[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago the Sultan of Sot paid a visit to Lost in the ’50s, 1809 N. Third St. in Superior, and composed this article for the December 2004 edition of the Ripsaw, which was the last issue of the publication in its monthly magazine format.]

Of the five bars located at the receptacle end of Tower Avenue, Lost in the ’50s is the shyest and most understated. Other bars in the neighborhood are known for their horseshoes or their burgers or for being a place to quietly drink yourself to death. Lost in the ’50s offers cheap drinks, a decent juke, bad karaoke and, as the name would suggest, a smattering of velvet Elvis art. For some reason, few people bother to take them up on the offer.

Location has as much to do with it as anything else. The layout of the Tower Avenue/North Third Street intersection tends to lead the drunken eye to the east, away from Lost in the ’50s and toward more dubious places, like Jo D’s Corner Oasis, JT’s or the deathly Tom’s Cedar Lounge. Besides, most people, once they get as far as the Anchor or maybe Molly’s, don’t even think of venturing any farther, because they assume they have all they need. They’re wrong, and I’m going to tell you why.

It’s peak bar time on a Friday night when I walk into Lost in the ’50s and find maybe seven people, one of whom is clearly a regular. The rest is a group of six, clearly not regulars. The irregular group consists of three colossal nerds and their foreign girlfriends. Apparently, they’ve decided to come here because they knew no one else would be here, so they could overtake the place and dominate the karaoke stage, which is a smart thing to do. Everyone knows that the worst thing about karaoke is waiting for 15 brain-dead rejects to finish slurring out their depressing Lee Greenwood numbers so that you can mow down the stage with your punk-rock rendition of “99 Luftballoons.”

I quickly order up some domestic swill because, first of all, that’s probably all they have here, and second of all, because that’s exactly what I want. As much as I love a nice Spatan Optimator or Weihenstephaner Hefe Weiss Dark, the last thing I need right now is a beer that might encourage someone to engage me in a discussion about its fine balance of malt and hops. That would distract me from listening to this autistic rendition of “Daydream Believer” while I flip through the sticky pages of the song catalog in search of my own selection, which, by the way, I’ll have to fight for the chance to sing in spite of the fact that there are only seven other people here.

See, the nerds have chosen to abandon the little slips of paper normally used to request karaoke songs. Instead, they’re just drunkenly and spontaneously calling out numbers as they flip through the catalogs. “E-18! That’s Carly Simon, baby! E-18!” “B-24! H-50! Q-12!” It sounds like a completely shickered game of Battleship, with the worst soundtrack in the world.

Let me tell you something: I’ve been to two state fairs and a goat-fucking contest, but I’ve never seen or heard anything like this before.

“I vant to sing Bee Gees,” one of the foreign girls announces. One of the nerds calls out some number, and seconds later there are a couple of Eastern Europeans on stage, under the fancy lights, singing “Stayin’ Alive.” English may be their second language, but their first is clearly disco.