The Wake Issue 4 Fall 2006

Mpls Venue Guide /p.10

Third Party Candidates /p.04 PLUS Homo-homophobia / Inside Steady Tattoo Shop

/ volume 5 / issue 4 / 27 Sept 2006

Editorial/ Editor-in-Chief Jenny Odegard

Managing Editor Eric Price

Athletics Editor Craig Rentmeester

Campus Editor Sarah Howard

Literary Editor Jacob Duellman

Sound & Vision Editor Kristen Mueller

Voices Editor Cole Dennis

Editorial Assistants Alyssa Cogan, Dan Olmschenk, Lyndsey Danberry

Senior Staff Writers Rachel Drewelow, Dan Groth

PRODUCTION/ Production Manager Jeremy Sengly

Art Director Sam Soule

Photography Editor Brennan Vance

Web Editor Luke Preiner

Senior Photographer Ethan Stark

Graphic Designers Dave Hagen, Eric Price, Becki Schwartz, Jeremy Sengly, Krista Spinti

Copy Editors Kelly Frush, Erin Lavigne, Rachel Levitt, Tammy Quan

BUSINESS/ Business Manager Angela Damiani

Office Manager Elizabeth Keely Shaller

Advertising Executive Meghan Norris

Public Relations Director Cassie Benson

Advertising Intern Tyler Jones

Public Relations Interns Marlys Huismann, Alison Traxler, Julie Veternick

THIS ISSUE/ Cover Artist Sam Soule Illustrators Dave Hagen, Jeremy Sengly, Brennan Vance Photographers Tyler Stevermer, Brennan Vance, Danielle Wiskus

©2006 The Wake Student Magazine. All rights reserved.

Established in 2002, The Wake is a weekly independent magazine produced by and for the students of the University of Minnesota. The Wake is a registered student organization.

Contributing Writers Elizabeth Aulwes, Cole Dennis, Rachel Drewelow, Jacob Duellman, Amy Fink, Sarah Howard, Kristen Mueller, Kevin O’Leary, Jenny Odegard, Ian Powers, Craig Rentmeester, AJ Sabako

The Wake Student Magazine 1313 5th St. SE Minneapolis, MN 55414 (612) 379-5952 • www.wakemag.org The Wake was founded by Chris Ruen and James DeLong.

Enjoy the Scenery/p.10

A list of eleven local

venues not to miss

Dear Readers, On Thursday, September 21st, United States Senator George Allen found out he is Jewish. For most people, discovering their roots is a good thing, but in this case it seems to be upsetting Senator Allen, a Republican from Virginia. This recent discovery also seems to be throwing his plans to run for president in 2008 way off course.

According to an article printed in The Nation at the end of August, ten years ago, “as governor of Virginia, Allen personally initiated an association with the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), the successor organization to the segregationist White Citizens Council and among the largest white supremacist groups.” It is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, states that is opposes all efforts to mix the races, and opposes affirmative action.

Unfortunately for Allen, white supremacist groups frequently categorize Jews as “non-white.” This puts him in a bit of a tough situation, especially in light of his recent verbal misconduct over an Indian-American campaign staffer working for his opponent. To this end he has responded that the racially offensive comments were a mistake. He has also decided to become a “champion for the minorities” and has begun to attack his Democratic opponent for being antiSemitic, according to the New York Times.

CAMPUS p.04

LITERARY p.08 VOICES p.12

SOUND & VISION p.14 ATHLETICS p.16

PHOTOGRAPHY p.18

According to the same article, his mother was worried that he would stop loving her when he found out she is Jewish. This leads me to have some concern for Senator Allen, since he is a white supremacist and therefore has a substantial amount of hatred towards minorities. He must be torn over whether to advocate for himself, or throw himself off of a bridge.

As both a white supremacist and a Jew, Allen will have to assess which he is more comfortable embracing. There has never been a Jewish president as of yet, so his new identity could deter many religious conservatives and put his nomination at risk. But at the same time it will be difficult to switch teams and start going to bat for minorities, which would again cost him conservative support and not necessarily gain him any liberal support because of his track record.

Also this week, notorious evangelical Jerry Falwell called Hilary Clinton worse than Satan. The 2008 election season is starting to get juicy.

Sincerely, JENNY ODEGARD Editor-in-Chief

Campus/

Real Alternatives Third party candidates have a lot to offer

BY Elizabeth Aulwes This election season, there are two “thirdparty” candidates running in the race to be Minnesota’s next governor, along with the Republican and Democrat nominees.

itics is broken by close-minded partisanship” and that they plan to work together to overcome the broken system.

“Going Independent is the only way to get out of the gridlock” that Reed says Minnesota will be in if a DFL or GOP governor is elected this November. She says the Democrats and Republicans use wedge issues to divide and distract Minnesotans and that the Independent candidates have a good chance because “Minnesotans are so sick of the hand grenades and the gridlock.”

Independence Party candidate Peter Hutchinson and the Green Party’s Ken Pentel join Republican incumbent Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Attorney General Mike Hatch from the DFL. The Libertarian Party of Minnesota is not running a candidate since Sue Jeffers announced she’d run against Pawlenty for the Republican nomination in the Sept. 12 primary, in which she lost by a large margin. Voters will decide on Nov. 7.

Many think that a two-party political system limits voters. Maureen Reed, Hutchinson’s running mate for lieutenant governor and former member of the U’s Board of Regents, says, “we’re listening to what the electorate is saying and there’s no substitution for listening to their concerns.” She explained that in Minnesota, the Independence Party is considered a major party because of the percentage of votes it garners. According to a poll last winter, about 46 percent of Minnesotans define themselves as something other than Democrats or Republicans, Reed says.

Two days after the primary, Pawlenty, Hatch and Hutchinson gathered at a debate sponsored by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce to weigh in on the issues.

Pentel was not invited to participate.

At the debate, Hutchinson showed his strength of character by challenging Pawlenty. “You don’t get the right to tell me what I said,” Hutchinson interrupted the current governor. Hutchinson continued, “I said $32 billion is enough,” in

04/27 September 2006

photo courtesy of kenpentel.org

reference to total yearly state and local government spending after Pawlenty misinterpreted Hutchinson’s original comment.

Hutchinson, a Faribault, Minn. native, also described Pawlenty and Hatch as typical politicians. He called the two candidates an example of “politics as usual” and slammed Pawlenty’s budget management abilities and says that Hatch should be reprimanded for not standing up to Pawlenty in that respect.

Hutchinson is the leader of Team Minnesota, the Independence Party’s group of candidates this year and will serve as their “manager.” The team, which will includes the state’s next attorney general, lieutenant governor, state auditor and secretary of state, claims on their Web site that “pol-

Team Minnesota is focusing on four issues: healthcare, education, transportation and the environment. Reed says that healthcare is the most important issue we face in Minnesota because “healthcare should be considerably cheaper than what it is now.”

Reed also says that the best way to tackle the other three issues is to reduce healthcare costs, because then the state can devote what it’s currently spending on health issues to other concerns. “The best thing you can do is get health care costs under control.”

Reed spent Sept. 14 talking with students on the Washington Avenue pedestrian bridge. She said she enjoys hearing from students because they’re usually very direct and she says she’s concerned about rising tuition. “Our goal is to double the number of college graduates in Minnesota,” Reed says. She and Hutchinson are worried because only about 25 percent of today’s ninth graders will get a college degree. “We need to assure there’s financial aid for students of lower economic means.”

Reed, originally from Redwood Falls, Minn., is concerned by how many debates Pawlenty has cancelled this year. He has

backed out of 11 of 19 scheduled debates, she says. She also doesn’t appreciate his refusal to accept state campaign funds so he could forgo spending limits. “The governor had so little faith in the voters of Minnesota that he chose to turn his back on voter money and turn to private interests and their money.”

Pentel, the Green’s gubernatorial candidate, is also concerned about how strong our democracy is. He wants to reform the election process through instant runoff voting and proportional representation.

He also supports campaign finance reform because, as he says on his Web site, “the people should have more of a voice in our government than lobbyists.”

“We need to clean up our democracy,” Pentel says. There’s a massive amount of lobby money interfering with the democratic process of electing representatives, he explained. “There are commercial interests orbiting around policy-making that turn our government into a commercial vehicle.”

The process compromises our legislation, he says, and this is “no longer a government by and for the people.” The major party candidates “are not representing the best interests of the common good.”

Having the Green Party’s endorsement, Pentel obviously prioritizes environmental issues. He says that Minnesota needs energy independence and efficiency and that the state could become a leader in reducing dependence on foreign fossil fuels.

Pentel’s green energy policy “fights global warming at home, not wars for oil overseas,” according to his Web site.

\ Campus

Your ad here. adamiani@wakemag.org

“We need to make the transition to sustainable practices,” Pentel says. He wants to do that through legislation and education by enhancing outreach programs, such as apprenticeships, to reward students who will contribute to a “reciprocal society.” His plan would stabilize economies and would recognize the importance of communities, he says. For example, sustainable farms would not have to pay property taxes, the candidate explained.

“It’s a holistic plan.”

Pentel, in his third run for governor, is also prioritizing healthcare. He wants to go to a single-payer universal healthcare system and “get out of this craziness.”

When asked why a voter should choose a third-party candidate, Pentel says, “If you vote out of fear, you’ve lost and you lose democracy.” He thinks that voters shouldn’t consider a vote for a third-party candidate a wasted vote, because these candidates do represent voter’s values and don’t allow the major parties to control and intimidate their stances. “There’s a huge percentage of the public that’s disenchanted with the current system and parties,” Pentel says, so people should get away from the ”corporate, militaristic and anti-earth” candidates.

Instant runoff voting is a perfect example of what Greens have to offer, Pentel explained. Voters rank candidates and one must get more than 50 percent of the vote in order to be elected. If no candidate wins that much initially, then second choices are taken into consideration. Minneapolis voters will be able to choose if they want to go to an instant runoff system this November. Pentel says that Greens have been

“The governor had so little faith in the voters of Minnesota that he chose to turn his back on voter money and turn to private interests and their money.” talking about the idea for at least ten years and that it’s now seriously being considered.

Third-party candidates frequently bring up “ideas voters would normally not hear,” Pentel says. Also, “third parties provide a pathway for people who would not normally vote.”

Most third parties do not accept endorsements or lobby money, Reed says.

“When candidates seek endorsements, they have to make promises,” she says.

Pentel agrees that too much of state policy is made up by corporate interests. “There’s only one endorsement we want,” Reed says. “The endorsement of the voters of Minnesota.”

Photo courtesy of teammn.org

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Campus/

Heating Things Up “We Have a Problem of Global Scale” BY sarah howard The Varsity Theater in Dinkytown was set up more like a coffee shop than a theater.

Twinkling lights filled the ceiling, while The Day After Tomorrow, starring Jake Gyllenhaal plays in the background to set the mood. On Monday, Sept. 11, about 30 people gathered to discuss the change in weather and climate happenings as pollution and the environment become a growing concern to the general public.

The first in a three-part series of Café Scientifique at the Varsity Theater in Dinkytown, “Global Climate Change: It’s Getting Hot in Here!” showcased the global “warming” happening to the earth, caused in large part by pollution, deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels.

“It’s great to talk about this in a [relaxing] environment,” says panelist J. Drake Hamilton, science policy director for Fresh Energy adding that the “science” part of discussions on global climate change can get in the way of people actually learning the problem.

“We’ve been investigating global climate change since the end of the 19th century.

In the 1970s very serious national efforts began,” panelist and environmental historian Daniel Philippon says. “This year though we’ve seen a shift in the cultural attitude toward global change.”

Philippon spoke of the media efforts that have happened recently to alert and instill fear in the general public. “But there’s a disconnect between what scientists know and what the public knows.”

Real life events such as “Hurricane Katrina can help put the global warming impact in context and help shape our understanding,” Philippon says. “But overall, the public sees the problem in a frame the media creates, which can cause problems because it’s not the frame scientists want the public to see,” he says. “The media is more focused on the drama,” Philippon says, and this escalates fear.

This is all boiling up to a “perfect ethical storm,” says Peter Ciborowski from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

“There are theoretical concerns, generational concerns and scientific concerns,” he says. “If we can transfer these global concerns to community and personal concerns, change could occur,” Ciborowski says.

06/27 September 2006

Another problem with the framing of the global warming problem is that “warming” is used when talking about the dilemma, when in fact the entire globe is not warming up, just certain spots. “‘Global warming’ is threatening and apocalyptic,” Ciborowski says.

“This year though we’ve seen a shift in the cultural attitude toward global change.”

On the positive side, “things are moving and being helped by grassroots actions,” Hamilton says. “But many more people need to weigh in on this. We don’t have [the] luxury of not doing anything for 10 years,” she says. “We have to be pushing for the best possible [solutions].”

Hamilton says that “within the next 10 years we need to stabilize emissions and make cuts. These gas emissions are rising everything—temperatures and costs.”

If these changes are made, and quickly, we can prevent the worst damage. Most of what needs to be changed is decisions regarding the environmental choices made by large companies with carbon-burning factories, she says.

All three panelists mentioned the work of James Hansen, lead climate scientist and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Science. In 1988, as the director, he was the first person to testify to the House of Representatives that there was a strong “cause and effect relationship” between observed temperatures and human emissions into the atmosphere. Hansen now claims that if we proceed with business as usual the planet will become unrecognizable, Hamilton says. “I’m not talking doomsday, but this means that species and lifeforms will change drastically,” she clarifies.

Ciborowski showed slides that documented the expected outcomes of global climate change efforts. “Most of our greenhouse gases come from energy use and the rest is from agricultural use, which goes hand in hand with increased diminishing forests,” he says. He added that the high percentage of gases from agricultural sources come from Minnesota’s strong farming economy.

“In the next 30 to 40 years, whatever we do will not really matter, but the 50 years after that is when the problem will grow exponentially [if nothing is done],” Ciborowski says. “Not a scientist in the world disagrees with that.”

jeremy sengly

\ Campus

New Building, New Architecture

brennan vance

The building by the river gets new surroundings

by Kevin O’Leary Say goodbye to the University of Minnesota’s Science Classroom Building.

The Mississippi River Design Initiative, hosted by the University’s College of Design, plans to render the East Bank river site anew. Jamie Helding, a 21-year-old landscape architecture student, plans to use this project as a springboard into her post-collegiate career.

“The Mississippi River Design Initiative is comprised of staff at the University of Minnesota, which reaches out to faculty and administration advisors, as well as off-campus partners, in achieving the Initiative’s goals,” states MRDI’s Web site, riverdesign.umn.edu.

One such goal is to redesign the site around the Science Classroom Building in an effort to reconnect the campus to the mighty river on which it dwells.

“It’s probably the ugliest building on campus,” Helding says. “It blocks a great view of the West Bank, and it’s like the U isn’t even connected to the campus anymore.”

design, urban studies, horticulture, geography and members of the surrounding communities to participate.

People who attend the workshop will be assembled into teams, given informational packets about the site and sent off to create designs. This will take place on the first day of the workshop, Oct. 14.

Start times and registration forms can be found online at the MRDI’s Web site under “News and Events.” Click on the link for Making River Connections.

“There’s so much that goes into it – people are naturally attracted to water, and it’s important that sites near water be planned so people can enjoy it.”

As the Metropolitan Design Center prepares a grant to carry out this project, Helding and other students and faculty have created the Making River Connections workshop. The purpose of the workshop is to assemble groups of students, community members, faculty and professionals and create prospective designs for the site.

On the second day, the groups will present their designs to a panel made up of river experts, architecture and design professionals, as well as College of Design faculty. The panel will vote on the designs, which will then be displayed in Rapson Hall and on the MRDI’s Web site. These designs will be used in the final process when construction begins.

The workshop seeks public artists, students in history, architecture, graphic

“Design firms will be at the workshop, and we’ll be able to meet with professionals,

who get involved in projects like these to keep their…teeth sharp, their skills honed.

It’s all really good for setting up your life after you get out of the U. Just going to the workshops, writing that on your résumé will help, just to say you worked with the pros,” says Helding.

The goal of the workshop is to “highlight connections between the river, the site and the campus through strategies such as public art, interpretive installations, plantings, water features, etc.” according to the Web site.

Helding has tasted the real world, and she wants more. Working on a real project that will have real results (construction is hoped to begin in 2008) is preparing her to leave student life and make a career out of something she’s deeply interested in. Other students looking for a stepping-stone out of college and into the real world would do well to register for this workshop, which will be held in the Rapson Hall courtyard Oct. 14.

Helding’s involvement started when she was hired as a research assistant by Pat Nunnally, a College of Design professor and coordinator with the MRDI. It was Nunnally who conceived the Making River Connections idea, and the common enthusiasm for riverfront planning between the two helped Helding gain an important role in the workshop’s evolution.

Helding is the only undergraduate working on the project, and is amazed by how much she has learned and how much being a part of this project will benefit her academically and professionally.

She says that her involvement with the project has shaped what road she’ll take with her career, and plans on going into riverfront planning. “There’s so much that goes into it – people are naturally attracted to water, and it’s important that sites near water be planned so people can enjoy it.”

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Literary/ Book Review

“Perched on Layer after Layer of Exploding History” – Juliana Spahr This Connection of Everyone with Lungs

By Juliana Spahr various forms, from the NASA shuttle launches, to the melting of glaciers world-wide, to the existence of popculture icons like Fatboy Slim, Ben and J-Lo, to Renée Zellweger and Richard Gere in Chicago, to the existence of cell phones and the existence of tunnel vision – we as a people are caught up in too much to achieve a focused goal.

BY jacob Duellman In an era of question marks surrounding the United States’ involvement in international affairs, it is refreshing to acquire a viewpoint such as that from Juliana Spahr. Her latest work, This Connection of Everyone with Lungs offers to her readers an opportunity to reflect on the flow of the current tumultuous global narrative through her viewpoint, as a citizen, starting with the attacks of 9/11 through the onset of the Iraq war. A collection of two poems, “Poem Written after September 11, 2001” and “Poem Written from November 30, 2002, to March 27, 2003” Spahr offers her readers a chance to reflect on the silencing of the protests against the war in a world interconnected by an age of information, whether via internet, television, radio or newspaper. This failure on such a global scale to mobilize against such an evil influence is explored through saturating details of conflict from various points across the globe.

Spahr begins by first setting a commonality between all people of the world; the movement of cells, the division of cells, to the very air we breathe. By doing so, she links every human being to a very important equation: the human condition, and our effects on a global scale. This interconnectivity, from the minutest of cells that form our structure to the barrage of information from our media resources, presents the complexity of the issue and our desire to solve it. This barrage of information arrives in

08/27 September 2006

By writing from an intimate perspective, she juxtaposes the relationship we have between the comfort of our beds to the way we ignore a similar love we share on a global scale, “Beloveds, we do not know how to live our lives with any agency outside of our bed”. She emphasizes this notion with images of our silence to the news of North Korea and their nuclear weapons program, to the mobilization of troops to boarders around the world, to the deployment of warships and Patriot antimissile batteries.

She then brings the readers back to bed, a place where comfort can be found – and silence, “we do not speak of it and instead press up against one anothers / reveling in the pleasure of being back together.”

By naming the atrocities that continue globally, Spahr offers comparisons of the viewpoints of beauty, from the eyes of the most sinister, to hers, “On this dark earth, some say the thing most lovely is the thirty / thousand assault troops from Britain today joining the sixty-two / thousand from the US mobilized in the past ten days and a further / sixty thousand from the US on their way.”

“But I say it’s whatever you love best. / I say it is the persons you love.”

Juliana Spahr lyrically pleads to her readers to focus, speak out and assert the ethics which we, the people, demand: to coexist in peace, not use bloodshed as peace.

Juliana says it best, “We get up in the morning and the words, ‘Patriot missile systems,’ / ‘the Avengers,’ and ‘the US infantry weapons’ tumble out of our / mouths before breakfast.” It is time for change.

Juliana Spahr will be reading at the Weisman Art Museum with Claudia Rankine on September 27 at 7:30 pm. Be prepared, read the book, reclaim your voice.

Further Reading: Fuck You-Aloha-I Love You Everybody’s Autonomy: Connective Reading and Collective Identity Response, winner of the National Poetry Series Award.

\ Literary

Events to Attend who: Juliana Spahr and Claudia Rankine what: Reading when: 09/27 at 7:30 p.m where: Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, FREE who: Mark Nowak what: “Public Poetics in the Era of ‘Accumulation by Dispossession’” when: Thurs. Sept. 28th, 12:15 p.m where: In-Flux Space, E-110 Regis Center for Art. who: E.G. Bailey; Sarah Conbere; Michael Courteau; Rosemary Davis; more. what: This Can’t Be the Place: A Reading. With when: Sat. Sept. 30th 8:00 p.m, FREE where: The Soap Factory. who: The Liminal, Sponserd by the Wake what: Open mic reading when: 09/29 at 7:00 p.m where: Manhattan Loft, FREE

MIC NIGHT

who: David Treuer, from the University of Minnesota what: Reading from his new novel, “The Translation of Dr. Apelles: A Love Story” when: 09/29 at 7:30 p.m where: The Fitzgerald Theater, $15 who: Naomi Shihab Nye what: Reading when: 09/30 at 7:00 p.m where: The Loft, $5, Free for Loft Members who: Thomas Glave what: Reading when:10/27, 7:00 p.m. where: The Loft, $5

The Liminal is back. . . in the form of a microphone.

MANHATTAN LOFT FRIDAY SEPT. 29TH 7:00 P.M BRING YOUR POEMS AND STORIES LIVE MUSIC GOOD FOOD

who: Isabel Allende what: Reading from Ines of My Soul when: 11/17, 7:00 p.m where: The Fitzgerald Theater, $15

I like to read.

Send me submissions.

Smile at being in print. jduellman@wakemag.org

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10/27 September 2006

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Voices/

Homo-Homophobia by cole dennis

Instead of battling against this horrible movement in American media, the gays just sit in their living room, sipping chardonnay and laughing along as Carson wears a rainbow thong and, according to an ad for the show, “[drives] straight men into their closets.” Ironically, this cute little ad signifies a much larger problem among gay people. Because “gay” mannerisms are so specific, it becomes that much harder for a closeted man or woman to come out if he or she doesn’t match the mold. If you aren’t a walking, talking rainbow, people will just assume you are heterosexual, making it that much easier to live the lie. I know people who have lied to nearly all of their family and friends their entire lives, just so they would never be “that gay guy” or “that gay girl.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been accused of being a whore at times, but I don’t consider it to be encoded down into my homo DNA. First and foremost, let me say that I am, in fact, a gay man. I like the cock.

With that out of the way, let me propose this: the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender movement has ruined everything for itself. Gay people have forced themselves into a horrendous caricature of a community.

I’ll just go ahead and assume that you think I’m talking about traditionally “gay” mannerisms. I’m not. I have no problem with “girly” men or “manly” girls. I have never and will never hate anyone for what they are, flamboyant or not. I certainly will, however, judge them for what they have made of themselves.

It seems to me that some members of the community parade around (excuse the pun) trying to project an image that I can only describe as a Paris Hilton-esque mystique, or in the case of lesbians, a skanked-out Punky Brewster.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been accused of being a whore at times, but I don’t consider it to be encoded down into my homo DNA. If, when having to write up a description of the core values of your little niche in society, you use the words “skin tight” and “platinum blonde,” then you’re in trouble. Who’s going to take us seriously if we don’t take ourselves seriously?

While embarrassing yourself in the privacy of a cheap, dirty nightclub can be on the whole socially acceptable, when television cameras get introduced things take on a whole new level of idiocy. In mass media, we gays are portrayed as narcissistic, shallow, curtain-appraising nightmares. In shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Queer as Folk, and (to a much less enraging extent) Will and Grace, gays are grouped, stamped, and packaged as ridiculous and catty before they are sent off for the consumption of the American public.

I don’t even know where to begin tackling the representation of lesbians on Bravo’s Work Out, or the same-sex date episodes of MTV’s ridiculously scripted “reality dating show,” Next. Next specifically needs to be cancelled simply because if the show continues I will be forced to start beating myself up.

12/27 September 2006

Now, I’m not angry that everyone thinks that I’m going to be their best new shopping buddy. That’s perfectly harmless in and of itself. But when it’s okay to accept even the most innocuous stereotypes as truth it would then acceptable to assume that even the worst are true. If someone is allowed to assume that I can color coordinate my way out of even the most bland-toned of circumstances, then someone could just as easily assume that I have AIDS, or that I’m addicted to meth or that I’m a pedophile. When, on the gay-embraced show Queer as Folk, character Brian Kinney touts that gay couples aren’t like their heterosexual counterparts—the difference being that gay people could never get married and eventually become boring and monogamous—how can you say that we as a movement deserve the right to marry each other? Every character on that show is either a whore, an idiot or prone to infidelity. I watch the credits after every episode, expecting to see “Special Guest Writer: Jerry Falwell” appear on the screen. Why are we doing this to ourselves? When gay people are promoting the very same image as the right wing, we will forever be the saucy wedding planner and never the bride.

Even when the GLBT community fights for its rights, it goes about doing everything backwards. Gay advocacy focuses entirely on the prejudice that specifically address-

es homosexuals and, if they’re lucky bisexuals, transgender people and everyone else in our little brat pack of dysfunctional gender statuses. This is focusing on the symptom rather than the problem itself.

Homophobia is a side effect of a greater sexism that affects the world. If people weren’t so preoccupied with gender (to the point where gender essentially defines you as a person) then there would be no problem between us gays and you crazy straight folks.

But gay activists, while obviously very sensitive and educated on the topic of gender, decide to focus instead on trying to defeat the fundamentalist religious ideals—a ridiculous prospect. If you’re going to set out and try to change someone’s mind about something you should never ever pick religion. Religion is a matter of personal faith, and however false you might think it is when a Baptist minister tells you you’re going to hell for being a dyke (possibly on a bike) you can’t tell him he’s wrong. He can’t be. It’s his faith. Instead of hitting our heads against a wall that Jesus built, we should be trying to actually make people see that we aren’t the horrible drug-addicted, STD-riddled fashionistas we tend to make ourselves out to be.

Now, with a small portion of my rage written out, let me just say that I know all gay people aren’t vapid whores with a Macy’s catalogue where their brains should be, or flannel toting, mullet loving vegetarian hippies for that matter. If that were actually true, I’m sure I’d be at a club somewhere shaking my ass for rich, old businessmen, or sewing dresses for debutantes instead of writing a hardhitting piece of topical journalism. And there is nothing wrong with a well-defined community. But there is a problem with an oppressed minority that is so easily placated by the Bravo network and the half-assed acting of Eric McCormack.

We need to stop allowing ourselves to be put into little boxes. We can’t put most of the blame on straight people anymore, either. We have to change the way we think about ourselves in order to make everyone else think any differently than they do now. If we can’t stand up for the most basic of principles (namely that no, we aren’t all exactly the same) then we will end up being exactly what everyone assumes us to be: a bunch of silly fags and angry bull dykes.

\ Voices

Gopherocious: Or should we be?

Forming a woman’s identity at the U of M by jenny odegard

To open up the forum, I would like to begin with saying that I feel pressure even from those close to me to hold my tongue, lose a few pounds and generally be more “pleasant” and less “confrontational.” I have also been compared to low-grade sandpaper.

While this message has never come from the important women role models in my life, I find the hints coming from outsiders and men that are close to me, even while they are positive that they are feminists. As a disclaimer, I cannot think of a time when my father has ever told me to be anything but sandpaper. But the reality of life is that many more people have access to you than family.

It is a beginning-of-the-year tradition for women all over campus to cut and tie their free (with season ticket purchase) Gopher Football T-shirt. Generally, this means to take an oversized shirt, cut the seams, and tie the remnants to fit a person of smaller stature. The result is a small shirt with holes in the side and a plunging neckline, crafted to strategically lure potential mates (or something) before, during and after the first football game of the season.

Reflecting on this sort of rite of passage, my friends and I have often wondered where we would be now had we chosen that path. How would my identity have been shaped, were I to have gone with the tide, and acted as a woman my age is “supposed” to?

It is widely acknowledged that the media, mainstream society and most early-childhood development programs stress gender roles as a key to defining one’s own identity. As children, girls are pushed toward dolls while boys are urged in the direction of Legos. This is widely known, but I think scarcely addressed in the context of early-adulthood.

From here, I would like to address the highly formative and so-called, “best years of your life,” that is college. Beginning as a freshman struggling to find friends, cutting up a silly T-shirt and wandering down frat row feels like a harmless attempt to circumvent loneliness. But several hundred Miller Lites and three months later, many freshman women surface with a more blurred vision of self than before. It is hard to decipher where our former selves were abandoned, and where we picked up habits and mannerisms previously thought of as less desirable than the moldy, rotten, month-old Domino’s pizza you discovered behind the futon.

Even in this academic environment, where learning is the goal, I find myself pressured to play dumb to be more likeable. The core of the problem, I feel, is the concept that it is better to be unintelligent. When did having an opinion and knowledge become a disadvantage?

As a person who grew up learning to express my opinion and to paint “outside of the lines” as it were, moving away from home turned out to be the opposite of liberating.

While staying out until dawn goes unnoticed, the freedom of self feels more restricted. In order to make friends,

it was important to be a certain way. But then once I had those friends, who was it that they were spending time with?

When did having an opinion and knowledge become a disadvantage?

The mixed message is that while we are at college to engage in the academic discourse, women are expected to stay silent and pretty, instead of opinionated and therefore less desirable. Especially toward senior year and during graduate school when marriage begins to be stressed as a goal, the conflict between beauty and brains sends the disheartening suggestion that we cannot be both. And given the choice, I think many women choose beauty.

We live in a community and a social structure that implicates marriage as not only a goal, but as the ultimate route to happiness. If we’re supposed to aim towards marriage, and beauty is the preferred route, then I am left wondering what I’m doing in college.

Let’s say for a moment that I had chosen to spend my college years as many of my dormmates did. It was ultimately a choice between compromising my character in exchange for friends, which should make me happy. In the end though, I don’t know what would have been gained. A few more highlights in my hair, a shorter skirt, a ripped and tied piece of University spirit, all for an end goal that I’m not even sure I want.

College is a place where we further our knowledge and train for a career, and it is more than confusing to send women the message that finding a mate is equally if not more important. It is my belief that we should stop sending women in college the message that having a romantic relationship will be the answer to their happiness.

Instead, I find it crucial to instill in our academic peers that choosing your own priority will serve you better in the long run. Whether that leads to starting a family or discovering an alternative energy source doesn’t matter, what is most important is to stress that what is right for one might not be right for all.

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Sound & Vision/

Space Invaders Danielle Wiskus

By Kristen Mueller Past a White Castle restaurant’s blocky blue spires, into a long brick building, and up two flights of stairs (or the shaft of an antique elevator that’s liable to breakdown in between floors) is the 720 Space. Part concert venue, part art gallery, the Space is a haven for DIY-ers, punks, experimental artists, and UNO card game aficionados. But you wouldn’t know it by the Space’s exterior. In fact, the people working 9-to-5 jobs at the office supply company below the Space don’t even know much about it. But there are a few clues, should you be willing to investigate. Take the white sans-serif numbers marking the building’s address, 718-720, and the small paper flyers advertising concerts for bands like Shotgun Monday and Knife World, posted on nearby street corners. And then there are the throngs of bikes securely locked to every metal pole down the one-block stretch of Central Avenue the Space hovers over, on weekend nights At noon on a Wednesday, show booker Ryan Lowe rolls up to the door, passes a grim-looking employee on a smoke break, and leads the way up to the Space’s brightly-lit interior. Vintage furniture in lush greens and reds are scattered around found and donated tables stationed along the walls, which are adorned with Petra Wonders’ abstract paintings. Drummer Chris Hepola, of local bands Scatterbrain, Moral Standards, and Poor Nobodies (pronounced

14/27 September 2006

like “Porno Bodies”), is already sunken into a velvety seat.

“I really envisioned it as a collective,” Hepola says of his aspirations for the Space. Along with Lowe, he’s one of the 11 locals who pitch in to pay the Space’s rent, sched-

“The party ended up being extremely massive and scary,” Hepola says. “I didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into.” ule shows, and mop the wooden floors after particularly rambunctious crowds, like the one at the Space’s inaugural concert last February. “The party ended up being extremely massive and scary,” Hepola says. “I didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into.”

The Space’s history should have been a clue—if you believe it. Rumor has it, (and there are a lot of rumors surrounding the Space), that alt-country rockers the Jayhawks designed the long rectangular room, and at one point the entire floor was a recording studio and hangout for Soul Asylum and the Gear Daddies. Which doesn’t seem like a stretch, since multiple bands still crowd into the tiny rooms across the hall from the Space to practice and record.

Today, the Space welcomes everyone with a set of pipes or drumsticks, from rappers to jazz stylists. “People can do what they want musically and artistically,” Hepola says.

“It’s a good place to come if you’re a new band.”

This freedom to experiment is just one aspect setting the Space apart from larger venues like First Avenue, which seek out more established acts to pull in a profit. The Space is also “more intimate than a club, and more respectful,” says Lowe, who books “all the hard-core punk stuff,” plus a few vegan and vegetarian potlucks.

Chess tournaments and a spelling bee have also played out at the Space, and Hepola has high hopes for a “mac and jazz” event, “where we have a tub of macaroni and cheese and an open mic” for bands. He’s also searching for a projector to screen a member of Easter Bunny Kill Kill Kill’s “pretty insane gore” films.

While the Space’s future is as up for grabs as the events it holds, Hepola is “pretty determined to keep going as long as possible.” Lowe agrees: “I’d like to see it continue well into the future.”

Formaldehyde Junkie will perform with Coliseum on Oct. 8 at the 720 Space. For more show updates, visit modern-radio.com/board, or a street post near you.

\ Sound & Vision

Cheers to Summit’s 20th Local bands and brews help Summit Brewery Co. celebrate 20 years

By Rachel Drewelow

Steady Tattoo Shop

brennan VANCE

Making your ink dreams permanent since 2000

By Amy Fink Directly above Sally’s Saloon and Eatery, Tool’s “10,000 Days” accompanies tattoo artist Trevor Kennedy as he works on a piece that has taken somewhere between 12 and 15 hours. The colorful sleeve on his client’s left arm started with a few stars about five years ago. Since then, Kennedy has been developing it into a masterpiece based on his client’s wish to have an original Van Gogh-like design covering his arm. The colors are still vibrant even after considerable exposure to the sun.

“This one’s kind of cool just because it’s a blast from the past,” Kennedy says. “It’s neat to see how nicely my work has held up in the sunlight.”

After he finishes drawing in part of the design freehand with a black marker, his client looks down at his arm.

“I love it,” he says.

Since Kennedy opened Steady Tattooing and Piercing on Washington Avenue in Stadium Village, it has quadrupled in size.

“It just fell into my lap,” Kennedy says. “I bought the shittiest tattoo shop in Minnesota, fired everybody, and changed the locks.” About a week later, Kennedy was freed of local competition as well. The city of Minneapolis changed its zoning laws for C2 businesses, which includes tattoo parlors, sex shops, massage studios, and strip clubs.

These are the “undesirables,” as Kennedy calls them.

Since Steady was grandfathered in it remains, while many other shops, some of which were operating without licenses, were shut down.

Before he bought Steady, Kennedy learned to tattoo at Minneapolis’ Inklab as an apprentice under Adam Ciferri in 1997. “I wanted to be a tattoo artist my entire life,” Kennedy says. “I knew early on that if I could draw for a living, in any capacity, that I would be happy. Most of the men in my family are bikers so I’m just guessing that’s where I got the idea.”

On a typical day, Kennedy comes in early, prepares mentally, gets the drawings ready, and then tattoos one person after another. He estimates that he has two to 10 customers per day, depending on the size of the pieces. For larger works, some clients sit under Kennedy’s needle for as long as four hours.

Steady Tattoo is a combination of street and custom shop, operating in association with Axis Body Modification. As a street shop there is an array of designs on the walls to choose from for fast, easy jobs. As a custom shop, it employs a handful of artists who tailor designs to each customer’s needs. Open until midnight daily, Steady provides the most extensive selection of designs in the Twin Cities.

Even when customers come in with their own designs, Kennedy usually modifies and improves them, working out the flaws. “They give me an idea and let me rock with it,” Kennedy explains. “So if someone wants to get their family crest or their cousin’s drawing of a duck on them they usually get sent to someone other than me. Some

One, 16, 18, 21: these are the landmark birthdays that merit bona fide celebrations. But Summit Brewery Co. is breaking the mold by celebrating its 20th this weekend, partying it up with favorite brews and bands on Harriet Island.

Saturday’s daylong celebration features successful Minnesota-bred groups the Suburbs and Soul Asylum, who will grace the lineup alongside Tapes N’ Tapes, the Alarmists, and Big George Jackson. The Minnesota Police Pipe Band, Cake, and British folk rocker Richard Thompson will also make a trip to the island.

“The focus has been to bring Minnesota related bands because Summit’s a Minnesota beer,” Summit spokesperson Sue Sorensen Lee explains. One member of Big George Jackson and two members of the Alarmists also work for Summit’s brewery, though they may not need to hold their day jobs for long.

The Alarmists, a group of five twenty-somethings hailing from the ‘burbs (with the bassist originally from Lebanon), have already brought their Britpop sound to the Wild River Festival, 7th Street Entry, and the Bryant Lake Bowl Block Party this month. Their debut album, A Detail of Soldiers, gets frequent play on the Current.

Another 89.3 darling is Minneapolis buzz band Tapes N’ Tapes. They’ll head to Harriet Island from their European tour, where they spent the last month playing sold-out venues in the UK and Ireland. Their indie rock, down-home style varies from fast polka renditions to slower, blues-influenced tunes, which recently got them signed with XL Records. [Cont. on 18]

“It’s not like whatever I barf out will be amazing.” people come in and say here’s my arm, do the best tattoo you’ve ever done on it. When I have someone who trusts me that much, that’s a pretty cool thing, and the tattoos turn out that much better because I understand them.”

“I try to outdo myself with every tattoo. I look at it like archaeology. You dig and dig and dig until you find something. It’s not like whatever I barf out will be amazing. It’s tough to beat that last time, but that’s kind of the process that I’m in.”

\15

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Athletics/

I’m Never Drinking Again Wake Athletics takes on Drinking Games

By Ian Powers and Craig Rentmeester Whether you think drinking games are considered sports is debatable. However, some students make a living and fill their Monday-Saturday nights “practicing their craft.” Thus, Wake Athletics decided to give you a look at some of our favorite drinking games that can be played in a parking lot, basement or dungeon. Here are the some of the Wake’s favorites.

Editor’s Note: two students were harmed doing research for this story.

Beer Pong Also known as Beirut on the East Coast, this game play is played using 20 16 ounce cups, 10 per team. The cups are placed in a triangular setup, and there are two players per team. Objective: sink the ball in the cups by throwing or bouncing.

Some 16-year-old kid outside of Des Moines, Iowa was sitting around in his parent’s basement 14 years ago, chugging his Dad’s OldStyle when his friend decided to create one of the best drinking games with nothing more than cups, ping pong balls and a table. The 16-year-old, we’ll

16/27 September 2006

call him Rich McDermott, was skeptical at first, but by the end of the game, he was pretending to surf on a chair while wearing a cowboy hat and singing “My Sharona”. The jury is still deciding, but we think it’s safe to assume that he had a good time.

Visit beerpong.com to choose from 21 different rule variations on this simple game.

“Throwing two golf balls attached by rope while drunk is actually pretty fucking hard.”

Flip Cup Also known as tippy cup, this game requires only a table (preferably 6-8 ft.) and 10-20 16 ounce cups. There are two teams, one on each side of the table. Hector Van Dumpsenstuff invented Flip Cup on wild night back in 1912, fusing two of man’s greatest inventions, beer and throw-away cups. His rules were simple, the team that finishes first wins. However, Flip Cup is like cockfighting, a lot of screaming, a short contest and neither side truly wins.

Flip cup is perfect on game day, provided that you have access to a keg and a pitcher.

All you need is a table and many 16 oz. cups.

36 Special Reserve Lights later, the same students were seen throwing the bean bags at one another and freestyle walking off of the angled boards used to play the game.

The best part about this game is that many people can play – up to 20 – and the game allows plenty of opportunities for shit-talking.

Ladder Golf (aka Alligator Golf, aka Testicles On A Fence.)

Bags Bean Bags were probably invented by some hard-partying college kid that worked at a local park and was sneaking booze on the job.

Bean Bags is played using two angled wooden boards propped up, with a circular hole cut in the middle of the board facing the thrower. Teams are comprised of two people, each throwing two bags per round.

Scoring varies, some people cancel points while others don’t. The game can be played to 11, 15 or 21. This game involves some skill but only four people can play.

Over the summer, students at the U were seen playing bean bags. Two hours and

If the game of Horseshoes had a drunken embarrassment of a cousin who came to the family reunion’s wasted to make vulgar comments to wives and then passed out in the middle of the cakewalk, he’d be Ladder Golf. Ladder Golf or Alligator golf to anyone who loved alligator tag, is a game played with two golf balls attached by a piece of rope and a three rung “ladder” of PVC piping. It’s the kind of game best enjoyed on Easter morning after a breakfast of six Cadbury eggs and four Mai Tais. Each team of two switches off lobbing roped golf balls at two opposing ladders, the bottom, middle and top rungs each taking on a numeric level of both points and drinks. Seems easy enough right? Wrong. “Throwing two golf balls attached by rope while drunk is actually pretty fucking hard,” Chloe Fingermilk says, a freshman at the U. The wildcard

\ Athletics

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in this game is the surprising amount of coordination and throwing skill it takes.

“When you have to close one eye to be able to see the ladder, that’s when you know it’s been a good day” Brad Flosterstagg says, a part-time student and full-time Ladder Golf enthusiast. “The key is to not let the game control your life.”

Quarters Somewhere deep inside the bong-rattled post-Nixon minds of the 1970s college students, someone got the idea that beer is easier to drink with shiny things inside it. Goldshlager’s appeal hadn’t yet come on full force and like crows we flocked to this new phenomenon of bling bling drinking, thus, Quarters was born. Perhaps the most effective drinking game of all time, Quarters is played with a cup filled with beer (or whiskey if you’re fucking crazy) and two-eight spirited youths. Each person takes turns attempting to bounce the quarter off the table and into the cup of beer. The winner gets the chance to give out the full cup of beer to another player for immediate consumption.

ters or “Crack Quarters” is played with two quarters and two cups in addition to a beer reserve cup in the middle of the table. Each cup starts on an opposite side of the table and is passed in a circular motion. The point of Speed Quarters is to try to catch one cup up to the other to double up on somebody in which case they have one more try to make the quarter in or else they have to drink the cup and refill. I attempted to get some good quotes for this game, but plainly, the game just gets you too drunk. “ I’m so wasted,” one sophomore from the university claims after an hour of playing the game. Her friend states, “I don’t want to play anymore.”

Later, she spit up on herself midgame …

Yes, we know, its not all fun in games in the world of competitive drinking, but you swallow that vomit, and you live to play again.

Greatest Drinking Game Quotes of All Time “Wait we played drinking games last night?

Wow … that explains the urine…” Steve Cocksdrift on an awkward post-drinking game morning.

“Yeah, so somehow I’m covered in piss…”

Rachel Stocksburrough two minutes before breaking it off with Mr. Cocksdrift.

“Wow so … I think I’m pregnant.” Dan D. after an Olympic night of alcoholic athleticism.

“Wait you won? Shit well I’m drunk so who’s the real winner?” Every loser in drinking games.

“Why are we playing with mixed drinks?”

Jill Rogers says to Marty Hardparty.

Best Drinking Game Website: brewthis.com

Now lets kick it up a notch. Speed Quar-

\17

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Photography/

by tyler stevermer

[Summit, cont. from 14] Lee says that Summit, as a local brewery, has always done its best to support the local music industry, citing Summit’s support of “The Jazz Image” on Minnesota Public Radio as an example.

“It’s really rare for a brewery to host a music festival,” Lee continues. “We just want to celebrate our 20 years in the Twin Cities with all the people that enjoy Summit.”

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman will join the celebration— and he’s bringing a birthday gift to boot. Coleman is formally naming September 30th “Summit Day.” The “Big Brew” party will be stocked with several local

18/27 September 2006

beverages, including Summit’s newest draft, the Limited Edition Extra Special Bitter, introduced in July for the anniversary. Eight Twin Cities restaurants will also dish

…Summit, as a local brewery, has always done its best to support the local music industry up local fare, including southwestern eats from Edina’s Tejas, and cuisine from southern homecookin’ and barbecue joint Dixie’s in St. Paul.

Unlike the brewery, which is apparently cool enough to party like a rock star on its 20th birthday, those of us who are underage will have to wait until our 21st to share a proper cheers with Summit. But the live music and fresh food are still fair game for all. Now that’s something to celebrate.

Tickets can be purchased at the brewery for $20 until September 29, at ticketworks.com for $25, or at the celebration for $30. The “Big Brew” will be on Harriet Island September 30 from noon to 10 p.m.; summitbrewing.com

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