Best of Local Trolley 2012!!
Approaching the doorstep of 2013, lets not trip over the threshold without getting a chance to look back on the most popular posts appearing on Local Trolley in 2012. First, I want to thank everyone who has used precious bytes of data and bandwidth to take a peek, if only at the home page on accident, at Local Trolley’s content. A lot has happened in Local Trolley’s second year, I find it fitting share a couple of online media milestones.
Numero Uno: I got a smartphone! Not just any old smarty-phone, I got an iPhone… and have talked shit about it from the day I took it out of that lame little white cardboard box. (I still love you though boo). My iPhone has truly made me more adequately social media obsessed and has truly aided me in finding my humble place on the grand scale of social media petty obsessionists. Yet I am undaunted, because at the end of the my AC adapter I still like to write more than I like to attract followers, so my cryptic and unflashy site is for just that, reading, occasionally.
Enough about Local Trolley, let get to the top posts, of the Year 2012.
#5 Brighten the Passage, Design Competition
This post actually appeared on Local Trolley in late December of 2011, and progressively got more popular. Perhaps as more people have attempted to walk from Downtown to the Third Ward, more have wondered why it is so Billy Goat Gruff-like under there, rather than yeah cool Red Hot Chilli Pepper’s Under the Bridge-like. Maybe others are just wondering if the contest is still going on. The Third Ward Association opened a design competition called Brighten the Passage to solicit ideas for how to make being under the I-794 overpass for 150 yards while trying to get to Public Market a bit more bearable. I never heard of a winner of the design competition or of an submission, maybe its time to revisit this one. I think we can at least get the City to move that damn yellow utility van off of the gravel on 4th and Clybourn Street.
#4 Far South Coast, Chef Paz Restaurant
Who wants to argue about Milwaukee’s “Foodies” and their enthusiasm for food? I don’t. Let’s face it, Wisconsin is known for brats and cheese. Milwaukee is know for brats, cheese and some of the best damn no non-sense ethnic food you can find… uh anywhere. I hate to take a stab Madison, but they’re a one of most things kind of town. Here in Milwaukee, for being a little big town, we have multiple decent options for a lot of ethnic food genres. The only thing we are missing is dim sum. At any rate, how cool is having a Peruvian restaurant to brag about, in West Allis no less.
#3 Bronze Age 2.0, Vanguard Sculpture Service, Winter Gallery Night 2012
Not to show too much bias (I’m a blog I can do that), but Vanguard’s Gallery opening was one of the coolest events I have attended in Milwaukee. Throwing fashion and trends to the side, Vanguard stepped out from years of unsung Milwaukee artisan craftsmanship to reach out to the mainstream. Nestled deep in the 35th Street Industrial Corridor, Mike Nolte represents the deep native Milwaukeean original art scene, predating the modern internet and contemporary art ad nauseam by decades. The Vanguard exhibit, Founders, featured bronze sculpture by roughly a dozen artists and a live bronze pouring demonstration.
#2 Making the Mold, Northern Chocolate Company
Our favorite chocolateer tops the list again! I am not the first nor will I be the last to write about the magical cocoa concoctions imprisoned in that beautiful Italianate cream city brick building on MLK Drive just waiting for you to break them out, waiting for you to become a part of the legend. A pure Milwaukee bucket list item, there are a couple of notes you should take before your trip to the chocolate town in Northern Chocolate Company. Give this post read before you go.
NUMBER ONE! Opening Shop, Urban Milwaukee
If there’s a more fitting outfit to grab the top spot, even on the most underground blog in Milwaukee let me know and I will sing their praises with a daisy behind each ear. Urban Milwaukee may be the most established Milwaukee focused online outlet Milwaukee has, and Urban Milwaukee has a store now. With a premier location kiddy corner to Hotel Metro , it’s great to have a place to feel right at home exchanging a few zealous words about Milwaukee in. One of the biggest beneficiaries of Urban Milwaukee (other than fanatic Milwaukeeans) are definitely visitors to the City. Kudos to Jeramy Jannene and Dave Reid you nabbed Local Trolley’s top post of 2012!
Ya! Ya! Sea Triscuit, on with 2013!
Big and Stout, Stone Creek Coffee Factory Store
If you heard a rumor that there was a giant coffee cup being hoisted atop a building you can confirm that just by heading east down I-794. The giant rooftop cup, a beacon to all wayward coffee drinkers, signifies you can now sip Stone Creek Coffee slowly at their shining new Factory Store on 5th and St. Paul.
Stone Creek Coffee Factory Store serves up quality and well sourced grind all week, very early on weekdays opening at 5:30a, then 6:00a on Sat and 7:00a on Sun.
Spacious, comfortable and modest, the Stone Creek Factory Store retained the old world charm of given by original building architects Burnham and Root, with vintage cabin completeness provided by Kubala Washakto (a slightly style-cramping choice of architects considering they also designed Alterra’s corporate headquarters). Not moments after entering Stone Creek’s vestibule, do you experience l0arge glass panels beckoning you to enter the cafe to see just how nice inside looks.
At the Factory Store opening, Stone Creek’s renewed industrial interior, formerly just their headquarters and roasting facility, provides a ideal setting for coffee consumption and bustles with activity. It feels like an unpretentious resort suitable for Stone Creek’s typical patronage, a pleasant and seemly crowd not quite spanning the cultural spectrum the way Alterra does. Friendly, knowledgeable Barristas have a marked presence, as well as ample seating at big tables suitable for accommodating feasts in ancient Saxony.
Method to the Cup
Stone Creek still has a Barrista school where its employees hone their craft of brewing and cupping. A kind fellow stands at the coffee bar practice area ready to demonstrate the traditional drip method of brewing. The mock Barrista station captures the intensity of a chemistry lab. Several glass vessels rest on top of digital scales consecutively, cradle ceramic drip cones in their openings. A tea kettle holding water heats up with a digital thermometer monitoring its temperature. In grave detail, the fellow explains that preparation of a single cup of coffee using the drip method suits his personal preference. An emphasis on the precise weight of beans and type of grind, ensures that what the vessel captures, when water brought just below a boil slowly soaks through the coffee and filter, impresses the pallet of those with discerning taste.
Baking, Kneaded
Further leaping into maturity, not that Stone Creek hadn’t outdone itself with the primary features of the remodel, baked goods now come in-sourced fresh from its newly christened commercial backing facility. Goodies make it from oven to plate, pipping fresh, and quicker than ever. Stone Creek’s coffee couldn’t be happier.
Stone Creek’s flagship store gets tons of credit for adding a little commerce to an otherwise bleak area for retail business of any kind. Sitting at the footsteps of the Central Post Office and Intermodal Station, and a stones throw from We Energies, an obvious captive market will inevitablely tip their cups. Let’s hope that some spillover from the Third Ward Association’s innovations in pedestrian experience and attempts to heighten awareness of activating dead spaces like Brighten the Passage, can meet West Town and the City halfway and alleviate the bleak walking conditions from surrounding areas to make an even greater success story for Downtown.
Going Once, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers
Mason Street storefronts got a new neighbor last September, and that neighbor has a little moxie too. Just a door down from the Delind Gallery of Fine Art, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers stage vintage, couture and fine art for auction.
Prepping for the Summer auction season, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers hosted an opening reception last Saturday and has several previews, of contemporary art and prints that will also on be on the block, planned for the coming week. Hindman’s auction stock includes work of contemporary giants Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, and some niche tastes with local ties that spotlight Francesco Spicuzza and work brushed by members of the Sister’s of St. Francis Assisi.
Controlled breathing may suite you well when entering the show room. Fragile and finely crafted furniture and housewares sit gingerly, made from precious and semi-precious metals, glass and porcelain. The array of rare items available through Leslie Hindman’s inventory even span ornately bound volumes of reference books and original manuscripts, and couture fashion (yes, original Christian Dior among the seams)
Although most of Leslie Hindman’s items price rather thick for the blood of common stock, many highly cherishable pieces fall well within the reach of a budding collector. Discerning taste catches quickly. As much about art as aesthetic, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers’ eye’s for design and decor prove contagious even for those who’s heels are a little worn, but have noses formed well enough to look down. Starring maybe be rude, but looking can create a quick and interesting stop on a leisurely early and stylish evening out in Eastown.
Leslie Hindman Auctioneers are based in Chicago, with Milwaukee as one of only four other offices in the United States. Previews of Leslie Hindman Auctioneers old, master, and contemporary art section, of the auction opening April 29th, commence April 25 and end May 1. Here’s what the full Spring and Summer auction schedule has in store.
Bernard Roberts, Founders, Vanguard Gallery Night
Undulating in a permanent resting positions, Bernard Roberts‘ globular forms spread out then consolidate, wagering sharp edges against the pedestals supporting them. The metallic surfaces blend shades of earth metals with molecular tones of cobalt and hints of ferrous. Evidently abstract, the personalities of Roberts’ sculpture works fluctuate dynamically, and constantly while viewing them.
Back to Main Post, Bronze Age 2.0, Vanguard Sculpture Services, Gallery Night Winter 2012
Bernard Roberts, Bountifully Shaped
Cindy Rust Saiia, Coded Panes
Don Rambadt, Flying Fairly
Care Ekpo, Of Topics Less Known
William Zweifel, Vanguard Gallery
Laura Priebe, Fossils of the Present
David Aschenbrener, Fire and Ice
Charlotte Darling Diehl, A Mother’s Love
Cindy Rust Saiia, Founders, Vanguard Gallery Night
Framing themselves, steel panels accept Cindy Rust Saiia‘s decorative torch cuts that evacuate wanted areas of space, carving porous designs. Rectangular and thin, Saiia’s work hangs as elegantly countenanced industrial wall art, patterns giving food for mental conversation.
Back to Main Post, Bronze Age 2.0, Vanguard Sculpture Services, Gallery Night Winter 2012
Bernard Roberts, Bountifully Shaped
Cindy Rust Saiia, Coded Panes
Don Rambadt, Flying Fairly
Care Ekpo, Of Topics Less Known
William Zweifel, Vanguard Gallery
Laura Priebe, Fossils of the Present
David Aschenbrener, Fire and Ice
Charlotte Darling Diehl, A Mother’s Love
Don Rambadt, Founders, Vanguard Gallery Night
Don Rambadt carefully petrifies daily habits of choice avian species and compliments them with dramatic accent structures that add dimension to the their sculpted perches, transposing the natural surroundings of the birds depicted. Highly angular surfaces on his pieces reminisce on the aesthetics of Soviet era propaganda posters from Eastern block European countries, working well to accent the qualities of industrial art crafted from bronze.
Back to Main Post, Bronze Age 2.0, Vanguard Sculpture Services, Gallery Night Winter 2012
Bernard Roberts, Bountifully Shaped
Cindy Rust Saiia, Coded Panes
Don Rambadt, Flying Fairly
Care Ekpo, Of Topics Less Known
William Zweifel, Vanguard Gallery
Laura Priebe, Fossils of the Present
David Aschenbrener, Fire and Ice
Charlotte Darling Diehl, A Mother’s Love
Care Ekpo, Founders, Founders, Vanguard Gallery Night
A variety of traditional and pop sculpture styles flow through the hands of Care Ekpo. A full suit of plate bronze armor tailored to the measurements of a woman that no foe would wittingly show aggression, monumentally traces the silhouette of womanhood physically and figuratively. In the contemporary sphere, Ekpo displays several other table top size pieces archiving comic illustration heritage, one of which astutely depicts the epic video game heroine Metriod.
Back to Main Post, Bronze Age 2.0, Vanguard Sculpture Services, Gallery Night Winter 2012
Bernard Roberts, Bountifully Shaped
Cindy Rust Saiia, Coded Panes
Don Rambadt, Flying Fairly
Care Ekpo, Of Topics Less Known
William Zweifel, Vanguard Gallery
Laura Priebe, Fossils of the Present
David Aschenbrener, Fire and Ice
Charlotte Darling Diehl, A Mother’s Love
William Zweifel, Founders, Vanguard Gallery Night
Melding bronze casting and glass blowing, William Zweifel aesthetically pleases decorative art tastes with incredibly detailed woven glass structures that drape over bronze centerpieces.
A native of Chicago, Zweifel now makes Wisconsin his artistic home where he constantly explore innovation in industrial arts.
Back to Main Post, Bronze Age 2.0, Vanguard Sculpture Services, Gallery Night Winter 2012
Bernard Roberts, Bountifully Shaped
Cindy Rust Saiia, Coded Panes
Don Rambadt, Flying Fairly
Care Ekpo, Of Topics Less Known
William Zweifel, Vanguard Gallery
Laura Priebe, Fossils of the Present
David Aschenbrener, Fire and Ice
Charlotte Darling Diehl, A Mother’s Love
Laura Priebe, Founders, Vanguard Gallery Night
Imaginatively reconstructing pre-history Laura Priebe‘s depiction of a Moroccan Trilobite playfully and didactically leads an expedition to the primordial past. This creature sits reanimated from archeologists sketch books, so that its shell’s ridges and other sensory structures can be experienced in detail.
Priebe has public artwork that can also be seen at Hartung Park along the Menomonee Parkway in Wauwatosa.
Back to Main Post, Bronze Age 2.0, Vanguard Sculpture Services, Gallery Night Winter 2012
Bernard Roberts, Bountifully Shaped
Cindy Rust Saiia, Coded Panes
Don Rambadt, Flying Fairly
Care Ekpo, Of Topics Less Known
William Zweifel, Vanguard Gallery
Laura Priebe, Fossils of the Present
David Aschenbrener, Fire and Ice
Charlotte Darling Diehl, A Mother’s Love
David Aschenbrener, Founders, Vanguard Gallery Night
Swooping and winding in and out of vessels possible of existing only in the artist realm of reality, David Aschenbrener miraculously takes ice-based sculptures of flowers and charges them with valiant gestures that marry the rigid bronze structures Aschenbrener gives the fibrous materials like stems and leaves to the gentle flowing forms of pedals made from glass.
Fire and Ice from David Aschenbrener on Vimeo.
Back to Main Post, Bronze Age 2.0, Vanguard Sculpture Services, Gallery Night Winter 2012
Bernard Roberts, Bountifully Shaped
Cindy Rust Saiia, Coded Panes
Don Rambadt, Flying Fairly
Care Ekpo, Of Topics Less Known
William Zweifel, Vanguard Gallery
Laura Priebe, Fossils of the Present
David Aschenbrener, Fire and Ice
Charlotte Darling Diehl, A Mother’s Love
Pt. 2, ExFabula, John Gurda on Capital Court’s History
Looking Back
Historian John Gurda guided the evening’s story tellers by explaining signposts of historical significance to the Capitol Heights neighborhood and Milwaukee’s Black community. In 1956, a mall that came to be known as Capitol Court made Capitol Heights its home. It was Milwaukee’s third major shopping center, after Southgate, on South 27th, and Bayshore. At Capitol Court’s founding the neighborhood was barely 10% percent African-American. Today at least 75% of Capitol Heights is African-American, with a growing population of Hmong-Americans.
A few blocks away, on Fon du Lac Avenue, sits Satin Wave Barbershop. Gurda relays that Fon du Lac Avenue, once an old plank road, epitomized the folk saying describing Milwaukee “Look to the East the Lake, and to the West the Land”. Back then, farm goods carted into downtown from as far as the name sake of the street, true also of Appleton Avenue and, at one time, Windlake and Muskego Avenues to the South.
As diagonal roads, they represent seminal thoroughfares that pre-date Milwaukee’s grid system of streets. Around the same time, in the 1850′s, Sully Watson became one of Milwaukee first Black land owners, after migrating with his manumission papers gained from Virginia. He and his wife Susanna lived successful lives in ante-bellum Milwaukee, supported by his work as a tradesman.
Overcoming, Making a Life
Although under the constant looming menace of the Fugitive Slave Act, which gave any white person claiming ownership over a black person force of law to take them into their possession immediately, the Watson family carried on raising a family. The Watson offspring found little success extending their family tradition of gainful trade under the repressive, reactionary and often violent post-Reconstruction American social caste system. The Milwaukee Public Museum recently added a tribute to the Watson family to the Streets of Old Milwaukee.
Contents
Pt. 1 Shaping Influence, ExFabula, Barbershop
Pt. 2 ExFabula, John Gurda on Capital Court History
Pt. 3 ExFabula, The Sherrill’s, A Black Business Legacy
Pt. 4 ExFabula, Sunshine and Rain<
Pt. 5 ExFabula, Tom Crawford, a Thankful Trim
Pt. 6 ExFabula, Monumental Integrity and Murals
Pt. 3, ExFabula, The Sherrill’s, A Black Business Legacy
Still a Tale of Two Towns
Ronnie Sherrill saunters up to the microphone. He’s Satin Wave’s proprietor, style deacon and local icon. In good spirits, he’s set the tone all night. To introduce his delivery of Satin Wave’s roots, soul music beat moderate ambiance from a classic juke box. You can ask just about anyone from the baby boomer generation and older from the Black community about Satin Wave and they will tell you that hands down Satin Wave was the place to get your do done right.
Satin Wave’s lineage began in the 1950′s with Colonial Barbershop on 6th and Walnut. These days it may be referred to as Hillside, but then it was Bronzeville. Barbershops, taverns, chicken shacks and a hotel were thriving businesses and gathering spots for culturally proclivities. A thriving area, to set a gauge for the importance of Walnut Street to the cultural landscape in Milwaukee, the doo-wop quartet The Esquires formed in and frequented Bronzeville. By 1967, they gained enough notoriety to release the song Get on Up nationally. The record went Gold and nearly cracked the Billboard top ten. As local lore recounts the band never received any royalties for the song.
Ending Bronzeville’s heyday, beginning in the late 1962, the Department of Transportation claimed much of the neighborhood as right of way for Interstate 43. Today on the corner of Sixth and Walnut, the complex that once held a Black owned hotel and shopping area now houses the Salvation Army Emergency Shelter and a Department of Corrections Probation and Parole office, respectively.
Contents
Pt. 1 Shaping Influence, ExFabula, Barbershop
Pt. 2 ExFabula, John Gurda on Capital Court History
Pt. 3 ExFabula, The Sherrill’s, A Black Business Legacy
Pt. 4 ExFabula, Sunshine and Rain<
Pt. 5 ExFabula, Tom Crawford, a Thankful Trim
Pt. 6 ExFabula, Monumental Integrity and Murals
Pt. 4, ExFabula, Sunshine and Rain
A Common Bond
Marvin Pratt attended Terminal Milwaukee as the poet laureate of the evening. He treated the audience to a trip down memory lane, through the steps of a young man that emerged, from an era tainted with the trappings of fast talking, slick dressing cats just trying to survive in a time of intense depravity and a racial caste reality, to emerge as a man with political prospects. Fulfilling his ambitions in 1986, Pratt’s district elected him to a Milwaukee Common Council. A seat that he held until 2004, when he ran for Mayor against the current incumbent Tom Barrett.
Along his path to political achievement, Pratt always held close in his memory the tendency for the Barbershop to draw people of all walks of life. His appreciation for the people aspect business and politics mended a common bond with Ronnie over the years. Pratt’s fancy for a certain young woman solidified their connection, when a romance sprung into a loving and lasting marriage with Ronnie’s older sister Dianne.
Dianne treated Terminal Milwaukee to amusing tales of adventures in the Bronzeville, where she, family and friends often and innocently traveled about the City on the 23 City bus into foreign worlds barely miles away from her home. On one occasion, she and her playmates found themselves far from home at Mayfair Mall, where the only route back required a paid fare. Having no money, but in good spirits and unbegrudged after being refused a ride, she lead her fellows on foot back to her Sixth Street neighborhood.
Tying Ronnie, Marvin and Dianne’s stories together, a sown thread bearing the tremendous influence that family played in establishing and maintaining the barbering trade in their lineage, all attached to the first patch in the quilt, Ronnie’s grandfather the first Black Master Barber in Milwaukee.
Contents
Pt. 1 Shaping Influence, ExFabula, Barbershop
Pt. 2 ExFabula, John Gurda on Capital Court History
Pt. 3 ExFabula, The Sherrill’s, A Black Business Legacy
Pt. 4 ExFabula, Sunshine and Rain
Pt. 5 ExFabula, Tom Crawford, a Thankful Trim
Pt. 6 ExFabula, Monumental Integrity and Murals
Pt. 5, ExFabula, Tom Crawford a Thankful Trim
Grown Out, Up
No other social function of hair exists that intrigues as much as rebellion. The central character in the Terminal Milwaukee series Tom Crawford has, among other conspicuous features of his appearance, a flop of bushy wavy mane draping over his forehead nearly covering his glasses. During those days post the decade of civil unrest, the afterglow of hippiedom still prevailed for sometime before spiraling into garage rock, which all affected post-hoc the overgrowth of Crawford’s mop of hair and his strained relationship with his father.
At the breaking point all parents reach with their kids, Crawford’s mother exasperatingly urged him to ask his father, who had barbering in his survival tool belt of occupations, to cut is god-forsaken hair. When approached with the task Crawford recalls his father growling in an authentic Scottish accent, “The lawnmower is broken”. Of course, his father agreed to the hair intervention and, although receiving the uncoolest haircut of all-time, in a moment humbled by a parent’s patience, Crawford sincerely thanked his father.
Contents
Pt. 1 Shaping Influence, ExFabula, Barbershop
Pt. 2 ExFabula, John Gurda on Capital Court History
Pt. 3 ExFabula, The Sherrill’s, A Black Business Legacy
Pt. 4 ExFabula, Sunshine and Rain
Pt. 5 ExFabula, Tom Crawford, a Thankful Trim
Pt. 6 ExFabula, Monumental Integrity and Murals
Pt. 6, ExFabula, Monumental Integrity and Murals
A Rip in Time
Framing well an evening of cultural intersection, John Gurda spoke of man from Missouri that escaped enslavement in 1854 that sought refuge in Racine, WI. Under the authority of the Fugitive Slave Act, the man’s alleged owner arrived in Racine with Federal Marshals, took the man into custody and detained him in Milwaukee, commandeering the jail. Arriving by boat, a contingent of men from Racine arrived in Milwaukee demanding the man’s release.
Hearing of this atrocity and the seafaring protestors, the local human rights activists descended on Cathedral Square, which at that time was the footprint of the County Jail. At the peak of dissent, over this man’s arrest under unjust Federal Law, 5,000 people gathered outside of the jail. Taking a beam from the construction site of St. John’s Cathedral, they bashed in the door of the detention facility and freed the man. The namesake of primary street in the Riverwest neighborhood, Sherman Booth rose to the center of this display of intolerance for injustice.
After being indicted for his involvement in the Cathedral Square incident, Booth appealed the Wisconsin Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus. The Wisconsin high court granted the writ and furthermore declared the Fugitive Slave Act a violation of States rights, stating that no citizen of Wisconsin would be reduced to a “slave catcher”. Ironically, States rights provided the pretense for Southern succession from the United States five years later, demanding their right to practice slavery. The twice freed man escaped to Canada, his name, Joshua Glover.
Stubborn to defend heathen practices, the Federal Supreme Court accepted Joshua’s captor’s lawsuit and awarded him $1000 dollars (the value of a person in bondage to the captor) and fined Booth $1000. In today’s dollars that’s approximately $30,000, roughly equal to the cost incarcerate an individual for one year.
Contents
Pt. 1 Shaping Influence, ExFabula, Barbershop
Pt. 2 ExFabula, John Gurda on Capital Court History
Pt. 3 ExFabula, The Sherrill’s, A Black Business Legacy
Pt. 4 ExFabula, Sunshine and Rain
Pt. 5 ExFabula, Tom Crawford, a Thankful Trim
Pt. 6 ExFabula, Monumental Integrity and Murals
The Quiet Sound of Remembrance
No need for words, Local Trolley observes with the rest of our Nation a pause for those that lost their lives on September 11, 2001.
Storming the Bastille, Euphemistically Speaking, Forget Riverwest
Thursday night, somewhere deep in Riverwest a menace was brewing. It gained strength like a festering carbuncle with no medical attention and exploded on the corner of Kilbourn and Van Buren during the close of Bastille Days.
Blocking the road, 38 or so co-ed 20-somethings wear nothing but under-roos and their bicycle seats (as in tighty-whities, bras and panties, except that dude in the super tight cuffed-to-the-upper-thigh denim shorts). With a primitive loud hipster mumble for a go signal, they rode-off down Van Buren on their fixed-gear bicycles yelling non-sense like “Hail Satan” and “Bastille Days Suck”. I wonder if they took the Holton Street Bridge back to Riverwest.
The naked-biking incident, in and of itself entirely an underwhelming statement, did little but reenforce my knowledge that certain Riverwest residents are becoming more than a little annoying, they hardly ever touch reality.
That same Thursday night Bastille Days, a sportful appropriation of French culture, for the 30th year straight brought droves of Milwaukee’s most spirited summer revelers together to observe Bastille Day. I don’t know about you but Bastille Days seems to me like a great excuse to run 3 miles then slam a couple of beers or just slam a few beers and mow great food.
Not much, but a little Perspective
Growing up in Milwaukee, Riverwest wasn’t a transitional neighborhood and trendy place to live, it was another hood. One in which I used to buy 40 ounce beers when I was underage in the mid-90′s, for my suburban friends and I. It was an “old” hood that white people lived in too, just like most of the Northside.
I say that in the sense that some Wisconsinites may not think that there are regular ‘ol white people, elderly ones too, that live around blacks. It’s not shocking. It’s not history. It’s not a bold social statement, an attempt to realize integration, as one of the accosted on July 3rd was quoted as saying in Eugene Kane’s recent article in the Journal-Sentinal (more on that soon). It’s just a fact of life and no one who is psychologically well adjusted questions it.
Not only that, who is asking that you integrate into street culture? How can you assume that all blacks ascribe to street culture? Do you let blacks who ascribe to your cultural norms integrate into your social circles? The answers are nobody, you can’t, and you probably don’t.
Comment Box
The A.V. Club couldn’t resist chiding Kane for his after-the-fact remarks about the incident involving a group of teenagers and young adults deciding to go on a rampage (Let’s not talk about the Madison Halloween Riots in comparison) and then beat up a bunch of people.
The ultimate fun crusher, Chief Flynn of the MPD, actually had the most notable comments of the whole ordeal, reminding the public that 8 white people weren’t the only victims that night, 1 Asian, 4 Latinos and 13 blacks were also victimized. Then one must realize that blacks also have to deal with street crime.
Thumb in the Eye
Thursday night the band of naked Riverwest bike-riders needlessly tried to poo-poo a great time being had by others. It would be easy to blame Riverwest, as an entity of entitled socially degenerate scrubs. Doesn’t Riverwest bear the glut of Milwaukee transplants, increasingly representing our State’s small towns, and bringing with them their small town attitudes and anxieties into an already tense area? It may be easy to craft preconceived notions into fact-based statements, but I don’t think thats entirely fair when groups of people are involved.
I don’t hear it often noted that the diversity Riverwest stems from the many different “scenes” it harbors, more so than the racial make-up. Families, holistic health enthusiasts, social and political activists, yuppies and regular old town folk of all backgrounds make events like the Riverwest Follies, and the Community Gardens happen. Street hustlers, punks, apathetic hipsters, and other socially draining sub-groups stake their little piece of Riverwest as well.
Over the 4th of July holiday, some black teens that aspire to immersion in the street hustler scene, met head on with the other scenes in Milwaukee, including other black residents who just want to work and enjoy holidays like anyone else, including the plentiful number of black teens you see, from Metro Mart to Mayfair Mall, working part-time jobs so they can have some spending money.
Without question, the lost black youth scene (that eventually turns to the street hustling scene) did considerable damage to the delicate social fabric of Milwaukee and Riverwest. I wouldn’t be surprised though if a lot of street hustlers and thugs, who this incident might be attributed to, were even thinking “Y’all some stupid muthafuckas!”
Sadly, some white individuals have taken the opportunity to make wholesale judgements against every black person in Milwaukee. However, racial animosity towards blacks by-far predates this “mob” incident, despite the desire to use what happened to justify “new” feelings of animosity.
Sadly, some black individuals have tried to crawl out of their skin and make apologies. Sadly, with futility, the Police now post on corners in Riverwest waiting for the next vicious mob to materialize. Sadly, disregarding those who were beaten up on the 4th, their hipster counter-culture neighbors in Riverwest didn’t participate in Peace Action Coalition’s Peace Rally but took the time late on Bastille Days’ opening night to give Milwaukee the finger.
Looks can be Deceiving
A couple of parting references, a common ethic in West African culture deals very seriously with thieves and robbers. Let’s not forget that some of parents of the young adults that committed the 4th of July lootings turned their children in to the police and urged other to do the same. Lastly, a friend of mine traveling in Togo and Ghana recently shared this story about seeing a communities’ response to property crime. Please read, and remember Milwaukee is still a great place with great people and great events.
Barbecue Exclusive, Local Trolley T-Bone Steak
Two months separate cook-out enthusiasts from the next opportune Holiday, but surely in Milwaukee another reason to strike up the grill materializes in the meantime. By then, you will be ready for something other than burgers and brats so you can take this T-Bone Steak recipe for a whirl, Local Trolley’s version of the mid-south classic vinegar-based sauce.
Local Trolley Grilled T-Bone Steak
Local Trolley Sauce
Slathering a favorite BBQ sauce atop and searing the meat of choice is one way to get from prep to plate. Even if you’re not vegan, you should find that preparation disrespectful to a good cut of Steak. Steak deserves pampering and stately treatment before you devour it. Invented over Independence Day 2011, the Local Trolley Sauce recipe makes two T-Bone Steaks.
Combine in a large metal bowl:
8 oz of Apple Cider Vinegar
5 Tbsp (heaped) of garlic pepper
5 Tbsp (heaped) of Old Bay Seasoning (found in most spice isles of the grocery store)
4 Tbsp of your favorite BBQ sauce (optional)
The sauce will be a pretty deep red and very liquidy. Stir and agitate, mixing well all the ingredients and set aside.
The T-Bone Steak
T-Bone, the great upper mid-grade beef cut, has a thick cut and a nice fat trim. Remember that the fat generates the flavor of the meat. Look for a cut with a generous fat trim around the edges and fat marbled within the meat. This is a cookout not North Shore Bistro.
Prepping the T-Bone:
Shake the garlic pepper 12 inches above the T-Bone to create an ample, but reasonable, even dusting over the surface of the meat. Repeat this process with the Old Bay Seasoning. After both seasonings cover side one of the T-Bone, firmly message in the seasonings into the loins. Flip and repeat dusting and message of side two of the T-bone.
T-Bone meets Local Trolley Sauce
Bathe the seasoned and messaged T-Bone in the metal bowl filled with Local Trolley Sauce. Place T-Bone in a large heavy-duty freezer bag and pour the remaining Local Trolley Sauce in the freezer bag with the T-Bone. Seal and refrigerate for at least 24 hours. If you make two T-Bones you may want to jostle or turn the freezer bag at least once so that both steaks get equal amounts of time submerged in the marinade.
Grills are Hot
The day of your cookout get your grill going, charcoal or gas. For charcoal grills, build up coal on one side of the grill so that you create a high heat and lower heat zone. For gas grills set your gauges so that the flame is medium low. The idea for barbecuing the Local Trolley T-Bone is to cook it long, slow and well-done over medium low indirect heat.
Once the charcoal is ready usually about 20 minutes, place the T-Bone on the low heat portion of the grill, close and let cook, turning the T-Bone every 20 minutes until charring the fat trim. For gas grills, the warming rack is a good place to give the T-Bone the required dosage of indirect heat. Place T-Bone on the warming rack and turn every 30 minutes until charring the fat trim. Drizzling excess Local Trolley Sauce on the steaks periodically will help you keep and eye on them.
The bone of the T-Bone should begin pulling away from the steak’s loin when it’s ready. Slap the steaks down on a plate, let cool, for however long you can resist, and start hacking chunks of meat. You’ll want this meal for breakfast lunch or dinner.
Enjoy!
Retrospective: Summerfest Pitbull Show Recap
More than memorable, Summerfest 2010 hosted Pitbull on the Harley-Davison Stage. Are there words…? I tried…
This piece appeared two weeks after Summerfest ended in the Sane Artworks Blog, I can’t actually remember but I think I was no worse for wear after having thwarted multiple suitors attempting to sweep my teenage cousin away.
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Summer Solstice Season Reprise: Pitbull Show Recap
Is it June, I mean July 19th already? I have gotten the most out of the summer outdoor (and indoor) concert / fest season while it has lasted. I was not going to post this a month later but I am anyway. It’s worth sharing. I think I am still recovering from the damn Pitbull show, and I think his web managers are too. They have only posted one story since the show at Summerfest on June 28th. The show in Milwaukee was extra live, and I have seen a lot of shows in my day. Here’s the recap…
Pitbull barks hard and bites harder
If it wasn’t obvious what the Pitbull show was all about, something is very wrong with your cognition of body language. I was packed in tighter where I was standing than the cornucopia of glutes on stage that were stuffed into spandex thong singlets and sequined Carnaval showgirl costumes. I’ll give you a hint, at fifteen rows back and ten feet off of the seating area, I could barely see the top of Pitbull’s shaved dome. Did it really matter?
A true testament to a music artist’s pull is the turnout they draw on an off-night like Monday. Seriously, any day, any time, except Sunday morning, Mr. 305 could have shut the Brew down. 3/5 parts honeymoon for his latest album Rebelution, 1/5 part ode to his fans, 1/5 part charging the air with lust because he can, Pitbull early on broke into Triumph, a single-worthy anthem from his newest joint. Fans were feeling it, but they responded most to the hard tracks like Calle Ocho, Hotel Room Service and WATAGATAPITUSBERRY.
While people were loosing their minds jumping up to the song KRAZY, bouncing, popping, shaking, and thrusting without millimeters separating appendages and supplely cleaved muscle groups, Pitbull was saturating his marquee skinny tuxedo, the first of which was some kind of blackish-purple, which quickly liquefied into deep violet from repeated end-to-end gallops of the stage, weaving between booty dancers and hype-men alike that were donning head dresses of mohawked multi-colored feathers; some standing on hydraulic stilts giving them the Jar Jar Binks gait.
A set break ensued. At the crowd’s impatient beckoning, in the nick of time, Pitbull emerged through the stage lighting, starting this round in a perfectly good white tux before spitting classic cuts like Go Girl, Mentirosa, and neos like Shut It Down. Mr. 305 had intentions of mongering perspiration like that Axe commercial, as he gyrated dangerously parallel to the stage apron, caring little for the condition of his ankles, Achilles tendons or cumber bun.
Without warning there was a planned power outage, and Pitbull disappeared, only to come back on cue with the rest of his entertainment squad. What happened next can only be described as utterly ridiculous. Pitbull unleashes a cover of the LMFAO ditty Shots, and the secret to world peace is revealed, as every person in sight went absolutely AWOL, jumping in unison like newly freed South Africans.
The show mercifully ended, no one could even scream for another encore. Groups and solo exhibitionists all-the-way to the main promenade, with bloodthirsty gazes, refused to stop dancing: swaying their hips, hands waving and mouths screeching. Last I looked, from the back of the Harley area, the front areas of the stands(it had become an entity unto itself) still overflowing unfurled a Mexican flag, stubbornly cheered and pulsated in the glare of the illuminating flood lights. For all I know the party is still going on. Even Pitbull had to admit Milwaukee is KRAZY. Dale!
Picture Milwaukee, Downtown City Scapes
A medium lacking opacity, chilled air hovering in Milwaukee’s Downtown held fast to architectural structures planted in East Town. Milwaukee’s downtown at night possesses serenity mostly reserved for remote forest lands. Stone, metal, and light-emitting-filaments posed in the dark, kept company by a hand full of passing cars, exchange gestures with the concrete below.
Retrospective: Sleeping in the Aviary
Local Trolley, Issue 5, Post 3
Borgs and Ugly Sweaters originally posted to the Sane Artworks Blog January 10, 2011.
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Borgs and Ugly Sweaters
“So there was this cool cat with an autotunes guitar who went to the bar to tune his guitar… the bar tender asks if he wants a tune-a-sandwich…” If you walked in at this moment of the performance, with a blindfold, you might have thought a stand-up comedian voiced a futile introduction to a terrible joke. If, hypothetically, you were thinking that, with a blind fold on, you would have been wrong.
I stay tuned to ‘MSE no matter the play format, and I keep hearing about this band Sleeping in the Aviary. A friend of mine during the same time period keeps hounding me about this show at the Borg Ward, for over a month she’s been raving. Well, yesterday I happened to be at this place and these cool cats are tuning their guitars, and you probably can’t guess who they are.
Drawing a crowd of anti-scenesters, bad sweater-wearers, beat up chucks, broken-in skull caps, some onlookers that could have been extras in Deliverance, and good old average southsiders of with their customary above average good sportsmanship, Sleeping in the Aviary mid-lined a small independent show of deadpan spaz rock brute force.
Tuning done a riff breaks out: a chorus of drum, guitar, bass, and accordion reminiscent of a 50′s sock hop ditty ode, but that damn accordion is making the music so randomly today that the toe tapping of the spectators soon turns knee bopping. Next song, a little less 50′s with a little more DIY alternative, and torsos start getting in the action. Before the set starts my girlfriend sees a friend of hers and his friend claims he has nothing bad to say about this band. A first time listener, I can’t say that I do either. Even luckier for me my first time is live.
Midway through the show the moppy haired band member stalls by picking up where he left off earlier, “So this guy at the bar, wanted to tune his autotune guitar, was going to get something from the guy at the bar, uh… what did he get?… [pause]… [pause]… he got nothing…[crowd laughter].” His punch-line delivery, an effort to disguise a bubble machine controversy from going public, didn’t keep the slow-train-wreck-like “story” of spending too much on the bubble machine that doesn’t work from happening anyway. Meanwhile, the accordion player managed a wardrobe change into a 1992 Shaq Diesel Orlando Magic jersey and suddenly brandishes a saw to be chorded with a cello bow.
Bubbles spraying lightly into the crowd initially provide ambiance for a crowd member who counts the band back in for the next song. Since lightly spraying bubbles at the wall is no fun, bubbles are cranked up and aimed into the center of the light mass of town folk. The majority of said bubbles are landing on a fairly large fellow you would not expect at show of this sort on a prime Magic: The Gathering card game night. Heads on loose necks are now joining the rest of their bodies, on most of the Borg clan. Even the those of southside-patented least affect are noticeably enjoying the show, although still lacking movement or affect.
Fun is contagious. This axiom proves true for Sleeping in the Aviary: a bright and motley clothed bunch who are barely mumbling one minute and screaming manically the next; a pretty sick musical ensemble (in the previous metaphorical way, which is far less sold out than in the old school snow boarder slang sense). You have to be entertaining if you get bored enough to think up a band name like Sleeping in the Aviary. I heard they might be playing in Mini-soda soon. Go see, they really don’t suck that bad.
Retrospective: Gallery Night, Summer 2009
Local Trolley Issue 5, Post 4
Originally posted July 27, 2009 on the Sane Artworks Blog, this is a bad-a#$’s version of a Shih Tzu.
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All around Milwaukee you can see physical changes taking place: clean-cut mixed-use developments, fragrant plantings in the boulevards. The streets are even getting paved after ten years of neglect. Some of that same rejuvenating energy is being released on the social scene too. Gallery Night is not a new invention and it’s nice to see creative outlets taking root in Milwaukee.
One of my favorite displays of the night hung not from a wall of Art Asia, but from the shoulder of a stern-looking fellow who looked like a typical renegade with a Harley parked outside. Stereotypes in place, alligator would be expected to cover his feet. Instead one rested gently cradled on his forearm and bicep. Everyone has to have a cause.
The caretaker of the endangered Chinese Alligator had the kind of leeriness emitting from those that think satellite surveillance is being taken of them. Apparently he has been battling the animal rights activist, the extreme ones that do not believe anyone should own pets (especially if they are alligators). Those pretentious fun-suckers! Personally, I am all for docile 45 lbs, 18 year old alligators chilling on Gallery Night with their masters. Wait a minute… this must be one of only several handfuls of Chinese Alligators left on the planet.
Everything was red. Not Commy red but deep visceral blood red. This relic of a beast fit in perfectly with the ambiance of Art Asia, a trading post of Chinese gifts, furniture, and artifacts. Minus the crowd hovering around reptilian and owner, you may not have noticed the gator’s presence. It was a serene creature, an expression opposite to the one given by the typical bewitching “alligator smile”. The constant glance of this creature lacked menace unlike its relatives, looking almost relieved to feel protected by and outside force other than it’s own wild instinct. I am usually harsh on exotic animal owners, but I think I can let this one slide. My super-cool friend Miranda and I both ended up donating 5 bucks to the cause.
Gallery Night is a quarterly event.
