First, the rest of the many foods with which to celebrate the various holidays of spring, which kind of morph into each other as the applicable edible items move forward on the calendar, to start with being the St. Patrick’s Day that wasn’t and related offerings of Easter, which was also a no-show if you wanted to dine-in at a diner with the family of all ages — including those with no excuse this time around to bolt from the company of, and tolerate the family that includes strange Uncle Sid, while in the realm of any year but 2020, where you might be nursing a weeks-old music and more hangover. At least for Easter brunch such as it was, you might be feeding on some killer drive-up ham that might even rival your mom’s recipe that’s been around since before you did your first Easter Egg hunt — ouch! — but this time she won’t have to be slaving away at the stove to make it just right, and at best grab a few bites on the fly for quality control of both lean meat and not so lean champagne. And yes mom, we know about Mother’s Little Helper in its various forms. Hey, in those past years, mom might not even be able to bite into her creation(s) until every buddy else is already at her various desserts, and they are always pots of gold pieces in number, the price of listening to Uncle Sid be the ham that he always is. Mom of course was too busy getting all the last side dishes going and maybe there was a reason — mom knows best — for being in the kitchen rather than the dining room, and she never even did find time to munch in short order, as a short order chef and much more, while seated at the table itself, rather being on the move past the pantry because that last scrumptious dessert was still to be served and — Heaven Help Us! — she still can’t find the vanilla extract. So what is her method? She won’t have to pretend to laugh at the bad punch line that often doesn’t even make sense, if Uncle Sid remembers it at all after a lengthy build-up about walking past telephone wires on poles that when a wee lad were almost buried by snow drifts even at Easter, and for sure were “that high” on St. Patrick’s Day, not to mention the now infamous 4-20 that wasn’t around when Uncle Sid would only get juiced on his famous stogies … and then fall soundly asleep. And what do you think he would have done with a turkey and its enzymes instead? And yes, you would rather treat in mom’s way, and to be sure its always over-the-top, that Irish redhaired honey you met in mid-March, and go for the gold even at the end of April.
So what’s the moral to this long story? The aforementioned holidays that include Earth Day and Passover, and you can throw in some motorcycle rallies and even April Fool’s Day, are all about green, and were not talking dollar bills — just a single one of them being Uncle Sid’s usual tip. Its about all the great food, drink, clothing and decor that didn’t take place fully just before the start of the spring, so all of the St. Patrick’s people did, I’m willing to guess, what people do if their 21st birthday is on a Wednesday, not celebrate a birthday only, but even a birth week and birth month. So even when Easter came hopping along, the Irish were still in celebration mode for almost another full week. And stores knew this and for the rest of the spring forward and unto summer focused, intentionally with their specials or not, on fare that arguably would sell very well into April, May and into Xfinity and beyond. They say that everyone is indeed Irish, at least for an (extended) time. And maybe that Earth-Day-health-focus on lean meat mom chose could have been thin flat corned beef, not chunky hunks with fat/gristle connecting them. (More of that later). And her lean (maybe) drink, could be some “smooth” Irish whiskey, or a 99 cent frappe that’s basically is a legal self-service (gasp?) smoothie at Kwik Trip. And not to get further started on all the green husked, ripe or not, produce out there, (hey make it all of the spring quarter with a plus when farmers markets soon open, and we recommend the each weekend one that’s “a friendly” at Plaza 94, maybe before other competing businesses reopon), here’s one example to pick from among the many ‘cuz we know jack too: tropical Jack Fruit, which looks like a kids toy not quite as big as a self-respecting pineapple, having many hundreds of little arms springing from them. Looks cool. It could be a great centerpiece for a fruit plate that’s not just the usual melon-mania, and even if you don’t know jack about it, its still just a matter of giving a few slices to what’s still available at the grocer. Which one(s) you ask? Do you think I’m going to give all my secrets away that easy? Stay tuned. OK, that was long enough. Just suffice it to say, my college readers can get it almost between classes, once they are held again. But they might want to lobby their dean of student fruit affairs, Take Consumer Education 101, for another Two Minutes To Midnight, but day tripping verison. But then it might be “bumped” up to CE 301. Bummer, and it is pass/fail if you know what I mean …
<<But do I pass or fail: Hey maybe I’ll get it totally right the second time!>>
— 15 — But not quite as bad off as your stomach and indeed your soul will be if you ignore the rest of the story on these long-ballyhooed 15 tips on the ways to get by in virus land, and fail to put them into play. So finally now, you gotta Give Me Three Steps plus a dozen, with the first category of that 15 being what I just hit on already, with the later addition of plenty of specifics to offer your pallete and its Appetite For Destruction; then keeping up via the next paragraph, 14; and now 13, (and that’s a baker’s dozen in this countdown, of the different ways you can save even more than the equivalent of a postage stamp, for that Easter Day is the main subject of the feared family letter in which your kid took and ate the last jelly bean after ripping it out of the dog’s mouth, which in turn made Uncle Sid so nauseous that he bolted carrying a Wal-Mart bag with him for, you know … Won’t see him again until all that’s left of the ham is that part which is wings; but wait a minute …) And didn’t Reagan do the same thing, when Nancy couldn’t convince him that the dog drool, some of it was already caked on the Red Button, is not the same as turkey gravy?
<Anyway, and this is a long overdue anyway>
— 14 — What all the hospitality industry dine-in or drink-in closures really mean for the dozens of categories of venues that had the main part of their business shut down, as there are noteable exceptions (lapses?) in the close-to-Big-Brother executive orders that could be unintended loopholes used to keep your business running, and how it would seem that the very number of workers involved in these occupations would bring political attention, (read as voters). But I will tell you about how these volumes of people, and in which job categories they roll, now form an undesired new underclass severely impacted by the Still Runnin’ lawmakers-on-steroids and the magnitude on which they have wrought their powerful decisions. Seen especially at the gubernatorial level of our two states, they have done very well on a no-sleep-till-Brooklyn Park type of demanding schedule, with the multi-layered hand they were dealt, and needed to respond to almost overnight, in what makes my early-morning deadlines seem like a piece of cake, or at least hard to handle in an economic market that for most all communications businesses literally died on the vine in 2001. And who was it that tried to move into his Washington Office at about that time, but was betwixted and between on just what an Oval was? If he or Trump would have been at the helm from that year on; my God there would be no underclass or even middle class existing, unless the Dems stepped in like a seasonal Messiah all over again and paid down the hideous beast that’s our now-by-far-highest-and-growing national decifit, you know the one where Trump basically bolstered his popularity by simply printing more money with nothing to back it, (said reportedly, by his printer/dungeon master who is Overlording the migrants under his thumb, and getting them to man the presses well before sunrise, or even moonrise, so they can produce In What Only Trump Would Consider An Essential Service). Much better to be designated by the likes of Walz and Evers, who have simply done a bang-up job. Did I say that? I will say this, I had been confident for a time now that when I dropped my five dollar bill and one dollar bill at the bank”s teller counter, they would not bounce. After all, I’d just printed them up that morning in the downstairs of my one room flat, but the bank wasn’t open its regular hours, and there was no counter to be found anyway in the drive-through. Biting humor? Well of course. Sometimes satire is the best teacher. A tough job but somebody’s got to do it, and hope it will start an open exchange of ideas that goes far beyond the hopelessly vague We Will Make America Great Again. So back to the state level, here’s an example of what oversights, (or are they, as money breeds power and influence?), do exist in greater Minnesconsin, as determined by a thorough reading of Executive Orders and what jobs and activities are singled out for stay-at-home and travel exclusions, (or leave silence because they are not specifically listed, where others in the same scope are. The only difference I can see is why such choices, except for the sheer light speed at which they needed to be made, which limits a long examination, are impacted mainly by socio-economic status). Are you ready? If you want to go anywhere across town to be babysitter for pay, you are simply out, as far as being able to legally travel. A single mom working her way through college? Don’t care. Unless you have a hefty student loan you want to refinance, and then our people will be calling your people, if they haven’t already. The flip-side as an exclusion from bans, is the St. Croix River effect. You want to buy a great big cruiser of a ship, not too much smaller than the deck where that annoying hip-hop video, “I’m On A Boat,” was filmed, “And Come Over Here, Dear Boy Have A Cigar, You’re Gonna Go Far,” you might even be set up with a cushy Small Business Loan. And you can house your brand new toy at the local marina or boat launch, and pay to drive it to the other side of town to be serviced. All these water sports are Essentially Services? I’ll let you figure that one out.
— 13 — A point by point synopsis of how we got to this juncture with all the viral rules weighed in on and voiced, starting on St. Patrick’s Day itself, as I’ll fork over the hour by hour breakdown on how decisions to cancel the three main local parades were made, and then chime in like dominos about even the the rockers being left out in the cold about The Day The Music Died, as one entity waited to see what others that included those in The Cities would do, then act in a clump in what became a wierd but very understandable game of chicken that ended up effecting virtually all activities. But these things green were kept in view and continued to unfold into the following days, and lime shadings were everywhere you looked, with again a key exception, the week-or-so long observance (as shown by the Sunday paper inserts on the immediately following weekend), of What I’ll Call German Week.
— 12 — The spiritual end is still being valued, even by lawmakers, as a Near-Essential Service, (I’m thinking it’s termed something like therapeutic enhancement), placing it in a same odd category as part of a Chosen Few types of venues, which are adapting the communion end of their services to conform to Social Distancing, “I’m Gonna Drink That Wine Because It’s Right There In Front Of Me.” We know the theology you’re getting at, Brother Cain, but its hard to get any wine-in during these days of only delivery and take-out, even for a church, and we might need to get even more Rock Steady and echo the local Catholic Diocese as it reaches up north and often needs to run a priest around a big circuit of clustered, small parishes to pre-consecrate communion hosts. Not ideal, but better than not having any type of Eucharistic celebration at all, some state Catholics think. But there are many more ways to get what you need as far as religious worship, if you are willing to again, adapt a bit as far as format, delivery method and hours of operation available for prayer, which these days is not always with the whole community, but maybe that’s an opportunity, on various fronts that include making virus spread very unlikely. Why could you not meet the requirements by having your flock seat themselves in only one to a pew, and every other pew. Or check in with various other faith communities that are relatively new, but all are within a block or two of each other, so see what makes them different enough to not only stay in business so to speak, but even thrive. (I know there is a certain amount of penance involved with worship, but if your belief system holds that there need be such a type of self-reflection in the immediate forecast, hey, if you have to walk a block in the cold, rainy weather of this two-state area, rather than brave in the cold and wet for Another Mile, I think God would understand. Doesn’t he see this as yet another form of being One with his Congregation(s), and at the same time lead the way in not spreading the virus? I have scoped out for you the best ways, although admittedly obscure at times, to find the spiritual in these days where it was hard enough to access already. I will list as many dates and times of options as I can.
— 11 — How the various workplaces and management styles are dealing with the crisis. And yes, this web site is after all about music, entertainment and nightlife broadly, and these businesses and their workers cumulatively are some of the hardest hit. All the hours they are open, and coming and going almost by the day, with how they are coping and indeed just trying to survive week to week, are taking new form almost hour to hour. I will describe all the manners of making their way in a time that our forefathers, and even the local Chambers of Commerce, could not even have dreamt about. Hours in this end are changing (being shortened, especially when the evening comes) the most of any industry than possibly in retail and fast food.
— 10 — How the businesses in the Hudson area fell apart, literally overnight, following the governor’s midweek decree. And what the local business scene was like that day at the 5 p.m. cutoff and immediately following. Why did a burgeoning city heading toward medium-size fall prey to the virus and its ramifications just like that, at a speed basically unheard of anywhere else in the country? We here are enslaved to the fickle leanings of one dominant industry, which when considering its few separate branches as offshoots, impacts almost every business in town. The effect was not unlike putting all your 401K money into one very risky stock and not diversifying, so it all crashed down. I’ll explore this factor at length later on down, and what’s being done right now and building on month’s past, and pieced together very fast, by successful management that can adjust on the fly and right the ship. That’s a hint about the unwitted culprit that became horrific everywhere, but in a special way the Hudson horror, (from as The White Stripes with such symbolic purity of color sang and somehow knew well in advance how the virus does not respect money and powerful positions, no matter how much of those you have. To wit: “From The Queen Of England To The Hounds Of Hell).
Hey, all this and the real meat of it, in the form of my virtual (or literal) top 10, is still hanging on the vine, so to speak: A hint, some of the best and most creative, and at the same time most obscure and nether-reaching, sources in low places are still to come with a chime in:
<The scribe will now school you, and we are not talking cafeteria food; but we may once more get into a tease or two, while at the same time chiming in with a cheap joke (would I do that?)>
OK now, me being the useless scribe on the other end of the communications system, and in the back row of the Target Center waiting for THE NAME band to come on, and,with notebook readily at hand and the pencil, for some reason — even with all these info possibilities remains tucked well behind the ear to the point of wax buildup (see a reference on that well-connected, namesake New Richmond Irish band of yore in a previous post), here is how you can find JUST WHAT YOU NEED for food and drink — read beer — but especially if you are in a quasi-suburban, enclave well to the south and north of Interstate 94 along THE RIVER, and in these cases, YOU NOW HAVE NO OPTION for the stuff you really want, but New Richmond in good ‘ol Wisconsin, the fast growing city in the country because of the new Stillwater bridge. WHY is this, among the many options in the driveable parts of the Beer Capital Of The World (U.S. dollars) and the NEXT NEAREST PLACE OVER? I have simply said, none of this is a sound byte, but with that mentioned, here goes: The only places still remaining, for all practical purposes, where you can get-whatever-you-need-short-of-brain-surgery, for Walmart type goods, is well, Walmart. So, big deal, there are Wal-Marts everywhere, but Wait A Minute, Wait A Minute, not everywhere has a Super-Walmart. They are not quite as prevalent as rats in the Black Plague, (I retract that comparison), but these are truly special, if only via The Church Lady who removes the bubble gum from one end of the napkin, then stows the rest in her 40-degrees-and-above jacket pocket, where she forgets about it until sneezing the next Sunday, (involuntarily?), when the sermon on the mount exceeded Everest in length/height, and her jaw finally dropped in what was a massive yawn. So, it has been said that in a rush to Hudson, via County Market next door, you can get certain food items you simply can’t find elsewhere, including the Master of Food Monopoly, Cub, (collectively gasp?) So you go to the nextdoor Walmart and they might not have your hot-pepper-spiced-banana-(pepper?)-parsley-eggplant dish either, so what to do? (It needs to be pointed out that, as says a friend of mine who is now with Walmart after jumping ship from Kwik Trip, even Target with its produce of the week and not much more pricewise, may not be immune to possible eventual closure as per the definition of essential business, as the rub is are you a “grocery store” or a “store that sells groceries?” We will let you know, as there is an appeals process, that as you are well aware may reach well beyond the court of the ying-yang-Righty Superemacy that might as well be on the Trump Post-Stormy-Daniels payroll, if only in-kind if you know what I mean about great nachos, (blatantly self-serving Cinco De Mayo reference), and possibly includes the Interplantary Justice System, (it was tie 50-50, with Mars opting out because of “size issues,” again if you know what I mean, but as a man with a plan, I can subpeona that tenth planet, wait more size issues, and I was trying to raise (From the Dead?), its publicist but he was busy weighing Hollywood scripts, two or three of which were from the Star Wars people, with a sequel or two already promised, but Don’t Call Us Yoda, We’ll Call You. There are more of these “people” around, I swear, then those governing the local Smilin’ Moose.
OK, Hudson is for the first time since-the-Pre-Dick’s-Bar-era, defunct so where to go now? Head northeast to New Richmond. And what will you find there? The mecca of the all things consumer, a Super Walmart, and where did this special bit of info come from? None other then a friend who goes to the grocery store and uses coupons to actually get paid to shop, if you know what I mean, but I can only give her intials, JM, for fear of exposing her cover to the WalMart Secret Shopper Police? Hey, alright, they might not actually exist, but maybe they should, but that would Take The Smile Right From The Face of VM, her husband, who can beemingly and with a certain pride announce that she paid else than a dime for T-Bone!
So why the New Richmond SuperWalMart, over all else, in Badger, Gopher and yes even Prairie Dog Country? TAKE HEED AND BE THIRSTY MY FRIENDS! Here’s Joe trying to do his version of a GPS analysis, and pack away the women and children. Oh, we’ve already done that. There is the Woodbury WalMart, but take away the aisles and aisles of snacks, there is barely one beer shelf and not much more, was probably 60 percent NA and 40 percent low-grade 3-2. Wisconsinites scoff forever! The few Beer and Beer is, and Beer and Beer is, repetition from withdrawl? And forcing run-on sentences? The handful of legitimate 12 packs still available were so scattered around the nearly barely dozen-or-so spaces, you couldn’t tell by the assigned pricing tags on the front plastic thingee that excuses me while I kiss the shelf (thank you for the borrowed referennce Jimi), if any of them were under, say 12 bucks. So the only draw is the food that may or may not be available in coming days and even hours, can you say eggs and salads, and can’t be gotten basically this side of St. Paul, if even then? Falling prey to diversity sucks.
To wit or should I say witness: BEER VAULT. Pack all the kids in the car and give them their sugar so that stay occupied in the employee lounge and beyond, bothering people on their 4.5 minute break, and maybe snag some classic Italian homemade grub of hot peppers and such if you are Badger enough to stand it and to wash down the, did I say it, Beer? Hundreds and hundreds of varieties to pick from in the way cool Coors-type temps hawked on so many Big Brew commercials, much better prices, and yeah, all the comfort food you want too — do the brat people hold a lein on the property? I don’t know firsthand, but according to my buddy a couple of stools down, who remains planted there as a virus vigil until the rest of the regulars come back, its a frothing brew too come back to, if he ever left …
Again, why? To badly quote the big box food stores anywhere on this side of St. Paul, don’t offer it and they will not show up. Sunday used to be the have to run day across the border, now its close to 365, virus withstanding.
So now what young grasshopper, or maybe not so young, or with wings clipped Buffalo style for serving in the modern economy: You can venture all the way toward the warehouse District you love to hate, and it would be shorter, maybe even far shorter, then the folks living — FINALLY now that the guitar solo ran on like Free Bird, bikers close your ears, WE ADD THE DRUM KIT KERNAL OF CLASSIC COUNTRY and beyond: If you are unfortunate enough to live up by extreme-west-end Scandia, or down by Afton and want to combine margarita mix and Smirnoff vodka to go with your bloody, and all the fruit and vegies that are so cooold drenched with that 80-or-so proof clearinghouse of clear booze, will save close to a gallon of gas to go a few miles across the border, and encounter more extremes. These include, under better then Minnesota highway conditions, to New Richmond rather than St. Paul, get all your groceries too that include everything from corned beef to what my dad would call real beef, (both with the obligatory seasoned or much better yet mashed potato and quarts of gravy, which is why most German men never live beyond the full maturity age of 30). But then there is my dad dispensing the wisdom of such red meat and more while gleaning nothing more than watching his bottom-of-the-TV-laden stocks scroll by, but that’s for another full-fledged father patriarch story. But the bloody Mary’s, as people slog off the wide river to local “restaurants,” often are in the form of a big burger sitting on top of the big glass of tomato — juice and vegetable versions and maybe even ketchup and the like — with Woody’s in Bayport leading the way for a long haul, and also Mallory’s with a more expensive but even more loaded making-a-meal. And there’s more to be had in the ol’ NR, as this and the favorites from nowhere but here will still abound, virus or no virus, as this is the beer capital of the known world, (give or take parts unknown from Germany). Can you think of an option that is better than this Beer Central, although we admittedly are in the Gopher-going-gang per where Hudson is, A PLUS YOU GET THE OL’ OLD MILWAUKEE AND MORE CRAFT BEERS FOR SALE, THEN THE NOW-SHUT-DOWN CHURCHES. You might even encounter Old School and see John Madden gang-tackling Adrian Peterson, as John is of a pound per poundage total that rivals a full offensive line and even then had trouble making weight. But while I Do Indeed Take Them To The River and beyond, where you yence can quaff Legitimate and Bountiful Millers, not to mention enough (LEAN?) brats to kill all the Budweiser horses, as they come from — gasp — St. Louis … You get the point that crossing the border that’s only a stone’s throw away, even if only on RARE occasion, can leave you a little fatter and MUCH MORE jovial, and you don’t have to step on a scale until next-time. So indulge a bit my friends, and don’t forget a quick run to the bathroom when it is 2:28 a.m., although you may have to give both the bartender and bouncer a bit more of a tip then your usual 50 cents. ‘Nuf said.