Must Love Hot Dogs
Oh, poor Hz!
Even though Hz is a bigshot hot dog doctor, she’s seriously been feeling the pinch of the harsh economy lately. See, Hot Dog Doctors aren’t like regular human doctors that get paid an assload of money every time they get out of bed. Hot Dog Doctors get paid exactly NOTHING, and there is some major overhead with the practice, too, ’cause you’ve got to buy hot dogs, and pitchers of beer, and Cherry Bombs, and Twins Homo-pener tickets, and bus fare, and tetanus shots. So, Hz thought she had it made when she scammed a friend into moving in with her, and being her roommate, and helping with rent! But then this friend fell in love, and wanted to move in with her boyfriend. Nice for her, but wha—? Now Hz has to scam somebody else!

Hz is down to $4.
So Hz was thinking about writing an ad for Craig’s List. And she was thinking about her love of hot dogs, because they are never far from her mind. And she was thinking that it would be nice if the person she tricked into moving in with her loved hot dogs even half as much as she did. So then she was thinking about how the Craig’s List ad could be titled, “Must Love Hot Dogs” as a riff offa that super awesome and clever Diane Lane / John Cusack movie, Must Love DOGS!! Isn’t it great?
If you haven’t seen the movie, here’s what it is probably about (we haven’t seen it so we don’t really know, but it seems like pretty easy to figure out):
Diane Lane plays this really mean and ugly lady whose husband leaves her for someone who looks like Megan Fox or Sasha Grey. They would have picked Ali Larter, but the producers wanted him to leave a blond for a brunette. That’s just how Hollywood works, people. If Marcia Gay Harden would have played the mean wife, the rest of casting would have been totally different too.
Anyway, Diane Lane is at the EDGE OF DESPAIR! So she thinks about where she can meat her new, great boyfriend, and she remembers that men like dogs and women like cats. So, basically, if you just go where there are a lot of dogs, you will meat a boyfriend and finally be happy. And you know where that is, don’t you? The DOG PARK.
In order to make sure that lots of cute guys come up to her and meat her, she stuffs some summer sausage meat into her coat pockets. So when dogs walk past in the dog park, they come right up to her and sniff her, and the hunky owners just think that the dog really likes Diane Lane, and then they meat her and flirt with her and she goes on dates!
BUT, Diane Lane is very fussy, and she never likes any of the hunky guys that meat her, even though it was probably Bill Paxton, Dane Cook and Paul Rudd. And then one day, John Cusack‘s dog jumps up on her, and knocks her over and she bumps her head on a park bench and goes into a coma! John Cusack feels really, really guilty about this, so he goes to visit her in the hospital every day and tells her family that they’re dating, which is partially true, because he’s seriously falling in love with her because she’s really BEAUTIFUL (even though she’s getting old), and since she’s in a coma she can’t talk, so she can’t be like, “Why don’t you ever tell me I look nice?” and “We never hang out with MY friends, only YOUR friends!” and “NO BUTT SEX!”!
The part about it that’s NOT true about them dating is that since Diane Lane is in a coma, she has no idea who this weirdo dog owner even is, let alone the fact that its super creepy that he keeps hanging around a veg in the hospital, so she’d like totally never date him. They’re sort of HALF dating: he’s dating her, but she’s not dating him.
The movie ends with Diane Lane finally waking up, but having no idea where or who she is, but the first person she sees is John Cusack, and just like a baby dinosaur, she “imprints” onto him because she thinks he is her mother. So she kind of chirrups and mews and rubs her face onto his hand and they live happily ever after.
Here’s a trailer! See for yourself!
So, if you know somebody nice, who really loves hot dogs, and who wants to live with a serious hot dog journalist, let us know.
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Hz was rescued by a rock star!
A coupla weekends ago, Hz got to go with her friend Mary Ellyn and some other folks to Coachella, in California! She was super excited to see a bunch of great bands, and eat some quality dogs. She was very ambitious with the band-watching, but not with the dog-eating. She ended up eating tacos and potato chips most of the time, unfortch.

Mary Ellyn and Hz at Coachella. Keep movin', folks. No htdgs to see here!
Anyway, the day after the festival, Hz went to the airport only to discover that she booked her return flight for a week later than she needed it. After finding out that changing to a different flight from Palm Springs would cost $950, she decided to book a flight from Los Angeles instead and try to hitchhike over there.
Hz found a ticket on the red eye for later that night that only cost $320, but still needed a lift to the Los Angeles airport, which California celebrities have nicknamed, “LAX”, and that is about a two-hour drive. Also, she didn’t know very many LA folks that were at Coachella, and certainly didn’t want to bother anyone. Luckily, she had been text-messaging that morning with a very important LA dude, whom we shall nickname, “HrMrSprstr.”
And wow, what a great guy! He arrived at the airport in his fly hoopty in, like, 60 minutes! And Hz hopped in, and off they went!

Westward, Ho!
Hz had a long talk with her rescuer. Mostly this talk involved her explaining the wonders of hot dogs. How much fun they are to eat, how much fun they are when you take pictures of them, and especially how much fun it is when she and Ez write about them and their friends tell them that they are funny all the time. (How Ez and Hz are funny, not how hot dogs are funny. But hot dogs are funny, too.)
And HrMrSprstr was WAY into it! And Hz didn’t think he was just being polite, because he had a MILLION great ideas for future missions, such as handing them out for free at his shows. And also, he didn’t have to be polite anyway, because Hz was the one who should be kissing ass, since he was so nice and gave her a ride to LA.
So after they got to LA, do you know what Hz and HrMrSprstr did? Yes, you do! They went out for a hot dog! HrMrSprstr knew of a very famous hot dog place called Pinks, and he wanted to take her there! For a power lunch!
This Pink’s place was rather incredible. They had so many people in line for a hot dog, they had to put ropes out on the sidewalk for crowd control. But it didn’t matter how many ropes were there, it was gonna be real tough for Hz to control herself. For SURE!

Pink's was heaving with Pink's fnz!
As they wound through the ropes, Hz and HrMrSprstr were totally laughing at all of the funny signs for hot dogs you could buy.

The Ozzy Spicy Dog!

America the Beautiful Dog!

Lord of the Rings Dog!
Hz noticed that there was a hotdog with coleslaw on it, which sounded verrrrrry intriguing, so she totally got that. It was great! HrMrSprstr got something with loads of chili.

HrMrSprstr orders there!

And we got chili on our fries.

Hard at work!

The wreckage
After Hz and HrMrSprstr ate, they wanted to die. But seriously, they had been partying in the hot sun at Coachella all weekend, so it might not have only been because they were so, soooo full. They might have just been sun-burnt and hung over. Or, yeah, they might have overeaten.

Full.

Sooo full.
After this, HrMrSprstr took Hz to a nice bar called Malo, where they had some Tecate and talked with some friends. Then off to the LAX airport, so Hz could take the redeye home!
Safe and sound!
Lessons learned:
1. When you’re buying a plane ticket always check the date on your computer for when you’re flying home, in case you might have picked the wrong day.
2. If you DO buy a ticket for the wrong day, ask a rock star for help.
3. If you buy a ticket for the wrong day, and a rock star is going to help you, go to Pink’s for a hot dog, but don’t eat so much you feel like dying.
4. Coleslaw on a hotdog tastes good.

THE

END
Yo, Twins Homo-pener, Sprtz Fnz!
Ever since Hz’ friend Sexy Freddy suggested going to the Twins Homo-pener, the Hot dog Doctors were practically vibrating with excitement. If there’s one thing that a Hot Dog Doctor likes, it’s going to a game that some people call, “A Thinkin’ Man’s Game.” That’s SO us! We rallied a Street Force and ordered some tickets for the cheap seats online, and when the tickets came in the mail, Hz called everybody freaking out because the tickets all had different pictures on them! That was extremely rad. They’re like paper dolls for boys.

Twin in the white shirt: I'm trying my hardest! Twin in the blue shirt: Then try harder!
When the day finally came for the Twins Homo-pener, Paul D informed the doctors that all day the nice Metrodome people had been handing out hot dogs to Sprtz Fnz! What? How did we not get the press release? Haha, just kidding.
That evening, the Hot Dog Street force met at Ez’ house, and then everyone took the bus downtown and then the light rail to the Metrodome. It was way fun! While we were waiting at the platform near Dreamgirls (which is a super excellent stripper bar in case you didn’t know), Hz took this totally cute picture of Ez in front of a Hot Dog sign! Can you tell we were way stoked to go to the game for some quality dogs, or what? Oh, man!

No one can resist!
When we got on the train, we felt like everyone could tell we were amateurs, because we weren’t even wearing Joe Mauer jerseys or anything! Just normal clothes! Also, Hz was very proud of all the tickets, which may have signaled a lack of sophistication to which these so-called “Thinkin’ Men” are unaccustomed. Whatevz, dudez. Like we care. JK! We really do!

Meet Scott Baker, TC the mascot, and Joe Mauer.
Scott Baker is a starter, the mascot is a teddy bear, and Joe Mauer is from Saint Paul, and we cannot stress enough how so many people had Joe Mauer shirts on. He must be a way awes guy!
When our train pulled up to the Metrodome, it was like paradise! The very first thing that happened is this girl with a Red Bull Can-shaped backpack on came over and gave us all FREE Red Bull! Yeah! for FREE! And she said something like about how Red Bull gives you wings, and Paul D thought she said that Red Bull makes you wheeze.
So, you know how sometimes when you hear the word FREE you get a little thrill in your heart even though you don’t care about the FREE thing at all? But it’s like, if I can have it for FREE I would be stupid not to take it! That’s how we were with the Red Bull. Because no one on the Hot Dog Street Force likes Red Bull or ever drinks it, except Hz will drink it about once a year but only if she has a seriously miserable hangover. So anyway, we all took those FREE Red Bulls and stuck them in our purses. For later! Or for never! Or to give to a teen-aged girl or something! We didn’t even think about it, to be honest. It was FREE!
Then we started wandering around like amateurs again…

The "H" stands for "Hawesome!"
We finally figured out where we were supposed to be going, which was all the way around the back of the Metrodome, where all the poor people walk into the building with shame. When we got up to the doors, there was an important man there who wanted to make sure we didn’t have anything dangerous in our purses. And you know what he found? Yes, you do! Tons of FREE Red Bull! And you know what you’re not supposed to take inside? ANY Red Bull. Sorry, teen-aged girls, you won’t get any future possible Red Bull handouts from us! (That was a big “maybe” anyway.)
So, we got inside, and started wandering around like stupid people. We didn’t know where General Admission was, so we sat in someone’s seats that weren’t general admission. And while we were enjoying our incredible view of first base, the actual general admission section was SUPER filling up! So, by the time the people who paid for the seats we were sitting in got there, and stripped us of our dignity by making us leave, it was very, very, very, very hard to find a seat where we were supposed to be. We are beginners.

Here's us: My, these general admission seats are quite good.
Finally we found a few seats together, but we had to make some people move down one seat, and then we had to save one single seat in front of us for Kt, who was coming late, and one single seat behind us for Nz, who was coming late, too. And then we had to tell two people not to come. They weren’t going to be happy about that, but what could we do? That’s what you get for having a normal job.
Here’s what we could see from our seats: Banners of important baseball players! There is Jackie Robinson, the first guy to ever play baseball black; Harmon Killebrew, who had a shit-ton of home runs or something; Rod Carew: Jew! Black! Yesss!; Tony Oliva who was probably good or something but we’ve never heard of him; Kent Hrbeck: WEIRD LAST NAME; and Kirby Puckett who is known for having a big butt, and glaucoma, and is also dead. Super bummer. Ez always liked the way radio game announcers said Kirrrbeeeeeey PUCKETT!

Robinson, Killebrew, Carew, Oliva, Hrbeck, Puckett
This Mauer mister doesn’t have his picture up in the stands yet, but even if you were blind you could tell that he is very important because at these Twins games they work to get you totally mental by playing a tiny bit of an awesome song and Paul D noted that they reserved the awesomest one for Joe. Everytime he was going to be the batter they would play AC/DC, “TNT”, but only a tiny bit! Mental Making!
Now you try, too! Just stop this after a tiny bit!
Pretty soon Kt and Nz showed up…

Can you find Kt in this picture?

Find Nz, if you can!
After everyone arrived, we set out in search of some dogs.
It took forever, because we also wanted beers, and it was hard to find the kind that we wanted, even though it is normal old Summit beer that we wanted, and that is brewed in Saint Paul. And you’d think that if everyone is going mental over Joe Mauer, who is from Saint Paul, they would want to have Saint Paul beer all over the place. But they don’t. We settled for Schells. That’s okay, though. It’s from New Ulm.
Eventually, we found us some Dome Dogs, too. Feast your eyes!
By the way, the Hot Dog Doctors aren’t sure that there is any difference between a Dome Dog hot dog and a regular hot dog that you can buy at the Dome. It’s just when you order a Dome Dog, you also get a bag of potato chips. We didn’t perform any tests to find out for sure.
So, here’s when things started going badly: Hz kind of was carrying more than a Doctor should. And she made it past the throngs of Sprtz Fnz for what seemed like miles through the hallway of the Dome, and up about a quarter-mile of stairs, and got all the way up to two rows in front of the Hot Dog Street Force when one of the dogs got loose! The top hot dog in the little paper basket that it came in slid from the stack of other little paper baskets she was carrying, and the dog tumbled into a fellow Sprtz Fn! And like any fired-up baseball zealot, he tried to catch it. But the wiener got loose and fell to the floor. Hz new friend caught the empty bun in his hands, and also caught some hot dog shrapnel (mustard and relish) in the thigh1. Hz almost cried.

HELP! LOST DOG!
But Paul D was super nice about it. Since she was carrying his dog in the dog pile, she was going to go dogless and let him eat. But Paul D insisted, saying that as a Hot Dog Doctor it was important that Hz sample a Dome Dog. Hz and Paul D decided to split the remaining dog. It was very profesh of them both.

Half-a-hotdog
Of course, a half-dog wasn’t enough. Eventually, a nice man with a special hotdog-warming box came up the stairs, and we could buy another one from him! So that’s what we did.

He came upstairs with a hotdog! What a nice guy!
Then we started eating some serious cotton candy…

Nz loves cotton candy so much, she wants to kiss it!

Kt + Ctn Cndy

Ez!

Like the hand of god in a pink cloud!
Okay so then there was lots of watching (and getting distracted), and there was some stuff with the game and people were cheering and then there was this SUPER HILARIOUS kiss cam, where the giant TV showed people and then if they saw themselves, they had to kiss! The Hot Dog Doctors were hoping hard that we’d see someone that we’d know, but we didn’t. How can there be a whole stadium sold out, with people making out on a kiss-cam, and we don’t know anybody? It seemed impossible, but it was true.

Kiss Cam!

More Kiss Cam! C'mon guy, kiss her!

Kiss Cam! Everyone wants to make out!

Hz hoped that the Kiss Cam would catch her during this romantic moment with her hot dog.
Okay, so THEN there was this weird thing where they totally humiliated this guy about Twins trivia. He got to be on the big TV, and wear a Twins outfit, and the name of this strange activity was, “Touch ’em all trivia.” We couldn’t see if it said “Joe Mauer” on the back of his outfit, but it probably did. As we’ve already mentioned, Twins fans lose their minds over Joe Mauer.

Dude got pwnd
Here’s what happens…
- Some fellow with a microphone asks this fan in a Twins costume on the big TV a question.
- Poser gets it wrong.
- They make him leave.
At another point in the Twins Homo-pener, some guy proposed to a lady on the giant TV! He’s got major baseballs to do something like that! We didn’t get our cameras out in time, so we can’t show you what it looked like, but it really looked exactly like this:

Pretend like this is the giant TV.
The whole time they were playing just enough of some seriously great songs to make your thighs start to tremble, but, oh wow, then they played “Crazy Train”! The whole “Crazy Train”! Ridiculously sick!
Okay, so the bad news is that the Twins lost the game. We took this majorly cute picture of the Hot Dog Street Force when we were lounging around afters.

The Hot Dog Doctors, surrounded by the Hot Dog disciples
Oh, okay, we almost forgot! This is really funny! When we were on our way out, we saw this guy who was dressed totally outrageously! We wanted to take a picture of him to show you SO BAD, so the Hot Dog Doctors told him that we were writing a fashion blog. That isn’t exactly a lie, because we did write about fashion in the First Avenue post, and we even gave fashion advice which about a million2 hipsters have taken to heart. Seriously totally. But the point is that this guy was super nice and he let us take a picture.

Fashion!
And then Hz gave him our business card, so he could check himself out! We sooo hope he does! We also hope he doesn’t sue the doctors for malpractice, since we totally lied to him. Oh, please don’t!

Sharpie business card, until we make it!
Afterwards, we walked to Grumpy’s and had some mini-tacos and more beers. Boy, they were good! And PS: Grumpy’s was PACKED! But we still didn’t know a single person. We need to start getting out more, obvs.

There's Kt! Ha ha! Hi tiny Kt!

And there's Nz! Like a little ant!
1. After reading this part, Lt. Brn-n-Srv said to Hz, “I’ll give you some hot dog shrapnel in the face!” Hz thought this was rather aggressive, and for a moment was offended, yet confused. Relish and mustard in her face? What? Then it dawned on her what he meant. Now she fears she’ll never reclaim her youthful naïveté. (That’s French for “doesn’t get the joke.”)
2. Actually, only one. It’s Lz. She wore skinny black pants and white shoes to Rogue Buddha last Saturday. But she looked so great! See, we were right. About the fashion.
SXSW Sendoff Tragedy: Denied Dgz!
When Hz saw the flyer for the Are You Local? SXSW Sendoff at First Avenue, she was only slightly stoked at first. There were some pretty rad bands playing, but usually the HtDg MDz don’t go into downtown on the weekends, because that’s when the superlame D-bgz go there, and if there’s one thing a HtDg Doctor doesn’t like, it is THAT (except sometimes Ez does like that- noshedoesn’tyesshedoesnoshedosen’t). Right before Hz stopped caring about the flyer, she noticed that down at the bottom was a tiny hotdog! Totally dope! Then she really cared, like a LOT! And called Ez right away!

Hello, Hot Dog!

Can you spot the dog in this picture? Hz did!
So the Doctors rounded up a Street Force, including Dnz and Paul D. Ez and Dnz went down there right away, because they were super starving. The scene was SET! There were tons of people so they thought it best to scope the hot dog operation- and quick. They walked right in and followed the signs.

and make haste!
Well, you don’t get to be doctor without learning to tell when stuff’s sinking south and this was getting critical! Every time they got in line for a delicious hot dog, they would run out before they got one and then the chef would have to go make some more! Every time it was like, come back in 5 minutes, come back in 5 minutes. Como se dice Broken Record?!!
This was totally weak. But finally, during one of the dog runs, Dnz scored a dog. A natural Hotdog Force, Dnz saw them unload a batch and she moved it up there, Pronto! It took forever, but it was delicious, she said, and we believe her like whoa.

hard work and determination
Ez saw the writing on the wall: If Hz didn’t hurry up and get to First Avenue, there would be NO DOGS LEFT! So she sent an SOS for Hz to GET OVER HERE NOW!

Hz receives an SOS from Ez!
But Hz was doing the very best she could! She thought that she would park in a parking ramp and pay on the way out, but HOLY CRAP! It was event parking, and she had to pay on the way IN! And guess who didn’t have ten dollars? HZ DIDN’T! So then she had to drive all the way to Sex World to go to the cash machine, so she was super late, and in super trouble!
When Hz finally arrived, the Hot Dog Street Force rolled downstairs to try for dogs one more time. But they were like, OH MY GOD, OH NO! Because the sign said no dogs!!!

tough bnz, MDz

oh, please don't cry
This was a hard reality- a real tough hit. Dnz was the only one to get some that night. Ez kept digging for details, just kept on asking. What was it like? Was it good? Dnz didn’t talk too much on the matter, but said it was fresh. That was almost enough for Ez.

fresh and good, she said
Paul D and Hz were starving so bad though. So even though they would have done some pretty uncool things to score a dog, it wouldn’t have even mattered because there weren’t any there anyhow. So they just got pizza instead. It was pretty good, but there’s nothing like a dog, as I’m sure you will agree.

whadaryagonnado?
Too late for hot dogs and too late to see First Communion Afterparty, we made ourselves feel better by drinking majorly huge beers and listening to music. The Doctors both agreed that the best band of our night was Solid Gold, for several reasons:
- Totally cute!
- Sweet outfits
- Good music
Here is a video, so you can hear how totally premium they are.
But wait! We forgot something! Before Solid Gold started, one of the guys in the band was walking around, and Ez noticed that he was wearing skinny black jeans with white shoes, which we thought was a totally excellent combination. Then we were doing some shopping at the Solid Gold merch table, and we saw this, which was a hilarious joke, but also a tragic waste of dog:

rock stars are wasteful
And also, we handed out some business cards that night, to maximize exposure on the street! Awesome times ten!

This is our business card. Supreme!
Our lessons for tonight are these:
- If you want to be a hot dog doctor, you must always be ready for a dog any time, ALL the time. And usually parking ramps and hot dog places will not take credit cards. So Hz will always roll with some flow from now on.
- Wear skinny black jeans with white shoes.