Always billing themselves as the hottest band in the world, Kiss wanted to cool off after standing in the heat and humidity for photos with hundreds of global-poverty charity-givers outside Muffy MacMillan's Lake Minnetonka mansion Tuesday. So they repaired inside, to the air-conditioned game room. Towels were distributed but Gene Simmons wanted food. "Some sliders?" he asked one of the minions. A conversation with Simmons is always a freewheeling adventure. Since he was busy munching on egg rolls and turkey sandwiches, Paul Stanley did much of the talking but, surprisingly, replacement members Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer spoke up, too. Singer came to this reporter's defense when I pronounced "roof" as "ruf" and Simmons corrected me by saying "there are two o's." Singer interjected: "That's the Midwest pronunciation. I'm from Ohio. That's what we say." Singer's also curious. When he heard the MacMillan mansion was on Lake Minnetonka, he asked: "Is that like the Minnetonka moccasins I had as a kid?" Indeed.
JON BREAM
A dog named Prince
Apparently, John L. Nelson had a fascination with the name "Prince" long before it was bestowed on his son. Purple fans probably know that Nelson had a jazz band called the Prince Rogers Trio. But who knew that the family dog was named Prince? That nugget is in the long-and-winding estate evidence before the Carver County District Court in determining Prince's heirs. Sister Sharon Nelson reveals in her documents that her family, namely John and his wife, Vivian, had regular get-togethers at their home for the holidays. She mentioned the family dog, Prince. After John and Vivian divorced in March 1957, he married Mattie Shaw in August '57 and Prince Rogers Nelson was born in 1958. The affidavits don't reveal what happened to Prince the dog.
JON BREAM
Ringing the Bell
The University of Minnesota has picked Denise Young to head the Bell Museum + Planetarium, starting Sept. 12. She has been director of education and planning for the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center at the University of North Carolina since 2002. In Minnesota, Young will oversee a 144-year-old museum that is in transition from its current quarters on the U's Minneapolis campus into a new structure under construction on the St. Paul campus. In 2011, the Bell merged with the Minnesota Planetarium Society that was previously located in the Central Library in downtown Minneapolis. The U's new $79.2 million complex will include a 120-seat domed planetarium/theater and nine of the museum's much loved traditional dioramas of taxidermied birds and animals in naturalistic settings.
MARY ABBE
Gant get over it
By special request of their Minnesotan drummer Linda Pitmon — and much to the chagrin of Georgia-bred bassist Mike Mills — the all-star band the Baseball Project revived its oldie "Don't Call Them Twinkies" at the Turf Club last weekend. Co-leader Steve Wynn (of the Dream Syndicate) said they stopped playing the ode to the Twins because its lyricist, Craig Finn of the Hold Steady, "wrote too many words to remember." Mills (of R.E.M.) will apparently never forget the song, though — specifically, its lines defending the controversial call in the 1991 World Series in which the Atlanta Braves' Ron Gant claimed the Twins' Kent Hrbek pulled him off first base for an out. Mills has been steaming about the call almost as long as R.E.M. fans have been angry about them recording "Stand." He interjected, "Yes, Craig writes a lot of words. And some of them are true." To his credit, Mills did don a Twins cap the next day when the band performed at Target Field during Sunday's game. Too bad it wasn't Hrbek Jersey Day.
CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER
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