Diamond Lake Creative is Moving
Diamond Lake Creative is moving to St. Paul! We don’t know why. Maybe because it was across the proverbial road and we wanted to see what life is like when you slow it down (not being snarky, St. Paulites). Or maybe we thought being 25 minutes closer to the St. Croix river, which is the border between Wisconsin proper and Far Western Wisconsin (FWW), would be beneficial for its proximity to the Mecca of Cheesecurd Nation. Or maybe we’re joining the Minnesota Wild Hockey Club and liked the idea of living in the city the Wild call home(but you didn’t hear that from me)? Whatever the reason, Diamond Lake Creative is not becoming Lake Phalen Creative nor is Diamond Lake Bistro changing its name to Payne Park Bistro (though that has a nice ring to it…). We will continue on with the Diamond Lake monikers as they are a piece of our history and eventually Diamond Lake will become its own incorporated township – carved out of South MPLS – and we will be members of the inaugural Diamond Lake Guild of Dark NorwegianViking Yeomen.
Anyway, the new digs are old, 141 years old to be exact. The house once served as a layover for travelers heading West, like the Donners, who got Ooooh so close to the promised land but came up short by a few feet. Prior to that, it was a Minnesota Mastodon stable frequented by Caralinos who traveled back and forth between their homeland in modern day Peru and the fertile valleys of the La Cloche Mountains – which are part of Lake Huron’s North Shore (the surfing used to be killer but since the last ice age ended its been meh). This journey was part of the Western Hemisphere’s Keeping up with the Joneses movement – competing with the Spice Road. The Indigenous peoples of the continents would trade Inti-sun butter, Chupacabra resistant mountain goat chèvre, quasi-lava-cultured Amarillo Llama milk, Mature Mastodon and Mammoth extra heavy cream, and Giant Ground Sloth GroGurt among other double fat dairy dee-lites. For a few hundred years locals referred to it as the Boulevard of Brumal Blubber Augmentation; but, as with many monikers, that came to be seen as too narrow and not entirely fitting a place that would soon be home to the Cadillac Ranch, the Arch in St. Louie, and the Santa Monica Pier. And while much of the rest of the beaten path has been lost to history, you can still find fragments of that time when exploring the area along U.S. Highway 8 between Weyerhauser and Hawkins in Wisconsin’s Northwoods.
What Does This Mean for America moving forward?
What in the name of all that is holy is happening here, you might be asking yourself. And that’s a darn good question. America has never before seen an upheaval so sudden and utterly confounding save for that one time in Harrisburg. Nobody really knows what happened in late July 1877 in the backcountry of Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains and yet, it happened. And 3,500 years prior, events that were in no way connected to the future moving dilemma we face today were tearing apart a civilization that was founded on the idea of mint hash for all. What does this mean for our nation, a country “made great” by subjugating, enslaving, disabling, and killing anyone who stood in the way of unabated wealth accumulation of, by, and for the social elite? We can’t be entirely certain but there is one thing we do know… Mint hash never caught on as a major gateway drug.
If you’ve read this far and are more confused now than at any point in your life, that’s good, confusion is healthy when society is so completely broken, dismembered, bowelless, dead. Now we wait for the meteors to rain down so that “we” may begin again. And here I thought this was all leading to something grand, something hopeful, something, I don’t know, nice – but life is funny that way, funny not funny, I suppose, but funny nonetheless. Next time you’re in Key West, say Hi to Marsha and Salty Sam, they can be found laying on the beach near the 3rd palm from the end. Oh, they’re cats, not people, bring nip.
Wait! What About Those 14 Golden Years in Far Western Wisconsin’s Largest Metropolis?
Oh yeah, I forgot (ADHD keeps me going in 80 different directions simultaneously). Minneapolis is one of the most glorious places on earth. The waters are the lifeblood and the people, good eggs for the most part, are kind, intelligent, thoughtful, emotionally secure (more or less), passionate about making the world better, skilled in a variety of arts & trades, and have more great bakeries/patisseries, breweries, restaurants, bike hubs, and food trucks than cities twice the size.
There are so many ways to experience the true spirit of ‘Sota in Minneapolis: kayaking Minnehaha Falls, biking 15 miles to work in a blizzard, being carried away by a mosquito the size of a 747, or enjoying a cat parade. But even more than all of those amazing options, the feel one gets when: brewery hopping for a month, getting eargasms at 1st Ave, eating your way thru Midtown Global Market, or freezing your bits off at the pond hockey championships, the instant community with people you might never see again, but for a moment are the Besties you never knew you needed, is indescribable. And while the stoicism spectrum here provides for many head scratching encounters, the people, again, generally speaking, have best intentions.
Anyway, the rest of the story is like this… or pretty much so!
One would expect, in the cold climes of the Upper Midwest’s Capital (St.MinnePaulpolis) of all things on sticks, that shish-kebabs would be a bigger deal… but they’re not. Maybe it’s the walleyes’ fault (the State meat) – they don’t work as well on a stick, too floppy. Or maybe, after witnessing the shish-kebab debacle of 1887, in Northeast Iowa, Minnesotans gave a collective UFF-DA and vowed to never make the mistake of kebabing anything in mass production. Whatever the case, it’s not a thing here, and that’s ok.
But what Minneapolitans & St. Paulonians do have is a common love of and dedication to supporting that which benefits the larger society/social upkeep/societal success, etc. We, much like US Marines, may argue and fight amongst ourselves about the best Jucy Lucy (it’s Matt’s) or the purpose of life (aside from the annual pilgrimage to The Greatest Fair on Planet Earth!) – but we’ve got our neighbor’s back if some guy from Florida starts talking out their ass. We’ll politely give them a mint and tell them their breath stinks.
A Note to Mother re: The Move
It’s now been 72 days, but who’s counting?
Dearest mother, it is now day 68 of this most arduous & exhausting moving experience. The weather has significantly delayed our efforts as the mules refuse to move while snow is falling. Upon cessation of the fucking flakes, the temperatures plummet & drift between 5° & 25° below zero causing Big Jake to lie down & bury his head in a drift. He’s not much for work in the winter – or the summer for that matter.
Little Jacob caught the frostbite & we had to saw off 6 fingers & both thumbs… fortunately he has retained his left ring finger & right middle finger so we’re hopeful he’s still good enough to be marrying material. We can see the dirt floors in most of the house and therefore we know we are close to the end. God is providing abundance in the form of tears from Emma – she weeps all day & repeats some variation of “God, will they ever be fucking done?” We continue, ever forward – dying quietly and moving one piece of salt pork at a time. Give my love to father and sister Christian.
Love your most benevolent son, Erik.
“Where do we go now?”, said Pooh; and Eeyore, never looking up from the thistles replied, “Who the fuck cares, Pooh – Who the fuck cares?”
And that is not an actual quote from any A.A. Milne book; nor would I expect such language from Eeyore, ever the optimist, cheerleader and go-getter. But the message serves as a lesson for us all, or for some of us. It matters not where you go or what you do so long as you do it with conviction and with no concern whatsoever for those who would prefer you live by their rules. We can’t spend our days trying to conform to every norm, following every law, bending over backward to ensure we don’t offend or frustrate the gate keepers. You only get one shot, the Book of Marshall reminds us, and if you don’t take a chance you’ll never know what if. So go ahead, rock the fucking boat, beat the drum of defiance, and keep the powers that be always wondering if their time has come. Moving is hard in the best of times and we haven’t seen those times yet.