laughing skull: a review.

Comedy and Culture in the Bible Belt

They told me before we left that Atlanta is a shitty city. But, I'd never been “down South” before, so I was excited for the week nonetheless. The trip would be filled with business and pleasure, with stops in Atlanta, Buford, and Roswell, Georgia; and Spartanburg and Charleston, South Carolina. I could check another U.S. city off of my list, see the ocean for the first time in my life, and enjoy a week of what I expected to be quality comedy.

We were stuck with Atlanta, GA, because this is home to the Laughing Skull Lounge, host of the Laughing Skull Comedy Festival, and the competition that was our reason for getting involved. Madison's Comedy Club on State hosted the second round of the competition back in November, and Nick Hart advanced to the quarter-finals, which meant Atlanta in April. Stefan Davis funded the trip and performed in the festival; and I went along because I am eager to travel anywhere, and because following Nick and Stefan around has done a good job so far of feeding me material.

Laughing Skull Comedy Festival

The city of Atlanta was every bit as disappointing as I had been warned. No one knows how to drink, a vegetarian meal is not to be found, service is terrible in any venue, and the prices for everything are outrageous. The people aren't very friendly, and there are few attractions to keep the poor traveler entertained. We spent most of our time in Atlanta in the hotels.

The festival itself was pretty disappointing as well, despite the great potential that a week with the top budding comics from around the country holds. The Laughing Skull was its hub, but shows were held at bars and clubs around the area, so moving from one show to another was annoying, at best. We had to drive 45 minutes from Atlanta for Nick's first show Wednesday night, to the tiny town of Buford, GA, and the Buford Variety Theater, a comedy club built in the guts of an old Presbyterian church. The venue was gorgeous, and the staff hospitable; but the show was clearly not promoted at all by the club or the festival. The club usually runs an open mic on Wednesday nights, and a number of their regular comics showed up still expecting that. The showroom holds about 100 people; about 20 seats were filled. Six of them were me, Nick, Stefan, and Nick's family; and we had to leave after Nick's set to race back to Atlanta for the competition show at the Laughing Skull.

The Laughing Skull Lounge is a tiny space located inside the Vortex bar in Midtown Atlanta. The bar is really cool, despite the characteristic Atlanta service. The food looked great; and between the dim lighting, the section of poker tables, and the secondhand smoke that is still legal in Georgia, the bar had a satisfying seedy vibe. The Lounge had a bit of an underground vibe, as well, but more Beatnik than back-alley. The comedians said it reminded them of Chicago basement open-mics. I expected to see a troupe of mimes all in black and berets step out from behind the velvet curtain onto the small stage in front of the theater-style rows of chairs.

Instead, a shitty host stepped onto the stage. He was an entertaining comic, but-- like everyone we saw chosen to host the festival's shows-- had no idea how to emcee. They were all low-energy, they held pages of notes on stage, they forgot the performers' names, they were slow to get to the stage after each comic's set... and a number of other things that the comedians pointed out to me as unprofessional and awkward, things that made the shows dull and uncomfortable compared to the ones that we've become spoiled with in Madison, where the performers know proper etiquette and the crowds know how to watch a show.

The third venue that we experienced this week was the most absurd, in my opinion. Nick was there ahead of Stefan and me, and he sent a text, It 's inside of a Chuck E Cheese. The Funny Farm is located in what apparently used to be a restaurant inside of Andretti Indoor Karting & Games in Roswell, Georgia. We entered through the arcade and dodged the herds of fat families and screaming, sprinting children at the buzzing, clanging, dinging machines to get to the green room. Nick performed in the Politics show in front of an almost-empty room of Georgia Republicans on Friday night, and Stefan performed in the King Davids of Comedy show Saturday night without a single Jewish joke in his cache.

We came out ahead, altogether, though. The boys earned TV credits through the Funny Farm performances; and, because few of the people in charge at any of the shows knew completely what was going on, we were able to get into all of the shows for free as “comics”, and the Funny Farm even gave me a $25 gift card for the arcade simply because I was in the green room when they were handing them out to the night's performers.

South Carolina

Despite any annoyances of the festival, the vacation was still a pleasant respite for all of us, and a great experience for me. I enjoyed the idea of “being on the road”-- the boys were performing, and I was taking notes for a story, a prototype for the artists' life we're each working for.

Thursday we had no comedy business, so we spent the day in Spartanburg, South Carolina, at the lakeside home of Nick Hart's parents. It was 70 degrees and sunny outside, we could see the Blue Ridge Mountains standing in the distance behind the trees across the lake, and Sue Hart made grilled chicken for dinner. Nick and Stefan drove the Harts' Porsche to the mountains with the top down, and Nick gave us a tour of his childhood after dinner. We enjoyed our only good buzz of the entire vacation on vodka-7 and Heineken. Stefan and I slept in the room that used to belong to Nick's little sister, and we woke early to head to the ocean on Friday.

The ocean was my favorite. This part of the vacation was absolutely unreasonable and totally necessary. We were told that the drive from Spartanburg to Charleston would take about three hours. With a stop for breakfast at Waffle House, Stefan's Yankee driving, and a car on fire on I-85, it took us four. We spent twenty minutes at the beach before we had to turn around and head back to Spartanburg to meet up with the Harts to head back to Atlanta for Nick's politics show. We spent fourteen hours driving that day. But, I saw the ocean for twenty goddamn minutes. I collected seashells, I held a starfish, and I tasted salt water.

Aside from a week off of work, the greatest benefit of my trip was simply the experience of traveling. I experienced Southern hospitality, cooking, driving, and... “diversity”. I experienced a tour schedule and a sleepless night in the plane, the train, and the automobile that got us to Atlanta from Madison. It was but one more taste of the world outside of Central Wisconsin, another one to whet my appetite for more, an experience worth even Atlanta and bad comedy.

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.

first mayoral debate 2011

Mayor Dave meets the Hart Camp.

The Candidates

appearing in alphabetical, rather than biased, order

John Blotz

Dave Cieslewicz

Dennis DeNure

Nick Hart

Paul Soglin

the hart compound.

Scenes from Campaign HQ

"She called me an asshole for no reason, then offered to make up for it by baking me a dozen cookies. I said, 'Make it three dozen and deliver them to my house before five p.m. tomorrow, and we'll have a deal.' I told her to ring the bell three times, leave the cookies at the door, and leave, and she fucking did it. She broke the deal, though; she only rang once. So fuck her, dude. Don't call her again.”

This is why I love this house. The chocolate chip cookies come with a story. And they are the only food in the house besides the PBR and Jameson, so once they run out, these boys are going to have to find someone else to fuck with, I guess.

I am watching Nick Hart and Stefan Davis write an email response to a series of questions from the Isthmus about Nick Hart for Mayor. We are all drunk on PBR and whiskey. Nick leaves town with his brother tomorrow afternoon, so this needs to be done now, they believe. Good plan, I think.

Stefan is at his MacBook, recording. Nick is standing and pacing, dictating in the dark living room. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is paused on the TV screen. I am in the kitchen cooking rice and beans. The dog Echo is curled on the chair. Adam Hart is on his computer across the room.

“This campaign thing is getting serious,” Stefan says.

“You're right,” Nick replies. “It's getting serious,” and makes a show of grabbing his whiskey drink from the coffee table and taking a drink. Ice rattles. He scans the silent room over the top of his glass.

Stefan recites the first question. “Why are you running?”

“I am running for Mayor--” Nick begins.

“We are running for Mayor.”

“We are running for Mayor,” Nick continues, “Because we want to finger the status quo.”

I am far too drunk to consider the implications of this statement. I dish out four plates of rice and beans and pour some coffee.

Nick takes another drink and says, “This is for a good cause.”

“Which is...?” I ask.

“To be named at a later date.”

Stefan, Nick, and I are working and watching a movie in the living room, and Adam appears in the doorway from his bedroom and says, “I've been trashing pop music on YouTube. People think I hate Asians now. I don't know how I got that rap.”

I'm not always sure how I end up here each night-- can't usually recall the reason or the drive through town. My memory fades back in about the time I walk into the kitchen, hit the bowl, dish up some munchies, and pour a glass of water. But it's never a decision I regret, and each night here makes me want to be around for the next.

It started as a professional relationship, really, but quickly became blurred when Nick Hart said, “Have you ever used a vaporizer? 'Cause we just got one.” Getting fucked up at three a.m. on three bags of weed vapor will inevitably blur labels like “Journalist”, “Comedian”, and “Mayoral Candidate”.

As Stefan Davis dropped me at home that night, he said, “Just so you know, everything is on the record; Nick and I agreed to that.”

“Thanks for the permission,” I replied. “But nothing is ever off the record. I'm here to tell your story.”

“What the hell is she doing hanging around with guys like us?” Stefan asked Nick when he got home.

“Dude, she's an artist.”

It is an Editorial itch that drives me to the Hart Compound, a compelling inner voice that says Oh, it's going to be good here. It's movie Sundays with day beers; it's a drive to Perkins at five a.m.; it's waking up Nick Hart to hand him a bowl while he half-sleeps naked in bed; it's Stefan presenting the candidate with a Mayoral pie at seven a.m. to celebrate a successful start to campaign season; it's the coziest and friendliest little dog who is madly in love with Nick and Adam Hart; it's Nick and Adam wrestling like kids on the couch calling each other faggots to point out the absurdity of the beliefs of the people they grew up around in South Carolina. It's a household where they know what it means to be a Gonzo asshole, and they love it.

I arrived in town after a trying Thanksgiving weekend and texted Nick.

“What are you up to tonight, Nick Hart? I want to find you and take shots of Wild Turkey whiskey. I need a Gonzo shot in the arm after four days of family in Central Wisco.”

And he indulged me. We met at the Argus and ordered the shots from his campaign manager, bartender, fellow comedian, friend, and roommate.

As Stefan set three shots in front of us he said, “This won't end well.”

I raised my glass to meet theirs and said, “It's not supposed to.”

My neuroses fit in well in this household, and I like that.

“She's pretty quiet tonight,” Stefan worries.

“She's just recording,” Nick assures him.

The Hart Compound is filled with those moments that make the writer and the comedians alike exclaim, “Write that down!”, that these moments are shared and remembered.

Nick has been surviving on comedy and unemployment for 18 months now, and the unemployment is about to be cut off. We can't picture him with a job, and it actually makes me kind of angry with the world that such a man will have to work like a sucker to make a living. Such a man ought to be able to survive in life by sharing his art with the world.

“I'm kind of hoping that this mayor thing will work out,” Nick says in response to our concerns about his job search.

The Hart Compound is a place in such juxtaposition to the Real World that anyone who enters can't help but realize that such hope can make things happen in the world. Each moment in the Hart Compound is one moment farther down the rabbit hole, one step closer to the artists' life, further from the reality we are trying desperately to fend off. Nick's seemingly naïve belief that things in life will simply fall into place becomes more and more plausible as I watch life fall into place around everyone who enters the Compound with an open mind.

“I am a firm believer in 'If you act like big shit, they will treat you like big shit',” the candidate explains simply.

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.

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.