicate ourselves to guiding the business side of the magazine
is that we simply do not think a thing with so much life left in it should
die.

Our belief is that THE OXFORD AMERICAN is singular and therefore vital. All
you have to do is go to any newsstand to see that there is a glut of
superficial magazines being published. These magazines seem to go out of
their way to sap the human spirit. Thankfully, there is a community of
readers who insist that a quality publication from the South, one that dares
to be intelligent and soulful, contributes to the health of our culture, and
that it needs to exist. OXFORD AMERICAN readers have told us over and over
that there is room in their lives for our magazine. That means a hell of a
lot to us. So against intimidating business odds, the OA staffers who
remainin Little Rock<EVEN if we have to get other jobs in the interim in
order to contribute to this cause<ARE to the going honor faith of our good
readers by doing all that we can to take care of THE OA and see that it
boldly resumes publication.

We thank the readers and writers and believers who have gotten us this far,
and who inspire us to keep pushing ahead."

Posted by Paul Demko at July 29, 2003 5:42 PM

 

Stuart Alger's Lesson in Crime

Filed under: Imported

Stuart Alger was out door-knocking one evening late last month in the Frogtown neighborhood of St. Paul. As the Ward 1 City Council candidate hobnobbed with potential voters, a neighbor called up to the porch. She wanted to know if Alger had left his bike leaning against a tree.

Apparently while he was giving his stump speech, some enterprising youngster had sized up the neophyte politician's 12-speed mountain bike and determined that it was superior to his own ride. Unfortunately it was not a mutually beneficial trade. "There was no way I was going to ride his bike around," Alger notes. "It was about two feet too short."

Alger called the cops. After riding around in a squad car for roughly 15 minutes searching in vein for the bike, however, the intrepid attorney decided to continue his door-knocking on foot.

The mystery of what had happened to his bike didn't last long. As Alger walked by a convenience store on Thomas Street, he spotted the 12-speed lying on the sidewalk. "It was pure happenstance that I saw it," Alger recalls. "I figured the person was in the store and sure enough he came out." The new occupant of the bike, however, didn't fit the description of the thief. Eventually the man confessed that he'd just purchased the bike a half hour earlier. "He eventually let it go," says Alger. "It was still in good shape. Nothing had been done to it really."

The incident has not dissuaded Alger from employing his bike on the Hustings. "I'm more determined than ever to use the bike," he maintains. And he discounts the possibility that the theft might have been the work of his political opponents. "I don't think it was a conspiracy," Alger laughs.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 16, 2003 6:13 PM

 

The Luckiest Man In Town

Filed under: Imported

I played in my first-ever Texas Hold 'Em poker tournament last night at Canterbury Park.

In recent weeks I've become something of a poker junky. My reading material has been strictly poker-themed: James McManus' entertaining, if somewhat annoying (largely because of the author's insatiable ego) account of making it to the final table of the World Series of Poker, Positively Fifth Street; Phil Hellmuth's insightful tutorial, Play Poker Like the Pros; Al Alvarez's classic, The Biggest Game in Town; and Anthony Holden's Big Deal, detailing his trial run as a professional poker player.

I've also spent way too much time watching Texas Hold 'Em on the TV, primarily the Travel Channel's excellent World Poker Tour. (On Tuesday ESPN began serializing this year's World Series of Poker, but for numerous reasons that I won't bother delineating, the first episode was wretched.) My TV poker habit reached a new abyss this week when I found myself around 1 a.m. Wednesday morning watching a World Poker Tour episode that I'd already seen. (Gus Hansen wins again!)

Most alarmingly I've become addicted to on-line poker. In the last two months I've spent more hours than I care to contemplate--primarily between midnight and 3 a.m.--staring at my computer screen praying for a decent flop. I've concluded that Danny Gatton's "Redneck Jazz" is the optimal poker soundtrack and developed elaborate theories about how ultimatebet.com is fucking me out of my deserved winnings. Luckily I've contained this habit strictly to $1/2 Texas Hold 'Em, and have so far stayed meagerly in the black.

Last night, however, the computer screen was replaced by 131 live, sweaty, over-caffeinated poker fiends, scattered across 12 tables, all primping like they just returned from Binion's Horseshoe after robbing T. J. Cloutier and Doyle Brunson for a couple of weeks.

The Thursday-night tournament works like this. Each player puts up $55 and receives $600 worth of chips in return. Players then have the option to fork over an additional $45 for $1000 more in play money--an option that virtually everyone chooses. The last nine players standing each get a cut of the prize money.

Here's the abbreviated blow-by-blow

I'm at table two, seat five--and I'm sweating before a single card is dealt. Dark shadows of perspiration gather at the armpits of my peach polo shirt. Why did I wear peach? There's a stack of red, green and black chips in front of me on the baize, but I'm not certain how much they're worth. I'm too nervous to ask. During the first round of play--lasting 20 minutes and perhaps 30 hands--I don't make a single bet. Just sit there, trying to avoid engaging in some horrible breach of poker etiquette, while mucking hand after hand. 

Eventually, driven by sheer boredom if nothing else, I begin to toss some chips around. I win a few decent pots and keep my head above water, continuing to play exceedingly tight. About midway through the second hour of action, however, with players dropping like flies, and my own pile of chips rapidly nearing extinction, I spy a pair of Aces. The best Hold 'Em hand possible! My raises pre- and post-flop fail to shake two callers. At fourth street, with the board showing a King and three hearts (one of my aces is a heart as well), I push the remainder of my chips into the pot. The Pocket Rockets hold up. I'm flush about $3500.

For the next half hour or so I go about systematically squandering my good fortune. At one point I fold three sevens, convinced that my opponent has a staight, only to see him win the pot with a measly pair of jacks.

Finally, once again facing barely enough money to post the Big Blind, which will arrive in just two hands, I go all in with Ace-Queen. Everyone folds and the (miniscule) pot is mine. The very next hand comes A-3 and I go all in again. This time I get one caller, but two more Aces come on the board and I'm suddenly solvent again. 

I'm now among the last two dozen players left in the tournament.

At this point I should point out that luck is an integral part of poker--and I was obviously, obliviously, ecstatically lucky. To illustrate this point I will mention one more hand. I'm one off the button and have 4-5, both of hearts. When no one in front of me bets, I raise, hoping to steal the pot. Unfortunately one lousy bastard calls my bluff. When two hearts show up on the board, however, I raise again. I still can't shake him. Finally on fourth street, after I check, he tosses in the last of his chips. At this point I am four cards to a flush and a straight. After agonizing for a minute or so I call. The three of diamonds appears on the board, connecting my straight. Me win again.

Lucky or not, after three-plus hours of play I'm sitting at the final table. I'm in the money. All nine of us will more than recoup our entry fee. I'm barely alive however. My $8,000 is not the smallest pile on the table (two other players have just $5,500) but it's only enough to play one hand. In other words, I have to win the first hand I play or my tournament run is over. 

Luckily, I draw the ninth seat, meaning that I'll be the last player to act--and that I won't have to post a blind for seven hands. This buys me a little bit of time to sit and wait for a decent hand. On the first hand, the owl-like lady in seat four (who is also the chip leader) bets $16,000. Then the baby-faced kid across from me in seat six goes all in with his measly $5500. I'm all set to muck my hand, but then I peer down and spot Ace-King, both of hearts. How can I not play that hand? I push my final eight yellow chips into the pot.

We flip our cards for the showdown. The Owl shows a pair of sevens. And Babyface? The fucker flips over King-King. The only possible card that will help me now is an Ace. It never shows up. Babyface wins the pot. I'm finished after one lousy hand. 

However pitifully brief, this last table appearance wins me $348. Not enough to alert the IRS, but certainly sufficient to buy a couple of (near) victory beers.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 11, 2003 7:37 PM

 

Making Sausage of SuperFreddy

Filed under: Imported

There was a mini-media horde at the first practice session for the Under-17 men's national team last evening. (If that sentence makes no sense read my previous post--or go elsewhere for your porn fix.) Reporters from the Star Tribune, Pioneer Press, KARE-11, and Minnesota Public Radio were on hand. Naturally they all wanted to talk to 14-year-old millionaire phenom Freddy Adu. The Pi Press story ran this morning on the front page of the sports section. Unfortunately, it's poorly written and riddled with errors.

Reporter Greg Johnson states that when Adu was 10 years old he played on the U.S. Under-14 team. This is simply not possible. First of all, there's no such thing as a U.S. Under-14 team. Secondly, Adu only became a U.S. citizen in February and was previously not eligible to play for his adopted country.

Johnson then goes on to claim that Adu has been playing for the Under-17 team for two years, "notching 34 goals and 23 assists." Lord knows where he came up with this nugget. As any dedicated LNW reader knows, Adu made his U.S. debut in March against Jamaica (delivering a dazzling assist just four minutes into the game). In five games, he has amassed 4 goals and 4 assists.

All of these facts are, of course, readily available on the U.S. Soccer Federation web site.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 9, 2003 11:21 AM

 

Topless Photos of Freddy Adu

Filed under: Imported

I have been neglecting my soccer-scribe duties. Fear not:

1. Freddy! Freddy! Freddy! The 14-year-old phenom will be on display all week in the Twin Cities. The U.S. men's under-17 national team will be practicing at Macalester College in preparation for Sunday's match against Canada. (Here's the practice schedule.) The obnoxious footy geeks at Big Soccer are already pooh-poohing Freddy's prospects so that probably means all the hype is justified. (Frankly I'm banking on his younger brother, 11-year-old Fro Adu, already a fixture with the U-15 team.) The Minnesota Thunder has a video clip of the precocious kid on its home page. 

But even if you're not convinced that Adu will prove to be the greatest soccer player in American history, there are plenty of reasons to check out this team. Eddie Gavan, just 16-years-old himself, scored his first MLS goal on Saturday, delivering the short-handed NY/NJ Metrostars to a shocking overtime victory against D.C. United. Defender Jonathan Spector has just inked a four-year deal with Manchester United. (Two Americans playing at Old Trafford?) In eight games this year, the U-17 team has outscored opponents 20-3, compiling a 5-1-2 record.

2. Those of you who care probably already know this, but yesterday marked the return of U.S. midfielder Claudio Reyna to the national team. The veteran playmaker had been out of circulation since October, when he blew out his left knee while playing for Sunderland. Reyna came on for the final 30 minutes of the U.S. team's 2-0 dismantling of Paraguay, and was largely unexceptional.

Reyna's always been a quiet superstar. He doesn't possess exceptional speed or dribbling skills, and has tallied just 8 goals and 14 assists in 92 appearances with the national side. Not exactly spectacular stats for supposedly the team's chief playmaker. I've always been partial to Reyna, however--and not only because we were both born in Livingston, New Jersey in 1973 (just a month apart!). He possesses less tangible characteristics that are too often lacking in American players, namely vision and poise. No other American player can spray the ball around the field like Reyna, and his ability to control possession late in games has been crucial to innumerable U.S. victories. Years of playing in the Scottish and English Premier Leagues have also transformed Reyna into a rugged, effective defender.

3. Italian Serie A club Perugia has signed Saadi Gaddafi, the 28-year-old (or 30-year-old, depending on which source you read) son of Libyan strongman Mouammar Gaddafi. The prognosis for Gaddafi's Italian soccer career is not positive. Former Libyan national team coach Franco Scoglio had this to say about him: "As a footballer he's worthless."

4. FIFA: idiots.

 

Posted by Paul Demko at July 7, 2003 6:31 PM

 

My Mother Will Be Proud

Filed under: Imported

If you type the words "my penis smells like shit" into Google, LNW is the first site that pops up!

Among the other search queries that have brought discerning readers to this blog in the last 24 hours: Jason Lewis nude, I have a bump on my vagina, nude press-ups, poker nude, Marcia Brady nude, urine stinks after sex, nude puppet boys, my penis stinks, and nude homeless.  

Posted by Paul Demko at July 7, 2003 2:24 PM

 

Talk Radio: All Anal Sex All the Time

Filed under: Imported

I've been spending way too much time on the road lately, ping-ponging back and forth between the Twin Cities and Faribault for an upcoming City Pages story, and therefore have been listening to way too much talk radio (and largely ignoring this blog).

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent sodomy decision has the right-wing cranks in a veritable frenzy. My favorite caller on this topic was a self-professed former John Birch Society member who dialed up Ron Rosenbaum's show on KSTP to basically concede that the fags have won. The man seemed to have grudgingly come to terms with the novel idea that people--even two men!--can engage in carnal relations of whatever sort they want without the government busting the door down.

Most of the conservative punditocracy were not so gracious. All week long Rush Limbaugh and Jason Lewis have been frothing like rabid raccoons. Granted, this is not exactly a startling development. That's what conservative talk-show hosts do. They froth.

But what struck me was how personally Rush and--in particular--Lewis seemed to be taking the Supremes hands-off approach to bedroom practices. Minnesota's "Mr. Right", and many of his callers, repeatedly professed the belief that the sodomites have taken over the world. According to these folks, gays are recruiting our children, invading our churches, and destroying our government. (One of the great ironies--and comic motifs--of conservative talk radio is how much time is spent lamenting the "culture of victimhood" that is supposedly destroying American society, while at the same time repeatedly casting themselves as grievously persecuted martyrs.)

What exactly could be responsible for such a venomous, paranoid view of the world?

At first I was convinced that Lewis's sleep is plagued by incessant anal rape nightmares. While I'm not completely discarding this possibility, after further reflection I've settled on a different root cause of this right-wing fear and loathing: temptation.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 2, 2003 5:05 PM

 

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