Stock Photo, Connie Nompelis Gives A PresentationMembers of the "612 Authentic" video team and their executive producer, Connie Nompelis (No-bell-iss) did a presentation at yesterday's Hawthorne Huddle. A trailer was shown for the upcoming "Adventures of Johnny Northside" television special, which was well received. Though video truth is not all flowers and gingerbread trim, there is a North Minneapolis story of struggle and revitalization which is definitely NOT being told in the mainstream media.
"The Adventures of Johnny Northside" will, hopefully, tell some of that story and kick start a lot of, er, catalytic discussion.
(Or did I mean to write "cataclysmic"?)
Even folks who follow this blog and are familiar with the movie project (see bottom of my blogroll) may not have seen this trailer, so...
...you can check it out by going to the "production blog" at this URL.
http://www.evilpinkpony.com/
And, by the way, no, I'm not done beating up on the mainstream media quite yet.
For years, publications like the Star Tribune gave lurid coverage to crime in the Eco Village area, which is a part of Hawthorne Neighborhood bounded by Lyndale Ave. N., 4th St. N., Lowry Ave. N., and 30th Ave. N. Many crimes used to take place in that area, and the media sure did cover that stuff in graphic detail. When the Apartment Complex of Anarchy was torn down at 3101 6th St. N., the media covered THAT, too, getting the story wrong to the point I had to write a blog post about "talking back to the Star Tribune."
Well, where is the media to cover the story I've been trumpeting on this blog about two straight months with no reported crime in the Eco Village, an area that was once considered "ground zero" for drug crime? For that matter, will it be necessary to sit around and wait for somebody to die in the parking lot at Hawthorn Crossings strip mall before the media comes along and says, gee, there's a real problem, here?
"Check out our producer as he pretends to be a suburbanite in an SUV interested in buying crack cocaine while we record on our hidden cameras...wait a second. That guy is trying to sell pirated DVDs. WHAT THE (EXPLETIVE)?"
Yeah, OK, that was a tangent...but if I don't have any new stories about open air drug dealing and pirate DVD sales at Hawthorn Crossings, I still have to find a way to write something and make this place my "blog bitch."
In any case...
Clearly, North Minneapolis must tell its own story through its own organically created forms of media. If we sit around and wait for OTHER media to present a more complex, nuanced picture...surely we will die of disappointment, old age, and broken hearts.
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