Duluth is basically on top of a giant hill, some sort of natural monolith perched on the edge of Lake Superior, designed by God to fuck with the all means of transportation. If ever there was an argument against humankind and automobiles, Duluth is it. We woke up in Mike’s futon theater a bit too late, not like it really mattered, and headed toward the waterfront, just around the corner from Bohemia Arts.
Parking our pig is an absolute nightmare, and it never fails that, no matter where I’m sitting in the van, my foot is stomping on a non-existent brake, and this neurosis, in particular, is terribly exhausting on so many levels. I can understand now why Andy insists on driving; the neurotic are not good passengers.
We parked across from an old video game store (they sold old video games, more specifically) and walked down to Jitters Coffee, got our fix, took our shits, and moved down to Electric Fetus. Too much vinyl, not enough cash, though I managed to find a Modest Mouse 7” I thought was out of print. Charlie and Andy needed a bathroom break by that point, and we used the same one we’d been using since we arrived in Duluth, smiling politely at the security guard’s dirty looks.
Ashland, WI is about an hour away from Duluth, like winning the goddamn lottery after those four and five hour nightmare mind-melds. Ashland has a monolith of its own, an ore dock jutting out a few hundred feet towards the middle of Lake Superior. Apparently trains would carry iron ore out on the top of this pier-looking-monster trucker and drop its payload down these chutes onto boats waiting in the water, making for easy shipment across the Greatest of Lakes, an industrial process which never, ever would have crossed my mind, and, upon further thinking, is really quite silly. Maybe that’s why it’s dilapidated and barricaded off. Charlie stripped to his skivvies and dove into the lake, which we later found out contains some sort of cancerous tar, so… best of luck, Charlie! and made our way towards the Black Cat coffee shop, where we would be playing acoustic sets with no covers (as promised to the management).
The owner, Honor, fed and caffeinated us for free, and, again, there was something I could actually eat, a vegan pesto/spinach/tomato pita which was probably the most flavorful delicious thing God had the good foresight to put on this earth, and really incredible coffee, a delicacy sorely missing from Minot. D.O. played first, and it’s really kind of incredible how well those songs lent themselves to an acoustic performance. Ooblecks, welll… it was practice, and, as the atmosphere of the shop and attitude of the eight people watching made it feel like practicing in somebody’s bedroom, was quite a good time.
Thus far, Ashland has the friendliest people I’ve met in a long time, minus the guy on the bike who told us we looked pretty, which we took as a compliment because, really, how else can you take “you look pretty” from a guy rolling by on a ten speed? Mary and company bought some CDs and posters, and demanded that we sign them, just in case we “make it.” Pimm and Sarah, the latter which worked in the Black Cat, offered us a place to stay, so we packed up and swept the shop, met them at a skatepark/baseball diamond/castle playground, and went to Pimm’s place of residence, a moist basement in her friend’s house.
Pimm and Sarah invited us to come to the bars with them, assuring that we wouldn’t be carded. Andy, Charlie, and I went along while Max and Jimmy did lame stuff and were lame together. We ended up at a bar that was also a brew house, and while everyone else sampled what they had to offer (which I’m told was quite good, it tasted like beer to me) Charlie and I worked on a pitcher of root beer, which was also brewed in house.
Pimm asked if we wanted to play dice, and we did, but really we had no idea what we were getting into. A basic explanation of the game: there are six die, and roll them all at the same time. The goal is to roll either a one, a five, or three of a kind. Ones are worth 100 points, fives are 50, and three of a kind is worth face value times 100 (for instance, rolling three sevens will get you 700 points). If you roll none of these things, you bust, and the die move to the next person. You hold the die you want to keep, much like Yahtzee, so there are fewer die each time you roll, and if you get through all six die without busting, you start over with six die and carry your score over. You can only record your score on the board once you pass 1000, and you can continue rolling until choosing to stay, or until you bust, whichever comes first, and play ends when somebody gets 10,000 points. You’ll get the hang of it. Also, I am the Homer of dice: my rolls are that epic. (I had the least amount of points, as such)
The game ended up taking around 2 1/2 to 3 hours, and Sarah and Pimm told us all about Ashland and the strange things that used to take place. Much like Minot, it was a haven for flappers and bootleggers in the ’20s and ’30s, and it too has tunnels running underground. On the way back home, we passed this church for sale that Pimm and Sarah were looking into buying for an artist collective/performance space, and it looked like a goddamn Dr. Seuss creation, all crazy colored and stained glass. They dropped us back off at home (temporary), and we set up our camping gear on the damp, dark basement floor, discussed quantum physics, time as a grid (not a line), and fell asleep as yet another cat crept around, surely knowing something we didn’t, as cats are wont to do.
