Officer Spinach

Twenty Years Ago on FITK

Officer Sivanich was the Minneapolis Police Department’s School Safety Patrol liaison for many years. Tens of thousands of school children knew him for the safety lectures he would give each year to all the elementary schools in the city. The School Safety Patrol consisted of those sixth grade students who would raise and lower the “stop” flags at crosswalks. Officer Sivanich or “Officer Spinach” as the younger children might say, was well liked—indeed, he was possibly the only positive aspect of the police that many youngsters ever received. Back then there was one cop for all the schools. Now, police are at all the schools.

Recently, his obituary ran in the Minneapolis paper. Tens of thousands of other people like him, in thousands of other places, have performed many of the same services as he did. He was a civilizing influence, he made a difference, and, helped by his instructions, we never had an accident at a school crossing.

Comment:

I just stumbled across this site...not even sure what it is...but wanted to mention that Art Sivanich was my father in law and a better person you are not likely to ever meet. He is missed dearly by all who ever knew him. Kris Sivanich

Iceland? Not Iceland?

Non-scenic landscape views.

Alley:

Grocery:

Compost:

Toothache Date

Another odd date story.

Lesley and I worked in the sub-basement of Dayton’s, a large department store in downtown Minneapolis. I worked in an area where I sorted packages and loaded pallets to be shipped out. Lesley worked in the office next to it where the price tickets were generated. This was pre-UPC bar codes, price marking was done in basically the same way it had always been done and the store had opened seventy years earlier. Lesley was young and bored in that job and when I mentioned that I was going to see a band tonight she lit up. The date was set.

When I picked her up at her house, she seemed to be bothered: “I’ve got this terrible toothache,” she said. “I’ve got some cloves, maybe that will help.”

We went out to the show but the band was playing on the University Campus and we weren’t students so we couldn’t get in. Her mouth was really starting to hurt now, so I took her home. On the way I learned that she already had a boyfriend, but she couldn’t go out with him because he was in jail.

Ulp.

I dropped her off and wished her well.

A few weeks later I happened to run into her at a convenience store. She was glad to see me, her tooth had been fixed, and her boyfriend was back and was waiting outside the store in his car. “Let me introduce you,” see said and took me outside. Her boyfriend pulled down his shades and gave me a dirty look as he reached over and opened the door for Lesley.

Perhaps that toothache saved me from a whole lot of trouble.

Her Mother’s Daughter

Twenty Years Ago on FITK

At the job-site for a new restaurant, I met up with one of the owners to discuss the sound system installation. He had brought along his teen-aged daughter. I had known him for years, from way back in my show-biz days. The other owner, his wife (who was not there), I had known longer.

As we discussed the mundane yet germane topic of routing wiring in a plenum, I caught myself looking at his daughter. She was petite, with deep brown eyes, and her appearance suggested that she was even younger than her actual age. I had a strange feeling—not exactly déjà vu—but something similar; I could sense that my mind was trying to match her visage with some stored facial memory.

And I knew exactly what it was, of course. She was her mother's daughter, after all. Her mother and I shared an Aunt and Uncle (we are no blood relation to each other.) I would see her mother at my cousin's birthday parties when we were both children, her mother was about five years younger than me so I thought of her as “one of the little kids.” And now it was as if the years that had passed had never happened, looking into a face from my childhood, a real person, not a dream or a memory.

As we continued to talk this doppleganger became involved with the conversation—she was whip-smart and perceptive. There are some people who, even as children or young adults, make an indelible impression.

I have a feeling that I will see that face often as she makes her mark upon the world.

Radioheart: The Drive & Times of DJ Kevin Cole

A film by Peter Hilgendorf and Andrew Franks

Kevin hosting Reykjavík Calling, Neumos, Seattle, 2011

I caught this film at the MSPIFF 45 last night.

Kevin was a DJ at First Avenue in the 80s (he was Prince’s party DJ!) and he was the founder of REV105, a groundbreaking Twin City radio station in the 90s that my kids adored. REV105 was ultimately bought out by corporate interests but, rather than giving up, Kevin moved on, eventually arriving in Seattle where he worked with the fledgling Amazon and eventually becoming program director for KEXP, the premiere radio station/internet presence in the world. It seems as if almost every modern band of note has performed in their video studios, often with Kevin as the host. I had met and talked with him in Seattle in 2011 and then again in Reykjavík in 2018 and 2023 (during Iceland Airwaves):

Kevin at Kex Hostel, Reykjavík, 2018

He was always gracious, curious and really involved with the Icelandic music scene. Since we shared musical interests I ended up running into him numerous times at Iceland Airwaves in 2023—we compared notes on who to see. One of the acts, Brimheim, was featured in the film.

Kevin and young fans, Smekkleysa, Reykjavík, 2023 

We had also talked about substance abuse, how it could be a problem in the industry, how he dealt with it, and how important it was to continue to seek help. This subject was brought up in the movie, along with KEXP’s efforts to bring mental health issues to a wider audience in its Music Heals programs.

Afterwards, there was a Q&A hosted by Shawn Stewart with Kevin, the director Peter Hilgendorf, editor Andrew Franks and producer Rebecca Staffel.

The audience loved all of it, and they loved Kevin most of all.

Retro Reading

Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers
By Victor Appleton
Grosset & Dunlap, 1911

This book is a flash-back to my childhood.

My old pal Andy gifted this to me, part of his house-cleaning efforts (he had a duplicate.) The Tom Swift series of books was produced by The Stratemeyer Syndicate, which was responsible for several series aimed at children. Besides Tom Swift the most notable were The Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew mysteries. The Tom Swift titles had an underlying theme of technology and science and as science has evolved over the years so has this series, with Tom Swift Junior in the 1950s and other incarnations since then. When I was a pre-adolescent I read all of these Stratemeyer titles that I could get a hold of—they fueled my imagination in a (mostly) wholesome way, not counting the racist caricatures.

The Diamond Makers was a bit of a departure from others in the series in that it was not centered on one of Tom’s inventions, rather, it was just a straight forward adventure yarn. Tom is enlisted to help Mr. Jenks, a man who was defrauded of a large sum of money that he had invested in a diamond making process. The process actually worked, but the gang that invented it chumped Jenks after giving him some manufactured diamonds but not allowing him to become a partner. Tom, Jenks (and two other men) blithely set of for Colorado for Phantom Mountain and ‘the diamond makers’ in Tom’s massive airship with all sorts of provisions and firearms. Almost every chapter is a cliff-hanger with the story coming to a climax in a spectacular fashion.

So… was it worth reading again after 115 years?

Compared to some modern children’s fiction neurotic moralizing reading this was refreshing, and occasionally unintentionally amusing (“It did not take our friends long, after they had eaten a hearty meal, to generate some fresh gas… ”) It was even just a tiniest bit suggestive (“Oh, I—I hope you come back safely,” faltered Mary, and then she held out her hand, and Tom—well it’s none of our affair what Tom did after that…”)

h e a r t b e a t s

Twenty Years Ago on FITK

I am such a good flirt in hindsight. I think back over conversations and see, with that clarity of not being in the moment, all these little openings where I could have done or said something very cute and full of subtext. Things I certainly would never think of in the actual midst of the conversation. I never can think too well on my feet in those instances that count. Only in my head, after the fact, am I a witty master of elocution and seduction and suchlike.

And the problem with English is that there is no difference between friendly love and romantic love in our verbs. Someday I want the real thing. Someday I want to walk into the ocean and just let go.

And when I awake from my surreal world. I realize that I am alone, in my room, missing him, not knowing whether he is alone, in his room, missing me too.

Possibly one of the greatest moments in my life will be remembered as follows:

Drinking coffee in an empty university classroom, comparing ex-boyfriends, friends with benefits, and steamy sex. Laughing at our libidos and stupidity. Empty lipstick tubes and hickeys. And buying peppermints and cigarettes.

Why?

Because we could.

~ RS

Reposted

Crops

Harpa concert hall lobby, Reykjavík, 2025:

John Beach…

… was one of the last remaining Minneapolis “West Bank” musicians of his generation.

He died earlier this week.

I knew him personally and professionally, he was always musically inspiring and he was always his own man. He played an ever-changing assortment of keyboards in a funky, syncopated style. Born in 1942, Beach was from Stillwater, Minnesota where he had begun performing in the late fifties. He wrote many of the early Willie and the Bees songs and played on Bonnie Raitt’s first album. He was in a group with Dave Ray and did innumerable solo gigs over the last 60 years. I did some recording of him and worked with him on some other side projects over the years. He had ‘retired’ to Bisbee, Arizona a few years ago but continued to perform well into his 80s.

My favorite memory of him is visiting him at his Airstream trailer parked in Camp Cozy, just north of the city of Elk River in central Minnesota. The Airstream was the ultimate bachelor pad. Grooving with John and his 300 disc CD changer with the river flowing just outside his door was about as far from the Viking/Triangle/Five Corners bar scene as you could get.

One project with him that I did featured these tracks from The Later Years, an Explodo Boys LP:

unravel

Twenty Years Ago on FITK

while you are away
I dropped the Weaver off at the airport today.
my heart comes undone
She had a spring break from work, and she decided to spend it it a rain forest.
slowly unravels
I took my dinner alone tonight.
in a ball of yarn
When she's home, sometimes I don't say much at dinner.
the devil collects it
When she's gone, I never talk at all.
with a grin
Sometimes we will talk after dinner, for an hour or more.
our love
When we first met, we talked for days and days.
in a ball of yarn
I guess everybody slows down a little as they get older.

he'll never return it
She'll be back Friday.
so when you come back
And then we can talk again.
we'll have to make new love

"Unravel", by Björk

Comica said…

Out of all the entries I've read, this one is officially one of my favorites…
I don't know what it is, but it really captures my heart.

Reposted