A Day At The Fair

If you’ve never been to a state fair in a midwestern state–Minnesota, say–you should go. It’s pretty remarkable: a vast area that is more or less deserted for 50 weeks out of the year, like a movie set, suddenly comes alive and, for the last two weeks of summer, has a population about equal to Chicago. For the second year, the Northern Alliance Radio Network is broadcasting live from the Minnesota State Fair. I won’t say our show is any less serious than it is the rest of the year, but, after an obligatory Able Danger discussion, we moved on to beer in the second hour, with Summit Brewing Company founder Mark Stutrud as a guest, and in the third hour we abandoned propriety altogether with a Scotch egg eating contest.
Here is our gang early in the show. Left to right are Mitch Berg, Chad the Elder from Fraters Libertas, Captain Ed, and me; click to enlarge:

Every once in a while, pretty girls would come by and ask for our autographs; just don’t tell my wife:

I really can’t convey how disgusting the Scotch egg eating contest was; for one thing, these weren’t normal Scotch eggs, they were State Fair Scotch eggs, which is to say, deep fried. With horseradish and maple syrup. Really.
Here we see the contestants, gamely trying to down an egg (with sausage, etc.) in less than a minute. From left to right, a blogger named Swifty; a blogger named Jordan, a pretty girl entering a State Fair eating contest, is she a good sport, or what?; the winner, Patrick Campion (also known as Chumley Wunderbar, when he is fleeing the authorities), who works for 1280 AM the Patriot–although they will probably deny it if asked; and Shot in the Dark’s Mitch Berg, the MC, so to speak, of our weekly show. I don’t know who the guy on the right is. The guy in the back with a microphone is the hysterically funny Brian “St. Paul” Ward from Fraters Libertas. (If Al Franken were as funny as St. Paul, Air America might be a success.) You can’t see last year’s winner, and this year’s runner-up, J.B. Doubtless, who is best known as the Elder’s younger brother. This year he was crushed, frankly, by Patrick Campion, who is not only much larger, but is entirely unencumbered by any vestigial table manners. The faint of heart will not want to enlarge this one:

We generally have a very good show, but I’m not sure I can recommend it until the fair is over. I won’t be there tomorrow to keep the gang in line, so goodness knows what they’ll do. But if you feel like tuning in, they’ll be on from 12 to 3 central time; click on the Northern Alliance link on the right to listen on the internet, or go to the Northern Alliance web site.