according to the isthmians.

the business of comedy

Meet the Isthmians of Comedy.  Stefan Davis is the one with the mohawk and the kid; Ryan Casey is the Teddy bear with a drinking problem and a Girlfriend; Nick Hart is the paranoid pothead who is running for Mayor; Dave Pickett is the big scary guy with all the drug stories; and David Leon is just a figment of your imagination.

Comedians gathering at the Argus
for an open mic Monday.

Welcome to Madison, Wisconsin's comedy scene.

I went into the Argus Underground recently, looking for my usual beer and entertainment on a Monday night, and I found myself looking in on a comedy workshop, an improv business meeting of the small number of local comics willing and able to show up on a Monday night through the recently-empowered Wisconsin winter. I was entertained, nonetheless, and intrigued by the way work gets done in the business of comedy. Comedy writing workshops are probably among the most interesting business meetings to witness, where a room of people joke the entire time and actually make progress in their work. A round of laughter in a brainstorming session in any other business is not usually followed by “Yes! Go with that one”.

The Isthmians host this comedy open mic every Monday night at the Argus Underground, and it is only occasionally turned into a workshop like this when the turnout is low enough to allow ample time for feedback to each performer. The open mic is an opportunity for any local comic to try out new material or to get behind the microphone for the first time before facing, or possibly being cut from, Wednesday's open mic at the Comedy Club on State. The event is attended almost exclusively by comedians, with an occasional sprinkling of the supportive and yet-unjaded friends of the newest performers. Most Mondays, I am the only person in attendance who does not get on stage.

Whether it is for comedy, dinner, drinks, or a punk show, one walks into the Argus Underground with the mixed feelings of walking into Grandma's basement and of discovering a well-hidden cove of Madison artists.  Monday night open mics at the Argus have the vibe of hanging out with friends in some dude's basement. Between ten and twenty guys, and one or two females, gather in the basement of this Capitol Square bar, drink beers and whiskey, tell stories and jokes, and subtly jab at each other's egos. The ceilings are low, the rooms are small, the lighting is low, and the walls are covered in stonework and wood-paneling. A pool table at the back of the room is used as seating, and a bar in the corner sits dark and untended. Everyone there knows everyone there, and when a new face appears in the crowd it is immediately conspicuous, though welcomed with excitement.

“We don't get a lot of girls here,” Dave Pickett told me as we were introduced on my second visit. “Girls that stick around. And laugh.”

Not a lot of girls would laugh at the things I laughed at, these jokes told by 20 to 30-something-year-old men to a drunk audience of the same. Few punches are pulled, though even this jaded audience will occasionally flinch at the mention of the C-word or abortion.

Stefan Davis

At a recent open mic performance at the Comedy Club on State, to a crowd filled with an unusual proportion of college students, a large group of out-of-towners chatting amongst themselves up front throughout the show, Davis ended his set with a joke he had vowed never to do on stage.

“How do I know when my girlfriend is pregnant? When I am writing the check to Planned Parenthood.” Then he swigged his whiskey, said, “Thank you, I'm Stefan Davis, everybody,” and ducked off-stage with a wave of his hand at the low moan of the abashed audience.

“Why would you do that joke?” I asked him later, knowing that he knew how offensive and, frankly, unfunny it would be.

“Because I hated them, and I wanted them to feel as uncomfortable as I was.”

“[It's like] therapy,” Ryan Casey said of getting on stage. “Like, 'I know you weren't prepared for that, guys; I know you just wanted some laughs.”

“I am a bartender for a living; I do comedy to exist.”

-Stefan Davis

While Davis's cynical on-stage stories guarantee that he will remain, as he hopes, slightly hated by his audience, Casey's conversational venting-- combined with that Teddy bear belly-- makes him impossible not to love regardless of the content.

“I hug Ryan Casey probably more than I should hug another man,” Stefan Davis admitted.

Ryan Casey
(photo courtesy of David Pickett.)

“Some women like a guy with a Teddy bear shape,” Casey says of himself.

On sight, one's immediate urge is to be thrown into an exaggerated bear hug with Casey. At the age of 30, he already has the invitingly jovial demeanor of your favorite uncle, a lovableness that, to his good fortune, follows him to the bars and on stage. Through an angry ranting joke or superfluous drunkenness on a Tuesday night, Ryan Casey still naturally begs for that hug.

Each of Madison's comics adopts a stage persona that hyperbolizes his off-stage personality.

Nick Hart

“My delusions of grandeur are way too big for me to bomb,” Nick Hart said, referring at the moment to his performance on-stage. But these dozen words could be easily applied to anything he does. Hart is unapologetic as a comedian, using his stage time to say what he planned to say, following a joke with a comical “Fuck you guys, then” when the audience doesn't laugh, and he parallels this attitude in the rest of his life. Hart decided to run for Mayor of Madison for 2011 after following the local news convinced him of the simplicity of the task.

As Dave Pickett settled onto the stage last Monday, fellow comic Joanne Poniatowski scooted closer to me in the booth we were sharing up front, a few extra inches from the stage.

“I'm moving this way so he can't...tell a joke at me.”

Dave Pickett

And she is right to fear a Pickett joke being told “at” her. When Dave Pickett looks you in the eye, you can either show your weakness and shrink away in discomfort, or you can meet his gaze and live with what's behind it. I saw him hold a table of newcomers in the audience hostage with a joke for some seven minutes once, describing with gruesome detail the effects of too much heroin use on the human body, as the rest of us watched on with pity and the poor folks at the table tried to listen and laugh at what they tried to guess were the appropriate moments.

David Leon
(photo courtesy
of David Kelly)

“David Leon puts on a show that demands intensity and imagination from his audience,” explains Leon's Comedy Club profile in a severe understatement. Leon is engaging and hilarious each moment that he is on stage, putting his heart and his imagination into creating a performance for his audience. He is creepy and quirky with a high-pitched voice and a mustache that must be grown only to intensify the creepiness. But he is also stoned most of the time, so his relaxed gaze and his childlike giggles cut through any real feelings of creepiness in his audience.

“Is it gettin' a little weird? I like weird. Weird's cool. Fuck it, then.”

-Dave Pickett, Roast of David Leon 2010

The business of comedy, it seems, is simply Laughter.

“All I did all night was make people laugh, 'cause they don't know how to do it on their own,” Nick Hart said after one performance.

Any of the venting and the preaching and the creepiness are worth it, to be a part of the laughter and applause that fills a showroom of people who for a moment understand something exactly as you do.  The Isthmians of Comedy each know how to bring this to their audience in their own way, and together they are poised to storm through Madison's comedy scene, "putting the F-U in funny" in every basement and dim stage they can find.


*The Isthmians of Comedy continues to grow with new comics.  Follow www.isthmiansofcomedy.com for the most up-to-date information.

dreams of californication.

How I became an Asshole.

The Doctor had run off for the summer, smoking, drinking, and fucking the things that would come his way; I never asked exactly what they were. He was inspired by Miller and Thompson and Lennon and Hicks; he was living his Quiet Days. When he was in a mood like this, all I could do was let him run and stay out of the way.

My husband was an asshole. Not the kind of asshole who will fuck your sister and buy you diamonds to quiet his guilt, but the kind of Hank Moody asshole whom you can't help but fall in love with but wonder at every scene How can anyone live with this guy? The kind of guy who will wind up in a threesome with his agent and some woman he neglected to call back once, in order to enjoy the freak show and do his buddy the favor of getting him laid. His love keeps going back to him despite these indiscretions, and we root for the couple throughout the series; yet we hope, deep down, that they will never resolve their differences for good-- because then the story will end.

He was always prompting me to go out and do this on my own, go make something happen, cross the Gonzo line and understand what it's like on his side. But I never really knew how to do this. In the end, I always preferred la soledad, I guess, preferred to sketch the scene rather than make it. I'm a writer, for Christ's sake; this isn't a group activity.

But I found myself alone on a holiday weekend and feeling I needed to try it, at least. Get the fuck out of the house; if I was to find a story, it was going to be out there. So I started wandering. I spent hours in the city's parks, ate crepes and drank coffee, smoked a bowl on a pier watching fireworks over the lake, and sampled a few Bloody Marys downtown on Sunday afternoon. Writing the whole time, observing the stories of Independence Day in Madison.  I was there to experience something and record it, and it made me want more out of the days to follow than my empty apartment and the safety of work and school and peace and quiet.

Make something happen. The words began to ring in my ears at every moment. If I found myself sitting still in the afternoon or ready to go to bed before midnight, these words would creep into my mind, kick me in the ass, shove me outside to do something in the world.

The next Tuesday night I joined my new coworkers for drinks, and we ended up skinny-dipping. Tuesday nights don't always end this way, but they do usually start with dollar rail drinks, so it was no surprise. It was a gorgeous July night, long after dark-- slightly after bar-close, actually-- when Julia suggested we go swimming at the beach near her house. The three of them were about to hop into the water in their underwear when I explained to them what a terrible idea this would be, with thought to my excursions up North.

“You're going to end up wearing wet underwear under your clothes for the rest of the night. I know I'm new here, but if I contribute anything to this crew, let it be this wisdom. Just go naked.”

So, I made that happen; I crossed the line and I took them with me. It was a good start, and it made me feel fabulous. I quickly found good Monday and Wednesday events to sandwich in Tuesday's dollar rails, tried out a few Long Islands after work on Thursdays, and returned to my old office, der Rathskellar, to sketch the scene on Fridays. Saturdays I just wander; Saturdays can be wild or lonely or productive or inspiring or forgotten in the haze of Jameson and weed and Perkins' strawberry waffles.

I grew tired of staying at home.  I was going to class all day and work all evening, and when I left work I didn't want to go home. There is nothing there but some weird neighbors, an empty pantry, and a cold bed. I was practically living the life of a bachelor, and a bachelor pad is the last place you want to be alone if you are awake after two a.m.

On this side of the line, my philosophy is different; my life is different. I drink enough coffee that going to bed is rarely an option, and I drink enough alcohol that staying out always seems like a good idea. I avoid most reasons for ending the night; if something other than going to bed is offered, it usually wins, even if it is sitting up at the library and hammering out a paragraph of a story before I simply can't see anymore through exhaustion or drunkenness or that heavy combination of the two that occurs around six a.m.

I had begun to savor excess. That is what will make you an asshole. Someone will want to reign you in, and you will fuck them over. The Doctor sits in Northern Wisconsin somewhere thinking My wife has run off to smoke, drink, and fuck the things that come her way. And I am saying Don't ask what they are; just let me run, and stay out of the way. His Quiet Days in Madison turned out to be his final blowout at precisely the time that the weekend pushed me over the Gonzo line into chaos. Exactly the sort of asshole I am is the kind of person who will turn from la soledad to la vida loca on a dime without thought to those in tow. I am the sort of asshole who feels justified in this, who continues to plow forward unapologetically, inconsistently, a different sort of asshole each day.

I would call him in between bars to keep in touch That's a bad idea. “Just leaving the Argus, headed to the Cardinal for some music, then I think I'll swing by the 'Dise for one last PBR. I'll give you a call when I leave there.”

But then some guy sat next to me and talked about his novel all night, and when he offered to let me try out his Volcano as we left the bar, the Editor smelled inspiration and couldn't possibly say no. And now I have a new Gonzo novel to edit. And I got to know the bartender, so when he pours me a beer as he locks the doors at two a.m., I think about the cold and empty bachelor pad that awaits me across town if I leave now in time to catch the last bus, and I take the beer and another two, join him for breakfast, and walk home at eight a.m.

Upon leaving the comedy club one Wednesday, I was invited to join a friend for a few more drinks at the Dollar. It was eleven o'clock and Wednesday and everyone around was starting to go to bed, so I figured it was the duty of the Editor to carry on. Eleven would be an embarrassing time to check in. And after a few shots of Jamo and few more PBRs, the bartender was calling last call, and everyone around was ready to go to bed, so I figured it was the duty of the Editor carry on further. When my friend suggested we crash our sleeping buddy's house, it sounded like a great idea, as do most terrible ideas after two a.m.

So, we stumbled that way and tossed pebbles at Craig's bedroom window until he stepped into the cool early-morning air in boxers and slippers to join us for a cigarette. Certainly there was no wholesome reason for me to be up until four a.m. attempting to watch Kill Bill and call a cab and melt into Craig's couch flanked by two single men while the Doctor slept alone two hours north, and the wicked hangover that kept me home all day Thursday reminded me of this. But, that happened, and I live to write the story, and I am just the sort of asshole who calls that a success.

Once you start to savor excess, anything less feels like a failure, as you know you are missing out on something. Even when nothing is apparently going on, I know that I will make more happen if I stay awake and away from home than if I just cash in for the night. Moderation is never the most attractive idea, and it definitely never makes a good story. The stories are found at the fringes. The stories happen at the extremes, where moderation is shoved aside; where the line is always crossed, moved further ahead, and crossed again. The stories are in the chaos, so I have thrown myself into the chaos. I skirted the edges for a long time, flirted with moderation, and feared chaos and excess until I tumbled head first into the thick of it and found the beauty there.

“This is a real house.  It's old and broken and battered, 'cause shit happens here.  Real shit.”

Hank Moody

It will inevitably lead to loneliness, as no one can really live with an asshole for long. Crossing this line into chaos draws borders around the asshole in the middle, throws up boundaries that keep anyone from getting too close too easily. I lost the husband who was hurt by the chaos, I cut off the family who couldn't understand it, and I am out of touch with the friends who can't run with it. There is nothing to the life of the Hank Moody asshole but to sift through the chaos for a bit of magic; nothing can beat the high of landing a good story.

The good ones aren't written about people who make safe choices. They are made about the people who make magic up until the moment that they die face down in a puddle of their own vomit at the age of twenty-eight. No one fully sympathizes with the others in the story who are dealing with the bullshit, because they are so intoxicated by the magnificence of the main character. The main character is an asshole; there is no denying that. This asshole will take everything from you as she digs for a story, rip your heart out and hand it back to you as a work of art, and even you can't help but marvel at the fucking beauty of it.

cigarettes, gin, and lust.

Experimenting in excess

How can one possibly be expected to focus on homework when sitting in a 30-year-old, paint-splattered art studio, listening to the Beatles, with the Painter and the Musician creating all around? That is an unreasonable assignment for the Editor, and so I have put aside my computer for a moment and picked up my journal. I can't really think straight, anyway, through this hangover and lack of sleep, trying to piece together the details of last night that I know are floating in my mind somewhere.

I know that the night ended with Lacey. I know there was gin and PBR, cigarettes, tequila, sex, a sauna, students all around ready to party after the week of restraint...I should more clearly remember the daytime hours that preceded the night, but the combined cognitive effects of alcohol and lack of sleep are stunting my brain's ability to solidify the connections that would place this story in my memory. It was an Editor's day: writing, reading, Editing the novel, coffee and cheap food, movies, and yoga. The soundtrack of the day was Butch Walker, The Lately, Johnny Cash, Sublime, The Films. The day started unexpectedly in the wee hours of Friday morning and ended long after bar close this morning. In one continuous stretch of twenty-four hours, I was able to pack in every bit of productivity and fun I had planned for the whole weekend, and I am left wondering what to possibly do with the next two days.

“I desperately want to fuck you.” The Doctor's call woke me yesterday at four a.m. I could hear the truth of it in his voice.

I let out a shaky sigh.

“Vulgar, I know,” he added sweetly before I could reply. “But true.”

I grinned to myself. God dammit. It was a terrible irony that his desperate cries through this distance only made me want him more.

I hadn't seen the Doctor in three weeks. Three weeks. Lust was fully clouding my mind at this point; my vibrator no longer had the charm it once had. Everything seemed cold; I longed for human touch, to be held and kissed, the warmth of another hand on my flesh, another being to absorb the desperate heat that radiated from every pore at every moment of my day. The desperation was driving me mad; I had been drowning it out with alcohol for about two weeks, but even that was losing its power.

This lust and desperation had taken over my mind; it kept me awake at night. I was keeping myself as busy as I could, but it was no longer enough to distract me. I needed to give in. I needed to experience pleasure, decadence, superfluous pampering of my body, heart, soul, mind, all of my senses. No mechanical orgasm or weak buzz was enough to replace the hands of the Doctor. Nothing would be, but my mind continued to search for something to give in to, something made of primitive pleasure and depravity in an attractive package.

I tried gin. I was pre-gaming at the Painter's house, and she is a fanatic of the gin and tonic. That was tasty, but not satisfying. I was in no mood for smooth, tasty booze. The Musician offered me PBR; it was cheap and simple, a touch of bitterness. That was more like it; my body needed the sting of bitterness. I drank cheap, harsh tequila shots with the Painter's roommates. That was fucking disgusting. Such a painful version of my favorite shot was a shock to my system, a body that heard the word “tequila” and began to salivate in anticipation.  Perfect; in the absence of the pleasure they lusted after, my senses needed a jolt now and then to clear the clouds in my mind.

The Musician offered me cigarettes all night, as usual, and I refused. The first three. By his fourth cigarette, the house was filled with Coasties curling their hair and a hipster poet naked under a barbeque apron. I was getting frantic texts from a friend with boy troubles. The Lust Beasts had begun to arrive, reminding me of the easy opportunities I was passing up as I waited for the next visit from the Doctor. Fuck this scene. I joined the group of guys hiding on the porch drinking PBR and shivering in the fall air. Before he could offer again, I asked the Musician for a cigarette. That was satisfying; my mind relaxed and cleared a bit as my hand fell comfortably into a position that held the cigarette and my beer while I talked.

It's a damn shame that the things are so filthy, because they are really fucking effective and so damn cool. Throughout the night I smoked around six cigarettes, and I have quickly found that this is a shocking amount. “You don't even smoke!” one friend exclaimed. “That's a lot.” Why the fuck would I do something as stupid as smoking cigarettes if I were only going to tease myself with one? Where is the satisfaction in that? I was ready to give in, and that meant enjoying the freedom to smoke like a fucking smoker. Cigarettes came as the relief I needed to distract me from the damn Coasties, hipsters, drama, and lust for a few hours. Primitive pleasure, depravity, and attractive as hell.

After a few hours' pre-gaming at the house, the group headed downtown en masse to find a bar. Floating along in my buzz and clouds, I didn't realize where we were headed until I almost followed the crowd through the door of the loudest, reddest, sports bar on State.

"Wait a minute!” I exclaimed as I stopped short in the doorway. I turned to the Lust Beast standing closest behind me. “Do you want to go somewhere else?”

He nodded, relief in his wide eyes. How had we found ourselves following Coasties around to bro bars for the night? Lust is bad for the brain.

“I'll call Lacey,” I said as we turned to leave. “We can meet her somewhere.”

“Lacey...?  Is she single?” He was already grinning eagerly.

I pointed a stern finger at him while the phone rang. “She's mine tonight.”  I had been wanting to indulge Lacey's bi-curiosity for months now; it was time.

He raised an eyebrow at me, then held his hand out to shake mine. “Oh, it's on.”

I shook his hand as Lacey answered the call, and we made plans to meet her at a dive a few blocks down. That was more like it. We bid farewell to the Painter and the Musician and left the Coasties behind.

We ordered a pitcher of PBR and crowded into a corner booth and waited about ten more minutes for Lacey to show up. When she did, there was a guy at her side, whom she introduced as her boyfriend. I caught the Lust Beast's eye. He groaned, and I held back a frustrated laugh as she slid into the booth beside us. We spent a short time catching up; I hadn't seen her all summer, so there was a lot of small talk to be had before any of us could dive into blatant flirtation. When she and her boyfriend stepped up to the bar for another round, I turned to my competitor.

“You know that means I win,” I said, indicating the boyfriend with a glance.

He sighed and nodded. I wasn't as sure of my chances as I sounded, but we both knew he had no hope of hooking up with Lacey this night. We toasted and finished our beers, and he headed home when the first pitcher was gone. When the couple returned, I continued the small talk and tried to decide how far to take it. I wasn't really available for a threesome in the Doctor's absence, but I wasn't sure I would get any time alone with Lacey. Besides that, even though Lacey had always been flirtatious in the past, she had this boyfriend to go home with now, so her bi-curious interest may have waned.

But, she looked at me all night with the wide, longing eyes that I remembered from Spring, and they invited me to try out the sauna at their apartment building as the bar closed. A sauna, you say? What a lovely perk in downtown housing. That ought to satisfy my need for decadence, at least.

In the sauna, there was drinking, flirting, petting, kissing, sweating. I had the sense to drink a few glasses of water, and that combined with the sauna's heat began to cleanse my body of the night's booze and cigarettes. I stayed committed to waiting for the Doctor's next visit, so I didn't follow the couple back to their room. I toed the line and gave in to Lacey's touch, allowed myself to share in the heat and lust that radiated from her longing eyes. My night was topped off with a few minutes of giving into this passion, wrapped in her arms with her mouth pressed against mine, entwined in our bathing suits and towels, hair falling loose from the sauna's steam. I drank the moment in, lived on the passion for a few minutes. I ran my fingers desperately through her hair and over her half-exposed breasts and her thighs and back and shoulders. Three weeks of loneliness were driving my exhausted and drunk mind, this need to give in bursting from my pores and loving the flesh and the smell and the kiss and the touch and the desirous eyes of the woman in my arms.

The eyes of the Painter become much more dreamy as she moves to a spot in her painting where the realistic structure of the building she's painting must melt into the atmosphere of the fantastical world around it. No longer glancing to the photo that was guiding her, no longer searching for accuracy in the details, but CREATING now, purely from some place in the mind, simply creating what this part of this world will be. Quizzical and imaginative, eyes that are not looking in front of her but inside of her, for just a moment. Eyes lost in the depths of an artists' world.


These are my Quiet Days, and I am giving into them as they come to me.  A damn good story is always floating in the air, and I cannot ignore it.  I will stay awake for it, I will find it in a sauna at three a.m., I will set aside these mundane obligations to capture it in the middle of this art studio in the middle of this artists' life.

I left Lacey's house last night far from satiated, still longing for the Doctor, but exhausted and satisfied to end this day and its outbursts of excess. I wandered in my haze back to the Painter's house, where the Musician met me at the door. We tiptoed through a maze of sleeping Coasties in the living room, and he laid out a bed of blankets on the floor of the Painter's room for me. After he lay back down in the Painter's bed, I found his jeans on the floor and fished a cigarette from the pocket. I stole away to the porch and the brisk cold and called the Doctor.

“I desperately want to fuck you,” I whispered sleepily into the phone, laughed drunkenly, and lit the cigarette.

nick hart for mayor.

“It's an idea; it's not the best idea, but... ideas grow... We're just putting it out there.”

Tyler and I sat down at the Argus with 2011 Mayoral candidate Nick Hart and campaign manager Stefan Davis a couple of weeks ago before their performance with the Isthmians of Comedy.

They've got a few ideas to throw out there; some at first glance seem more feasible than others. All-out legalization of marijuana. Relaxation of police patrols throughout the city. Marijuana farmers' market, perhaps? And, for those of you who are beginning to worry that a Nick Hart administration would exist to simply make Madison a better place to party than it already is, he also taught us a thing or two about the poor quality of the city's water.  Why did you have to buy a water filter as soon as you moved into your new apartment?  Improving that is on the list as well.

And for those of you who, like me, want a politician to tug just a little at your heartstrings, first on their list is to take care of the homeless problem in the city.

“If you can't take care of your fellow man, you are failing as a society,” Nick told us.

Nick Hart announced his intentions to run for Mayor of Madison on August 11^th during a semi-regular appearance at Open Mic at the Comedy Club on State. I saw him for the first time about a month later at Open Mic, reading to the audience from an anti-drug flyer and pointing out all of the details of psychedelic drug use that it got wrong. He was hilarious, and he spoke to a topic that caught my attention, and just before he left the stage he said, “I'm Nick Hart everyone-- oh yeah, and I'm running for Mayor!”

photo courtesy of Isthmians of Comedy

I thought, Wow, I need to remember this guy. But, the PBR and Jameson shots are only $2 each during Open Mic, so I didn't remember to look into the Nick Hart campaign until about three weeks later, when a reappearance at Open Mic sparked my memory, and I finally wrote the name down and got in touch with him.

The campaign, for now, consists of three guys: Nick Hart, the candidate; Stefan Davis, the campaign manager; and their “legal guy”, who was unable to make it to the interview but gave this advice to his partners:

“I'm busy tomorrow night, but I trust you...Keep it short. Serious campaign ideas, personal freedoms. Lay off the drug stuff for now.”

“So, we did exactly what he said not to do,” Nick said, realizing that legalization of marijuana was, in fact, the first campaign idea that he had discussed with us.

Well, his target demographic is the 23- to 34-year-olds of Madison, Wisconsin. As a local comedian, he is targeting the “bar crowd” of the city. So, “the drug stuff” will certainly capture their attention, as it did mine, and the rest will impress us enough to keep us listening and to encourage a group that is typically uninterested in local politics to start paying attention.

“They don't get to just keep doing business as usual. [We'll] throw a monkey wrench in there and make them [think] 'Oh yeah, we have to worry about that factor,” Nick said.

It's not about winning, necessarily; the campaign hopes to capture somewhere between 5-15% of the vote. It's about trying to “keep them honest and throw out new ideas”, putting out someone who will run to the left of Democratic incumbent Dave Cieslewicz and upset the stagnant political landscape of the city.

photo courtesy of Isthmians of Comedy

Nick and Stefan are the founding members of the local comedy troupe the Isthmians of Comedy. The group performs with a plethora of local and visiting comedians, but officially includes these two, and David Leon, David Pickett, and Ryan Casey. The comedians met through the Comedy Club, where all regularly appear at the Wednesday night Open Mic.

“'It's a publicity stunt', that's what people say. 'He's doing it for his comedy career,'” Nick told us. “Well, why do you think Mayor Dave is doing it?”

Nick Hart's “civic exercise” exists to challenge the status quo, to ask the questions that aren't asked, to offer a candidate left enough to challenge Mayor Dave's position as the “liberal” candidate and bring up the issues the incumbent has ignored.

And, being a comedian offers some great benefits that Mayor Dave's campaign doesn't have. The traditional candidates are restricted to political correctness, focused on protecting their image as professional public figures and pleasing as many people as possible.

“Because it's comedy,” Nick said, “you get to say whatever you want.”

And he's saying it in a dark basement late at night to a room full of drunk and stoned young Madison comedy fans. There won't be anyone questioning his image anytime soon.

And, these comedians don't have anything to lose; a win means a major accomplishment for newcomers and an upset of the entire political arena of the city, and a loss just means a damn good joke.

As Nick put it:  “We don't have to worry about them. They have to worry about us. Because we don't care.”

I've never looked twice at municipal politics, not even as a UW student, where political propaganda from all sides is shoved in my face anytime I walk through Library Mall. Nick Hart offers municipal politics wrapped in an attractive package of Jameson, PBR, and stoner jokes, and I am hooked. He's got the vote I would never have cast, and one more dedicated fan of local comedy to boot.

You can keep up with Nick Hart on Facebook.

the first thursday.

scenes from campus life

The semester had begun, and I was easing into my new schedule, which now began at eight each morning. For the first time in months, I was waking to an alarm. I had started to work nights over the summer vacation, and I was used to waking only when the superfluous honking of horns on the street, chatter of yuppie pedestrians outside of my window, and sunshine through my broken vertical blinds became too much to sleep through. I was happy for the added hours in my day forced upon me by this early rising, but it was taking a lot more coffee and a lot more weed to put me in shape to leave the house so early each day.

It was Thursday, which meant my journalism class at nine-thirty. We analyzed the novelty and relevance of an article in the campus paper about a twenty-year-long study by the University that proved that “boozing” before exams will lower test scores. We all agreed that it was entertaining to read officially what we all knew from years of experience, but that not a single student on campus was going to change his behavior after reading this article. It was yet another quaint warning from the University that we ought to watch our drinking if we were to be at all successful in our college careers. Much appreciated.

After class I headed to the library, where I passed the computer lab and the cafe to reach the library stacks in a dimly-lit corner on the third floor, exchanged my copy of Anais Nin's Diary for the next volume, then settled into the cafe for more coffee, free internet, and lunch. After six hours of homework, correspondence, and Editing in the cafe, I caught a bus back home, made supper, stole a quick nap, and headed to work.

I stopped to buy a bottle of vodka, as I wouldn't be out until long after the liquor stores were closed. Next to me, pondering over 6-packs in the adjacent cooler, were two girls, maybe nineteen, barely passing for twenty-one tonight.

“Lindsay, you can't just have a liquid dinner again tonight! We should order pizza when we get home,” one said to the other.

“No! No more drunk food,” the one called Lindsay replied. “I am totally addicted! I'll get fat while I'm in Wisconsin.”

As I waited in the long line at the counter, I noticed an unusual number of Vikings jerseys and Brett Favre t-shirts all around me. Ah, football season had begun. Good; the store was not going to be busy tonight.

So, instead of waiting on lines of customers, I spent the night swapping coming-of-age stories with my coworker.

“I got my first tattoo when I was fifteen,” he told me. “A friend of mine needed practice, so he took a bunch of underage kids to some sketchy hotel room downtown and gave us all free tattoos. I got my nose pierced when I was sixteen by some chick in the back of a cafe. I don't think that was legal...”

Throughout the night, drunk couples and groups from the bar next door wandered in to buy munchies and condoms and coffee to top off their nights. Even our regulars were more drunk than expected, everyone friendly as hell and smelling like stale booze even early in the night.

As the night wore on, we could feel the madness of downtown Madison growing around us. Students whose money hadn't run out yet, who had no class on Fridays and no homework assigned yet, who had just recently left their parents' house for the year, and who had stayed sober for four days straight, were ready to fucking party that night. We could hear shouting, techno music, and the general din of debauchery floating into the store each time the door opened for a second.

“I never knew it before moving to Madison,” my boss noted, “but the weekend actually starts on Thursday. And the first Thursday of the semester is like a fucking national holiday in this town.”

And the kids were celebrating, getting this weekend started in bro bars with football and cheap beer and fake IDs. Unfortunately, many of these kids were from out of state or underage, early in their college careers, so most didn't yet know how to handle their alcohol. When I left the store at 1am, the streets were swarming with kids stumbling, puking, wandering, screaming; lost, confused, and wasted .

A couple passed me in the crosswalk, the girl stumbling with as much indignation as she could muster in her wobbly high heels, and the guy behind her shouting, “Yeah, here we go again: I'm not as sensitive as you. I don't care as much as you. You love me so much more than I love you. Whatever, babe. I'll just fucking drop you. Fuck that; I don't have to put up with this shit.”

Two blocks down State Street, I ducked into the bus shelter and settled onto the wooden bench to wait the twenty minutes for the next bus. The shelter was directly across the street from the most Badger-red, bro-filled sports bar downtown, and I watched from behind the glass as groups of young drunks wandered out of its doors.

“Hey bra, hey bra,” drunken taunting across the street. Two of a group of three guys in front me were starting a fake fight with each other, one shouting these words in his Jersey accent and tapping the chest of his friend, puffing out his own. They crouched and raised loose fists to each other, slapped at the air a couple of times, then collapsed into a drunken hug with their third companion. “Nah, man, I'm just messing around. We're cool.”

Taxis were running slowly down the street, stopping in front of the bars as the drivers searched the masses for whatever incoherent group had called them and forgotten by now that they were waiting for a cab. Kids knocked on their windows and tried to climb in random cabs, but the doors were all locked, and the drivers just kept moving. Good Samaritans guided their friends into the taxis with empty pitchers or buckets to puke in, gave the driver directions on where to take their friends, handed them a few dollars to cover the fare, and returned to the bars with the weight of that guy off of their shoulders. Assholes left their friends behind to pass out in the bathroom stalls.

I pulled a joint from my bag and lit it, calming my mind as I took in the madness swirling around me from the other side of the glass shelter. I watched one guy walking down the middle of the street stop and stand in place, staring straight ahead of him with huge pupils for about five minutes without moving. I watched another trip over his own toes and fall face first onto his cheek on the sidewalk. I grimaced with pity as his friends helped him stand up.

Behind me, a girl shouted, “Oh my god! I love that jacket!”

She had stopped while she and her friends walked down the sidewalk, and now she was leaning against a storefront window and tapping the glass to point out the jacket to her friends.

“I'll come buy it tomorrow,” she said as they walked away. “Mañana. El sábado. Per favore,” she chattered to her oblivious friends. “Oh wait! Por favor, I mean!” She laughed. “I shouldn't have taken Spanish and Italian in the same semester.” She waved a hand in the air and shook her head. Even drunk, this town is so goddamn academic.

Across the street, a pair of Madison police officers, one man and one woman, strolled around the corner to patrol down State Street. I hastily put out the joint on the bench and tucked it back into my bag, but they didn't even glance my way. They were chatting with each other, counting on their mere presence to maintain order in the streets. They rounded the corner and walked away from the bro bar just as two people walked out, first a guy in a black-and-white-checkered Abercrombie hoodie sweatshirt, followed by a bitching girl in a short dress and high-heeled sandals.

“You wanna do this?” the bitch screamed at him. They wandered a few feet into an open space on the sidewalk and silently taunted each other for a few seconds. She clumsily slipped out of her sandals and threw her cardigan on the ground next to her. She squared herself and patted him on the cheek to egg him on.

“Aw, come on, baby,” he slurred to her, then reached for her waist. She slapped him again lightly on the other cheek, and he stepped back. They were both so drunk and weak and completely unable to engage in this battle that it unfolded practically in slow motion before me. The guy shook his head at her and unzipped his hoodie and tossed it to the ground a few feet behind him.

They continued to bat at each other a couple of times before a group of five girls poured out of the bar and surrounded them. They tried to coax the two to cut it out while their friend was screaming, “This fucker was trying to start shit with me!” and swatting at the air in front of the guy.

Behind these girls, a group of three guys came out of the bar and watched the fight from a few feet back without interfering. One of the guys noticed the sweatshirt lying on the ground and picked it up, eying the fighting couple carefully as he did. He chuckled to his companions as they dug into the shirt's pockets and pulled out a cell phone and a wallet, stuffed them in their own pockets, and dropped the sweatshirt back to the ground. None of the group just a few feet away noticed this, and finally the girls were able to pull their friend away and sit her down to help her strap her sandals back on. The guy turned away with a snarl, picked up his sweatshirt, and joined the three guys, apparently his own companions. They greeted him and patted his back, calling the girl a bitch and laughing drunkenly as they all walked away down the street.

When I finally exited the bus in my neighborhood, I found myself behind a couple of girls leaving the Gyro shop on the corner. As they weaved a path down the sidewalk, they threw arms around each others' shoulders and held their phones at arms' length to snap a picture to remember the moment. I was walking a lot faster and steadier than they were, unintentionally gaining on them. As I approached quietly within a few feet, about to pass them, the brunette turned around suddenly and gasped.

“Holy shit!” she shouted, but rested a hand kindly on my shoulder after a moment. “I'm sorry-- you scared the crap out me!” She giggled and caught her breath.

I apologized for nothing in particular and laughed too, shrugging my shoulders and rolling my eyes.

“Here.” She passed me a bottle of Coke mixed with cheap rum from inside her purse, and we walked another block together. I introduced myself, and she took a picture of me with her phone before they turned the corner and left me alone but thankful for the warmth of the rum in my belly on this cool night. I finished my joint on the way home, set my alarm for eight a.m., and settled into bed content. I am not much of a fan of football, or bros, or gaggles of drunk young girls; but they do put on a pretty good show to kick off a Madison weekend.

observations from der rathskeller

I am in the Rathskeller at the Memorial Union, and it is filled with Coastie frat kids in costumes that make this place feel like a rave. This is going to be a strange crowd to listen to a solo acoustic hipster musician from Milwaukee.

The Union is the center of campus for anyone visiting or coming back to reminisce over college memories. Because it's raining, the music tonight is inside the Rathskeller, a beautiful olde German-style bar and music venue. The Rathskeller has a domed brick-tiled ceiling and a dozen thick wooden-framed archways. The rod-iron chandeliers are ancient (or ancient-looking), and the walls are painted with odd characters and German phrases; scenes that at one time may have had a deeper meaning, but now simply give drunk college kids something to wonder at. The beautiful mismatched wooden tables have been in here for decades and are layered with years of pencil carvings... “Donny” and “MoLo” have graced my table over the years, small steps in the history of a Union tradition.

Outside of the Union, along the shore of Lake Mendota, is the Memorial Union Terrace. In better weather, we'd see the show on that outdoor stage, a much larger space, more beautiful, and the perfect summer contrast to this German beer hall. The Rathskeller is heavy and dark, filled with thick humid air that seems to hold the weight of the memories of everything that passes through. The Terrace outside its windows is light and sunny, filled with the ever-coveted metal Terrace furniture in an array of bright colors; the open sky and the Lake and the woods take the music and the memories of this place away as fast as they are made, to be lost like so many Summer nights.

Shaggy comes on the playlist before the live act, and the Coastie kids have gone crazy. The dance floor is suddenly filled with bouncing tutus and guys in make-up and suspenders. This is followed by “Take Me Home Tonight”, and the room breaks out in unison for this one line. A table of blonde high-school girls in matching black-and-white stripes are bouncing and shaking their ponytails at each other in a corner.

The solo acoustic guy gets on the stage, and the Coastie kids quickly realize that they can't bounce this way anymore. They slowly bob and weave to a calm stop, place their hands at their sides, and turn calmly toward the stage to enjoy the music. The musician has a 19-inch waist and scraggy arms and fingers, a huge acoustic guitar, shaggy brown hair, and an orange knit cap (which he keeps on despite this room's ungodly temperature.  How hipster-ly ironic.).

The time comes, apparently, for the costumed Coastie kids to move on to whatever party they are preparing for, and there is a sudden mass exodus from the room of hundreds of tutus, clown wigs, suspenders, mascara, and tiaras.

Later in the night, I go on a short excursion through the Union, starting outside up on the brick semicircular balcony covered in vines; into the gallery where I sit down to play the grand piano in the middle of the room, without knowing at all how to. I browse the room, touching the texture of the paintings on the wall, because I always want to do this and finally I am in a gallery with no one else around. I walk through the foyer of a formal ballroom dancers' ball. I am tempted to crash it, to step in and try to follow along; but a little afraid, concerned about ruining their magical evening to complete my own. I complete the circle and make my way past empty meeting rooms and locked student org offices, back through the gallery, and out onto the balcony.

From here, in the dark and through the rain on the early May evening, I can feel the buzz of change at this campus hub. I can hear the music inside the Rathskeller, and I can see the Terrace, open for business and coming alive, ready for Summer. The Coastie kids will be leaving the city soon, and the Spring rains will give way to sunny Summer nights. The Rathskeller will sit dark and empty, while the Terrace is filled with nostalgic Wisconsinites, reggae, blues, brats, and oh-so-many pitchers of beer.

Country USA (or CUSA, as the kids are calling it these days)

My weekend was Country USA Friday night followed by family pictures in the country town of Redgranite on Saturday morning. In order to deal with both, my goal was to become rowdy enough to get arrested at Country USA and miss family pictures for being in jail overnight.

A country music festival in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, is close to the last place I ever want to find myself on a Friday night. Redgranite, Wisconsin, however, is the last. So I chose the less offensive of the two and hitched a ride in my friend's suburban to CUSA. I put on a sundress and moccasins, hoping I wouldn't be mistaken for an actual country music fan.

It was my sister, the quintessential small-town girl-- Lutheran, an elementary school teacher, with a good Christian boy on her arm and a head start on her 401(k)-- who had begged me to join her. She went with a group of friends from high school to Country USA every year, and she loved to play the part-- lacy cowgirl hat, short jean skirt, and faux snakeskin boots. She lured me there this year with the promise of free admission and cheap beer. The opportunity to encourage my sister to break the law by sneaking me in without paying was too good to pass up.

We met her in an empty parking lot a few miles from the festival grounds, where she pulled out a ziplock bag filled with CUSA wristbands of all colors from the past seven years. Of course, they rotated colors with each year, but they chose from a small spectrum, apparently. She dug in to find bands that matched this year's color for my driver and me, sliced the sides, and slipped them onto our wrists. She super-glued them back together, so they looked as if they were snapped on as they should be. She accidentally glued my driver's wristband to his skin, but he's a tough construction worker from central Wisconsin, so he didn't even wince when she tore it away without warning.

I left my laptop and my journal in the car-- no sense in risking everything I've written at the hands of rowdy hicks. I tossed a hat and a sweater in my bag, packed a bowl, and tucked the pipe in the side pocket. Surely taking weed into a hick party was a good way to be arrested quickly. Hicks hate hippies.

We left the Suburban in the empty lot-- we'd have to pay for parking if we took it in-- and packed into my sister's tiny Saturn, a comical position for my driver, who was almost six and a half feet tall. We drove in to the campsite without a hitch, although my sister freaked out when the “guard” at the gates requested to see the snapped sides of our wristbands.

“What if they noticed the glue?” she asked later. “Then they wouldn't have let us in,” I answered. “Shit.” They hadn't even checked our bags, or the trunk. These hicks were probably all armed with shotguns, maybe compound bows; and they were never going to find my pot with such lax security.

We drove along the dirt road toward my sister's campsite, a slow drive with the hordes of drunks that occasionally swayed out in front of the car to mosey along aimlessly from campsite to campsite. I caught glimpses of Confederate flags, pickup trucks, and camouflage as we passed the other sites. I was in deep now.

We finally pulled in alongside her RV, and greeted the dudes lounging in lawn chairs next to it. Each was at least three-hundred pounds; one had a 36-ounce Country USA 2010 plastic travel mug full of Busch Light, and the other had a cowboy hat tilted to cover his eyes as he tried to nap in the chair.

“I have NEVER drank at 8 a.m. before,” he said to my sister. “And now I'm feeling it. I've got to be done for the night.” It was six o'clock in the evening.

“You just have to keep drinking to avoid the hangover,” I said to him. “You don't feel it until you stop.” I headed straight for the RV from the car, to the liquor cabinet, and pulled out a bottle of Captain Morgan. This place reminded me of high school.

I poured drinks for myself, my driver, and the hungover fat guy. “Are ya sure you don't want a little more rum in there?” my driver asked, pointing at my cup.

“Right now, I really need the caffeine from the Coke,” I answered, but took a small pull from the bottle to satisfy him before I set it down.

My sister ducked into the RV for the hors d'voures she had prepared for the weekend, and came out with an empty Tupperware dish in hand. The fat guys had eaten it all. “That was the second batch I made this week!” she scolded them.

“It's alright,” I said. “The coolers are still full of beer; we've got plenty of sustenance.”

My driver nodded as he sipped his Captain and Coke. “While you're over there, grab me one o' them Busch Lights, will ya?”

My sister obliged and took a Miller Light for herself, and we settled into our lawn chairs to down these first drinks. Soon the rest of the crew came wandering back from swimming in a nearby lake, a few girls my sister had gone to high school with and some guys I vaguely recognized as graduating a few years behind me. I carried my half-empty drink to the table and topped it off with Captain. Drunk and giddy high school acquaintances could not be tolerated on one weak drink and some caffeine.

The girls put on cut-off jeans over their wet suits and patted their hair dry with towels from the RV, while the guys started to stack cups on the table for a game of beer pong.

Two nineteen-year old girls I didn't recognize at all stepped behind the RV in their bathing suits and ran bottled water through their hair to wash out the muck of the lake.

“Let us know if you need any help over there, girls!” my driver shouted to them. He was at least twenty years older than the rest of us, but his wife was a nagging bitch who had stopped speaking to him two weeks before when he was at the bars until 2 am without calling her after work. She had been sleeping on the couch and had left town for the weekend to stay at her sister's place farther north. He was a decent guy who would likely never touch these girls, but he was ready to drink some cheap beer and enjoy whatever show was going to be put on for him tonight.

The girls giggled in that virginal, nineteen-year-old tone that says I'm not gonna say no, but I shouldn't say yes.

Someone turned on a portable radio and tuned it to the local country music station. Between cheap and shallow songs was live coverage of the festival we were at, radio DJs encouraging everyone listening to “come on out” to the Copenhagen tent, etc. Between this hawking, they played commercials. Once everyone was gathered near the beer pong table, I walked over and tuned the radio until I heard Pink Floyd. I sat back down. No one seemed to notice. One of the nineteen-year-old girls was calling for a partner, and she grabbed my driver's hand and dragged him to the table.

I was ready to wander. I could see a game of beer pong any day of the week in Madison; I wanted to go find some freaks. I knew they were out there. I stole my sister's giant plastic novelty mug and filled it with three cans of beer. I screwed on the top and tried a sip through the thick plastic straw. This was going to be a classy night. I told my sister I was leaving to wander and to let my driver know. He was busy in his third game of the beer-pong tournament, easily crushing these kids with years of drinking under his belt and not a bit of help from the drunken giggling girl at his side. My sister glanced over at him and rolled her eyes.

“How are you guys getting home?”

I shrugged and waved a hand at her. “Looks like he's winning, so we should be alright.” I smiled and patted her on the shoulder as she shook her head and raised a skeptical eyebrow.

As I left the campsite, James, my sister's boyfriend, called to me “Where you headed?”

“Out to wander! I want to find some freaks to write about!”

He glanced to the beer pong tournament, then to the sleeping fat guys, and back to me. He scrambled out of his chair and followed me as I hit the dirt road. A simple country boy, but he was quite a few degrees above most of them in intelligence. And he was a former Marine, once a personal guard to George W Bush; he would be good to have around if any of the hicks got out of hand.

I started to count the Confederate flags as we walked. Four in the first six campsites we passed. Also, fourteen American flags, three American-flag T-shirts, and one American-flag bandana.

As we rounded the corner to the next dirt path lined with campsites, I heard “Incoming!” and turned to see a jello shot in a plastic cup flying my way. I caught it and looked farther back, to the guy sitting on the tailgate of his truck who had tossed it to me.

“Jello shots!” he shouted, and tossed one to James.

“Thanks!” I shouted back, removed the lid of the cup, slid my pinky around the edge, toasted James, and sucked the jello out. It was a huge shot, about 4 ounces, so I was prepared for it to hit me pretty hard. But it just tasted like blue jello. For those people who want to drink but don't like to taste their liquor-- for the girls. It was a lot of blue jello to consume without the burn of cheap vodka to cut through the sweetness, and it made no dent toward my drunkenness. I was never going to get arrested this sober.

Down this path, I counted twelve more Confederate flags and thirteen American flags, and walked past an old man sporting a yellow thong and an American-flag bandana. I shivered and held in my chuckle until we had passed him. Curly gray chest hair, scraggly beard, and burnt-out drunken eyes. This was the kind of man who gives drugs a bad rap, the kind of man Squares picture when they hear the word “hippie”: old, worn, burnt-out from decades of uneducated experimentation. The kind of drug user that existed before the internet.

I was surprised when I saw hot tubs-- multiple people had brought hot tubs and set them into makeshift decks at their campsites, and the bot tubs were now filled with groups of middle-aged country folks. Smart people, drinking and relaxing and keeping away from the chaos and filth all around them.

People who believe in Hell are the freakiest kind of sinners. The fear of God forces them to repress all desires throughout most of the year, only to break free and let them fly out in chaotic bursts of lewd drunkenness on special events like this, where it is “allowed”. They could walk around in thongs and bathing suits, drink shots from strangers, and hit on passersby-- all the things they would never be allowed to do come Monday. All of these, in their minds, were grouped with sexual harassment, racist insults, and drunken violence; so, unfortunately, these came out in the chaotic burst as well, making these parties a slimy stew of dark desires and despicable sin.

“Show us your boobs for a beer!” came another shout as we ambled down the path. It was a general call to all passersby; a group of younger girls in bathing suits walking the opposite direction giggled and waved at the campsite as they passed by. I checked my mug; it was getting light, so I decided to investigate the offer.

Six guys of various ages were gathered around a wooden sign hand-painted with the words “Boob-o-meter”. Below the title were pairs of circles cut out of the wood, gradually growing in size along the plank. I approached, and one of the younger guys grinned at me.

“The bigger the boobs, the bigger the beer, sweetheart. Wanna show us what you got?”

I smiled back at him, then glanced back to where I'd left James. He had turned away and started to chat with a random camper down the path.  Nice, decent Christian boy, sister.

“What's the deal?” I asked.

Another of the guys set three plastic cups on the top of the Boob-o-meter plank, three sizes, growing larger along with the cut-out circles below. The bigger the boobs, the bigger the beer. I looked down at my own chest; I didn't even need a bra with this sundress. This would probably not refill my mug. I laughed and approached the larger end of the sign as another guy poured beer into the cups.

“What do you think?” I said, stepping side to side along the holes.

The guys shrugged and grinned. I don't think too many women were actually taking advantage of their deal, so they were pretty intrigued. I paused in front of the largest beer and raised an eyebrow at the old guy standing behind it.

I glanced back again and saw a golf cart coming down the path, carrying four festival guards and a city cop. I pointed them out to the guys.

“Damn,” I said. “I probably shouldn't do this in front of the cops!” I giggled with the most modesty I could fake to convince them of my innocence. “I'll have to catch you on my way back through.” I smiled and shrugged at their protests and drunken reassurances.

I was interested in getting arrested that night, but I definitely didn't want to show these bastards my tits. As I turned to leave and the guys turned back to their campsite, I grabbed the largest cup of beer from the sign and popped the lid of my mug. I filled the mug with the beer as I caught up with James down the path.

“That's a big beer,” he said skeptically, and we both laughed. “I'm a good negotiator,” I replied.

Around the next corner, a group had set up a full-service bar under a tent that spanned four campsites and were handing out free tequila shots. The sign posted next to their tent read “Tequila makes her clothes fall off”, which, I later learned, is the title of a Joe Nichols song. This country music artist also sings a song called “If Nobody Believed in You”, which includes the line “What if God quit tryin'?” Classy, freaky sinners. James and I drank free tequila shots, and I was asked but not required to make my clothes fall off, and we kept walking.

The sun was just starting to go down, and the music was going to start soon, so we started to make our way back to my sister's campsite. The beer-pong tournament was finished; my sister was wiping the splashed beer from the table, and most of the crew around had dispersed to other campsites or toward the main stage. The nineteen-year-old chick was passed out in her bathing suit in the RV. My driver was drunk now and singing along with the country music on the radio.

“Gettin' ready for Toby Keith!” he said, pointing a stern finger at me as I approached.

I fucking hate Toby Keith, who was headlining that night; but the driver and I hadn't partied together in months, and he was having a good time, so I was willing to put up with the soulless, corporate-cock-sucking singer for one night. I had weed, and tequila always mollified me.

The four of us headed toward the main festival gate with a can of beer each. We'd have to finish them before reaching the gate or they would be dumped out, my sister warned us. I grabbed an extra to tuck under my dress as we went in. If they saw me with it , maybe they would at least kick me out before the show started. My driver finished his beer as we passed another golf cart of cops, and he leaned over to say hello to one of them, patted him on the back and asked how his night was going. As we walked away, I asked how he knew the guy.

“I don't,” he answered. “I just wanted to toss my empty can in the back of their rig.”

As we entered the festival grounds, he actually did know one of the gatekeepers who was snapping on our second set of wristbands, ever the small-town man. As they caught up on the twenty years since high school, my sister and I were able to walk in with our half-full cans of beer unmolested. I didn't even bother hiding the second one, and no one stopped us. I resigned myself to watching Toby Keith play.

The roped-off area for the audience around the main stage was already full by the time we arrived, and the crowd had spilled out to the sides. Festival guards were patrolling the area, pushing the crowd to condense toward the ropes to keep us from spilling out and overwhelming the festival grounds. Why it was important to keep the crowd that was here for the show from blocking the cotton candy tent, I'm not sure, but we stepped to the side and crammed in next to the ropes with the rest of the latecomers.

I'll admit that, as the string of opening musicians played through the first hour and a half, I threw an arm around my sister and side-stepped, line-danced and maybe even do-se-do'ed a step or two, toasting my driver with my giant travel mug of beer. And I thought I was prepared to keep dancing even for Toby Keith, feeling drunk and high enough to swallow my rage. But while the rest of the crowd cheered as he came on stage in a Ford pick-up truck in front of a giant American flag singing the words “We'll put a boot in your ass; it's the Amuurican way!”, tears welled in my eyes and I stopped dancing. Jesus Christ! Fucking freaky fucked-up sinners.

At midnight, a torrential downpour struck the state of Wisconsin, and we were all instantly soaked. Summer rain, though, you can survive, especially with enough alcohol to numb your senses; so we stayed until the end of the show. Toby Keith had fireworks shooting up from the stage behind him, and the sky was streaked with lightening above us, and the crowd went wild as thunder clapped and added unplanned intensity to the stage show. The jumbo screens were streaked with the rain, and water flew from the hair of dancers crammed in next to me, and pooled into mud at our feet.

My sister stayed sober somehow and insisted on driving us home, dashing my last hope of getting arrested that night. As we pulled out of the campground in her Saturn, my driver rolled his window down and stuck his head out in the rain, letting the downpour splash in at me in the seat behind him. As we drove past the other soaked concert-goers heading to their campsites, he wiggled his fingers in the air, dancing as best he could in the tiny car, and sang.

"Hey!” he pointed back at me in the rear-view mirror. “Thanks for coming out tonight.  Even though your mother is gonna be pissed to see you hungover in her pictures tomorrow.”


"No worries,"  I replied, watching the hordes of soaked drunks in bikinis and cowboy boots stumble across our path.  "Hey, I could've been in Redgranite tonight."