Much has been written about the luxury apartment/condo boom in Minneapolis. We highly recommend this piece. If you haven’t gotten around to reading these articles, a video has surfaced that explains it all in three minutes and twenty seconds. Please, click.

YouTube video

First of all, much credit to the filmmakers for plucking Dollar Store Ryan Gosling from obscurity and handing him the role of his whey-protein lifetime as a Lake Calhoun über-bro.  The journey to hosting “Wake Up Eau Claire!” in 2019 begins with a single step, DSRG.

The clip opens with some generic aerial shots of the lake, the beach, and some of the beautiful people.  Then, we spy a tank-topped, sweaty DSRG, presumably having just blasted his core or some such, entering his swank-as-heck building. We see his sleek, modern kitchen (bagel toaster, bro!), and his sleeker, modern-er bathroom, where he steps into the shower to rinse off the day’s worries and/or creatine.

While he takes his sweet damn time primping his hair and fussing over his outfit, we cut to a Mystery Blonde at a high-end bar, checking her watch and waiting, presumably, for DSRG.

Once our hero has toweled off and suited up, he, being a jerk, does NOT go to meet her, but rather mixes himself up a big martini and watches the sunset. Once that’s done, he still does NOT go to her (see previous sentence about him being a jerk), but rather adds a tie and a clunky-ass watch to his ensemble.  Then, and only then, is he ready to go.  I do not remember this being part of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth.

DSRG clambers, SOCKLESS, into his Maserati (of course!) and drives the half-a-bleeping-mile to the Lake Calhoun Beach Club, where Mystery Blonde is still waiting for him due to this being a science fiction movie.

(In real, actual, sock-wearing life, I do not recommend keeping your significant other waiting on your date night so you can guzzle hard liquor and moon over the setting sun, unless joint custody is a goal of yours.)

They grab a bite to eat, order some more drinks, get into the Maserati and drive to Uptown, because that’s what you do when you’ve been drinking hard alcohol and keeping women waiting all night.  After a bunch of quick cuts of Calhoun Square and a surprisingly Gleeman-less Stella’s, they drive back to his place.

DSRG (still SOCKLESS) gets the fireplace going while Mystery Blonde powders her nose, then they just keep on drinking before clothes start coming off and they go to his sleek, modern bedroom.  The screen goes dark.  

Cut to the following morning, as the sun rises over Lake Calhoun, and DSRG and Mystery Blonde are standing on his balcony in matching white robes. It’s shot from a distance and you can’t see what they’re drinking, but I assume they’ve already put a good a.m. dent in a handle of vodka.  And the credits roll.

The unsubtle message for the viewer: live here and you will have perfunctory, joyless sex with attractive women even if you’re a tardy jerk who shows up one cocktail in.  

Join the Conversation

25 Comments

  1. fill in the blank

    What is wrong with the standard marketing line of buy and you will get whatever you want, usually sex.
    I owned a house in Uptown for a number of years and it is not as flashy as portrayed. I enjoyed coming home on Friday and some weekends I never used my car. Minneapolis has a great park system but living in Uptown has it issues like being overwhelmed in the summer by ‘tourists’ and the usual urban crime, I was broke into twice in 10 years.

  2. And what’s with the toddler in his arms on the balcony at the end? The dramaturgy just continues to crumble.

  3. Reckoning better than Murmer?

    My God Stu (Steve), are you putting that out there to be Barreiro-like contrarian or do you really think Reckoning is better than Murmer?

  4. Two things

    1) Let’s cut the guy some slack, he may be wearing no-show socks.

    2) He shook his martini. BRB, going to burn building to ground.

    1. Correct

      As President Bartlett told us, shaking a martini will get you “cold water with a dash of gin and dry vermouth. The reason you stir it with a special spoon is so not to chip the ice. James (Bond) is ordering a weak martini and being snooty about it.”

      1. Boffers!

        I was told on good authority by some martini aficionado friends that the key to a perfect drink is to shake it with crushed (or chipped) ice. That waters down the booze the proper amount to achieve the perfect level of martini blessedness. Pour immediately though as you don’t want to leave the martini in the shaker with the ice and let it get too diluted.

        I prefer mine with the lemon stuffed olives from Bill’s Imported Foods on Lake Street.

        Enjoy!

  5. That’s weird

    Assuming the shot on the balcony at the end is “the next morning,” why is the sun rising from the West? Maybe after years of global warming (accelerated by driving a half mile to the Calhoun Beach Club), the sun rises from the west, cats live with dogs, and this couple inhabits Uptown…

    1. time flows backwards when you are so cool

      The sun is “rising” in the West because the “sunrise” “zoom out” is actually a sunset zoom in played in reverse. Look closely at the traffic in the final shot and notice the cars and even people going backwards. Of course the whole thing is totally backwards so it should be no surprise…

  6. Date night:

    I think they are married. Counselors are always saying married couples should have date night. Tot at end is their kid. Still a jerk for keeping her waiting. This piece is trying to be too cute.

  8. DSRG = Actor AND Realtor

    I have been (un)fortunate enough to rub shoulders with many of Minneapolis’ sexiest dude bras. I have met this 《ahem》”actor” a few times in the past (I lost count as each time was as pleasurable as the previous), and I think the most interesting part of this video comes from the simple fact that the DSRG is not only the actor, he is also the realtor tasked with selling the condo in the video. This is, after all, a marketing piece to sell a $2 mm condo. And for good measure, why hire an actressfor said jerk to keep waiting when you can use your real life wifey? Marital bliss defined. I mean, all of my dates end with me smiling for an aerial shot from a helicopter buzzing my tower… don’t yours? …

      1. I think so… don’t recall his name, yet that sounds right. We have mutual friends. I just remember meeting him and heard he sent the video out to thousands of contacts. Not my marketing style really, but as they say – to each their own…

  9. Please, please, please do not use click-bait headlines. Please use the headline to tell me the Uptown housing boom, not about the awesome video that explains it.

    1. It’s all tongue-in-cheek, Matt

      Give us one once in a great while.

  10. He appears to be holdinga child at the end

    Apparently the Beautiful Ones are able to bypass the normal 9 month gestation period in lieu of a much quicker 24 hour reproductive cycle, fetal alcohol syndrome being the only suboptimal characteristic of their perfect genetic offspring.

  11. If I could afford to drive a Maserati, I wouldn’t be renting in Uptown. That’s just bad financial planning.

  12. We can’t really stop the condo boom…

    But maybe the advertising can be salvaged. Just may—nope.

Leave a comment