enjoy your shit.

Living with divorce...

“Your ex-husband is here. It's not any of my business; just thought you'd like to know.”

I couldn't have imagined a worse text to read on my way to the show at the Argus. I had been looking forward to this show for two months-- since I had introduced the band to Greg to set it up. Now I was on my way there, ready to enjoy the show after a day of work, only to find out that the door guy just checked the I.D. of my ex-husband.

We hadn't spoken since the Talk six months before, which ended in our decision to divorce. Well, he would argue that it ended with my decision to divorce, and I would argue that it ended with his shouting “Have a nice life” and walking out of my room; but I suppose that's all just part of the game.

“He's really drunk; you probably shouldn't try to talk to him,” two bartenders informed me before I made it across the barroom to the door of the Underground.

“Great,” I replied dryly. “Let's get weird, then.”

I greeted James at the door. “Thanks for the heads up. I guess it's that kind of night.”

“And how.” He nodded and shrugged.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I spotted him immediately at the bar across the tiny room, and I paused. The bartender was handing him his tab.

“How have you been, man?” Lew greeted him.

The bartender looked at him confused. “Sorry, do I know you?”

“Lew... We used to come down here every week.”

The bartender shook his head, and suddenly caught my eye across the room. He glanced back at Lew, then to me.

“Ah!” he forced an awkward smile and shook his finger at Lew. 'Yes, now I remember you. Good.” He slid the tab across the bar and turned to the next customer.

Lew signed his tab, grabbed his drinks, and turned toward the stairs. He caught my eye, but turned to the next room and walked past me without a greeting. I sighed and walked up to the bar.

Steve reached across the bar and kissed my hand. “Your ex is here, huh?”

“Yeah.”

He refilled my glass.

I had prepared myself to boldly walk onto the dance floor, to enjoy the band that I had brought into this bar. This was my bar. If my ex was going to show up unannounced from out of town, he was going to have to understand that he was crossing into my territory and contending with my friends.

“He's really drunk tonight,” Steve said.

“I know.” I turned to glance into the next room, where the band was playing. “How's the show going?”

Steve shrugged. “The crowd is in and out. But the band is really good. That singer is incredible, some of the notes he can hit... And the drummer! Holy shit, he's amazing.”

I nodded absentmindedly and smiled. He was right. But, of course, I already knew these things, right? I listened to Charlie sing these lyrics over and over in a studio in Appleton, Wisconsin, recording an album a year ago, right? I got high with the band in the Northern Wisconsin cabin of that drummer's family last Spring, and I saw his baby and his wife and his uncle, and I saw him play in a loft in the woods until he seemed to melt into the drumset; yeah, I knew he was good.

I had drank Bloody Marys on Charlie's balcony and listened while he played this song in its infancy on his acoustic guitar in his bedroom. Right?

I took three steps, and I was in the doorway. I was looking at the backs of all of the people I used to know. I was looking at Lew's drunken arms dancing to the music. My resolve was gone. I could not be bold. Not after just two drinks.

The band was playing a cover of Butch Walker's Don't You Think Someone Should Take You Home. My heart jumped in my throat when I heard it, flooded with the sound of Frenchie's violin playing this song last Spring.

I hadn't heard Lew's voice since that last day. We were barely in touch online, sorting out credit card debt. We hadn't even filed for divorce officially yet. He had had the papers for months; I was still waiting for him to sign and return them to me.

Would he really not talk to me all night? What was he doing in my bar?

Charlie looked across the crowd and caught my eye over Lew's shoulder. I smiled. He turned away and continued to play.

“Hey!” a voice came from behind me. Cory was walking my way from the bar. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, I've been doing well. How are you? It's good to see you!”

“Doing good. The show's been pretty fun.”

“Oh yeah? Lots of people here?”

“In and out.”

“Yeah, that's what the bartender said...”

We never had had a lot to talk about.

I rattled the ice in my empty glass. “I better go get another. It was good seeing you.”

“You too! I'll see you around.”

I ordered another drink, then returned to my post in the doorway to watch the last song. Charlie's girlfriend was standing with a friend just a few feet away, so I stepped up to them and tapped her shoulder .

She turned and saw me. She didn't say anything.

I smiled. “Hi, Erin! How have you been?”

She didn't smile back. “Hey.” She turned back to her roommate and started a conversation.

I blinked, surprised, then stepped back to the doorway without a word. I took one more sip of my drink and gave up on the show. Who were these people, and why were they in my bar? I went back upstairs.

James had left for the night, and the bar was nearly empty now. I sat at a stool and ordered two shots from Greg.

He raised his eyebrows at me. “How did it go down there?”

“He didn't even talk to me. None of them talked to me. They're under his god damn spell, as always. I don't know how he does that.”

Greg raised his shot glass, so I lifted mine to meet it, and we drank the whiskey.

I slammed the glass to the bar, froze in that position, looked at Greg for a moment.

“They are just looking at me like I don't belong here. Like I am the one who's out of place!
What is going on here?”

The band was packing up and beginning to haul equipment upstairs. Lew followed the group into the back hallway. Then I heard Steve's voice from behind him.

“Hey, man! Wait!” he came up the stairs and tapped Lew's shoulder.

Lew stopped and turned around.

“What the hell is this?” Steve waved a receipt in front of him. “Three dollars? On a sixty-dollar tab; are you fucking kidding?”

Lew shrugged, without a word.

Steve shoved the receipt at Lew and handed him a pen. “That's like five percent, dude. That's shitty. Cross that out and make it a bigger tip.”

Lew scribbled on the receipt and handed it back.

“Six dollars,” Steve said, looking Lew in the eye. “That's still shitty, but better.” He turned and walked back down the stairs.

Lew followed the band into the back alley.

Greg gestured their way and said to me, “Steve doesn't ever call people out like that.”

I finished my drink, ordered another.

As Greg placed the drink in front of me, Lew walked into the bar through the front door. I picked up the drink, prepared to ignore being ignored, but he walked toward me. I opened my mouth to utter a greeting, but before I could say anything, he reached into his coat and pulled out an envelope. He raised it into the air and smacked it onto the bar in front of me.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Divorce papers,” he replied. He looked drunkenly into my eyes and waved a hand at the bar around us, at Greg. “Enjoy your shit, darlin'.”

I glanced to the envelope, then back at him, and nodded without a word. He walked away. He left with the band through the back alley. No one said good bye.

“I'm ready to put this behind me,” I said to Greg as we approached the door of the Compound at the end of the night. I shook my head. “I'm ready to leave this town behind me.”

going back and going home.

Part One: Friday, a night with the girls

The timing was perfect. Rent was due Friday, and I was out of money for the month by Wednesday. My sister called Thursday to invite me to Appleton for the weekend, and Greg and I were asked to stay at his mom's to house-sit while she was out of town the following week. I had ten comfortable days to find a new place to call “home”.

On Friday, I stuffed the clothes I still liked into a suitcase, and my journals, pictures, and a few books into plastic crates and loaded them into Greg's trunk. I tossed my toothbrush, my makeup, and a change of underwear into my oversized purse, already bulging with my computer, journal, planner, wallet, and Hot Water Music. I hauled my futon and bookshelves to the curb and left the rest for the landlord to donate to charity. Or, she could sell it to cover a fraction of the rent I wasn't going to pay.

After Greg headed off to work, I dropped my keys into the mailbox and slowly pulled the door shut behind me. It clicked shut, I sighed, and I turned to face the street. I took in the feeling of homelessness. I felt no different than I had yesterday. I was young-white-woman-with-a-loving-family homeless, not 'Nam Vet-homeless. I would be fine. I headed toward the Square.

Michelle would be in Madison in about four hours, to pick me up for dinner with our stepsister Ann, who is in the city for school. It was too early to go to the bar without any money; I wouldn't be able to score much for free drinks during Happy Hour, and I didn't want to put up with the politicians, anyway. I stopped into my favorite cafe. Jim could tell when I didn't have money even before I ordered, but he always served me a bottomless cup to keep me writing. I tipped him the $1.37 in change I had left in my purse and grabbed a table.

I set up my computer and awaited Michelle's call. I finished two short stories that I'd been fretting over for three weeks, submitted those and three others to yet another five fiction reviews, and drank three cups of free coffee. Jim poured another refill, and I began to scour online for writing gigs. I was tailoring my resume for a blog in San Francisco when Michelle called.

Michelle bought dinner for all three of us on State Street, and I talked them into having drinks afterward. They followed me into the Silver Dollar, which looks and smells exactly like the bars we grew up in up north. Ann bought three glasses of Miller Lite and offered Michelle Tums to settle her stomach from dinner.

“Is this what you call a 'dive'?” Michelle asked me as we walked in. Cash only, concrete floors, heavy wooden tables that hold the memories of years of beer-drinking and cigarette smoke.

“Yeah,” I answered. “It's the best in town. It reminds me of home.” She laughed and wrinkled her nose as the old-bar scent reached her. She slipped into the bathroom to wash her hands before we sat down, but she was freaked out by the old-school cloth-towel dispenser, and came out wiping her palms on her jeans.

We caught up on our lives over the Miller Lite. Michelle had just started a job at a new school in the Fox Valley, and she was enamored with the kids she was working with. Ann had just started nursing school in Madison, and she was worked to the bone between homework and her full-time waitressing job. They were each recently engaged to men that our whole family adored. I had just quit school and gotten a divorce, and I was loving all of the free time I had to write.

“I want to dance,” Michelle said suddenly. “Do you know any good clubs around here?” she asked me.

I raised my eyebrows at her over my pilsner glass. I shrugged. “Pretty sure Argus has a DJ tonight in the Underground, but I think he's just playing iTunes. People will be dancing, anyway.” Do I know any good dance clubs. Of course, if you get drunk enough, you could dance anywhere, and I knew how to get drunk at the Argus.

We finished off the pitcher and allowed the Tums to take effect, then made our way across the Square.

When we got to the Argus, we went straight downstairs without ordering drinks. It wasn't very courteous of us, but they were buying, so I was in no position to insist. Downstairs, the DJ was leaning against the bar chatting with a pair of girls in short skirts while auto-tuned Top 40s played through the speakers. There were half a dozen gay couples dancing together on the tiny dance floor. I exchanged a glance with each of my sisters. Michelle shrugged, and Ann pulled out her camera. We stepped into a corner and started dancing.

Ann snapped her first picture of us, and Michelle started posing. To the electronic beat of the music, she would freeze, eyes to the ceiling and hands behind her head like a superstar. They giggled. Michelle pulled me next to her, and I flashed my best superstar smile with my hands on my hips. I rolled my eyes as Ann laughed at us both. We posed back to back and fluttered our eyelashes.

For a moment, I was swept up in memories of our childhood, the three of us traipsing through summers of Make-Believe, bicycle rides, park swings, and hide-and-seek. So close in age but not similar in any other way, the three of us had been typically inseparable each morning and intolerable after a day of indecision and competitive games gone wrong. As teenagers, we were simply the unremarkable trio of colorful, giggling girls wandering through the mall each weekend. By the end of high school, we'd gone our separate ways, coming together a few times a year like this in an attempt to maintain our bond and recapture those lost moments.

Ann's camera flashed again, and I blinked, then caught Steve's eye as he stood behind the bar across the room. His smile mocked me as he poured a PBR from the tap. I covered my eyes with my hand and turned away.

After about fifteen minutes, I was tired of dancing and posing and shitty music. I dragged them back upstairs. Ann bought a round of drinks, and Michelle started plugging the juke box and playing music that reminded us of middle school in the nineties. I never want to be reminded of middle school, least of all when I am almost-sober in a full bar on a Friday night. I finally begged her to stop, and we settled around a table in a corner where I could see most of the bar, but not the big-screen TVs.

I sat back and observed the barflies as my younger sisters started to talk about wedding plans. After a few minutes, Greg came over to our table with a full drink. It was pink.

“That guy over there with the black hair wanted to buy this for you,” he said as he slid the glass in front of me with a wink.

I laughed and wrinkled my nose at the drink.

“Vodka-grapefruit,” Greg said, raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “I wasn't about to advise him that my girlfriend prefers whiskey.”

The three of us laughed and glanced over to the bar to spot my admirer. We smiled and waved at him and his friends. Before Greg turned back to the bar, I gave him a kiss and thanked him for the drink.

The guy with the black hair slumped in his chair and gave Greg an incredulous look.

“Sorry, man,” Greg said with a shrug as he walked back behind the bar.

“Are any of them single?” the guy with the black hair asked.

Greg chuckled. “I think those two are engaged--” he pointed at my sisters, “and my girlfriend--” he pointed at me, “is actually still married.”

I sipped at the bitter drink and chased it with my whiskey-Seven.

Michelle and Ann were only halfway through their drinks by the time I finished both, and they were starting to slow down.

“I think we should be getting home,” Michelle told Ann, who was hosting her for the night in her apartment across town. “We're leaving Madison at seven tomorrow.” She looked at me.

I looked at the clock. One a.m. Greg was my ride, as well as my bed for the night; I would be here past close. Alone and bored, apparently, as they went to bed.

They each sipped their drinks for a few more minutes, then pushed them aside unfinished and left. I grabbed the half-full glasses and found a seat at the bar. I gulped down Michelle's Malibou-Coke, winced, then washed it down with Ann's Miller Lite.

Greg's roommate came in around two a.m.

“Thank god!” I slurred to him. “I need to talk to someone who knows how to hang. My sisters left already! I thought you would get to meet them. Man.”

“Are they cute?” he asked.

“They're engaged,” I answered.

One of the barflies ordered shots for himself and me, and Greg poured one for himself and for Nate as well.

Nate left at close, and I scooted to my usual place at the bar to wait while Greg cleaned.

Nate turned before he walked out the door and waved to me. “See you tomorrow?”

I shook my head. “I'll be out of town. But I'll see you at home tonight.” Home. “At your place,” I corrected myself. “I'll be staying at your place tonight.”

union rallies.

Day 1
~1,000 people

It has been over a month now, and as I watch the rallies around the Capitol wax and wane, I am just beginning to wrap my mind around what I-- and all of us in Madison, Wisconsin, the US, and the world-- have been part of for the past four weeks.

Day 2
~ 25,000 people

Day 6

The community of Madison has been transformed by this movement, and the impact won't go away quickly with the protesters. Every one of us has been affected by it, whether because we slept in the Capitol building for two weeks straight, or because we were late for work 3 out of 5 days every week because of swamped city buses, or because we suddenly have something other than Wisconsin winter weather to talk about with every single person we encounter throughout the day.

Day 7
~70,000 people

Tom Morello kicks off Week 2
with Rock for Your Rights

Our local pizza place, Ian's Pizza was absolutely swamped with business for two weeks because of hundreds of calls from around the US and the world with donations of pizza to be delivered to the protesters around the Square. Inside their store, Ian's has a board that lists all of the countries calls had come from, and a note that says "All 50 states!". They received more donations than their employees could keep up with, so many so that they started to donate their donations to other local businesses and to refer callers to other businesses to make donations.

Sit-in Feb 27

I attended the sit-in at the Capitol on February 27, fully prepared to be dragged out of the building and arrested. I was there as much for the experience as for the statement. I was moved and impressed by what the people had transformed our state Capitol into, perfectly organized chaos; a huge open communal living space that was both a statement of solidarity against the bullying of this government and a testament to the ability of people to coexist and care for each other when they are driven by common goals and not restricted by the pursuit of money.

I climbed to the second floor of the building with the number for my lawyer in magic marker on one hand and the number of a friend prepared to bail me out of jail on the other. I milled about with around 500 people as the announcement was made overhead that the building was closing at four p.m., then waited with them for the small number of police officers from counties around the state to ask us to leave. When we weren't asked to leave, or dragged out of the building, I was disappointed at first. I had come for the experience, and it was, frankly, a little boring after awhile to just mill about the Capitol listening to a drum circle and protest chants. But, then I was reminded of our reason for being there and realized that we had won this one. It was suddenly interesting to be a part of that, and I slept that night with a sense of pride for my city and my state.

"WE ARE WI"

That sense of pride was completely deflated the next morning when authorities started to restrict access to the building. That was the first moment, after attending more than two weeks of protests, that I realized that we were just going to lose.

The greatest blow, of course, came last Wednesday, when the Senate sneakily pushed through the anti-Union legislation. Although the move re-lit the fire that was threatening to burn out under the protesters, it was still completely disheartening. What are we fighting for anymore? The fight continues, but with each victory for the other side, this inspiring community is looking more and more like an angry mob to me. It seems that no matter how right we are or how loud we shout, the powers that be are not listening.  I don't know what to do to make them listen, and I know we can't possibly stop shouting.  I'm just trying to exist in my city now, witnessing this historic event without being swept up in false hope or heavy disappointment at every turn.

SOLIDARITY
Friday, Feb 18

Rock for Your Rights, Monona Terrace
Monday, Feb 21

Monday, Feb 14
Headed to the Governor's office

Tuesday, Feb 15
Teamsters arrive

Serving Ian's Pizza outside the Capitol

Rock for Your Rights
Tom Morello invites us all to join him on stage

Rules of etiquette inside the Capitol

Sneaking a moment away from work to
check out the action
Saturday, Feb 19

the men behind the podium.

Meet the candidates for Mayor of Madison, 2011

As a student and a member of a demographic that is typically ignorant to local politics, I am well aware that not many of us want to take the time to follow this election, to learn about candidates for positions whose purpose we are only vaguely aware of, or to listen to dry rhetoric about policies we do not understand or care about. My conversations with and observations of the candidates throughout this campaign have looked at each of them from a more personal perspective, rather than reiterate their positions on policy.  I have been getting to know the candidates over drinks and jokes, pulling them out from behind the podium and into an atmosphere that we can better relate to.


I have been working officially with Nick Hart for Mayor as Senior Writer to the campaign since the campaign began in December. I interviewed Nick Hart and campaign manager Stefan Davis last fall, following their announcement of the candidacy

Just as Nick Hart's personality and interests, and his unique position as a comic, were what attracted me to him as a candidate, I believe that the personalities and personal interests of all of the candidates are a forgotten element that those in my forgotten demographic might find more entertaining than the dry rhetoric and policy that has had us nodding off these past eight weeks..

City engineer John Blotz, who has since dropped out of the race, joined the Hart camp for drinks one Sunday morning, and perennial candidate Dennis de Nure granted me a bit of his afternoon to talk about his history and his dreams at the Argus. Former Mayor Paul Soglin's campaign manager has been very kind in every email she has sent, assuring me that they have only to “go over the schedule”, and eventually we will have a chance to talk.

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz's campaign manager has been kind, as well, whenever I call her, although rather forgetful whenever she promises to call me back. I understand her difficulties in scheduling, however; after all, as she said, “Being the Mayor comes first, of course.”

With just days left before the primary, I have yet to be granted the promised interviews with Soglin or Cieslewicz, but I did attend every debate and follow every poll in this election, and I had the privilege of being personally invited to guest lectures by Soglin and Cieslewicz at the University of Wisconsin.

Nick Hart

Nick Hart

“It's an idea; it's not the best idea, but... ideas grow... We're just putting it out there,” Nick Hart told me of his proposal to legalize and produce hemp and cannabis within the city of Madison in our first interview.  He and campaign manager and fellow comedian, Stefan Davis, sat in the Argus Underground with me in October before the night's show with the Isthmians of Comedy.

Nick announced his intentions to run for Mayor of Madison on August 11^th during a regular appearance at the Big Deuce Open Mic at the Comedy Club on State. He is a local stand-up comic who is running “to keep the others' campaigns honest”, to “challenge the status quo” of municipal politics, and to get more people involved in the election. He continues to point out that only about 12 percent of eligible voters cast their votes for municipal politics, and he acknowledges that he is in a unique position to entice a whole new demographic of voters-- Madison's "bar crowd"-- to get involved with this election.

Nick called his campaign a “civic experiment”, one that allows all of us involved and all of those looking in to get a glimpse into the business of politics in this city. I have watched the campaign struggle to be heard through the rhetoric of the so-called frontrunners, disappointed each morning to read yet another news article about the race that features Soglin and Cieslewicz, bored to tears at debates when not a single candidate engages Nick's platform ideas. I have watched the interest of our target demographic wax and wane throughout the campaign, enthusiastic when they are able to drink with and shake the hand of the candidate, but uninterested when asked to join us on the ground.

Nick hopes to capture about 5 percent of the vote in next week's primary election. He wants to make an impact, “create waves in the stagnant pond” of Madison's politics, and show those who expect just business as usual that Madison's students and barflies are, indeed, paying attention, and that they need to pay attention to us, as well.

John Blotz

I find it important to take note of former candidate John Blotz, although he officially dropped out of the race on January 28. He stated his reasons for ending his campaign to be a lack of resources for being “competitive in the primary” since Soglin had entered the race to challenge Mayor Dave. After sharing Sunday morning Bloody Marys with John just days before, I was personally saddened to watch him remove his voice from the race. His calls for “honesty, integrity, and transparency in our city government” had finally gotten him into the headlines in the Daily Cardinal and gotten mention in the Isthmus and The Daily Page, and he was beginning to emerge as the only candidate with the ability to challenge Mayor Dave's politics.

John Blotz

That Sunday morning, John joined the Hart camp for Bloodys at our favorite dive to unwind from an awkward and dull taping for WYOU's “Meet the Candidates” feature. Before coming to the taping, he had dealt with a series of misfortunes involving plumbing, pets, and his young children at home, while his wife was away at work.

Like John, his wife is an employee of the City of Madison, a position subject to the whims of politics and public funding. John had recently learned that his position as Construction Management Supervisor had not been included in the upcoming budget. After the end of this quarter, he will be out of a job. Though there is no evidence of causation, he made the correlation quite clear between this development and the opinions he has been voicing in recent months against the Mayor's cronyism and favoritism in hiring practices.

“My wife is worried,” John told us.

Government positions are usually secure jobs, “if you can keep your mouth shut”, he said, and they were both aware that the challenges he was making to Mayor Dave in the campaign might leave a sour impression on the administration and put his wife's job at risk as well.

Dennis de Nure

Dennis de Nure

“I am not a serious candidate,” Dennis de Nure stated at the first Mayoral debate, and everyone in the room probably breathed a sigh of relief that he had spoken the line we had all been thinking. He has been running for various offices in the city since 1987, never intending to win. De Nure runs in order to gain a platform for presenting himself as an entrepreneur, rather than a public servant.

This time around, he is presenting the Museum Mile, a series of museums in Madison's downtown that would celebrate Madison's and Wisconsin's history and culture, that he has put the past five years into planning and promoting. He can steer a conversation to this topic like the best of politicians, and he will keep an audience intrigued and entertained, if a bit confused or annoyed.

When I asked Dennis what drives him in his passion for the project, I was surprised by his answer. He had told me earlier that he had studied Social Work, that he was a “natural loner”, that his favorite hobby was reading; and I could see that he was capable of the kind of focus and passion that such a project needed behind it. I expected him to tell me about his love of the city, about his investment in its culture, about a need to remember our history.

Instead, he replied, “Poverty, mostly.”

He was ready to sell his idea and get out of poverty. Dennis has been living at Coventry Group Home, and he relies on coveted library time for computer and internet use. With his limited resources, he is taking all of the opportunities he can get to share his idea with someone who might want to run with it.

Dennis was quick to remind me that Paul Soglin had promised to be one of those people. During the first debate, Soglin expressed an interest in parts of the Museum Mile concept in his closing statement, and promised if elected to hire Dennis to help implement the idea.

Paul Soglin

Paul Soglin and Dave Cieslewicz were invited to speak to a UW urban planning class during the week before the primaries, the theme of the week being “City Visions”.

Hart Camp Treasurer Matt Baier, Nick Hart, Paul Soglin

Soglin approached the talk as a professor would, in a black sweater and slacks and a white collar. He stood comfortably behind the podium with a piece of chalk in his right hand as he spoke. He looked more like a professor this morning than like a politician, and he spoke to the class this way as well. He engaged the students, asking questions and occasionally making jokes-- although at some points when he made the class chuckle, I was unsure whether he was aware of his wit, due the complete lack of expression in his face.

On the board, Soglin wrote a list of the day's themes: land use, transportation, taxation policy. He said these three elements are “intertwined in the control of an urban environment”, and he tied them into each of his topics.

Acknowledging its importance to the lessons of the class and to any city looking toward further development, Soglin asked the question, “Is it inevitable that the urban environment creates slums [and] ghettos? ...Is it inevitable that the solution to that is gentrification?”

His answer was, of course, “no”; but I was not convinced that his vision for a developing Madison is any different from Mayor Dave's value-added, gentrified downtown. He repeated his oft-mentioned statistic that poverty in Madison's public schools is on the rise; 48 percent of students come from households whose income is below the poverty line. He also reiterated the points he made in the debates, that there is nothing that could have “a more profound effect on the quality of life in your city as improving the quality of your schools”.

Soglin did not mention what the Mayor's office might do to improve the quality of Madison's schools and, subsequently, retain higher-income taxpayers and improve the quality of life in his city. But he did say, “There has to be the will and the commitment to fight for the community by its citizens. There is nothing government can do to supplant that.”

Dave Cieslewicz

Mayor Dave and Me

Dave approached the lecture a little more formally at first, though the atmosphere did lighten as students warmed up to him during the Q&A period. He looked more like a politician than a professor in his suit and tie, likely because he was right in the middle of a work day and not because he simply prefers this getup.

He also focused on land use and transportation and talked about the importance of community involvement in city development. He led us through a PowerPoint slideshow of the houses of generations of his family in Milwaukee to demonstrate the changes in urban development and culture over the decades.

He looked at the shift from densely-populated urban neighborhoods to sprawling suburban subdivisions, favoring the urban and criticizing state-led transit development and city zoning codes for encouraging sprawl. The pictures he showed us of the homes of his great-grandparents and grandparents were of two-story homes with porches in dense neighborhoods with sidewalks and residential streets that could “function well for all forms of transportation”-- bicycles, pedestrians, cars, buses. Nostalgically, he described to us the environment where neighbors could interact with each other and oversee the safety of the neighborhood from their front porches, and everyone could buy their groceries at a corner market down the street. He contrasted this to the house he grew up in across a state highway from a mini-mall, and the suburban house in which his parents still reside.

I was able to steal a few minutes with Dave after the lecture, and I asked him for his take on the recent debate about the proposed development of a four-story apartment building on Mifflin Street. He was surprised and impressed when I told him about the “Save Mifflin” Facebook event created by students in opposition to the development.

“It's good to see them get involved,” he told me.

He hasn't seen this kind of reaction from students before regarding city planning, and he seemed genuinely intrigued and sympathetic to their grievances. Mifflin Street is just the sort of city neighborhood he had described with admiration in his lecture; though, as he pointed out, “Its buildings are not all that well-maintained,” and the neighborhood could use plenty of renovations.

I regret not having the opportunity to talk with Dave more, because he is a truly nice guy to talk to. He is a great conversationalist, friendly and respectful and interested in the conversation. After I explained to him the students' reaction to Mifflin Street, he asked me, “What do you think about it?”, and I believe he really cared.

I am not so naïve as to think that his conversational skills are not a result of years of practice as a politician and a businessman. Nonetheless, I am impressed with his demeanor and his respect for everyone he talks to. He may not be very available to his constituents, but he is certainly approachable when one has the chance.

During Soglin's lecture, one student raised his hand and asked, “Where do you start when there's not [the will of] a community to begin with?”

Soglin replied with a simple and optimistic, “There always is.”

However, this very issue is at the heart of the problem with municipal politics. It is this lack of commitment to our community that keeps an overwhelming majority of Madison's voters from paying attention to local elections. It is this lack of care that has Nick Hart disillusioned with the dreams he had for this Mayoral race. It is this lack of involvement by the diverse community that has kept Madison's local politics stagnant despite the progressive claims of the city.

being the media.

On politics and bullshit in the Media

The Media. I am coming to terms with this “journalism” thing; and, as a writer, there are bits that I really like about it, and there are parts that I really hate that keep me from ever wanting to call myself a “journalist”. I don't want to write someone else's story. I write about the stories I see, not those I am asked to find.

Attempting to be a part of “the Media” gives me perspective on the rest of this beast, but not the sympathetic perspective you might imagine. It makes me more mad at the bullshit I read, if only because I am paying attention now. In the midst of it I see that it is quite possible to write the truth, to take a new point of view, to chase an interesting story, and-- most of all-- to write well. And the goddamn Media does not do these things. They just print lines and pages of bullshit that regurgitates what we already think due to the bullshit that has been previously printed.

The agenda behind it is what makes me most want to run away from this beast. An agenda that wants nothing but More of the Same, an agenda that places a front-page article about the "differing styles" present in the Mayoral race with a large photo each of Dave Cieslewicz and Paul Soglin and a page full of their rhetoric, with a sidebar box including the remaining three candidates. Oh yeah, and these guys are running, too.

Nick Hart joins Dennis DeNure and John Blotz in the box of sidebar candidates. This position was mirrored at the first debate last Thursday night, where Soglin and Cieslewicz were seated as a team in the spotlight, with Hart, DeNure, and Blotz conspicuously designated to the fringes. The Media and its agenda were aggressively present, as well; the debate was moderated by a biased and demeaning John Nichols, Associate Editor of Madison's Capitol Times.

Hart said in his opening statement that he hopes to
get more people involved in Madison's politics.
(L-R: Blotz, Hart, Soglin, Cieslewicz, DeNure)

The host was infuriating and annoying, leading the debate in an unimaginably biased and unprofessional manner. He continually referred to Hart as “the comedian candidate”; patronized DeNure's Museum Mile dream; rebutted Cieslewicz's comments as if he were the one running; allowed John Blotz the opportunity to speak only to offer Cieslewicz material to argue against; and referred to Cieslewicz throughout simply as “the Mayor”, perpetuating the “Mayor Dave” branding utilized by his campaign.

Missing from the room was poor Scott Walker, who-- though I am no fan of his politics myself-- probably deserved a few minutes at the podium to rebut the repeated arguments made by Cieslewicz in this debate against his transit blunder. Cieslewicz and Soglin both were unable to ignore this issue, while Blotz noted, “It's not going to happen in the next four years,” so we shouldn't discuss it in this election. Hart agreed, saying, “High speed rail is dead; we need to focus on more tangible issues.” But the tangible issues of the sidebar candidates were consistently brushed off, and the floor returned to the Cieslewicz-Soglin debate.

In any conversation, Soglin's comments are a constant string of nostalgia for his forty-years-past hay day in Madison politics. The incumbent simply touted safe political rhetoric about his hopes and dreams for a value-added Madison. The dull conversation might have appealed to some of Thursday night's geriatric audience, but most certainly will also achieve what seems to be the objective of Madison politics: Bore anyone under forty just enough that they nod off and sleep soundly right through Election Day.

Thursday's audience was mostly guided, and in many cases wheeled, into the hall from their residences upstairs in this retirement home. As John Nichols pointed out, without Nick Hart's supporters in the crowd, the median age of the crowd would be “a lot closer to eighty”. He was trying to make a joke, but it is entirely unfunny; it very blatantly points out a major flaw in Madison's political landscape.

Audience demographics were, unsurprisingly, largely ignored by the multiple reports in local Media of the debate, though multiple articles noted that it was “standing room only”. 

The bottom line is that the Mayoral debate is a dull story, because it was focused on the two candidates playing it safe. Playing it safe makes for a stupid story, but it's the one they all print.

Where is the journalist trying to find out what the hell Dennis DeNure's “Museum Mile” is? Whether or not it's a good idea, this guy has a damn good story to chase.

Why has no one made the connection between John Blotz's criticism of cronyism and favoritism in the Mayor's office and his personal experiences as a city employee under the administration?

Where is the headline about Nick Hart, the comedian who collected over 200 legitimate signatures from bars alone, offers 2,000 new voters, and leads the city's only poll?

These are stories-- not the dull, repetitive bullshit that gets printed every day in the mainstream local media. The uncreative rhetoric printed in Madison's papers bores and annoys me as a writer and a voter.

With only 12 to15 percent of eligible voters actually casting their votes for Madison's municipal elections, it seems I am not alone. The Media continues to print the stories that have already been written, and the People don't care to read them. And they are definitely not going to react to them by voting in an election they don't even know is happening.

This “journalist” is going to chase the stories that aren't told in this race. The candidates have all been kind enough to grant me the time of day to make their names known in This Artists' Life, and I intend to use that time to speak with each of them about anything other than the rhetoric that has had my colleagues and me nodding off these past eight weeks. It's time to wake up, Madison! Let's get this party started.

eternal sunshine of the drunken mind.

Chasing a story

I woke up staring at the ceiling. Greg was asleep beside me. I couldn't remember arriving at his apartment, but that was pretty normal. Steve always let us drink more than we needed and stay later than we should. My mind was prone to moments of blackout drunkenness just around bar close, coming back into consciousness sometime after landing at home.

Then I realized that I didn't remember the night at all. Nothing of what we had done once we started to get drunk, nothing after something like one a.m. That was unusual.

I reached a hand below the blankets. I was fully dressed, still in the jeans and shirt and belt and bra that I had worn the night before. He was snoring beside me. I had no headache. My head was clear, save for the sudden confusion of the hours lost. I couldn't remember getting very drunk. Where had the night gone?

I slid out of bed and tiptoed into the hallway. The house was silent; we were the only ones there, as we had been among the only ones left in the city on this Wednesday before the holiday weekend.

Just outside of the door to the bathroom was a full glass of water sitting on the floor. In the bathroom, I sidestepped a small patch of puke on the floor, then avoided the bit on the back of the toilet seat. My scarf lay on the floor a few inches away. I checked my face in the mirror. I looked good, just a bit of dark makeup gathered below my eyes, but that was normal with the layers of mascara and eyeliner it took to give my eyes the character they deserved.

I searched the bathroom and the kitchen for some sort of cleaner and towels, and finally settled for the roll of paper towels from the kitchen counter and the Windex from below the sink. I scrubbed the puke from the toilet and the floor. I noticed whole french fries and black olives caked into the drying bile. My lunch; I guess that makes this mine. I didn't usually puke, but it made sense along with the blackout. Why had my lunch not digested? I had had two meals and some unknown number of beers and whiskeys since lunch; why would I vomit whole pieces of that food?

I dumped the glass of water and refilled it. When I went back into the bedroom, Greg was drunkenly awake and looking at me.

“I don't remember anything that happened after one a.m.” I told him.

He flashed me a dopey smile. “No? Oh, this will be good...I can't wait to tell you the story...” but he turned his head and fell back to sleep without another word.

I traced my steps backward through the house-- from the bedroom, down the hallway, through the kitchen, into the living room, to the front door-- and gathered my things along the way, trying to piece together the night to no avail. My computer lay safe on the kitchen table where I had left it before leaving, untouched. My purse was tossed to the couch in the living room, contents spilling out, but all intact nonetheless. My pen was tucked into my journal, and the last line written was the last one I remembered writing:

Made it to the Argus, finally getting drunk.

But I was still what I would call sober when I wrote that, and there wasn't a trace of my usual drunken scribbling to follow. My coat was discarded just inside the front door, with my camera inside the pocket, no filth or damage on the coat and no pictures on the camera. Not a bit of the story to be found.

I was confused. I felt absolutely fine, and I had no memories of wicked drunkenness or any sort of debauchery. As far as my mind was concerned, I had had a quiet night of drinking a few whiskeys and woken up healthy and safe. This was not going to be good for my mind's drinking habit.

I checked the clock. Eleven a.m. Shit! I had to work in half an hour. Eight hours. I felt that I should be dreading this; I should be hungover. But I wasn't; I was ready to work, ready to move. I was only regretting that I wouldn't know this story for another eight hours.

I showered and changed. I had started to keep a change of underwear, a brush, and mascara in my purse in case I didn't go home at night. I pulled a t-shirt out of his closet; some band I hadn't heard of, a black shirt with skulls on the front. My coworkers would know that this one wasn't mine, and I liked that. I pulled my cardigan over the t-shirt, piled my things into my purse, retrieved my jacket and scarf from the floor, and trotted to the nearest corner to catch a bus downtown.

This had been our first unusual move last night. We rode a bus downtown, rather than drive. We immediately relinquished all responsibilities for our drinking selves onto the city we were entering. It was four in the afternoon, and we had exhausted our motivation for work with hours of story edits and website updates in the living room of the boys' empty apartment. Christmas was around the corner, and we faced a weekend of family and sobriety. Comedy was canceled for the night, and everyone we liked had already left town. We had a full bottle of American Honey Wild Turkey Whiskey-- bourbon with the spirit of Hunter and the wisdom of the new generation.

We closed our computers, cracked the bottle open, and started to move. I gathered my tools for the field while he filled two flasks with the whiskey. We each poured a glass on the rocks to down while we pulled on our coats. I tucked the flask into my boot and raised my glass as he made his way toward the door.

A toast. He raised his glass to meet mine from across the room. “Let's go find a story!”

We took a bus into the center of the city that was completely deserted for the holiday and wandered around looking for the story of the night. Nothing was happening; every bar, restaurant, and coffee shop was closed early, and every interesting person had already left town for their obligatory annual moments with distant family. And it was cold. After an hour of wandering, we were headed down State Street to see what was on the other end. I finally admitted to myself that there would be nothing down there but an expanse of empty campus, and I stopped and turned back east and said, “Do you want to just go get drunk somewhere?”

About halfway through my shift, Greg was waking up; I started to get texts. Pieces of the story, along with his complaints of a hangover that lasted until six p.m.

Do you remember falling asleep at the bar? Nope. That seems awfully unprofessional of us. But we had been awake since nine a.m. and drinking since four in the afternoon. So, it wasn't surprising that we passed out around close. My latest memories were of sitting very quiet and observing the bar around me, becoming drunk and too sleepy to entertain any of the conversations directed my way. We had accepted two shots from friends passing through and ordered one round of our own to share with Steve.

I can't believe I got so drunk after three shots! I sent to him.

We drank seven rounds in an hour, he replied.

I didn't remember those last four. But I did remember greeting Jim and Courtney just before my memory cut off, and Joe pointing to us from across the bar and summoning Steve his way. And Johnson and his girl walking through the door. And Steve with that Whiskey look in his eye. Drinking on the Square with Greg is a dangerous game; they all know him and love him too much.

“We've come home,” Greg uttered as we settled onto our barstools at the Argus.

We had wandered the city trying to do something else, trying to avoid the same old business of Wednesday nights for this crew, since the holiday had forced us out of our routines of work and class and pizza and comedy and drinking. We made the trek around the Square, played in the snow, and searched the city for a story where there was none to be found. We fought the magnetic pull from the Argus for hours as we tried to decide what to do with our night off. There was nothing on the Square, nothing on State Street, nothing at the Comedy Club, nothing on campus. This was turning out to be the worst goddamn botched assignment ever. We sipped from flasks of American Honey whiskey to keep sharp.

We wandered into the 'Dise, like all of the other barflies with no families that night. We were drinking PBRs, and the service was slow and uninterested, and we were bored. We weren't even being served fast enough to get drunk. Boredom in winter in Wisconsin is what will make you fat. There is not a thing to do but to eat food and continue to sit and drink.

After work, I made my way to the Square to meet Steve and Greg. I needed to get the rest of the story, and they seemed to be the ones guarding the details. I walked through the Argus doors just as they were calling last call. I ordered a PBR and three shots of Jameson and settled into my stool. Steve walked into the bar from the kitchen, caught my eye, tossed his head back, and laughed out loud.

“God dammit, Steve!” I passed him a shot. “What the hell happened last night?”

“Oh, don't worry,” he replied. “You didn't do anything too terribly embarrassing, except puking on the corner of the bar.”

I raised an eyebrow and glanced to Greg. He nodded in confirmation and added, “I puked, too. But I made it into the garbage.” He pointed to the trash can beside the bar.

Steve laughed again. “Yeah, you were both puking mushrooms. It was totally gross.”

So, I hadn't been the only one vomiting undigested food. It must have just been that kind of a day. The superfluous order of deep-fried mushrooms we ended up sharing at the 'Dise had been purely to entertain ourselves, in that it's-winter-in-Wisconsin-so-what-do-we-do-but-eat-fatty-food-and-drink-beer kind of way. They must have just barely settled into our stomachs, layered and undigested atop the copious amounts of food we had already eaten that day, stirred up by American Honey, Jamo, and PBR. “Gross” was right.

Greg closed the door behind his final customer, and we drank the round of shots.

Steve slammed his shot glass to the bar. “You Gonzo motherfuckers!” he exclaimed. “She's puking on the bar, you're puking in the trash...You're fucking perfect for each other.”

I caught Greg's eye as he turned to start cleaning. He grinned and said to Steve, “Say what you want. Tell whoever you want.” He gestured in a circle over his head and mine. “This shit is Gonzo.”