It’s All About How You Get There

Heading out to the Sleater Kinney show last night I travelled first by bicycle over to Jodi and Heather’s house. To get there one takes the Minnehaha Creek bike trails which lately I’ve been loath to ride. I’m convinced that other people on bikes pose more of a danger than the cars in the street. The path is split down the middle with a thick blue line, two lanes you see, I travel on the right and if you are heading my way you stick to your right. If we all follow this simple rule than I won’t be forced to grab my flare gun and fire one across your bow. The most common problem seems to be lackadaisical bikers whose thoughts are a million miles away from the asphalt passing beneath their tires. Their heads swing lazily back and forth as they approach me from the opposite direction. They pay no mind as they begin to creep into my own lane. I’ve learned in my biking days that you really have to watch people’s eyes. You have to make sure that people see you! This goes for people in cars too. Many an accident has been avoided when I realized that although a drivers head is turned my way they still haven’t seen me. So to deal with these inattentive bikers I usually end up making a lot of noise. There’s much yelling and the waving of the arms. Then, slack biker’s head comes out of clouds, they realize they have wandered off, they over-correct much too fast and wobble uncontrollably for a rotation or two. It’s pretty funny and sometimes I do chuckle a bit but I would rather avoid these mishaps altogether. Let’s be careful out there.

Safely through the Minnehaha Gauntlet, I arrived at the house, met Dusty the cat for the first time and then we all took the train down to First Avenue (Dusty didn’t go, just the humans). S.K. rocked very well. The cover of Danzig‘s ‘Mother’ was unexpected but very appreciated. It’s funny, but now that First Avenue has removed most of the glass barriers from the second floor, I got to ask, why didn’t they do that like 15 years ago?

All that rocking left everyone with an insatiable hunger so we went over to the 112 Eatery. This was a great choice as they have incredible food and they serve it until one in the morning. Everyone proceeded to get carried away with the sparkling wine. Spirits were high.

Also, a great collection of Minneapolis and Saint Paul graffiti from the late 1990’s.