Having never visited the city described by two former copywriting partners as, "A magical land where the Grain Belt flows like water", I decided today to embark on the two hour journey from Webster, Wisconsin to Minneapolis, Minnesota. My intentions of the visit were clear, as one could argue that my absolute favorite past time is wandering around a previously unexplored city, digging through the record stores for dusty gems.
After a brief tour of downtown followed by a stop at Mayslack's for a roast beef and some Grain Belt Nordeast on tap, I made my way to Electric Fetus, often heralded as the best record store in Minneapolis. Departing their store with a stack of wax in tow, I cruised down to Cheapo Records, a near warehouse sized facility with an unbelievable cache of vinyl, cassettes, CDs and DVDs. In retrospect, I should have brought a sleeping bag as I spent over three hours in their capacious store perusing their detailed collection of new age records, 45s, and miscellaneous weird shit.
Later that night, after departing Minneapolis en route towards my temporary home in Wisconsin, I decided to stop at Crow Bar, a small bar tucked away on the backroads just west of the cabin. While enjoying an exquisitely cold can of Schmidt, the girl sitting next to me dropped her purse on the ground, which I politely retrieved and handed back to her. "Have you ever heard the term 'Lumbersexual'?" she asked, having chatted for a while at this point. I laughed loudly. "You kinda got that whole thing going on with all of the camo and your huge beard". "Thanks?" I replied, my response quickly met with a jab back about how out-of-character my "Rap Fan" hat was in that environment. "I just really love rap music", I responded while her friends commented on the thickness of my Chicago accent.
As closing time approached and I watched a woman fall asleep sitting up at the bar while the juke box oddly alternated between country and rap (what ever happened to Terror Squad?), I decided to adjourn back to the cabin, having successfully met half of Webster that night, or so it felt.