“Meet us at the building with the yellow roof.” Said that one many times over the years, but i’ve never actually eaten here, or at any one of the other real old school dining halls around the fair. There’s probably 6 of these places serving cafeteria style “home cooked” meals like turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy. Each year i swear it’s the year i’ll finally eat at one, but never do. It’s hard with all the food on a stick stuff getting in the way and also the temperture... who wants a thanksgiving dinner in the summer humid heat? Not me. Maybe when it gets cold and starts snowing out...that’s when that place should be open, i’d go once a week.

Found that food item at Vescio’s booth probably 5 or 6 years ago and it’s been on the must-have list ever since. Who knew something that sounds so disgusting and just plain weird could taste so good?

One night we stayed at the fair pretty late and i saw this dude sweeping up outside the Sno Kone stand. I imagine there’s people doing this lonely job pretty much all night during the fair.

I prefer the old school crappy hand painted wooden booths myself, but these new jobs sure do light up the night, don’t they?

The fair is full of all kinds of contests; art contests, the best blueberry pie contest, the biggest pig contest, the best seed art contest, and this; the best honey contest. Who knew there were so many people out there interested in winning a blue ribbon for the best honey?

This is a must-do ride for sure. Grab a potato sack, climb the stairs and slide on down til you hit the carpet down below and get rug burns on your ass. What’s not fun about that?

This is a place we spend a lot of our time, just sitting and drinking beer and watching people walk by. (No, the beer is not on a stick.)

I don’t drink as much milk as i did when i was a kid (i traded up to beer at the fair), but when i was a kid me and my buddies used to hit the cookie stand and get a cone of chocolate chip cookies and bee-line it for the all you can drink milk stand and stuff our faces with milk and cookies. That milk always tasted a million times better than the stuff we drank at home. Now thanks to the wonders of modern technology they are able to offer both plain milk and chocolate milk. How cool is that? I wish i was 12 again because i really would have flipped out when i discovered that one.

The paddle boat thing on Lake Como worked so well we decided to try it on lake Calhoun. We actually went to rent a canoe but went with the paddle boat when we saw they had those. Canoes actually kind of scare me. They require actual skill to use and the damn things can tip over really easy and i’m a shitty swimmer so i was all about going with the big dumb paddle boat. The novelty of the things pretty much wore off though when we took the thing too far one way and had to paddle back...that sucked. Now they need to rent those paddle boats with trolling motors, that would be cool.

Billy Hollowman is no longer doing his tuesday night Hammond B3 organ gig at the Artist Quarter but they replaced him with “The Tuesday Night Band” which looks to be a regular gig for who knows how long. They also lay claim to having a Hammond B3 in the band so i decided to check them out and see what they were all about. I thought the B3 would be the draw but i was wrong...the real stand out feature of the band was this dude (i forgot his name) on guitar. He was amazing. Not showy. Not loud and all over the place looking to impress anyone with his skills. He just sat back and set the tone and more often than not mellowed things out with a real quiet groove. Great stuff. He got a little nerdy because he was so into it, but he loves what he’s doing and he’s good at it so it’s hard to hold that against the dude. He’s just another reason i kick myself for not going to the Artist Quarter at least once a week.

Charles was one of the old dudes we used in the spot and someone i will never forget meeting. What an amazing dude. At the shoot he was a total gentleman and kind to everyone. He had a sense of humor, and carried himself like he’d seen some shit and knew a thing or two and he could tell you some stories...and man, did he ever. When i found out Charles played in a band i went in for the scoop. “Beasley’s Big Band, we’re a full 20 piece big band and we play once a month at the Wabasha Street Caves and once a month at O’Gara’s in St. Paul.” I knew I had to see that. So we ended up going to the show at the caves with some people from work and the clients and when Charles saw us walk in the room his eyes lit up. He was so happy and appreciative that we actually came to his show; he even gave us an introduction telling the crowd all about who we were and the shoot and dedicated the next song to us. What a guy. On his band break he came over and sat down with us and talked and told us some of those stories i knew he could tell: how he went to collage and got an education but couldn’t find work up here in the north because while they tolorated african americans up here, they didn’t hire them to teach their kids. So he ended up down in the south teaching (“They really needed me down there.”). White people down south didn’t appreciate that too much and the KKK burned his house down...so he moved back up north and took a job as a janitor. Amazing. I knew he could tell us some stories and teach us some stuff. After the show and long after the bar closed he sat outside the bar with us and smoked cigarettes and told more stories and we sat around like little kids with out jaws on the ground being schooled by this guy in amazement at what he’s seen and lived through. On our way home a car passed me in the left lane. It was Charles driving himself in his Delta 88 doing about 88. Amazing.

The Bryant Lake Bowl rules. It’s an old school bowling alley that went out of business and was bought by some hipsters that kept the old look and feel but started serving drinks and great food and opened a theatre stage next store. Very cool. It’s the kind of place i’d see in another city and wish we had one here. We had dinner and drinks before meeting Marc Norberg for a play he took us to see.

Sonny’s Ice Cream Shop has all kinds of cool metal furniture and by some artist. It sort of feel like you’re in europe somewhere eating outside at Sonny’s

A dude walkin’ his way to another corn dog.