Krusty the Cake

Sunday is my son’s tenth birthday. In discussing party and cake considerations in the car the other day, his three-year-old sister inquired as to plans for her birthday party in late May. She wanted a very specific cake.

“I want a Krusty the Clown cake,” she noted gravely.

“No you don’t,” her brother admonished. “He’s an alcoholic.”

“No he’s not!”

“Yes he is. And his father is a rabbi.”

“He’s not a rabbit.”

“No, you stupid idiot. He’s a rabbi, not a rabbit.”

At that point, I was reminded of one of the most easily forgotten reasons to have children—it is absolutely fascinating and hilarious to listen in on how children reason and try to be like adults.

I don’t know what was funnier—the fact that The Simpsons is so over my daughter’s head that she cannot distinguish Krusty (his Wikipedia page is longer than Winston Churchill’s) from any of the innocuous cartoon friends she enjoys, from Little Bear to Maggie to Franklin.

Or that my son, in fourth grade, caught somewhere in that nexus between little kid and puberty, was applying a kind of logic to the question that seemed adult to him but was actually more preposterous than his sister’s choice of birthday branding.

I encouraged the idea (a car with one adult and several children is an incubator of mania), indicating that goody bags would need to contain Zantac, Xanax, a wine cooler, a deck of cards, and American Spirit cigarettes. My son advised me that today’s high-strung, earnest south Minneapolis parents would not get the joke, referencing his idea to hold his tenth birthday party at Hooter’s, which, when told to a couple little league parents in jest, elicited blank stares and looks of confusion.

“Will they host a kid’s party?” asked one dad.

Probably not, and nor will a bakery make a Krusty cake (notwithstanding those with a small “k”) because most bakeries will not create cakes with trademarked characters on them. (They would need to pay for the rights.)

I’ve got ninety days, roughly, to find a Simpsons-obsessed baker. We’ll use cigarettes as candles. Maybe rum and Coke in the frosting. Who out there is up to the challenge?

Courage Under Pressure

You will probably see no more courageous political stand in our state this year than that of six House Republicans who voted to override Gov. Pawlenty’s veto of the DFL transportation bill.

They stood in the face of withering criticism from anti-tax zealots, threats to their own status within the legislature, and promises of electoral retribution from their own leadership, I’m sure. They stood up for constituents against a cynical campaign designed to do nothing more than position legislators to win elections and burnish the image of a governor who is mostly hat and no cattle.

It was a rare win for the higher calling that our elected officials occasionally rise to. (Especially GOP Reps. Heidgerken and Hamilton, representing districts well outside the metro, presumably lacking a constituency clamoring for congestion relief.) They are deserving of our thanks and respect. Please take time to call or e-mail their offices at the capitol. Let them know, as they are being deluged with outrage, that their efforts are appreciated.

Rep. Jim Abeler (Anoka), 651-296-1769, rep.jim.abeler@house.mn
Rep. Ron Erhardt (Edina), 651-296-4363, rep.ron.erhardt@house.mn
Rep. Rod Hamilton (Mountain Lake), 651-296-5373, rep.rod.hamilton@house.mn
Rep. Bud Heidgerken (Freeport), 651-296-4317, rep.bud.heidgerken@house.mn
Rep. Neil Peterson (Bloomington), 651-296-7803, rep.neil.peterson@house.mn
Rep. Kathy Tingelstad (Andover), 651-296-5369, rep.kathy.tingelstad@house.mn

Minnesota’s Night to Shine!

So it has come to this. Now, I’m not one of those locals who wants to see the local-boys-and-girls-made-good fail, but after a quarter century in these parts, I never cease to marvel over why a story’s connection to us is still the most important aspect of the story?

Why do we only hear about the elephant mauling in Thailand if an ex-Minnesotan was mauled? Why do so many of us see the attention we receive from out-of-town media or celebrities as validating our worth rather than noblesse oblige, which it more often is? Why are so may of us so indifferent to our region investing in dreaming big, competing with other cities, and making a national splash yet then so obsessed with it when it happens?

The Chicago Tribune did not lead Monday’s paper with “ex-Chicagoan Diablo Cody . . .” in a headline nor was the fact that Cody grew up in suburban Lamont mentioned until the thirteenth paragraph—though her connection with Chicago is no different than the Coens’ with Minnesota (grew up here, parents here, visit irregularly).

And what makes the matter more ironic is that neither Cody nor the Coens claims this place as their home. Minnesota is somewhere they left and ain’t coming back to. Fargo told you everything you know about how the Coens’ view Minnesota. It set the Twin Cities back about a generation in how the country perceives us: as a bunch of affable rubes driving Oldsmobiles in the snow.

Diablo Cody had a cup of coffee here. She did some notable work (the feather in our cap in all this, perhaps), got discovered, and split. She speaks of us affectionately.

Both the Coens and Cody are compelling stories. They stand out in Hollywood because they are nonconformists and have maintained an admirable artistic integrity. They have an interesting body of work (Cody not so much, obviously), and their Minnesota status is deserving of little more than a passing mention in the third paragraph because it is not at the heart of their success or interest.

Embedded in our fascination with the lives of our émigrés is our insularity, our provincialism, and sometimes our hubris—that sense that life and people are just better here, and now and then the world finds out. Just the sort of hothouse attitude in which creative people flourish.

Sanny Wants Somethin’ for Nothin’

If you want an example of the vacuousness of modern conservative fiscal policy, look no further than my friend Bob Sansevere’s commentary on Eyewitness News Thursday night. Bob’s a decent guy and plays the everyman role well for the St. Paul newspaper, KQRS, and Channel 5. If you ran into him at a watering hole, you’d like him.

But his statement, and I’m paraphrasing here, “I want our roads and bridges fixed, and I want them to find a way to do it without raising taxes,” nearly caused me to choke on my quiche. I mean, I would like a new 3 series BMW, and I’d like it for $100.

Yesterday the legislature passed a substantial tax increase (sales, license tab, gas) to address a transportation picture that has grown desperate. It’s so frickin’ large a package because nothing’s been done in twenty years in this state. Several metro area Republicans voted for it. On MPR, I heard Anoka GOP Rep. Jim Abeler say, “If you want to see Highway 10 rebuilt in your lifetime, we need to do this.” And from Bloomington Republican Neil Peterson, “My party is not doing what it needs to do because of politics,” or something to that effect.

Governor No is going to veto, and an override in the Senate is assured next week. The House will be close. There are some who theorize the Governor wants the bill passed, secretly, as long as he can remain opposed to it. I doubt that.

He says it’s bad policy to raise taxes in a recession. When we weren’t in a recession, he said it was bad policy to raise taxes with gas prices going up. If the economy improves and gas prices fall, he will not support a tax increase either. No-tax is his second religion.

Fundamentalist Christians, who dominate Republican politics, apply an almost biblical approach to government. You are good or evil; policy is right or wrong, every belief is a “value,” compromise is immoral. That’s the way Tim Pawlenty talks about taxes because I suspect that’s how he looks at the world.

The tax issue has become so politicized that most Republicans fear for their political lives when they vote for one. They have built taxes into such an evil with voters that their constituents go ballistic when they feel compelled to support one.

As for Sanny and the vox populi, they have simply bought the b.s. hook, line, and sinker. They’ve lost track of one of life’s great truisms—you get nothing for nothing. Tell me what you pay for in your taxes that you think the state or local government should stop funding to pay for roads, bridges, and maybe transit? Schools? Parks? Police?

We live in an age where greed and selfishness are validated by our culture. Where Christian values are flaunted but not lived. And where people will apparently believe anything—like you can have better roads and lower taxes (a gas tax not raised in twenty years and not indexed to inflation is a tax cut—ask any economist).

Veto-proof majorities are hard to achieve. Winning the Governorship or the Presidency is a better route. If Gov. Pawlenty’s veto is sustained, it will be another black mark on a DFL party that cannot produce leaders inspiring enough or appealing enough for the public to support. Where is Minnesota’s Barack Obama?

The Debt That Keeps On Giving

Well, you certainly are a modest asexual bunch out there. Not a single bit of chocolate ribaldry left in the comments space. I figured DeRusha had one in him.

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Did you read the Strib piece in Sunday’s paper about the next type of mortgage to blow up—the Option ARM? It’s offered to buyers with good credit (unlike subprime loans) and is notable because the interest rate and the balance owed adjust upward over time. It starts out with low payments, which can ultimately more than double.

Apparently, folks assumed they’d refinance out of these things before that happened but failed to foresee a period of falling home values and no buyers. Now they owe more than their home is worth, can’t find a loan with a payment they can afford, and can’t sell the house, so they’re screwed. My general take has been that someone with the good sense to have a 740 credit score should have known better. A lot of people simply don’t pay attention, period. Don’t incur debt if you can’t handle the worst-case scenario.

But I’ve had my own experience with a scheming lender, and I understand the depths they will go to. A couple years ago, I dropped approximately $5K on a new home-computer setup and laptop. I had one of those 0 percent interest offers from a credit card, so I rolled it into that and have continued to do so, from offer to offer, as I whittle down the balance each month.

I never do what the banks want, which is to carry the debt past the point the teaser interest expires. But over the holidays, Chase, which is carrying the remaining balance at 0 percent, sent me an offer: Charge $100 on your card during the holidays, and we’ll credit you $25 back. I assumed they figured I’d spend a bunch, not pay it all off, and they’d make some money off me in interest.

Instead, I paid off the $120 in purchases when billed plus my monthly chunk of the computer. But Chase started charging me interest—every month. When I called them on it, they pointed me to a bit of fine print in the Terms and Conditions booklet.

The clause gave Chase the right to determine how payments would be applied to my balance. Chase applies all payments to the lowest interest debt. I would have to pay off the entire remaining balance to avoid paying interest each month on my Christmas stuff since it went to the back of the line.

Chase lured me into using the card with free money, suspecting that a borrower of my profile—paying off a no-interest balance in chunks—would not write the big check and thus end up paying interest on the recent purchase. If I had spent $1,000, they’d be cleaning up on me. But Chase will still come out behind on this. I will pay the card off before they make $25 in interest, but Chase got me nonetheless.

Is it illegal? No. Unethical? Maybe. Bad business in the long run? Certainly. Chase is banking on the fact that even the people who pay attention to the fine print don’t quite understand what it all means. Credit cards, until last year’s mortgage fiascos, were regarded as banking at its most unscrupulous: usurious interest, constantly shifting terms and conditions, outrageous fees.

If I send $1,000 to my credit union, I can apply $500 to my mortgage and $500 to my car loan. Or some other ratio. But credit cards function like these dodgy mortgages—lots of variables, lots of moving parts, and little interest on the part of the lender in keeping a customer happy and solvent.

I don’t see how it works to their advantage: I will pay off the remaining balance before my no-interest period ends and never do business with Chase again. And I have new sympathy for the families stuck with Option ARMs. Because it’s clear that the banking industry has become ever craftier in skating on the periphery of ethical business practices.

I’m sure there’s a big-bank CEO paying the price for unethical strategy, incompetent risk management, and billions in losses as you read this—leaving his job with millions of dollars in severance and stock options.

When you and I f-up, we pay extra interest or lose our homes. When CEOs f-up, they just get richer. Nice incentive for reforming the banking business.

Love In the Time of Chocolate

There’s a candy shop in the skyway that sells edible underwear. Chocolate to be precise. It sits in the window day after day. It was still sitting there on Valentine’s Day. It’s still sitting there today. Which got me to wondering—does anyone make a habit out of chocolate underwear?

In an unscientific poll I conducted at work on Valentine’s Day, not a single one of my randy colleagues, most in their romantic prime, would cop to having been involved in a dessert (or main course) of a chocolate thong. No one had even considered it, they said, preferring flowers, Jane Austen DVDs, and jewelry. No one could even tell me how chocolate underwear functioned.

I mean, how is the chocolate held together—mesh, string, carrageenan? At room temperature, chocolate lacks tactile flexibility, and at body temperature, it lacks rigidity. I thought about buying a pair to investigate further, but after checking with accounting, only certain key executives here are authorized to expense “romantic gifts” (expense code 0270/617).

Now, I’m not as squeamish as some, not as open-minded as others, but chocolate underwear befuddles me. I mean, you have to really want to eat a lot of chocolate to do a pair of chocolate boxers. And if you’re only concerned about certain strategic components, that means there’s a bunch of half-melted chocolate on the bed. (What about the office guys/gals who wear it to work in hopes of a lunch-hour encounter? What do you say to the dry cleaner the next day?)

So I say to you: Share your chocolate-underwear stories, advice, neurotic fiction with us. Chime in under an assumed name, like you do on all the other websites you comment to. Discretion is assured.

And after you share your chocolate underwear story with us, if it was from Valentine’s Day 2008, keep in mind that though you and your chocoholic partner might not mind a bed that smells like Hershey, Pennsylvania, the remains of your romp could be curtains for Fido. So change the sheets.

Less To Life

I’ve been puzzling over this new marketing slogan for the Twin Cities—“More to Life”—and wondering how we’re going to keep up with the Bostons, Portlands, and Austins of the world. Places people are flocking to.

Last year, my company produced a book for local corporations to use to sell prospective employees on the Twin Cities. Apparently they are having trouble selling MBAs and creative classers graduating from Stanford and Georgetown to settle here in the tundra.

They think, says the research, that we’re cold, provincial, and dull as Steve Berg explained on MinnPost. And they don’t even suspect that we fund our schools, transportation infrastructure, and state university at levels below most of the states we compete with.

The “More to Life” slogan is meant to connote that we live better here because we combine the amenities of a sophisticated metropolis without the grind and long commutes of huge cities. But we have the proximity to nature and clean living of hip small cities, such as Bend, Oregon, or Boise, Idaho. I know, the slogan is obtuse and doesn’t serve its purpose. And it was chosen over a much better option, “North of Ordinary,” which conveys specialness and a snap of wit.

I muse about this as we slog through an obscenely cold, dark, winter. One of the more wearying in memory. It’s not supposed to crack zero on Friday . . . again. My home is a petri dish of viruses, which bounce between me, my wife, and kids who are trapped inside. The legislature has embarked on another session of unproductive rancor. And I’m not convinced most of us care.

KSTP-TV surveyed a bunch of us and discovered that a neither a majority of out-state or metro-area residents support a gas or other tax increase to fund transportation improvements. We like it here just the way it is.

In 1981, I moved to a Minnesota that tried harder. Though the Twin Cities of 2008 is a more sophisticated place, I think the efforts that kept the Twin Cities moving forward, trying harder, were not an organic expression of a progressive populace but the work of a small cadre of business, arts, and political elites who counted on consensus and got things done.

Without that consensus, you need leadership. Someone with the ability to counter the incredibly seductive siren song of self-interest—convince people to pull their heads out of the sand. But the DFL seems so rooted in identity politics that it does not produce visionaries or inspiring leaders. Rybak, Murphy, Pogemiller, Kelliher, Klobuchar—I doubt they could sell me on a hand warmer this Friday. I thought Al Franken was perhaps a leader who could inspire people, but after hearing about his thoroughly infantile display with the Republican student in Northfield, I’m losing hope.

There is a bankruptcy of leadership and vision in today’s Minnesota (sorry, you can’t convince me that the very able and effective Gov. Pawlenty and his playbook of “no” is leadership or vision). That’s apparent when you see someone of Barack Obama’s skills. When your leaders lack the capacity to sell their constituents on the value of repairing dangerous bridges and educating citizens, it’s time to question the efficacy of those leaders.

“More to Life” is a lousy slogan. But perhaps we need to rethink the product we’re selling as well.

Update: It’s Not the Meat, It’s the Doneness

A little while back, I blogged about the sad state of affairs for burger eaters in the Twin Cities and took a shot at all these locals who order their meat cooked to blackness. Following that, we asked readers of our twice-monthly Foodie e-newsletter (subscribe here) to chime in on how they like their meat cooked.

The results restored my faith in humanity but only for a few minutes. Keep in mind our Foodie subscribers are the crème de la crème of the foodie world. They live to eat. And even 20 percent of them order burgers well-done or medium well (a nice idea, but show me the restaurant that doesn’t cook a medium-well burger well-done).

Here are the raw vote totals—heh, heh—from nearly 300 responses, which tracked quite accurately with our exit polling data from seventeen leading burger restaurants.

Rare
4.1 percent

Medium rare
48.6 percent

Medium
27.7 percent

Medium well
13.6 percent

Well-done
5.9 percent

Next up: Why must they put the cheese on after the burger’s been cooked? It won’t melt!

Hillary Can’t Win

Super Tuesday is upon us, and those of us who are eager to see a real change in how our country is governed face a difficult conundrum. Hillary Clinton has paid her dues, knows her stuff, and is eminently qualified to be President. I would vote for her in a minute. But she can’t win.

The math is simple. John McCain is the presumptive GOP candidate. He is the one Republican who polls well with independents, key to creating an Electoral College majority. Ralph Nader is making noises about running again as an Independent. The two of them will steal votes at Clinton’s margins. McCain gets the Independents and Nader the anti-war types who can’t abide Hillary’s “yes” vote on Iraq.

More than 90 percent of the electorate have made up their minds about Clinton, say the polls, and half would never vote for her. And the Clinton-haters will use her presence on the ballot to gin up turnout. Can you really see Hillary Clinton attracting more votes than Al Gore did in 2000 after eight years of democratic success? Against a more qualified Republican?

To me, it’s amazing that after the last seven years, the Democrat is not considered the presumptive winner in November. But it’s a testament to Clinton’s unpopularity; the nation’s dislike of class-driven, interest group politics; and the country’s general preference for the messages of self-reliance, personal responsibility, and laissez faire government.

That’s why I’m going to be casting a preference vote for Barack Obama Tuesday night. Not because I think he would make a better President than Clinton, not because I even like his platform any better than hers. But because he is the one in the race who has the potential to break the cycle of polarization that has split American government.

Americans want a positive leader. They prefer incremental to dramatic change. They want less government even when the government could protect them from the worst excesses of our economy. And we have big problems to face that require leadership and a national consensus: climate change, the coming bankruptcy of Social Security, an economy that lurches from bubble to recession to bubble, wars we’re fighting all over the world.

What I fear is that women voters, who are proud of and attached to the Clinton candidacy, cannot see the writing on the wall. It’s Hillary’s turn, and as the NOW director in New York noted the other day, winning seems secondary to fielding a female candidate.

The GOP appears to have put its interest group politics aside in favor of a very conservative candidate who is nonetheless eclectic and independent enough to reach beyond the base. They chose McCain over niche candidates who satisfy slices of their base.

The Democrats face a different kind of choice. It is Hillary’s turn. But she can’t win. It’s unfair, but the question is, what do Dems want more: to be right or to be in the White House again?

Who’s Afraid of “The Super Bowl?”

There, I said it. And on a commercially driven website. I am using the Super Bowl to advance the fortunes of my employer. It’s only minutes before we hear from the lawyers, I’m sure. Cease, and desist.

As we approach the game this weekend, I am more and more aware of the gradual replacement of the name “Super Bowl” in our culture with the phrase “The Big Game.” It’s long been rife in advertising, ever since the NFL started pursuing businesses trying to make money off its event without becoming a paid sponsor.

Want to advertise your salsa’s utility for Super Bowl parties? Like to promote a plasma TV as just perfect for watching the Super Bowl? Can’t do it anymore if you don’t want to pay the NFL. So instead, marketers call it The Big Game. Everyone knows what they’re talking about, and the greedy NFL and its coterie of billionaire owners, sour coaches, and recidivist players gets nada. Nice.

But have you noticed the phrase “The Big Game” showing up in casual conversation? I was sitting at a restaurant’s bar the other day, and the guy next to me was talking about “The Big Game.” “The Super Bowl, you mean?” I said.

“Well, yeah, but we’re not supposed to call it that,” he said.

Then on the Today Show, Matt Lauer introduces a cooking segment of chicken legs that might be suitable for halftime munching, and he says “The Big Game.” Cut to the TV news—“big game.” Newspaper headlines—“Big Game.”

What’s going on? As best as I understand the law, as long as you’re not using the term Super Bowl to promote a product that is separate from the Super Bowl, you owe the NFL nothing. TV anchors can say it. Guys at restaurants can say it. Even Hillary Clinton can say it. (Bill can’t.)

Much the same situation exists with the upcoming Oscars. The “Academy” maintains very tight control of its trademark and pursues anyone who uses it to promote a party, prix fixe menu, plasma TV sale. Problem is, there’s no real catchy generic label for the Academy Award.

Unless you’ve sat through one end to end. Can we all agree on “The Big Snooze®©™?”

Kinda catchy. And no lawsuits.