Letters

Another Pal of Al
It was a pleasure and a privilege to run across a copy of SF Weekly at the San Francisco airport. I say privilege because one of our weekly newspapers in the Twin Cities was pulled from the stands at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport six years ago when writers tried to alert the public about California wannabe governor Al Checchi and his greasy grab for Northwest Airlines ("Checchi's Checkered Record," Nov. 5). Unfortunately, the message of the alternative press in this town didn't get the play it deserved and something that shouldn't have happened did [happen].

Our mainstream media did next to nothing to inform citizens about the rat-infested leveraged buyout spearheaded by Checchi and another slick financial pest named Gary Wilson. By the time reporters at the St. Paul and Minneapolis dailies climbed out of bed at the capital and finished sucking some kneecaps in the business community, Checchi and Wilson already had control of NWA. And as David Pasztor points out, they did it by taking almost no risk and making nearly a billion dollars between them on a $20 million investment. Not bad for a six-year crapshoot.

And what did the people of Minnesota get? We got an IOU for about $800 million. The employees at NWA took hefty pay cuts, and guess what the Minneapolis and St. Paul dailies got when they finally started to critically cover the so-called "friendly" takeover? Northwest Airlines stopped advertising in both papers for a year.

Al Checchi is coming to a town near you. The kid who once studied to be a priest may have a higher calling -- he could be your next guru ... he already has our money.

Craig Wood
Minneapolis

Where's That Noise?
Thanks for the coverage ("The Sound of Noise," Nov. 12). A few corrections, however: 1) My first name is spelled "Jai Young" rather than "Jaiyoung." 2) Neither my home nor my studio is in SOMA. More like industrial Potrero. 3) The Stanford Linear Accelerator is not a nuclear accelerator. 4) There are two other amazing and talented musicians of Job who deserve as much credit (and blame) as I do: Matt Lebofsky and Mark Schifferli. 5) "Jaiyoung Kim's compositions" are not compositions, but rather complete group improvisations. 6) Dan Burke, aka Illusion of Safety, is not part of the S.F. noise scene. He's always lived in Chicago and happened to be in town on a cross-country road trip.

Jai Young Kim
More Like Industrial Potrero

Perry Interesting
In regards to Joshua Green's article on Lee "Scratch" Perry ("Learning From Scratch," Nov. 19), why was there no mention of his new Live at Maritime Hall album and soon-to-be-released video? The last shows he did here were just last April 4-5, 1997, not "last year." That album is not only Maritime's first release on its 2B1 record label, but those shows were the first time Lee had performed in the U.S. in 17 years. Thank you for recognizing the mad genius of Mr. Perry, but in the words of Dr. Evil, "Throw me a bone."

Nicholas Baker
Tenderloin