A long time ago in a college town far, far away...

Thursday 25 September 2008 at 11:03 pm Long before I wrote, and just before I gained some notoriety for my work on social causes, I wore dual hats in production and news features for an underfunded hybrid of a public/college radio station known as KVSC. In those days I often got quite excited when I caught something I'd produced being broadcast. "Hey," I'd often remark, "they're playing my work!" Well, after a while the novelty wore itself down. This was due in part to my simply having heard my work so frequently before and in another part to my work having so saturated the catalogue of pre-recorded promos, pushes, sweepers, sounders and IDs by the time I departed that I'd have had to stand around pointing it out every ten to fifteen minutes if I wanted to call attention to every instance in which my work got played. (more)

Fandom is a bit like a self-esteem black hole.

Wednesday 17 September 2008 at 2:40 pm As long as the fan boards are ablaze with arguments on the verge of invoking Godwin's Law over who should play Doctor Who when Tennant leaves the series, I'm throwing my official endorsement behind Julian Rhind-Tutt.

Because the Doctor always wanted to be ginger.

Don't Crush Our Heart!

Thursday 11 September 2008 at 4:40 pm This from Stephanie: "The Electric Arc Radio crew has left the raucous old ’hood we've been writing and singing about and created the brand-new, radio-style musical—Don’t Crush Our Heart!. It’s about an indie band, urban planning, the long arm of the law, and, of course, L-O-V-E. And because we love you, we want you to be there. Performed live from the book at the fabulous Ritz Theater in Northeast Minneapolis, this new show asks the question: Can a city councilman really prevent an indie pop band from moving to Brooklyn? The answer is rock-opera, Perry-Mason history, and it's called Don't Crush Our Heart!"

September 20, The Ritz Theater, 345 13th Ave. NE, Minneapolis, MN, US

And Now For Something Completely Different

Monday 08 September 2008 at 7:53 pm

You Don't Get to Go Home and You Can't Leave Here

Friday 05 September 2008 at 5:53 pm
Video of the final battle. Police surround Marchers on Thursday evening, use gas grenades to herd them onto an overpass, trap them there, then arrest them.

Book About Minneapolis Police Riots in the 1990s

Thursday 04 September 2008 at 4:22 pm I always meant to put a book together on the original Camp Coldwater occupation (in fact, it was this that first got me started as a writer... Well, I say it was this, but it was also being a hard left-leaning columnist in the '90s... Well, I say columnist, but it was more like guest editorialist... Well, I say editorialist, but it was more like a giant guilt trip to all America in 600 words or less, couple times a month... Well, I say all America, but it was mostly just Saint Cloud and people who knew what the internet was back then...) but I just never got round to finishing it. Pleased, was I, as you'd imagine, to discover this week while visiting the current occupation that someone else tackled and completed the project in my stead. I remember Elli King being either tough as seven inch nails or nice as bunnies, depending on whether or not she had mace in her eyes, and I couldn't think of a more well-suited compiler for this book if I tried. True to form, she's refused to put a bar code on it so you'll have to order a copy from one of the small mom n' pop shops listed at the bottom of this page. Definitely worth a read, I think, especially if you somehow managed to be surprised by this week's police actions.

One for the Scrapbook

Thursday 04 September 2008 at 2:33 pm


I snapped this last night during the mass arrests downtown. With about fifty kids suffering from varying degrees of injuries and laying cuffed on the sidewalk and street behind them, a group of riot cops paused, posed and smiled for pictures. Like they were on a fishing trip or safari. The lone guy on the right was holding a small camera, and the group of four or five in the center of the shot were mugging, arms around each other, as he took pictures. Soon after I snapped this, another group of cops came and stood in a line in front of me, so as to prevent me taking any more pictures. A few minutes later, one came by and started taking pictures of me, so I told him, "I'll save you some research. My dossier is under Callahan. That's with a C, not a K." I think I came very close to being arrested for attempted helpfulness.

Rage Against the Citizenry

Wednesday 03 September 2008 at 9:47 pm There's a Rage Against The Machine concert going on in Downtown Minneapolis right now. The venue is surrounded by riot cops, just waiting for it to let out. Tonight I'll hear the grenade launchers from my own window...

Bloody Tuesday

Wednesday 03 September 2008 at 2:11 pm More arrests and tear gas Tuesday evening in St. Paul, then the police actions moved to Minneapolis. The Bedlam Theater was raided and others were arrested at a downtown rail station. As for me, I brought some food out to the Camp Coldwater occupation and stayed clear of cops. Sorry for the lack of updates, but I'm being kept fairly busy.

Phone Nazis: "No Calls For You!"

Tuesday 02 September 2008 at 12:48 pm It seems protesters can have their one free phone call only in terms of free beer, and not in terms of free choice.

From Cold Snap Legal, one of the nodes coordinating releases and information disbursement: "Calls from jail to Cold Snap have been blocked - please call the jail - 651-266-9350 - and demand that they allow free calls to 651-356-8635"

From Smackdown to Lockdown

Tuesday 02 September 2008 at 01:17 am At the close of day one, 284 arrests have been made. Saint Paul was in and out of lockdown all day, with all roads into downtown closed to traffic and police herding masses of people across the highbridge and the Robert Street bridge, away from the city proper. Robert was devoid of barricades at about 9:30 so I drove from one end to the other and found the scene utterly surreal. As I passed the police station, I couldn't help but think of a military operation. Back behind high fences were tents under floodlights, and double-parked urban assault vehicles lined the adjacent roadway on 10th Street. Just across from the camp, condo dwellers sipped wine and ate Thai food as if it were just another day, ignoring the sound of gas grenade cannons still being fired only a few blocks away. The rioters hit Heimie's Haberdashery, a small shop where I've been known to purchase my canes, as they vandalized storefronts in their quest to tear the gears from the capitalist machine. The fact that they smashed up a place where I shop only left me wondering just what's happened to me. Ten years ago I was a footsoldier on the front lines when war was waged against the military industrial complex, and now I'm shopping with the enemy. What, I wonder, have I become?

Guitar Playing Is Not a Crime

Monday 01 September 2008 at 6:31 pm
The Pioneer Press has posted some unedited video from early in the day, showing a march that gets bottlenecked, then some bike cops get scared, start accidentally restraining each other, then out comes the mace, then a rock or something is thrown, and so on...

(I'm blogging the entirety of the artile behind the cut tag.) (more)

Tug o War

Monday 01 September 2008 at 6:17 pm
A photo by Star Tribune photographer Jim Gehrz, taken this afternoon.

Boom Town

Monday 01 September 2008 at 4:10 pm
MPR have some video up of the riot cops preparing a little after noon today.

Coldsnaplegal is providing minute by minute updates on arrests, gassings, general movements and situations downtown. Apparently busses are suspended and roads into downtown St. Paul are being closed.

Police say security is "going well."

There are sporadic live videos streaming at The Uptake.

Unconfirmed reports of trampling by horse cops, rubber bullet wounds, protesters gassed while penned-in, medics arrested, concussion grenades, etc. I suspect there will be more to come...

"Back on the train or you will be arrested for Attempted Shopping!"

Monday 01 September 2008 at 2:35 pm

Riot Cops wait at the train station and refuse to let anyone off.

We have this train in Minneapolis that goes in a straight line between downtown and the Mall of America. I remember when they built the line. They told us it would provide a green transportation alternative for commuters and it would revitalize all of South Minneapolis. Well, if you live downtown and you work at the mall, I suppose it could help you commute, but I have a hard time envisioning the commuter who affords a home downtown on his or her mall wages. All that aside, there's still the revitalization, right? Right? Sure, within patches of downtown where the train stops, and at the mall itself, there's a thriving community of bars and retail where once there was only a pretty successful community of bars and retail. So there was some revitalization, if only for giant retail outfits. Still, all that money they're making is destined to trickle down to their workers. Right?

Right? (more)