CTRL: Who Will Buy the Kozy Bar?

Each month, I write a column for Transistor (www.transistormag.com) called CTRL+ALT+DULUTH.  (Yes, it plays on the "duh-LOOT" pronunciation.) Below is the text from last week's issue:

As any laid-off journalist in town can tell you, craigslist has become Duluth’s destination of choice for people in search of IKEA furniture, jobs working for Ponzi schemes and no-strings sex that may or may not involve kitchen implements, barn animals or snowmobile grease.
 

Well, you can now add dive bars to the list.
 

For those of you who missed the recent story in the Duluth News Tribune (as usual, pause for laugh track), Kozy Bar owner Eric Ringsred has put the notorious Hillside nightspot up for sale on craigslist.
 

Love him or hate him, Ringsred remains one of the most fascinating figures in town. In the story referenced above, the emergency room physician cum entrepreneur tells the DNT that his goal in buying the bar four years ago was to turn it into a positive meeting place for Duluth’s downtrodden.
 

There’s merit and heart in that, but unfortunately, not much reality. Ask anyone even remotely connected to the social services sector (social workers, shelter managers, police, academics, you name it) and they’ll tell you that the first step in creating a positive and supportive environment for a vulnerable population is removing alcohol from the equation – not selling $1.50 pitchers of Icehouse.
 

Of course, the Kozy isn’t Ringsred’s only club-footed foray into urban crusading. As an ardent architectural preservationist, he committed both his time and money to rescuing the historic NorShor theater from the eventual wrecker’s ball. Again, a noble cause. His current solution for keeping the building commercially viable, however, is to rent it to a brothel (at least according to Duluth police) fronting as a strip club.
 

(Lest you call me a prude: A strip club doesn’t have to be a cesspool. For tips on how to run a tight ship without the high profile and whiff of prostitution, see the Saratoga down in Canal Park.)
 

In a spirited defense posted to the Web a few years back, Ringsred reasoned that civic organizations like the Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Downtown Council should welcome the NorShor because it will help the city attract more conventions to the DECC. (Boy, what I would give to see the people at VisitDuluth give THAT presentation.)
 

Rather than parsing Ringsred’s idiosyncrasies, perhaps we should turn to more compelling questions: If you had the cash, would you buy the Kozy Bar? And if you did buy it, what would you do with it?
 

One idea: Turn the place into a private bar/supper club for the regulars – similar to the Owls Club down a few blocks west. Doing so would preserve the social community and vibe that exists between the current, non-troublesome patrons and give management and customers much more control over who comes and goes. Membership could be contingent not on fees but on adhering to club rules and helping with daily operations.
 

Sure, you’d still have the alcohol and its attendant ills, but we’re dropping the pretense that the bar can be a transformative agent in people’s lives and circumscribing the mission to merely allowing people to drink themselves into oblivion without worrying about getting shot or stabbed to death inside. To me, that’s a basic human right.
 

What do you think?

Posted by: The Auslander on 2/25/2010 at 3:31 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: ctrl alt duluth, kozy bar, transistor

CTRL: Sludge-O-Matic

Each month, I write a column for Transistor (http://www.transistormag.com) called CTRL+ALT+DULUTH. (Yes, it plays on the "duh-LOOT" pronunciation.) Below is the text from last week's issue:

If you still read the Duluth News Tribune (pause for laugh track), you know that Gallagher, the raunchy prop comic and prodigious produce smasher of 1980s fame, performed last week at Grandma’s Sports Garden.
 

The paper’s Web site not only featured an account of the show by DNT arts reporter Christa Lawler (who should file for hazard pay for covering this functional lobotomy) on the home page but also touted even more coverage from its nightlife blogger.
 

For people under 45 years of age, this information likely triggered one of two responses: 1) Who the f^ck is Gallagher? or 2) F^ckin’ Gallagher is still alive?
 

(And they say that newspapers have failed to court the next generation of readers.)
 

My wife went with response #2, to which I had to reply, “Not necessarily.” After all, performing in front of 300 disinterested Duluthians (according to Ms. Lawler’s account) more than 20 years after your prime has got to kill you on the inside, at least.
 

Based on the DNT account, Gallagher fuels his cockroach-like resiliency through a potent (or is that pungent?) mixture of delusional grandiosity and outright denial. For example, he claims that he’s funnier now then he was 20 years ago. Sorry, G, but it’s probably your pot that’s gotten better – not your jokes.
 

According to the review, Gallagher also claims responsibility during the show for quite an array of cultural progeny: “splash rides at amusement parks, Blue Man Group, Insane Clown Posse and Shamu.”
 

Maybe so, but he also paved the way for Carrot Top – a crime against humanity so heinous that it not only wipes out any good karma generated by the list above (the amount of which is debatable in and of itself) but also should rate the death penalty. (However, given that he’s living the showbiz version of death, I suppose we can limit the sentence to time served.)
 

Judging from the audience attention deficit Ms. Lawler describes during the first hour of the show, it sounds like little has changed in Gallagher’s act since his days of doing Showtime specials. Listening to his lame stand-up routines has always been akin to watching a 14-year-old boy fumble with the hook of a bra: a bit awkward and exasperating until the melons finally come out.
 

And eventually, out they came. Even after a holiday season in which community food shelves across the nation sounded desperate calls for donations after months of recession-fueled shortages, Gallagher sledged away. Not to get all Righteous Lefty here, but couldn’t he have at least spared some portion of the evening’s carnage (the way the president pardons a turkey before Thanksgiving) as a comic gesture and donated it to CHUM’s West Duluth food shelf?
 

Of course, doing so would require climbing out of his traveling time capsule and making contact with the year 2010. As long as a couple of hundred people keep showing up in the Duluth, Minnesotas of the world to see him smash watermelons with a sledgehammer, that probably won’t happen soon.
 

Posted by: The Auslander on 1/25/2010 at 6:14 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: carrot top, christa lawler, chum, dnt, gallagher, grandmas sports garden

CTRL: Hats Off to the Bilgewater Lounge

Each month, I write a column for Transistor (http://www.transistormag.com) called CTRL+ALT+DULUTH. (Yes, it plays on the "duh-LOOT" pronunciation.) Below is the text from last week's issue:

"Ce ci ne pas Duluth.”
 

I’m told a lot of college kids read this pub, so I am gambling that enough of you have taken that classic liberal arts GPA-padder “Art History” to recognize the above. It’s a take on Magritte’s classic painting, “The Treachery of Images.”
 

If not, Google it. After all, you should learn something over the course of these four-plus years in Duluth – other than the weekday specials at Twins Bar.
 

For you lazy f*ckers, here’s the scoop: The painting features a pipe, with the caption, “This is not a pipe,” scrawled below in French. The point: an image is not the thing depicted, but rather just an image. (Although I bet if you smoked the painting, you’d at least get some mild visuals out of it.)
 

I was reminded of this foray into the post-modern and absurd after an evening at The Black Water Lounge, or The Bilgewater, as I call it. On any given evening, you will find it full of people pretending that they are not in Duluth, but rather in some Minneapolis restaurateur’s idea of what a Manhattan bar must be like.
 

(The Bilge gets this right in the same way that Disney World gets a wild west town right.)
 

Of course, the surest-fire way to fake NYC is to create an air of sleazy sophistication. At the Bilgewater, this means having the waitstaff wear black corsets over white t-shirts to create a curious kind of slutty chic. Ironically, it also reminds you that the NorShor is right next door. I’m thinking that’s not the kind of crossover crowd they’re looking for.
 

The crowd they have drawn mostly consists of the worst kinds of posers: local admin girls dressed like high-class escorts, oily lawyer and corporate-sales types, and some local bores who simply (and erroneously) believe that they’re too young for the Pickwick just yet.
 

Despite some of its mildly stylish touches, the centerpiece of Bilgewater’s up-vibe strategy is one of the oldest tricks in the book: a “No Hats” policy.
 

Now, at 35, I figured that my last argument of this sort was at least 20 years behind me. So my friends and I complied when asked by the staff to remove our hats upon our arrival. Minutes later, however, I noticed a guy, perhaps just a few years younger than me, sitting at the bar wearing a green army cap – like the kind Castro wears. At least, it was modeled after one like that. It looked like Gap material – not even from Minnesota surplus. Let me make this crystal clear, this guy was NOT a vet.
 

I assumed this was an oversight and informed the bartender. “Oh, that one’s OK.”
 

Channeling myself at age 15, I inquired about the difference between Comrade Poser’s and mine.
 

“Don’t know. You’ll have to ask the manager.”
 

So I did. I mean, you could stitch a Burrito Union logo on this thing, send him over there to seat people, and nobody would bat an eyelash. After I pointed this out, the manager asked me if I wanted her to make the guy take it off.
 

Well, that’s the same as asking, “So, sir, how big of a douche bag are you?”
 

Well, I’m not a big enough one for the Bilge. So we donned our caps and headed for the door.
 

For a moment, I toyed with giving the crowd a little, “Say good night to the bad guy,” but a guy like Tony Montana (or Duluth’s equivalent) would fit right in there. Provided he didn't wear a hat…
 

Posted by: The Auslander on 12/27/2009 at 6:08 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: blackwater lounge, burrito union, magritte, treachery of images

CTRL: Christmas [Rhymes with "City"] of the North

Each month, I write a column for Transistor (http://www.transistormag.com) called CTRL+ALT+DULUTH. (Yes, it plays on the "duh-LOOT" pronunciation.) Below is the text from last week's issue:

Nothing heralds the arrival of the holiday season here in the Northland quite like watching Miss Hermantown freeze her a$$ off in the backseat of a convertible.
 

Granted, that was my favorite recollection from last year’s Christmas City of the North Parade – KDLH and KJBR’s annual made-for-TV advertiser showcase – not this year’s. You’ll have to forgive me: I spent most of this year’s parade getting Christmas sh*tty at a bar along the parade route.
 

While that fact would suggest that I am not a crack investigative journalist, I did do a little digging into this whole “Christmas City of the North,” or CCN phenomenon. Specifically, I wanted to know: Is becoming the CCN really as easy as simply declaring yourself such?
 

Turns out, the answer is yes – although commissioning a song from former TV personality, producer and syndication guru Merv Griffin appears to help. (I am not making this up, and yes, that is Merv on vocals, too.) Roughly 50 years ago, the forerunner to today’s NBC6 ginned up the parade as a way to kick off the shopping season, paid Griffin to write and sing the song, and voila – Duluth instantly became the CCN. What’s more, maintaining the title seems to require only that you line up some high school bands and enough local real estate and insurance agents to wave from flatbed trailers each year.
 

To put this in perspective, think about how much more work it would take, on the part of so many more people, to become, say, “The Meth City of the North.”
 

As with some of Duluth’s other nicknames – including “The Zenith City” – the CCN begs an obvious, if not cruel, question: Where does that leave Superior? It’s one thing to get aced out as the primary port at the head of the lakes by your “sister” city, but to have Christmas co-opted out from under you as well? That must be one nutty sh*t sandwich.
 

That’s why I think Superior should fight back by taking ownership of its own holiday. Which one? Why, New Year’s Eve, of course. With its gazillion bars, who better than Supe-Town to carry the banner of “NYE City of the North?”
 

I can just see the parade: Hundreds of wobbly drunks pouring out of the bars on Tower, Belknap and Hammond at the stroke of midnight. They stagger down to the feet of the Blatnik and Bong bridges, where they stop traffic, light up their cigarettes in unison, and deliver a boisterous Bronx cheer across the harbor to Duluth.
 

Of course, the whole affair will need a song to help make it official. Unfortunately, Merv Griffin passed away recently, so he’s not an option. However, it’s probably a good bet that Paul Anka is available. Anka has reinvented himself of late with jazzy covers of indie hits like Oasis’ “Wonderwall,” but nothing pays better than writing originals.
 

Now if only he can find something to rhyme with “Camaro.”
 

Posted by: The Auslander on 11/30/2009 at 6:03 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: camaro, christmas city of the north, kbjr, merv griffin, oasis, paul anka, superior wisconsin

CTRL: Student "De-evolution" Zones

Each month, I write a column for Transistor (http://www.transistormag.com) called CTRL+ALT+DULUTH. (Yes, it plays on the "duh-LOOT" pronunciation.) Below is the text from last week's issue:

Every time a pack of drunk college kids wakes me up while they stumble down East Ninth Street at 3:00 a.m., I think back to what kind of neighbors my friends and I were in college:
 

One friend and I had developed the habit of drinking on the roof of our house, then trying to hit the apartment building across the street with our empty bottles. The outer limit of our range: the middle of the street. That never stopped us from trying, though.
 

Another friend of mine had a complete Papa John’s delivery uniform, which he used to gain entry into neighborhood homes and apartments (“I must have written down the wrong address. I can give this pizza to you for five bucks, if you want it.”) for the purpose of stealing CDs, house plants and other minor trophies.
 

In our apartment complex, we went through a little phase in which we would defecate in empty pizza boxes and leave them (with an exuberant early morning delivery) at the doors of people in the building who had pissed us off.
 

And then there’s the night 10 of us flipped a compact car over onto its roof.
 

The best thing about these and the countless other acts of chaos (including frequent keggers) we perpetrated in our neighborhood during college is that no townies (i.e. non-students) were directly harmed by them. That’s because all took place in the student ghetto that surrounds my alma mater (The University of Illinois, in Champaign-Urbana). In short, we stuck to drunk-on-drunk chaos.
 

In Duluth, the mix of student and townie housing across most east-end neighborhoods often leads to much more, er, collateral damage. That’s why you’ve got ideas like the 300-ft rule and “student development zones” jockeying for the privilege of reorganizing the city’s low-rent districts into better-homogenized ghettos.
 

Of course, the assumption is that this large-scale socio-economic re-engineering of entire neighborhoods – with its inevitable winners and losers – beats the alternative, in which students and townies simply dial down the asshole meter a few notches in order to get along better.
 

(Such is life in Democratic-leaning Duluth, where there’s no role too big or small for government to play. If this were a Republican town, however, the debate would likely center instead on whether residents have the right to shoot disorderly students on sight. Pick your poison…)
 

As a homeowner sandwiched between two of the proposed student zones, I suppose I should be investing more energy in the “Can’t we all just get along?” strategy – before some asshole developer builds a high-rise smack in the middle of my already-piecemeal view of the lake.
Problem is, even 14 years after graduating, I still think college kids should get as drunk as they can and as high as they can as often as they can. Hell, that’s what I did. And now I’m going to invite “college me” over for brats and iced tea each August with the hope that he’ll think of me and my wife before tapping that second keg or cracking open that 13th can of Keystone Light?
 

If you believe that’s gonna happen, then I have an empty pizza box for you with the wrong address on it. Five bucks if you want it.
 

Posted by: The Auslander on 10/30/2009 at 5:58 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: duluth dinkytown, keystone light, papa johns, student development zones