Our house in the middle of our street

Leaves have fallen, a taste of snow or turkey is in the air and the mailbox could yield a holiday card or perhaps a very early present. Instead many Minnesotans are discovering in their mailboxes is an estimate of what their property taxes could be in 2010. That information is not always a tasty morsel as the holiday season of good eating approaches. It was the mission of the St. Paul Newsroom of KARE11 to produce a story on the often bad news on the doorsteps of local homes.

I wanna play house

Sometimes perpetration and opportunity meet when harvesting the digital fields for news content. This Hartbeat blogger was on the way to document a buy- local news conference at a St. Paul business when I got the word that reporter John Croman and I were assigned to craft a story on local property taxes.

Years of experience in shooting the video for property tax stories prompted me to turn off Snelling Avenue in St. Paul to a side street. Goodrich seemed like the right street to find good video of homes.

The blocks in the Mac Groveland neighborhood of St. Paul are long, so I parked midway on the street to afford several views of homes. As I set up my tripod and camera, a man emerged from a house and asked if I was from MapQuest or Google. Alas, I was not making images for an internet atlas, but for a local television station. I introduced myself to Roy Otto and asked him if he had recently received an estimated property tax statement in the mail and if his taxes had gone up. His taxes had increased while the market value of his home had decreased. He agreed to do an interview with me; and Roy proved to be someone who could produce short and informative answers to my questions. Just what one needs for a story that could become bogged down in statistics.

Roy was kind enough to show me his backyard, which includes a small stream that recycles its water and produces the pleasant sound of a small brook. The tax waters may be rising, but in a backyard on Goodrich it can be tranquil.

I don't wanna play house

Of course it is not all good news for the couple living in the 1917 two-story, stucco house situated on a 50 by 127 foot lot in St. Paul. The taxable market value of the home dropped $35,000 dollars. One would think that would mean a decrease in property taxes, but in the strange world of figures and angles, the 2010 proposed tax went up 2%.

The tax man's taken all my dough

Thanks to a willing taxpayer, a large portion of the property tax story was shot before I joined John Croman. A video produced by the League of Minnesota Cities, Association of Minnesota Counties, and Minnesota School Boards Association available on the internet provided another source of video and sound,14 Reasons why property taxes can increase were presented in a well executed video. 14 Reasons, which cost about $15,000 to make a few years ago has been used often at Truth in Taxation hearings held in cities and counties.  Taxes are explained using good graphics and live action.   It is very educational to learn what makes taxes rise or fall.  Of corse, Roy Otto has a water fountain stream in his backyard that is constant in depth.  Not the same for his taxes.  To see the story, please click here.

The Hartbeat goes on...

The Musical Notes

Our House was a single by a British ska/pop band called Madness that reached number 7 on the Billboard charts in 1983. In a time when music videos where gaining popularity, the band made a clever one (in my opinion) where the members depicted activities in the house and played the roles of family members. They also wore some pretty cool hats.

Cy Coben was a song writer for 60 years who wrote top-selling big band numbers, pop songs and in an odd twist for a man from New Jersey, country music. Bill Monroe made A Good Woman's Love one of his bluegrass standards, Hank snow sang Nobody's Child (also coved by the Beatles and the Traveling Willburys). Eddy Arnold and Elvis both sang Coben's I Want to Play House with You.

In contrast to the Cy Coben composition, Billy Sherrill and Glenn Sutton wrote I Don't Wanna Play House which was a hit for Tammy Wynette. The song won her a Grammy award in 1967 for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.

A blog about taxes and music should to mention Taxman by the Beatles or Money by Pink Floyd. Not being a total dedicated follower of fashion, I chose the Kinks instead. The band recorded Sunny Afternoon, with a theme much like Taxman in 1966. The promotional video (yes, there were music videos in 1966) for the song features the band playing and singing outside in a winter environment. Their electric guitars aren't plugged into amps and it doesn't seem very sunny.

What's cooking on the Hartbeat Grill?

The Grill is currently sizzling with music from the Rolling Stones. Thanks to a local public library, two items made their way into Hartbeat World Headquarters.

Exile on Main Street, the gospel, rock, country, folk, soul, roots album released in 1972 still works for me. As with many recordings by the lads, it requires many listenings, which I have been able to achieve during drives to and from the KARE11 St. Paul Newsroom. Mick Jagger didn't think the vocal mix was good on this album and I would agree. I haven't listened to the album in its entirety for a number of years and never on cd. The first sound difference that I noticed was that the drumming of Charlie Watts really cuts through the sometimes muddy singing. Since Exile was recorded over a four year period in several locations with various levels of drug use and friction between the band members, it is sometimes surprising to hear the good music (at least in my view) that emerged from those all night sessions. There is a tax connection to Exile as well. In 1971, the lads were making huge amounts of money that were subject to British taxes.  To avoid paying the taxman, they split to France and started recording Exile in a house that had served as a Gestapo headquarters in WWII.

The other slab of Rolling Stones history that is cooking on the Grill is Shine a Light, the 2008 documentary by Martin Scorsese. The film documents the Rolling Stones 2006 concerts at New York's Beacon Theatre. Listening to the soundtrack in surround sound gives you a much different perspective on Keith Richards guitar work than you would hear on a cd. His open G chords seem to be played in a more random style than usual, but on most songs, it does all come together. Of course, part of the magic of the Stones is that random quality.

Keith says during an interview in the film that he and Ron Wood are really pretty lousy guitar players, but together they are worth ten people. Maybe that is one of the secrets as to why they are the World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band? Three songs from Exile are featured on Shine a Light, but my favorite is Keith singing You Got the Silver, which in 1969 was the first song on a Stones album to feature Richards as a lead vocalist. His rendering of the song (done as usual for this number, without him playing guitar) sung in tune (at least for Keith) is the highlight of Shine a Light for me.

The Photo Notes

The telling images are stills from Sony DVCAM videotape.

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