Rainn-ing Showpeople

Saturday night. Depot. One thousand seats. Jammed with showpeople of every possible ilk.

There were the obvious. Martina McBride belted out vintage “For The Girls” and Michael Buble kept the art of crooning alive for yet another generation—mostly girls flashing Flikrs—but what the hell, if it keeps “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” banging around in our heads for another 10 years, it’s nothin’ but good.

The remaining congregation? There may never have been a confluence of more talented, creative people in one room, in this town… ever. Richard Florida would have wet himself had he been there, watching the parade of luminous minds milling around under the hundred white umbrellas hanging from the ceiling.

Umbrellas? Indeed! There was one umbrella so large it put the red Travelers Insurance umbrella ad to shame. That umbrella—this umbrella?—no contest and no need.

This night was different. This was about RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (rainn.org). Mostly it was a showcase for courage, and Berit Francis showed us the way. Berit’s young adulthood was turned upside down by a vicious physical violation in San Francisco, nearly twenty years ago. Saturday night was a selfless gift from her, a white paper on offering up your vulnerability and privacy for a greater cause.

The aforementioned assemblage was like a retail wizard's convention. Conjurors, magicians and alchemists peppered the room, which is what happens when you have a Dayton's, Marshall Fields, and Target family reunion. There was new Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel and John Pellegrene who, with outgoing CEO Bob Ulrich, was one of the creators of that Old Dayton’s magic that segued to what we now affectionately think of as The Target Brand. Gary Tobey, the Sergei Diaghilev of Haworth Marketing, flew in from L.A. and brought Buble with him. Haworth President Andrea Luhtanen, who has placed more groundbreaking ad campaigns in more innovative places than anyone in the country, was there with Target’s VP/Marketing Karen Gershman and Creative Director Minda Gralnek (remember Target’s New Yorker issue?). Also, Fame founder Tina Wilcox, events maven Michele Mesenburg, and Dayton's/Marshall Field's veterans John Remington, Katie Erickson, Stew Widdess, Laura Sandall, Anne Pinney, Gail Dorn and Laysha Ward.

Plus: Senator Norm Coleman, Mark Addicks, CMO of General Mills, Tres Lund, Tom, Bill and Jim Pohlad, Win Wallin, Dale Bachman, Richard D’Amico, Deb Hopp, Andrew Duff, Billy Beeson, Bill Popp, Nazie Eftekhari, Dave and Linda Mona, Kathy Tunheim, Monica Little, Gayle Malcolm, Charlie and Sandy Hoag, Dennis McGrath, Betsy Buckley, CCO’s Dave Lee, Sue Zelickson, MSP’s Brian Anderson and on and on…

It was a fandango-a-thon.

The nuclear understatement? Berit was accompanied by her husband, and the only man who could have taken Target from Pellegrene’s hands and possibly done more, Michael Francis, EVP/Marketing. This man is an idea impresario, a catalyst for the extraordinary and civilized light of the first order whose aggregate contributions to this town is a sum we may never fully know.

There was enough energy and velocity in this room to power a metro area. And you know what? It does power a metro.

Ours.

Click here for pics.

Late But Great For '08

George Carlin has a few New Rules for 2008. Things we can all live by.

• No more gift registries. Picking out stuff you want and having others buy it for you isn’t gift giving, it’s lazy looting.

• No more classmates.com pop-up ads. There’s a reason we haven’t contacted them, plus I already know what the football team captain is doing…he’s mowing my lawn.

• Eat nothing served from out a window, unless you’re a seagull.

• If you shave and still collect baseball cards, think about it, they’re pictures of men.

• Ladies, leave your eyebrows alone. Men care if you have two, that’s it.

• Flavored water doesn’t exist. It’s called soda pop.

• Stop screwing with old people. You keep changing the prescription bottles, grandpa’s going to have a stroke before he can open them.

• The more complicated the Starbucks order, the bigger the jerk.

• I’m not a cashier. I’ll slide my card and sign but stop asking me if I want cash, enter “Enter,” verify amounts, “Enter” again…What’s the kid behind the counter being paid for anyway?

• Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters does not make you a spiritual person, particularly if it’s near your crack. Plus it probably means “beef with broccolli.”

• Competitive eating isn’t a sport. It’s one of the seven deadly sins.

• When I ask how old your toddler is, don’t tell me he’s 27 months. He’s two. He’s not cheese. And, I didn’t care to begin with.

• If you ever want to earn more than minimum wage, don’t tattoo and pierce every available piece of flesh. If that’s how you express yourself, memorize this line: “Do you want fries with that?”

You Should Do This

Long blog, but worth it.

Go see A Prairie Home Companion live. I did recently at the really marvelous Historic State Theater. First time for me, even though I was listening to the PHC morning radio show way back in 1978 on KSJN when Jim Ed Poole and a freaky folkie named Keillor were playing Beach Boys and Flatt & Scruggs in the same quarter hour.

Call me impressionable, hell call me irresponsible, at the live show I witnessed a modern-day Mark Twain, the Thomas Hart Benton of contemporary writers/performers. Garrison Keillor is simply magnificent.

His gangly, unkempt appearance weaves its way across the stage, back and forth through the house band's sterling musicianship and community theater-ilk thespians making all sorts of noises and voices. His huge, snaky hands move in some kind of hypnotized conduction, starting and stopping music at will. He holds his pitchy voice mostly steady in sing-alongs, recites poetry from memory, and thrives in his invention, his element, his radio broadcast—performed in gigwear of shiny black suit, red tie, socks and sneakers.

This is Keillor's casserole. His jam.

The backdrop is an old farm house, drapes drawn, it's belly lit by a reassuring warm yellow light glowing from every window upstairs and down. A quaint porch light, like those I grew up running scared past at night on the way home from choir practice, makes the steps and railing barely visible. And of course, an orange harvest moon dangles above the Chestnut Street sign. It's a pretty darn well perfect metaphor for what we're all there for, backstroking in the DNA pool of our heartland's goodness.

Oh come on, snap out of it—this silly, indulgent writer's fantasy fed by some wishful, contrived, mindset. It doesn't exist. Wake up and smell the coffee.

Thanks, I'll do that and by the bye, pass the cream and sugar, will yuh? This good Dr. Chumley plans to lay back, hands clasped behind head, and meander through the trees of Akron, besotted by harmless chats with rabbit-pal Harvey and friends.

Keillor's little town had a particularly notable visitor this November afternoon. Ricky Skaggs rode in from the folk tribes of the southeastern mountains, guitar and mandolin player extraordinaire and in-law to the gospel-singing White family. He brought the "fam" and his band, Kentucky Thunder, for us northern cousins. With sensibilities ringing true like a tuning fork through the audience, Skaggs fed into the warmish moment with some wonderful gospel tunes, including a four part "Blessed Assurance," sung with his wife, sister-in-law (I think), and father-in-law, noted pastor and world class honky-tonk piano player, Buck White.

Harmony, pure harmony...and the singing and playing was good too.

Keillor's monologue, The News from Lake Wobegon, took on a whole different feel live and up close. He sat there, alone in the spotlight on a bar stool, fidgeting, legs wiggling, white shins exposed above socks, glancing schtickily at fingernails, eyes fixed somewhere as though he's reading from cue cards held by a muse.

This man is so damn funny.

Exaggeratedly understated, tousled but clean, a tad bent and twisted, his gnarled eyebrows growing as his improvisational tales proceeded through Pastor Nordquist and his entrepreneurial Sani-Host sacrament-delivery system, farmers getting flush on ethanol-induced corn harvests, and the existential vagaries of Lutheran farmer Hedstrom, channeling a William James version of what it all might be about. Perhaps we can only redeem the universe, personal salvation not necessarily being the end game. God Only Knows.

Whatever the plan, there's solace that A Prairie Home Companion certainly does a nice job with the redeeming part of the equation.

What does this have to do with business? Not a damn thing....and everything. But, we'll talk about that some other time. Pass the spuds and have a nice Thanksgiving.