[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the drunken compendium of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty-five years ago the Sultan of Sot paid a Valentine’s Day visit to the legendary Red Lion Bar in Duluth, and composed this article for the Feb. 21, 2001 edition of the Ripsaw newspaper. The ol’ “Roar by the Shore” closed in 2007 and is now the location of Zeitgeist Arts Café.]
So, it’s Valentine’s Day and here I am at one of my favorite watering holes, the Red Lion — the fucken Roar by the Shore. By all standards, this is not supposed to be the day to get ripped out of my godforsaken gourd. This is supposed to be the day to wear pink and purple, eat a whole helluva lot of candy and watch Richard Gere movies. I ask you this: Could there be a better day to puke your guts out?
The Red Lion is always awesome; it doesn’t matter if it’s full of pathetic drunks or young hip-ocrites slumming with Black Labels (the beer or the band). Either way, it’s full of my favorite folks on earth. Tonight it seems to be a good mixture of wasted middle-aged sots and good-looking lesbians: Yes, these are my people.