January 6, 2009
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Thank you, Minnesota
Minnesota, thank you. I mean it...THANK YOU!
I have to say it again...THANK YOU!
Why am I thanking you? Well, I did attend college within your borders for five years. No, Minnesota, I wasn't stupid but I just chose a career track that took me five years to complete. After, college graduation, I continued to live within your borders for three years. 8 years of my life, Minnesota, were devoted to you. I enjoyed your 10,000 lakes although the validity of calling some of those bodies of water needs to be called into question but they still provided me with much entertainment. Fishing in Sleepy Eye outside the nun's retirement while drinking Pig's Eye Pilsner(one of your own brews, Minnesota!) and catching my daily bass limit in 30 minutes. That was what summer was all about. Then the time I cleansed myself in the healing waters of Lake Minnetonka...damn, Minnesota, you are so awesome!
Minnesota, you have given us some of the best music known to man...Bob Dylan...Prince...The Replacements...Husker Du...Morris Day and the Time...Dillinger Four...The Jayhawks...Brother Ali...Atmosphere...The Hold Steady...Soul Asylum...Marcy Playground...Semisonic...that song Funkytown by Lipps Inc, yes, that is totally about how your disco scene sucked and a guy from St. Paul wanted to get disco into your nightclubs. You did right, Minnesota. Screw disco! I love the genre of music that has come to be known as "Minneapolis Sound".
Minnesota you also are quite arty. I love your Walker Art Center and the Science Museum and that whole uptown district was quite arty and then I wound up in that cemetery and found Carl Pohlad's mausoleum which is bigger than any house in which I have resided. Carl Pohlad died this week, Minnesota. That is sad. He bought the Twins and his acquisitions brought two World Series titles and two of my favorite childhood players, Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek. Sports haven't been your strong suit lately. The Timberpups aren't as fierce as they were with KG and Sam Cassell. Maybe Kevin McHale can lead them to a return to...the playoffs? The Vi-queens, Minnesota, the Vi-queens! Did people within your borders even get to see that playoff game? I have so many thoughts on how they could return to glory but that would mean the residents of your state need to back their team and also we need to get rid of the Metro-dump.
Minnesota, overall, I love you. Mankato with it's domed environment controlled by the underground hot springs...ok, that was a hoax perpetrated by a professor at one of your state colleges but it did give a boost to tourism because people were dumb enough to believe everything they read on the internet. New Ulm...POLKA CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!!! Need I say more? OK, Schell's Brewery...Herman the German...the Pamida parking lot and the epic arctic cat/polaris battles of 2001? Walnut Grove, I couldn't believe it actually existed. I just had to follow the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Highway and there it was. I blinked so I had to turn around but it was there Minnesota. Austin, home of Spam...not the annoying email but the tasty meat treat. They even have a museum and it was the childhood home of the NFL's best broadcaster and poster boy for videogame football, John Madden. Then there was New Prague...not pronounced like the city in the Czech Republic but Pray-guh. They had polka fests and the Catholic church there used a polka band to play the music for it's Masses.
Why am I buttering you up, Minnesota? It all boils down to this statement.MINNESOTA, YOU KNOW SHIT ABOUT POLITICS!OK, I'm not a political mastermind and I don't claim to be but..C'MON! Al Franken?
I look back at your recent history of politics and realize that the election of Al Franken to a senate seat is fitting. You elect a comedian and that makes you, Minnesota, a joke unto yourself.
It didn't start with Al Franken. It started that fateful day in 1998. I was sitting in my dorm room being a studious student. I think I had a music test the next day and I knew nothing about that class. My roommate rushes in and asks, "Did you vote?" I said no and that it was just a Minnesota election so it didn't really matter to me. He replied, "But you could have voted for a wrestler!" Yes, the Body or should I say The Mind.
I'm surprised I could dig up Jesse Ventura's gubernatorial inauguration photo. Minnesota, I'm sorry I didn't vote for the other guy. I saw news reports later on that showed that the county where my school was located voted heavily for Jesse. I'm sorry. I think my college is to blame. Later on that evening when the results were coming in all my classmates that I thought for the most part were rational, sentient human beings, were running around screaming, "HE WON! THE BODY WON!" An entire floor in the dorm went to vote just so the could vote for Ventura.
I can't remember any of his policies. Did he actually have any? All I remember was that he offended everyone in that burly wrestler monotone voice. He offended Christians by saying in an interview with Playboy magazine that Christianity was still an opiate for the masses. That day the article was released, October 5th 1999, Minnesota, you had a blizzard. I only remember that date because that was teh day I got my eyebrow pierced. I had to drive back to campus in blinding snow. Not blinding because of the piercing but because the snow was so heavy, what was it, four or five inches in a little over an hour? He also offended the Irish by saying that the Irish city planners of St. Paul were all drunks because of how the streets were laid out. Minnesota, St. Paul does have some horrible driving but I don't think a wrestler should be saying that drunk Irishmen were to blame.
Then Jesse didn't want to play governor anymore and you elected Governor Tim. I liked him. I honestly enjoyed Governor Tim but then he did the unthinkable. The governor grew a mullet.
A mullet! How is that respectable? I think that mullet kept him from being made vice president. It was all planned out, Minnesota. The convention was in your state at the X-Cel Arena or whatever it's called these days and Governor Tim was supposed to be made the vice president candidate because he was such good friends with John McCain. We heard how almost every weekend, McCain was visiting your state and going hunting and fishing with Governor Tim. Then John McCain did the unthinkable and called out of left field the governor of Alaska.
Sarah Freakin Palin. I won't go into how she cost McCain the election because it wasn't solely her fault. Maybe John was just trying to win over the women spurned by Barack Obama's nomination. Who knows? Oh and I won't go into how with the religious right supporting the Republican party, we will never see a Republican woman in the White House or the catbird seat of vice president. Oh...Minnesota, you also gave us Sinclair Lewis...THANK YOU!
Governor Tim spurned...cut his mullet and has taken all his frustrations out on the smokers. Minnesota, if you have time, check my back pages for a parody song called Minnesota Uber Alles.
Yesterday, Minnesota, you gave me the news that Al Freakin' Franken was claiming victory in the Senate race against Norm Coleman. Well I have said all along that Norm Coleman deserved to lose because he never fulfilled his campaign promise to myself, The Croatian Sensation, Oaf, The Beermaker, and Skinny Wolf. See, Norm said that because a Vote for Norm sign was displayed at Minnesota's White House, the best damned White House in the state of Minnesota, he would furnish one of our parties with a couple kegs of Minnesota's finest brew, Schell's. Did Norm follow through? No! But I don't think he deserved to lose to this:
Al Franken...Minnesota, I hope you know what you're doing. I am all talked out here. I just don't know where to go. In the future, Minnesota, please be more serious about politics...wait, maybe that should be something all America should think about.
Well Ann Coulter is a douche bag in the highest form but Al Franken...C'MON!
Comments (19)
Polka capital of the world! lol Now that's amazing!
@nattata -
Maybe I was stretching things but they do claim to be the polka capital of the nation. New Ulm It's a fun little town with America's second oldest family owned and operated brewery.
Hope you are feeling better tonight. Stopping in with warm Hugs Gypsy
i LOVE minnesota. i was there in may 08. i love the big spoon and cherry. and i went to sex world. i love mn.... i wish i could go back. i contemplated moving there.
Not a Freakin' Franken fan? He's a pretty smart man . . . but it's not my state, so I don't get a say. Hope your feelin' better lately . . .
@Gypsywings2fly -
Yes, I am doing better. Thanks for the well wishes.
@xlilsecretx -
Oh yes...the cherry and spoon..did you go in the summer and get out and look at it up close? That is at the Walker Art Center. I love that section of Minneapolis and yes...Sex World...I have had some memorable experiences there. Like on one of my birthdays I was all liquored up and my friends took me there to "calm" me down. They have the peep shows and my friends thought they were just mannequins modeling the lingerie but I saw one take a puff of smoke. They thought I was drunk and then I grabbed a friend and pushed his face against the plexiglass and he watched her smoke and laugh at us.
Actually I have thought of moving back.
@jacksoncroons -
I agree that Franken is a smart man but it just seems like people vote for him because he is a novelty. Like Ventura was....this election is good proof that every single vote matters. I think they are saying he is only separated from Coleman by about 220 votes. Until the MN Court stepped in Franken was only up by 4. The third party candidate's party received a record amount of votes so hopefully that party will build off that. Oh and the Democratic party that Franken represents is not the typical Midwestern Democrat beliefs that I grew up with.
I am kind of surprised he won, but I'd be pretty psyched if he ran on one of the coasts and won. I think he'd be good, but I can't imagine how he'll end up getting along with y'all. Not really the native son-type, is he?
@jacksoncroons -
It was so strange because he just one day announces on his talk show that he is moving to Minnesota to be eligible to run for one of Minnesota's Senate seats. I was confused. It'll be an interesting time for Minnesota politics. I need to post some of the radio host Mischke and his take on Ventura and Minneapolis' mayor who called in to his show because he "heard" that he was being talked about. His daughter was listening to the radio and he called the wrong station. Can you tell that I am Midwestern by how many sentences I end with prepositions?
@godfatherofgreenbay -
i went in may, does that count as summer? yes i saw it up close. i walked around the water, and took pictures of it and everything. i have a blown up pic on my wall right next to me now.
i liked the big cock at sex world... and no i didnt ride it. just took a picture of it. i think i like mn because its so different from where i live. i absolutely LOVE the minnesota accent... love it. i have friends there and i would love to go back, like right now and visit. i went to the dam in coon rapids and touched the mississippi river. i know, thrilling! at least i can say i touched the river!! =)
@xlilsecretx -
The first high school I went to was near the Mississippi and after class got out in the spring time some friends and I snuck down to a train bridge to jump into the river. That was fun.
I can't remember all about sex world just that they had so much stuff there and they sold "herbs" and all sorts of "tobacco" products. I know there was one floor that my friend warned me to stay away from but if I went there now I wouldn't remember which one it was.
One of my favorite places in Minneapolis was The Electric Fetus. It was an independent music store, the oldest in the city. Just an awesome place and so many bands stop by there to do shows. Oh...First Avenue? You need to get there next time just because so much music history is in that venue.
@godfatherofgreenbay -
wow, can you be my tour guide!?!?!?! id love to go to that store. isnt sex world in like a 'warehouse district' if its not, it reminded me of one! my friend also took me to maple grove i think. oh and of course ive been to the mall of america!
Great article, I enjoyed reading this. There was also Information Society with their one shot wonder song Pure Energy back in the 80s, another MN band. Politics annoys me but you can never make enough fun of politicians.
I can understand your worry, after the Ventura fiasco. But Franken is a good man, he will be a good senator for you, just watch. And he is an old-fashioned democrat, pro-union, progressive, pro-social security, pro- national health, etc.
I'm still thinking that Franken is the lesser of two evils here (and I'm comparing him to Coleman, not just to Arthur Coltrane, as is apparent in the last couple of videos). I can't believe that you resort to the long-overdone trick of laying on the "Stuart Smalley" stuff so thick (a trick associated with Papa Bear, although I won't spell out his name, as that might suggest a slam on my part, a slam that I by no means intend). You could have at least picked out a particularly obnoxious rant from Air America. I mean, he broadcast so many hours, he has to have overdone it at least a few times, right? Actually, AA overdoes it a lot.
Maybe Franken will win you over by introducing a bill for a national mullet tax.
Hundreds of years from now, perhaps none of this will matter. Archeologists (or aliens, as some hypothesize) will see Minnesotans as a people who worshipped a giant spoon and cherry (props to the person who brought up the Spoonbridge!).
I'm not entirely convinced that Marcy Playground and Semisonic belong on the list. Now, I haven't listened to either of those two bands in quite some time, but I had in recent years written them off as bands that made it big with a regional sound but that didn't have enough steam to keep going (perhaps, I might sloppily argue, they could be seen as Minnesotan Candleboxes).
Semisonic's hit (singular--SNAP!) likely continues to play in bars, but I would suspect that most of the men who end up requesting it (and some of the women) at bar time look into the jukebox glass to see a sad face and a shaggily bemulleted head.
Actually, if you go back into the 60's and 70's, you'll find some great Minnesotan politicians. I was always impressed with Minnesota for their progressive politics and then wondered how the hell "The Body" won. I couldn't believe it.
I have to say that I don't know much specifically about Franken, but I do know that he was more than a comic. I have read parts of his book and I found him insightful as to the foibles of our society and politics. As Will Rogers (I think) said that it wasn't hard to be a humorist with all the raw material coming out of Washington. I don't much about Franken's opponent, but if he is like many other Republicans who are out for helping businesses more than people, I'm glad he's lost. (Even if he will never give up.) But he might have been a decent, non-Bush, non Palin Republican (McCain was never a Republican) and he might have been good. And he might have been better than Franken.
@UR_MUSE -
I'll have to look for that song, I can't recall it at the moment. That guy who wrote Funkytown and was in Lipps Inc had a son who was featured on an episode of MTV's made. He was the white Jewish kid who wanted to be a rapper.
@MelFamy -
Yeah I have nothing to fear. It's just this feeling I get that Minnesota politics have become a novelty and a laughing stock for the rest of the country. I was up there when the government shut down. That was a mess. My family would call up laughing about all the things that I couldn't use as a result.
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