This is the thread where all of the current and former Minnesotans HOLLA BACK

& of course Saint PEETAAAH.

(maybe at some point i'll drop my story of qualifying for jeopardy in an all-day test session at the Maul of America)

Oh for yum!

Mankato for birth, Burnsville for growth, and S. Minneapolis for current living (just north of the Hiawatha golf course, people!).

Represent.

Grew up about six blocks from the Byerly's with the chandeliers by the wonderfully named Excelsior Boulevard. Family have lived there since the late '30s and my mum lives two blocks from own childhood home. Dad brought up on Summit Avenue after childhood in Excelsior; now lives in St Paul suburbs. When I was a teenager, he lived in the top floor of his best friend's Lake of the Isles mansion and decorated the flat with help from 'consultants' at Targét Boutique. Three grandparents from south Minneapolis, one from Baudette, where his dad founded a hospital.

I don't speak Minnewegian (probably not just my term for the broad MN accent) but my mum and sister do. I'm sure it has something to do with my refusal to eat tuna hotdish with green beans and a topping of French fried onions. They ate it, now they say 'yah, sure' (sister) and 'ya know, I don't know nothin'' (mum) on a regular basis. I didn't really register the accent issue until I went away to college and people asked me why I didn't speak in that way.

Haven't been home since Indecision 2000. Funny, that.

I also spent a good chunk of time in the Minneapolis airport as well, owing to the fact that we missed our connection due to a combination of incompetence and bad airport design. We were coming in from Denver, and had two hours until our next flight, so we went up to the observation deck directly above our gate...like, literally 20 feet from the gate, up a set of stairs. We were sitting listening to the announcements over the loudspeaker, waiting for them to announce boarding for our flight, but they never did and we ended up watching our plane push away from the gate saying, "Hey, isn't that OUR plane?" Turns out that no one thought to wire the loudspeakers in the observation area into the speaker system for the area which was, I stress, ONLY TWENTY FEET AWAY, most of them vertical. Anyhow, we spent the next six hours in the airport waiting for the next flight to Toronto, and I fought with whichever damn phone system runs the pay phones at the airport, because they wouldn't accept a foreign Visa card for the long-distance call, the bastards.

"frozen chosen"! I am cracking up, I've never heard that before.

bow before the genius of the PICKLE DOG!!

As my mother would say, "oh, ISH."

Oh yah, don't forget FUNNEL CAKES.

Where'd you go to school, g.cannon? Know any Hastings folx?

Hastings, I'm afraid not. I was in St Peter for the four years of school and have lived in Mpls for the 2 and half after (which should clue you as to how old I am.

Don't corn dogs just kind of seem ANGLO to begin with? Minus the stick, maybe?

Minnesota, land of MST3K = a holy and righteous place unto the Nediverse.

g.cannon didn't mention Northfield so I'd ruled out St. Olaf (home of the Luteran Aristocracy, that wondeful contradiction of terms). Carleton (which breeds music journalists) sensibly requests most of them stay away. They get most of the state's Ivy League places due as much to hockey skillz as family connections, right, Dan?

Ned, the below-mentioned cousin is friends with MST3K original Josh Weinstein.

My cousin Kelly McG*ughey went to Gustavus for two years and was miserable in small part because she should have gone to Macalester or Carleton or somewhere out East (she's just 26 so maybe you knew her?). I'm still filled with horror about the place becase of this lame girl in my class who gushed "I'm a Gustie!" upon her acceptance ("well paint me blue and dip me in man slime!" I yawned to entire class)

Edina (we called them Cakeaters, they called us all matter of anti-Semitic shite at football games) is horrible but when I was going through my new-wave preppy phase in eighth grade I was unfeasibly grateful that three of the shops near the country club did Bermuda bag covers with tasteful monograms. And when I applied for a job in this same CC, the HR woman asked if I was from the Wayzata family of poshos who share my surname. Thinking this was lame, I answered, no, I'm from the St Paul branch mentioned in Fitzgerald (implication, so SWIVEL, you idiot lefse preppie).

Heh heh, that's right, you mentioned that in another post. :-)

"well paint me blue and dip me in man slime!"

DO NOT FEED THE DAN.

An inordinate number of Hastings "bright kids" (aka "kids I respected and was friends with") went to Carleton, including two of my other best friends ever (one of whom was an unrequited crush from seventh grade, aww; I think she's married to a doctor now). If it hadn't only been 45 minutes away from home (thus completely withing range of parental ambush) and had had a decent CS department, I would have applied there.

The thing about StLP is the high quality and success rate of its comic/film/musical/writerish alumni. Al Franken blames it on the creosote.

Creamed Paul Westerb*rg with large, heavy door upon leaving work recently. We were both shocked (for different reasons, probably) and I somehow managed to not apologize or acknowledge him in any way. He rode away feebly on a crummy old bicycle.

Have hung out with Trace Beaulieu (MST3K's Dr. Forrester, voice of Crow) at outdoor barbecue. Quite a charmer.

no know no Kelly, either, (prob a hair too old). I was kind of a hermit buried in Milton in school anyway; what else was there to do?

I have no encounters with MN slebs! (except for Josh)

My exgf's cousin was one of the two whores in Fargo!

"he was sorta funny lookin'"

she was also Fr McD's minnewegian coach!

Hey, you brought the subject up!

I once got detained in the lunch room because I had the audacity to mix ketchup and mustard together to put on the corn dog served as part of school lunch. "Stop playing with your relishes!" Anarchy! Oh my Gahhhhd!

MN Cuisine Specialities DESTROY: the BBQ sandwich. Gray-boiled beef brisket the taste of cardboard, mixed with BBQ sauce and ketchup in equal parts, shoved onto buttered soft roll made of MasterBread-type nuclear flour.

I thought the 'that's all right...' cheer was the preserve of Carleton students at St Olaf games.

Born at the now-defunct Deaconess Hospital in South Mpls. Lived till school age in the Phillips projects (we were on welfare). Moved to Richfield at five to go to school--and stayed in that apartment for 12 years before moving to Bloomington...directly across the street from the Mall*of*America. (My mother and two sisters, 16 and 17, still live there.) Went to Richfield schools my entire schoolgoing career (I never attended college). Senior year of HS I got a job at Hologram Land at the M*O*A and kept it for a year and a half. Worked at Pam Sherman's Bakery & Cafe on Lake & Hennepin right before it went bankrupt the day they found Kurt Cobain's body. (Bitch still owes me three weeks' wages.) Lived over the Saddle Shop on Grand and Lake, right across from the first-ever Cheapo (I LOVE CHEAPO! AND MISS IT!!) which is now a motorcycle repair shop. Also lived in the notorious white party house right behind MCAD, the southwest corner of a fourplex about three blocks away, and the ground floor of a Franklin and Hennepin house. Cooked at Figlio in Calhoun Square; Sidney's on 23rd & Hennepin; a taco place whose name I forget, not the one on 25th & Hennepin but its outlet on 51st and France; and made homemade cones for Sebastian Joe's. Also, two and a half years at First Avenue. I thought I lost my accent but my friend Tricia makes fun of me all the time for saying "yeah-hoo" so what do I know? HOLLA!!!!

Also: I saw MST3K live. WITH JOEL. (haha I am so much cooler than you all)

Reports that Tony M (lamentable former rapper for the New Power Generation) left the music biz for a career washing cars, though unconfirmed, are quite plausible. Damon D has, however, been spotted working parking lot security at Paisl*y Park.

suzy, class warrior cheering is pretty common, then!

A bar on Exc... AL'S?

DON'T GIVE ME A REASON TO KILL YOU IN A FIT OF JEALOUSY.

Bunny's is immediately east of Highway 100 heading North. MN Vikings coach Mike Tice has his own parking spot reserved, complete with official looking sign telling you not to park there if you /= him.

A very cool thing, but the Digital Archive Project has just about found them all. A recording of the live shows, though...*SIGH*

Ever go to Eclipse Sound Systems in West St. Paul? It's owned by the father of another good friend, J*hn Justen (a Carleton/ U of M philosphy kid).

I worked at the following evil retail: Byerly's for a whole summer, Milano's for a month until tired of Lebanese variations on boss-sleaze, and a winter break at Pam Sherman's (why don't you just find the woman, Matos, and shove a SOFT BREAD STICK up her ars gratia artis).Then a stint at he Body Shop in City Center (evil franchisee, avoid) plus I used to get drafted in for the occasional stock-take at Northern Lights (RIP).

Totally lusted after Schlatzein's Saddle Shop as a small child! There's something so po-mo smalltown about it, three blocks before the porn/peepshow shops start. My best friend there lives in a great punkrocka house on Garfield right around the corner from Oarfolk. I think those of you on the 1st Ave tip will have been to parties there.

Also DESTROY: Jon Bream. Word is, from rockhack friends based in Mpls, that not even Billboard will hire him for freelance extracurricular.

Possum, my sister is tall and blonde and has Princess Diana eyes but with mallrat eye make-up. She's not ugly, but not quite a hottie either. Mike Tice is one of her best friends and has been drinking there for a very long time.

second that Jon Bream thing, he's oowful.

(Oarfolk is now Treehouse, btw)

Suzy your sister is a terrific server and yes, hot, if she is who I'm thinking of. Early/mid 20's?

I too love any recipe that begins with "take a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup" and even have a recipe book that's all based on cream of mushroom soup. Pure comfort food! And I love potlucks, too - they're a brilliant invention *laughing*

http://www.campbellshop.com/?cpovisq=UsfULr6z5JkE9f8m0fp838s0%2B4EXLnq6

Ned: [sticks tongue out]

::shivers at thought of Phillips projects::
Matos, you lived to tell the tale!

oh it's not so bad Suzy, at least now that I'm not living there, which I did before I turned 5, so I have basically no memories of it. my whole family lived in the projects, though; there were seven kids altogether and they wuz poor. a pretty clear memory: my uncle James's best friend, who was Puerto Rican (as is my grandfather; I'm a Quarter Rican), being stabbed by a Native American gang. horrible night, that.

a winter break at Pam Sherman's (why don't you just find the woman, Matos, and shove a SOFT BREAD STICK up her ars gratia artis)

they don't make the breadstick that would do the job, Suzy; you ought to know that

plus I used to get drafted in for the occasional stock-take at Northern Lights (RIP)

shit, I probably bought records from you there! I used to record shop there all the time when I was a teenager, from about 14-19 or so, when it closed down. I bought a LOT of great records there (on cassette, I was a kid): Slanted & Enchanted, Girlfriend, Dirty, Loveless, Bikini Kill's Pussy Whipped (one of my first CD purchases, I'm proud to say), more than I could even remember. I was fairly nondescript, a geeky kid w/glasses who liked music way too much but wasn't old and/or cultivated-cool enough to not look like a fucking dork while trying to get my fix. I used hang out there CONSTANTLY, reading magazines, checking out rave comps, going upstairs to look at dance vinyl when the Dance Record Shop was in business there for a while, picking up Disco Family Plan flyers...ahh, memories! One of the last things I did there was get a pass to see a preview of Spike Lee's movie Crooklyn across the street at the Skyway, in summer '94. It happened pretty spontaneously, just walked into the store and found the tix and went, but there was a sense of occasion about it for me that made it feel really special...anyway I'm babbling, sorry.

My best friend there lives in a great punkrocka house on Garfield right around the corner from Oarfolk. I think those of you on the 1st Ave tip will have been to parties there.

wish I could place this offhand but can't. I didn't do a lot of partying w/the First Ave crew--sort of wish I had in some ways, quite glad I didn't in others.

my grandma's name is gudrun

so was one of my roommates at the painted-white party house behind MCAD. she stole several of my CDs!

hope every casserole is as wonderful as my mother's tuna-noodle hotdish!

or my great-grandaunts Loretta and Arlene's chicken hotdish....

My mum's closest thing to hotdish is SHRIMP SHIT; one lb. Gulf shrimp and punnet of sliced mushrooms cooked in a mixture of CoM soup and sour cream, served over rice.

(*well they went to the U of Minnesota, if that counts.)

So, yeah. St. Paul represent, Central High class of '95, same class as Nick Swardson -- who is mostly famous for being on Comedy Central occasionally, getting a shout-out in the liner notes to David Cross' Shut Up You Fucking Baby, having all his scenes (as a David Bowie stalker) cut from "Almost Famous", and being a severely funny motherfucker. He has a movie coming out later this year that he co-wrote.

I don't know for shit about Minnewegian cuisine but I live like half a block away from La Cucaracha, which is probably the best Mexican restaurant in the Twin Cities. Yeah.

Why hasn't anyone mentioned Let It Be yet? That's where I traded in my vinyl LP copy of Sgt. Peppers' with all the special cardboard inserts for a double LP of Dig Your Own Hole back in '97 in a symbolic gesture of my transition from classic rockist to dance-stuff junkie.

Nate: next time I'm in town we go to La Cuc; had forgotten that place, which is indeed the pepper bomb. Yum.

I'd even go so far to say that Minneapolis has the most attractive skyline in the United States.

Minneapolis' skyline is great, except for the condo explosion. Newest word on the street is that the bowed-aluminum-nonsense one being plopped where Let it Be Records and Keys and Sawatdee will be some 55 stories tall, which will be difficult to ignore but (hopefully) won't block the IDS from the view coming north on 35W.

it's nice to live near the U if you go there, but there is only really one "neighborhood" that's adjacent to it (Marcy Holmes, north of Dinkytown) and it's clogged with a) undergrads and b) homeowners who hate them.

The U is easy to get to from anywhere via freeway (the freeways swirling around it + the river = why there is only one neighborhood next to it, but plenty of other stuff is close), so you can live more or less anywhere in the city and get there but PARKING IS A BITCH.

I'd recommend finding someplace near a major bus route (with the caveat that our reactionary pig ruling party is gutting it in Sept.) There are express busses that run during rush hour out of Uptown that go straight to the U. If you're young and collegey, Uptown will be where people tell you to look, but they will also tell you that's it totally expensive and yuppified and to look somwhere else. But if you live in Mpls, you will be going to Uptown, period. two indie movie theaters, some good restaurants. everyone has a love/hate thing with uptown

the Northeast area is actually to the northwest of the U, and it's worth considering. The Seward neighborhood is also nice, it's across the river from the U, but it's mainly houses, not sure on rentals there. South of that is Longfellow, which is a bit grubbier but quiet, and totally unhip, close enough to the U but not close to anything else.

East of the U is St. Paul (the U is on the border of mpls and st paul) but i know less about it; i lived there now but only a few months.

i could write more but that's just off the top. and congrats to your bf going to law school! it's a highly ranked program, so i hear.

this map might help you read the ads; a lot list neighborhoods.

http://www.npcr.org/Neighborhoods/Neighborhoodmaps/cedarriverside.jpg

that's cedar-riverside; the white cutout area is where the law school is & the blue bit above is the southern tip of marcy holmes.

it's a good idea to dig around on the U of M websites; i have no idea exactly where (and the system is a fucking mess) but either the law school or the grad school might have some kind of housing help outfit. i didn't have to bother with it cos i lived here before going to school, so i can't make any claims to its efficacy...

it really is a lovely city in the summer but suzy is right, the winters here are complained abt for a reason. maybe a little over-discussed but you can hardly under-discuss them.

Neat! Lindon Hills, here I come (fingers-crossed)!

Percent African-American -- 1%
Percent Caucasian -- 94%
Percent Hispanic -- 2%
Percent Native-American -- not yet available
Percent Asian -- 2%

Yikes!

Right about now I miss Cafe Wyrd very much.

HASTINGS IN DA HEEZY!

WTF???!?!?!??!?!!!!!111111111 I AM FROM HASTINGS. holleRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Go Raiders.

What year???? '91 IN DA PLACE!!!!!

...I'm seriously floored by this. I need a time out (and to go to the DMV. uh, be right back)

I am going to comb my yearbook for S4unders and ask if you're related to any of them.

XPOST OMG!!!!!!!!! MEMORIES! Was Miss Ch4tel4ine still there? Mrs. M4ttson? Mr. Schu1tz and his scandalous new wife?

Did B0b Kr4ftson try to recruit you into Jesus's Army, too? He told us that everyone who enjoyed "Silence Of The Lambs" was going to Hell. So awesome.

M4ttson: check. My 10th grade English teacher.

Mr. Shultz and Ms M0hn (scandalous wife) were my TEAM-TEACHING 11th grade English teachers. They have since (a) had a baby and (b) divorced. (I love that M0hn was his daughter's college roommate. So racy!)

Krafty B0b didn't recruit so much, but he DID have Sunday night "philosophy" discussion groups which mostly consisted of me and my friend Tom arguing against creationism.

My bit of St. Louis Park: if you spat across Minnehaha Creek, your spit would land in Edina. Most of the houses built alongside the creek there and into Morningside were originally cabins or summer places. My uncle's old place right on the creek was a mink farm a long time ago. I had my mom on the phone yesterday going on about the history of various old houses in our neighbourhood (she would know) and it made me kind of homesick.

(x-post I was right!)

The snowdrifts against my hotel there looked for the life of me like that scene in The Shining when Danny slides down from his third-story window.

oh god that winter. i was in st. peter. it was HELL ON EARTH but i'm pretty sure i wandered around coatless and drunk on more than one occasion

I lived near the intersection of Chicago & Franklin. I voted in the same hospital that Prince was born in.

otherwise there's spaghetti factory and a mccormick and schmick not too far away if you want reliable chain stuff.

http://www.archive.org/download/BrianUdelhofenTheShadowPercussionProject/spp.wmv

Just about anything on Nicollet AVENUE between 16th and Lake is good but a bit of a hike. They call this Eat Street for the hard-of-thinking.

Geoff, my cousin went to Mtka. Also, Grumpy's v. Bunny's FITE.

Otherwise, Grumpy's is badass as well.

I just got off the phone with my mom, who is doing my Christmas box. She rather dangerously had a 'thought' and procured some form of 'sweatshirt' for me so I said TAKEITOUTTATHEBOX. NOW.

My favorite restaurant in Minneapolis is and probably always will be Pepitos, but 46th & Chicago is pretty far from downtown.

Don't mind me, am just killing time until Kate gets here to take us to pizza. And booze. Listening to MIA to drown out the conversations of couriers downstairs who are making with the Pépé le Peu and smoking me out.

Shame there are no good Vietnamese places close enough to downtown.

apptly the owner is a big standup fan, so he runs a comedy open mic (or did 3-4 years ago). a friend of mine and i used to live down that way so we'd go all the time, and we ended up there on said night.

the first guy up is introduced as "dave 'the hitman of comedy' nelson" and he's a fat dumpy bearded guy with a red sweatshirt on. he takes the mic (and let me remind you the room is filled with families, ppl just eating w/o caring abt the comedy) and announces "HO HO HO MOTHERFUCKERS." a few more wierd unfunny non-sequitur and very dirty jokes and the polite laughter had totally evaporated. the room was absolutely silent. you could hear ppl's forks on their plates.

the only one i can really remember is "i'm a humanitarian, i like to work with ppl, help them out... i like to go to the airport and talk to the hare krishnas. then i take 'em home and i FUCK 'EM IN THE ASS." the only response was a woman in back: "there are children here"

i don't remember how it ended.

check out chef e's soul food on like 18th and nicollet. it's off the chains.

OH SHIT

Hah! All you city people from the civilized parts of MN. My father is from da Iron Range and still emails me Ole and Lena jokes..

IRON WORLD
WOLF CENTER
BIG STICK
NORTH COUNTRY: THE MOVIE