It took about 20 minutes after leaving Ely's Peak before I noticed the first tick. Luckily, it wasn't on me, but on Christa, and even more luckily, it wasn't on her skin, but on her sweatshirt. We had just pulled into the driveway and were getting out of my car when I saw the little demon. I picked it off and dispatched it, but it was then that I knew (flashing back to all the bushwhacking we'd done while leaving one trail and searching for another) that the tickiness had only just begun.

Like good, clean citizens who would rather not contract Lyme disease or walk around with something resembling a white jelly bean attached to their foreheads, we inspected ourselves as soon as we got in the door. Nope. Nothing. Not a tick on board. Still, I was skeptical.

Crawling through the ticky woods of Northern Minnesota in springtime is not always a delight. I remember one time several years ago, when a friend of mine found something like 23 ticks after we returned from an afternoon hike. I got luck again that time -- I only had six. That was probably the most I've ever had, even though I've done quite a bit of hiking, backpacking and camping in my time. The only thing I can possibly attribute it to is that I eat a lot of garlic.

Anyway, you want the horror story and that's what I'm here to write so here it is. After inspecting for ticks, I took a shower and we went out to dinner. Then we came home and watched a movie and went to bed. About two hours later I woke up, scratched my belly, and bam -- there was a tick.

I don't know if you've ever removed a tick .64 seconds after you woke up from a dead sleep, but let me tell you, it usually doesn't involve tweezers and a careful inspection of where the head meets the abdomen, like all the pamphlets tell you. I grabbed that little fucker and yanked it like I was free-falling 50,000 feet in the air and pulling the ripcord. I leaped up, stumbled into the kitchen and burned his eight-legged ass. Then I crawled back into bed and slept the sleep of the just.

But in the days since all of this happened, here's what I've come to find out. When you grab a tick and yank it out of your body, inevitably some of his body, namely his head, stays where he buried it. Also, when you grab a tick by the abdomen really hard, he, like any rational being, spits the contents of his abdomen into whatever it is he's chewing on. All of this leads to a big, itchy, red skin-volcano that oozes goo until the goddamn bug head is expelled down onto the villagers below. And when you wake up in the middle of the night and find that, you have to leap out of bed once again and look up Lyme disease on WebMD until you're satisfied by their claims that you won't get it if you remove the damn thing within 36 hours. Plus you knew it was a woodtick anyway, not a deer tick, but that doesn't matter when you're looking at Mt. Vesuvius on your own abdomen at 4:39am.

I should have just delicately removed it, flicked it onto the old lady, and went back to sleep. That would have saved me a lot of trouble and worry.

As I mentioned, I'll be celebrating and photographing throughout the week, so here's an embedded slideshow of the festivities, hopefully updated on a nightly basis.

Rock.

I've taken this week off from work (as I do every year) to attend the Homegrown Music Festival here in Duluth. Someday, when the rest of the local population realizes its greatness, the whole city will just shut down for the week and everyone will have the day off aside from essential services (police, firefighters, bartenders, and cab drivers).

Anyhow, I'll be photographing a lot of activity during the week, which will all be documented here.

Other people will undoubtedly be photographing things as well, and that will hopefully be documented here.

You might also want to check Perfect Duluth Day for textual updates.

There are plenty of nights when I want to move away from this town. There are other nights when I want live here forever. Tonight, I want to live here forever.

Here's another great idea of mine which will never come to fruition.

Every day I read the Duluth News Tribune's online version of the local newspaper. I also enjoy the blog News Tribune Attic, which features DNT photos and stories from years past.

My idea for a new DNT blog would be called "News Tribune Lineup." Each post would feature a crime story from a different month and year (e.g. July, 2004; February, 1988) along with five or six mug shots from that time. After reading the story, the reader would get to "Pick the Perp" and choose which mug shot belongs to the story.

See? It's fun, it's interactive, and it gets people interested in their community's history. I don't see why it wouldn't fly.

The best part would be the mug shots of civic leaders, local heroes, and DNT staff mixed in with the photos of criminals. Sorry, that isn't a photo of an arsonist from Two Harbors...that's former Duluth mayor Ben Boo. That isn't the Superior, WIs. man who put his mother down the garbage disposal...that's cub reporter Will Ashenmacher.

I don't know what happens there.

The rest of the world is wearing it again.
Duluth is wearing it still.

Ponytailed guy: "I'm gonna go over to that jukebox and play something nasty. Something dirty and sexy. Something that'll make you want to go home and get played."

Disinterested girl: "What do mean, like, the Scorpions?"

Someone needs to tell the Waste Management company that, while I enjoy using their garbage cans and recycling bins for ghetto-sledding and occasionally brewing up a wopatusi, I am not one of their customers. So they should probably stop dropping off new disposal bins here.

Oh, wait. Somebody DID tell Waste Management that. Yet, the continue to line the curb with brand-new refuse containers. First, there was a new garbage can in the alley, and when, after about four weeks, they were convinced that it didn't belong here, they picked it up. The next day there was a new recycling can in front of the house. That lasted for maybe a week before it was removed, and now there's a new one again.

I'm tempted to just start using them and see what happens. But I think the whole thing is just some kind of scam. Like the moment a single banana peel lands in one of those cans, bills will start suddenly appearing as well.

The worst part is that the legitimate garbage company is getting confused about whether or not they still should pick up the trash. They call to complain about the other company's cans on the property, and I just noticed that last week they actually didn't pick up the trash at all.

Oh, well. At least it's pissing off the neighbors, who can't stand it when the recycling bin remains on the curb for a few hours after pickup, let alone for weeks. Sorry, folks, but it ain't mine.

And all those beer bottles inside must belong to some frat boy.

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When you're sitting in the dark watching a horror movie and suddenly a pair of great horned owls start their mating ritual right outside your window ... that will scare the snot out of you.

Also: owls are really loud and absolutely huge. I guess I didn't really know that.

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This afternoon, I said two things that later made me laugh. Not the smiling, roaring laugh I usually do, but more of a sneer accompanied by a choppy exhale.

The first was: "I feel like winter is over."

The second was: "I've ridden the bus a few times lately. I wish I could ride it to work every day."

An hour later it started raining. In January. In Minnesota. Shortly after that, the entire world seemed like a frozen-over hell. I tried walking out to my car where I'd forgotten my phone, and almost fell four times in the process. Letter carriers were coming in rubbing their temples and muttering profanities. I started wondering if the bad weather would let up before it was time for me to go home.

Nope. Not at all.

The thing is, the block I live on is very hard to access when the weather is the least bit inclement. Sure, you can get near it, but there's nowhere to park down there. Whenever there's a blizzard, I usually end up stowing my car in a ramp about a mile away and walking home. In the ice, however? I seriously did not want to walk up the hill when it was covered with a quarter-inch sheet of ice. For that matter, I didn't want to drive on the ice, either. And I seriously didn't want to have a knuckle-whitening ride that ended with me ditching my car somewhere a mile away and scrambling the rest of the way home, only to reverse the process in worse conditions tomorrow.

So I called a cab.

I asked them if they could pick me up at the post office, and the dispatcher said, "Well...they could try..." I asked if the gas station a block away would be better, and she said it definitely would.

"OK," I said. "I'll walk to the gas station and meet the cab there."

"You have to be very, very, careful," the dispatcher said. "Seriously. OK? The sidewalks are terribly dangerous. Be careful." I told her that I'd be careful. I was. And I had to be.

When the driver picked me up, he said that a lot of other drivers had gone home and that some of the other cab companies had pulled all of their cabs off the road. "I don't stop driving until they make me," he said. He got me within a block and a half of my house, and I tipped him well. "Why don't you live closer to where you work?" he asked. I shrugged.

Now tomorrow I have to take the bus to work, which I wouldn't mind at all under ideal conditions. Like maybe if it would get me there anywhere near my start time.

Oh, well. I'm lucky to be alive.

A common scene on 12-1/2 Avenue East. I think that if I actually lived on this street, I'd be constantly livid.

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It's something anybody can do, but also something I've done more than anyone I know -- locking my keys in my car. My fragile and delicate mind can't handle more than two things at a time. In this case, I had to disconnect my iPod from the radio, grab my bag off the passenger seat, and take the keys out of the ignition. I got two of them right. The last, I forgot. Two out of three ain't bad, but in this case it was freaking horrible.

Especially when the temperature outside is about negative one-hundred. First I tried doing the obvious thing: using the eff word. It didn't work, even when I used it out loud. I tried in vain to get back into the car somehow. Then I tried getting into the house without a key. No luck. I called the landlord, but he apparantly conks out sometime during Eyewitness News at 10, so there was no answer.

This left one option: to walk to Burrito Union and wait for my girlfriend, who wasn't due home for another two hours.

There's something odd about going to a bar when you don't want to. I mean, I'll drink good beer whenever, and Burrito Union serves Fitger's beer which is among the best. But generally, I prefer to drink at home while playing records or watching VH1 Classic. I don't always want to hang out by myself at the corner pub listening to Tim Nelson jerk off all over his guitar while some Granola freestyles about MySpace. Not that the hippie-hop isn't good -- it is. But I planned on wearing flannel pants by now and holding a warm internet on my lap.

Instead I'm paging through the Reader Weekly wondering how they can exist by selling ads only to themselves, while alternately jotting down this post on a stray piece of junk mail.

I can't help but think about what might have happened if I hadn't had anyone to let me in. What do stupid people without girlfriends do when they lock themselves out in sub-zero temperatures? Get a hotel room? Die?

I'm glad I don't know.

Knock wood.

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I'm not going to pretend that I was in a good mood today. After cramming two hard-boiled eggs down my gullet, and screaming at least 15 eff-words in regards to the second winter storm warning this week, I plunged out into the world in full hatred of Duluth, the people of Duluth, and the entire season of winter, not to mention you, your mother, your sister, and your filthy, dirty genitals.

After driving 15-20mph on the freeway among people who find it prudent to keep their headlights off and to constantly ride the brake while driving in zero visibility on a slippery surface, I arrived at work for the second day of what I like to call NaMaProMo, or National Mail Processing Month. It's a month that I'm participating in! There are a few simple rules to NaMaProMo, which are kind of like the rules of chess: easy to learn but hard to master.

» I will process -- by hand -- every single oversized Priority Mail™ parcel in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin during this Christmas season.

» Every day, I will work as long as it takes to do my job. I will not leave until it is finished.

» From now until Christmas, I will have only two days off. They will not adjoin.

» Nearly every clause in the contract my union negotiated for me will be suspended during this month. I will have veritably no rights.

FUN! Anyway, I made it to work unscathed (for the first time this week) where I proceeded to work my ass off and consume not only lunch, but also dinner, out of the vending machine, all the while I had no idea whether or not I was going to be able to make it home after work, because of the second raging snowstorm within three days. After weighing all of my options (one of which included walking the 4.5 miles home in the middle of the street in dark clothing), I actually started to think about the inevitable, which was renting a room at the Motel 6 across the street from the sewer plant so that I could easily get right back to work the next day.

Luckily, the storm let up and after shoveling out my Ford Escort, which was completey buried except for a small swath of fluorescent green, I was able to drive to my favorite free parking ramp, located only a mile from my home. And even luckier than that, the ramp is attached to one of my favorite bars. My old lady, who had the relative luxury of walking 2-1/2 miles to work, met me there.

I like bars pretty much on any given day of the year, but there is something about a snow day that makes a bar spectacular. It's the precise opposite of the cold and hateful world outside. Here, it's warm, friendly, and relatively safe. It reminds you that life is, for the most part, fun. Here you steel yourself for the mile-long walk home through the wind and snow. Here, no one makes you behave in any way you don't want to.

Tomorrow I'll walk back to my car, which will be safe and snowless under the ground, and it will actually be kind of fun -- way more fun than digging it out of a concrete-like snowbank. Tonight I've discovered that the secret to NaMaProMo -- one of them anyway -- is to find the positive.

Just like the rest of life.

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I've owned these boots longer than I've owned anything else in my life.

I got them for Christmas when I was 13 -- well over half my life ago. I remember putting on my wool socks, getting ready to go ice fishing with my brother, when my mom said, "Wait," and retrieved a box from her bedroom. Christmas wasn't for another week yet, but she said I could really use this present right away. And when I opened the box, I was actually really excited. When it's -10 degrees and you're sitting on a bucket on the middle of a lake, there's nothing worse than wearing Asics Tigers.

To put things in perspective, I also got a kitten that year. The kitten grew into a cat, which lived to a ripe old age and then died. But I still have, and still use, the boots.

Back then they were way too big for me of course, purchased large to accomodate my growth and so that I could wear one or two pairs of thick socks underneath them. They're still too big. I think I stopped growing when I was 14, when I reached a hair's width shy of six feet tall. I've had plenty of opportunities to get a new pair, one that fits me better, but I never have and I doubt that I ever will, unless I have to.

Cold and snow aren't so bad if you're prepared for them. If you're unprepared for them (e.g. you drive a beat-up Ford Escort and live at the top of a hill on a street the city doesn't like to plow), well, then life can get complicated. Whenever I pull on these boots, I feel like I'm at least a little bit prepared for winter. My car may end up in someone's yard, and maybe my hands will get cold and my face will get covered in snotsicles. But my feet will be more than fine, and that's a good thing to know.

*For non-Duluthians: Sam Cook is a local outdoors writer. His writing however, unlike mine, always has a point.

Every month or so, the same conversation pops up somewhere or another in this city. Duluth is many things, of course, and one of the things that Duluth is, is a college town. And of all Duluth's faces, "college town" is perhaps its ugliest.

Since I don't have a day job and I don't have kids, I don't mind the college kids at all. To me, they're a constant source of entertainment. There's nothing funnier than people who drink every day and don't know how to handle their liquor. I step out on the porch nightly, laugh my ass off, and only call 911 if I actually see violence, which I do about once a month. I see people fall down three times a week. I see grown women drop their pants and urinate in the street about every ten days.

Whenever there's a discussion about college students in Duluth, some 19-year-old pipes up and exclaims that none of us adults remember what it's like, that it's hard being a student, that there really isn't a problem. To them I say this: If you think it's hard to be a college student, wait until you enter the real world. Just wait. Because compared to college, life is retardedly difficult. If we don't remember how hard things were in college, it's because that memory has been eclipsed by the enormous horror of everything that happened afterwards. That's not to say that life is bad ... far from it. But college? C'mon. That was easy. Some day when you actually start living on your own, you'll toughen up and learn how to use a toilet.

If I were to videotape the things that happen outside my apartment (yes, apartment, because I, too, rent) on any weekend night, and post it on the internet, it would be an embarrassment to this entire community. Like I said, I don't care about it because I don't have a day job or kids. I either watch it and laugh or ignore it and keep watching Bionic Woman.

Our community is constantly up in arms about this topic. Laws are being made. Obviously there is a problem. I think if I were one of the many responsible students who are offended by the new laws, I would not blame the lawmakers, or the general public, or even the schools. I think I'd blame my fellow students. They are the problem, after all.

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I'm sorry that I'm posting so many Duluth-centric posts. But ... well ... that's where I'm at these days.

OK, so, in case you haven't noticed, Starfire Lounge has moved to Burrito Union, which is like two blocks from my house. You have no idea how much I would like this to succeed.

Things I Love About Burrito Union
- It is two blocks from my house.
- It is beautiful.
- It has burritos.
- It has beer, and other kinds of alcohol beverages.
- It has burritos.
- It is two blocks from my house.

Did I mention that is two blocks from my house? Oh. OK. Did I mention the burritos? And the vinyl records that Starfire plays? Or the records that I am sometimes, on certain occasions, allowed under certain circumstances to play as well? I did? OK, then.

Burrito Union is the only bar in the East Hillside, which, according to my own quick survey of "whiskey plates" in the neighborhood, is the drunkest neighborhood in town. So be safe and walk on down. It'll be fun.

Every couple of months, I like to go to Thai Krathong and get myself a plate of Drunken Noodles. Typically I'm not a person who likes to suffer for any reason. Give me an easy way out and I will gladly take it. But every couple of months, Drunken Noodles call, and, despite everything I know about them and what they're capable of, I answer.

If you've never had Drunken Noodles, let me explain. Drunken Noodles gets its name from that fact that after you eat one or two bites of it, you will immediately drink every type of liquid on the table while waiving your hands in the air, summoning the waiter for more. Water, soda, beer, vodka ... hell, if your table has one of those liquid paraffin candles, you'll drink that as well. Because Drunken Noodles is the spiciest thing you've ever tasted. And it's so fricken good that you can't stop eating it.

Normally, I'm skeptical of most ultra-spicy food. Don't get me wrong. I like spice. I love spice. But usually, there's a point at which the spice completely takes over, and all you can taste is the fire. This isn't the case with Drunken Noodles. Not only do you taste the fire, but there's a whole spectrum of flavors underneath the fire. The combination is incredible.

Last week as I was eating Drunken Noodles, a bit of it got on my chin, and I guess because I'd shaved an hour or so before, it burned my effing skin. Meanwhile, my lips were numb. The inside of my mouth was in pain. My stomach was already beginning to make noises that sounded like someone pulling rusty nails out of a board. While I ate, I kept wondering out loud why I was doing this to myself. But I knew why. It was pure bliss.

I think the waiter filled my water glass about 15 times, and I tried to stretch out my Thai iced coffee throughout the whole meal, but that was futile. I left happy, though feeling as if I'd been gargling with lit kerosene while someone slapped my lips with a wet leather belt.

Of course, the next day, you get to experience the mirror image of the whole experience, only with none of the pleasure whatsoever. That's OK. The pain is the kind of pain you forget. Like childbirth.

I'll be back in a few months.

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Here I present some shots from Mr. Nice's political rally at Washington Studios in Duluth. Mr. Nice, for non-Duluthians and local people hanging out under a rock, is the only candidate running for mayor of Duluth who is *literally* a puppet.

His campaign platform is based on New Freshness, which seems to be a euphemism for sheer chaos.

Continue reading "Scenes from a Rally" »

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So tonight I'm in my kitchen when I hear what sounds like someone knocking on my door. It's a low knock, like when someone is knocking hard with the soft part of their fist. It's a deep sound, barely audible, but strong enough to feel in the floor. But when I get to the living room, I realize that it's not someone knocking at the door, but the stereo in the car belonging to the same old douchebags across the street.

This, as always, should be good. I step out onto the deck to take it all in.

When the music shuts off, two guys and a girl get out of the car, almost too drunk to stand. The driver turns on his car alarm, then, realizing it makes a beep, begins to dance in the street while beeping it over and over.

"Heeeeeey!" the girl yells. "Do we need to pick up any beeeeeer?" Oh, she's a dainty thing.

"Nah!" the driver says. "I got two 18-packs of Milwaukee's BEAST!"

The trio then stumbles into the yard, where the girl immediately drops trow and starts urinating in the grass. I can hear the stream loud and clear. The driver sees her and sighs, exasperated. "Are you pissing AGAIN?" Disgusted, he walks inside the house, while the other guy watches the girl for a second, shrugs, and then pulls out his member and starts his own stream.

I go back in the house grinning, but a little disappointed. If it's only 11:30pm and they're already using the street as a toilet, they're far too wasted for anything really exciting to happen.

This is just another Sunday night rerun.

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Yesterday, I just happened to throw my camera onto the passenger seat as I headed up to Target to buy Ajax and toothbrushes -- you never know when you're going to come across a great shot. After I made my purchases, I walked back outside to find the far end of the parking lot completely submerged.

So anyway, if you live in Duluth, check out the front page of the local paper. Yeah, that's my work.

When I left, I had a huge urge to get a police scanner and start chasing calls in search of more crazy shots. Fires, accidents, acts of God ... I absolutely hate that they happen, but Jesus do I love photographing them.

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Throughout my whole life, and probably most of hers as well, my mom used to say that Duluth is 10 years behind the rest of the country. Any fad or trend or way of thinking that became popular in the rest of the nation would eventually make it to Duluth, only 10 years too late. When I was a kid, this used to make me mad, with good reason. Duluth was all I knew, and if my whole world was hickishly behind the times, that meant that I was probably equally as backward. I chose not to believe my mom's philosophy. More and more, however, I realize that she was absolutely correct.

In some ways, 10 years is a generous estimate. For example, we got our first sushi restaurant in 2003. I think I first heard about sushi from TV and movies in the early 1980s. My sources tell me it was pretty trendy back then. Before 2003, Zak Sally, former bass player of Low, said in an interview that Duluth is the kind of place that, if it ever did get a sushi restaurant, the TV news would do a story about what sushi is. I'm pretty sure he predicted that one perfectly.

The TV news did do a story on Indian food when India Palace first opened. I remember it vividly, because one of the driving themes of the story was that Indian food contains ingredients you would recognize -- chicken, rice, etc. So don't be afraid, citizens of Duluth! We know this isn't Perkin's Cake & Steak, but our sources indicate that it is, in fact, actual food!

I think that the new Arby's that opened up in Kenwood last week has already had far more business than all of the sushi and Indian restaurants in this city combined.

And there, I think, is the very reason that we are so behind. People in this part of the world are very reluctant to try anything new. We're afraid of everything until it is so deeply engrained in the mainstream that a person could fall asleep from boredom by merely mentioning its name. When entering into any experience, we want to be able to predict everything that is going to happen. We want our conversations to be repetitious (the weather is a great topic), our films to be formulaic, and our food to be the stuff we grew up eating.

I've really been intrigued lately by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's new website, vita.mn. On its surface, it's an entertainment/calendar website, but actually, it's so much more. There's tons of actual, interesting, and most importantly original content. The interactivity is amazing, allowing users to generate (actually useful) content, and to browse each other's suggestions, etc. In short, the site is a pleasure to use.

Every time I go to it, however, I can't help but think that no paper around here would ever invest so much into this new fad called the "Inter-net," at least not to the extent and with the forethought that the Star-Tribune obviously has. And if it did, Duluthians would protest and cancel their subscriptions, because there's a sex columnist on the site.

And the ironic thing about that is that sex columnists stopped being cool in about 1999.

I don't think this is ever going to change. We're doomed to call each other up on our landlines and make plans to meet someplace safe like Applebee's or the Olive Garden, whichever has the shortest line. When we're finished, we'll pay by writing a check.

Sigh.

But it's pretty here. And there's nothing to be afraid of.

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Continue reading "East Hillside Model" »

In the far western part of Duluth, after 3rd Street becomes Grand and Grand becomes Commonwealth, but just before Commonwealth become Highway 23, there's the St. Louis River public access known as Boy Scout Landing. It's a really beautiful place, as you can see.

Just next to Boy Scout Landing, however,is the River Point Campground, which is full of RVs, Airstream trailers, and flat-out shacks. The sign says "campground" but obviously the people who are staying there plan to stay there longer than just the weekend. Weekenders park their RVs at the campground. These people have taken the trouble to build decks and patios.

Although it's hard to tell from this photo, the campground is like a little neighborhood, fenced off and hidden from the rest of town by a natural drop in elevation. I've lived here my whole life and I never even knew it was there.

A couple days ago as I was standing out on the dock snapping photos of the river, I kept looking back at the campground and wondering about the people who live there.

All I could think was, "Man. I bet the nightlife here really cooks."

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Taken from my warm, dry living room.

Whenever I walk by this place, I really, really, really want to grab a baseball bat and just clean house. Am I weird?

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Up though last Friday night, if you were to come to my hometown of Duluth, Minnesota and tell me that you really, really wanted to get your throat cut, I would have suggested that you go to the Red Lion Lounge on Superior Street, where you could easily find someone to do it for you, most likely without even asking.

Sadly, the Red Lion closed last Friday. All the musicians, drug dealers, guttersnipes, and hipsters who called it home came out to make sure it all ended with a bang, not a whimper.

I took photos.

Click individually below, or view as a slideshow.

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While in the summertime most of the neighborhood is made up of respectable young couples, families, elderly people, and petty criminals, all of this changes every fall as all of the rental units fill up with raving 18-year-old lunatics exploring life away from authority for the first time in their lives. The first weekend is something to behold. Unlike most of the permanent residents of my neighborhood, I always look forward to the first weekend of college classes. This is probably because I work nights, and also because I have a natural love of watching drunken chaos.

Often I forget what time of the year it is. Oh, I know that it's late summertime, and I'm even aware that it's August. But whenever I see a back-to-school ad or a group of kids walking down the street, I have to stop and think: Is this the time of year that school starts? Or is school ending? Wait. I forget...

But there's no mistaking the onset of college weekend. It starts off the same way every year, when the streets are lined with huge 2007 Chevy S-10s, and guys in button-down shirts and Dockers are pacing up and down the sidewalks, cell phones clipped on their belts and sunglasses perched on their heads, barking orders as other, dirtier men clear brush, trim hedges, and haul away beer-soaked furniture.

Yes, before the students arrive, they are preceded by the slumlords. Up from some Twin Cities suburban nightmare or their annual property inspection. This is the first warning.

Then there is an almost imperceptible pause, a sort of calm before the storm. You might see some parents hauling in a desk or two. You might see some unfamiliar kids dragging giant Target bags from the trunk of a car. But really, nothing seems out of the order. Yet.

Suddenly, one Friday night, if you work until 11pm or midnight as I do, you'll come home from work and walk straight into one of the funniest zombie movies you'll ever see. Forget about parking on the street, because that just isn't going to happen. Prepare to park three blocks away, but when you do, don't get annoyed. This just gives you the opportunity to walk through the madness on your way home.

See this? Here's a girl wearing a skin-tight Superman T-shirt, passed out against a stop sign. A few yards away, two boys argue about whether or not the other one has ever heard of K-rations. All over the place, people are using cars, trees, buildings, and each other to hold themselves up. And everywhere, hundreds of times this night, people will scream "I'm soooooo drunk!!!" in both amazement and despair.

This is the sound of freedom.

And because these people are young, and therefore resilient, the hilarity won't stop after that one night. It will go on and on. For about two months.

That's about how long it takes for half of them to drop out and move back home. In which case, we get to park in front of our own houses again.

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Like most Midwestern towns full of geriatrics, the major field of employment in Duluth is medicine. And as such, you constantly see doctors and nurses on the streets, in the stores, and everywhere else around here. The following is a list of gross things I've seen people doing in their scrubs.

- Drinking and smoking in dive bars. Seriously, nothing instills confidence in the medical industry more than the sight of a plastered nurse stumbling out of the women's toilets at the Round-Up and blazing up a cancer stick, in full scrubs complete with a stethoscope around her neck.

- Wrestling in the yard with a dog. But then again, their mouths are cleaner than yours. And dog-yards are practically sterile.

- Jogging to work. My neighbor is big on this one. He puts on his scrubs and his running shoes and sprints down the street to St. Mary's, which is a little more than half a mile away. You'll see him chugging away down Fourth Street, panting like a labrador, and completely bathed in clean, clean sweat, the hems of his scrubs rimmed in Fourth Street crust.

All of that said, I think if I were a nurse, I'd go for those pastel scrubs with unicorns and rainbows all over them. Oh, and some neon yellow Crocs to go along with it. [WTF is WITH that?]

Somehow, I had lived over three decades in this city and never seen this breakwater at the end of Minnesota Point. I mean, I've probably been within 20 yards of it on several occasions. But I never noticed it, or if I did, I completely forgot about it.

If you think it might be fun to run out to the end of this and make the birds scatter like crazy, well, it is fun. But also, there's like a thousand birds out there at any given time. At certain points, it's like running through mayonaisse.

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Whenever a former or current president dies, the federal government shuts down. Completely. Congress quickly votes, and then unanimously takes the day off, and then, as long as they're at it, gives the rest of the federal workers the day off too.

The problem is that everyone else in the world continues as usual. While your local senator may feel fine taking eight hours off to stare out the window and sniff his index finger, the rest of us have work to do. Including mail processing clerks, federal employees may they be. Even though mail is not collected, people still mail things, and so we must process it. While we don't necessarily get Rememberance Day off, we do get *a* day off to mourn the president.

At our discretion.

Today, I chose to take the day off to mourn the passing of our 38th president, Gerald Ford. As you might expect, my day was fricken awesome.

The day started normally enough. Coffee and web-surfing. Zoning out in front of screens. A quick shower, delivering an much-overdue rent payment, and then wandering off to find breakfast at around 2pm. Yes, the life of leisure. I love this city.

(Have I mentioned that the Lake Superior Coffee House serves breakfast ALL DAY LONG, for like, four bucks? And you can totally watch Louis Jenkins talk with some ponytailed dude while you eat it? Anyway...)

After breakfast, life is all about reading and otherwise screwing around in the park. While one could choose any park, we chose Bayfront Park, because that was supposed to be the place where Wilco was going to play. Before Nels Cline came down with chickenpox. Don't even get me started on this.

I take photos, including this one, which I made into a banner for Perfect Duluth Day.

More coffee. And then sushi on my deck from Zen House, which was kind of hit-or-miss. Some of the rolls were fantastic, but some ... uh ... not so much.

Later in the evening, Superior Wisconsin and Punk Rock called. And you know what? Duluth is so much cooler than Wilco. [video]

God bless you, Gerald Ford. You were a beautiful man.

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So, completely on a whim, I decided to redesign that other website I fool around with from time to time: Perfect Duluth Day. A few nights ago, I was looking at the old design, which had a lot of black in it, and also pun-a-riffic little icons of neanderthal skulls, stonehenge, and such, and I started thinking about what the site must look like for a new visitor. Maybe it looked fine to the 300+ members who've been using the site since 2003, but suddenly it didn't look fine to me.

I get on kicks, like a lot of people do, and right now I'm on a big redesign kick. (You may have noticed.) The problem with redesigning, intense writing, video editing, photoshopping, and the like is that whenever I do these things, I go right out to lunch. I tweak and tweak. Hours pass. I refresh. Stare. Change some tiny aspect that no one will ever notice anyway. Stare. Suddenly it's 5am. I lose a lot of time this way.

But now, speaking of going right out to lunch, I need a sandwich.

Enjoy the new PDD, if that's your thing.

Done and Done. Red Star here I come.

Silver Jews - New Orleans
Eleni Mandell - It's Raining
Wilco - Either Way
The Sea and Cake - Coconut
Joseph Arthur - Enough to Get Away
The Sadies - Milk & Scissors
The Raconteurs - Steady as She Goes
The Roughnecks - Goin' Home
Jeremy Messersmith - Novocaine
Ben Kweller - Penny on the Train Track
My Morning Jacket - One Big Holiday
Rolling Stones - ?
Eleni Mandell - Snakebite
Cat Power - Good Woman (request)
Nora O'Connor - Looks Like I'm Up Shit Creek Again
Charlie Parr - ? (request)
The Meat Purveyors - Sunshine
Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of This Country
Pacha Massive - Don't Let Go
Fred Tyson - Freddy's Gonna Do What He Want to Do (Fuck You)
Massive Attack - Teardrop
Everything But the Girl - Big Deal
Spoon - Don't You Evah
The Shins - ?
Clem Snide - Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Your Grievience
Joseph Arthur & the Lonely Astronauts - Diamond Ring
Calexico w/ Iron & Wine - Burn That Broken Bed
Tom Waits - Jockey Full of Bourbon
Tortoise w/ Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Thunder Road
Mike Mertz & the Can of Worms - I Wish I Were Dead
Kiss - Beth

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I'm obsessed with the Superior Hiking Trail. Christa and I have made it our goal this summer to hike the entirety of its Duluth branch, segment by segment. The whole thing is about 39 miles long, but we've been doing it in 3- to 7-mile chunks, and so far we're about halfway through.

We tackled the first seven-miler in the drizzling rain, slogging muddily from Martin Road to pretty much my front doorstep. This, so far, was the most boring stretch. The second stretch was fun, although for the most part it couldn't really be considered "hiking" since two-thirds of it was in town, on the Lakewalk, and through Canal Park. The third stretch, though -- from Twin Ponds to Skyline at Highland, was freaking unbelievable fun.

First off, consider "Forgotten Park." It's so cool when things like this happen. Somehow there is a basketball court and a baseball field in the middle of the woods. Nature is slowly taking it back, with five-foot-tall grass covering the former diamond and with mature trees growing up through the blacktop on the hoops court.

Then the trail winds through the West End and above West Duluth going places I never knew existed. I love the sensation of trudging through the shadowy woods, having no idea where I am, and then suddenly emerging to realize that I've been right in the middle of town the whole time. Weird houses on strange residential streets, a covered reservoir that I'd never even heard about, and an old, unused bridge full of twisted graffiti were just some of the highlights.

I'll be posting photos from the walk throughout the week on Flickr, if you want to see them.

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I took this picture at about 10pm as I was just drifting around looking for things to photograph. When I somehow found myself in Canal Park on a Sunday night on Memorial Day weekend, I realized that I was doing exactly what every tourist in town was doing. It's hard to explain why, but I felt very, very weird.

I've lived in Duluth my entire life, and I've never gone to the canal at night to watch ships come in. It just never occurred to me to do so.

Aside from the people working in the popcorn stands and restaurants, I wouldn't be surprised if I was the only local in all of Canal Park. Musicians were playing on corners, couples were strolling along holding hands, and parents were wandering around yawning while their kids ran wild with overstimulation. For a few moments, I pretended that I, too, was here only for the weekend. I took photos, looked at the city from across the water, stared at the bridge. Maybe the wife and kids were asleep back in the hotel, used to passing out during the evening news and waking up at the crack of 6. Or maybe my friends were drinking on the deck at Little Angie's Cantina, and I'd just wandered away for a few minutes, not wanting to be a third wheel. Maybe I was with my parents, who were taking a romantic carriage ride. Whatever.

A few years back I used to enjoy going to Canal Park hotels in the morning for the free breakfasts. It isn't hard to do; You just have to remember to act like you belong there. When an employee walks by, say something about the Omnimax Theater or the Great Lakes Aquarium, and you're golden. The best part was the waffle batter in paper cups that you yourself could pour into the hot waffle irons and cook to your own liking. Well, that and the mounds of fruit.

On this night, however, as soon as the ship passed beneath the Aerial Lift Bridge, the entire pier cleared out and everyone went either back to their hotel or else to one of the four or five tourist bars in the area, leaving me standing there with my camera, a native Duluthian once again. I walked back to my car and then drove about a mile [a whole world away] to my neighborhood, where a young couple stood screaming at each other in the middle of Fourth Street while 20-25 little kids looked on in a mixture of awe, glee, and terror. I drove about three miles an hour, nosing my car through the crowd.

I don't know what the argument was about, but I distinctly heard the word "crackpipe."

Any residual illusions and fantasies disappeared at that moment.

I was home.

When I made previous post, I'd only just broken the seal on my vacation, and part of me felt that my premature bragging carried a bit of hubris. I had a bit of what a thought was a cold. I felt a bit crappy, but that would pass, right? I was certain that with all the rest I was getting, I'd wake up feeling spectacular. Then feeling crappy gave way to nightsweats and coughing jags that left me gagging for breath. Barely able to walk, I went to the urgent care, where they quickly determined my problem.

Pneumonia.

Now, while I do feel better after 24 hours of antibiotic therapy and about 12 hours of DVD-watching ("The Departed" is seriously good) I'm pretty miffed that I'm missing my whole reason for taking this vacation now, which is the Homegrown Music Festival. But I don't know, somehow spending hours and hours listening to deafening music under a thick woolen blanket of cigarette smoke seems like a bad idea when one's lungs are full of fluid.

Yeah. I'm missing Homegrown. But those coughing jags? I'd kinda like those to stop as soon as possible.

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So we're sitting outside drinking coffee on the deck when one of the college boys across the street steps out to embrace the day. He's shirtless, wearing running pants and no shoes, a blue bandana covering his bed-head; and as he squints toward the sky, he spreads his arms out at either side and gradually the facts register on his face.

It is warm outside. Really, really warm.

He ducks back inside, and moments later, more college-aged boys start filing out of the house like clowns from a volkswagon. Two, three, five, seven...half of them shirtless and all of them hung over. They all look up in wonder. Sure, it's clowdy and sure it will probably rain soon. But right now it is about 75 degrees. After a few moments, they start talking.

"Dude. Dude. Remember last night when we threw all those beer cans out the window?" They all look up to the attic window, which is wide open with no screen, then burst into hysterics. One of them starts gathering up the beer cans on the lawn while another jumps up and down.

"A fucken bird flew in this morning! It came in, flew around the room a couple of times and then flew out!"

By this time, the guy picking up the beer cans has found a tennis ball, and all reminiscing and lawn care has taken a back seat to a new game: see who can pitch this ball into the open attic window. They all try. And try and try, the ball ricocheting off the house over and over again, until finally they guy who found the ball makes it through. As soon as the ball flies through the bedroom window, we all hear dozens of beer bottles crash to the floor. The college boys are unfazed.

As pasty-white girls finally start crawling out of the house lighting cigarettes, the guy who threw the ball in charges inside the house and up three flights of stairs to retrieve the ball. He tosses it out the window and the game continues.

By this time there's about 10 or 12 people on the lawn. It's 2pm on a Sunday afternoon. There are boys, girls, and presumably more beer, and suddenly it is as if last night's party has magically resumed. And meanwhile, we sit across the street, drinking coffee, watching, listening, and trying not to giggle too loudly.

This is better than TV.

4/28 UPDATE: So this morning a couple guys are out on the lawn again, and one of them says, "Dude, last night I got up and came outside to piss, and then I went back in and I was sitting on the couch watching cartoons. But I couldn't find my shoes or anything. Then this guy comes downstairs and says, 'Um, you gotta get out of my house.' I was in the house next door! They have a really nice leather couch."

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My 1995 self would be shocked and disgusted to find out that I am not and never have been a kayaker. Back then, I was on the fast track to kayakdom. I'd taken college courses in canoeing. I hiked at least once a week. I was a vegetarian. I kept a journal. I read Thoreau recreationally. I was a classic case for a kayak.

Then something happened. I don't know what it was for certain, but I'm sure it had something to do with alt-media, local music, booze, working for the government, a nighttime lifestyle, and several other things that led me to a decidedly non-outdoor, non-recreational, non-sporty, non-kayak existence.

I had fun, it's true. But at heart, I'm a kayak person. I just know it.

My idea of a great day is this: I wake up. I put on my North Face vest. I hop in my Subaru (with kayak already mounted on my roof rack) and I head down to Lake Superior to paddle away. I do this for about two hours. Then I pack up, eat a burrito at Luce or an omelet at the Chester Creek Cafe, and then go to work.

Could life in Duluth, Minnesota get any better than that? No, I think not.

Unfortunately, I don't own a kayak or a Subaru. Or a roof rack. I don't even own a North Face vest, nor do I typically wake up early enough to actually do any of these things. I wake up at 1:30, down a pot of coffee and devour a bowl of microwaved oatmeal, and then drive 70mph to work. I am a complete failure.

This year, I resolve to kayak. If not regularly, at least one or two times. Because when you live in Duluth, Minnesota, and when you are me, not kayaking is completely ridiculous. I may not own a Subaru, and I may not own a North Face vest, and I may not own a chocolate lab named Jake, but I will definitely kayak. And hopefully, I will go as far as to own a kayak and kayak regularly.

But let's not get crazy. I have a nighttime lifestyle to reluctantly maintain, afterall.

Someday I would like to own a house. To become a homeowner. Instead of just a ho-moaner. And while we all know what makes a good home -- a solid foundation, a wet bar, secret passageways -- what makes a good neighborhood is up for interpretation. So I often think about the neighborhoods in this part of the world and try to assess which one is right for me.

West Duluth
I lived most of my life in the 55807 ZIP code, and I would be a liar if I said that I didn't love it. Everything is cheaper there. People drive really cool cars. It's the only neighborhood in the Twin Ports that has its own beauty pageant. But yet, sometimes, West Duluth just doesn't seem quite right. I suppose this is the only neighborhood where it comes down to the actual house. If there's a great house in West Duluth that has everything I want, I will definitely take it.

East Hillside
This is my current neighborhood, and it has some greatness to it. First of all, a lot of the houses here have a great view, which would certainly be nice. Yet East Hillside is so ... expected. This is the neighborhood where semi-cool people who are not from here end up living. Because it is friendly and pedestrian and they can look at the main reason they moved here, which is Lake Superior. Ho-hum. Still, I'd live here.

Central Hillside
I kind of like this idea, because it's like West Duluth meets East Hillside. Sure, it's beautiful, but it's also noisy and full of street crime. Also I think that it's a good investment. It won't always be full of street crime. Gentrification is bound to set in, and when that happens, I can sell my house for three times what I paid for it. Plus, I can walk to the awesome bars. Thumbs up.

Lakeside
Sweet mother of god, NO. I've spent enough time in Lakeside to know one thing: Other than houses, there is NOTHING in Lakeside. And despite its name, there isn't even a view of the lake. And so you have to drive 20 minutes to get to anything. No. I like living across the street from the grocery store and two blocks from the bar. No. NO.

West End/Lincoln Park
Do you know where I'm from? I'm from West Duluth. Do you know who I hate even more than those East End cake-eaters? People from the West End, that's who. First off, I loathe when people confuse West Duluth with the West End. Second, this is the new ghetto. I don't need to live somewhere where kids get robbed on their way to school. Plus, I work in the West End, and I really don't want to spend any more time there than necessary.

Piedmont
Sweet Jesus. No we're really getting into the neighborhoods I hate. First off, "piedmont" means "foothill" in French. What the hell does that mean? While Piedmont does have wonderful views of the West End and the industrial sections of the Duluth Harbor, it feels depressing to me. I don't know much about the neighborhood, but it seems like a place for white trash people from the West End to move to when they feel that they've "made it." Sure, you have a good job with that blacktopping firm and you can afford that bungalow with the neon 80s furniture from E-Z Own, but do you have to keep the trash-stash and the glass-and-fake-mahogany case of Minnesota Vikings bobbleheads? Oh, yeah. That's right. They might be *worth something* someday.

Downtown
Holy shit. Now we're getting somewhere. If I could live on Superior Street, or better yet Michigan Street right in the heart of downtown, I'd be a happy fellow. In my ideal life, I both live and work on Superior Street. Actually, no. I live on Superior Street and work as the guy who raises and lowers the Aerial Lift Bridge. That is awesome. I have nothing bad to say about this situation at all, as long as there's off-street parking.

Canal Park
Canal Park has a lot of condos, which just might be my ideal living situation, since I can't stand yardwork or home maintenance of any kind. Oh, sure, I'm kind of good at it I think, but still, it's not something I enjoy doing. Plus, spitting on tourists from my kitchen window would be a lot of fun.

Chester Park
I can't rule this out, because I do have an affinity for listening to NPR and for reading the New York Times. I could imagine a nice quiet life for myself in Chester Park. Hell, it's probably where I'll end up.

Woodland
The only good thing about Woodland is that it has a Piggly Wiggly. And the only good thing about Piggly Wiggly is that it's fun to say.

Gary/New Duluth
Gross. The next best thing to living in Carlton.

Superior
I often think about living in Superior, and it has many appeals. The one Superior neighborhood I love is called Central Park, which I think a lot of people don't know about. Sometimes I go out there and drive around, and it's absolutely beautiful. The houses are eclectic (as they are in most of Superior, which is why I like the town) and very beautiful. They all surround this great park, which is also tremendous. But even though it's only a few block from Belknap, I think I'd still feel isolated. But yet, it's fantastic.

Park Point
I suppose it's because of my inherent naivete that this appeals to me. Everyone always says that moving to Park Point is a horrible idea. The bridge. The traffic. The teenagers burning stuff and breaking bottles in your backyard. The impossibility of ever affording a home on the 'lake' side of the point and having to live on the 'bay' side. Still. Still.

Hm.

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I've always been intrigued by the Owl's Club on Second Street in Duluth. Who are these people? What do they do? How can I be allowed to join and hang out on their swank deck with a supreme view of the lake?

I've tried to look them up on the internet, but there is nothing. I understand they are a secret organization, but other lodges such as the Loyal Order of Moose, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and the Fraternal Order of Eagles all have websites. But as far as I can tell, the Owls have no official web presence.

Do young people join lodges? I think not. These organizations are perhaps dying out.

I want in.

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I have said before and I will say again, that there are days when Duluth, Minnesota completely opens itself up to you and demands that you have a good time. It helps a lot if you are free that day. This past Saturday was one such day for me, and luckily I was able to accept the opportunity.

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