The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Hordes of Jihadists, radical liberals and ancient clown-shaped abominations with fantasies of disrupting the Republican National Convention by rising from beneath the streets of Saint Paul like so many crap-coated Lovecraftian elder-beings wept bitterly as public works employees welded downtown manhole covers shut during the last week. Thanks to the astute foresight and planning of the combined brain trust of the Department of Homeland Security and local law enforcement, the dire public safety threat posed by Shitman - the sewer dwelling creature immortalized in 90s hard rock band Green Jelly's song of the same name - has been neutralized.

Demonstrating the serious nature of the sewer-borne terrorist threat, sealing the city's manholes was but the first step in a multi-layer defensive plan. In addition to placing mutant amphibians and rodents trained in the lost secrets of nijutsu in the tunnel beneath St. Paul prior to welding all access points shut, Kevin Bacon has been retained for the duration of the convention. Bacon's demonstrated skill and ingenuity at defending against underground threats will serve the city well and ensure the safety of delegates, convention attendees, and the assembled masses in the event of worm-like creatures from the deep.

This, in addition to the recently announced "no-fly zone," super secret security expenditures redacted in the publicly available budget and the protest corral that is located in "unprecedented proximity" to the convention, is sure to make the attending delegates, candidates, elected officials and assorted panderers and hangers-on feel cozily safe in the confines of downtown Saint Paul.

Safe, that is, until they venture west to Minneapolis in search of the fabled land of Déjà Vu and Scheik's. While Saint Paul may have locked down the shit-related security threat, its metrosexual twin across the river is still coping with roving groups of crap-flinging chimpanzees that take over the city streets at bar close and make the city unsafe for freshly laundered and crisply pressed Brooks Brothers shirts.