Drinking Podcast and an Opening Gala

In front of the new Cowles Center. Photo by Bunny.

THE NEW COWLES CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS officially opened this weekend. Before opening to the public on Sunday, Bunny and I headed over on Saturday night for a preview gala. The last time I was there, I donned a hard hat. Read all about it here.

The dust has since cleared; the whole place is crisp and spacious. The theater itself really is a sweet jewelry box of a place. It's an incredibly intimate theater to see performances -- dance in particular. There doesn't appear to be a bad seat in the house.

BUNNY AND I WILL BE RECORDING THE VERY FIRST Bunny and Coco Get Smashed podcast soon, with special guest and documentary filmmaker Susan Marks. I can't wait! The name of the podcast has the same name as mine and Bunny's ebook. Bought it yet?

Susan Marks talks with John Waters

We'll tell drinking stories, review places to drink, and of course the hard stuff itself: al-kee-hal. We'll be interviewing filmmaker Susan Marks, whose documentary "Of Dolls and Murder" is having its Minnesota premier on September 28th at The Heights Theater. She shares the fascinating history of Frances Glessner Lee -- specifically her hobby of meticulously recreating murder scenes with homemade dolls and dollhouses. Susan interweaves this story with interviews and fascinating details of modern forensics. She even got John Waters to narrate it.

I'll be sure to let you know the moment the podcast is online.

ON THE LIST FOR THE COMING WEEK: I'll be reporting on my adventures in New York City. Coney Island. 21 Club. Oh -- and the continuing search for the best NY slice (my favorite pizza places keep disappearing).

Gotta love New York City, Chester.

Dr. John, Chickens, and Eating Fun Food at the Minnesota State Fair

Let's start with a guessing game, shall we? What in the world do you think this is?

Another Minnesota State Fair has come and gone. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of attending the Great Minnesota Get-Together, it's a junk-food feeding frenzy. It's people-watching mania. There are live animals -- my favorite -- and there are fried ones (I do enjoy a good corn dog from time to time). There are block-long lines to try such food craziness as deep-fried cookie dough, sweet-corn flavored ice cream, honey-flavored ice cream, and deep-fried candy bars. I tried some of it -- the corn ice cream was good. And I tried ostrich, which tasted like a sweeter kind of hamburger. This year though, my favorite thing at the fair was visiting the goats and chickens. That photo up there by the way, is the belly of a tiny little goat.

Fell in love with this lady and wanted to take her home with me.

Ostrich, Fireworks, Sweet Corn Ice Cream!

I saw Dr. John perform at the Leinie Lodge.

I loved hearing some of his spookier New Orleans music live, like Walk On Gilded Splinters. It was the music Max and I were listening to as we drove into Louisiana, and New Orleans, in the middle of the night back in 2004.

Here's a slideshow of those chickens I mentioned:


And a video of a couple of them making noise:



Cockadoodledoo, Chester!

Space Contest, Drinkin' Spelling Bee, and a Crashed Wedding

 LET ME JUST START BY SAYING I would be thrilled to title one of these posts as follows:

Coco Goes Out...OF THIS WORLD

That's right. Ellipses and all caps. You know I don't use those grammatical tools lightly.

So what's the big occasion? It's the 50th anniversary of the Space Needle. And there will be a contest to accompany the celebration. The grand prize is the opportunity to travel into suborbital space. That means the winner will be able to see "the curvature of the earth and the blackness of Space."

If I don't win on behalf of the Space Needle, I'd love to petition Space Adventures to send a blogger (i.e. me) into space.

To keep myself from getting completely wound up about the idea of flying into orbit, I must distract myself with novelties here on earth. So, on Saturday I helped judge the Drinkin' Spelling Bee at the 331 club. It was a total blast (blast off? See? I can't get my brain down to earth now.) I witnessed someone spell a very long word backwards. I also saw a couple of people spell in their underwear.

And then Bunny and I crashed a wedding. 

Bunny and I danced a bit and then discovered a camera in one corner of the dance floor. Let's just take a look at what's going on here for a second, shall we? Obviously Bunny is trying to high-five the camera. Clearly I was afraid of bright lights at this point and slowly sinking into the floor. And then there's our new friend Eric -- a friend of the brides'. The brides' friend. Did I mention this was a lesbian wedding? And Eric is the fellow who invited us over for some Lillet on the rocks. Thanks again for one helluva great night, Eric!

Took some time for other summer activities this weekend -- including sitting outside at Gather, the new D'Amico & Sons restaurant at The Walker Art Center. It couldn't have been a more perfect afternoon for sitting outside. I'm not usually one for garden-y tasting cocktails, but their lavender lemonade was a perfect match for the summer afternoon. Be sure to visit on Thursdays for happy hour. A specialty cocktail is chosen as their feature and is only $5. Appetizers are also only $5 during happy hour, too.

There are a couple of feature appetizers each month as well. During August the two features are gnocchi, foie gras meatballs and cold porchetta, parmesan cracker, with horseradish cream. I had the gnocchi. I don't think I've used the word delectable on this blog before, so I will use it now. These appetizers were delectable. I'll share more about this later.

My uncle lives in northern Minnesota and likes to make his own wine using the area's wild fruits. In the past I've tried his various wine flavors, including choke-cherry, strawberry, raspberry, and, most recently, blueberry. One night the bottles of blueberry wine fermenting in his basement decided to have party of their own -- corks were popping. Instead of wine, my uncle accidentally made sparkling wine. And let me tell you, blueberry sparkling wine is luxurious. I wonder how many bottles are left...


Remember when I told you I took a very special behind-scenes-tour of the Science Museum of Minnesota? I'm making good on my promise to share it all with you -- I wrote about it here, for the local CBS affiliate.

Go. Eat, drink, and be merry, Chester.

Flash Flood, A Meteorite, and The Claw

Took a dip in the Rum River last Sunday with Indiana Jones, my mom and dad's flatcoat retriever mix. He likes to swim and he likes me, but I'm not sure he likes both at the same time. He starts to whimper if I float out too far and feels like he has to swim out and rescue me.



Walking back from the river I noticed a strange rock in the ground. I didn't pick it up at first, but then went back for it. I am so glad I did! Its dark red color stuck out in the light-colored sand of the field I found it in. I noticed shiny black specks in it as well, so when I got home I checked if it was magnetic. To my amazement, it was! However, I can't seem to find any photos of similar looking meteorites.



In my research though, I found out a 3-pound meteorite was found in that field in July 1961 (50 years to the month that I found this little rock!) and came to be called the Anoka Meteorite. In 1963 a 123 pound meteorite was found in Champlin, Minnesota, and has the exact same composition as the Anoka Meteorite. Found out a bunch of other information, too, but on to something else!

The next day on the bus ride back to Minneapolis, well before rush hour, I was surprised at the sudden traffic jam near the Broadway bridge on I-94. Cars were trying to merge back into the main lanes of traffic from the exit lane. As the bus continued forward, slowly, I saw what the problem was -- flood! I got some footage for you:

It seems I visit the Walker Art Center more than anything else lately, but how could I miss meeting famous wrestler from the 1960s and '70s, Baron Von Raschke? I couldn't, that's how. His son was present for the filming of a documentary by Phil Harder about Baron Von Raschke, so Bunny and I dressed as extras to appear in the film, too. Pretty great.

Hope you have a great week, Chester! Grrr!

Prosthetic Limbs, Mowing the Lawn, and Monster Munch

Photo by Bunny Ultramod

Because I live life on the wild side, I thought I had better start planning for my future by picking out a prosthetic limb. I'm betting I'll lose an arm some day -- you know, drinking mishap -- so started working on a prototype. Still have some work to do on that grip. You know, to hold a martini.

Coco and Paul Martin. Photo by Bunny Ultramod

Got a behind-the-scenes tour of the Science Museum's massive exhibit shop from Paul Martin, the Museum's Senior Vice President of Science and Learning. I tried out some prototype exhibits and also got to explore the vault a little. Couldn't bring my camera in though.

Saw some priceless artifacts -- it was nothing short of a room full of shelf upon shelf of treasures. Quite exciting. While I was there I found out some of the heirloom seeds they have are currently up on the International Space Station for an experiment. As you know, I love space, so this news thrilled me.

Saw some actual dinosaur bones up close and personal, as well as an ancient Mandan bull boat, spears, Chippewa Indian bead-work, and ancient Mexican ceramic sculptures. It was a good day in the Science Museum's vault, for sure.


Oh, I got a look inside my head.

Photo by Bunny Ultramod

And played with some nano particles.

Bunny and I headed over to The Walker yet again for their Open Field activities. Sat on the lawn while they did a lawn mowing demonstration (told you I live on the wild side) and hung out a bit with a couple of the artists-in-residence, Samuel Bing and Sinosa Loa of the band Fol Chen. They were creating customized, one-of-a-kind songs for people with their Verbal Algorithm Composer-Free Song Generator.

Also listened to a sheep sniff around in the grass a bit.

Like the rest of the world, I am a bit fascinated with one Mr. Karl Pilkington. He mentions a snack he likes, Monster Munch, fairly frequently so I decided I wanted to try them, too. I got pickled onion flavor, which is pretty good. I like how tangy they are -- kind of like dill pickle chips (and I LOVE Old Dutch brand dill pickle chips). I want to try more flavors of these. They are tasty! I was expecting potato chips, but they are actually baked corn and kind of puffy. The packaging is fun to read, too: "Suitable for monsters and vegetarians."

Have a fine and dandy weekend, Chester!

Meeting and Eating

Remember to buy this and this.

Haven't been taking advantage of eating at all the food trucks parked around my neighborhood, but I did make a point of trying a sandwich from Turkey To Go. It was simple -- just pulled turkey on a plain hamburger bun, but somehow it was pretty sumptuous.

Checked out 1,001 Chairs at the Walker and saw chairs of all sizes and shapes set up outside on their patio on the corner of Groveland and Hennepin. The official name of the event was 1001 Chairs: An Observance in Honor of Silenced Voices. And when I say all sizes, I mean it. There were some Duplo-person sized chairs out along with the human-sized ones that people donated.

Saturday was an all-day affair. Found myself at the sculpture garden again, on one of the most hot and humid days of the year. This time I was there to dance. Good timing, right?  


Thank goodness an ice cream truck came by (got a massive Bomb Pop, ran into cwethern chewing on a Ninja Turtle). 

 

Bunny and I were there along with about 200 people to be a part of a Where the Hell is Matt? video. He's the fellow who's videos of him dancing badly in various places around the world have gone about as viral as viral can get. Nice guy! 

After that Bunny and I headed over to Joe's Garage. There was talk of a celebrity showing up there. Sure enough, lights and cameras were being set up in a back room. Then they wheeled in the woodchipper. That's right. Celebrities don't necessarily have to be people, just a noun. I consider the Empire State Building to be a celebrity, for instance. And an actual prop button can even be elevated to some minor celebrity notoriety. And on Saturday night Bunny and I got our photo with the Eager Beaver woodchipper that had a pretty memorable cameo in the Coen brothers movie Fargo.

Loving the hot weather, by the way. Reminds me of when I lived in New Orleans and of telling people who complained about the humidity there that it gets much worse in Minnesota.

Have a drink and remember all those snow emergencies we had last winter. 

Have one helluva week, Chester.

A Bang and a Bombshell

Photo by Bunny Ultramod

Well my week started off with a bang -- fourth of July, you know -- and ended with a couple of bombshells.

Headed to my mom and dad's house for a little getaway to the 'burbs and played bartender. I am getting really good at making mojitos. What else are we supposed to do with all the fresh mint growing in the yard? Once the sun went down we shot some fireworks over the house and ran around with sparklers for a bit.

Recent Bride #1; Emily Bennett Beck

Visited the SooVac gallery for their latest show Untitled 8. I'm always so excited to attend each of their exhibitions -- they are always jaw-dropping exciting and, in a way, futuristic. I never fail to be a little shocked and also laugh a bit, which is a sign of great art, no?

Naked Composer Series: Britten; Donna Dralle

Bunny and I headed to the Mall of America to do a bit of shopping and were lucky enough to be able to meet the 2011 Playboy Playmate of the Year, Claire Sinclair. She was there signing autographs and posing for photos, but also making an appearance in a fashion show showing off the new vintage-inspired fashions for sale in the mall's new Bettie Page store.

Photo by Bunny Ultramod

Miss Sinclair's sister and Playboy model Angela Marie was along as well. We chatted for a bit before the fashion show began. Sounds like the two of them are having fun in Minnesota! I hope they were able to make some time to visit some of the vintage stores in town -- I tipped them off to my favorites.

Here's to starting this week off with another bang and a bombshell, Chester!