Dude Weather Subscribe to Secrets Minneapolis / St. Paul
To the Slaughter
Sir Ian & Brenda v. CJ: The Final Bell
RYBAK: It's so hard to keep up with the folks on DishZilla C.J.'s shit list: it just keeps growing all the time. This week she trashed respected KSTP reporter Bob McNaney--not really for remarks he made at the Midwest Emmys, as she wrote in her column-- but because he never makes remarks to the Strib gossip. And as people who really don't want to deal with C.J. know--like an elephant, she never forgets.
Evidently, another person on her "must trash" list is Twin Cities' star restauranteuse Brenda Langton (Cafe Brenda, Spoonriver), who was the focus of a big C.J. "scoop" a few weeks back because her restaurant allegedly turned away actor Ian McKellen--then appearing at the Guthrie as King Lear--because he came before the restaurant opened, or didn't want to sit at a table--or who the hell knows why, given C.J.'s convoluted copy.
We were subsequently shocked, SHOCKED to learn that Sir Ian held a different view of that column item, as evidenced by his handwritten note on a faxed copy of the October 10 column. "Don't believe a word you read in the Star Tribune," it reads.
Skeptics might be further assuaged by this picture of Sir Ian with Brenda and and Lear co-star Jonathan Hyde, who played the Earl of Kent.
The Strib has steadfastly ignored complaints about C.J., preferring instead to praise her regular appearance as one of the top columnists (on and off line) at the paper (not really that hard to do if you're writing about media, gossip or sports, three of the reading public's favorite topics/guilty pleasures).
Why would this change just because one of the world's greatest living actors thinks she sucks (and, now, the paper as well)?
Perhaps the Pioneer Press's marketing department (if it still has one) should give the McKellen note a look...it could make a dandy billboard, don't you think?
LAMBERT: I called Ms. Langton, a.k.a. Brenda, this morning to get a little better idea how this CJ classic actually went down. I mean, the clear inference from the Oct. 10 column was that Brenda's clueless, rube-like people had snubbed the great actor and ... uh, maybe ... we might imagine ... McKellen was miffed. Right? (Again, hard to tell from the column.)
"It was just so stupid," Brenda remembers. "She [CJ] called up and was just so super nasty. She had this tone. And she's saying things like, 'Do you have weekly meetings?' Uh, yes, CJ, we have staff meetings. What's your point? 'Well, don't you think you might want to put up pictures of all the famous people in town so your staff recognizes them if they come in?'"
Brenda's response was a steely, "No." She explains -- and I freely admit we're deep into This Has Nothing to Do With the Price of Rice territory -- that she spotted McKellen looking at a Spoonriver menu one afternoon as she was on the phone, coincidentally enough, to the Guthrie. By the time she got off, the aged, rumpled McKellen, who doesn't exactly have the same recognizablity quotient as, say, George Clooney, had left. Brenda asked her staff what happened, and they explained that, it being 5 p.m., they didn't have a table free right then and McKellen didn't have time to wait. No volcanic outrage on the great man's part. Busy restaurant. Tight schedule. Can't make it today. It happens.
Long(ish) story short, Brenda calls her Guthrie pal to tell them to tell McKellen she's very sorry and she'll find a spot for him. Word gets back that McKellen was not at all offended but couldn't make it back that day; he would however try again. Still, at this point, no harm, no foul, no snubbing, no nothing -- except the insinuation in the area's largest newspaper that the provincial Midwest chowderheads bungled an opportunity to serve a lion of the theater.
Such a nice, light touch.
Anyway, according to Brenda, McKellen, true to his word, stops in a few days later. Again at 5. The restaurant is full. But this time Brenda jumps in and offers him and fellow actor Hyde "executive dining" in her tiny kitchen office. McKellen likes the idea. "Mah-velous! Mah-velous," he says. Lear must eat! Brenda tosses on a crisp white tablecloth, and the two men enjoy a fine meal before posing for a picture and heading back over to the office.
"They were both wonderful," says Brenda. "Ian went around and greeted everyone in the kitchen."
At some point, someone mentions CJ's column to McKellen, and Hyde cracks something to the effect, about how, in general, "You can't trust these papers." Off that cue, Sir Ian merrily autographs a Xerox of CJ's Oct. 10 opus, which Brenda might well-consider framing by the front door. It's a terrific reverse-barometer review, in a way.
"Famous people have been coming in for years," says Brenda. "Joe Perry of Aerosmith came back to talk to (the kitchen staff) one time. Elvis Costello comes in every time he is town. So does k.d. Lang. But I'm not about to pounce on people. You know?" (She says she hasn't done the Sardi's or Carnegie Deli thing and framed pictures of her famous clientele, but may start. "I'm 50 now. So what the hell, right?)"
She says CJ -- who is nothing if not relentless -- comes around frequently demanding to know, as opposed to "asking" -- who has been in. (That velvet touch thing is so overrated, you know.) "She's mad because I don't tell her who has been in."
Brenda says she didn't send CJ a copy of the autograph but did kick over a copy of the group photo you see here. "She didn't see the humor in it. She called and asked if someone was playing a practical joke on her."
If there's a bottom line to this "issue" it's an almost pathological deficit of humor. But that's not news, is it?
26 Reader Comments
I think I know two more people who just made CJ's shit list.
LAMBERT: Yeah. Those bastards McKellen and Hyde are ruined in this town!
How is it that the general public -- or at least anyone in the food-service industry-- is now tasked with the "responsibility" to recognize celebrities and give them special treatment? I find this utterly appalling.
LAMBERT: It's simple. We are nothing without our celebrities, therefore recognize them or accept your miserable nothingness.
No space or budget (or belly) for a readers' rep column, but the Strib continues to fund CJ to carry out personal vendettas and make enemies for a newspaper that already has plenty. Brilliant.
LAMBERT: Watch this space for the new, improved Readers' Rep.
Hey, hey! Take it easy on C.J. It's unbecoming of you to pick on someone for whom English is a second language. Or possibly a third...
LAMBERT: How did we know YOU would come to her defense?
I just don't get why the Strib powers that be think having a gossip column is so necessary. It just seems to be a vehicle for one writer to nurse petty grudges, make fun of some people, kiss up to others, etc. . . kind of like high school.
I certainly don't see the same safeguards for accuracy. . . heck, there isn't even a reader's rep to handle that any more!
I met CJ years ago, I didn't think she was such a bad person. She was very nice to someone considered a journalistic nonentity (that would be me). I thought the column was fine when I did read it, yet lately it's like reading something by someone who is just full of herself. It's a gossip column! It's not like we're handing out cancer cures here. . .
And while we're on the topic of the Strib. . . As someone who has written about St. Paul issues for more than two decades, I always used to give the Strib higher marks for their coverage on this side of the river. Now I wonder why I get the paper. The paper is purged of the best writers, they turn the St. Paul bureau upside down and bring in a bunch of people who know little if anything about the city, they market this "new" east metro section like crazy. . . I don't understand it.
I'm sorry to vent but this kind of thing just makes me cranky. . .
LAMBERT: Jane, I think the problem is you care too much. Think like an equity investment group. When you do, caring not so much has a lot of upsides.
Please tell me THIS is what you were both so opaquely referring to as serving as the Strib's new reader's rep. Nice work belling C.J.
Now perhaps you could address the serial intellectual dishonesty of Kitty Kersten's columns. You could start with today's column, wherein the paper's hot house lilly fields a phone call from this Doyle character at the U's journalism school, talks to his cherry-picked students sources, cites not a single concrete example of this supposedly rampant ideologicalpersecution and ghettoization of undergrads at the U of M, all the while sidestepping the more likley reality that these poor kids raised on right-wing cant and talk-radio blather are suffering for their emulation of Kersten's equally phony forensics and shoddy reportage. One would hope that Doyle would give her a well-deserved "F" for the half-baked column poor Doug Tice had to massage into something before publishing it in today's paper.
RYBAK: Nay Jimmy, you're going to have to wait for the new, unpaid reader's rep with the gimlet eyes.
LAMBERT: Mix me another gimlet. I'm almost ready.
Jane, it's called pandering to your readers worst instincts. It's all the rage. CJ's is thin consomme, I'll grant you that.
To a great extent, I think people get the newspapers, government and popular culture in general that they deserve.
LAMBERT: Does that also explain the Vikings?
As it was once so eloquently said on my show: "Uh, that'd be in the butt, Bob."
D'ohhhhhhh! SON OF A.....! Damn your coy dance of the seven veils about this reader's rep thing, Rybak!
LAMBERT: Keep pumping those quarters into the machine, Jimmy. You'll get a peek.
As someone who has to work with the surly bitch every day, I'm lovin' the well-deserved ass kicking you're both giving CJ. Why, I can hear her slamming her door (again) right now. I doubt she'll wise up, but wouldn't it be great if this town had a REAL gossip column? And wouldn't it be great if CJ didn't go on the local Fox morning show and discuss week old TMZ information? She's embarrassing. If she wasn't such a shameless self promoter she'd get off her ass and find some serious dish...there is plenty in these towns, as you both know.Thanks for letting me rant. I love you guys!
LAMBERT: Lordy, lordy, what we could write about Mike Fairbourne and Dave Dahl.
I own a bar/restaurant and I have to say the list of celebrities I wouldn't recognize is long, long long. And I have no idea why i would have any responsibility to a) seat them before we opened; b) seat them if we were full or c) care about them one whit.
LAMBERT: Obviously you have a reckless disregard for celebrity maintenance.
Something tells me CJ is going to make an example of any grammar mistakes you two made here! Tsk tsk
Seriously -- the Strib does not have a media critic but they continue to let her hack around and collect a check. Sad.
LAMBERT: Ain't no way they don't have their priorities in order.
OK, what's with the insouciant quips at the end of each comment? The rim shots have the effect of trivializing what your commenters are saying.
Are you guys trying to get more play on MNspeak, or does Bartel pay you by the word? Buh-dum-bum.
LAMBERT: "Quips"? We're moderating this forum. And you had to bring up "pay" didn't you?
Keep pumping those quarters in? Good gawd, HELP, somebody get Lambert a contemporary cultural reference. How old are you?
LAMBERT: ShoWorld 1977. Pure Travis Bickle.
It just seems to be a vehicle for one writer to nurse petty grudges, make fun of some people, kiss up to others, etc. . . kind of like high school.
I certainly don't see the same safeguards for accuracy. . . heck, there isn't even a reader's rep to handle that any more!
but the Strib continues to fund CJ to carry out personal vendettas and make enemies for a newspaper that already has plenty. Brilliant.
We could just as easily be talking about Nick Coleman. His last column about the trucks coming from Colorado was another bit of complete inanity.
Sorry, Brian, I grew up absolutely loving newspapers. I've been a community journalist since age 12. (I'm 49 now.)I wish Avista would go choke.
All of this personality and gossip nonsense makes me crazy AND cranky. Don't get me started on the so-called personalities at both dailies and why I'm supposed to care about them as a reader. I don't care -- I want news! Watching some of the news people do blogs and pretending to be interesting is like watching my cats pretending that a piece of fake fur with a fake tail and little sewn-on eyes is a REAL mouse. It's just sad.
It's not that it's gossip and personality journalism, it's just that the personalities are not very interesting. If I wanted more off-kilter personalities, I'd go hang out at a Rice Street Bar -- kind of like I did during my North End News editing days.
I'm tired of gossip columns and snarky columnists pandering for all ends of the political spectrum. Nick Coleman's last column was just dreadful.
All together now: I want news! I want news that is not dumbed down!
PS -- Can all of the posters take turns being the reader's rep?
LAMBERT: Well, we've built up a pretty good store of questions for one lonely rep.
Damn it, where is Budd Rugg when you need him? Maybe Rob Levine can entice him out of retirement?
LAMBERT: Budd was a classic psychological/ego test. Every nickel "celebrity" in town -- myself included, (ok, 2-cent) -- prayed he'd say something about them. Anything. "Saw fat, loser schlub Brian Lambert looking lost and dazed in front of Shinders." THANK YOU, Budd.
BRILLIANT!
Let me just add my vote for the return of Mr. Rugg. Come on, Levine, make him an offer. How 'bout the enducement of flavored lattes at 50th and France with Lambert? Wait, no, even better,a weekend of rustic debauchery at Lambert's Northern Wisconsin redoubt, all the lite beer and booya he can keep down.
LAMBERT: Mr. Rugg always struck me as a distinctly urban sensibility. I don't think he'd play well with the agrarian philosopher types playing penny slots up north.
Ah, but you leave out the siren song of your gals with the home detention ankle bracelets and single-digit dentition, who could resist? He's only a man. Or, YOU could slip into the neon blue Lycra. Come back, Bud, come back.
I know a guy named Bud.
Different guy, though.
While we're on about the walking racist vendetta that is CJ, can we work in some Claude and Rick?
I mean, a column devoted to middle aged gay twittering in a major midwestern family paper is so...so.....
Oh, forget it.
Maybe it's just to balance the fount of outdoors writing?
LAMBERT: I know what you're saying. Imagine, a big daily newspaper suggesting that gays are as large a part of their audience as paranoid white male gun nuts. The audacity!
BJr, hunting's actually a shrinking demo, son. But the gays, thanks to their gay agenda and tireless recruiting efforts (watch your step, fella), are a growing demo with a lot of DINKS (double income no kids) in it.
When's the last time you saw a neighborhood's property values go up because it became a deer hunter enclave?
You want to to compare the social fabric / economic impact of hunting in this region to that of some twittering old gaysters, I'm open to your best theorum.
Why do you hate what this country was founded on?
Why to you espouse all that would bring it down?
I mean, really? What's your (looney left wing) end game?
LAMBERT: A leaky ship disappearing over the horizon, with you, Laura Ingraham, Hugh Hewitt and the rest of the Hayden Lake militia on it. I mean, you asked, right?
BJr, I just follow the "news." Partcipation in hunting's down. I don't know why. But I've been to a Sportsman's Show. And THAT aint' a crowd I'd seek to emulate. But it's probably a function of the "homoseual agenda" I hear so much about from your media.
And from what I hear from your media, the gays' "agenda," which your boys never quite get around to outlining, must be pretty damned powerful to insight so much sputtering dudgeon and bug-eyed fear. And your media often talk about the gays and their powers to change people's sexual orientation, "recruitment" is how your boys and girls refer to it. Apparently one's sexual orientation is a much more volatile constituent of one's sense of identity in your world than mine. AFter all, you are the ones who argue it's a choice and that it can be cured. That's a double-edged sword for your gang. Stay vigilant, BJr!
By vigilant you must mean keeping "Joey Has Two Mommies" out of the local elementary school?
That's my kind of vigilance, sissy boy.
LAMBERT: I love the smell of homophobia in the morning.
Post new comment
Blogs
Sports
Baseball:
Warning Track Power by Alex Halsted
Sports:
On the Ball by Britt Robson
Society
Weather:
Dude Weather by Jimmy Gaines
A&E
Fiction:
Write Now! by Terry Faust
Retired
Hockey:
Spazz Dad by Todd Smith
Style:
Hook & Eye
Misc:
Is This News?
Fiction:
Yo, Ivanhoe by Brad Zellar
Food:
Consider the Egg by Stephanie March
Wine:
Beyond the Cask
Food:
Food Fight!
Media:
To the Slaughter
Misc:
Outrage by Staff
Food:
Chef's Table
Guest Commentary:
Just Passing Through
Humor:
Spazz Dad by Todd Smith
Cars:
Road Rake by Chris Birt
Commentary:
Read Menace by Tom Bartel
Society:
The Adventures of Melinda by Melinda Jacobs
Politics:
Defenestrator by Rich Goldsmith
Food:
Breaking Bread by Jeremy Iggers & Ann Bauer
Books:
Cracking Spines by Max Ross
Music:
Hear, Hear by Staff
Art:
The Vicious Circle by 6 Critics
Secrets:
Secrets of the Day by Kate Iverson
Theater:
Seen in the City by Staff
Film:
Talk About Talkies by Staff
- Contact:
- Secrets Staff
- Write to Editors
- Send Press Release
- Reprint Request
- Work at Secrets of the City
- Our Address:
- Secrets of the City
- PO Box 3690
- Minneapolis, MN 55403
- (651) 356-8714
©2002-2009 Entropy Publishing, LLC. No part of this site may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of Entropy Publishing, LLC. except that an individual may print for personal use and/or forward articles via e-mail to a reasonable number of recipients for personal, non-commercial purposes. Thanks to FAMFAMFAM and Tango Project for their icons.
Media Partners
