Vision Quest Reunions

I believe in literary speak they call this a "preface." I don't know if this photo really needs an introduction though. I do think I can be as bold as to say that we "flipped it" and then we "worked it" this past weekend on our St. Cloud to Duluth mini-tour.

We car pool to St. Cloud, and it is indeed a race. Building Better Bombs in their SUV vs. TPC in Jordan's mom's van. TPC wins.

Up in the Shots Cloud (320, bitches) we stop at a liquor store near the venue to load-up. 50's and Beak catch up with their old buddy Dan Gladden. The years following the 1991 World Series have not been kind to this mulleted prince.

Following the strict-rule set for the weekend that the lowest price per ounce ratio would be pursued in booze consumption, we buy two cases of Old Milwaukee cans for $11.99 a piece.

The venue is Cheap Thrills, a crazy awesome local co-op/thrift store/punk rock show space run by some cool kids from Shots Cloud. It's located in a fairly vacant frontage road development and thus provides awesome levels of secludedness for quasi-public drinking before, during, and after the show. Here, TPC and BBB crush brews.

Cheap Thrills is also located within 50 feet of a small power station that may or may not be currently generating thousands of ohms of deadly radiation, depending on who you talk to.

Murder Death Ball is invented by Shane and David. A basketball is tied in a next connected to a string, held by the main dude. All the other dudes try to run past the main dude without getting totally hit by the murder death ball.

A car parked next to the power station. On the hood, a bloody skull. On the doors, someone's myspace account address. Now THAT's marketing.

BBB rock the Shots Cloud kids, complete with completely ridiculous looking guitar for Steph.

Isaac (aka Iceberg) gets pissed.

A huge green dude watches the show.

Evidence of our secret drinking spot.

TPC rocks it, fueled by Sparks.

Stef enjoying McDonald's.

Iceberg doing an Egyptian dance through a smoke maze. These are the kind of things that happen in Shots Cloud.

This is also the type of thing that happens in Shots Cloud -- afterparties. We head to our old friend Alberto's house (aka Berto, aka the Puerto Rican Love God, aka PRLG) for a rager.

Also, it should be noted... we ran into some high school girls at the party. Apparently they were from St. Louis Park High and their ride had just left them in St. Cloud to go get totally high on this drug called "salvia." Supposedly it's a form of incense that gets you fucked when you smoke it. They say it makes you see monkies.

50's lends a helping hand.

General hysteria involving a wool ax, a bandana, an eye patch, bunny ears, size frisbees, and a miniature coffee mug.

Princes of the porch. Things that were mentioned on this porch include "Chocolate stain Blain, and the he Blaided off," "Give him the Knuckle puck dude," "The whiz was actually Diana Ross," & "Yeah man, Dying."

Beak is sad that we drank all the beers. He mourns.

Jordan celebrates the finished beers, considers it a monumental achievement.

The next morning, we all wake up tired, hungry, hung-over. One of us also wakes up Puerto Rican. But then again, he always does that.

Alberto tells us about an old Brooklyn Puerto Rican Gang called the "sunset bachelors." He also informs us that High school kids are really into cutting and sex parties, as upposed to Grunge and Plaid as when we were kids.

Beak and Jeff discover gayism.

PRLG takes us to an awesome Shots Cloud spot called Pete's Place, where they serve breakfast, lunch, dinner, and cribbage tournaments. Seriously, there were like 15 people playing cribbage while we were there.

Smoking while you eat! Stearns County has a more enlightened thought process on smoking than the Deuce Cities.

Outside the restaurant was this crazy locked garage that had all sorts of exercise equipment from the 1970's in it, a portal to LOST perhaps? . WTF? The crew says goodbye, and we head onto to Duluth.

Duluth! We meet up with Colezone's and head to the Air-Conditioned city. Seriously, Duluth is awesome. We always have total rage fests whenever we come here, and sometimes they turn into vision quests. Here we are at Pizza Luce's on Superior Street -- infinitely more awesome than any of the original Pizza Luce's in the Deuce Cities.

Pabst Palace.

Beak and Woff discuss a movie they once saw in high school about communism where a Dr. was imprissoned in Russia, then all the other Dr's in Russia die or something so this guy in the prison is the only one that can deliver the baby. Somehow he eats a ton of bread and water and explodes before getting a chance to deliver the baby therefore communism in Russia = Total Boner Kill.

We still have some time before the show, so we walk down to the rocky shores of Lake Superior. One of the midwest's 5 mini-oceans.

Holy shit! These birds can smell our leftover pizza. They start hovering over us like crazy, squeaking angrily, barking orders to each other about how they're going to get the pizza, how to kill us with a minimum of bloodshed, etc. It was like that one movie by Alfred Hitchcock. Psycho.

We finally relent and throw the pizza to them. They totally freak out and drag the pizza into the water like its a fresh kill. I've outlined in red the huge pizza slice dangling from the bird's beak.

They get the second piece. Crazy birds.

Lighthouse on the shore.

Back at Luce's before the show for my beers and ridiculous discussions. We decide that the new phrase for smoking meth is "burning a diamond." Like "Hey brah, you wanna go burn a diamond real quick?" 50's, Jeff, and Beak show us how they imagine this would be done. First, 50's examines the meth crystal that Jeff is holding. Second, 50's approves the crystals quality and ability to get you totally cranked out. Third, you put down your welding mask to protect your eyes. Fourth, you turn up the heat level on your blow torch. Fifth, you spray the meth crystal with blazing blow torch heat. Finally, you awkwardly suck in the chemical crank smoke created from the blow torch burn and waft into your open mouth.

TPC rocks it, fueled by the diamond they just burned.

Our good friend Mark Shaw (middle) is in town, coincidentally, for his sister's wedding. What are the odds? He comes to the show with his awesome sister and brother in law (left) in tow. He has had roughly twelve Jameson and 7's at this point. Hilariously awesome.

After-rager at our old friend Chunk's house. Colezone's starts getting really real. A lot of times when she reaches this point, she will tell you that "you don't even really know" her.