Adri B Mehra (born July 31, 1982 in Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American columnist, actor and musician. He is best known for his series-in-progress on the 9/11 Truth Movement for the Minnesota Daily, the largest student-run newspaper in the United States.

Biography

The early years

Mehra, the son of an Afghani immigrant father and a Scandinavian American mother, was raised in St. Louis Park, a middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1989, at age seven, Adri was published in a national children's magazine with the following joke: "What was Elvis' favorite bone? The pelvis."

In 1995 (in sixth grade), Mehra won his school (Susan Lindgren Intermediate) and district (Independent #283) spelling bees and placed seventh at the regional Metro ECSU competition, erring on the word "pachyderm" to lose the contest. He also won his school's geography bee and was a member of National Mathematical Olympiads in 1994 and 1995. In 1999 Mehra wrote his first full-length screenplay, "Soap Opera."

After nearly a decade of youth soccer, basketball, track and field, and softball, in 1999 Mehra traded in his athletic shoes for theatre flats. Debuting as the lead male - Duke Orsino - in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" (for which he also played classical guitar as an additional Musician character) as performed by the St. Louis Park Players in a local city park. He then went on to appear in seven more plays in the next two years, winning the school's Thespian Award for Best Actor in spring 2000 for his portrayal of Scapino in Moliere's "Scapino." In early 2001 his portrayal of the butler in Eric Idle's "Pass the Butler" earned him the kudos of a British judge on the Section 3AA one-act play finals, saying that Mehra's accent was "the best of the lot" (the play earned 3rd place at the competition).

During high school Mehra also became very active in the community, serving as his class' representative on the Superintendent's Student Advisory Board for three years and as a senior on the Student Council. He also co-coordinated the school district's annual STEP food drive and was the editor for the Save Our Surroundings newsletter. He was also a tenor and baritone in Park Singers and the student choir, as well as a longtime selection of the district's Gifted and Talented program (which included a 2nd-place entry at the regional Odyssey of the Mind Camouflaged Creation competition). He also published several poems in the school's literary magazine, the Mandala, and received a 'superior' rating at the Minnesota State High School League solo vocal contest for his rendition of Giovanni Paisiello's "Nel Cor Piu Non Mi Sento."

In 2000 Mehra was named an official student delegate to the Search Institute's national conference at the Minneapolis Convention Center and was a program presenter on the School Action Team of the Initiative for Violence-Free Families, formerly part of the Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning. He was also a member of the Children First Vision Team and held a seat on the Cable Television Commission of the City of St. Louis Park.

Mehra also became active in the AIDS community of Minneapolis near the end of high school, volunteering at Grace House (a local safe space) and writing and performing for the Affair of the Heart black tie event for Camp Heartland's "A Festival for Heart and Soul," held at the Metropolitan Club in Minneapolis.

As the 2000 presidential election neared, Mehra took an increasing interest in politics. He registered with the national and state Green Party organizations and joined the Twin Cities Coalition to Defend Mumia Abu-Jamal. He also became an official arts advocate with Minnesota Citizens for the Arts, annually attending Arts Advocacy Day at the Minnesota State Capitol for several years.

Upon graduation from St. Louis Park High School in 2001, Mehra was listed in Who's Who Among American High School Students and was the sole recipient of the Outstanding Writer Award Scholarship, which included a $1,500 grant from local fundraising organization Dollars for Scholars.

Musical career

In 1996 Mehra's father bought him a Fender Jazz Bass and he enrolled in nine months of private weekly instruction from Pat Schmid of the Mouldy Figs (the Dixieland-style jazz combo that provided music for the Comedy Central series "Let's Bowl"). Adri formed a band called Black Lightning and they recorded fourteen original songs, twelve of which appeared on their 1998 cassette-only album "Lightning Strikes." Although featuring technically varied arrangements including multi-tracked guitars and drums as well as trumpets and violins, the album sold about fifty copies and is considered a rare collector's item. The band was known primarily for its six-minute post-punk metal breakdown on "Natural Disaster," premiered at their eighth-grade talent show.

In 1999 Mehra formed Mad Hatter with most of the personnel from Black Lightning and quickly set out to enter the storied history of Minneapolis rock. Employing start-stop dynamics, dizzying time and meter changes and walls of complex guitars, Mad Hatter's debut album "Destination Fallen Scars" was hailed by respected local arts publication Pulse as "a true local original" and was featured in their January 2001 music showcase of "Hot Artists." The album, released on compact disc, sold hundreds of units and was inventoried at Cheapo in uptown Minneapolis, as well as Let It Be in downtown Minneapolis and Eclipse Records in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was also featured on mp3.com in 2001 and 2002.

Mad Hatter was also known for their intense live shows, earning them a show on the main stage at the legendary First Avenue rock club in downtown Minneapolis, featured by Prince in the 1984 Oscar-winning film "Purple Rain." Mad Hatter took 4th place in Radio K's Battle of the Underage Underground in 2001 at First Avenue. They also performed at Professor Rock's annual Cool-Aid concerts in Chaska, Minnesota.