The Summer of Books and Movies

And so, here we are, a month into the summer dubbed “The Summer of Books and Movies” and the books continue to beat the crap out of the movies.

The movies have not been bad, not by any means. Indeed, these are the films that the critics of last year heaped mighty piles of praise upon; movies like “Doubt” and “The Wrestler.” Both looked to be outstanding films and I will not sit here and cast dispersions upon them, no sir, not me. These were good films, but, sadly, not great films.

Ever since “The Dark Knight” I feel as if I hold films to a higher standard. “The Dark Knight” was just a comic book movie. That’s how it was apparently judged by those who decide which movies are deserving of praise, which movies deserve to win awards and be forever dubbed the best of the year. Here was a movie that was better than what it was. Sadly, people felt that a movie like “Slumdog Millionaire” was much better. Isn’t that what it means when a film wins best picture? That it’s the best movie made that year?

But the movies that have been heaped with praise do not necessarily deserve the praise they get. Rather, they seem to be the best out of what’s offered.

“Doubt” was good, but not great. Surprising with such a cast. The cinematography was beautiful as well. However, the story was too ambiguous and vague. What should have been a great movie was merely pretty good.

“The Wrestler” was good as well. Not great. Good performances do not make up for a meandering story that never gets resolved. Sure, it’s a character study, but a character study for a character that you can’t empathize with makes for a movie that’s disappointing to watch.

When you want a movie to be great, when it’s only good, that’s just as much of a disappointment.

Thank goodness for books. My current goal is to read all the books by Chuck Palahniuk. I may even read “Fight Club”, because, based on his other books, the book has to be better than the movie. His stories are complex even when they don’t appear to be so, his characters are diverse and layered, and his storytelling style goes down like warm honey.

And unlike Netflix, the library doesn’t charge.

But Is It Art? The Other Side of the Bronzie Debate

Seven Asian tourists stand in a tight group where Water Street meets Wells Street in downtown Milwaukee. They argue back and forth in hushed tones. One, who appears to be the leader of this group, points to the street signs and then to a map. Finally, exasperated, he walks up to a man waiting for the bus. The foreigner approaches the native, a nervous smile on his face and his brows knitted in concentration.

“Fonzie?” The man asks in thickly accented English. As an afterthought he gives a thumbs-up and says “Ayyyyyy.”

The Milwaukeean, at first surprised, grins and points to the Milwaukee River, a block west.

“Thank you.” Says the tourist as he returns to his group and relays the information. The group heads west. When they get to the river they turn, looking north and south along the river. Then they see it. Just south of Wells Street the bronze statue reflects the mid-day sun. The “Bronze Fonz” smiles and gives a perpetual “thumbs-up” to the tourists. They hurry across the street and cluster around the statue of the Milwaukee icon and begin snapping pictures. After a few minutes, a couple in black leather jackets emblazoned with Harley Davidson logos turns the corner. Patiently, they wait for their turn with the statue.

The controversy surrounding the statue had started to become not unlike a bad dream, fading into the collected consciousness. Then, in mid-April of this year, the Milwaukee Common Council decided by a 12-2 vote to approve the Janet Zweig art display along Wisconsin Avenue. That brought the controversy surrounding the “Bronze Fonz” back to the minds of those in the Milwaukee art scene.

The statue, known as the “Bronzie”, has become a polarizing issue amongst many in Milwaukee. While some believe it to be a light-hearted remembrance to that ambassador of coolness, others believe it represents the problems with the art scene in Milwaukee. Probably the most outspoken opponent of the “Bronzie” is Mike Brenner, owner of the former Hot Cakes art gallery.

Former art gallery as in gone. Brenner threatened to shut his gallery down if the Milwaukee Arts Board decided to go through with their plan to bring the Fonz in bronze statue form to Milwaukee. They did and he followed through with his threat. In July he closed the doors of Riverwest’s Hot Cakes gallery forever. Many accused him of being nothing more than the perpetrator of a huge publicity stunt. Others went even further.

“You ever link the Fonz and the Packers to Dahmer again and you’re going to end up like Dahmer.” Said one homophobic and misinformed caller who also called Brenner “gay-boy”. Brenner has posted some of the more “amusing” phone calls on a web site that also features artistic remixes by local artists supportive of Brenner’s cause.

But Brenner doesn’t see it that way.

“I did everything I could to make the community better.” He says as he sips a coffee outside of Riverwest’s Alterra headquarters. His gallery that was just a few blocks away was just a small part of the efforts he made on behalf of the Milwaukee underground art scene. In addition to the gallery, he served as the chair for the Milwaukee Artists Resource Network. MARN was created as a way for artists in the Milwaukee area to network and help each other out. Artists could use the group’s web site to advertise resources, both physical and intellectual, that they were willing to share and trade. Brenner worked with the group for eight years. Funding became harder and harder to come by and Brenner admits he was ill suited for the task of finding more.

“I’m an idea guy, not a do-the-books guy.”

Brenner relates how money continued to get tighter and tighter for him. Eventually he was forced to living in the back of his art gallery, sleeping on air mattresses. He went through seven, returning each one and exchanging it for a new one as they wore out. Things went from bad to worse for Brenner. A lot of the people that came to showings at his gallery would pound down free wine while complaining about its cheapness and criticize the hummus while they filled their pockets with it. Still, Brenner tried to stay open so that he could provide the public with art.

“After a while you don’t get anyone on Tuesdays so I decided to close on Tuesdays. Then people stopped showing up on Wednesdays.” Brenner says. He continued to try though. At one evening’s event when he was to show a film, only one person showed up. She and Brenner ended up having some beers and doing his dishes.

It would seem that Brenner’s decision to close his gallery was based more on financial reasons and less on artistic protest. It seems that way until the subject of Janet Zweig comes up. Zweig was a renowned artist that had created many works including a public display in Minneapolis. Brenner was serving on the Milwaukee Arts Board as the Chair of Public Art when it was decided that Zweig would be selected to create a public art display along Wisconsin Avenue. Besides Brenner, the Milwaukee Arts Board consisted of other notable figures in the Milwaukee artistic community: David Gordon, former Chief Executive Officer of Milwaukee Art Museum, Curtis Carter, founder and former Director of Marquette's Haggerty Museum of Art, Marcia Sehler, Milwaukee Riverwalk Art Curator, and Bob Greenstreet, Milwaukee’s City Architect.

The other half of the board consisted of members of Milwaukee’s Department of Public Works, aldermen, and other more practical and less artistic public figures. Brenner related the story of one alderman that balked at the idea of spending money for the Wisconsin Avenue artwork.

“I wouldn’t spend fifty cents for the Mona Lisa and I’m not going to spend $220,000 for this.” He said in reference to the proposed Zweig display. DPW officials hastily added that the art would be too heavy and would end up in the basements of the buildings along Wisconsin Avenue. Brenner and his allies on the board were disappointed.

Their disappointment quickly turned to surprise and out rage when the other members of the board decided that there would be money to fund the completion of a project started by the cable network, TV Land. The network had built statues of celebrities in other cities: Mary Tyler Moore in Minneapolis and Bob Newhart in Chicago. The network decided to abandon the project before work could start on a statue of the Fonz in Milwaukee. The council decided to build the statue and place it downtown along the Riverwalk.

“They decided to build it right where Solomon Juneau built his trading post.” Brenner says, still appalled by the decision. Many of the bloggers that had been for the statue felt that it did not belong in downtown Milwaukee, somewhere never depicted in “Happy Days,” the sitcom that featured the Fonz.

“Leon’s has a wonderful classic 1950’s neon look, a visually appropriate backdrop for the bronze Fonz. Locate the sculpture there.” Said David Lenz on Mary Louise Schumacher’s JS-Online Art City blog. However this was before the “Bronzie’s” final destination was determined.

Brenner has since decided to turn his attention to brewing beer. He realizes that it may be another ten years before he sees any sort of profit. But he’s quick to add that a brewery is essentially a large warehouse space, the kind that has space for artist studios. As for the Milwaukee art scene, Brenner seems pragmatic but hopeful.

“It won’t be what I want it to be, but it’ll be what it needs to be.”

My Sedaris Review

The assignment seemed like it was going to be easy enough. It had two options. One was to write a review of a live event.

“I could do that.” I thought to myself.

I had been writing restaurant reviews for one of the school papers for nearly two years. It was an assignment that had been foisted on me by the arts and entertainment editor. I was nervous at first, but as it had turned out, it combined two of my passions: writing and eating.

I had gotten a lot of practice writing restaurant reviews and I felt I had gotten pretty good at them. But then, I had the necessary skill set to accurately critique a restaurant: years of cooking experience had made me able to spot the difference between an over-whelmed waitstaff and simply a bad one, and that same work experience had given me the knowledge to identify the difference between bad food and food that might not be good, but had potential.

However, the class assignment required that we went to a live performance. I hadn’t worked as a live performer, musical or otherwise. And unless it was some sort of cooking demonstration, my previous work experience was not going to help me.

Undaunted, I began to keep an eye out for an event to critique.

The combination of being tight-fisted and jaded by the current musical scene made it difficult to find something to see. On top of that, my wife and I had just bought our first house and it was a considerable amount of work. I was hesitant to spend a whole evening out having fun when there was work to be done.

Then it was announced.

My favorite living author, David Sedaris, was coming to town. The satirical humorist had been one of my favorites since a friend had told me some of my writing reminded him of Sedaris. I read one of Sedaris’ books and was hooked. His writing is hilarious and friends that were familiar with his work said it was even better when he read it aloud.

And he was coming to Riverside Theatre.

I asked a friend of mine who was as big of a fan as I was to go. She said she had to do some budget juggling, but she would be able to join me.
A few days later my wife asked me why I hadn’t bought tickets yet.
I told her that I was apprehensive that with all the other expenses, we couldn’t afford it.

“Well, you need to see something for your class, don’t you?” She said.

“Yeah.” I replied. “But the tickets are expensive.”

“We’ll be okay. Just go.”

So I bought the tickets and anxiously waited.

On the night of the show I went to catch the bus and arrived at the theatre an hour early. Eventually my friend Gretchen showed up and we went inside. Our seats were in the balcony so we went upstairs.

When we arrived at the first landing the usher looked at our tickets.

“These are upstairs.” He said, pointing at another set of stairs.
We climbed the stairs to the next landing where another usher was waiting.

“Yeah, you want to go up those stairs.” The second usher said, pointing at another set of stairs.

Finally, when we could go no further, we found our seats in the very last row of the balcony. When Sedaris came out he was a tiny speck, far below on the stage.
He read some of his works, told some stories and took questions from the audience.

I laughed so hard that I cried.


After the show, my friend waited in line with me for an hour so that I could get one of my books signed. I gave her implicit instructions to make sure I didn’t freeze up when it was our turn.

Then we were up.

I don’t remember exactly what I said but I know it came rushing out in a torrential gush of fawning adoration.

Mr. Sedaris took it all in stride. He asked me what I did and I told him that I was going to school to be a writer. I added that his writing was very inspirational to me. He was gracious and recommended some books for me to read. He signed my book, stating that he was looking forward to reading my book.

I floated out to the street on a cloud. My favorite author, besides being talented, was also a really nice guy.

As I thought about writing a review of the show, journalistic ethics reared its ugly head.

There was no way I could write a review of the show that was in any way unbiased.
Sedaris had could have come out onto the stage, belched loudly, and walked back off and I still would have thought it was great. Well, maybe not great, but certainly pretty good.

It just didn’t feel right to write a critique that was little more than fan-worship.



Fortunately, the assignment’s second option was to write a column.

The 15

The group of people standing just south of the corner of Lincoln and Kinnickinnic collectively shiver as the icy wind cuts through them. All four are bundled against the cold, three have backpacks, two have cups of hot coffee from a nearby coffee shop, and one takes quick puffs off of a cigarette. Occasionally one of the backpack-carrying, coffee drinkers leans out into traffic and looks south, down Kinnickinnic. A man in a blue parka looks both ways and dashes across the busy Bayview street.

“Is it coming?” He asks, as he hurries to the bus stop.

Just then, off in the distance, the route 15 bus comes into view as it crests a hill next to the Bayview library. The man in the blue parka smoothes out a rumpled pass and scowls as he looks at the bottom-most time on the torn scrap of paper.

“Do you have twenty cents?” He asks. The man switches his coffee to the other hand, reaches in his pocket, and fishes out a quarter from the change in his pocket.

The 15 bus glides to a stop and the doors open to reveal a white haired bus driver, his face framed by a short beard. He smiles and nods as each person boards. His name is Steve Walker and he is nearly halfway through his second trip.

Studies have shown that during trying economic times, the use of public transportation increases. During the recent gas crisis, bus rider-ship was the highest in 50 years according to a report in USA Today. Now, experts are seeing an increase in the number of people taking the bus once again. The bus is becoming the main means of transportation for many of Milwaukee’s residents.

The 15 bus route starts at the Milwaukee County Transit garage at the intersection of Kinnickinnic Avenue and Mitchell Street and goes south to Drexel Boulevard and Chicago Avenue in South Milwaukee. It is at the southern-most location that Walker turns off the bus and relaxes during a fifteen-minute layover. His first 15 run starts at 4:30 a.m. and he completes 3 runs over the course of his shift. Making the round trip between South Milwaukee on the southern end and Bayshore Mall at the northern end takes him 3 hours. He had previously spent 8 years driving the 18 run along National Avenue.

“That was ninety percent bar traffic.” He says with a grimace. He likes the 15 route where his only “hard” part is from North Avenue up to UWM when the bus gets packed full of college kids. But even then, most people are happy.

“I waited the other day for a guy to run a block to catch the bus. When he got on he told me that I rocked. I asked him if that was a good thing.” Walker says with a smile on his face.

Walker’s face takes on a dour countenance when he’s asked about proposed budget cuts in light of the present economy.

“How much more can we cut? My brother just got his hours cut from 40 hours a week to 32 at Ladish.” He says, exasperated.

As the 15 bus makes its way through Milwaukee there are signs all along its route of people being affected by economic hard times. In Cudahy, just south of Layton Avenue on South Packard Avenue a man angrily paces in front of a Labor Ready employment office, smoking a cigarette. In South Milwaukee various businesses are closed and have signs advertising leasing opportunities. The only businesses that seem to be truly thriving are liquor stores and taverns. Even in the more affluent Whitefish Bay, as the 15 wends its way through residential neighborhoods, many of the houses have signs proclaiming foreclosure sales.

But even as the bus makes its way through what should be gloomy streets, the people getting on board seem to be unaffected by the fiscal dire straits. A man in jeans and a windbreaker is stopped by a woman he had been sitting next to as he gets off at a stop next to Bucyrus International in Cudahy. He’s forgotten his lunch box.

“Would have been a long day without that.” He says as he takes the lunch box and thanks the woman. She smiles and laughs in agreement.

A group of older ladies in professional clothing board in South Milwaukee and fill the bus with a cloud of sweet perfumes. They chat happily all the way to Wisconsin Avenue in the heart of the downtown. They get up and leave as a group, the same way that they got on. The perfumed cloud they brought onto the bus lingers just a bit after they leave.

A young chef from Bayview catches a ride to the posh eatery, Nanakusa, in the 3rd Ward. The 15 is more dependable than his car, he says. If he could afford to fix it, he would. However, until then the $4 round trip gets him to work and back home.

At North Avenue the bus begins to fill with college students. After only a few stops the bus is very nearly full, with the aisle full of students; all the seats have been taken. Still the bus needs to stop a few more times before it arrives at the students’ destination. When the bus stops at Kenwood Boulevard nearly half the people get off, their backpacks indicative of their eventual collegiate destination.

After the students get off, a woman gets on at the next stop and recognizes a friend that was already on board. The two young women take time to catch up, chatting happily about what festivities they partook in during the recent St. Patrick’s Day celebration. One wears a work uniform, the other, regular clothes. They both get off at Bayshore Mall.

Despite the diverse groups of people coming and going, it seems that everyone riding the 15 has a smile or a friendly nod of the head for their fellow passengers. An elderly woman gets on the bus at Kinnickinnic and Oklahoma, struggling under the encumbrance of some bags. She collapses, exhausted, into one of the seats reserved for the elderly and people with special needs at the front of the bus. One of her bags falls to the floor. Three people immediately reach for it. The college kid with the black dyed hair gets to it first and hands it back to the tired woman. She smiles and thanks him for his sweetness.

“You’re welcome,” he says sheepishly, blushing and smiling.

Even with troubles facing people everywhere they turn, on the 15 it seems that everyone looks out for each other. When someone needs help, three people go out of their way to do what they can. When someone forgets their lunch, someone makes sure they don’t leave without it. Perhaps the way that everyone is going to make it through these arduous times is if everyone looks out for each other. At the very least, sharing a smile with a stranger.

The way they do it on the 15.

Where Are the Athiests in All This?

It's early and I'm barely awake but I was reading about Sandra Cantu, the little girl that was kidnapped and murdered. (And now, apparently raped as well.) She was found in a suitcase in an irrigation pond.

The main suspect, according to police, is a woman named Melissa Huckaby. She is only a suspect at this time.

What I actually find interesting about this is that she seems very involved in her father's church. He's a minister and she was a Sunday School teacher. It's just that in the past if the accused was some one who played video games or role playing games (Dungeons and Dragons) then we couldn't blame those things quickly enough.

But when the drug of choice for the accused is religion, then we wonder what went wrong.

Milwaukee Small Businesses

Another post from elsewhere that I decided beared re-printing.

I think one of the defining characteristics of Milwaukee is that it has such a small town feel. People tend to be more loyal to small companies. When places like Starbucks came in, a lot of people were worried that they would drive other places out of business, but so many people were fiercely anti-big business that Starbucks was able to co-exist next to places like Fuel and Stonecreek. (My two favorite places for coffee although Anodyne has some good brews) And even though I like the small businesses, I have no moral qualms about stopping in at Starbucks for a fancy coffee every once in a while (or as I like to call them, a meal in a cup)

For myself, this kind of fiercely loyal attitude to the small business has had repercussions. I can't enjoy myself in any gaming shop because I compare every single one to Napoleon's. I am forever wrecked for game stores because of them. I like the Barrister, it's a good store and he seems to care about games and I like Cudahy News and Hobby, although that moved and now it's Somewhere Else News and Hobby. But I find myself going to Half-Price Books just to see Franz and Jason working in a store. Some of my favorite times were just going into Napoleon's and sitting there for hours listening to nerds argue about the things that nerds argue about. Every year my birthday present to myself usually came from there. Napoleon's is an excellent example (at least for myself) of how a local business can inspire loyalty that is ultimately detrimental.

I shop at Target. Where else am I going to buy the things I get at Target like jeans or t-shirts? Target serves a purpose. It fills a role. I wouldn't go there to buy books or coffee. But that's not the role it fills for me. I do think it's important to choose a place like Target as opposed to Walmart. Sure, both are chains and both employ people that need jobs. (I think that's an important thing to think about, they might be national faceless chains, but they employ people from our neighborhoods that are just trying to make a living) But people need to send a message to places like Walmart that their employee practices are wrong and the only effective way to do that is with money. And as far as Best Buy, after what happened to my friend recently, I don't want to shop there, but they kind of monopolize the home electronics market. There aren't a lot of options. I'll go to Target instead if I can though.

Supporting local businesses is important. But it needs to be done rationally. I remember when htey wanted to build a Jewel-Osco in Riverwest and a massive protest movement was started to stop it from being built. It was being built on land that was not being used for anything except a place for dog-owners to take their animals somewhere where they didn't have to clean up after them. (No offense to the dog owners here, unless you don't think you need to clean up after your dogs, then you need to step in dog poo every day for the rest of your life but I know the dog owners here are responsible and good pet owners) But the people making the biggest stink were the rich owners of Beans and Barley. (I know because I was working there then) Here was a place that was going to provide jobs for a community that needed jobs that they could get to and provide food at affordable prices and the place with the food at prices that no one could afford were fighting them. These rich people were trying to eliminate competition by saying it was the socially concious thing to do when the reality was that it was rich people looking out for themselves rather than the community.

I hate to see Schwarz's go, but Atomic is representative of another problem with a lot of local businesses. In order to be the definitive experts on music they had to hire the local experts on music and experts of any kind, but particularly music tend to be pompous nobs that make looking for your favorite music feel like you're really bothering them. Then their friends come in and you really feel like you're the turd in the punchbowl. I shopped at Atomic a few times over the years, but I was very happy when Exclusive opened a store in Milwaukee because I was able to shop there instead and they would order anything I wanted. I think places like Atomic go out of business because they're jerks so waa-fuckin-waa. East side institution maybe, I'll just go drown my sorrows in a gyro.

Local businesses that deserve support will always get it. That's how Milwaukee rolls.

Technology or Man's Desire to Kick Himself in the Ass

Technology is an amazing thing. Scientists and inventors are constantly coming up with new ideas and new things to make our lives better. Some of the time these things are luxury items that just make existence a little nicer, sometimes they're things that make life easier to live, and sometimes they are amazing breakthroughs that we don't know how we ever lived without.

The problem arises when society changes in such a way that there is no way for us to go back to the way we lived before. When our amazing new technology fails us and we find ourselves scrambling to make do. Some times this isn't that drastic. If our fancy new television breaks we usually still have the old one to fall back on, unless of course we have already given it to a friend who doesn't even have a crappy one. But, as far as it goes, we can live without a television.

Last year when I was in Jamaica for my wedding, I remember sitting out on the balcony where we were staying with a laptop every morning trying to pick up the wireless internet connection that would fade in and out. After two weeks in one of the most beautiful places on earth, I was ready to come back to Wisconsin's frozen tundra where I had a decent internet connection. (And a television for that matter)

But all that's really small beans when compared to the pox that cell phones have become. When was the last time you tried to use a pay phone? When was the last time you even saw a pay phone? May the heavens have mercy on those that can't afford a cell phone and need to make a call. Even worse, you have a cell phone and something happens to it. If you happen to break the video screen, like I did to mine, suddenly you have all kinds of problems. Relatively minor is not knowing who's calling you. Which can be handy if your playing sick from work or accidentally gave your number to someone you don't really want to talk to. Far worse, however, is losing all your phone numbers. The convenience of a cell phone has been replaced with the archaic practice of numbers on little scraps of paper. Little scraps of paper that are easily lost. And if you want to get the damn thing fixed, you have to mail it in and wait for it to be sent back.

Hopefully you won't need it in those couple of weeks because I heard pay phones are pretty hard to find.