Drinking with Ian, Season Two (DVD)

Set up the shot glasses, champ, it’s time for another round of “Drinking with Ian!” Season Two of the eponymous Ian’s popular, Minneapolis-based cable access show finds our hometown hero back in his old haunt, the 7th Street Entry (the servants’ quarters to First Avenue’s elegantly decayed mansion). With his well-marinated band of revelers, including bartender Ollie Stench, house poet Haiku Jim, and the show’s resident chanteur, Neil, Ian hits his stride in this second volume of late-night, on-tap entertainment.

In some sort of Joseph Conrad trip to the mythical past, viewers will delve into the origins of DWI, watching long-lost tape of the 1990-something pilot for Drinking with Ian… and Troy? But nevermind Troy. They’ll learn the mysteries of shots including the Uncle Frank, the Fonzie’s Office, and the Boz Skaggs not to mention the champion bleep-inducing cocktail, the, “well, we can’t even print it here.” They’ll explore Midwestern musical greats from the legendary (the Mighty Mofos) to the critically acclaimed (Low) to the perennially hard-working and under-appreciated (Building Better Bombs). They’ll even delve deep into the world of independent films, with hilarious shorts like the animated “Day Off the Dead.” But most of all, through the second season’s more ambitious pre-taped skits, on and off-site interviews, and the pure joy exuded by the Drinking with Ian crew, connoisseurs of Season Two will be forced to agree with their host when he enthuses, “This (expletive)’s getting better all the time!”