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| Out Of The Black | |||||||
 POSTED MARCH 6, 1999--DON’T ASK BUDD Rugg how his crusty gray awful winter has been unless you’re prepared to let a grown man have a good cry. On President’s Day I went out to the Mall of America for a job interview at Abercrombie and Fitch, which couldn’t possibly have been more disastrous and dispiriting. God knows I adore their catalog, but they couldn’t have been crueler in their wholesale rejection of pauvre pitoyable Budd Rugg. Let’s just say that I think I now know what poor Tom Ryther felt like, and if I even thought for one minute that I had the stomach for litigation I’d be sitting down with cute little Miles Lord and talking about an age discrimination suit of my own. When I got home I hunkered down and started to white-out all the logos in the Abercrombie and Fitch catalog, but I got carpal tunnel (not to mention libidinously distracted) after about three pages and just gave up. The rest of the day was a blur. I rented an old favorite Robbie Benson movie and went over to my dear mother’s and ate an entire cherry pie ("I cannot tell a lie!" quoth that patriotic woman upon my arrival. "I baked a cherry pie!"). The blender was whirring all night –I must have polished off four pitchers of grasshoppers, and in the morning my mother found me slumped on the impossibly bright linoleum of her kitchen floor, passed out with my head in her cold electric oven with a fat "Jesus Loves You" pot holder for a pillow. My mother of all people understands that Budd Rugg doesn’t really want to die, he wants only to be desired, a simple enough wish that I outlined in a passionate plea that was rejected for the StarTribune’s "Single Life" column. How else have I been tormented and rejected? Let me count the ways: Rick Kupchella totally ignored me in Dayton’s. I can’t seem to get in touch with Jeff Grayson. A friend reported that Barbara Carlson stepped on her in an elevator and I was sick with envy! One night I had a dream in which I was walking down the Nicollet Mall and passed, in succession, Dave Wildermuth, Ralph Jon Fritz, Joan Steffen, Bernie Grace, and Showtime Bob Shaw, and every single one of them refused to return my friendly greeting (Shaw actually cursed and spat at me). Sad Budd Rugg, despite losing his annual mid-winter Battle of the Bulge, had never felt like such a wholly invisible man. The dream was finally and mercifully salvaged by the appearance of the Pioneer Press’s adorable new columnist, Laura Billings, who fearlessly made eye contact with yours truly, smiled, and said hello. I heard Laura’s a communist, but who cares! I’m more convinced than ever that the StarTribune’s mysterious Milford Reid is a wholly fictional character, his or her name appropriated (I’m virtually certain) from an obscure 19th century vice-president or judge, and whoever he or she is, I can’t get him or her to answer my mail. I haven’t even laid eyes on Steve Cannon in almost a year, and I stopped having dreams of him playing tennis without a shirt on several years ago. David Channen? He’s apparently too busy to even return my calls. And James Lileks is so busy he barely has time to write about how busy he is, but thank God he still finds the time or we’d completely lose touch. He continues to be, despite his cruel indifference to all things Budd, cuter than the Taco Bell Chihuahua. Even the gang at Cursor have grown increasingly cold
towards me, having apparently wearied of my admittedly parochial obsessions.
"Couldn’t you interest yourself in some national figures?" they asked me.
"What’s wrong with Morton Kondracke or Molly Ivins?" I’m
sure! Molly Ivins is of interest to me only insofar as she represents (attention Red
Wagon gang!) the physical perils and occupational hazards of a journalistic life spent
smoking and drinking in bars. Sloppy, fallen woman! The real truth is that I’ve
absolutely no patience for "celebrities" whose orbit is so far removed from my
own that I can’t even hope to be ignored by them in Dayton’s. At least such
personal rejection comes with a hot, burning afterglow that feeds my terrible obsession. One evening a couple months ago my mother called me and demanded that I turn on channel
4 immediately. I did so, and found myself gazing upon Mark Rosen’s Sunday
night sports program. "Who is that awful man?" my mother asked. "Mark
Rosen?" I queried. "No, the other one," she said, "the rumpled
fellow with the terrible mustache and snug trousers." I reported to her that the man
in question was Dan Barreiro, the huge local media star who writes a sports column
for the StarTribune, hosts a radio talk show, and is a frequent guest on Rosen’s
show. "Oh my goodness," me mother said. "He’s let himself go. He looks
like Colonel Klink." And there was no getting around it; it was true. Dear Dan
Barreiro no longer even resembles the photograph that accompanies his column in the
newspaper. I have always felt a keen and particular compassion for Dan Barreiro,
and the nature or origin of that compassion has never been entirely clear to me. For
whatever reason I have always found myself holding my life up against his own, and have
steadfastly believed that, sad as my own existence might sometimes seem, it almost surely
cannot compare to the existential terror and loneliness of that man’s own vague
private world. |
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| From time to time I have imagined Dan Barreiro, alone in his dark home and
sprawled on his couch in his underwear, staring at a big screen television, plastic Blockbuster
video boxes and chinese takeout containers scattered around him. Time is a terrible
glacier, and for poignant evidence of its damage one need look no further than our roster
of local sports media luminaries. HAVING AT LEAST temporarily set aside my lifelong
dreams of owning a small regional dinner theater and writing a syndicated advice column, I
have set my sights on a plan that I hope will pay appropriate homage to my local media
heroes and help revitalize Apache Plaza. I have been talking with my mother about
opening a "media theme" restaurant in said shopping center –to provide,
along with Herberger’s, another much-needed anchor tenant for that fallen mall. Our
plan would be a sort of "Hard Rock Café" or "Planet Hollywood," but
with the theme skewed towards more down-to-earth local media celebrities. We toyed with
the idea of "Hard Budd Café," but rejected it for obvious reasons, and have
settled on "Mother Budd’s." We’re thinking that if we can combine real
stick-to-your ribs traditional midwestern fare with a glitzy shrine atmosphere that
included (we hope!) an extensive collection of memorabilia donated by local media stars,
well, we might really be on to something! Imagine being able to listen to the music of Diana
Pierce or Patty Peterson while dining on the Tommy B Meatloaf sandwich
or Leonard Inkskip’s Tator Tot hotdish in a museum atmosphere that would
include everything from autographed photos to actual relics like Charlie Boone’s
tennis racket, Kristine Holmgren’s unused snow shovel, a bicycle that once
belonged to Jim Klobuchar, Ruth Kozielak’s bathroom scale and
terrycloth robe, a parka from Don Shelby’s trek to Kilimanjaro, Neil
Justin’s smoking jacket and cravat, a pair of Kristin Tillotson’s
Chuck Taylor’s, or Graydon Royce’s obviously-doctored scorecard from last
year’s StarTribune golf tournament. The possibilities are endless! We’re already talking about hiring the obscenely talented Tim Russell for the grand opening! The idea has your friend Budd Rugg positively giddy for the first time in months, and with any luck in six months I’ll be back under 200 pounds and dancing again. "Your table is ready, Mr. Iggers, right this way!" "I’m sorry, no, we don’t seem to have a reservation for a Rick Kupchella." "Well, hello, Mr. Eskola! May I check your scarf?" Abercrombie and Who? I AM AS ever your humble servent, Budd Rugg. Without you I am nothing! Please send all gossip, scuttlebutt, media sightings, and random observations to buddrugg@cursor.org
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