[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 visited Bev’s Jook Joint in Superior and composed this article for the June 27, 2001 edition of the Ripsaw newspaper. Bev’s Jook Joint ceased operation in 2014.]

Here’s something weird: The Puritan city of Duluth, which is almost three times the size of Superior, doesn’t have any gay bars. Well, there’s the Tap Room, but that’s not homosexual, that’s just gay.

Meanwhile there are several gay bars in the debauched, anything-goes city of Souptown: JT’s, the Main Club and Bev’s Jook Joint. Of the three, Bev’s is the only one that seems to be in denial of its gayness. That isn’t to say the place is full of closet queers; Bev’s just seems to have more of a mixed crowd than a gay crowd. A breeder can hang out and act blatantly straight without feeling like how RuPaul might feel at Northland Country Club.

So I get to Bev’s on a Tuesday around 9 p.m. and no one is there. It’s just me, the bartender and some guy playing around with the microphones. Even though it’s silent in the room, the bartender is plugging one ear with his finger and screaming into the phone, “Ten o’clock! The band starts at 10! What? I can’t hear you. What? Oh, this is the phone company? Oh, OK.”

“So what band is playing?” I ask the barkeep, hoping maybe that Azure du Jour is popping in for a mid-week show.

“The Black-eyed Snakes,” he says. “Father Hennepin is opening.”

Shit. The Black-eyed Snakes. I completely forgot about that. I come over to Superior, and especially to places like Bev’s, to escape that scene: the “hip”ocrites, the Nelson glory-boys, the Central Hillside bedheads, my fellow Ripsaw dope-smoking liberal newspaper dorks, and the rest of the “Hey, we’re in Duluth” worshippers. What a letdown.

I hit the bartender for a fix-up and hide in a corner booth, waiting for things to start. At first, I think the night’s going to turn out like any average night at Bev’s. A couple of quiet guys come in and sit in the shadows. An older woman comes in and talks to the bartender. That guy who looks just like Rod Stewart shows up. A hot babe shows up with her mom. But then a couple of known Duluth groupies come in and start playing pool. The onslaught has officially begun.

Ted Anderson of Father Hennepin comes in and the bartender asks him if he wants a beer. “Well, actually, I was going to order a whiskey,” he says. “But beer sounds good. I’ll have both.”

I’m heading up to the bar for another “drinking jar” of some decent swill called “Bev’s Special Ale” when I notice a guy wearing a giant tool belt. He looks just like the stereotypical gay guy you see in movies: moustache, receding hairline, big giant tool belt. But this isn’t a movie, this is Bev’s Jook Joint. He isn’t gay; he’s here to fix the phones.

So I’m standing there waiting for my drink when this old guy, one of Tower Avenue’s finest, manages to crawl in and, of course, he singles me out. “Hey, didn’t I talk to you last night at that bar down the street?” Apparently he’s oblivious to the fact that there are several dozen bars down the street, and he was at all of them last night. Of course, I probably was, too, but I don’t want to get into this. “La Belle? Was it at La Belle?” he asks. “Frankie’s? CC Tap? The Main? The Dugout? The Locker Room? The Androy? The Capri? Hall of Fame?”

It’s at about this time that two couples who look like action figures come in. I’m serious. These people could suddenly turn into rockets at any minute. The guys look like they have some kind of metal underneath the skin of their faces, and the women both look like that chick from Tomb Raider — not Angelina Jolie but the actual cartoon from the video game. Not to worry, however, as the two lantern-jawed men both have their horn-rimmed glasses on so, obviously, they’re in their mild-mannered Clark Kent form. They stand directly in front of the ‘Snakes using their super powers to block everyone’s view and rub each others’ butts. This goes on for about 20 minutes, until this blonde Duluth floozy goes up to flirt with the men. It takes the men about 10 seconds to realize that she flirts like this with everyone, and they use their super powers to send her back to her barstool, embarrassed.

I don’t realize it’s time for me to leave until I step outside for some air. There’s a cab waiting, so I think what the hell, and I hop inside. “Didja have a good time?” the driver asks.

“I don’t know,” I reply. “I could go either way.”