That, Indeed Is Entertainment!

The Straw Trumpet (coined!) is out of touch in so many areas it's almost hard to believe. But if there is one consistency throughout the paper it is that the weirder and more hateful toward normal society something is, the higher it will be praised by the paper and the higher it will be from the fold.

One of the paper's favorite little games is to try to normalize the heretofore un-normal: gay marriage, crime (hey--it's part of living in the city, deal with it!) women in combat, etc. I guess the hope is that by acting like the weird AREN'T weird that they will cease to be so and we can all then drink the free Bubble-Up and eat Rainbow Stew like happy little diverse leprechauns (or something).

This fascination with and promotion of the antagonistic, juvenile subculture can be plainly seen in the music that the paper tells us were the Best of 2005.

Chris Remenschneider and some of his pals picked the following as some of his favorites this year:

ATMOSPHERE--
He takes on alcoholism ("Pour Me Another"), fatherhood ("Little Man") and the murder of a fan ("That Night"), all the while not losing his own warped, self-deprecating outlook.

CHARLIE PARR "ROOSTER"
...full of death, poverty, injustice, God and other things you meet when you're down and out.

THE STNNNG--
Rock's answer to Tourette's syndrome, the five-piece band dutifully demonstrates on its debut CD how it is liable to blow at any minute, whether it's the band's sonic bombast or singer Chris Besinger's apathetic rants

Let's see: death, poverty, injustice, Tourette's Syndrome, apathetic rants, murder--I can see why substance like this would make a year's best list. Because after a long day of dealing with death, poverty, injustice and murder (and that's just walking down Nicollet Avenue during your lunch break) that's exactly the kind of thing that most normal people would like to plop on their Ipods when they hit the gym.

And another point: who the hell are these bands? Why is the paper paying someone a professional salary to talk about obscure little hipster bands that sell no records, have no following and that no one has even heard of? I guess the City Pages isn't handling this beat sufficiently? Was market research done suggesting the key to improving the numbers was to reach out to semi-employed record store clerks and clothes-sorters at Ragstock?

I would surmise that there are maybe, maybe 50 people in the entire readership population of the paper that have heard of these bands (Yes, Mitch Berg is one of them--that goes without saying).

Blogs are often accused of writing for other bloggers. What else could this little exercise in cooler-than-thou be called?