Category: Motley Kruse

I was sorting through an old box of videotapes the other night and came across an unmarked VHS cassette with no case. I popped it in the VCR, hit play, and for the next half hour, marveled at the human animal’s capacity for selective memory. 1993. I was a barista in an espresso bar downtown.…

We’ve hit an interesting point in the arc of TV storytelling. It’s almost completely self-referential. Like monks from those earlier Dark Ages, copying illuminated manuscripts over and over again, today’s Hollywood hacks are feeding internally until there is no discernable output or input of ideas. Only yeasty, subdividing molecules of “Cop,” “Hot Chick”/“Dopey Chick”/“Brainy Chick,”…

There’s an arbor in my neighborhood that I drive past every day. Sturdy pre-fab construction, what looks to be bare, untreated wood. It catches my eye not because it’s beautiful, but because it is goofy. It’s the placement of the thing that gets me. It’s plopped a third of the way into the front yard…

I like to drive through the neighborhoods I used to live in and check in with my history. Most recently, Uptown. The corner of 25th and Bryant, a stately duplex on a tree-lined block. The Uptown house rarely calls me. But something was in my head this day, something small, furry and insistent. Chewing through…

So, I’m sitting at this casino bar outside of Carlton, Minnesota, last month, and this rather handsome gent rolls up alongside me and says, “Nice mustache-ride joke. Can I buy you a drink?” I’d just closed out the bill at the Black Bear Casino’s “Free Comedy Night Thursdays.” Now, I don’t mean to brag, but…

My dad is tougher than your dad. Yep. I speak the truth, so don’t even try to talk to me about it. My dad is taller than your dad, he’s funnier, and cooler, and you know what? He’s smarter, too. There’s proof. Uh huh, shut up there is! My dad once swam across White Bear…