Riding down Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis, I tried to grasp both the changes and the similarities to the downtown I remember from the 70's. A couple of 24 hour main-stays were gone. Shinder's at the corner of 6th and Hennepin. I know it moved to 7th & Hennepin when I needed something to read at midnight, the old one was my destination. Plantation Pancakes. Gone. I didn't eat there often...maybe a dozen times over 20 years and I never had their pancakes. I did know someone who was a waitress for a bit...Paula Fagerwold...what a wonderful, gentle, soul. I even forgive her for writing my name and phone-number on the uni-sex bathroom wall. "Likes them long." I think I saw Augies and the Gay 90's. Maybe not. I know there was a gay bar on 5th. The first time I'd ever been in a gay bar was that one with Don Bleu, his wife, Ron Geslin (record promoter) and his wife. (You know don't you that straight people always say they go to gay-bars because the music is better....hmmmm) Don tried to get us in without a cover-charge but the only name on the list was Rob Sherwood. At least we all got in for free....and I lost my gay-bar virginity. Years later, in Modesto, a friend tricked me into my second gay-bar venture. Rather than wait for him in the parking lot (while he ran an errand in the BRAVE BULL) I agreed to go in with him. He assured me no one would even notice me. Less than 30 seconds after walking through the back door, at least three people had said, "Hi Rob", "Hey...Rob Sherwood..wow!"....or "Didn't I see you at a bar in Minneapolis with Don & Ron?" On another visit to the BB...(they had the best!!! dance mix...) we snuck Moon into the place. Moon was part of my Modesto FM104 Morning Crew and the morning show producer. He was also a gentle soul and was so out of place and uncomfortable in that dive. That was then.

I didn't start tonight with a plan to write about gay bars but there you have it. Must be because I watched GLEE earlier on DVR and as everyone knows....watching THAT television show will make you gay.

My Mom died on April 15th. Some years I don't remember that. I'd rather think of the day she was born. Or ANY day other than the day she was gone. Fitting that this horrible date is also the day the 'gubmint' picks our pockets. They are having a tea party locally. I'm going to limp down and check it out. Even though I agree with much of the Tea Party agenda, when a bunch of them get together I think a model railroad just might break out. (That is a very inside joke...) I had lunch early today and wouldn't you know it....someone called and wanted to take me to Old Country Buffet. I love lunch-talk...so I agreed to go but not to eat. That was an interesting experience. Lots of very fat people. There was a very fat guy at a nearby table who was celebrating spring in Duluth by wearing a tank-top. He was so hairy he was wearing an XXXL just to accommodate his bushiness. Buried in the foliage were a lot of tattoos. If he lost weight do you think the tattoos would shrink (like writing on a balloon) and with less square-inches of skin to cover, the fur get even thicker completely blocking out the skin art unless you wanted to groom him like a chimpanzee looking for tidbits? It was disgusting enough that I longed for someone in a wheel-chair with a urine bag to block my bread-pudding line-of-sight. I'm off. The festivities kick off at 4pm and I don't want to miss the beginning where they drag their nuts across each others' faces.

Usually I don't blog about the radio...except when I am being nostalgic or when something gets my ire aroused. I listen to very little music radio. It is just too depressing. When I want radio entertainment, it is usually something of the talk radio variety that gets my attention. Several of my favs I listen to on line so wherever I go, they go with me. But when I'm in Duluth, the local talk station gets my blood pressure up every time. The guy on locally, from 7am to 9am, has been on Twin Ports radio since I was a kid. Not to make a pun, but these days, he is just 'phoning' it in. Its like he has 25 3 X 5 cards and just reads them in order Monday thru Friday. Still, I listen. Following that bit of local arcana is a rank amateur and most days his rank amateur side-kick. He isn't a professional broadcaster and admits it but that isn't an excuse. Some old-timers have been in radio so long they have almost earned the right to 'phone' it in. The other local guy should be ashamed to take his pay-check. Not because he is bad. Not because he is an amateur. My complaint is...he isn't trying. He is just lazy. That's enough of that. Fucking Duluth. Who cares?

I left home yesterday with every intention of getting an IPad. My brother just got back from Las Vegas and I wanted to get together to hear the latest family dirt. If a restaurant features a buffet it ranks high on my brother's to-do list, so we passed on Buffalo Wild Wings in favor of the Sammy's Pizza buffet. (For those Californiasians and Bohunkians who are not familiar with Sammy's Pizza, its a local favorite that is neither the best or worst. It was the first pizza I tasted and I grew up eating it and grew old in California dreaming about it.) In downtown Duluth, I had to wait while a kid on a skateboard zipped by on the brick-paved First Street. For a moment I had a little nostalgia for San Francisco when similar kids on skateboards would careen down Jones Street. The buffet was good and we left on my IPad quest plus a stop for stuff at Sam's Club. On the way, we edged thru a left turn behind some college-looking kids on bikes, and later passed a guy with a back-pack jogging UP-HILL!!! After seeing all this youthful energy, I was thoroughly pissed off. Damn it. If you're going to be so young and healthy keep it to your fucking self! At Sam's Club I ran into the teacher who directed me in a play when I was in 11th grade. (More about that another time) Mr. Obst was his name and he is old. At first he didn't recognize me, but when I mentioned that play all the proper synapses fired and he remembered it all. On the way out of the Sam's Club parking lot my legs hurt, my back hurt, my knees hurt, my shoulder hurt, my brain hurt, the sun was too bright, I was having chest pains, my teeth itched, my tongue was fuzzy, and I felt a little acid-reflux. If I'd had a gun, I'd have found that up-hill jogger and scared the shit out of him! I skipped the IPad shopping, went directly home, and had some ice cream.

I can't guarantee proper paragraphs, the Queen's English, or even the least bit of cogency. When I was going to Brown Institute about 147 years ago, there was a fellow student, a hockey player, from somewhere in northern Minnesota...what we call, the Iron Range. I can't remember his name and I think I am confusing him with another fellow student from somewhere in western Minnesota. THAT guy was a baseball player and eventually did sports on TV...maybe in Duluth, when I was elsewhere. Anyway, like many people from the Range, the hockey player was a Bohunk. Does anyone use words like Bohunk anymore? Bohunk...Dumb Swede....Finnlander....? Is Bohunk as bad as what is now referred to as the n'word? In San Francisco the 'community' has embraced the Q-word...but some are quite offended by the F-word. (THIS F-word is the perjoritive...not like the F-U word. Mostly THAT F-word, I use as an adverb or adjective). I saw a play once..TWIGS...where a character says to her husband..."You are an odd man." In 1962 there was something odd about your basic Minnesota Bohunk. In Prague, the capital city of one of the most Bohunkian countries in the world, the Czech Republic, they are NOT odd. Perhaps there is some sort of Darwinian process that has the effect of taking a perfectly normal Czech-Bo and when they become a Range-Bo..they become ..well...odd. (My Range-Bo friend was a wonderful Catholic, tho, and even made a Novena while I knew him). If the Czech Republic changed its name to "Bohunkia", would they be embracing the slur and trumping the slurers? I intended to compare the street people in Prague, San Francisco, and Duluth but I traveled a different road. Maybe tomorrow. Aren't you glad you didn't have to be hear to deal with all this in person?

I have been lonesome for the past few days. I got used to having people around talking to me. Come to think about it, I got used to having people around to listen to me talk. (If you think I had stories in 1990, Moon, I've had 20 years to gather a whole bunch of new ones.) Most recently, I spent a happy week with family in Belle Plaine. My youngest G-nephew informed me he wants to be an actor when he grows up and the year older g-nephew has decided he wants to be professional gamer. With luck they will both be rich and will send me money for the Snickers machine in the old-folks home. Either way, the new choices are a step up for both of them. Before they were hot to work at Target and Famous Dave's. Speaking of Famous Dave's, my week back in Minnesota began on Monday with a Devil's Spit Burger at Famous Dave's. Usually I order the brisket...but I decided to cast caution to the curb. Wow! Best burger I've had in a long time. In order to be home for Easter, I caught a bus from Minneapolis on Easter Sunday morning. I thought it would be empty...I was wrong. Fifteen or so others were traveling north. When the bus reached North Branch, I was first in line for the Burger King potty. (My aim is all that good anyway, and in a moving bus it is disastrous.) I was tempted to do a double cheese, but by this time it was 1:15 and we were eating 10 minutes after I arrived at 2:25....I figured I could starve a little for an hour and ten minutes. Especially with the cinnamon roll and milk snack I bought to tide me over. My brother Tim made a great meal. By six I was really home, loaded with left-overs and by noon on Monday, was already bored. Or lonesome. Or bored AND lonesome. "Would you like some wine?" "Why yes I would." And so I'm back...from outer space. I just walked in to find me here with that sad look upon my face......