It’ll be the end of an era Thursday afternoon when Lori Barghini and Julia Cobbs host the final episode of their MyTalk 107.1 afternoon talk show “Lori and Julia” after 22 years on the air.

To say the pair will be missed is an understatement. They shocked longtime listeners and fellow media types when they announced their impending retirement in March and have since headlined a record-breaking, months-long Minnesota Goodbye.

Fans have flooded the duo with feedback and well wishes, some of which they’ve shared on the air. In recent weeks, they’ve embarked on a mini tour of Twin Cities landmarks, broadcasting live from places like the Mall of America and, coming up on Tuesday, Chanhassen Dinner Theatres. They’ll wrap it all up Thursday with a live broadcast from the Fillmore Minneapolis nightclub. A select number of $75 VIP tickets sold out quickly, while they’ll fill the rest of the room with lucky listeners who called in to score free admission.

During recent shows, Lori and Julia — and they’ll always be Lori and Julia, no last names necessary — have filled the airwaves with their favorite guests and shared more than two decades worth of memories, all delivered in their signature Minnesota-by-way-of-the-movie-“Fargo” accents. A common thread that has run through all of the discourse has been utter disbelief these that we were all about to enter a time when “Lori and Julia” was no more.

In the broadcast world, pairs of personalities are arranged marriages by default. Sure, some folks may develop a friendship along the way, but that’s a happy accident in an industry where decisions are made by weighing any number of factors beyond whether or not the two people actually like each other.

If I’ve learned anything in my 52 years on this planet, it’s that the best couples not only love each other, but they like each other, too. That goes for romantic relationships or business partnerships or, you know, talk show hosts. And it’s abundantly clear that Lori and Julia fit that bill.

Their origin story is every bit as remarkable and unlikely as you’d imagine. St. Paul native Cobbs and Barghini, a self-described Army brat who spent time living in Duluth in her youth, first met in the early ’90s, when they were both working for Carlson Cos.

Lori Barghini, left, and Julia Cobbs, right, interview author Jim Spada on his new book during the FM 107 “Lori and Julia Show” on March 26, 2004 at the KS95 studio in St. Paul. (Sherri LaRose / Pioneer Press)

“I remember Julia poked her head around the corner when she was just starting — her cube was going to be next to me — and she said, ‘Hi, I’m Julia!’ And I thought, ‘Look at how cute that girl is. She’s going to be my friend,’ ” Lori said in a 2004 Pioneer Press interview.

Four month later, a joint ski trip convinced Lori and Julia their friendship was the real deal. Along the way, Lori even married Julia’s brother, the sort of move that could potentially break the strongest of bonds. If anything, it further cemented the pair, who went on to invent fake nipples they dubbed Bodyperks and sold to women eager for some easy silicone enhancements.

The national media eagerly embraced Bodyperks and the pair went on to do hundreds of television and radio interviews. After seeing them interact, a producer for the cable channel Oxygen said the magic words: “You girls are hilarious. You should have your own talk show.”

Despite their lack of broadcast experience, Lori and Julia somehow managed to convince management of the then-new women-focused talk radio station MyTalk to take a chance on them. Forgive me for this, but the rest is herstory.

What’s amazing about the show is that Lori and Julia pretty much made it up as they went along, an impressive feat in a notably rigid industry fueled by strict formatting and rule books. While the show has evolved over the years, it’s still essentially three hours a day of two friends chatting about whatever happens to strike their fancy, whether it be celebrity gossip, local news items, the book they’re currently reading or the latest reality television shows they’re watching.

The true appeal of Lori and Julia is that strong friendship that exists at the core of everything they do. Yes, sometimes they bicker and talk over each other and contradict themselves — just like friends do. They aren’t playing it up for the microphones, either. The Lori and Julia who are on the air are the same Lori and Julia the other 21 hours each day.

(Full disclosure, I’ve gotten to know Lori and Julia over the years and while I’ve been an infrequent at best guest, my partner Patric Richardson has become a regular on their show, both as a guest and guest co-host. I can confirm that the primary difference between them on and off the air is that they swear more in real life.)

“Lori and Julia,” the show, lasted 22 years because of Lori and Julia, the women. Their relationship and chemistry has convinced countless people to spend 15 hours a week hanging out with them and sharing their laughs, achievements and frustrations, but mostly laughs. Just ask anyone in the media, that kind of engagement is rare and almost impossible to naturally replicate.

Two-plus decades in and Lori and Julia are leaving the airwaves at the top of their game. There’s no reason to think they couldn’t have done this another 10 years, but they — or as they’ll both admit, mostly Lori — decided it was time to live lives that are no longer broadcast.

Come Friday afternoon, there will be a “Lori and Julia”-sized hole in Twin Cities media that will never truly be filled. They stand as true one-of-a-kinds and life won’t be quite the same without them. I wish them safe travels and nothing but the best in life. They earned it and they will be sorely missed.

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Newport residents knew exactly what kinds of parks they wanted when they were surveyed a few years ago: one with playground equipment suitable for younger children and one for their furry friends.

On Tuesday, city officials celebrated the grand re-opening and ribbon cutting for the newly updated Busy Beaver Park. The park, located at 10th Avenue and 17th Street, features accessible playground equipment designed for younger children, ages two to six, said City Administrator Joe Hatch.

Members of the Newport City Council and St. Paul Park Refinery Marathon Petroleum Manager Holly Jackson celebrate the re-opening of Busy Beaver Park in Newport with a ribbon cutting on Tuesday, June 18, 2024. From left: Councilmember Kevin Chapdelaine, Councilmember Tom Ingeman, Mayor Lori Elliott, Marathon Manager Holly Jackson, Councilmember Bill Sumner and Councilmember Marvin Taylor. (Courtesy of Joe Hatch)

Later this summer, the city’s first dog park will open on Marathon Petroleum-owned land between Fifth and Seventh avenues, south of Third Street, he said.

Busy Beaver Park, which had been closed since April 9, now has a climbing wall, balance equipment, multiple slides and play structures as well as an accessible, poured-in-place rubber surface. It also has a swing set.

“It’s designed for younger children to learn balance, gain strength and agility,” Hatch said. “All of the play equipment is designed for the physical development of younger children.”

The makeover of the park was paid for with a $100,000 donation from Marathon Petroleum’s St. Paul Park Refinery and $90,000 from the city.

Newport Mayor Laurie Elliott said the updates to the park “would have been delayed for several years without Marathon’s financial assistance.”

“This was a great partnership between the city and Marathon to update this park,” she said. “We appreciate their generous donation and community support.”

The previous playground equipment at Busy Beaver was installed in 1997 and in need of replacement.

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The city’s new dog park, as of yet unnamed, is expected to cost the city about $45,000, Hatch said.

Staff and community service personnel are in the process of clearing dead and dying trees from the property – with fencing to follow soon, Hatch said.

Plans include paving a parking lot on Fifth Avenue, south of Third Street, and adding a way to access water.

The park, which will be free to users, will not have lighting and will be closed for use after dark. The city is looking for volunteers to assist with maintenance and operation of the park. Anyone interested is asked to contact the city’s public works department at 651-459-2475.

In the mid-1960s, photojournalist Danny Lyon embedded himself with the Outlaws Motorcycle Club in the suburbs of Chicago, snapping portraits and candid photographs while interviewing members of the Outlaws. The result was a photo book called “The Bikeriders,” published in 1968, that serves as the inspiration for Jeff Nichols’ latest film of the same name, a meditation on midcentury motorcycle life, the birthplace of a certain kind of cool.

Nichols is clearly enchanted by the inimitable style and intoxicating lore that Lyon’s photographs conjure up, and he populates his cinematic Chicago-based motorcycle club — the Vandals — with a coterie of ruggedly handsome stars who can make sideburns and motor oil look good, including Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, Norman Reedus, Beau Knapp, Boyd Holbrook, Emory Cohen and Damon Herriman. There are also some unexpected and welcome casting choices like Karl Glusman and young Australian actor Toby Wallace, who is terrific as a young Vandals wannabe.

As the enigmatic Benny, Butler’s supernova star quality is undeniable, and the film opens with a bourbon and a bang — a shovel to the back of his head during a bar brawl that will haunt the rest of the film. In this bit of bravura filmmaking, Nichols demonstrates a slick style and rhythmic musicality that instantly draws us into this world

When we next lay eyes on Benny, he’s hulking over a pool table at a bar, his long, golden arms and tousled blonde coif raked over by the greedy gaze of Kathy (Jodie Comer) who stops in for a drink and leaves with a lifetime lover. Nichols’ camera eats Butler up hungrily, every inch of battered denim and well-worn leather; every soulful pout and blood-spattered grin wordlessly seducing Kathy to the dark side. It’s no wonder Kathy’s boyfriend beats it as soon as Benny turns up on their curb, and it’s no wonder Kathy bends her life around her brooding new boyfriend and his clan of grease-streaked miscreants.

Kathy becomes our narrator, her mile-a-minute Midwestern patter adding a layer of percussion to the rumbling engines and plaintive crooning of ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll on the soundtrack. In a rapid-fire Chicago cadence expertly enunciated by Liverpudlian actor and master of accents Comer, Kathy reels off stories about the boys in the Vandals into the microphone of Danny Lyon (Mike Faist). She’s the observant eyewitness and caretaker of their oral history, though the details are potentially lost, muddled or otherwise exaggerated by our storyteller. We see them though her eyes: sexy, dirty, violent and often tragic.

We also see them through re-creations of Lyon’s photographs, which Nichols and longtime cinematographer Adam Stone painstakingly compose and set to motion. In a montage, we see Lyon snapping portraits of characters like Cockroach (Cohen), Wahoo (Knapp) and Corky (Glusman), or capturing candids of the gang from the back of a bike. We see an image of a relaxed Benny riding over a bridge, one hand lazily gesturing behind him. Nichols improves upon Lyon’s shot by having our subject face the camera, rather than looking away.

Watching “The Bikeriders” feels like flipping through a photo book, absorbing arresting compositions and snippets of stories, and there’s a sketchy, snapshot quality to Nichols’ screenplay as well. The film is an evocation of character, place and time, the tempo alternating between moody and lively, like our central odd couple, laconic Benny and chatterbox Kathy.

Kathy has plenty to say about Benny, though we rarely see his unique qualities in action. He’s somewhat underwritten, and while Butler has the outsize presence to inhabit the iconic image, Kathy takes up all the air in the script. Benny is reduced to a symbol of sorts, a visual emblem of the Vandals’ dangerous glamour. Their mutual attraction is initially palpable, but we don’t see the glue that keeps them together throughout the years of peril and partying. The mysterious Benny has more chemistry with Johnny (Hardy), the Vandals founder and leader, and so too does Kathy.

Hardy is typically fantastic and fantastically weird, and he emerges as the gravitational center, not just of the Vandals, but of the film itself. Johnny leads by his own specific instinctual code, based on whim and personal values, which gets harder and harder to enforce as the club grows, with veterans returning from Vietnam seeking camaraderie, and bringing back darker vices.

“The Bikeriders” is a great hang, until the party’s over and it’s time to hit the road. Though the dramatic thrust of the narrative never quite coheres, there is plenty of pathos, and the ebb and flow reflects both life itself and the uniquely human nature of the storytelling, as Kathy regales us with tales of these wild ones, who now live with the sound of roaring engines only haunting their memories.

‘The Bikeriders’

3 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for language throughout, violence, some drug use and brief sexuality)

Running time: 1:56

How to watch: In theaters June 21

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