Sparhawk, DuSu FF, Celebrity Idol and Artist Kamikaze IV

"There's a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing." ~Eccles. 3:5

If you have been refraining (from embracing the arts), now is not the time. This week is a time to step forward with open arms and take it in. I'm referring here to the Duluth Superior Film Festival (DuSu FF) and all the other happenings here in the Twin Ports as we enter the month of June.

Alan Sparhawk, courtesy Andrew Perfetti

Last night was day two of the film festival, a night with two Sparhawk events. The first was a screening of the Alan Sparhawk film Low: You May Need A Murderer. At nine, Sparhawk and the Black-Eyed Snakes were setting up to perform at Tycoons, the former City Hall of this city on a hillside. Sparhawk and the Black-Eyed Snakes were a highlight of last week's Blood on the Tracks Express, generating so much energy that they nearly knocked the train right off the tracks. Literally. If you were there, you know what I mean.

As I reflected briefly on these things this morning, it seemed the Sparhawk name has something of a superhero quality about it. I can picture one of the Avengers being named Sparhawk. And it may be no coincidence that his name begins with an S and has eight letters like another famous superhero that our generation grew up fascinated with. "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird... it's a plane.... faster than a speeding bullet... more powerful than a locomotive."

He also knows how to be a ham.

For what it's worth, tonight the first of two local short films programs will air at 9:00 p.m. at the Sons of Norway Hall, one of them being a ten minute documentary/interview with Alan Sparhawk, produced last year by Andrew Perfetti and Twin Ports Underground. Sparhawk's Retribution Gospel Choir contributed a gig for the 2011 Rock Out Autism event at Clyde Iron Works and the performer generously gave a piece of himself to the cameras. (This was my second encounter with the gifted musician whose group that night was comparable to a Hendrix experience.)

All the other short films on the docket tonight involve local film makers, directors or writers including  Kohta Asakura, Jaime Merideth and Brian Barber, Jon Bothun, Zach Anderson, Jerree Small, Kathy McTavish, Ethan Holbrook, Toby Thomas Churchill, Nicholas Sunsdahl and Ed Newman... most or all of whom will be present tonight. I suspect the evening will be followed by a lot of engaging conversation.

Preceding these creative short pieces will be director Michael Neelson's Last Day At Lambeau, also at Sons of Norway Hall, airing at 7:15. Around the corner the PROVE Gallery will also be hopping, a cinema celebration with many film makers and festival guests in attendance. This free event will be open from 7:00 till 10:00 p.m.

If music is your thing, the film festival includes three nights of music gigs at Tycoons. Tonight you can catch Cars and Trucks w/Planemo and tomorrow evening you will find BNLX w/Equal Exchange. Last night, in addition to the Snakes, the film Under African Skies screened to a full theater at Zinema 2. In this film, Paul Simon returns to South Africa 25 years after producing his stellar Graceland album. The documentary juxtaposes then and now footage to reveal the tensions and challenges that nation endured under apartheid. I'm sure this will air ago on HBO or some equivalent station in the year ahead, a worthy addendum to the Graceland story.

As for music, the Twin Ports scene really is a seven-days-a-week venue for performers of all types, but next Wednesday will be a very special kind of show that you will undoubtedly want to attend. It's a fund-raiser by the American Red Cross called Heartbeat Idol. Evidently patterned on the television model, Heartbeat Idol is a celebrity karaoke competition, except the celebs will be performing with a live band, the Bryan Olds Band. (It is a fund-raising event for AEDs, a piece of equipment that saved at least 31 lives last year in Minnesota alone.)

The host/moderator/MC will be radio personality exemplar Ken Buehler, local weatherman and president of the Duluth Depot. The judges for Wednesday evening's competition at Grandma's Sports Garden will be John Heino of the Centerville All Stars, Tessa Lenneman of the Duluth Playhouse and Mike Herrick of the Superior Chamber. Celebrities slated to perform include the ubiquitous Senator Roger Reinert, Linda Kratt of the Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce, Congressional candidate Jeff Anderson, Ed Newman of AMSOIL, Christa Lawler of the Duluth News Tribune, Steve Greenfield of Greenfield Communications, and more.

I've been told that there are going to be two winners for this event, a Fan's Choice and a Judge's Choice. I also have it on good authority that there will also be one loser, whose body will be dropped through a trap door into a pit of vipers and whose anguished screams will be recorded for use in another local film maker's production tentatively titled Rattled By Adders, to air at DuSu Film Festival IV in 2013.

All that to say it will be pretty competitive, even if I am not myself the competitive type. (Oops, my nose just grew an inch.)

This is an sneak peak of my team's project.

Speaking of competition, you may want to mark your calendar for June 7 as well. Next Thursday will be Artist Kamikaze IV at Pizza Luce, curated by the Limbo Gallery. I will be writing more about this in a couple days but I wanted you to get it on your calendar now. Artist Kamikaze is also a competition in which aritsts who work in different media are paired to see what they come up with. I believe there are at least twenty artists involved this year, including myself. The opening night will include wine and the opportunity to vote for your favorite works. If you can't be there, be sure to grab a lunch or dinner at Pizza Luce during the month of June to check out what everyone has come up with.

Then there's an Ochre Ghost opening June 8 and.... wait... let's not get ahead of ourselves. Hope to see you on the town tonight. Spring really is a good time to embrace the arts. The weather is absolutely perfect. May your weekend be the same.

PS: Speaking of Sparhawk, let's not forget his two night stand at the Duluth Play Ground titled "A Murder In Silk" in which he joins Gaelynn Lea (violin/vocals) to produce music  while silk painter Lee Zimmerman does live painting. Maybe I should compare him to Superman again? Thanks, Alan, for all your contributions here.

Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way

Note: I started writing this in February 2012 and finished it up with some updated information in May. I can't discuss specifics, sorry for any vagueness. Hopefully this stands on its own without detailed storytelling examples.

Well I've now made myself known to some people who had no clue who I really was. I'm not afraid, I am who I am. They just didn't know who was, they didn't know that I was in their midst. They are the ones who are surprised, not me. I'm an authentic person and I handled myself with integrity and honesty so I have nothing to hide.

As I shared somewhere previously, after the long distance move it felt a bit like I'd lost my identity because I knew who I was but everyone who met me didn't know me. I was a big question mark to them. Some had no use for me. You can't get to know people if they don't open the door and give you a chance. You can go quite some time before thing happen to start revealing who a person is.

Sometimes it takes a problem to make people come out of the woodwork and step up to the plate. So a problem did happen (nothing that our family caused, in fact it was brewing for years before we even moved to this state). At first I wrote some light emails and some gentle face to face conversations to try to get things resolved and to be a the bridge building peacemaker. That didn't work.

Then something big had to happen, a person needed to step up to volunteer to do a job that no one wanted, to handle some big problems. I dreaded the idea of that being me. Sometimes that person is hated in the end. Sometimes you need a person to be just temporary, as with a controversy it seems that always there are some who hate the person or feel they need to hate a person, because the problem itself is negative and they want a scapegoat. I didn't volunteer.


For that situation, my husband surprised me by stepping up to the plate. He has certain personality traits that I think make him perfect for this role. I chose to keep quiet and let my husband do his thing. By doing that I was still "hidden".

At a meeting this week there were things said by others that brought up new topics that surprised me. No one in the meeting was saying some things that I felt needed to be said. So, up went my hand and I said my peace. Most of these people have never heard me talk before. I think I surprised some people with the rational things and facts that I had to share. The next morning we both received a thank you note for our efforts and an expression that the person is glad we moved here.

In my past roles in leadership positions and on teams, especially the work I used to do in my last job, I learned a lot about being diplomatic and using principal based leadership, about facilitating meetings, setting goals, making action plans and working in a professional manner. I did a long term project that was difficult, with a cross-departmental team and won a corporate awared. However that only was possible as the organization had principles that it stood on and it demanded that employees all work with those same values and that we work toward common goals.

I loved my job so much it pained me to leave it when I became a new mother. It was great working with such a thriving company. Actually the stock crashed and problems happened while I was out on maternity leave, so the nirvana that was present before was crumbling. When I went back part-time after my son was born it was not the same place at all. That made it easy to request a leave of absence to mother my son for more time, and in that time, I was happy with being "just" at home, which then helped me make the decision to resign.

In my past role as an elected official in town politics I learned other things, mostly about how to be professional and following Robert's Rules of Order, using a procedure to help keep things organized and to prevent them from becoming a free-for-all chaotics mess. It seemed so stiff and formal which bothered me but it was justified. I also dealt then with things like making the right decisions in light of possible lawsuits and considering union rules and other legal things that muddied the waters of decision making.

I am confident that good things can happen if the group can find common ground and if they can remain professional and diplomatic and realistic. The problem with the organization at present is that the stated mission statement does not seem to be what all members, leaders, people in positions of power and influence, and officers are working toward. Some members are trying to exert their power, control and influence to sway the leadership. Various people who are behind the scenes are pulling some strings. It is nearly impossible to work together as a team if the leaders are not in alignment with the mission statement.

You also can't accomplish things without goals. You just can't work with people who are going in all different directions for different reasons. Throw into the mix that one who is influencing people stands to personally financially profit and it is a real mess. When leaders are not leading but getting in the way it's a serious problem. If the top management is a mess those underneath them can't affect positive change, and certainly the members are even more powerless to try to help fix the situation.

Mediation and negotiation are messy processes which require buy-in from top leadership. If you don't have that, you have a real problematic situation on your hands.


Leadership is about doing the right thing for the organization. Leadership is not about amassing personal power or trying to get people to like or accept you, because leaders have to do the right thing which is not always what your friend or what that person over there wants to happen. It is fantastic when the leaders and everyone involved in an organization are in alignment with the mission statement and goals. It feels good and right and it is personally fulfilling to know that positive things are happening as a result of a group effort. When working at the same goal, a team is stronger than each of its members acting individually. When there is poor leadership or misaligned interests and no common ground it is unhealthy and can become a serious mess.

An organization needs leaders who are visionaries for long term planning, others who can do short term planning, daily operations people who can do the work those goals require, and people good at record keeping and doing administrative tasks to do the many things that are legally required to continue to keep the organization operating as the law states. You need people who are good with finances and others who can plan for future expenses and fundraise (for nonprofit organizations).

Actions need to be in alignment with goals in order to be effective, and wasting time by doing things that are stupid or are not getting the organization to fulfill its goals should not take place lest it waste everyone's time. With volunteer jobs everyone would appreciate leaders who know how to run effective meetings and how to conduct business with the least amount of time-wasting possible.