Minneapolis light rail
Cult merchandise
The Cult show opens
Sanctuary!!! By The Cult
Cult guitar solo!
Cult play at 1st ave, Prince's old stomping grounds!
Minnesota is winding down. It’s a time for birthdays and a change of seasons. We also have our fan club meet and greet and I get to see The Cult in concert!
First off, I‘m tempted to make this journal really short. Riki and Ronn give me shit that my journals are too short. So just to spite them I thought I’d make it only two sentences. But then I thought I should just do what I always do… talk about the highlights of the month. Not too long as to write a book and bore you, and not so short that I leave you wondering if I have a life at all.
Anyway, this month I got to go see “The Cult”. They are a band that gained popularity in the late 80’s and continued to make amazing music into the 90’s. They’ve been quiet for most of the 2k’s but came to Minneapolis to promote a new album. Riki and I are both huge fans and have been for many years. We thought it’d be cool to go to the show but neither of us really had the money. Riki had the idea to call the promotional department of the fair and see if they could score some tickets thru the local radio stations. Well guess what… they did it! They actually got us two tickets! Unfortunately, (well not for him) Riki had an opportunity to go see H2 (his girlfriend Heather) in Phoenix and jumped on a plane right away. That left me with an extra ticket. So, I invited Nathan. He works for Sharon in Ruth’s booth and is a musician. I figured he’s one of the only people I know up here that would enjoy it. I was right.
The night of the show we decided to take the light rail into downtown Minneapolis. Nathan and I boarded the cute little car after buying our ticket. Riding the light rail is on the honor system. You purchase your ticket from an automated kiosk and just hang on to the ticket in case a transit cop asks you for it. If you don’t have one it’s a $200 ticket. So even though you don’t always run across one, it pays to be a law abiding citizen.
The train ride was charming. We took it from near the airport thru the heart of Minneapolis to downtown. The line ends about 2 blocks from 1st avenue. It’s a nightclub venue that caters to larger bands and performances. You might know it as the place Prince got his start and where they filmed “Purple Rain”. Pretty cool huh? Well, I’ll bet it is to our fans that don’t live there.
We arrived and told them at the door we were on the 93X guest list. They walked us in and we wandered around as we had a little time to kill. The opening band was called “Living Things”. They were ok. They were kind of a throwback wanna be Ramones looking band. All black clothing, black eyeliner, skin tight black denim jeans, you know the look. Neither I nor the crowd really responded.
After they were done there was over an hour break between the sets. I wish I had known who the opening act was; I may have delayed our arrival. It did allow us to get really good spots right on the rail of the balcony. There really isn’t a bad spot in the venue. It’s not that big.
The Cult was amazing! What a great show! Everyone sounded great including Ian the lead singer. He’s still got a set of pipes on him. They did a bunch of new songs plus everyone of their hits from the last two decades. Some of the songs included; “Here comes the Rain”, “She sells Sanctuary”, and “Firewoman”.
Mark and Ken Wilson
Jan and Bob (our landlords)
Sharon and Kristen from Applebees
Grinning at the Med Cruise
The Lotion Candle cart
The Lotion Candle booth
It was close to midnight when we got out of there. This old man was ready to get back. I knew Sharon would already be asleep when I got home. We do get up at 6 or 6:30am these days after all. By the time we got home it was close to 1am. I was a tired camper. But we did have an excellent time.
Just before Labor Day weekend we made the first of two trips to The Mediterranean Cruise. It’s a restaurant I’ve mentioned in previous journals. We love it. They have great Greek/Mediterranean food. Well, they just moved to a new building in Burnsville. It’s gorgeous! It’s much bigger and more centrally located. I think they will do well there.
Ken Wilson from Excalibur Leather, Kristen the manager of our local Applebee’s, Mark, who worked for me in Colorado and Jan and Bob the people we stay with all attended. T was fun. We had some good wine and got to catch up with some people we’d been separated from for a while. The food was amazing as always. It’s no wonder we visit here often when in town.
As I have mentioned before, we’re running another business in Minnesota. It’s the Lotion Candle business. We have a booth and a cart. (The old Kite cart) The business has done well throughout the run of Minnesota. But, that’s not surprising. The product is amazing and we have some great employees. These girls can sell! I hope we have them back next year. Thanks girls!
I really hadn’t planned on mentioning my birthday this year. You’ve all heard it before. Blah Blah Blah, Happy Birthday! Special thanks go out to our friends in MN. Larry, Tracy, Dennis, Liz, Bob, Sandy, Chad, and especially Kay… Thanks for all that you do. Ok, enough about that.
We’ve had the opportunity to be pretty social this year. It was nice. Staying with Jan and Bob has been so wonderful. They have been the best hosts. I just hope they enjoyed it as much as we did. I look forward to seeing them in the future and hope they come to visit us at our place in Florida!
The last two things I want to mention are the Blue team and our meet and greet. The meet and greet was held at this place called Bogart’s. They want us to do a Mini-Palooza there. They have a stage that’s big enough but we didn’t have enough lead time to make it happen. It might be ok for something like that but for the meet and greet it was a little too “corner bar” feeling. I think we’ll go back to a Dave and Buster’s kinda thing in the future. Despite that, everyone had a grand time. I was too tired to bowl but Riki did. Hopefully he’ll write about it. Thanks to all that attended.
Backstage Birthday cake action
Mmm... Chocolate cake in my teeth
You know yoru getting old when...
Riki and Heather (H2) posing at the restaurant
The Baumans, Riki and H2 at Med Cruise
The Dehkes boys at Med Cruise
Me, Sharon and Mark at Med Cruise
No fair is complete without a storm trooper
Jef, Riki, and their girls at Applebees
Sharon's new doo
Jen and her magic hands
I'm all wet
Minnesota meet and greet gang 2009
Hopefully you’ve been following the Blue Teams journey into Tortugahood. It’s been quite an adventure. We’ve trained 6 people in the last two years to fill 3 spots. I know the math doesn’t make sense. You see, we had two guys drop out and re-trained another for a better fit. There ya go! Anyway, they started their first full run show outside of Boston about 4 weeks ago. They are really doing well and I can only imagine how much they are learning without us there as a crutch. Keep your fingers crossed for them. After they finish King Richards Fair, they’re off to Texas to audition for the Texas Renaissance Festival.
Well, that’s gonna do it for this month. Two full pages in Microsoft word. So there! Look out North Carolina! Here we come!!!!!! Yeeeeeeehawwww!
