12th
Try This on the Road: Lessons 5-6
9/10 Hell’s Kitchen
Minneapolis, MN
Editor’s note: For those of you who are sworn enemies of the written word, we love you, too. Our super secret 5th member Parker has followed us every step of the way to commit savage acts of shutterbuggery. Catch up with her videos below!
We awoke in the morning brushing sleep from our eyes and cat hair from our matching footie pajamas. While the night had imbued us with rejuvenated vigor, Ron Burgundy was quick to remind us that he was still afflicted as we rolled away from the domicile of our lovely host, Indira. Still haunted by the shadow of Chicago’s auto mechanical incompetence, we plugged our ears from Burgundy’s sickly wail and put a few more miles between us and the Windy City before pulling into a Firestone nestled in a vast archipelago of strip malls called Madison.
As the mechanic opened Ron up for the second time in as many days, George and I wandered amidst the sprawling temples of consumerism, passing by Abercrombie and Fitch, Lane Bryant, Bally Total Fitness, and Cold Stone Creamery. Ahhh, how efficient we’ve become at sanding out the curves of our own downward spiral. Within half a square mile, an impressionable woman could see how she was “supposed” to look, find the only store she could currently fit into, swear to lose weight at Bally’s, and then drown her sorrows in a trough of chocolate chip cookie dough butter bean heaven.
By no means is this a cynical implication of Madison. Indeed, this consumer’s compound could very well be any place we’ve stopped for groceries thus far. In fact, with enough Floo Powder, we could probably follow our same tour route traveling via mall fireplaces. And for those of you keeping track at home, Harry Potter just took the lead with two references in the blog thus far, leaving 2001, Ghostbusters, and the Godfather still tied for second place.
After another five hour slog down the highway with nary a rebellious squeal from Ron Burgundy, we reached the city of Minneapolis. Founded of course in 1919 by Minnie Mouse, the city is laid out much like a grandiose hamster cage a doting child might construct for his furry ward with glass walkways connecting squat buildings.
Our stage for the evening would be Hell’s Kitchen, a subterranean den boasting hot barbeque and cold beers. The walls were tattooed with prints of Ralph Steadman along with kitty-cornered altar to Michelle Pfeiffer. Solidifying our hypothesis that the further from New York we get, the more welcome we feel, we were treated to free heaps of delectable sweet potato fries and a slew of succulent sandwiches to tide us through our midnight set time.
The three mannish boys of Hardcore Crayons kicked off the revelry with a brutish lesson in math rock steeped in dubby goodness. Their bass maestro of questionable sobriety quoted our name profusely, causing a brief lapse in our sense of self. If they were Finding Fiction, then who were we? Kitty Rhombus showed twice as much skin as the Pussycat Dolls and twenty times the facial hair, and two hundred times the talent. Falsetto harmonies and knuckle dragging jubilation shrink wrapped in spandex like a gorilla skanking about Studio 54? Forgive my ignorance, but Minneapolis rocks beyond my wildest dreams, which is to say nothing of the evening’s main event With a Gun for a Face. A savage splice of Jesus Lizard and Jesus and Mary Chain, not only did these guys slay, they offered us a living room floor on which to crash. Thankfully our drive to their abode in St. Paul was 100% dead body free.
9/11 Mars Cafe
Des Moines, IA
Here’s a couple more fun facts! 4 out of 5 Finding Fictioners agree: Iowa is flat! During the last ice age, Iowa was the go-to region for Cro-Magnon ice skaters and the home of the Pleistocene Pulverizers who won the hockey championship five hunting seasons in a row until their star goalie Ogg was eaten by a saber-toothed tiger.
What is the dominant vista as we roll towards Des Moines (which is of course Swedish for “Heartland of Ice Hero Ogg”)? Must…resist….urge….to make… cheap…corn joke… Windmills! Ahhhh, I made it….
Yes, wind turbines. If there’s one thing Iowa has, it’s corn. If there are two things Iowa has, it’s corn and wind turbines. Don Quixote could wage a war anew in the fertile fields in Iowa, a dubiously chivalrous crusade against clean energy. I suppose there’s already a legion of stalwart republicans fighting such a battle but they’re admittedly closer in spirit to the illiterate Sancho Panza.
We coasted up to the glass façade of the Mars Café around dusk. The venue sat tucked between the outskirts of Des Moines and the outskirts of Drake University. Tonight would mark the debut of Finding Fiction’s acoustic side. No headlining acts, no light rigs, no earplugs, just acoustics, amps cranked to three, and a lot of free coffee.
While the others guzzled down caffeine and free wi-fi, I had a higher calling. It was September 11, 2011 and you know what that means. FOOTBALL SEASON! What better way to commemorate this second Sunday in the ninth month than by watching mountains of muscle collide into each other in hopes of carrying an oblong ball across a field, right? I prowled the main drag outside the Drake campus, looking for any sort of beer light to light the path like a Bethlehem star, but alas no such neon angel shown. I realize it’s a Sunday, but there’s a college right here! Drake students must be really dedicated, or just too uneducated to realize the true meaning of college.
Here’s another fun fact Aaron draws from his smarter-than-us phone. Violent crimes are rare in Des Moine, but vehicular break-in’s are strikingly high. Of course, the much publicized stain that continues to haunt the town is the midnight strike at the Children’s Zoo when 50 ducks were brutally stoned to death by nocturnal ruffians.
But regardless of the spectral silence that permeates the town, the café Martians listened as they dutifully studied. Much like the drive through Iowa, the audience in Des Moines was all ears. Gah…Fuck! I was so close….
