My date with Derek: This Is Spinal Tap turns 30, mock-rock fans still love to Smell the Glove

I once had sex with Derek Smalls, fictional bass player in the parody metal band Spinal Tap (played in the mockumentary by Harry Shearer).  Okay, that’s a misleading statement.  In fact, I fucked a facsimile of gentle Derek.  

Inside that flare-legged jumpsuit with a blatantly stuffed package, the slim-hipped creature I met & made love to was actually a young woman in a gender-bending costume.  Whatever.  This faux Derek was hot - albeit androgynously so.  I didn’t know whether to kiss him/her on the cheek or merely shake hands.  

Heterosexual by nature, I found the turn-on rather awkward.  Yet I’m man enough to admit that I grew an instant - uh - crush on him/her.  This led to satisfying coitus by night’s end.  That doesn’t make me a rock ‘n’ roll groupie, does it?  I’d hate to embody that cliché.  Let me explain by setting the scene.  

Voice-over by activist-actor Peter Coyote:  It was the fall of 2001.  The nation was at war again, in remote Afghanistan this time.  Even stateside civilians lived like there might be no tomorrow.  With W & his evil sidekick Dick in the White House, things got very weird for the next seven years.

So in late 2001, on a bracing Friday evening not long after my 41st birthday, I was attending a “fancy dress” (British for costume) party on the eastside of Madison, Wisconsin (USA).  It had a perennially hip humorous theme:  This Is Spinal Tap.  I had no idea that I was about to experience a reverse-Lola moment.  In the living room a big TV played the Show of Honor on DVD.  The party’s main action, however, was in the basement.  A lousy garage band played far too loudly.  But with a keg of beer flowing freely, nobody complained.  

I approached a medium-sized person dressed in a Derek Smalls get-up, complete with dark mullet, chinless beard & a messy nest of chest hair.  I struck up a conversation.  The alto-voiced lady-in-drag & I hit it off.  Before long we left to go shoot pool at nearby Mickey’s Tavern.  Only then did she remove the fake fur, revealing a friendly babe with a fantastic sense of fun.  Later that night I learned that she was blonde underneath the wig (& elsewhere). 

You know the movie, don’t you?  If not, here it is in a nutshell:  A mostly improvised 82-minute satire with several deserving targets, This Is Spinal Tap bombed at the box office upon release in 1984 - exactly 30 years ago Friday (August 1st).  A lot of people didn’t get the extended joke:  aging British rock band releases new album (Smell the Glove) & arranges a US comeback tour that turns out to be ridiculously doomed.  

It features a host of gifted comic actors doing cameo appearances.  Bruno Kirby plays an embittered limo driver, while  Howard Hesseman is a nasty rival band manager.  Billy Crystal & Dana Carvey play catering-company mime/waiters in New York.  Fran Drescher vamps as high-maintenance record-company PR flack Bobbie Flekman & David Letterman’s musical sidekick, Canadian import Paul Shaffer, says “kick my ass” as Polymer Records incompetent promoter Artie Fufkin.

The feature film was embraced by a growing legion of fans upon its VHS videotape reboot.  But the stars who created it got ripped off & supposedly never made any money from their red-headed stepchild’s subsequent success.  Nevertheless, the movie started a buzz - it had legs that still keep it moving after 30 years.  That’s an eternity, measured in the rapidly passing time of disposable pop culture.

Sample dialog:  Christopher Guest, as boyish bullshit-artist/guitarist Nigel Tufnel, telling fan & film documentarian Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner):  I'm really influenced by Mozart and Bach, and it's sort of in between those, really.  It's like a Mach piece, really.  It's sort of -

DiBergi: What do you call this?

Tufnel: Well, this piece is called "Lick My Love Pump." 

Or dig the famous bit where Nigel explains to Marty that the volume knobs on his amplifiers go all the way to eleven.  But they’re no louder than standard amps, which only go up to ten.  Marty’s puzzled.  Why not just make the amps louder? he asks.  “But these go to eleven,” Nigel whines, after a long pause.  He’s a spoiled 30-something idiot, proud of his noisy toys.  

Less invention was required to author & improvise those scenes than you might think.  Reiner, Guest & company had done their research. In a recent conversation with Greg Kot & Jim DeRogatis of WBEZ-FM Chicago public radio’s outstanding program Sound Opinions, co-writer & then first-time director Reiner said that the scene where the bumbling Spinal Tap members get lost en route from the dressing room to the stage was based on a real incident involving Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, who reportedly got so stoned in the green room that they couldn’t manage to locate the stage entrance.

Reiner admitted that he based his enthusiastic documentary film-maker, Marty DiBergi, on Martin Scorsese.  Scorsese’s concert film about The Band, The Last Waltz (1978), inspired some of the looniness captured on celluloid forever by Reiner.  Amateur - yet accomplished - musicians Guest, Shearer & Michael McKean (as David St. Hubbins) played themselves into pop-culture immortality.  Most enlightened rock & film critics (Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert gave it two hearty thumbs up) agree:  This Is Spinal Tap is not only one of the best insider movies about the business of rock ‘n’ roll & its many greedy players, it’s also one of the best comedies ever issued by a Hollywood studio.

Saturday Night Live alumni Shearer & Guest, along with McKean & an ensemble of talented improv actors that includes Fred Willard (who appears in Spinal Tap as a clueless US Air Force colonel), Parker Posey, Jane Lynch, Catherine O’Hara & Eugene Levy, went on to make several more satires.  They deftly skewered the Sixties folk-music generation in A Mighty Wind (2003).  They lambasted purebred-dog competitions (Best in Show, 2000) & community theatre (Waiting for Guffman, 1997).   They even used their sharp comic wits against their own kind, sending up vain Hollywood actors in For Your Consideration (2006).

You may be wondering, whatever became of my faux Derek?  We dated a few times, but we didn’t deploy disguises or engage in role-playing.  We had some good clean (sometimes naked) fun.  But she lost interest faster than I did, for a change.  Derek’s real name was Sara & she was a gem, but we lived 75 miles apart.  At least I have a good memory tied to that great movie, in that mad era in American history.  

This Is Spinal Tap may be 30 years old, but it still smells fresh as a new glove to its many admirers around the world.  As David St. Hubbins philosophically put it, “It’s such a fine line between stupid & clever.”  Rock on, Tap!  Milwaukee’s Shank Hall awaits your next tour.

NOTE:  Here's a link to the excellent Sound Opinions podcast featuring the Rob Reiner interview about Spinal Tap:  http://www.soundopinions.org/show/451/#robreiner

[© 2014 by J.C. Mrázek]

Beervana, Wisconsin: Local brewers at the cutting edge of the American craft-beer revolution

When the majority of American beer connoisseurs speak of a “craft” beer paradise, a Shangri-La of locally brewed malted barley & hops concoctions, they usually mean Portland, Oregon (USA).  Also known as Portlandia & the people’s republic of portland, the Rose City - a West Coast community of 600,000 - has embraced the portmanteau moniker Beervana.  And the hype is actually justified:  Portland deserves the craft-beer title of the continental United States, given its approximately 59 quirky brew-pubs & craft breweries.   

The term “Beervana” is simultaneously (1) a nod to the mellow Pacific Northwest / West Coast seeker vibe - available in even the rainiest parts of climatically diverse Oregon, Washington & California; and (2) high praise for the heavenly array of high-quality local beers on tap at Portland’s licensed premises.  The craft-beer revolution, of course, is not limited to the coasts.  It has spread far & wide throughout contemporary America.  

The craze for hops-enhanced pale ales & other trendy beers - whether on tap or in recyclable bottles & growlers (re-usable 64-oz. glass jugs) - shows no sign of abating soon.  Hip cities, such as Seattle & San Francisco, may enjoy a moderate climate & a sophisticated culture.  But their craft beers are no better than those brewed in, say, Kenosha (Wisconsin).  In that city of 100,000 souls, Public Craft Brewing Co. & Rustic Road Brewing Co., both established in 2012 in the city’s revived downtown, lend hipster cred & cutting-edge chic to that former AMC/Chrysler factory town.

Indeed, Wisconsin’s many craft brewers - from metro Milwaukee & Madison to Green Bay, Black River Falls & beyond - are giving Portland a run for their money.  When it comes to offering tasty options for locally brewed, small-batch craft beers, the proud brewing tradition of the Badger State has been rescued from the slow death of corporate mediocrity.  Moreover, these niche gourmet beers fit the emerging foodie economy, unlike the insipid mass-market beers sold by global giants such as SABMiller or Anheuser-Busch InBev.  

In fact, Wisconsin craft brewers have made important contributions to the small-is-better industry legacy.  In his list of the “Ten Great American Beers” (see the June/July 2002 issue of American Heritage), for example, renowned beer expert Michael Jackson includes Wisconsin Belgian Red by New Glarus Brewing Co. (est. 1993).  He says that this take on a Belgian cherry beer has “an almost purple color, a textured body, a malty background, and a beautiful balance of almondy fruitiness and tartness.”  In a nod to the international success of American craft brewers, Jackson adds that this tasty beer from tiny New Glarus, Wisconsin, “has won several awards in Europe.”

In Milwaukee (population:  599,000), home of the Milwaukee Brewers baseball club as well as the iconic Harley-Davidson motorcycle & gear brand, the renaissance of craft brewing was launched by the Sprecher Brewing Co., which sold its first beer in 1985.  What could go better together than baseball, Harley bikes & beer?  Meanwhile in the state capital, Madison (population:  250,000), successful breweries such as Ale Asylum (eastside) & Capital Brewery (in suburban Middleton) have become established leaders in craft brewing.  You might say that Milwaukee & Madison are vying to become the Mecca of Midwest craft brewing.

Today the leading innovator among Brew City’s numerous craft brewers is Lakefront Brewery, founded in Milwaukee in 1987, when it brewed a mere 60 barrels.  In addition to an annual production of thousands of barrels of its own varieties, Lakefront also custom brews proprietary recipes on contract for area brewpubs - such as the refreshing Grampa Jack’s Pilsner, exclusively available at Reefpoint Brewhouse (est. 2012) in nearby Racine, Wisconsin.  

Located in a restored warehouse on North Commerce Street, adjacent to downtown & beside the Milwaukee River, Lakefront Brewing was cited by the editors of Draft magazine (in 2008) as offering the best “family friendly” brewery tour in the world. They put it ahead of the staid yet generous tour at the gargantuan Guinness brewery at St. James Gate, Dublin (Ireland).  And deservedly so:  having taken both tours, I assure you that indie-sized Lakefront Brewery’s hour-long tour beats the Guinness version hands down for entertainment value.  

Having a sharp sense of humor is a vital tool for survival, a way of remaining sane in a sometimes crazy world.  And here’s the genius of the Lakefront tour:  it’s pretty funny (if you understand American English well).  Our middle-aged guide, Katie, presented herself as a refugee from the corporate sector:  she used to be an accountant, but switched to teaching.  Lakefront Brewery manager Chris Ranson explains that their tour “revolves around the brewing process” so that “participants get a real good sense of brewing.”   

Yet it’s not at all a dry learning experience for thirsty adults.  One happy customer called Lakefront’s tour “the Animal House of brewery tours,” reportedly because the $7 admission charge includes four 6-ounce tap beers, served in a spacious Old World-style beer hall, a coupon for another pint at a local bar & a souvenir Lakefront pint glass.  The brewery’s owner, Russ Klisch, kicked the fun up a notch by purchasing two iconic items of local memorabilia:  (1) the chalet that mascot Bernie Brewer used as an outfield perch to watch every Brewers’ home game at Milwaukee County Stadium; and (2) the bottling line used in the title sequence of Laverne & Shirley, a lame ’70s sitcom where two goofy girlfriends work at the fictional Shotz Brewery in Milwaukee.  

Lakefront also offers a “technical tour” (conducted especially for home-brewers) for $30, as well as private tours upon request.  In addition to their many year-round beers (such as Extended Play IPA) & seasonal offerings (e.g. Cherry Lager), Lakefront makes a gluten-free beer (New Grist) for celiac-disease sufferers as well as an Organic ESB for health freaks.  Lakefront Brewing has been certified “green” for its environmental practices by Travel Green Wisconsin.

Craft brewing is an industry ripe for parody, with its eccentric brewers, offbeat beer-names & garish labels.  Flying Dog Brewery in Colorado, for example, uses the punky splatter illustrations of Ralph Steadman on its labels as well as a tagline by “Gonzo” journalist and longtime Woody Creek (CO) resident Hunter S. Thompson:  “Good people drink good beer.”  Some craft brewers resort to desperate measures in order to cut through the clutter of this suddenly crowded market.  Only three percent of US beer sales (some six million barrels) last year were domestic crafts.  However, that’s up 17% from 2012, according to Brewers Association figures.  No wonder craft-beer brands keep proliferating.  

Is it a delusional business model, spreading like a beer-borne contagion?  Or a viable consumer trend?  Only time will tell.  As evidence of craft-beer marketing run amok, I offer Exhibit A (as in apropos or absurdity):  an otherwise appealing bottle of dark brown Scotch ale, by Sacramento Brewing Co. of California, is cursed with the yeti-inspired name Sac-Squatch.  Doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue, does it?  

So it’s high time that Christopher Guest make a mockumentary on the subject.  He could call it Bottles of Glory, a bizarre journey into the creative heart of the American craft brewer.  (“More fun than a lost weekend,” drones Roger Ebert’s immortal Internet avatar.)  Guest & a pair of longtime improv collaborators, Harry Shearer & Michael McKean, famously spoofed aging British rock stars & heavy-metal headbangers in This is Spinal Tap (1984).  They deftly skewered the Sixties folk-music generation in A Mighty Wind (2003).  They even lambasted purebred-dog competitions (Best in Show, 2000) & community theatre (Waiting for Guffman, 1997).  Satirizing small-batch craft brewers who aspire to make a legendary beer, while conspiring to undermine their beer-addled competitors, might make for a good film scenario.  

Lakefront guide Katie deployed bad puns & bald-faced lies in telling her condensed Story of Beer.  But she kept her balance, deftly sidestepping comic bombs.  More important, her passion for the subject was palpable.  Lakefront’s Chris Ranson hires all the tour guides, requiring each applicant to have home-brewing experience.  He made a solid hire in Katie’s case.

Conventional wisdom would have you believe that the post-’80s “craft beer revolution” only happened because, in October 1978, U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed the homebrewers & winemakers bill.  That federal law led to thousands of beer enthusiasts experimenting with recipes, making up to the legal limit of 200 gallons of beer per household.  Some of them were encouraged to go commercial, opening brewpubs & micro-breweries across the vast parched landscape of North America.  

What’s usually left out of the Hollywood myth outlined above is the countervailing ’70s trend toward taste-free “light beers” (Miller Lite, Coors Light, etc.).  The aspirational American beer-lover’s palette demanded something better.  It devised an American response to such substantial European imports as Grolsch (with its porcelain cap), Guinness & St. Pauli Girl.  In the end, demanding consumers will create & sustain diverse markets - in so-called “free societies,” anyway.  Beer is no exception.

In William Hogarth’s 1751 print Beer Street, the British artist depicts drinking ales & porters as a life-affirming habit.  In sharp contrast to the dying wretches of Gin Lane (a companion illustration), people on allegorical Beer Street look healthy & happy.  Hogarth festoons the scene with a sign celebrating beer’s main ingredient:  Health to the barley mow!  Or as the old Czech folk song puts it:  Kde se pivo pije / tam se dobře žije!  [Wherever beer is brewed / life is lived well!]

In a cover story for American Heritage (June/July 2002), “Beer and America,” Library of America publisher Max Rudin calls beer the “drink of democracy.”  He embraces both the modest working-class origins & the literary legacy of a sometimes denigrated aspect of American culture.  Rudin quotes beer-praising passages from Jack London & John Steinbeck & he cites a nose-thumbing beer gag in the Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera as proof of beer’s deeply ingrained popularity in the USA.  

Fortunately, contemporary craft brewers, including several from Wisconsin, have not only improved the taste & variety of American beer.  They’ve also educated discriminating beer drinkers’ palettes along the way.  Cheers!

NOTE - Related recommended reading: (1) for details about the history of beer in the Badger State, get Breweries of Wisconsin by Jerry Apps (Madison, WI:  University of Wisconsin Press, 2nd ed. 2005); and (2) for a generously illustrated overview of the industry, see Brewed Awakening:  Behind the Beers & Brewers Leading the World’s Craft Brewing Revolution by Joshua M. Bernstein (NY:  Sterling Epicure, 2011).

[© 2014 by J.C. Mrázek]

My beer with Victor Grossman: US Army defector turned (East) German Journalist speaks in Milwaukee

On Fathers Day (June 15th) at the co-operative (i.e. drinker-owned) bar Riverwest Public House in a diverse Milwaukee neighborhood, I met Victor Grossman.  Born Stephen Wechsler to fervently Communist parents in New York, Grossman is an 86-year-old Jewish freelance journalist & a longtime resident of Berlin.  As a United States Army soldier stationed in Bavaria in 1952, Wechsler defected to the Soviet side after swimming across the Danube River to Austria. 

His rather grandiose pseudonym (which means "victor big-man"),  he said, was suggested to him by his Communist handlers.  Grossman, a reluctant draftee, said that he defected due to his (well-founded) fear of prosecution by the US military for having lied on his loyalty affidavit, a document asserting that he had never been a Communist.  A unique double alumnus of both Harvard University & Karl-Marx-Universität (Leipzig, Germany), Grossman proved his stamina as a lecturer by speaking for over two hours.  The audience of about three dozen, most of whom were - judging by the questions asked - old-school lefties, ate up the bland goulash of facts & commentary that Grossman was serving with nostalgic relish.  

First, some background information:  the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) was created by the Soviet Union during Stalin’s post-war re-organization of rump eastern Germany, mainly in order to counter the United States of America’s democratic-capitalist creation, the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (BRD), aka the Federal Republic of (West) Germany.  With the help of the Marshall Plan (which Grossman described as a “plot” to undermine Soviet influence in post-war Europe), West Germany began a steep rise to relative wealth & comfort for the majority of its citizens - many of whom were fleeing the DDR by the late 1950s.  

By contrast, the DDR’s economy struggled to provide most consumer goods, having received no corresponding financial assistance from its war-depleted Communist “brothers” in Moscow.  Among Grossman’s many interesting state jobs was working as chief archivist at the Paul Robeson Archive in East Berlin.  In 1968 he became a full-time freelancer & author - publishing Rebel Girls, his populist-feminist American history in German, and Crossing the River, a memoir in English, among other books.  After the DDR regime was toppled by a peaceful popular uprising in the fall of 1989, writing assignments became more infrequent for this man with a suddenly unfashionable résumé .  

The nominally socialist DDR was far from the egalitarian workers’ utopia its manipulative leaders constantly claimed to be approaching.  The DDR’s Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED, or Socialist Unity Party) leadership had the disadvantage of being adjacent to the bigger, wealthier & more glamorous West Germany.  Nevertheless, they built an economy so successful that East Germany’s standard of living was comparable to Great Britain’s by the mid-1970s.

“I saw a country with everything against it,” Grossman said of the DDR in the 1950s, “but they achieved alot.”  He cited the fact that the East German government provided free medical care, job security & a state-paid university education for qualified students of any background - so long as they didn’t rock the boat by questioning authority too loudly or persistently.  Grossman himself apparently didn’t question much about his adopted homeland’s lousy human-rights record.  

For example, he said that the forced expatriation of East German poet-singer Wolf Biermann in 1976 was a set-up by Biermann & some fellow dissidents, conspiring with their West German sympathizers, who wanted to embarrass the DDR.  No doubt he also accepted the DDR’s official justification of the Berlin Wall as “an anti-fascist protection wall.”   In fact, it was erected in August 1961 in order to deter DDR citizens from fleeing to the West.

Grossman did at least complain about the intellectually inert ideological clichés of Communist media discourse.  No wonder most East Germans tuned in to Western media - including US-sponsored radio & West German television - instead of enduring the DDR's dull & meager media offerings.

Interjecting opinions on current events in Europe& the United States, Grossman discussed his life as a journalist in East Berlin.  He hosted an American folk-music program on Radio Berlin International, an organ of official state propaganda, during the height of the Cold War (the early 1960s).  The glory years of the DDR, better known to Americans as Communist East Germany (1949-89), ended in the late 1970s.   By then the DDR government was “selling” political dissidents to West Germany in exchange for the coveted hard-currency Deutschmark.  

Based on the evidence gleaned from his long-winded talk in Milwaukee, Grossman not only drank the spiritually toxic kool-aid of Communist propaganda as a red-diaper baby of the Great Depression, he helped mix & serve it as a prominent journalist & media personality in the DDR.  He perpetuates much of the DDR’s self-justifying malarkey to this day, now as an active member of Die Linke (aka die Linkspartei, or Left Party), the fourth largest political party in re-unified Germany, combining former members of the mercifully defunct SED with some breakaway social democrats. 

For all his faults, Grossman still seems like a mensch, a decent guy to talk with over a beer.  He said that he injected a surprising sense of humor into his DDR reportage & commentary.  Four decades spent living under the deadly serious East German regime apparently did little to stunt his wit.  He credited his late wife Renate, an East Berliner, as the person who “made the difference in my life.”

From a journalist specializing in topics related to the USA, Grossman has gone on to write & speak with authority on such topics as European migrants & the neo-fascist backlash, NATO military intervention as well as social & economic justice movements.  

Best of all for me, he knows Bettina Wegner, my favorite DDR singer-songwriter, and he met Angela Davis in her glory days.  A radical American professor & activist, Davis became a popular sensation in the ’70s Communist bloc following her acquittal by an all-white California jury on kidnapping & murder conspiracy charges.  She was awarded the prestigious Lenin Prize, among other honors in the USSR & the DDR.

In the May 15th issue of his detailed blog-like Berlin Bulletin, Grossman quotes the trade-union leader & co-president of Die Linke, Berndt Riexinger:  “To be a leftist means to squarely face the people, life and the future.”  If only it were that simple, Herr Grossman.  It certainly wasn’t true of the DDR’s bullying leaders - until it was too late to reform their corrupt, inhumane system.  The DDR died a sudden & ignominious death, precisely the end it deserved.

NOTE:  The English-language Berlin Bulletin is available for free via email by writing Grossman at:  wechsler_grossman@yahoo.de.  [© 2014 by J.C. Mrazek] 

Racine vs. Kenosha: rival cities on different paths in the 21st-century

This month’s ballyhooed announcement of the proposed $65 million Machinery Row project in Racine left me sceptical.  The Iowa developers’ plan, the latest of several big ideas for the Belle City’s redevelopment (most of which have failed due to lack of financing) might someday bring shops & loft dwellings to a pair of decrepit asbestos-coated buildings along the Root River downtown.  If it were planned for Kenosha, I’d be more hopeful about this optimistic notion coming to fruition.  

For much of the last century, Racine & Kenosha were similar industrial & trading ports of modest size.  They also had a relative lack of sophistication in common, despite being located within easy train or driving distance of two metropolises, Milwaukee to the north & Chicago to the south.  As a person raised in Racine I hate to admit it, but over the past 20 years Kenosha has outgrown its shrinking neighbor to the north.  Lest it decline into a city housing a majority of poor people amidst privileged pockets of wealth, Racine can’t afford to fall farther behind.

In transforming itself from a primarily factory-based (hence dangerously polluting) economy into a bantamweight cultural dynamo, Kenosha has become an attractive place to live & to visit.  These sibling cities on Lake Michigan have benefitted from -  and sometimes been hindered by - the gravitational pull of their metropolitan neighbors.  As they struggle to establish a new identity in the early 21st century, Racine & Kenosha are diverging - one for the better, the other for the worse.

Racine regularly has the state’s highest unemployment rate (now around 12 percent) as well as crime & poverty rates that rival Milwaukee’s sad “misery index.”  A 2012 United Way Indicator Report stated that Racine has a 24.6 percent poverty rate, above the national average.  As part of its Industrial Cities Initiative, a 2012 study of ten Midwestern cities by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (FRBC) assessed why some manufacturing hubs are thriving while others struggle.  The report named Racine a “fading city” while praising Green Bay as a resurgent industrial center.   Green Bay, by the way, replaced Racine as the third most populous city in Wisconsin several years ago, while Kenosha is now fourth.  

In reaction, Racine Mayor John Dickert claimed that the FRBC study didn’t entirely capture all the nuances of the city’s efforts to attract manufacturers.  As a matter of fact, the Belle City is having trouble retaining even some of its well-established companies.  For example, InSinkErator, a waste-disposer manufacturer (founded in Racine in the 1920s) recently decided to expand production by leasing a 160,000-square-foot property in the Business Park of Kenosha rather than building in Racine County.

By contrast, Kenosha is clearly a city on the rise, a community that is successfully managing the difficult transition from an American Motors Corporation (later Daimler-Chrysler-Jeep) company town into one that has diversified its economic base & added several new reasons to relocate there.  The mostly friendly competition between these local rivals, located just 10 miles apart along the western shore of Lake Michigan, offers hope that neither will fall too far behind the other.

In terms of population increase, an indicator of a city’s attractiveness to migrants, Kenosha is home to about 100,150 people - up over 20,000 residents since 1980.  In that same 34-year period Racine’s population declined, from over 85,000 to just 78,303 residents.  Yet, with its beautiful sandy beaches & historic Wind Point lighthouse (1880), Racine beats Kenosha in lakeshore aesthetic appeal.  Even so, Kenosha’s commercial as well as residential property values have leaped ahead of Racine’s.  

This is partly due to Kenosha’s proximity to the Illinois border & Chicagoland’s wealthy north shore.  But credit should also be given to Kenosha’s more practical political leadership, which extended sewer & water service along Hwy. 50 all the way to I-94 decades ago (a feat Racine has yet to accomplish on either Hwy. 11 or Hwy. 20).   Many middle-class Illinoisans have recently moved to Kenosha in order to take advantage of the lower cost of living in Wisconsin.  This influx of migrants provides welcome tax revenue for Kenosha - far more than Racine has been able to capture so far.  Moreover, during the summer boating season, you’ll see more Illinois-tagged vehicles cruising downtown Kenosha than you will in Racine. 

In terms of cultural institutions, Kenosha has surpassed Racine.  The volunteer-driven Racine Theatre Guild’s bland mainstream productions are dull compared to the stage shows put on by either Carthage College or the University of Wisconsin - Parkside.  And Kenosha is miles ahead in quality museums.  Its Civil War Museum, Dinosaur Discovery Museum, Kenosha Public Museum, Kenosha History Center & Anderson Arts Center have well-defined educational missions as well as diverse collections.  The contemporary craft objects on display at the Racine Art Museum do draw visitors from far & wide, but the small collection of paintings, drawings, photographs & sculptures at its affiliated Wustum Museum are not very interesting.  Kenosha’s nicely curated historical museums put the low-budget, industry-focused Racine Heritage Museum to shame. 

The Belle City does have the 32-acre Racine Zoo, which opened in 1923 & only started charging admission in recent years.  Depending on your point of view, it’s either an impressive feature for such a small city (zoos help conserve endangered wildlife) or a sad mode of life for the creatures who reside within its walls (zoos are prisons for wild animals).  Personally, I’m not a fan of any cages, unless they contain rabid animals or human psychopaths.  But the zoo grounds do provide a great summertime live-music venue for the Animal Crackers jazz series.

Kenosha has a clear edge in libraries, with four branches of the Kenosha Public Library system - as well as the vast, publicly accessible collections at UW-Parkside.  Although it has just a single downtown branch, the Racine Public Library does offer a panoramic blufftop view of the lakeshore in its main reading room.

In niche enterprises like craft-beer brewing, Kenosha is well ahead with two downtown micro-breweries:  Public Craft Brewing Co. & Rustic Road Brewing Co., both established in 2012.  Racine has only the Reefpoint Brewhouse (at the Reefpoint Marina since 2013), which contracts with Milwaukee’s Lakefront Brewing for production of its tasty proprietary beer recipes.  

Yet the news isn’t all bad for Racine.  My hometown leads Kenosha in one critical growth sector of the US economy:  the government incarceration industry, specifically state prisons.  In addition to suburban Sturtevant’s Racine Correctional Institution, there’s the inner-city Racine Youthful Offender Correctional Facility.  Kenosha probably doesn’t mind losing in that category.  Besides, Kenosha doesn’t need those state jobs as badly as Racine does.  

In other downtown amenities, the competition is closer.  Kenosha has a fleet of colorful vintage streetcars that follow a two-mile loop around downtown & back to the Metra train station that carries commuters & visitors to & from Chicago.  Racine has a more diverse choice of boutique shops & fine restaurants along Main Street & Sixth Street.

Kenosha, however, has more live-music venues (& usually better audiences) than Racine - although the Belle City’s club owners have been hosting more bands lately.  In yet another example of civic backwardness, Racine has no farmers’ market remotely comparable to Kenosha’s spectacular Saturday Harbor Market.  

In terms of sports franchises, at least, Racine remains the equal of Kenosha.  The Racine Raiders semi-pro football team has played at Horlick Field for decades, while the Kenosha Kingfish baseball club, a new addition to the Northwoods League, was launched this May.  On the other hand, Kenosha offers more choice facilities for free recreational sports.  These include a first-class velodrome (bicycle race track) & two outdoor municipal swimming pools.  UW-Parkside is deservedly proud of its wooded cross-country skiing trails, which double in warmer weather as a renowned competitive cross-country running course.

True, the capitalist-philanthropist Johnson family supports numerous projects that have made Racine a more pleasant place to live.  Their main companies, SC Johnson & Son (home-maintenance & personal-care products) & Johnson Financial (insurance & banking) still co-sponsor Animal Crackers, a live-concert series at the zoo featuring distinguished jazz & blues artists, among many other events.   

Furthermore, the trio of structures designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (who called Racine a “backwater”) for the late patriarch H.F. Johnson still draw architecture enthusiasts from around the globe.  The Wingspread modernist mansion (now home to the Johnson Foundation) in tony Wind Point, the Johnson Wax administration building & the adjacent research tower give Racine a few distinguished landmarks unmatched by any in Kenosha. 

But even the billionaire Johnsons, owners of the largest private corporation in Wisconsin, can only do so much to help Racine on the Lake  (as local boosters have re-branded the Belle City).  Without a more sustainable local economy, and given the cruel vagaries of globalization, the future of Racine does not inspire much confidence.  At least Kenosha is just a short drive away for us Racine residents.   

[© 2014 by J.C. Mrazek]

A love-letter to Madison: culinary delights, mad music & an ethnic festival

Many Wisconsinites have no clue what a gem their state capital has become.  I confirmed my appreciation for Madison during a recent five-day sojourn (May 14-19).  Now, after a Memorial Day afternoon spent drinking in Racine at a weird backyard concert-cum-foodfest for the over-60 crowd - ironically, next door to the former home of Victor DeLorenzo’s (the Violent Femmes) parents on Markridge Circle - I felt like many former Madison residents who reside here in (what used to be called) the Belle City:  as though I’d been exiled from the Land of Oz for some unfathomable Kafkaesque reason.  

The cover bands that host John hired for this geriatric gathering in Mt. Pleasant were serviceable.  A duo called Mississippi Blue played songs by Bob Dylan (“Visions of Johanna”), Jackson Browne (“Running on Empty,” at my request), Steve Earle,  the Eagles et al.  Milwaukee’s Freddy & the Cruisers, a tight 4-piece oldies band featuring a great female drummer who owns a groovy customized 1959 Morris Minor work-van to haul her kit.  As much as I dug talking with the musicians, I met just one interesting person in the audience, a bearded boy who interned for Will Allen’s inner-city Milwaukee community-garden project in 2010.  

By contrast with the vitality I’d observed in Madison, the holiday scene in Racine was on life-support.  In one case, almost literally.  As I approached to get a brat, the geezer tending the dual grills appeared to be stroking out.  I could not rouse him from his glazed unconsciousness as he slumped in a lawn chair.  “It’s only 12:15 and already there’s one fatality,” I thought.  But I’m glad to report that the glazed gent recovered; he did not die at his duty-station beside the sizzling meat after all.  

Meanwhile, I prefer to recall my extended weekend in Oz (i.e Madison).  Arriving on Wednesday afternoon, I met my friend Tony (aka Sky), a state office worker, at his westside home.  We walked his border-collie Dylan in a rustic neighborhood woods with freshly sculpted mountain-bike trails (Rocky Bluff, just north of Hoyt Park).  Then we settled in for refreshments on the sunny deck of his nicely landscaped backyard.  

Sky & I have known each other since 1966, our first grade at St. Edward’s elementary school in Racine.  We remained friends throughout Catholic high school (St. Catherine’s), but lost touch, reconnecting after Sky’s post-Peace Corps move to Madison in the late 1990s.  I’ve lived in the liberating mini-metropolis of “Madtown” several times since my undergraduate days at the University of Wisconsin (1980-86).  I even served for eight months as an Assistant City Attorney there in 2001.  (Prosecuting traffic & underage-drinking cases proved too stressful - yet, paradoxically, too mundane - for me.)   

My mission for the next five days was twofold:  (1) to sample Madison’s delicious & diverse mid-May cultural offerings; and (2) to find a female lover.  (I’ve been involuntarily celibate for so long now that my condoms have expired.)  I regret to report that I failed to achieve my second goal, despite heroic attempts at dancing, flirty conversation & smoldering eye-meets.  I did, however, succeed at savoring the essence of this city of colleges, music-clubs & interesting restaurants built upon an isthmus straddling Lakes Mendota & Monona.  

You might’ve heard that Otis Redding, as well as several members of his backing band, the Bar-Kays, died in the shallow waters of misty Lake Monona on December 10, 1967.  The tragedy was due to a mysteriously doomed flight (cause:  officially undetermined) from Cleveland.  Sadly, it’s true - there was one survivor & six victims.  For more details, see:  http://host.madison.com/news/local/doug_moe/doug-moe-years-later-questions-still-remain-over-otis-redding/article_c4101fa0-4236-11e2-b870-0019bb2963f4.html.

But at least those legendary recording artists gave their lives for a good cause:  they were bringing hot soul music up from Memphis and sharing it with the many Stax/Volt fans awaiting their arrival at the Factory on Gorham Street in Madison, anticipating the charismatic Redding acting as a sort of tall black swivel-hipped Santa Claus.  You can watch his riveting perspiration-soaked performance at the Monterey Pop Festival (June 1967) in a documentary film of that name. 

So now it’s Wednesday evening on State Street, downtown Madison during graduation week.  Model-hot young folks are strolling past everywhere you look.  Sky & I head for the Orpheum Theater, a vast vaudeville house turned ornate movie palace turned occasional music hall, to catch Neko Case & her band in concert.  She did not disappoint her adoring fans, delivering a solid soulful performance of her many brilliant songs (e.g. “Margaret vs. Pauline” & “This Tornado Loves You”).  

Backed by four middle-aged white guys (maybe there’s hope for me after all) plus harmony vocalist Kelly Hogan, who proudly announced that she lives in Evansville (Wisconsin/USA) Case delivered the musical goods - as well as some funny lines of banter.  The only sour note was struck by some moron yelling “Fight harder & show us you love us!” in a belabored allusion to the title of Case’s 2013 album The Worst Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You.  Neko graciously ignored the wiseass remark.

Suddenly it’s the weekend.  My pal Dave, unfortunately, is too tired from teaching high school all week to go out on Friday.  The evening before, Dave & I dined on carne asada & a Bad Breath Burger, washed down with refreshing Lake Louie pilsener beer, at the Weary Traveler gastro-pub, located next to a tattoo parlor & Star Liquor at 1201 Willy Street.  So I venture out solo, guided by the ample music listings in Isthmus:  there are 40 venues in metro Madison featuring live shows that Friday.  

My first stop:  Bandung, an appealing Indonesian restaurant & bar at the foot of Williamson (aka Willy) Street - next door to Madcity Music Exchange, where I’d traded eight vinyl jazz & hip-hop albums for $7.00 that afternoon.  Located within a stone’s throw of Lake Monona & a mere kilometer from the site of the famous citizens’ 2011 Rotunda Revolt against Gov. Scott Walker’s evil Act 10 (gutting most civil-servants’ hard-won union rights) inside Wisconsin’s historic domed 1900-era limestone state capitol, Bandung offered two musical acts that night.

The first band was called the Oudists, an exotic trio of oud-player, hand-drummer & a woman singing in Arabic, rendered even weirder by a pair of 40-something blonde Caucasian-American ladies belly-dancing.  The headliner stunned me:  a duo from the larger Brazilian-music group Samba Novistas, featuring Rio de Janeiro native Anapaula Strader on vocals (alto) & Madison native Jeff Alexander on a sensitive tropical-wood acoustic guitar.  (A pair of amateur guest percussionists barely enhanced the sound.)

I felt privileged to be among the dozen patrons digging this swinging samba duo's melancholy yet lively repertoire of Brazilian songs, originals (in English as well as Portugese) & covers, including Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”  Anapaula may have botched Bob’s lyrics, but her emotional interpretation of that resigned dirge was spot-on.  Jeff & I shared some medicinal herb on the patio after the gig (marijuana was decriminalized decades ago in enlightened Madison:  you’re legally allowed to possess up to one ounce at home).

Saturday in nearby Stoughton (Wisconsin/USA), a Norman Rockwell-esque town of 13,000 souls, it was Syttende Mai.  The 17th of May is a national holiday in Norway & Stoughton is rotten with beautiful blonde Norwegian-Americans.  On this date in 1814, Norway ratified its first constitution, cementing independence from Denmark.  Dave, his elderly but still fun parents I checked out the local Edvard Grieg (male) Chorus, some gorgeous pieces of rosemaling, a folk-art style of painting on practical wood products) & a craft fair.  We sampled tasty Swedish meatballs & ate some lefse, a simple tasty pastry, in a 1930-era Art deco-style armory, at a benefit for the local Norwegian Dancers.

On Saturday night, back in Madison, Dave & I plus a few friends caught VO5, a disco-era costumed curiosity, on the UW Memorial Union Terrace.  Drinking a pitcher of local craft beer with a friends on the comfortably packed terrace was pleasant, but the throbbing music impeded our conversation.  So I joined the crowd of ecstatic dancers instead, eventually dancing with Lulu - an immigrant from Mexico City - and her knockout Spanish friend to covers of ABBA, the Bee Gees & other disco-era hits.  My body & soul both got a revitalizing workout under the stars.

Sunday brought the WORT-FM (listener-sponsored idiosyncratic "community radio") Block Party at a new location.  Thanks to a few whiny neighbors on Doty Street, the party had to be moved from its usual perfect shady spot on the block alongside WORT’s studios.  Jim Goronson & the Madison Homebrewers & Tasters Guild slogan, No Crap on Tap, was still credible.  I drank a Grumpy Troll (Mt. Horeb. WI) Belsconsin, compliments of the enigmatic yet generous Johna Roth, who was visiting from Portland.  I chatted with friends & stood in the sunshine outside my old workplace (Office of the City Attorney).  The music was mostly mediocre, but the weather was spectacular.  To cap off a perfect afternoon, the kind lady who owns the Banzo falafel food-truck shared some yummy hummus & warm pita bread with me.

Returning to Racine was a downer after my adventures in metropolitan Madison.  But I’m trying to make the best of it here until my next visit to Wisconsin’s fantastic capital.  If you’re still skeptical, go see for yourself how amazing Madison can be in the warm months.  You will not be disappointed, unless you're already dead inside.

[© 2014 by J.C. Mrazek]

Back to the (sustainable) Future: Retro-chic meets clean technology in downtown Kenosha’s electric streetcars

You can climb aboard a shiny orange, maroon or yellow streetcar in downtown Kenosha and, for just a dollar, take a trip back in time.  But don’t be fooled:  the city’s modest fleet of 60-year-old streetcars is more than a nostalgia novelty.  They barely attract enough rail fans and niche tourists to justify the cost, yet the old electric technology that powers these environmentally clean and surprisingly quiet vehicles, certified “green” by Travel Green Wisconsin, has suddenly become cutting-edge.  

Back to the (sustainable) Future could be a motto for the city’s devoted streetcar advocates, including Teresa Pavelich, treasurer of the non-profit Kenosha Streetcar Society (KSS) and a Kenosha resident since 2006.

“The estimated annual ridership peak was 60,000,” Pavelich said at a recent KSS board meeting.  Fares were lower then, starting at a quarter in 2000-01.  She went on to explain that, with the adult fare now at a dollar and due to some schedule changes, the average annual ridership is currently around 50,000.  Not bad for a short line in a city the size of Kenosha (population: 100,150), but it’s not as high as KSS officers would like. 

The city’s first electric railroad (terminus of the old Milwaukee-Racine-Kenosha line) began carrying passengers in 1912.  Once renowned for manufacturing automobiles, Kenosha is striving to make its retro-chic streetcars iconic.  Visitors now come from around the globe to ride them, says Brad Preston, Streetcar Mechanic for Kenosha Transit.  

An unofficial ambassador for the city’s streetcars as well as a KSS board member, Preston says that more inquisitive streetcar enthusiasts contact him from abroad than from the immediate area.  He recalls that he used to regularly swap information via email with a Slovak streetcar fan.  

Preston laments the fact that the city’s plan to expand the downtown line, as recommended by a 2012 Lakota Group economic study, are on hold - primarily for political reasons.  Part of the infrastructure for a new westward line to the Uptown district, a plan stalled by the economic downturn of 2008-09, has already been completed.  Some people call them trolleys, but there’s an important technical difference:  streetcars run on steel rails, while trolleys (or trolley-buses) move on rubber wheels.  Both vehicle types are powered directly via overhead wires.  

“I don’t care what you call them - as long as you ride them,” Preston declares with a smile.

Opened on June 17, 2000 - some 42 years after the city dismantled its old system - Kenosha’s streetcars follow a two-mile single-track loop.  Beginning near the METRA commuter-rail station, two blocks west of Sheridan Road (Hwy. 32) at 54th Street, the cars travel south on 11th Avenue to 56th Street, near the Dinosaur Discovery Museum.  Turning east on 56th Street, they cross Sheridan Road and pass the Visitor Information Center, moving safely along a grassy median.  

Continuing east alongside the resurrected business district, they pass HarborPark [sic - it’s officially spelled as one word] - summertime site of the vibrant Saturday Harbor Market - as well as the Kenosha Public Museum, Southport Marina and Celebration Place, adjacent to Lake Michigan.  After turning north for two blocks, they glide west on 54th Street, passing the Civil War Museum, City Hall and the McCarthy Transit Center (“streetcar barn”).  

Kenosha’s streetcars, examples of the powerful PCC model, have a top speed of 50 mph, but they’re operated at much slower speeds.  They were manufactured in Canada in 1950, using body shells and parts from the St. Louis (Missouri) Car Company.  The Toronto Transit Commission ran these sturdy machines until 1995.  They were each rebuilt once, circa 1990.  Following their purchase by the city of Kenosha (using some state and federal funds), the cars were refurbished.  Each one is painted so as to replicate a counterpart in another American city, such as Pittsburgh, where PCC streetcars were once operated.  A streetcar that used to run in Philadelphia was donated to Kenosha’s fleet by a benefactor.  Sixteen certified drivers take turns operating the cars. 

In early September, streetcar enthusiasts can get a rare look inside Kenosha’s Transit Center, where the vehicles are maintained - with scrounged or improvised parts - and parked when off-duty.  Organized by KSS volunteers, the second annual Streetcar Day will be held on Saturday, September 6th.  Pavelich and Preston hope the event draws crowds of kids and adults to ride the colorful streetcars.  At least two will be running that day in downtown Kenosha.  

Stops & Frequency

The line has 18 stops.  In the business district, stops are at every intersection.  Elsewhere, the cars stop about every two blocks.  Kenosha’s streetcars run every 15 minutes when in operation (see hours below).  Only severe weather will disrupt the schedule.

Schedule 

Summer, Fall & Holiday Season (April 1st - January 2nd):  

Monday through Friday: 11:05 a.m. until 6:35 p.m.

Saturdays & Sundays: 10:05 a.m. until 5:35 p.m.

The streetcars do not run on Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year’s Day.

Fares  

Adults:  $1.00 

Children (ages 12 & under):  50¢  

All-day pass:  $3.00 (can be purchased when boarding)

Links:  

http://www.kenoshastreetcarsociety.org (summary of relevant facts, history, Internet links, media coverage, video, etc.)

http://www.downtowntrolley.org (photo & diagram of Kenosha’s PCC cars - by an advocate of Madison’s proposed trolley system)

NOTE:  Permission for me to link (in this blogpost) to the above websites has been granted in writing by the copyright holders via email.

[© 2014 by J.C. Mrazek]

Olde Madrid: Racine’s casually elegant Spanish restaurant

Stepping into Olde Madrid in downtown Racine on a busy Saturday evening, you’re met by a hospitable staff and some enticing aromas.  The dining room seats just sixty, but it features a bar where you can sample the eclectic wine list while awaiting your table.  The bistro’s positive attitude is palpable immediately:  it’s all about family-style sharing of diverse dishes while talking enthusiastically - and perhaps enjoying a potent beverage.  The din inflicted by that noisy crowd of weekend diners was distracting.  But my distress was soon offset by the restaurant’s soothing mango-colored walls and earth-toned Mediterranean decor. 

Olde Madrid’s array of tapas (appetizer-sized portion) dishes - cold and hot, meat as well as seafood and vegetable - is impressive.  The menu offers everything from tangerine olives ($7.99) - a mound of firm green and soft black olives marinated in tangerine juice, stacked among garlic cloves and drenched in olive oil - to delicately battered fried calamari ($7.99), served with marinara dipping sauce.  A spicier alternative to the almond meatballs (in cream sauce with mushrooms - $8.49), the Spanish meatballs ($7.49) are served with ground chili tomato sauce topped with almonds, parmesan cheese and parsley.  

Another piquant little dish is the grilled solo chorizo ($6.99), presented like a cutlet and topped with shaved Manchego cheese.  Roasted chicken and cherries ($7.99) is a delicious blend of sautéed bite-sized chunks of chicken marinated in sherry sauce then simmered with pine nuts, green olives and dried cherries.  Surprisingly, Olde Madrid’s signature dish is not a paella - saffron rice simmered in meat or seafood and veggies - but rather the okra-free seafood gumbo ($14.99), a complex blend of grilled chicken, scallops, shrimp, saffron rice and chorizo with lemon juice, onions and cilantro, cooked in lobster stock and garnished with avocado slices.  

There are several vegetarian offerings - tapas vegetales - such as the goat cheese and spinach salad ($7.99) and a warm sandwich called el canario (lunch only - $7.49), a grilled portabella mushroom cap with roasted red peppers, spinach and melted mozzarella, served with pesto mayo.  The most popular cold tapa, according to co-owner Natalie Salinas, is a very mixed salad called “the Olde Madrid” ($5.99), while the best-selling hot tapa is Maria’s beef stew ($8.99).  The regulars’ top seafood tapa is garlic chili shrimp ($8.99).

Skip the optional bread course and the disappointing seafood bisque.  But do save room for dessert:  the orange zest flan ($4.99), a delightfully textured baked custard, has a hint of rum amidst the caramel.  Gazpacho returns to the menu as a cold soup come summer.  The lunch menu offers several appealing wraps, including the Valencia, a tortilla stuffed with pork, avocado, saffron rice, mixed greens, tomato and chorizo ($7.99).  Sandwiches - including steak - are also available for lunch, served with papas fritas (home-made potato chips) and Spanish olives. 

Olde Madrid’s chef and co-owner, Manny Salinas, is a Chicago native with a culinary-arts degree.  He cites his Spanish mother as the main inspiration for (and sometime source of) his best recipes.  His wife, co-owner and manager Natalie Salinas, is a cheerful Racine native who does some of the baking, including the flan.  Their restaurant has been a reliable fixture in the Belle City since 2007.  They offer catering services for groups or special events.  Olde Madrid recently started hosting Sunday afternoon wine-tasting dinners (check website for dates).

OLDE MADRID - Tapas & Cucina

418 Sixth Street - downtown Racine

262-619-0940 (no reservations taken)

http://oldemadrid.com/ / $$

lunch:  11:00 - 2:00 (T-F)

dinner:  4:30 - 9:00 (T-Th) 

         or 4:30 - 10:00 (Fri./Sat.)

closed Sunday (usually) & Monday (always)

Handicapped access:  Yes

[©2014 by J.C. Mrazek]