MoQevSpeaks?

Definitions of terms:
Bus: A large, communal vehicle that conveys those that can’t afford to drive or park a car in the city to where they need to go.
Bus Shelter: An enclosed (barely) space where city denizens wait to get on a bus. Often adorned with giant poster-sized advertisements.
Champlin: A wealthy, pastoral northern suburb of Minneapolis - very green, very idyllic.
Corporate Philanthropy: The amount of profits, given from a wealthy corporation back to communities in which it does business, that is just enough to look good on paper without pissing off shareholders.

I was waiting to take the bus to work the other day, and there it was. On the outside wall of the bus shelter was a Target ad. Allow me to preface this entry with the fact that I’ve always admired Target. First, they’re a local company. But second, and more importantly, they’re the Democrats of big box retail (by this I mean the lesser of two evils, as opposed to, say, Wallmart). As cynical as I try to be about this, they do give back to communities in which they operate. And in my book, driving mom and pop out of business and then giving them a program to get back on their feet is better than driving them out of business and then paying them five bucks an hour to stock your shelves full of cheap plastic crap.
But I was standing at the corner of Lowry and Penn Aves. N in Minneapolis, and here is what surrounded me: A liquor store; a check cashing place; an unemployment agency; a vacant lot; and an Asian grocery that proclaims on its window “we accept food stamps!” And then there was this ad. It said “Target - making a difference in Champlin every day.” And it had a picture of no less than half a dozen white blond people, one with a letter jacket, one elderly academic type, one an attractive jailbait girl, all well-dressed, and there was a guy in the trademark Target red and kakhi giving the girl the thumbs-up as she accepted a check for SEVERAL THOUSAND DOLLARS from Target for learning to speak Spanish. A language which a large percentage of this neighborhood speaks as their first language, but they have trouble with English.
I thought, Oh, guys, no. That’s not the message that you want to convey. At least not to these people.
Granted, the nearest Target store is Downtown - a good twenty-minute bus ride away. It’s not like there’s one in the neighborhood we could all go launch some eggs at. But we all still shop there. It’s the only place where we can afford to fill our prescriptions, and go get a carton of milk and a three-pack of underpants all under one roof.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s really great that Target is giving back to the cities where it operates. Unfortunately, people who live in Champlin, and already have college funds from birth, are not the people who need an extra SEVERAL THOUSAND DOLLARS for school. No, the people who need that are living here, in North Minneapolis. Actually, they could use that money to maybe learn to speak English so they can GO to school. In fact, this ad seemed almost to be taunting us as we awaited our government-subsidized conveyances. “Hey guys, you think you’ve got it rough? Well check out who’s benefitting from the money you gave us last week for Grandma’s Lipitor? This rich blond girl!”
Then, after getting on the bus, we were almost downtown, when stopped at another shelter just north of 394, right outside another employment center and a homeless shelter/treatment center, was another one. This one said “Making a difference in Eden Prairie every day.” Eden Fucking Prairie! This is a town whose tone and class-makeup are exactly what one would infer from its name. Who in Eden Prairie needs Thousands of Dollars from Target?! And what are the homeless people in this shelter supposed to think when they see these rich suburbanites accepting money - money that Target had collected from said homeless people for the staples of life - to throw on the pile of wealth they already have?
All I will say is, Target, guys, I love you - you sell bouncy castles, DVDs, and 400 thread count sheets, all for a very reasonable price. You market your goods better than anyone else in the marketplace, but for Christ’s sake, you have to market your philanthropy better. Because the people who you’re telling about the people you’ve been giving to are angry. They don’t think pouring thousands of dollars into Champlin’s or Eden Prairie’s economy is really making a difference. They think what would really make a difference is if you started caring about and helping them. And maybe you are giving to North Minneapolis too, but we don’t know it. So don’t tell us about the blond girl and her check. Tell us about the recent Hmong emigree, and her scholarship to the U of M. That’s what we want to see. And that’s what will make me feel better about buying the 3rd season of Family Guy from you. Cause I’ll probably pick it up either way, but I’d appreciate it if you at least told me I’d see some of the benefits. Thank you.

I suppose it is now official. I am the only remaining member of my immediate family still residing in Minnesota. My parents moved to Arizona this week. Luckily, I am about to have in-laws in this state, and they are the best in-laws a man like me could hope for. It is still strange, though, to know that I can’t just hop on over to the parents’ house for dinner or whatnot. And I can’t help thinking, “That’s my job; I’m supposed to be the one who moves away.” I’m supposed to be the one who goes away to school and stays there, finding a job with whomever will take me and leaving my parents behind in this place they’ve made their own. Like my sister did. However, they beat me to the punch, and as soon as I bought a house they unloaded all of their accumulated crap on me and took off. The only sollace to be found in this situation is that it is the same kind of dirty, underhanded shit I would pull on my own children when they come along. “Sorry, Billy, but daddy’s going far away - and leaving you with his six crates of identical allen wrenches! Ha ha!”
Not that I fault them in any way. If I had the means to go somewhere warm and not work I would. But I don’t, so I stay here and try to make my mortgage payments while my mother is lounging by the pool in Green Valley. Green Valley. Who came up with that? A city in a desert state named after a color that does not occur in the natural habitat.
Perhaps I’m a tad bitter. Perhaps I haven’t yet had a chance to truly meditate on the gravity of the situation. I’m getting married in eight months, and will at some point be fathering children. Those children’s paternal grandparents will be two days’ drive away from them. My own grandparents were three hours away by car, and that was bad enough. I love my parents. They are fantastic people (hell, they came up with me, didn’t they?). I guess what I’m saying is that I miss them already, as does my own future family, and I hope that the two thousand miles between us doesn’t have any effect on the bond that has been forged over years of (sometimes undeserved) love and patience and understanding. Sorry to get mushy, but Nancy and the Don, you’ve given me all that I have, and don’t think for a second that I don’t appreciate it. But seriously - enjoy yourselves, for Christ’s sake. You’ve earned it.

I was driving to work the other day, and I finally decided to count them. I take Penn down to West Broadway and take that to 94. And between my house (35th ave and penn) and the freeway (broadway and lyndale) is a twenty block stretch. In that twenty block stretch, there are twenty-seven beauty parlors. That’s 1.35 beauty parlors for each block. Then, when I go just a bit further, I get to where Broadway crosses 94. There are like eighty-five roads that come together at this intersection, and each one of them has their own center island. This particular morning, each island had its own dude. There were no less than six people at that one intersection, one block east of all those beauty parlors, standing in the middle of an intersection with cardboard signs saying “homeless & hungry - please help” or “Vietnam vet - hungry please” or whatever.
I started to think about those twenty blocks again. Granted, I love my neighborhood, but twenty-seven?! Braiding salons?! It’s no secret that North Minneapolis has had a few rough decades. It is what realtors call “up and coming,” what demographers call “blighted,” and what city council persons call “a pain in our asses.” We have more than our share of sketchy corners, and if your yard isn’t fenced or well lit you’ll probably have shady dealings in your side lawn.
Don’t get me wrong – there’s a lot of really great things going on on the North Side, too; softball leagues, poetry slams, Frisbee games on the parkway, block club meetings, and kids of all color playing freeze tag together in my front yard. But it is a neighborhood that has seen its fair share of trouble.
This is why, the other day when I noticed these two incongruous phenomena on West Broadway, I had to pause and think. If the five general areas of Mpls were public figures, they would probably be organized as so (& forgive me if they’re all Minnesota liberals, but this is how I view my city): Downtown/central would be, say, Mark Dayton – the rich kid who’s never really felt want, and feels kinda guilty for it, so he wants to get a fair shake for the little guy. Southwest (yes Uptown, you elitists, you are part of this category) would be Al Franken – the witty, cosmopolitan, and smart guy who may have tried to run from his MN roots, but still has a Midwestern sense of justice. Southeast (Hiawatha, airport, river) is a tough one, but I think it would be someone like FBI agent Coleen Rowley – an innate sense of fairness, and always fighting for beauty and truth. Northeast is easy… Hubert freaking Humphrey – the old school, working man’s democrat. A collar that’s blue, and blood that’s red, but enough clout to have a voice. So what does that leave for the North Side? Let’s think: Neighborhood oriented, diverse, fighting to bring change to an unfortunate system, grassroots… Sounds like Paul Wellstone to me. I don’t mean to highjack the persona of an incredible human being to personify my neighborhood’s diverse peoples and goals, and I may not have been living here as long as some, but it seems inconsistent with North Minneapolis’s character to be so concerned with hair salons at the expense of the needy.
Perhaps I’m being simplistic. Let me try again. What I’m trying to say is that from what I can tell, the North Side is the fighting person’s neighborhood. No other part of the city, from what I’ve seen, is working harder to “be the change it seeks in this world.” I have never met any people who care more about their neighbors and creating a great place for their kids to live and play and grow up than the people on my block. The man who lives next door to me doesn’t speak fluent English, but I’ve bonded with him more through gestures and facial expressions than I ever did with my suburban neighbors. So why do we need a place to pay someone to braid our hair on every corner? Isn’t that something we could have our neighbors do and spend some time with them? Maybe keep some of our resources for our less fortunate neighbor? I thought that was what this formerly less fortunate neighborhood was about.
Maybe this isn’t really about the homeless people on Broadway & 94, and maybe it’s not about hair salons. My sister sent me a postcard a while ago that has a Dalai Lama quotation on it. It says: “We have bigger houses, but smaller families. More conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees, but less sense. More knowledge, but less wisdom. More information, but less communication. More medicines, but less healthiness. We have been all the way to the moon, but have trouble crossing the street to meet our new neighbor.” I guess maybe what I don’t understand is why certain things get praised for “community building” (non-profits, neighborhood associations, barbecues, corner groceries) right before they all get overlooked and overrun for “redevelopment” (repaving, condos, beauty salons, high end electronics). But I’ll tell you this right now: I will continue to trim my own hair, and keep a bag of apples in my car to hand out to people who may or may not be combat veterans, but are definitely in need of food and a smile. And I will continue to be the North Side that I seek in this world.

So, one of the interesting things about being in my particular situation (those of you in the know know what I’m talking about) is that when one works 10 hours a day at a mindless, soul-crushing temp job and then comes home to find his lover over a thousand miles away, one has quite a bit of time to think. The flip side of this is that when one is working 10 hours a day at a mindless, soul-crushing temp job and comes home to find his lover over a thousand miles away, one doesn’t have many interesting things going on in one’s life to ponder.
“Where are you going with this, Kev?” says that fucker in the back row.
Well, I’m just trying to segue from the perhaps misleading photo I posted last week into the sheer mundanity (sure it’s a word, jerks) that is my life this summer. Not that I’m saying I’m boring or anything. Far from it. It’s you who are wrong. You all lack imagination. You all can’t see the pure adrenaline that I deal with on a daily basis.
The sad thing about numeric data entry is that if you’re not careful, even your fantasies become lame. If you’re negligent of your imagination you’ll find yourself thinking about how cool it would be to use, like, 12 keys instead of 10. So to keep things interesting, I like to imagine all the germs I’m picking up from those ten brown, stained number keys on my public computer. And after I wash my hands sixty-two times a day, I think of all the stale, middle-aged farts that have been buried in my borrowed office chair, making all the people around me think that I smell bad. When most people think of the word “cubicle,” they tend to think of buzzing flourescent lights (yes), the incessant clicking of computer keyboards (yes), and the overall sterility of the whole scene (no!). What nobody ever thinks about is how many asses and hands have graced that same cell before yours. And when you think of all these things, it will give you sufficient fodder to worry about for years after you leave the job (my toe hurts - is it the fungus I probably got working at SourceCorp in ‘05?). I think the moral of my story is this: if your life is starting to seem mediocre, develope a case of OCD and some moderate paranoia - it’ll make every day an adventure. Now does anyone have any ointment?

You have no idea

what’s in store

for you here.