Dear Brian Liss, Republican

June 21, 2010


Dear Brian C. Liss, Republican candidate who “plans to exhaust all legal means to unseat Susy Blake,” a present state representative who I voted for and continue to support.

I received your letter in the mail today. Congratulations on your apparent candidacy for state representative of District 13!

Though I have never heard of you in my life, your letter took me by surprise.

See, you refer to yourself as a Freedom Fighter. It’s right there in your signature! “Brian Liss, Your freedom fighter!” With exclamation points and everything!

Here’s the thing. Despite your letter’s insistence, governmental support for public services is not “socialism.” And the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act isn’t “unprecedented intergenerational theft.” (Also, you should probably hyphenate that one. “Inter-generational.”)

Those things don’t mean the same thing. They never have. Buy a dictionary.

I’m struggling to determine which freedoms you’re fighting for, and why I’m in need of a freedom fighter in the first place. I get it, though. You’re using baited buzz words in order to scare those who aren’t paying attention into backing the standard Conservative Agenda. Ha! Conservative Agenda. Get it? I’M USING YOUR TERM AGAINST YOU! LOL!

Let’s get one thing straight. I supported Susy Blake last election. And I will again, especially if you are running against her, Mr. Brian Liss, Republican. See, I appreciate a candidate that doesn’t run screaming to the party line in order to make a case for election. I respect a candidate that positions the argument as “here’s why you should vote for me,” not “here’s why my opponent sucks and why you shouldn’t vote for her.” Most of all, I’ll support a candidate that backs away from hyperbole and weasel words, instead offering factual evidence, explanation and cautious realism.

Oh, and there’s the issue of class. This letter has no class, Brian Liss, Republican. It’s brash and intrusive. It doesn’t belong in my mailbox. It doesn’t belong in any mailbox.

You missed an opportunity, I think. When you’re connecting to those of us who aren’t officially affiliated with a party, you are representing your entire party’s platform. So next time, remind me why I should vote for you. Because all you’ve done with THIS mailing is remind me why I never will.

Tags: Politics, Sioux Falls |

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Televisions: kind of like automatic napkin dispensers

May 8, 2010


So they put televisions in our gas stations and our restaurants and our vehicles and our phones and really there’s no place you can go without running into a television.

The question I keep asking, especially when it comes to businesses and the service industry, is “why?”

Is it really true that a product or brand will lose out because there’s no video available? Will a person pass up going to a gas station because, you know, THAT one isn’t showing Fox News?

An example: today we ate at Whisk and Chop, a local ready-for-big-time breakfast/lunch hybrid restaurant in the vein of Perkins or Bakers Square. (By “in the vein” we really mean “almost absolutely exactly like” because, for some strange reason, they’ve taken a Perkins-esque view of interior design and a Bakers Square-like dedication to mediocre food.)

Every wall had a television.

Every. One.

You go to Pizza Ranch, and every wall has a television. McDonalds. Gas stations. These aren’t sports bars – these places aren’t catering to drunks who want to watch football. They’re serving breakfast. Fast food. GASOLINE. What. The. Hell.

I know. People like television. I get it.

But take those televisions away from the inside of Whisk and Chop. All of them. Leave them out of the budget. Save money on the satellite feed. Take that savings and put it into, oh, I don’t know, a better attention to detail (like toasting the English muffin under your luke-warm Eggs Benedict).

Open the doors and see what happens. How many people are going to say, “I really want breakfast, and I’ve heard Whisk and Chop is good…”

“…oh, but they don’t have a television for me to watch.”

Can we all agree that, because this is such a negligible feature to a breakfast restaurant, that it’s unnecessary, much like an automatic napkin dispenser or valet parking or two sets of silverware for each dish?

Can we all agree that, when it comes down to it, it’s kind of tacky?

So, no television. Will they really lose customers?

Or, by going against the grain and offering a more peaceful environment with which to eat hashbrowns, will they actually gain customers?

I find it hard to believe anyone would notice in the first place.

Tags: Annoyances, Sioux Falls, Television |

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Record Store Day 2010

April 17, 2010


Sierra and Isaac didn’t care about Record Store Day.

In fact, when I told them, out of the coolness of my Cool Dad Heart, that we were headed to Ernie November to check out Record Store Day, Sierra sort of looked at me, blankly, unimpressed and clearly confused as to why her father, Cool Dad though he might be, was suddenly giddy. Confused as to why, within minutes, he had turned into a child.

“Record store?”

“Uh… Music store,” I said, hoping to clarify.

“Music store?”

I should be happy. At least she grasped we were GOING SOMEWHERE. Isaac just ignored me and banged metal measuring cups together.

The weight of the occasion was completely lost on them, but I suppose the occasion wasn’t for them. This was for me. This was a father showing his children a bit of history, a tradition quickly becoming obsolete even in my own life: a record store, with physical records and CDs and videos; music in a concrete form, the way we had always accepted them until the icy hand of technology forced convenience into our lives, sending the value of tangible media into a nosedive.

This was a lesson in locality, understanding the process through which music used to be acquired, much like a field trip to the farm teaches us how chickens were raised before the factory model became prevalent.

Sierra wandered the aisles, pointing out album covers, counting monsters – you’d be surprised: there are a surprising number of monsters on modern album covers – and carrying a VHS copy of the South Park movie. Isaac spit in my ear and grabbed for my hat.

Though it wasn’t in the same location, it was this store – Ernie November – where my musical education formally began. The same could be said for most of my group of friends; hell, it could be said for most of the 20- and 30-somethings who grew up in Sioux Falls

Our high school punk band sold demo tapes in this store. It’s where we bought tickets to our first punk rock shows – mine was Good Riddance – and where we discovered bands that still resonate today: Texas is the Reason, Cursive, Jawbreaker, Hot Water Music.

What we didn’t know then is that, there in that record store, shuffling through used CDs, the atmosphere stained with incense and our opinions influenced by the certainty of indie culture, we were also experiencing the benefit of small business. We were getting a view of music that many couldn’t experience – not because they didn’t want to, but because they weren’t lucky enough to have an independent voice in the music business. The culture of a big box retailer is all about serving the lowest common denominator, discovering new music isn’t as safe as developing taste through the hive mind.

The Internet changed all of that. Now, discovering music is easier. It’s safer. It’s fueled by television soundtracks and iPod commercials, delivered immediately through the tubes and into the warmth of your computer’s speakers.

The unfortunate side effect is that independent record stores are waning, their importance halved. It’s no wonder that vinyl has come back as both a method of acquiring music and as an art symbol of its own: independent labels and record stores and fans of both are desperate to develop a new niche.

And I for one hope it works. Nothing will replace the community of a local independent record store. More than anything, I think that’s what I was foolishly trying to convey to Sierra and Isaac. I was forgetting that these were two kids too young to even comprehend what music means, too naive to understand the significance of this dirty old building, these used CDs and albums, these weird covers with monsters and singers with dirty hair and stupid names and lo-fi music they’d probably never hear.

I probably overdid it. I spent more than I should have, purchased a few albums I didn’t need, even grabbed an exclusive Record Store Day release 7” that I can’t even listen to until I secure a turntable.

But then again, maybe I haven’t been doing enough. Because independent record stores – both here in Sioux Falls and in every town I’ve ever lived or visited – have helped paint a small part of who I’ve become. I owe them in part for my sense of independence, for my reluctance to blindly accept mainstream and for a couple of lasting friendships.

My kids might not understand that right now. But they will.

My only hope is that they’ll get the chance to experience the same thing for themselves.

Tags: Isaac, Music, On..., Sierra, Sioux Falls, Vilhauer |

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Mason Jennings – 3.18.10 @ The Orpheum

March 18, 2010


So there’s Bob Dylan, Minnesotan gone rogue, ran away to New York City in search of something his hometown couldn’t develop, something his talent couldn’t hide from, something his dreams seemed destined to encounter, like one of Aesop’s fables with a slurred and acoustic moral.

And on the other end, there’s Greg Brown, modern folk legend, calling Iowa his birthplace despite sounding more Minnesotan than any other modern singer, his voice reaching down to the cellars, frosting the Mason jars and breathing life into the beets and the tomatoes and the peppers.

Somewhere in the middle lies Mason Jennings, Hawaiian by birth, Pittsburgh-raised and transplanted to Minnesota, where he’s taken the mantle of introspection and used it to his advantage, humbly taking stage – thought not without confidence – as this generation’s voice of heartland prayer.

Love and children and religion and life and death and two guys fighting in the headlights of their trucks; Mason tells stories. Stories of girls and stories of war and stories of slides and the sun and really his mind never stops – it keeps going, one world after another, each character like some kind of hidden personality. But not hidden at all, really. They’re all right there, a part of him. And, through his music, a part of us.

It was with this honesty he stood before us tonight, just he and a couple of guitars, serenading the hundreds in attendance at The Orpheum, reminding me that nostalgia can be beautiful, that the happy pain that comes from loving someone too much can be thrilling, that the fun in mixing words together can be addictive, that change is as natural as living and dying – and that all you can do with it is sing about it and remember how much it affected you.

So it’s really no surprise that, when chosen as the voice behind one of Dylan’s personas in I’m Not There, he was given free reign to recreate “The Times They Are a Changin’,” and in true form he not only did it with honesty but with an unknowing nod to Greg Brown, taking lyrics meant for world change and turning them into something that could be planted in the fields, sprouting anew once the rains of time had washed over them.

His song was truth, because it came from stories of those who came before him. And it’s those stories that make him a natural extension of their legend.

Tags: Concerts, Music, Sioux Falls |

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The big event

December 23, 2009


South Dakota doesn’t have much in terms of professional sports. We have semi-professional sports, which can often be difficult to follow, thanks to the vagabond nature of minor league athletes. But we don’t have anything that can fill up a sports page, creating trends in conversation, a common ground among everyone.

Instead, we have the weather.

Which explains the local news’ insistence on covering an upcoming winter storm with the same pomp and gusto as a team of ex-athletes hyping the Super Bowl or the Olympics.

Our most popular local celebrity is a weatherperson, after all.

Willard Scott would be so proud.

Tags: Sioux Falls, Sports |

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On replacement

November 28, 2009


When I used to work at the mall, we were always assured that, no matter what, great coffee could be found just down the wing at Great Plains Coffee. This was a decade ago, and though I didn’t drink coffee at the time, I still appreciated it being there – right between Orange Julius and DEB, out in the seemingly abandoned Sears wing, where high rents didn’t quite live up to their promised traffic flow.

It was an oasis of local business amid a great sea of chains; a respite for the weary shopper, almost like a mirage. Even when a Caribou Coffee showed up, Great Plains Coffee continued strong.

But, it couldn’t last forever. Whether it was because rents reached a tipping point, or traffic slowed to a crawl, or the owners simply stopped feeling at home inside the expanses of The Empire Mall, Great Plains Coffee moved to a location further down the road. It’s since been replaced with a DirectTV retailer, the stall’s once warm interior swapped for the cold comfort of pegboard and molded plastic.

Frankly, I can’t think of anything else that better sums up the state of what malls have become.

Tags: On..., Sioux Falls |

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The frustratingly meager state of local publishing

October 1, 2009


There’s a vicious circle that plagues a handful of local publications.

The circle: You start a new publication with little money and few supporters. First, you ask for free or donated content. The free or donated content is placed under the publication’s name. The publication uses this free or donated content to sell advertising space.

(Full disclosure. I was once one of these free/donated content providers; I wrote a book column for a new defunct men’s magazine.)

The problem: the advertising space is hard to sell because the free or donated content isn’t the same quality you’d find in a publication that pays for its content. You get a lot of first-time columnists. You get a lot of basement designers. You get a laxness of deadlines, and editors who aren’t paying attention to details.

It looks rough. And more advertisers hold back.

Simply put, the better writers will hold out for the paycheck. And until a magazine can pay for quality content, they won’t get the better writers. But they can’t afford the better writers without – you guessed it! – the advertising dollars.

Maybe you can find people who are willing to help out – who are willing to offer services at a reduced rate, or a rate based on publication numbers. Maybe you can find a collective who are more focused on putting out great content, regardless of the advertising costs involved. Maybe you have to take out a loan in the beginning and pay quality writers in the beginning, hoping you’ll break even eventually.

Until then, though, you have a handful of publications, sitting on racks across the city, that pale when looked at critically. They’re frustratingly meager, living down to their promise.

How do you get good content without breaking the bank? Good question. I’ve got no idea, which is why I’m not a publisher.

But someone’s got to have the answer. I mean, content’s still king, people.

Or did I miss the memo that said otherwise?

Tags: Journalism, Sioux Falls, Writers, Writing |

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