It’s been in all the papers – Manny Laureano, the prinicpal trumpeter of the Minnesota Orchesta (and a friend of this blog, of the NARN and incidentally of me) walked off the stsge\u00a0 at a MNO gig supporting Rufus Wainright the other night.<\/p>\n
Wainright – son of 70s country-rock eccentric Loudon “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road” Wainright III – was in the middle of one of several apparent tirades about Republicans when Laureano, one of the Orchestra’s few conservatives, walked offstage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe evening was already too snarky,\u201d Laureano said. So by the time Wainwright got around to the political talk, the trumpeter added, \u201cIt got incredibly self-indulgent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s an angry dude that seems to have life all figured out, not the kind of guy we need to look to for philosophy,\u201d he said. \u201cI found it to be beyond the pale of what that evening should be about. It\u2019s a time of the year we\u2019re supposed to all come together.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
As is the Twin Cities’ meida’s wont, the writer – the Strib’s longtime music writer Chris Riemenschneider, who is not immune to misplaced and not-overly-interesting political “insides” of his own<\/a> – verges on editorial writing for a moment:<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019m so tired of you, America,\u201d is famously\/infamously the refrain in the Juno Award-nominated 2007 song, which also offers lines questioning Christians intolerant of same-sex marriage. (Wainwright, a Toronto native and New York resident, has been married to husband J\u00f6rn Weisbrodt for five years and they are raising a daughter together, Viva).<\/p>\n