Author: Neal Karlen

  • Uncle Tom Jew

    In the seconds between shoving my third and fourth White Castle-sized pork sandwich down my throat, I yelled across the lavishly appointed basement toward my host. He and his wife had invited fifty Twin Cities WASPs, and me, to watch Mike Tyson’s pay-per-view, main-event boxing match in Las Vegas against heavyweight Frans Botha on their…

  • Way Behind the Music

    Emily Goldberg’s childhood memories of the Twin Cities are profoundly blurry. Literally. Growing up on Long Island, she traveled regularly to Minneapolis with her family to visit Dr. Irving Shapiro, a friend of the family and an ophthalmologist. The Goldbergs would get their eyes checked by Dr. Shapiro. Goldberg remembers the doctor’s dilating drops; they…

  • Stranded On Third

    I feel like throwing up: Willie Mays is screaming at me. He’s slammed the brakes on, and his sports car is screeching to a halt, and he is throwing me out. I feel nauseated, even though I’m perfectly aware of the fact that the “Say Hey Kid” of yore has famously turned into the Say…