M AY 1 9 – 2 5 , 2 0 1 6
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VOL. 41 NO. 20
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MADISON, WISCONSIN
Beyond Edgewater
Can a new director stabilize the city’s planning department?
June 24-26, 2016 University Ridge Golf Course Madison, WI
Hosted by 12-time PGA TOUR Champion
Steve Stricker
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ISTHMUS.COM MAY 19–25, 2016
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■ CONTENTS
■ WHAT TO DO
4 SNAPSHOT
BEHIND THE CURTAIN
The Lion King is a beast to set up.
6-10 NEWS
FREE THE HERB!
Madison’s American Cannabis Society won’t give up the fight.
RAMBLIN’ MAN
Celebrating a life and saving a river.
JULIA CECHVALA
LINDA FALKENSTEIN 22 FOOD & DRINK FEATURES EDITOR LINDA Falkenstein recently went looking for something like the curried tuna sandwich she once had at Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge, Mass. She didn’t find anything similar in Madison, but did discover some stellar tuna fish sandwiches along the way. “I always like something simple done extremely well,” she says of her finds. “It’s transformative.”
11 SCIENCE THREE YEARS AGO SCIENCE writer Julia Cechvala wrote a piece for Isthmus warning that a disease causing mortality in brown bats would soon hit Wisconsin. This week she returns to the story, writing about the impact of white-nose syndrome and how Madison-based researchers are leading the way in understanding the disease.
11 TECH
BAT BRIGADE
DNR scientists race to stop white-nose syndrome.
12 OPINION
GROWTH POTENTIAL
East Washington Avenue may save our downtown.
15 COVER STORY
BATTLE FATIGUE
Can post-Edgewater city planning department find peace under new leadership?
21, 32 BOOKS
MISSING PARTS
The Geography of Madness tracks down penis thieves.
22-28 FOOD & DRINK
FISH STORY
The humble tuna sandwich hits the red carpet.
NEW HORIZONS
Food carts expand beyond downtown.
30 SPORTS
WINNING WAYS
Bike the Boyums Sat., May 21, Yahara Place Park, 1 pm, after-party and auction, Next Door Brewing, 2 pm Friends of Sid Boyum are hard at work trying to preserve the treasure trove of paintings and sculptures left behind after the Madison icon passed away in 1991. A bike trip around the neighborhood bursting with Boyums is first (preregister at sidbiketour.eventbrite.com), followed by the final bidding in an auction, including a Dr. Evermor sculpture and a painting by Sid’s son, Steve Boyum.
Will Cubs’ success foil Brewers’ rebuilding efforts?
Bodega at Breese
34 MUSIC
Thurs., May 19, Breese Stevens Field, 4-8 pm
WILD AT HEART
Savages still fierce and provocative.
Historic Breese Stevens Field is seeing a lot of action this summer with upcoming concerts from Steve Miller and Wilco. Now, Breese Stevens and Isthmus introduce the first of several Bodegas, family-friendly outdoor markets including 50 vendors: farmers, craftspeople, artists and antique dealers. Get your groove on with music from hip-hop artist and educator F. Stokes.
36 SCREENS NATHAN J. COMP 9 NEWS MARIJUANA HAS BEEN LEGAL in Colorado since 2012, with Washington, Oregon and Alaska following its lead. Citizens in several other states will vote on pot legalization measures this year. But, as Nathan Comp reports this week, Wisconsin will not likely follow suit anytime soon. As a result, the state will lose out on billions in potential revenue.
THE ODD COUPLE
The Nice Guys is a sucker punch to the funny bone.
44 EMPHASIS
LIFE’S A BEACH
Pier South will take your wardrobe coastal.
IN EVERY ISSUE 8 MADISON MATRIX 8 WEEK IN REVIEW 12 THIS MODERN WORLD 13 FEEDBACK 13 OFF THE SQUARE
38 ISTHMUS PICKS 45 CLASSIFIEDS 46 P.S. MUELLER 46 CROSSWORD 47 SAVAGE LOVE
PUBLISHER Jeff Haupt ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Craig Bartlett BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Mark Tauscher EDITOR Judith Davidoff NEWS EDITOR Joe Tarr ASSOCIATE EDITOR Michana Buchman FEATURES EDITOR Linda Falkenstein ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Catherine Capellaro MUSIC & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Jon Kjarsgaard STAFF WRITERS Dylan Brogan, Allison Geyer CALENDAR EDITOR Bob Koch ART DIRECTOR Carolyn Fath STAFF ARTISTS David Michael Miller, Tommy Washbush
ISTHMUS is published weekly by Red Card Media, 100 State Street, Suite 301, Madison, WI 53703 • Edit@isthmus.com • Phone (608) 251-5627 • Fax (608) 251-2165 Periodicals postage paid at Madison, WI (ISSN 1081-4043) • POSTMASTER: Send address changes to 100 State Street, Suite 301, Madison, WI 53703 • © 2016 Red Card Media, LLC. All rights reserved.
Wed., May 25, Barrymore Theatre, 7 pm
This Changes Everything, based on Naomi Klein’s bestseller of the same name, takes you on an epic journey across five continents documenting climate change activists, focusing particularly on grassroots efforts to stop fossil fuel extraction. The screening is followed by a community discussion. (See review, page 36.)
A milestone for peace Mon., May 23, corner of MLK Jr. Blvd and Doty Street, noon-1 pm
It’s a familiar sight in downtown Madison — a dedicated group of peace, justice and sustainability activists, demonstrating weekly for the last 35 years. Join in for the 1,500th Vigil for Peace, followed by a potluck lunch. Bring some friends and your favorite peace sign.
FIND MORE ISTHMUS PICKS ON PAGE 38
MAY 19–25, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM
CONTRIBUTORS John W. Barker, Kenneth Burns, Dave Cieslewicz, Nathan J. Comp, Aaron R. Conklin, Ruth Conniff, Marc Eisen, Erik Gunn, Bob Jacobson, Seth Jovaag, Stu Levitan, Bill Lueders, Liz Merfeld, Andy Moore, Bruce Murphy, Kyle Nabilcy, Kate Newton, Jenny Peek, Michael Popke, Steven Potter, Adam Powell, Katie Reiser, Jay Rath, Gwendolyn Rice, Dean Robbins, Robin Shepard, Sandy Tabachnick, Denise Thornton, Candice Wagener, Rosemary Zurlo-Cuva ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER Todd Hubler ADVERTISING MANAGER Chad Hopper ADVERTISING ASSISTANT Laura Miller ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES Lindsey Bushart, Peggy Elath, Lauren Isely WEB ANALYST Jeri Casper CIRCULATION MANAGER Tom Dehlinger MARKETING DIRECTOR Chris Winterhack EVENT DIRECTORS Kathleen Andreoni, Courtney Lovas ADMINISTRATIVE DIRECTOR Kathy A. Bailey OFFICE MANAGER Julie Butler SYSTEMS MANAGER Thom Jones ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Carla Dawkins
Profits over people
3
n SNAPSHOT
The show behind the show
ISTHMUS.COM MAY 19–25, 2016
BY LAURA JONES n PHOTO BY SHARON VANORNY
4
The trucks rolled in from Richmond, Va., at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, May 9 — huge semis, loaded down with the costumes, props and set pieces needed to mount Disney’s The Lion King at the Overture Center. The Richmond show ended the day before at 4 p.m. It took a little more than a day to break down the massive production and move it 945 miles. “It’s a well-oiled machine,” says Matt Shiner, production stage manager for the tour. “But at some point, it becomes controlled chaos.” By Wednesday, technicians and stagehands are busy setting lights, hanging backdrops and riding up and down on hydraulic Genie lifts, all to the tune of a high-powered vacuum whine. Costumes fill long corridors of wardrobe racks. Puppets line the stage. They were designed under the command of Julie Taymor, the show’s original director, and were meant to evoke “the double event” as she called it: the perception of the actors as both animals and humans at the same
time. In the shadowy half-light of the wings, there lay the great scowling mask of Scar and the noble head of Mufasa, destined to bite the dust before the second act. Shiner shouts over his crew as they raise a flat of grass headdresses into the fly, hoisting them temporarily out of the way. The show, which includes 49 performers in an almost constant state of costume change, uses these types of space-saving maneuvers finessed for every theater it visits. A team of four stage managers heads up a crew of 85, about half of which are hired locally in each city. “Our last week in [a theater] we split up. My advance stage manager will meet the crew in the next city,” says Shiner. “It takes a week for set-up, from the deck to the lights to the autofly system to our offices and power. Then we have to learn how to perform it in the new space.” Eighteen trucks move the enormous set, while most of the cast and crew either fly
How long artists and director Julie Taymor worked creating the original puppets for the show: MORE THAN 17,000 HOURS
hanging out at the piano or drive from city to city. bar,” he says, referring to Some bring their spouses the Ivory Room across and children. Shiner’s asWeight of Mufasa’s from the Overture Center. sistant has been with Lion mask: 11 OUNCES “Then there are the people King 11 years. She and the that get up early and go to production’s master elecHeaviest costume: the lake or go hiking. Evtrician have two kids. “She PUMBA, 45 POUNDS eryone sort of breaks off.” homeschools during the Tallest animals in the show: Many are excited by day, does one rehearsal FOUR 18-FOOT GIRAFFES Madison’s Central Liand then comes in and (ACTORS CLIMB SIX-FOOT brary, one of the “most does the show,” Shiner LADDERS TO GET INSIDE) amazing ones” they’ve says. seen. “We have a group The crew includes 19 Number of African languages of budding filmmakers wardrobe staff, 18 muspoken in the show: 6 that make 24-hour film sicians, 11 carpenters, Number of people employed festivals. They’re excited 10 electricians, a physiworldwide on the show: 1,100 to take advantage of the cal therapist and a child classes over there.” guardian. Because the But most of the time, they’re hard at company stays in each city for a month, the work on the show. For as good as it looks group naturally falls into rhythms and cliques onstage, backstage is where the real action once settled, Shiner says. is. It’s so exciting, says Shiner, they could “There’s the group that says we’re going to sell tickets. n go out tonight and have a drink. We’ve been
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5
■ NEWS
A life celebration Sugar River fundraiser honors late West High psychologist BY MIKE IVEY
Five days before his sudden passing, Rob Lucas was paddling with friends on the Sugar River. It wasn’t a long trip with any particular destination, just a relaxing early June outing on a pleasant shaded section of water just west of Verona. “Rob used to say there was absolutely nothing better than messin’ around in boats,” recalls his widow, Angie. Lucas loved the outdoors, whether exploring backwater streams or racing down the Birkebeiner cross country ski trail. It was a passion he shared with his wife and passed along to his three children. Those who knew the outgoing Madison West High school psychologist are still trying to understand why he ended his life two years ago at age 59. No one can know what private demons he might have battled or whether an adverse reaction to a common antidepressant drug — prescribed just a week before his death — played a role. “Rob had this unique ability to lift the spirits of others,” says Rick Rosen, a social worker and colleague at West. “He touched students who otherwise would find adults easy to ignore.” Survivors are celebrating his life with a noncompetitive outdoor event open to all ages. The second annual “Rob’s Sugar River Ramble,” set for Sunday, June 5, features a bike ride on country roads and a paddle on the Sugar River, followed by a party at Grundahl Park in Mount Horeb. Proceeds benefit the Upper Sugar River Watershed Association, a small nonprofit dedicated to improving water quality in the river that originates in Dane County and flows 90 miles southwest to the Pecatonica before reaching the Rock and eventually the Mississippi. “We want people to remember Rob the way he was, on a river or on his bike, laughing, telling jokes,” says Angie, who works as director of the Verona Natatorium.
Rob Lucas, who died two years ago, loved the outdoors. His friends will hold the second annual Rob’s Sugar River Ramble, a bike ride and river paddle, in his memory on June 5.
To the Lucas family, “Rob’s Ramble” has served as something of a healing mechanism — especially for the couple’s 17-year-old twins. “This has given them something to plan, a way to think about their dad without crying,” says Angie. The idea for an event to benefit the Upper Sugar River Watershed Association had been bouncing around for several years before Rob’s untimely death gave it a purpose. Executive director Wade Moder says the association was looking for a way to both raise money for the organization and introduce more paddlers to the river, which for decades has suffered from contaminated runoff from adjacent dairy farms.
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“Having this in honor of Rob was just a natural,” says Moder. “We didn’t have to think twice.” Work on the long-neglected Sugar River goes back 25 years, when volunteers from Capitol Water Trails, Dane County Parks and other groups first worked to remove trash, automobile tires and assorted junk that had been tossed in over the years. Downed trees and manmade snags had also slowed the flow rate to a point where the Upper Sugar River was choking to death. The USRWA was launched as a private nonprofit in 2000. Working on a shoestring $60,000 annual budget, the group has been partnering with adjacent landowners on controlling manure, cover cropping along stream banks and keeping cattle out of the water. The group recently secured a grant from the state
agriculture department to work with farmers under the new Producer Led Watershed Protection program. “I’ve really come to understand that improving natural resources and habitat starts with the watershed,” says Moder, a graduate of UW-Green Bay in environmental policy and planning. Rob Lucas also had a keen interest in water, evidenced by the number of canoes and kayaks he kept in the garage at the family’s rural Fitchburg home. “When we first met we realized we owned seven boats between us,” laughs Angie. Angie continues to struggle with her husband’s passing and has searched for some explanation. The autopsy showed that Rob was suffering from a severe infection in a surgically replaced hip, an ailment that was apparently not causing him any direct pain since the joint was artificial. She also has dug deeply into the side effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. While those widely prescribed medications are designed to decrease symptoms of depression, they occasionally have the opposite effect. Since 2007, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has required makers of all antidepressant medications to include warnings about increased risks of suicidal thinking during initial use. None of that will return Rob to the people whose lives he touched so deeply. But organizers of “Rob’s Sugar River Ramble” are hoping for a big turnout in his honor. Last year’s event drew 160 participants, and there is a cap of 250 this time, with registration open through Wednesday, June 1, at www.usrwa.org/ramble. “Rob loved that river,” says Bill Coady, an avid paddler and cross country skier from Madison. “I know he would be pleased we are supporting the Upper Sugar River Watershed Association in his name.” ■
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MAY 19–25, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM
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7
■ MADISON MATRIX
n WEEK IN REVIEW SATURDAY, MAY 14
BIG CITY
Scores of faculty members are leaving UW-Madison amid budget cuts, weakened tenure protections and a hostile political climate, The Cap Times reports.
n Madison is named the
Gov. Scott Walker announces a new rule allowing voters waiting for a photo ID card to use a Division of Motor Vehicles receipt to cast a ballot. VOTER The change comes days ID before a federal trial on Wisconsin’s voting laws.
PREDICTABLE
Tom Every — better known as Dr. Evermor, the creator of a steampunk metal sculpture park in Sauk County — is honored by the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation for his work.
fourth-drunkest city in America, according to a ranking from website 24/7 Wall St. Wisconsin cities captured all top four spots and had 12 cities in the top 20. Cheers?
SUNDAY, MAY 15 n Kourtney Moore, the
suspect in the Wednesday night shooting death of Elijah Washington III, turns himself in to police. Moore is the brother of Martez Moore, who was killed April 19, and a friend of Darius Haynes, who was killed on May 10. Moore’s lawyer said there was a “hit list” circulating on social media, and that Moore feared for his life.
SURPRISING
ers, as was working the “industrial” components of the “makerspace” into the East Washington Avenue high-rise. Construction on StartingBlock is expected to begin before the end of 2016. n UW-Madison fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon is suspended following an investigation that revealed members repeatedly using racist, homophobic and anti-semitic slurs, university officials announce. This is the same organization whose
University of Oklahoma chapter got disbanded after video surfaced of its members singing a racist song about lynching. WEDNESDAY, MAY 18 n The state Supreme Court
rules 4-3 to preserve the power of the state superintendent of public instruction, ruling against a 2011 law signed by Gov. Scott Walker requiring state agencies to seek approval from the governor before creating new administrative rules.
TUESDAY, MAY 17 n Sector67 is no longer
UW-Madison Police officers perform a bold and daring rescue, saving 10 ducklings from a storm drain on campus. SMALL TOWN
part of the plan for the new StartingBlock Madison entrepreneurial hub, the Wisconsin State Journal reports. Unworkable lease terms and price were among the barri-
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n NEWS
Up in smoke Wisconsin lawmakers shun billion-dollar marijuana industry BY NATHAN J. COMP
The classic American pothead has evolved over the last 30 years from Jeff Spicoli — the stonerdude archetype played by Sean Penn in 1982’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High — to Jeff Kundert, real-life wellness expert, athlete and president of the American Cannabis Society. “Me and my buddies are super-accomplished guys,” says the 66-year-old Madison native. “We get together, smoke a little herb, then we go home to the houses we pay mortgages on and mow our lawns.” Kundert and his brotherhood of achievement stoners see themselves as freedom fighters on a mission to overturn nearly a century of federal marijuana prohibition. Their crusade to “free the herb” isn’t so people can get high — which they do in spite of the law — but to have peace of mind while doing so. “The point,” Kundert explains, “is that no one is going to put me or anybody else in jail for enjoying and sharing this sacred herb.” Kundert uses his finger to underscore each of the five words printed on his T-shirt. “I. Am. Not. A. Criminal,” he reads. Wisconsin lawmakers disagree. They are resisting the growing national movement to allow medicinal or recreational marijuana. In April, Pennsylvania became the 24th state to approve marijuana for medicinal use. Voters in Colorado and Washington legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, with those in Alaska and Oregon following suit. And with a record number of marijuana-related initiatives to be decided by voters in November, the future smells skunky in several other states. “This year is going to be a historic year for recreational marijuana,” says Chris Walsh, managing editor of the Colorado-based Marijuana Business Daily. “The train is moving, and it is moving quickly.”
CAROLYN FATH
dents to grow four plants, possess two ounces and to share one ounce. “Every household in America should have this option,” he says. “Scott Walker better stay out of this.” Walker notwithstanding, momentum in Wisconsin is not on proponents’ side. Marijuana Business Daily’s Walsh notes that no state has legalized recreational marijuana without first legalizing its medicinal use. This doesn’t bode well for Wisconsin pot advocates. Many sitting Republican lawmakers have helped kill prior medical marijuana proposals. Their rigidity was evident in March, when the Senate failed to relax rules around a marijuana compound used to treat chronic seizures in children because it contains trace amounts of THC, the plant’s psychoactive element. “They just went home without passing it,” says state Rep. Peter Barca (D-Kenosha). “It is so unfair to those children who desperately need this to prevent having seizures.” But the bill did have support from the Assembly, including Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester). Also during the most recent session, state Rep. Melissa Sargent (D-Madison) introduced legislation that would have legalized recreational marijuana, but it never received a hearing.
“When you go to school you’re taught that pot is a bad thing — in fact, many drugs are a bad thing — but what we’re talking about here is a plant,” says Sargent. “The most dangerous thing about marijuana is that it is illegal.” One certainty about marijuana prohibition is that enforcement is expensive. A 2013 report by Americans for Safe Access found that the federal government, under President Barack Obama, has spent nearly $80 million a year — $200,000 a day — enforcing marijuana prohibition in states where medical marijuana is legal. But earlier this month, federal prosecutors made an about-face in abandoning a four-year effort to shutter California’s largest marijuana dispensary. Prosecutors cited a 2014 spending bill passed by Congress that included an amendment prohibiting the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from using federal money to prevent the implementation of medical marijuana laws. “That was a big win for the industry,” says Walsh. “It is a positive sign that federal drug enforcement agencies are backing away and moving toward a hands-off approach.” A recent study by the Marijuana Business Daily showed that legal mari-
Some say the key to convincing lawmakers of marijuana’s virtues is finding achievement stoners like Kundert to publicly advocate on marijuana’s behalf. “It’s tough to find people brave enough to say, ‘I drive my kids to soccer, I pay my mortgage, I go to church on Sundays, but I use marijuana as well,’” says Sargent, who adds that she doesn’t use it. Sargent, who is up for re-election, says she will reintroduce her bill in January if she holds on to her Assembly seat. Legalize Wisconsin helped organize a pro-pot rally in Milwaukee earlier this month where roughly 200 people marched in support of legalization. Group co-founder Megan Olson says it is difficult getting people to speak out against prohibition. “Fewer people are willing to stand up for marijuana, because they’re afraid to lose jobs or get in trouble with the law,” says the 30-year-old Madison resident. However, more people are speaking out on users’ behalf, believing that legalization can offset cuts to public education and provide a healthier alternative to prescription narcotics. Olson became active in the movement after her father replaced the narcotics he was prescribed following a back injury with cannabis. Olson also worked for nine years as a home healthcare provider and “saw firsthand how cannabis helped people sleep at night or reduce their anxiety.” Recalling how marijuana was maligned in the ’80s, as the War on Drugs ramped up during the Reagan years, Kundert says that in this world there are negative forces as well as positive ones. “There were some real battles over marijuana,” he says. “But people who were sentient and forward-thinking, like my dad, challenged the status quo. Now it’s up to us to change it.” n
MAY 19–25, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM
Kundert isn’t waiting for Wisconsin lawmakers to climb on board. In 2010, he began rebranding the American Cannabis Society, which was founded in Madison in 1978 by his late father, Bob Kundert. At its peak, says Kundert, the group boasted more than 10,000 card-carrying members. Its iconic catchphrase, “Thank you for pot smoking!” has adorned countless automobile bumpers and T-shirts. “When Dad started using cannabis he was 60 and [I was] 25,” says Kundert, “He smoked throughout the ’70s and became a youthful man.” But unlike his father, who promoted the etiquette around smoking and sharing marijuana, Kundert envisions for the group a more dialectic role in the nation’s emerging legal marijuana economy. “Dad was just like, ‘Free the herb! Free the herb,’” he recalls. “We’re going to bring cannabis to the households with our ‘Grow, Use, Share’ legislation.” Because Wisconsin doesn’t allow statewide citizen-initiated ballot measures, the group has partnered with the Wisconsin chapter of NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) in lobbying Dane County communities to reduce municipal fines for marijuana possession to $1. “I want to ring Madison with $1 fines and then 421 laws,” he says, referring to legislation he hopes the lawmakers will someday pass allowing resi-
Jeff Kundert, president of the American Cannabis Society, thanks you for pot smoking.
juana sales spiked from $4.6 billion in 2014 to $5.4 billion in 2015. It predicts sales this year will be more than $7 billion. And a study by the Tax Foundation this month found legal pot could generate $28 billion annually in tax revenue. “Wisconsin is missing out on lots of jobs, business opportunities and tax dollars by not legalizing medical or recreational marijuana,” says Walsh. “The industry is at a tipping point right now, but we can clearly see the direction things are going.” Had Sargent’s bill become law, state analysts estimated recreational marijuana would generate nearly $68 million in revenue, $5.3 million in sales tax and another $440,000 in fees. Estimates also showed the bill would have saved Wisconsin taxpayers millions of dollars spent each year prosecuting marijuana-related offenses. In 2014, 36 residents were imprisoned on marijuana-related charges, with another 1,596 put on probation, bringing the total number of marijuana offenders to 108 inmates and 2,432 on probation. “Not a lot of legislation brings in revenue,” says Sargent. “This is a lot of money we could use to address the heroin epidemic or invest in our public schools.” Barca doesn’t foresee economic arguments swaying Republicans. “They could’ve taken the $300 million to expand BadgerCare,” he says. “They act like they care about Wisconsin residents, but they don’t.”
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■ NEWS
Accepting New Patients On The Square!
Practical exercise A new pilot program aims to help African American seniors stay independent longer BY CANDICE WAGENER
Working as an emergency nurse, Kim Gretebeck often saw older patients admitted for problems that would have been entirely preventable, had the patient stayed more physically active. That experience, along with watching her father lose the ability to walk after triple bypass surgery, spurred her to develop the PALS (Physical Activity for Life for Seniors) program. Now an assistant professor in the UWMadison School of Nursing, Gretebeck has made senior activity her mission for the past 15 years. Her overall goal with PALS is not just getting seniors active, but — perhaps more importantly — keeping them active. That latter caveat is “actually the challenge,” she says. Launched in March 2015, the PALS program has been offered in Langlade, Marathon, Lincoln, Eau Claire, Waukesha, Milwaukee and Wood counties. Now a new PALS pilot program designed to reach African Americans over 60 is being introduced in Madison and Milwaukee. Early feedback suggested the program would benefit from including specific cultural components; for instance, older African Americans tend to face specific barriers to exercise, including the need to sometimes take care of their grandchildren, and these need to be addressed, says Gretebeck. A grant from the University of Wisconsin made the new pilot program possible. Another new pilot program targeting older rural adults is being funded by Cargill, says Gretebeck. There are two main components to PALS: exercise and education. The exercise portion is set up as a circuit with one minute of exercise at each station. Functional exercises enable participants to stay independent and active at home. Something as sim-
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ple as lifting a weighted ball above the head can translate into greater ease in grabbing an item off a high shelf at home. Equipment is light — hand weights, medicine balls, steps — and designed to be portable and storage-friendly. Participants meet for hour-long sessions three days a week for 10 weeks. The Madison program meets at the UW South Madison Partnership office in the Villager Mall on South Park Street. The educational arm meets for 30 minutes once a week. Participants learn techniques to stay active, including how to overcome barriers like bad weather, and how to find an exercise buddy, be it a friend, spouse or grandchild. After the 10 weeks, participants are mostly on their own, but the exercise leader will call individuals about every two weeks to make sure they’re still meeting their goals. The group also comes together socially two more times over the next six-month period to talk about challenges and their exercise progress. Gretebeck has been pleased with how many people re-create the circuits at home and continue to exercise. She’s also gratified to hear success stories. One woman is no longer afraid of falling while getting in and out of her car. Another no longer has to stay in her basement while doing laundry — previously she was too tired to tackle the stairs more than once. Gretebeck says the group is looking at wider dissemination throughout the state in senior centers and churches within the next year. Locally, PALS is coordinated through the North/Eastside Senior Coalition. A session began on May 19; the next session will be offered in September. African American adults over 60 interested in learning more about the free program, or signing up, can call Pam Bracey at 608-243-5252. ■
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■ SCIENCE
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bat population congregates in just three of them, White says. The fungus has been found at all three locations, says Owen Boyle, DNR species management chief. These sites are still in the early stages of infection, though, so researchers haven’t seen mass mortalities yet. With fewer bats left surviving after each winter, scientists know they don’t have much time to save Wisconsin’s bats. “Everybody is looking for an answer, whether it’s a silver bullet or something to buy time,” White says. The one good thing to come out of the deadly disease is improved public perception of bats. Seen silently flapping overhead at dusk, bats provide important pest control, consuming their weight in mosquitosized insects each night. “The education and awareness, and the outreach that has come from this terrible, terrible disease has helped out a lot,” says White. Public interest in the bats’ plight has inspired 1,500 volunteers to help track populations. Another way people can help is by putting up bat houses. While these don’t offer sites for hibernation, they do provide valuable shelter for bats at other times of the year. During fluctuating spring temperatures bat houses provide protected daytime shelter (ideally positioned to receive 6 to 8 hours of sunlight), so the bats can stay warm and conserve energy. Having such respite may allow a bat to clear an infection, if it hasn’t yet become critical, White explains. If bats are able to avoid disease and other threats their longevity is remarkable. The DNR found a bat estimated to be 32 years old. ■
Speaking his mind in the city he once ruled!
starring former Madison Mayor
Read him online at Isthmus.com
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White-nose syndrome, the fungal disease decimating bat populations in the eastern United States, continues to spread in Wisconsin and is starting to reduce the flying mammals’ numbers, according to a recent survey by the state Department of Natural Resources. Over the winter, research scientists inspected and tested bats in the caves and mines where they hibernate. They found evidence of the disease in 42 out of 74 sites, including in six new counties, according to a DNR newsletter. Bat numbers are down, particularly where the disease is well established. At the mine in Grant County where the fungus was first discovered in the state, the bat population has declined 94% in the past two years. Like other hibernating animals, bats rely on fat stores to get through the winter. Usually they rouse and move around the cave every 15 to 20 days during hibernation, says Paul White, DNR conservation biologist. Infected bats wake much more frequently, as often as every three to five days, so they burn through their energy stores more quickly, putting them at risk of starvation. For this reason, white-nose syndrome is generally only fatal to hibernating species, including the little brown bat, the state’s most common. Bats that migrate in the winter generally don’t succumb to the illness. This understanding of the disease came out of Michelle Verant’s research at the USGS National Wildlife Health Center, on Madison’s west side. The center, along with a number of labs at the UW, puts Madison at the forefront of white-nose syndrome research and methods to treat it.
One strategy currently being tested is a vaccine. If the vaccine could slow the growth of the fungus enough for the bats to get through hibernation in relatively good health it could improve their survival rate, says Tonie Rocke, a research scientist with the National Wildlife Health Center. When hibernating bats occasionally wake they groom themselves and each other, licking water vapor off of their fur. When they do this they could ingest a vaccine applied to their coats. In the vaccine, Rocke and her colleagues are using a viral vector shown to work in a rabies vaccine for bats, which they are also developing. The lab trial currently underway is testing whether they have found an antigen that can effectively fight the WNS fungus. If the trial is successful they may be able to test the vaccine at an actual hibernation site next winter, Rocke says. Another approach being studied is a bacterial treatment. Last winter, the DNR participated in a trial at a mine in Wisconsin. The results are not yet in, but even if it works, use of this approach may be limited to manmade sites such as mines. That’s because scientists want to guard against unintended ecological effects that may come along with introducing a new organism into a cave setting. Given the state’s mining heritage, though, there are many abandoned mines in Wisconsin used by bats. Three of the largest hibernation sites in the state are mines, White says. Bat populations are not evenly distributed throughout the state, so finding a way to treat bats at the largest hibernation sites could make a huge difference. Out of the 150 sites identified by the DNR, 90% to 95% of the state’s known
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n OPINION
A new downtown district East Washington offers exciting opportunities for retail and entertainment BY ALAN TALAGA Alan Talaga co-writes the Off the Square cartoon with Jon Lyons and blogs at isthmus.com/madland
ISTHMUS.COM MAY 19–25, 2016
The possibility of putting Madison’s public market at the corner of East Washington Avenue and First Street excites me. Sure, that’s only a block over from the mayor’s currently preferred location, but one block can make a big difference. East Washington has been reinvigorated over the last five years — there are new apartments, a Festival Foods grocery and the refurbished Breese Stevens Field. More developments are on the way, including affordable housing units and a proposed Frank Productions concert hall. A public market at East Wash and First would provide a capstone for this refreshed neighborhood. The market could be the start of a new downtown district that extends from that corner, to the Capitol Square and all the way down to the campus end of State Street. Careful city planning that incorporates East Washington as part of downtown can help preserve Madison’s retail mix. Mayor Paul Soglin is right — it is important to maintain downtown retail. However, I don’t think moratoriums are the answer. Bridget Maniaci, who formerly represented some of East Washington on the city council, believes State Street is currently lacking in destination retail: the sort of store that people seek out that might get them to browse other retailers in the area. State Street’s small, niche stores used to be destination retail. Finding an obscure jazz record or browsing through 50 different types of incense wasn’t something you could do in too many places in Wisconsin. Now, you can order these items from your phone. Destination retail doesn’t have to be big box, but most destination stores are going to be larger than the small State Street storefronts. Under Armour is building a new space just to get 5,000 square feet of first-floor retail on State Street. Last year,
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Studio Jewelers
DAVID MICHAEL MILLER
interior design chain West Elm opened an 11,000-square-foot store in downtown Milwaukee. State Street has almost no spaces that size, but those first-floor retail opportunities do exist on East Washington. Customers would come downtown to an East Washington West Elm. Once there, they might grab lunch and explore the locally owned shops on State Street, East Johnson or Willy Street. If we are going to get people around a 2.4-mile downtown corridor, we need better transportation options. To UW students who never leave the campus bubble, East Washington might as well be as far away as Chicago. Downtown’s density, one-way streets and constant construction make some out-of-towners hesitant to drive there. A well-advertised downtown circulator that drove a route from the Kohl Center to the public market could solve both problems. Make the time and route clear for those who can’t decipher the multicolored spaghetti strands that make up the isthmus bus route map. It would be an investment, but the city could study the possibility of a park-and-ride lot behind the public market. “The city could potentially go around to some of the businesses on East Wash and get
1306 Regent Street, Madison, WI 53715 608.257.2627
them to sponsor the bus. If it gets more college students to High Noon or Breese Stevens, it might be worth it for them to sponsor,” says Maniaci. East Washington Avenue is a busy street, and that is going to be a major hurdle to building it up as a vital part of downtown. “That street is part of Highway 151 — that means that the state Department of Transportation ultimately calls the shots,” says Scott Resnick, StartingBlock director and a former alder. “If people can’t cross East Washington easily on foot, we lose a lot as a neighborhood.” The city tried to get more concessions out of
THIS MODERN WORLD
the state during street reconstruction a few years ago. But Resnick thinks the city might have a stronger case as density increases. New retail and transportation will help build a new downtown, but there’s more to that when it comes to building a sense of place. Resnick argues that Madison is in desperate need of more public art and music that help create identity. Maniaci notes how few teen-friendly activities there are downtown, and how many activities revolve around drinking. Both Resnick and Maniaci note the lack of diversity of downtown events. They have a point. Our signature downtown events are a giant farmers’ market and an outdoor classical music concert series. The only way our cultural programming could get any whiter is if Madison held a sparkling water festival. Creating a vibrant, vital downtown that offers something for more than just welloff white people should be at the center of future East Washington planning. Resnick remembers a night when he was walking around town right as Monona Terrace’s Dane Dances, Majestic’s Live on King Street and an Overture show all got out at once. “Downtown was buzzing with all of these different kinds of people,” says Resnick. “For a night, it felt like Madison’s downtown was the center of the universe. I want a downtown where I feel that on a regular basis.” n
BY TOM TOMORROW
© 2016 WWW.THISMODERNWORLD.COM
n FEEDBACK
To have and have not I don’t know which was more upsetting reading in this week’s issue: college students living a carefree life of luxury in a $1,500-a-month downtown high-rise because school is so hard, and “after all, it’s finals week”; or the single mother trying to feed a family of four with only $12 to spend on a meal, and having no viable choice except to choose McDonald’s (“Lap of Luxury” and “Lives Depend on It,” 5/12/2016). And how disheartening that the “big” grocery chains didn’t even have the courtesy to reply to requests to build a store in her neighborhood. The first story screamed of entitlement, and the second one reminded readers of the often insurmountable problems of living a life of poverty. Hurray for organizations like the Willy Street Co-op and the UW, which step in to help where it’s really needed. Just think how much even part of that $1,500 a month could mean to struggling families. It’s both embarrassing and heartbreaking that this sort of dichotomy exists. Mimi Lea, Lake Mills (via email) M AY 1 2 – 1 8 , 2 0 1 6
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VOL. 41 NO. 19
Posh student apartments upend Madison housing market
Yeah, guess who will be bailing these supercilious brats out when they default on their
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student loans. “Being a student gets to be somewhat overwhelming”?! Tell that to the guy working two jobs in the real world just to keep a roof over his family’s head. Bet he’d love the chance to wind down and relax in your spa or beat out his frustration on your drum set. What a bunch of narcissistic wusses. Gail Tappen (via email)
MADISON, WISCONSIN
The Walker Doctrine Gov. Scott Walker’s administration recently reneged on paying $101 million in state debt due May 1 (Week in Review, 5/12/2016). Instead, they moved to pay the bill over eight years, even though it will cost taxpayers $2.3 million in interest over that period. We could have written the $101 million check April 30, as that and more was sitting in the state treasury. It’s not like Wisconsin is facing imminent bankruptcy. We even have a $280 million rainy-day fund from 2008-2011 savings. There’s a more cynical reason we stiffed our creditors. Anyone savvy about Wisconsin politics knows a bogus $101 million in the state’s coffers will reduce — on paper — our budget deficit when the November elections roll around. Hiding that debt may look good to some, but it deludes those uninformed voters who only hear the governor’s soundbites. LAURENT HRYBYK
Astoundingly, the governor blamed President Obama: “The bottom line is, we have concerns about the Obama economy nationally, and we want to make sure Wisconsin’s prepared for it.” What? President Obama’s policies are causing a recession? Where? A new Walker Doctrine has emerged. Weasel on your debts to win elections. Gary Peterson Rice Lake (via email)
Art history Jay Rath’s engaging portrait of Dane Arts’ Mark Fraire (“Beautiful Mission,” 5/5/2016) seems to begin the history of local government’s support for the arts with the 1976 decision by the Dane County Board to establish a Cultural Affairs Commission. In fact, the city of Madison’s Cultural Affairs Committee came into being several years earlier, during the first administration of our current Mayor Soglin. I was its chairman. I recall well the snide question asked of me by former Ald. Jay Wexler, who demanded to know at the city council’s confirmation vote why I wanted to be “the cultural commissar of Madison.” I don’t remember my answer, but I did understand the political criticism behind the inquiry. The committee had two other members, and lasted for two years with an annual budget of $2,000. Our happiest time was spent creating the Summer Art Grants Program, which solicited ideas from local artists about how to increase visibility and engagement with the arts. The maximum grant
was $400. I still regret one applicant who was never funded. She proposed a large buffet of “food art” to be put on display at a gallery, after which it would be consumed by the people who attended the comestible exhibit. The city attorney put the kibosh on the project. Local governmental involvement with the arts has a history somewhat longer than is usually acknowledged, so thanks for supporting the arts in our city and region. Robert Skloot (via email)
Clarification and correction Last week’s story about the Memorial Union renovation project incorrectly described the planning process for saving the Terrace oak trees. Union officials always intended to save the trees, but the specifics of the procedure were not included in the original project plan. In the article “A Curious Collaboration,” the authors were misidentified. Abby Frucht appeared on the left, Laurie Alberts on the right (see below).
Share comments with Isthmus via email, edit@isthmus.com, and via Forum.isthmus.com, Facebook and Twitter, or write letters to Isthmus, 100 State St., Suite 301, Madison WI 53703. All comments are subject to editing. The views expressed here are solely those of the contributors. These opinions do not necessarily represent those of Isthmus Publishing Company.
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Beyond Edgewater Can a new director stabilize the city’s planning department? BY JAY R AT H
THE EDGEWATER CONTROVERSY
the departure of the department’s leaders, Mark Olinger and Brad Murphy, who were replaced by staff more friendly to development interests, Steven Cover and Katherine Cornwell. The Edgewater also spurred a revision of the landmarks ordinance. And several sources report that it demoralized the department’s staff. Emotions are still raw, and few past and present city officials are willing to speak on the record, though many offer private accounts. Verveer speaks for many when he says: “It’s tough for me to be on the record about how I really feel about everything.” But change is once again underway. Cover left the city last June and was replaced by a popular Madison native. And Cornwell will leave next month; the process for her replacement is in progress. Suddenly the slate has been wiped clean. Many hope the new planning director will stabilize the division and better balance the interests of everyone who has a stake in land use decisions: developers, neighborhood denizens and residents at large.
THE CITY’S PLANNING
department can be confusing to outsiders, starting with its unwieldly name: the Department of Planning and Community and Economic Development. It encompasses a wide array of civic functions, including the management of public housing and the senior center, out-of-
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MAY 19–25, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM
will soon be over. Though the luxury hotel reopened in 2014, the five-year redevelopment process caused a cascade of changes that traumatized Madison’s planning staff. “Over the last few years it really has been painful to bear witness to the internal strife in that Planning Division — that once-proud Planning Division that was admired by outsiders far and wide,” says veteran Ald. Mike Verveer. “It really is unfortunate that things went so poorly for many years in planning, since the departure of some leaders there.” Because the department oversees what projects can and cannot get built here, the planning director has long been a lightning rod for controversy. “It’s probably the most important hired position in the city,” says Susan Schmitz, president of Downtown Madison Inc., a nonprofit economic advocacy organization. The department has certainly been at the center of most of the city’s biggest fights. “Land use is really fundamental to cities, and it’s a very long-term game,” says former Ald. Satya Rhodes-Conway. “It’s really important for quality of life, so the stakes are high. It’s an area fraught with controversy and differing interests. A lot of the conflicts that happen in local government happen around land use planning.” The Edgewater battle was one of Madison’s biggest brawls, and its repercussions still resonate. It led, directly or indirectly, to
15
n COVER STORY
After years of civic battles, the Edgewater Hotel reopened in 2014. But the project took a toll on city planning staff.
DAVID MICHAEL MILLER
ISTHMUS.COM MAY 19–25, 2016
school programs, building inspection, zoning enforcement, the development of neighborhood centers, arts programming, weights and measures, and efforts to attract new employers. Cover was the director of this entire department, which has roughly 180 employees. The department also includes the Planning Division, which has about 25 employees. It helps officials plan for and manage new construction, evaluating building designs and considering their effects on the city. It also facilitates residents and officials in writing numerous plans, at the neighborhood level and city-wide. Cornwell was its director, reporting to Cover.
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Ald. Mike Verveer says it was “painful to bear witness to the internal strife” among city planning staff.
The Department of Planning and Community and Economic Development has grown over the years. It was created in 1979, with the merging of several city departments and divisions, says George Austin, who headed the department from 1983 until 1998. Rhodes-Conway has heard that the department swelled in size in part because of Austin. “Everyone thinks he was a great manager. I don’t know; I never worked with him,” she says. “But he kept getting problem departments to solve. Or maybe he was a good manager so they gave him more to manage.” In 1989 Austin hired Brad Murphy to head the department’s Planning Division. Murphy served more than two decades. “It was not a controversial position, in my opinion, during that period,” says Austin. Rhodes-Conway notes that Murphy had a just-the-facts style of laying out city policies and options to elected officials. “Brad had a lot of ideas and opinions, but he very seldom said them out loud,” she says. “His approach was to facilitate the Plan Commission and [Common] Council to make a decision.... I often wished he’d take a more firm position, but that wasn’t his style.” Jeff Vercauteren has a unique perspective of the planning director’s role. He’s president of Capitol Neighborhoods Inc., an umbrella organization of five downtown neighborhood associations, including two historic districts. As an associate at the law firm Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek, he’s lobbied on behalf of developers including Apex Property Management Inc., Hovde Properties, Mullins Group, Steve
Brown Apartments and Urban Land Interests. “The planning director has a very challenging, multifaceted position that requires a focus on long-range planning, neighborhood planning, urban design, historic preservation, transportation planning and project review,” he says. “The position is especially challenging because it requires the planning director to consider both the long-term development of the city as well as current development proposals. It can be difficult to predict how a development approved today will occupy the built environment in 20 or 30 years.” Ald. Paul Skidmore puts it more colorfully.
Some view Mark Olinger’s departure from the city in 2009 as the beginning of trouble.
“The first word that comes to mind is meat grinder. This is a very difficult department to work in,” he says. “The expectations and expected outcomes and the implication of the future are just pretty phenomenal.” On top of that, the staff are often caught in between very strong personalities. “You’ve got some pretty extraordinary personalities involved, and I’m not just talking about people within the department. You’ve got people like [Mayors] Paul Soglin and Dave Cieslewicz; they bring their own ideas and biases,” Skidmore says. “And then you add to it characters who are developers who have lots and lots of money, then you’re adding another dimension to it. These are not easy people to deal with. Add this cast of characters to the cast of politicians, and you’ve got staff that wonders where the next pounding is going to come from.” Austin left the city in 1998 to become president of the Overture Foundation. Today he heads his own firm, AVA Civic Enterprises Inc., providing planning, development and project delivery services to owners pursuing public/private development projects. The city still occasionally contracts with him to spearhead larger projects, such as the Judge Doyle Square development. Austin was replaced by Mark Olinger, who had been a principal planner with the city. Both Olinger and Murphy were respected and well-liked by staff and by neighborhood groups. Both are now gone. “When Mark Olinger was relieved of duties, that was a big blow to the [planning]
staff,” says Verveer. “That, as well as Brad’s retirement, was a big loss to the city. The team that replaced them eventually was just not a great fit for our community, it turned out.”
NO ONE COULD HAVE foreseen the
Edgewater expansion’s impact on city government. But the hotel’s redevelopment was contentious from the start. There were many issues: Edgewater expansion onto adjacent land did not fit the city’s Downtown Plan. The project violated height restrictions, shoreline development regulations and existing zoning. The developer also wanted a $16 million city subsidy through tax incremental financing, more than double what city guidelines found appropriate. There were also many complaints about process and open government. The development firm had failed to register its lob-
In her resignation letter, Katherine Cornwell wrote the department was “in the midst of a power struggle.”
ON DEC. 9, 2010,
Cieslewicz named Steven Cover the city’s director of Planning and Community and Economic Development. Cover had previously served as commissioner of the Department of Planning and Community Development for the city of Atlanta. “I set a very high standard, and it was a long and twisting road to get here, but I couldn’t be more pleased,” Cieslewicz said in the announcement. It was soon apparent that Cover had a very different style than his predecessor, notes Rhodes-Conway, who left office in 2013. Unlike Murphy or Olinger, “[Cover] had opinions, and he wasn’t afraid to assert them. He wasn’t shy about telling his staff what do,” she says. “That difference of style created some upheaval.”
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MAY 19–25, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM
byists. For much of 2009, Verveer said at the time, Cieslewicz and other city officials worked in closed-door sessions to circumvent city commissions and the zoning code so that Edgewater redevelopment could succeed. But the biggest issue was the hotel’s location in a city and federal historic district, which limited size and building style. The Landmarks Commission denied approval of the project, and the developer appealed to the Common Council. Cieslewicz declared the landmarks ordinance “broken” and the Landmarks Commission “undemocratic.” He wanted to strip the Landmarks Commission of its power, making it and the landmarks ordinance “advisory.” To make matters worse for the Planning Division, it was missing a key staff member to help sort out the conflict. The city’s pres-
ervation planner, who advises Landmarks, had retired in 2008. The position was kept vacant for a year and eight months. Murphy warned that leaving the “critical” position unfilled was causing “significant hardship,” stalling progress on a “backlog of critical historic preservation initiatives.” Low morale and anxiety were rumored among planning staff. Then, late in 2009, planning staff were “shocked” by the abrupt and inexplicable resignation of Olinger. He has never spoken on the record about his departure. “The mayor is looking at changing demands and challenges facing the city and felt he needs to bring in a different manager,” said Tim Bruer, council president at the time. Cieslewicz, an Isthmus contributor, declined to comment for this story. “[That] was a big loss for the Planning Division,” says Verveer today. During an all-night meeting in May 2010, the council voted to overrule the Landmarks Commission, allowing the Edgewater project to move ahead. The approval, however, didn’t end the drama surrounding the luxury hotel. After returning to office the following spring, Soglin slashed city financing for the project. But the developer was rescued by Jerome Frautschi, who made up the shortfall. The effects of the Edgewater fight have been more far-reaching for city government. The landmarks ordinance would later be rewritten. Madison would eventually replace its top planning directors with two people who had a very different philosophy from what the city was accustomed to. Back in 2009, Bruer explained to the Wisconsin State Journal that Cieslewicz wanted someone “more in line with his vision and beliefs and desired management skills.” It would take a year to find that person.
• EXTERIOR PAINTING • INTERIOR PAINTING • WALLPAPER REMOVAL • DRYWALL, PLASTER • DECKS, FENCING
17
ISTHMUS.COM MAY 19–25, 2016
n COVER STORY
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“All of a sudden the message we were getting was much more supportive of some big projects, even when the alder wasn’t supportive or there were big policy questions,” she adds. Verveer blames Cover for Murphy leaving the city in October 2012, claiming: “[Murphy] told everyone in the office that he left for one reason only, and that was because he couldn’t work with Cover.” Murphy would neither confirm nor deny Verveer’s account and declined to comment. Cover’s different style was on display at the Feb. 5, 2013, council meeting, when he undercut his staff by arguing in favor of The Waterfront development just off Langdon Street. He specifically set aside the Downtown Plan and the work of his own Planning Division as well as extensive public input. “It’s a policy document, it’s not law, and we shouldn’t treat it as such,” he told the council, referring to the Downtown Plan. “Sometimes we’ll be challenged to look beyond the plan to decide what’s best for the city.” Some alders were stunned, but the council approved the project. Still bruised over the Edgewater, “that development really shook the core of the Planning Division,” says Verveer. Cornwell succeeded Murphy. She had been in private practice as a planning consultant in Denver for almost four years. Before that she’d worked for nine months as manager of Discover Denver, “a building and neighborhood survey meant to identify historic and architecturally significant structures citywide.” When she started work in Madison in 2013, she told Isthmus that her philosophy for urban planning was to admit that “cities are messy places” filled with conflict and competing interests. She added, “One of the most important things is not to shy away from conflict.” The outside perception was that Cornwell and Cover were a team. By May 2014, critics feared that, together, the two had tipped the balance of power in favor of developers in the ongoing battle over the city’s future. Former Ald. Brenda Konkel, who has become a local government watchdog since leaving the Common Council in 2009, says “there was a period of time when there was an absolute disdain for neighborhood plans. They were openly hostile toward neighborhoods. That seemed to do a lot of damage to people’s willingness to participate.” Mayor Soglin argues that the planning staff had been in the middle of rewriting both the city’s zoning regulations and the downtown plan, which created a lot of pressure. “We had to get that done and it was not easy,” he says. “I don’t think it would have made any difference who was managing.” In January 2015, Cover announced that
Steve Cover, former head of the city’s Department of Planning and Community and Economic Development, alarmed some council members by asking them to “look beyond” the city’s planning documents.
he was leaving Madison to take “one of the top planning jobs in the country” in Arlington County, Va. And two months ago, Cornwell announced her departure. “I stepped into an organization that was in the midst of a power struggle and where trust was in disarray,” she wrote in her March 3 resigination letter. Many were thrilled. “Since the resignation was announced, I was contacted by several Planning Division employees with such excitement to make sure I had heard the news,” says Verveer. “It’s not fair that she deserves all of the blame for the dysfunction of the Planning Division while she was there,” Verveer adds. “She felt that she was in this untenable position, that things were so bad on the first day that she was just never given a real chance to succeed by her staff, because of the strong, bitter feelings that many had from the former leadership there.”
of those people who ask, ‘How do we get this done?’ Not, ‘No, no, no, no, no,’” Konkel says. “She was reasonable to work with. She held her ground when she disagreed, but when there was no reason to be obstinate, she went with it.” Erdman won’t comment on the rumors surrounding Cornwell’s departure or the turmoil that has engulfed the department in the past few years. “I think you’re looking for a problem, and I’m not going there,” she says. Meanwhile, Cornwell has been largely absent from city hall since tendering her resignation, which is effective June 1. “People [have] told me that she hasn’t been there since she resigned,” says Verveer. “I don’t know if her office is completely cleaned out or not, but nobody expects to ever really see her again.”
NATALIE ERDMAN,
a Madison native, took over for Cover on an interim basis starting Feb. 1, 2015. Many were relieved when she took the position permanently in July. “I was so excited that Natalie took that job,” says Konkel. “That was just what we needed, to calm things down and right the ship a little bit. I’m sure I don’t agree with her on everything, but I feel I can at least talk with her. She’s been on both sides of the table, and she knows what she’s talking about.” Konkel, executive director of the Tenant Resource Center, worked with Erdman in her previous role as head of Madison’s Community Development Authority. “She’s one
CAROLYN FATH
Natalie Erdman, Cover’s replacement, has been seen as a calming presence for the city.
ERIC TADSEN
Erdman describes the situation differently. “As Katherine’s supervisor, I have granted her a great deal of leeway during her transition, including the ability to work from home as long as she continues to be available by email and for meetings.” As for her replacement, Erdman says “We’re looking for somebody who is innovative. We’re looking for somebody who is going to be able to work well with other department and division heads, as well as constituents in the neighborhoods, as well as the folks who are in our process in terms of land use approvals.” Applications were due on May 1 and more than 20 people have applied. One popular internal candidate is among them. Says Erdman, “We’re excited about the process, and I’m excited to see what sort of people [applied].” She doesn’t anticipate that anyone will be hired until mid-June at the earliest. Konkel says the regime change offers the city an opportunity. “We’re coming up on our next revision of the comprehensive plan,” she says. “It might be an opportunity to strengthen the planning that we do.” Verveer says the city has the perfect model for an effective planning director. “Everyone including me thought the world of Brad Murphy,” he says. “Our new planning division director, I would hope, would emulate many of the qualities that Brad brought to the job,” Verveer adds. “He was supported by his staff 100%. He hired much of the current staff. He was broadly respected and supported both within and outside of city hall, including the major users of the Planning Division: the development community and neighborhood organizations.” n
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rubinsfurniture.com JUNE 17-18 & 22, 2016 MEMORIAL UNION ALL EVENTS ARE FREE (except Joey Alexander)
Fri. June 17
Memorial Union Terrace (rain location - Shannon Hall):
High School All-Stars 4:30pm Ladies Must Swing 6pm Chicago Yestet 8pm Madison Jazz Orchestra 10pm Frederic March Play Circle:
Jazz in the Movies presented by Toni Jakovec 4:45pm JAZZCLASSWITH Gypsy Jazz featuring the Caravan Gypsy Swing Ensemble 6:45pm Afro Latin Music & The Jazz Connection featuring the Nick Moran Quartet 8:30pm
AMERICAN
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Sat. June 18
Memorial Union Terrace (rain location - Shannon Hall):
Edgewood College Jazz Ensemble 1:30pm UW-Whitewater Jazz Ensemble One 3pm UW-Platteville Jazz One 4:30pm Gerri DiMaggio World Jazz Unit 6pm University of Wisconsin Jazz Orchestra with Sharon Clark 8pm Charanga Agoza 10pm Frederic March Play Circle:
8pm
Shannon Hall, Wisconsin Union Theater
Joey Alexander Trio featuring Dan Chmielinski and Ulysses Owens, Jr.
a merica nplayers.org | 608 .588 . 2361 This performance was supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.
www.isthmusjazzfestival.com
MAY 19–25, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM
Jazz Performance: JAZZ WITH CLASS Behind the Scene featuring Marilyn Fisher - Paul Hastil Trio 2:15pm Eric Koppa Triple Saxtet 4pm Film: “The Lighthouse” 5:45pm
Wed. June 22
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The Playhouse at Overture Center TICKETS: ctmtheater.org 608.258.4141 Cummings Christensen Family Foundation
ISTHMUS.COM MAY 19–25, 2016
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On the trail of penis thieves Former Madison writer Frank Bures publishes globe-trotting book BY MAGGIE GINSBERG
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS ROBERTS
award-winning magazine writing career has flourished — is detailed in Bures’ first book, The Geography of Madness. Subtitled Penis Thieves, Voodoo Death, and the Search for the Meaning of the World’s Strangest Syndromes, the book was released last month by Melville House. Bures, who lived in the Madison area from 2003 to 2008 before resettling in Minneapolis, will be back in town to read from his book on May 22 at 2 p.m. at A Room of One’s Own. In The Geography of Madness, Bures explores the idea of culture — What is it? How do we learn it? How is it shaped and how does it shape
us? — from the vantage point of his world travels, which are spontaneous, extensive and kind of weird. The book expands on a 2008 Harper’s essay he wrote on “magical penis theft,” an epidemic that swept Nigeria in the late 1970s in which men (and some women) reported their genitalia had spontaneously disappeared, anthologized in Best American Travel Writing 2009. “All my essays, I guess, are built around some question I want to answer, something I’ve noticed that I want to understand better,” says Bures, when I ask him what kind of writer he is. “I guess I’m just trying to make sense of things.”
And also, he adds, he wants to be honest. “Like, really honest.” That curiosity and honesty sets Bures’ work apart, says Brennan Nardi, who was associate editor at Madison Magazine in 2003 when Bures first walked his resume over to their old offices on South Paterson Street, not far from the Sherman Terrace apartment where Bures and his wife, Bridgit, were living. The couple had chosen Madison for its just-close-enough proximity to their families
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MAY 19–25, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM
After reading about the strange phenomenon of magical penis theft, writer Frank Bures couldn’t shake the idea. He obsessed about it for four years, and then, in 2005, hopped a plane to Nigeria to track down victims of the uniquely cultural epidemic, doggedly pursuing a 10-year-long odyssey through the markets, museums and mental hospitals of Thailand, Borneo, Singapore, Hong Kong and China. That long, strange trip — along with a glimpse into the inner workings of Bures’ exhaustively curious brain, from which an
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■ FOOD & DRINK
The Tunie Awards Madison’s not-so-humble versions of the tuna sandwich BY LINDA FALKENSTEIN
WINE DINNER THURSDAY, MAY 26 6-8:30 PM
Tanya Johnson will be presenting 5 Italian wines along with our 4 course dinner. Hot Artichoke and crab dip Italian salad w/ prosciutto and gorgonzola Apple & bacon stuffed pork loin Strawberry semifreddo Cost $45 • Limited Seating Please RSVP by 5/22 425 N. Frances St. • 256-3186
Check out the menu at www.portabellarestaurant.biz
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The tuna sandwich gets a bum rap. It’s what you graduate to in middle school, after elementary school’s sack lunch PB&J. It’s what you make at home when you have nothing else in the cupboard. The tuna sandwich is a cinch to make yourself, even simple to perk up with probable fridge staples like chopped celery. So why in the world would anyone order a tuna sandwich in a restaurant? Restaurants are for ordering food you can’t or won’t make at home. The humble tuna sandwich? Are you nuts? It doesn’t have to be that way. I’m happy to report that Madison has a number of tuna sandwiches that are not so humble. They’re flashy enough re-create at home — and even order with mindful intention while eating out. The best tuna sandwich in town may be the hardest sell of all: It’s on the menu at the Old Fashioned. This sandwich perfectly outlines the quandary — why would anyone order a tuna sandwich at the Old Fashioned, when the kitchen delivers brilliantly on so many other items? What can I say to sway you away from your favorite — the house burger, the brats, the beer-battered walleye? Believe me: The tuna sandwich here is as delicious as any of these. Very meaty albacore comes mixed with large chunks of roasted red pepper and hard-boiled egg with a spare scattering of red onion. The tuna does not suffer from too much mayo; the balance among the key ingredients here is perfect. The “country” bread is almost a light sourdough, buttered and lightly griddled on the outside. The only thing I would change is the big sphere of tuna salad; it’s a bit messy trying to spread it over the hard-boiled eggs. And although it comes with two dill slices (good move), a sandwich this large could use more pickle. And the sandwich is huge, well worth $9, especially considering it comes with a side of fries or salad. The fresh spring mix is also a generous Wisconsin serving size, and the house dressing here is a friendly vinaigrette. Of course, no matter how good the dressing
LAURA ZASTROW
The Old Fashioned’s tuna sandwich will enchant you with its subtle charms.
is, salad is a hard sell when the alternative is french fries. First runner-up comes from a spot where, again, ordering a tuna sandwich may be the furthest thing from your mind. But the Tonno at Pizza Brutta is so, so worth it. The Tonno is made on incredibly fresh, housemade wood-fired foccaccia, with a simple, fresh wheat flavor that bears no resemblance to the store-bought version of this trendy bread. The tuna is dressed simply with good olive oil and fresh lemon juice — and this is quite lemony. Kalamata olives and a judicious dotting of red onion tarts up the blend. It’s all topped with fresh arugula — and Brutta pays more than lip service to the arugula; there’s a solid layer of it. As Pizza Brutta is not a sandwich joint (in fact sandwiches are served only at lunch, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.), the Tonno ($8) does not come with anything — no side pickle, no chips. But the small beet salad as a side ($6) makes a lovely addition. At Osteria Papavero, the panino col tonno offers a few variations on the theme. It features darker, richer Sicilian tuna, caper aioli (spread on the bread, not mixed with the tuna), marinated artichokes and a soft-boiled egg. The sandwich comes pressed, panino style. The soft-boiled egg is a surprise, and may take some getting used to. But in the end, the egg and
caper aioli make the meal. The sandwich comes with a choice of salad or soup of the day ($11) — a recent cream of cauliflower was light and vegetable-focused — and is only served at lunch. An unexpected find this spring was the Rock Bar tuna salad from the new food cart Buzzy’s Lake House — albacore with kalamata olives and artichokes and again, just a bit of red onion. Lemon and olive oil dress the tuna, along with a light application of mayo. It’s available on wheat bread or fresh greens ($8) and is perfect outdoor picnic fare. And what about when you’re just grabbing subs to go? My pick is from Which Wich, where all the sandwiches are very customizable with numerous add-ons. The bread here, which I would describe as “sort of a baguette,” is crustier than the sweeter bun from Milio’s and works well with the tuna. There’s already a lot of mayo mixed in, so skip adding other dressings. But the olive salad spread (as usually found in a muffuletta) makes a very amenable partner, as do the crispy onion strings and, for an extra $1, sliced hard-boiled egg. The small ($5.75/7inch) is a filling single-serving size. It comes in a brown paper bag, but it’s a long way from your middle school lunch. ■
Three to try Grilled pound cake hot fudge sundae
Salted caramel pecan shake
Ella’s Deli, 2902 E. Washington Ave.
DLUX, 117 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Let the carnival atmosphere fade as you focus only on the hot, rich pound cake melting your cool, rich ice cream. The deep chocolate sauce pulls the two vanilla flavors together.
Choosing among the playful shake flavors is difficult, but the salty-sweet dynamic of the salted caramel pecan wins. Bonus: It’s made with Sassy Cow ice cream.
Brownie boat sundae Babcock Hall Dairy Store, 1605 Linden Drive
The brownie boat sundae starts with a fudgie brownie. Three scoops of ice cream (you choose the flavors) are topped with hot fudge, pecans and whipped cream. Union favorite orange custard chocolate chip is definitely an option.
on
MAY 22 ND T H R O U G HTH T H R O U G H
MAY 26
THROUGH
D IS H
MON RO E
on T H R O U G H
Savor the flavors of Monroe Stre t onon
Savor the flavors of Monroe Street www.dishonmonroe.com
Proceeds benefit Second Harvest Foodbank
MONROE STREET ✦ PUBLIC HOUSE
Burgers and Beers
Daily special burger with discounted draft beer.
Pasqual’s Street Food
Texas Style Smoked Brisket
Texas-style Smoked Brisket served various ways throughout the week.
Schnitzelfest
Daily dinner schnitzel specials.
T H R O U G H
Explore a sampling of some popular Mexican style street food.
Nitro Cold Press Floats Nitro Cold Press Floats and Affogatos.
Cortado Espresso
www. d i s h o n mo n r o e . c o m Pr o c e d s b e n e fi t S e c o n d Ha r v e s t F o d b a n k www. d i s h o n mo n r o e . c o m Pr o c e d s b e n e fi t S e c o n d Ha r v e s t F o d b a n k Savor the flavors of Monroe Street Savor the flavors of Monroe Street Savor Savor the the flavors flavors of of Monroe Monroe Street Street Bacon Mac n’ Cheese
Traditional Cortado Espresso Drink paired with our Featured Dessert.
on Proceeds benefit Second Harvest Foodbank www.dishonmonroe.com Bacon Mac n’ Cheese – comforting and tasty. Ours has cheddar cheese sauce, bacon and bread crumbs.
Mad for Moules-Frites
We are mad for moules at Brasserie V! We will offer daily moules specials, paired with beer.
Prosciutto Arugula Pizza
Try our Prosciutto Arugula Pizza with a wine pairing.
Oysterfest
Share your experience for a chance to win gift certificates and other giveaways: #dishonmonroe #savortheflavors #fivedaysofdelicious
Savorwww. the flavors dishonmonroe. cof om Monroe Proceeds Street benefitProceeds Second Harvest Foodbank For more information: benefi t www. dishonmonroe.com Proceeds benefit Harvest Foodbank www.dishonmonroe.com ProceedsSecond benefit Second Second Harvest Foodbank www.dishonmonroe.com Proceeds benefit Second Harvest Foodbank www.dishonmonroe.com Harvest Foodbank
MAY 19–25, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM
on
$1 Bluepoint oysters every day, all day, all week long!
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hese Visit t their at carts tions loca hout througmmer the su
• Weekdays on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. • Saturdays on State St. and W. Mifflin St.
Banzo
• Open weekends & Holidays • Taste of Wisconsin, Kenosha • Restaurant Location: 7424 74th Pl., Kenosha
Mediterranean
Buzzy’s Lake House American
• Check Facebook or Twitter for Monday Locations • Tuesdays at University Row and Whitney Way • Wednesdays at Promega, Fitchburg • Thursdays at University Research Park • Fridays at Covance
MAY 22 2-6PM
Cadence Cold Brew Coffee Coffee
SOLD OUT!
• Available at Rosie’s Coffee Bar, Chocolaterian, Madison Sourdough, Sardine, The Madison Club, UW Health-Mendota Market, Cafe Hollander at Hilldale, Yola’s Cafe
Cafe Costa Rica Costa Rican
• Weekdays at Library Mall • Saturdays on E. Washington Ave.
CAFE SOCIAL Coffee
• Sundays on Pinckney St. • Saturdays at Hillsdale Farmers’ Market • Sundays at Monona Farmers’ Market
Cali Fresh Mexi-Cali
CENTRAL PARK
ISTHMUS.COM MAY 19–25, 2016
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Mexican/Puerto Rican
El Grito Taqueria Mexican
• Weekdays & Saturdays on W. Washington Ave. and S. Carroll St.
Ernie’s Kettle Korn Popcorn
• Wednesdays at Lake Mills Farmers’ Market • Thursdays at Breese Stevens Bodega • Fridays at Summer Sounds, Cedarburg • Saturdays at Sun Prairie Farmers’ Market • Sundays at Monroe Street Farmers’ Market
Freeman Brothers BBQ Barbecue
• Visit their website at FreemanBrothersBBQ.com for upcoming events and locations
Fresh Cool Drinks Juice/smoothies
• Weekdays at Library Mall • Saturdays on E. Mifflin St.
Gigi’s Cupcakes Cupcakes
• Let’s Eat Out! Neighborhood Dinners • Bakery Location: 554 N. Midvale Blvd.
Greek Street Greek
• Weekdays at Library Mall • Saturdays on S. Pinckney St.
Guilty Pleasure Desserts
Caracas Empanadas
• Barriques Market, Fitchburg • Let’s Eat Out! Neighborhood Dinners
Venezuelan
Desserts
• Weekdays at Library Mall • Saturdays on E. Main St. and King St.
Jakarta Cafe
Chef K Clark Pickles and Preserves
• Weekdays at Library Mall • Saturdays on E. Mifflin St. • Let’s Eat Out! Neighborhood Dinners
Pickles
J D ADISH
El Chile Caliente
• Weekdays at Library Mall • Saturdays on W. Main St. and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Roadside Culture Stand Sponsored by Wormfarm Institute
WITH BY MUSIC
Popcorn
• Thursdays at Heid Music Summer Concert Series, Appleton • Saturdays at Downtown Appleton Farmers Market, Appleton • Mile of Music, Appleton • Valley Food Truck Rally, Menasha • Various other Appleton Festivals through September
• Weekdays at Library Mall • Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays & Saturdays at S. Pinckney St. and E. Washington Ave. • Tuesdays & Thursdays at W. Dayton St. and N. Charter St. • Restaurant Locations: 2105 Sherman Ave. & 1511 Williamson St.
THIS SUNDAY!
Curt’s Gourmet Popcorn
Indonesian
JD’s
• Wednesdays & Saturdays at Hilldale Farmers’ Market • Sundays at Monona Farmers’ Market • Shorewood Farmers’ Market, Milwaukee • Eastside and Fitchburg Hy-Vee • Maple Leaf Cheese and Chocolate Haus, New Glarus • Clock Shadow Creamery, Milwaukee • Fermentation Fest, Reedsburg
• Late Night on University Ave. and N. Frances St. • Let’s Eat Out! Neightborhood Dinners • Shake the Lake • Taste of Madison • Badger Football Games • Available for Catering and Special Events
Crescendo Mobile Bar
Kona Ice of Madison
Coffee
• 3rd Annual Beer and Chocolate Tasting at The Goodman Center • Capitol View Triathalon and Duathalon • Her Madison Marathon • Café location: 1859 Monroe Street, Madison
Brats and Burgers
Shave Ice
• Various times at McKee Farms Park, Fitchburg • Various Local Park Concerts • Available for Catering and Special Events
#ISTHMUSFCF ISTHMUSFOODCARTFEST.COM
Orchard St.
Latin
Randall Ave.
Anthony’s Concessions
St . La ng do n
Frances St. Lake St.
Frances St.
Park St.
Brooks St.
Vietnamese
• Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays & Fridays on 900 block of University Ave. • Tuesdays at 500 S. Rosa Rd. • Fridays & Saturdays Late Night on Broom St. • Let’s Eat Out! Neighborhood Dinners
Natural Juice Juice/smoothies
• Weekdays at Library Mall • Saturdays on W. Main St.
S. Hamilton St.
Mills St. Orchard St.
Charter St.
Mi
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• Weekdays on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. • Wednesdays 8-11 pm outside Gib’s Bar on Williamson St. • Saturdays on S. Pinckney St.
vd
Grilled Cheese
.W
Thai-riffic Thai
The Looking Glass Bakery
Cheese
• Available at Metcalfe’s Market, Metro Market, Festival Foods and Hy-Vee Madison locations
Saigon Sandwich Vietnamese
• Weekdays on W. Johnson St.
Slide Food Cart Sliders
Asian Fusion
• Weekdays on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. • Restaurant Location: 2990 Cahill Main, Suite 106, Fitchburg
Taquitos Marimar Mexican
• Weekdays at Library Mall
Taste of Jamerica Jamaican
• Weekdays at Library Mall • Restaurant Location: 1236 Williamson St., Madison
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St
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Roth Wisconsin Cheese
SoHo Gourmet Cuisines
MELTED
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• Weekdays at Library Mall
Mary’s Egg Rolls • Weekdays on W. Dayton St.
W
• Weekdays at E. Washington Ave. and Pinckney St.
• Weekdays at Library Mall • Saturdays on E. Main St.
Egg Rolls
Bl
Barbecue
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St
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• Weekdays on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. • Saturdays on S. Pinckney St. • Let’s Eat Out! Neighborhood Dinners
Thai/Laotian
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Pickle Jar
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Luang Prabang Thai Food
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• Weekdays at 308 E. College Ave., Appleton • Saturdays at Kaukauna Farmers’ Market • Fox Valley Food Truck Rally at Pierce Park, Appleton
El Grito e.
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Daily (Mon-Fri) Saturdays Daily + Saturdays Sunday Late night
Pickle Jar Greek Street Melted Café Social
Ladonia Café SoHo Cali Fresh Curt’s Slide Melted
ll
Crepes
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Le Prince French Crepes
. St
• Weekdays at E. Main St. and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. • Saturdays on S. Pinckney St. • Let’s Eat Out! Neighborhood Dinners • Various Madison Summer Festivals, Madison
ld
Vegan/Vegetarian
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St
Café Costa Rica
Banzo (M, W, F, Sat) Jakarta Café Ladonia Café Slide Curt’s CAPITOL Caracas Empanadas SQUARE Natural Juice Luang Prabang
hi
. St
Healthy Comfort Food
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Ladonia Cafe
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JD’s
W. Dayton St.
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St
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Banzo (Tue & Thur)
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• Tuesdays on American Parkway • Thursdays at Covance • MadCity Bazaar, 1st & 3rd weekend of the month • Let’s Eat Out! Neighborhood Dinners
The Rigby Pub American
• Bacon, Brew, & BBQ Fest at Angell Park, Sun Prairie • Taste of Madison on the Capitol Square • Country Fest at 24447 County Hwy S, Cadott • Restaurant Location: 119 E. Main St.
Toast Food Cart Paninis
• Weekdays at Library Mall • Wednesday Dinners at the Capitol View Farmers’ Market • Let’s Eat Out! Neighborhood Dinners • Various Weekend Festivals • Available for Catering and Special Events
WeGo Waffles Waffles
• Mondays & Thursdays on Rosa Rd. • Tuesday & Thursday nights in Schenk’s Corners • Various times at Parched Eagle Brewpub
U THANKONYSO ORS TO OUR SP
MAY 19–25, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM
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TODD HUBLER
Here a cart, there a cart Food vendors fan out to office parks and fundraisers BY DYLAN BROGAN
This week at Capitol Centre Market
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Food carts have been thriving downtown, and now other neighborhoods in Madison are seeing an influx of mobile eateries. Office parks in particular have been attracting more food cart vendors during lunchtime hours. Weekly cart dinner nights will return to residential neighborhoods this summer. And increasingly, food carts are showing up at pubs and festivals, and at fundraising events. Warren Hansen, street vending coordinator for the city of Madison, says food carts are filling a void in areas where dining options are limited. At University Research Park on the city’s west side, several food carts are open three days a week to serve the lunch crowd. “Research Park added several picnic tables and benches. Now that there are leaves on the trees again, there’s shade. So it’s a really nice environment for lunch,” says Hansen. On the far east side, a similar setup has emerged at the American Center Business Park, where Alliant Energy, American Family Insurance and many other companies are located. Typically, two or three vendors are there mid-day, but more are expected now that UW-Madison is out for the semester. A few weeks ago, Promega Corp. started hosting food cart days at two of its locations in Fitchburg. On Tuesdays, Porktropolis, Taqueria Sabor Queretano and Jakarta Cafe have been coming to Promega’s Kepler Center on Nobel Drive. On Wednesdays, Porktropolis, Buzzy’s Lake House, Ribmasters and Bubbles Doubles have been serving lunch at Promega headquarters on East Cheryl Parkway. Most days, at least one food cart vends in front of the biotech company Covance near the Madison College-Truax campus. Food carts are also popping up during the lunch hour a few days a week on Deming Way at Excelsior Drive, University Avenue at Whitney Way and off Rimrock Road at Badger Road. Unfortunately, often the only way to know where a cart might show up on a particular day is to check its Facebook page. Hansen says there is also talk of food carts regularly serving lunch at the Village on
Park mall and a yet-to-be determined location on Science Drive. There are no longer food carts heading out to the Epic campus in Verona, however. Let’s Eat Out, a membership organization for food carts, is once again organizing weekly dinners across Madison, Mondays through Thursdays, 5-7:30 p.m., June 13Aug. 4. On Mondays carts are on the north side on the 1400 block of Wheeler Road, Franklin Elementary School, off Park Street on Hughes Place and at Sandburg Elementary. Tuesdays they’re at Vilas Park, the 400 block of Midvale Boulevard, East Madison Baptist Church on Milwaukee Street, and Fireman’s Park in DeForest. Wednesdays head to Allied Drive, Country Grove, Shorewood Hills and John Muir Elementary. Thursdays are Atwood Avenue at Jackson Street, Meadowood Park, Nakoma Park and the City Church at 4909 E. Buckeye Rd. A rotating cast of food carts are assigned to the sites by Let’s Eat Out organizer Christine Ameigh, often on the day of vending, so again, it’s not always easy to know in advance who’s going to be where. Food carts have also become a popular addition to fundraising events. Let’s Eat Out schedules carts to vend, and donates 15% of sales for schools and other nonprofits hosting benefit lunches and dinners. “It’s definitely taken off. We have 23 fundraisers lined up just this month,” says Ameigh. On a more ad hoc basis, vendors have increasingly been teaming up with taverns for pop-up dinners, showing up at night or for special events. Set schedules for these events can also be hard to come by. El Grito typically serves tacos on Thursday nights outside of the Robin Room; Melted will be slinging grilled cheese sandwiches at Gib’s Bar on Wednesday nights once a month. The Malt House has been hosting carts most Friday nights (check its Facebook page). Fair warning: Most food cart events are “weather-permitting.” David Rodriguez, owner of the Melted food cart, says customers tend to dry up during a downpour: “We go to work for the same reason you do — to make money.” n
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■ FOOD & DRINK
The Lone Girl preps to open The brewpub could revitalize Waunakee’s downtown
Mutha Pucka pineapple sour blonde ale
BY ROBIN SHEPARD
...serves Breakfast & Lunch everyday from 8 to 3? featuring inventive comfort food always made from scratch
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The area’s newest brewpub, the Lone Girl Brewing Company, is set to open in Waunakee in early June. The two-story, 11,000-square-foot facility is the anchor tenant for Waunakee’s new Village Crossing project on Main Street. Its brew house, main bar, restaurant, rooftop beer garden with a bandstand and a fire pit demonstrate that this is an ambitious design that may well fuel the revitalization of downtown Waunakee. The project has been in construction for over a year at the site where Koltes Lumber had operated since the 1880s. The brewpub’s interior decor is rustic and industrial. On the main floor there’s seating for 185, with a main bar flanked by five stainless steel beer-serving tanks. The 10-barrel brew house can also be seen from inside the bar and through windows along Main Street. A can’t-miss feature of the main dining room is a windowed rotunda with a seven-foot-diameter table made by local artist Jeremiah Logemann, who used reclaimed timber from a local barn. Reclaimed wood was also used for the dining tables, shelves and main bar. Also inviting is the rooftop beer garden. It has its own bar, entertainment
New at Next Door
ROBIN SHEPARD
stage and a play area for kids. The tabletops and benches came from white oak trees that once stood on the University Ridge golf course. Co-owner and general manager Kevin Abercrombie wants the Lone Girl to be a destination for family outings, date nights and softball team celebrations. He’s hired local homebrewer John Russell as head brewer. Russell won best of show in the 2015 Grumpy Troll Challenge with a sweet stout. A version of that beer, along with an IPA and a cream ale, are expected to be the first house brews when Lone Girl opens. The first in-house beer release is slated for June. “We’ve waited a little longer to open so we can serve some of our own beers,” says Abercrombie. The name the Lone Girl is inspired by Abercrombie’s daughter. Abercrombie and his wife also have two sons; his primary business partner, Paul Kozlowski, and his wife have five sons.
“There is a lot more interest in sours,” says Next Door Brewing’s Bryan Kreiter. “They aren’t overtaking IPAs and hoppy beers, but drinkers look for them.” Next Door almost always has at least one sour on tap. This one has about 10 pounds of pineapple concentrate added to the fermenter for a three-barrel batch. Mutha Pucka is crisp and tart. It’s approachable to those who are curious about sours, and avoids the intense acidity found in some kettle-soured beers made with lactobacillus. I enjoy it for the assertive pineapple tartness that eventually becomes dry, more like grapefruit. That tart tropical twist gives depth to the flavor. It’s also effervescent and initially comes off as quite refreshing; however, at nearly 7% ABV, there’s an alcohol warmth that builds and takes a little of the fruity crispness off the pineapple. Bomber bottles of Mutha Pucka sell for $12 each at the brewpub. More will be released in late May or early June, but after that, it will be gone for the year. The beer finishes at 6.7% ABV. This sour is best served extremely cold to bring out its tartness. — ROBIN SHEPARD
Cheers to 12 years Natt Spil revamps namesake cocktail, adds new spring flavors
LAURA ZASTROW
There’s a certain kind of cocktail that, when served to a customer, inspires bar patrons to ditch their original drink order and say: “Actually, I’ll have one of those.” Bartenders are familiar with this phenomenon: A classic example is a Bloody Mary. My friends and I were guilty of this the other night at Natt Spil, when we became overcome with desire after seeing the bartender garnish a delicious-looking cocktail with Tuaca-infused whipped cream and a twist of orange. The drink was a Natt Spil 12.0 — named in honor of the bar’s 12th birthday, which was in March. With espresso vodka, bittersweet Amaro Montenegro, Bittercube orange bitters and simple syrup, it’s satisfy-
ingly complex, not too sweet and totally drinkable. A previous recipe used a pre-made iced coffee, but this latest iteration has been revamped to incorporate all housemade ingredients, to great success. Other new additions to the menu include the Mama Rosita, made with grapefruit-infused tequila, vermouth and Campari — it’s a downright genius take on a classic Negroni. The Let’s Do Lunch captures all the best flavors of spring, combining gin, raspberry liqueur, cucumber, lime juice and orange bitters. Remember Fla-Vor-Ice? It’s like that. But so much better.
— ALLISON GEYER
ISTHMUS.COM MAY 19–25, 2016
Eats events
28
Northside Farmers’ Market Annual Plant Swap Sunday, May 22
The usual market offerings plus, this week only, a plant and seed exchange. Trade house plants, vegetable seedlings and perennials for another plant or Dane County TimeBank hours. Limit of four hostas and/or daylilies. At Northside Farmers’ Market, 2845 N. Sherman Ave., 9 am-noon, 608-217-9631.
Tai Chi & Tea Friday, May 20
UW kinesiology lecturer Bob Yu teaches a free drop-in tai chi class each Friday. Tea and healthy snacks are also provided. At Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center, 953 Jenifer St., 10:30 am-12:30 pm.
James C. Wright Middle School food cart fundraiser Thursday, May 26
Food carts are raising funds for Wright Middle School. Participating carts include Slide, Greek Street, Buzzy’s Lake House, Taquitos Marimar and Kona Ice of Madison. At Wright Middle School, 1717 Fish Hatchery Rd., 3:45-5:45 pm. 15% of dinner sales will be donated to the school. More info on Facebook.
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The Chicago Cubs make baseball history almost daily. Off to a Major League record 27-10 start (as of May 17), this once laughable franchise is on pace to win a recordshattering 120-plus games. No wonder Chicago, which hasn’t won a World Series since 1908, is hailed as the “Last Great American Sports Story” on the cover of the May 16 issue of Sports Illustrated. Then something completely unexpected happened Tuesday, when the Cubs and their rowdy fans invaded Miller Park for the first of a three-game series: Milwaukee pitcher Chase Anderson took a no-hitter into the eighth inning, and the Brewers beat Chicago 4-2. Nevertheless, no other team even comes close to the Cubs’ plus-109 run differential, defined as total number of runs scored in all games minus total number of runs scored by opponents in all games. For context, the Brewers’ run differential was minus 38, before the Cubs series. Chicago’s fast start has made Milwaukee’s rebuilding effort to return to competitiveness in baseball’s toughest division even more daunting.
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Kris Bryant: Part of the lavish Cubs rebuilding program. CHICAGO CUBS
I am a longtime non-fan of the Cubs and only slightly ashamed to admit that for several years, I refused to drive down a specific street on the way to my parents’ home in the Fox Valley because one of the nearby houses boldly flew a large Cubs flag in the yard.
That said, I can’t help but shake my head in quiet respect for what this year’s Cubs are doing. Despite losing both games of a doubleheader to the lowly San Diego Padres the day Sports Illustrated hit mailboxes — that SI cover curse is alive and well! — the Cubs bounced back and took two of three from the Pittsburgh Pirates before coming into Milwaukee with a winning percentage of .750. Only five years ago, the Cubs finished 61101, 36 games out of first place. Enter Theo Epstein, who as baseball’s youngest general manager in 2004 led the Boston Red Sox to a World Series title for the first time in 86 years. Epstein became president of baseball operations for the Cubs in 2011 and began a rebuilding process even more epic than what he accomplished in Boston. Together with fun-loving manager Joe Maddon, whom Epstein hired from the Tampa Bay Rays for the 2015 season, Epstein exorbitantly built a club for the ages with newly minted household names like Kris Bryant and 2015 Cy Young Award winner Jake Arrieta. “We feel like we can win every game,” Bryant told SI. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” Neither have the rest of us. ■
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CELEBRATE ALL THINGS WISCONSIN SATURDAY JUNE 18, 2016 5 PM - 10 PM
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Hail to the chump Onion alum authors a field guide to a Donald Trump presidency BY ALLISON GEYER
With his overblown personality, overblown hairstyle, trollish demeanor and penchant for jaw-droppingly offensive comments, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump might seem like a goldmine of material for political humorists. But for Scott Dikkers, a former Madisonian, founding editor of The Onion and bestselling author of such humor books as Our Dumb Century and Our Dumb World, satirizing Trump presented a considerable challenge. “Trump is a walking hyperbole, a walking comedic character — that actually makes it very difficult for a comedy writer,” Dikkers says. “You need contrast. When you start with a clown, where do you go?” On April 15, Dikkers released Trump’s America: The Complete Loser’s Guide, a road map to the impending “Trumpocalypse.” It gives readers a glimpse into what a Trump presidency would look like, from a revamp of the White House into the Trump Presidential Plaza to the creation of new government agencies like the Department of Civil Rights and How to Stop Whining About Them. To generate material for the book, Dikkers led a team of writers from a workshop called “Writing with The Onion,” sponsored by the Chicago comedy troupe The Second City. The book is now available for purchase online and in select bookstores.
Dikkers began working on the book in late August 2015 — a time when many still regarded Trump’s candidacy as a joke, dismissing his popularity in the polls as a “summer fling,” Dikkers recalls. Nobody was willing to take on the project. “We literally couldn’t get it published. All of the big publishers said Trump’s not going to be around in the spring or the summer.” But Dikkers believed early on that Trump’s candidacy would endure, and he eventually partnered with a micropublisher. Dikkers says he learned through his work at The Onion that satirical news often has a “strange, bizarre history” of predicting the future. So it came as little surprise that some of the joke concepts brainstormed for the book found their way into Trump’s campaign talking points.
One prime example: In the chapter titled “President Trump: America’s New Boss,” readers are introduced to the First Lady, the First Family and the First Penis — a toupee-clad phallus “known for setting the standard of genital excellence in both business and politics.” “We had a sense that his penis was going to be important in the campaign,” Dikkers says. “Lo and behold, a few months later, he’s literally bringing it up at the debate. That’s the beauty of satire — it means you did your work and you really did nail the character.” Other notable excerpts include Trump’s plan to revamp the White House press room with slot machines, an all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet (laced with Ambien) and a “reporter delousing chamber.” Also hilarious is a section offering Trump’s comprehensive assessments of every single U.S. president who preceded him; George H.W. Bush is a “Class-A nerd,” and Thomas Jefferson gets kudos for having sex with his slave women. The marketing team behind the book is hoping that Trump will sue, which seems a likely reaction from the notoriously thinskinned candidate. But Dikkers hopes the mocking, fictional look at a potential Trump presidency will encourage voters to make sure it never becomes reality. “The whole point of satire is to expose human foibles,” Dikkers says. “If you get [readers] thinking rationally about what they’re doing, then you’ve achieved the goal.” n
The Geography of Madness continued from 21
in Minnesota, and the Iowa-born Bures had also lived in Madison (shout-out, Orchard Ridge kindergarten!) when his dad was in residency at UW Hospital from 1975 to 1978. “Most essay writers and columnists collect and share personal experiences that channel universal truths,” says Nardi. “Frank’s universe is upside down. And yet, the truths he finds are equally universal.” While in Madison, Bures wrote regularly for Madison Magazine and Isthmus (when he wasn’t tackling data entry at Avol’s Bookstore), churning out stories that might have otherwise gone untold. “How Gay Is Madison?” explored the purported correlation between a city’s LGBT population and a vibrant, “creative class” economy. There was a story about “the orange guy playing piccolo down on State Street, pissing everybody off” and a profile on a local man’s experience with transcendental meditation. He also wrote mainstream features, including profiles on then-new UW Badgers football coach Bret Bielema, and Police Chief Noble Wray during the unsolved Brittany Zimmerman murder case (“That one gave me night-
mares.”). Bures wrote about Russ Feingold before he was voted out, and Suzy Favor Hamilton “before she was interesting.” (“I knew there was stuff she wasn’t telling me,” he says.) In Madison, Bures developed the sort of travel writing that defines his new book, where it’s not necessarily where you go, but how you see where you are. For example, Nardi says her favorite Bures piece was a travel story in which he walked from his home in Verona to downtown Madison. “I tried really hard to stay out of his way,” says Nardi, “and let his natural curiosity, subversive ideas and creative narrative do the heavy lifting.” That’s still working for Bures, who now writes from an office above a cafe in Minneapolis within short biking distance of the house he shares with Bridgit and their two daughters. His stories have appeared in Harper’s, Outside, Esquire, Bicycling, Men’s Health, Scientific American Mind and The Washington Post Magazine, as well as a number of Best American Travel Writing anthologies. The Geography of Madness is not limited to ruminations on penis theft in Nigeria, nor is
it a narrowed, ethnocentric study; other symptoms and so-called epidemics, if they’re unique to a culture, are subject to Bures’ scrutiny — including premenstrual syndrome in the United States. Arguably the best glimpse into Bures’ relentless pursuit of knowledge comes at the end of the book, in the beefy 42-page bibliography — a fascinating read in and of itself. The buttoned-up, bespectacled Midwestern-polite Bures (who also speaks fluent Swahili and Italian, a passing Spanish and “a deteriorated version of Thai”) has a quiet, almost reverent way of slipping in and out of both country and story, telling what he sees in a way that lets you draw your own conclusions. As readers, we get to ask every question we didn’t even know we had. “Being a writer gives you permission to talk to people that you wouldn’t have if you were just a normal, nosy person wanting to ask people things,” says Bures. “At some point, you’re not fit for anything else.” n
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mentions to Isthmus during a recent interview from her New York City hotel room. Back then, the quartet was just starting to build a reputation in the United States and was touring in support of its debut album, Silence Yourself, released four months earlier. Fast-forward two and a half years and Savages — fresh off appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show (“That’s so mainstream,” Milton laughs) and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert — returns to the High Noon on May 20. The band’s dark, hypnotic and bass-heavy second album, Adore Life, is generating universal adoration from the likes of Rolling Stone, The New York Times and NPR’s All Things Considered. “Between record one and record two, there’s definitely been some growth,” Milton says. “We’ve pushed forward sonically, and the audience is growing with us.” Silence Yourself, band members admit, was filled with ruthless aggression and militant politics. Adore Life, conversely, charts new lyrical territory, delivering haunting images of love over hate, eroticism over embattlement, and pleasure over pain. What the band lacks in musical subtlety, it makes up for in its mysterious and, in the case of vocalist/lyricist Jehnny Beth and gui-
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tarist Gemma Thompson, vaguely androgynous presentation. But that’s not necessarily the intent. “Nothing we do is prescribed,” Milton says. “It wasn’t like, ‘Let’s be mysterious.’ We were always into the music first. The music has to lead, and we’re the force behind that. The insight into who we are comes much better from the music we play.” And they play with penetrating vengeance, as if the public’s adoration for their music could all come crashing down tomorrow. Beth, from time to time, even borrows a page from Iggy Pop’s playbook and walks on the shoulders of Savages fans in the crowd. But then, on “When in Love,” she spews such couplets as “Oh I hate your taste in music” and “I want your fingers down my throat.” Reviewers have attached the term “postpunk” to Savages’ sound, a term Milton, who listens to a lot of jazz and boasts a classical music background, doesn’t even pretend to under-
stand. “I’ve never recognized post-punk as a genre,” she says. “The music is just a sound, a sonic expression.” While there’s unquestionable urgency here derived from the British punk scene of the 1970s, the members of Savages dig deep into their own psyches and wander into electronic and experimental territory. The comparisons to PJ Harvey and Siouxsie & the Banshees are inevitable, but Adore Life also has reminded some critics of Soundgarden, with “Surrender” echoing early U2 in both name and sound. Savages is booked for 30 festivals worldwide this summer, and the band plans to spend a good chunk of 2016 touring the United States — including a sold-out twonight stand at Red Rocks in Colorado in August with a reunited LCD Soundsystem. Says Milton: “It’s going to be pretty insane.” ■
Backing up the Fab Four In My Life stars a La Follette grad and local string quartet BY MICHAEL POPKE
2201 Atwood Ave.
“We’ve pushed forward sonically,” says drummer Fay Milton (second from right).
gig is the fiCheer rst thing drummer Fay Milton Come On The
The Beatles may have broken up three decades before Mary Deck, Glen Kuenzi, Brett Petrykowski and Tatiana Tandias were even born, but the members of the Madison West High School String Quartet will play a supporting role in resurrecting the band’s musical legacy at the Barrymore Theatre on Saturday, May 21. In My Life: A Musical Theatre Tribute to the Beatles retells the Fab Four’s story through the eyes of manager Brian Epstein. The highly acclaimed touring production features noteperfect performances from the renowned Beatles tribute band, Abbey Road, whose members perform 33 Beatles songs in the musical. The production includes multimedia, period costumes and vintage instruments. The Barrymore show is also a homecoming for Madison native and 1995 La Follette High School graduate Nate Bott, a member of Abbey Road, who portrays John Lennon. For Bott, who once played with the defunct power-pop band Big City Rock — which
sounded “like the Killers but without the selfconsciousness,” according to long-gone Blender magazine — returning to the Barrymore brings back plenty of memories. “Seeing the Pixies in their original lineup at the Barrymore was one of the coolest shows I’ve seen to this day,” he says. “And I played there when I was 16 in my high school band, Stinkfish, at a ska fest.” For the West High strings players, this is a chance to play alongside professional touring musicians. “We learned there are several strong programs in the area,” says Andy Nagle, In My Life’s producer and co-author, adding that local quartets must be able to play “Eleanor Rigby” and “Yesterday” “spot on.” This opportunity is a first for West’s music department, according to Fred Schrank, the school’s orchestra director and longtime bassist for the Madison Symphony Orchestra. “Most high school musicians perform concerts where their audience is primarily their parents and family members.” For Deck, a 15-year-old violinist, part of the appeal is performing music that inspired her. “When I was a kid, my younger brother and I
MICHELLE FAIRLESS
Nate Bo (le ) plays John Lennon in the touring production.
would make fake guitars out of Tinkertoys and pretend to play along with Beatles CDs,” says Deck. “The fun I had pretending to play Beatles concerts is part of what made me want to play the violin.” Schrank anticipates the performance will be a milestone for his students. “My hope is they become aware of the opportunities out there other than playing classical music,” he says. “Now more than ever, violin, viola and cello players can be seen in many different types of bands and musical settings. It’s just one more avenue they can explore.” ■
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n SCREENS
The element of surprise The Nice Guys keeps us on our toes BY SCOTT RENSHAW
Shane Black is that rare oddball who’s made a successful decades-long career out of zigging when every script note says you should zag. In 1993, he co-wrote the screenplay for The Last Action Hero, a blockbuster action movie that made fun of the conventions in blockbuster action movies. He packed his hilarious buddydetective thriller Kiss Kiss Bang Bang with tidbits like a frustrated attempt to preserve a severed finger. Even Black’s foray into the carefully controlled Marvel universe in Iron Man 3 kept the superhero in street clothes for much of the movie, upending the idea of the super-villain. A new Shane Black movie offers the giddymaking prospect of something that can catch you completely off guard. The Nice Guys returns to that buddy-detective-thriller milieu he’s been working ever since his very first produced script, for the original Lethal Weapon. In 1977 Los Angeles, private detective Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is searching for a missing girl named Amelia (Margaret Qualley); she’s hired tough guy Jackson Healey (Russell Crowe) to make sure that people who are searching for her don’t find her.
Black revels in the grunginess of his 1970s period setting. He makes maximum use of a delightful soundtrack packed with funk and disco classics, but he’s more interested in a specifically Southern Californian world of seedy porn theaters, over-the-top Hollywood parties, gas station lines and an omnipresent blanket of brown smog. Throw in a plot based on a very particular kind of conspiracy, and you’ve got something as specific in its 1970s-by-way-of2010s California as Chinatown was in its 1930sby-way-of-1970s California. But The Nice Guys is pure comedy — and that comedy is almost always built on something coming at you from out of left field. Black is brilliant at using the backgrounds, edges and light-revealed darkness of his frame to catch an audience off-guard with a hilarious bit of business. He undercuts the tough-guy expectations of his plot by making Gosling’s character an often-bumbling scaredy-cat, whether fighting with a bathroom stall door to keep a gun trained on someone or squealing like a girl when danger erupts. It’s a movie full of visual and verbal punch lines too delicious to spoil, because the joy comes from the fact that you just never saw them coming. n
Russell Crowe (left) and Ryan Gosling play unexpected allies.
No more business as usual This Changes Everything documents the work of climate change activists BY ESTY DINUR
In the documentary This Changes Everything, filmmaker Naomi Klein highlights the extraordinary coalition-building and resistance to environmental destruction that is happening all over the world. According to Klein, this activist movement is one of two factors that could save our planet from the horrors of a boiling world. The other is the human ability to drop one narrative and adopt a new one.
The old narrative, says Klein, gained traction in the 17th century when a group of British scientists concluded that science grants god-like powers to humans; the earth is a machine and we are engineers who can do to it whatever we like. That worldview merged with the capitalist notions that all is fair when it comes to amassing riches, and that so-called sacrifice zones and populations are inevitable side effects of “progress.” The logical endgame is pollution, violent weather, rising seas,
ISTHMUS.COM MAY 19–25, 2016
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species extinction and horrific living conditions for millions. Klein’s film tells a new story. Directed by her husband, Avi Lewis, and based on her bestselling book by the same title, This Changes Everything puts forth the notion that everyday people can affect the course of climate change. Governments, beholden to wealthy corporations and individuals, won’t alter policy course without pressure from below. Pressure is on, and it’s coming primarily from people who have the most to lose. Klein documents resistance to fossil fuel extraction and distribution from Native Americans, fishermen in India, ranchers in Montana, Chinese environmentalists, citizens in Greece and Germany and even workers in Canada’s tar sands. Stopping the most catastrophic effects of climate change, Klein says, is about people everywhere organizing, blockading, disrupting business-as-usual and taking care of each other. Klein’s global view is supported by events closer to home: Despite extraordinary support from Gov. Scott Walker’s administration for an iron ore mine in the Penokee Mountains range, a coalition of grassroots environmentalists and members of the nearby Bad River Reservation made business inconvenient enough that Gogebic Taconite corporation pulled out of northern
Anti-mining protesters in Greece are part of a global resistance movement.
Wisconsin — a huge win for the nearby Native communities and the environment. But many of these struggles are ongoing. Vanessa Braided Hair, an activist from the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, which owns rights to the land on which the tar sands megaindustrial complex was constructed, sums it up: “If you drink water and breathe air, this is about you.” n This Changes Everything will show at the Barrymore Theatre at 7 p.m. on May 25. The screening is hosted by the 350 Madison Climate Action Team, which is raising funds to organize local resistance to the Enbridge pipeline.
The film list New releases The Angry Birds Movie: 3-D animated film version of the 2009 avian vs. porcine mega-app. The animation is perfectly honed for a gamebased flick, but it can’t make up for a story that feels cobbled together.
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A Bigger Splash: A power couple’s vacation on a remote island is disrupted by the arrival of an old friend and his daughter. The Meddler: The title suggests a contentious relationship between a widowed mom Marnie (Susan Sarandon) and her adult daughter, but surprisingly little of the story revolves around that relationship. Writer/director Lorene Scafaria focuses instead on Marnie’s complicated road toward finally processing her grief, and Sarandon delivers a rich, heartbreaking performance. Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising: After vanquishing Delta Psi Beta in Neighbors, baby-rearing cool-couple Mac (Seth Rogen, who also directs) and Kelly Radner (Rose Byrne) face another onslaught of collegians. The twist — a smart, effective one — is that it’s not a bunch of beergasming dudebros making life hell for the Radners, but an off-campus sorority.
Recent releases Captain America: Civil War: This sequel hinges on a public outcry for accountability and oversight, as Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) sides with UN officials wanting to register and rein in the superheroes, while Cap’s suspicion of authority and his uber-patriotic defense of civil liberties compel him to defy orders. The spectacle never feels perfunctory, but you get the feeling the filmmakers’ hearts thump hardest for the spyintrigue in between the fight scenes. The Darkness: A vacationing family innocently brings home a supernatural force that preys on their fears and vulnerabilities.
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STARTS FRIDAY A BIGGER SPLASH
CLOSED CAPTIONED Fri: (1:30, 4:05), 6:55, 9:30;
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Money Monster: George Clooney plays Lee Gates, host of the titular show and predictor of “hot stocks.” When one of his investment tips proves ruinous, a newly bankrupted viewer takes Gates hostage while Gates’ producer (Julia Roberts) keeps the show on the air. Director Jodie Foster has a sure hand with the mounting tension inside this closed space, and while the Occupy Wall Street rage supposedly fueling this thing is flimsy, what’s left is still solidly entertaining. Sing Street: A 15-year-old student at an Irish Jesuit school starts a band, navigating safe passage through the financial and emotional woes of the 1980s. It’s an endearing toe-tapper from John Carney, the writer/director of Once, whose films celebrate the ecstasy of musical collaboration.
More film events 19, The Tony Robinson Shooting: A Case of Deadly Bias: Documentary about the 2015 shooting involving Madison police. Central Library, May 25, 6:30 pm Boys in Brazil: Four friends make a pact to come out of the closet by next year’s Pride celebration. OutReach, May 25, 6:30 pm. Red Desert: Richly colored industrial landscapes are the hallmark of this dystopian drama from director Michelangelo Antonioni. Bos Meadery, May 25, 7 pm.
Newport H2
Available for Avalible for the whole family!
The War Comes Home: The New Battlefront: Documentary from broadcast journalist Soledad O’Brien. Point, May 24, 7 pm.
10 Cloverfield Lane
The Jungle Book
The Boss
Keanu
Deadpool
The Lady in the Van
The Divergent Series: Allegiant
Mother’s Day
Green Room
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
Hail, Caesar!
Zootopia
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MAY 19–25, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM
Also in theaters
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The Man of Destiny: G.B. Shaw by Upstart Crows Productions, 7 pm, 5/19-20 and 27-28, Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ. $15 donation. 827-9482.
Dave Chappelle
The Lion King: Touring Broadway musical, 5/10-6/5, Overture Center-Overture Hall, at 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 pm Fridays, 2 & 8 pm Saturdays and 1 & 6:30 pm Sundays (1 pm only 6/5), plus 2 pm, 6/3. $145-$35. 258-4141.
Friday, May 20, Orpheum Theater, 7 pm and 10 pm
CO MEDY
Dave Chappelle achieved a near mythical status after he went AWOL at the height of his smash sketch masterpiece Chappelle’s Show. But the influential (and howlingly funny) standup has been more active in recent years, as evidenced by his early summer tour, which kicks off with these two shows. Comedy fans shouldn’t miss the opportunity to see this living legend in action.
Dan Soder Thursday, May 19, Comedy Club on State, 8:30 pm
picks
Dan Soder is a New York City-based comedian and writer who’s appeared on Inside Amy Schumer and performed multiple times on Conan. When he’s not touring as a standup, he’s writing and co-starring in Comedy Central’s web series Used People. His Macho Man impression is arguably the best out there. With Gerrit Elzinga, Nick Lynch. ALSO: Friday and Saturday (8 & 10:30 pm), May 20-21.
thu may 19
S PEC I A L EV EN TS The Bodega: Farmers, artisans, antiques, food carts, kids’ activities & more, 4-8 pm, 5/19, Breese Stevens Field, plus music by F. Stokes/Rappin’ Ricky. Free admission. breesestevensfield.com.
MU S I C
PICK OF THE WEEK
Meghann Wright & the Sure Thing Thursday, May 19, The Frequency, 6:30 pm
Meghann Wright’s songs are made up of “love, liquored memories, heartbreak and resilience,” according to her bio. Song-to-song, her style oscillates between soft, feminine folk and bold indie rock. Based in Brooklyn, N.Y., she stops here during a national tour as she works toward creating her first full-length album. With Feed the Dog, Teddy Davenport.
wasted no time in starting over. He formed Unknown Mortal Orchestra that same year, and the Portland, Ore.-based band has been steadily building buzz ever since, releasing three albums packed wall-to-wall with lo-fi psychedelia. Their newest, MultiLove, was released last May. With Whitney. Badger Bowl: Scott Wilcox, 8 pm. The Bayou: Johnny Chimes, free, 5:30 pm Thursdays. Bos Meadery: The Getaway Drivers, free, 6 pm.
Merchant: Prognosis Negative, rock, free, 10:30 pm. Tip Top Tavern: Jeffrey James, Mitch & West, 9:30 pm.
Up North Pub: Catfish Stephenson, 9 pm Thursdays. Verona Area High School Performing Arts Center: Verona Area Concert Band, free/donations, 7:30 pm.
THEATER & DANCE
Brink Lounge: Listening Party, 7 pm. Buck and Honey’s: David Hecht, free, 6:30 pm. Capital Brewery, Middleton: East Wash Jukes, 6 pm.
Trapper Schoepp Friday, May 20, The Frequency, 6:30 pm
Club Tavern, Middleton: Pat McCurdy, free, 9 pm. Essen Haus: Big Wes Turner’s Trio, free, 9 pm. Fountain: Big Dill & the Boys, jam rock, free, 8 pm.
ISTHMUS.COM MAY 19–25, 2016
Harmony Bar: Backroom Harmony Band, 8 pm.
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High Noon Saloon: Rock Star Gomeroke, free, 4:30 pm; Milkhouse Radio, free (on the patio), 6 pm; Mutts, Midwest Death Rattle, Wood Chickens, 9 pm. Ivory Room: Vince Strong, Taras Nahirniak, 9 pm.
When his previous band, the Mint Chicks, acrimoniously broke up onstage in 2010, New Zealand-born musician Ruban Nielson
MUS I C
Tricia’s Country Corners, McFarland: Frank James & Bobby Briggs, country, free, 8 pm Thursdays.
Chief’s Tavern: Hoot’n Annie, free, 8:30 pm.
Thursday, May 19, Majestic Theatre, 9 pm
fri may 20
Sprecher’s Restaurant and Pub: Moxie, 6 pm.
Cardinal Bar: DJ Jo-Z, Latin, 10 pm.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Social Justice Center Birthday Party: 5:30-7:30 pm, 5/19, Brink Lounge, with keynote by Ruth Conniff, Social Justice Award presentations. 227-0206.
Liliana’s, Fitchburg: Ken Wheaton, 5:30 pm Thursdays. Lisa Link Peace Park: The Riff’s Poser, Roughneck Grace, free, 5 pm. Louisianne’s, Middleton: Jim Erickson, 6 pm Thursdays. Mickey’s Tavern: Mal-O-Dua, 5:30 pm; Dash Hounds, Giant Dog, Goldmines, Heather Hussy, free, 10 pm.
Blithe Spirit Thursday, May 19, Bartell Theatre’s Evjue Stage, 7:30 pm
Strollers Theatre continues its British Invasion series with Noël Coward’s witty comedy featuring an eccentric medium who mistakenly summons a glamorous ghost with an ax to grind. ALSO: Friday (7:30 pm) and Saturday (2 pm), May 20-21.
“Precocious” is an unusual word to describe a 25-year-old, but when the person in question is Trapper Schoepp, it fits like a glove. The Milwaukee-based musician has managed to craft a timeless brand of heartland rock along with his band, the Shades, packed with wizened-yet-optimistic lyrics that have earned him space in Rolling Stone and on tours alongside the likes of the Old 97’s, Frank Turner and Social Distortion. Rangers and Valentines, his third full-length, was released in April. With Jacob Metcalf, Thompson Springs.
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n ISTHMUS PICKS : MAY 20 - 21 Liliana’s: Hanson Family Jazz Band, free, 6:30 pm. Lucky’s Bar, Waunakee: Beth Kille, free, 7:30 pm. Macha Tea Company: Dave Miller’s Old Door Phantoms, free, 8 pm. Mickey’s Tavern: The Deeps, German Art Students, Treemo, free, 10 pm. Mr. Robert’s: Undercover Organism, free, 10 pm. Parched Eagle Brewpub: Dan Walkner & Derek Pritzl, free, 7:30 pm.
The Sadies & Waco Brothers
Red Mouse, Pine Bluff: Madison County, 9 pm. Sprecher’s Restaurant and Pub: Blue Zone, 7 pm.
Friday, May 20, Majestic Theatre, 9 pm
Tempest Oyster Bar: Paul Rowley, free, 9:30 pm.
Though he’s probably best known for his work with punk lifers the Mekons, Jon Langford’s output with his alt-country outfit the Waco Brothers (pictured) is just as influential. The group has released a staggering 12 albums of punk-tinged country shitkickers that recall both Graham Parker and Gram Parsons in the same breath. They’ll be sharing the stage with the Sadies, a similarly prolific Canadian country outfit (and labelmates at Bloodshot Records), who have collaborated with everyone from Neko Case to X’s John Doe to Langford himself. With Sally Timms, Jon Langford & Skull Orchard.
Tip Top Tavern: Owls, Foxes & Sebastian, free, 10 pm. Tricia’s Country Corners: Universal Sound, 8 pm. Tuvalu Coffee, Verona: Soggy Prairie Boys, 7 pm. VFW-Cottage Grove Road: Back 40, 7:30 pm. Wil-Mar Center: Common Chord, 8 pm.
A RT EXH I B I TS & EV EN TS Gwen Avant, Gregory Klassen: Paintings, 5/20-7/3, Overture Center-James Watrous Gallery (reception 5:30-7:30 pm, 5/20). 265-2500.
T H EAT ER & DA N C E
Savages Friday, May 20, High Noon Saloon, 9:30 pm
London quartet Savages is an arresting band, making aggressive but atmospheric rock music full of grit and emotion. They pay homage to England’s history of gloomy, angular post-punk while bringing an energy that is all their own. Plus, they have some of the most booming bass lines you’ll hear in 2016. Their hit debut record, Silence Yourself, was released in 2013, and a follow-up, Adore Life, dropped this January. See page 34. With Head Wound City. Badger Bowl: Drumapalooza, 9:30 pm. Bandung: Jeff Alexander & Anapaula Strader, The Oudist Colony, Brazilian/Middle Eastern, free, 9 pm. Bos Meadery: Gary & Joan, free, 6 pm. Brink Lounge: Robin Nolan Trio, Harmonious Wail, jazz, 8 pm.
Circo Lucido Friday, May 20, Shannon Hall, 7:30 pm
Madison’s innovative aerial dance troupe Cycropia presents a cabaret-themed spectacle. You’ll be wowed by this blend of circus performance and theatricality, as expert dancers whirl around on trapezes, hoops, ropes and a custom-designed apparatus called a “dodecahedron.” ALSO: Saturday, May 21, 2 and 7:30 pm.
Brocach-Square: The Currach, free, 5:30 pm Fridays. Capital Brewery, Middleton: Stone Barone & the Mad Tones, funk/soul, free, 6 pm. Cardinal Bar: Ryan McGrath Band, free, 5:30 pm; DJ Whodie Guthrie, 10 pm. Chief’s Tavern: Frankie Lee, Tim Haub & Doug DeRosa, blues/old-timey, 6:30 pm. Club Tavern, Middleton: The Lower 5th, free, 9 pm. Crescendo Espresso Bar: Nate Currin, 7 pm. Crossroads Coffeehouse, Cross Plains: John Widdicombe & Cliff Frederiksen, jazz, 7 pm.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Delaney’s: Bob Kerwin & Dan Flynn, jazz, free, 6 pm.
Friday, May 20, Overture Center’s Playhouse, 7 pm
Essen Haus: Tom Brusky, free, 8:30 pm. First Congregational United Church of Christ: Madison Choral Project & Madison Chamber Choir, “Mass for Double Choir,” by Frank Martin & more, 7:30 pm. Also: 2:30 pm, 5/22.
ISTHMUS.COM MAY 19–25, 2016
Fountain: Richard Shaten, free, 7:30 pm Fridays.
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The Frequency: An Atomic Whirl, The Central, Capitol Swizzle Credit, The Unnecessary Gunpoint Lecure, 10 pm. High Noon Saloon: Rock Star Gomeroke, 5 pm. Hody Bar, Middleton: Thirsty Jones, free, 9 pm. Ivory Room: Peter Hernet, Vince Strong, Michael Massey, dueling pianos, 8 pm. Knuckle Down Saloon: James Armstrong, 8 pm.
To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most widely taught and beloved American novels of all time, and for good reason: Its themes of racial injustice and coming of age still reverberate today. See the Children’s Theater of Madison stage adaptation of the novel that brought us Scout and Atticus Finch, won the Pulitzer Prize upon its release in 1960, and three Academy Awards when it was adapted for the big screen. ALSO: Saturday (2:30 & 7 pm) and Sunday (2:30 pm), May 21-22.
SEARCH THE FULL CALENDAR OF EVENTS AT ISTHMUS.COM
The Old Apartment Friday, May 20, Merc Lab (930 N. Fair Oaks Ave.), 7:30 pm
Appropriately staged in a renovated garage, The Old Apartment is a world premiere by playwright Ned O’Reilly, who was inspired by the Barenaked Ladies song of the same name. The Left of Left Center production takes the audiences into four different homes with four very different householders, giving a glimpse of their dreams, memories and motivations. ALSO: Saturday (7:30 pm) and Sunday (4 pm), May 21-22.
Bright Red Studios: Tin Can Diamonds (album release), DJ Boyfrrriend, Chris Plowman, Afro Intellect, 8 pm. Brink Lounge: MadCity Radiators, 8 pm. Capital Brewery: Dan Law & the Mannish Boys, Midvale Elementary playground benefit, 6 pm.
115 KING STREET DOWNTOWN MADISON
Just Announced
Cardinal Bar: DJ Fernando, 9 pm.
LIVE ON KING STREET 2016:
Club Tavern: Anderson Brothers, free, 9 pm. Come Back In: Field & James, free, 9 pm. Crystal Corner Bar: Pistols at Dawn, Skyline Sounds, Compact Deluxe, 9:30 pm. Essen Haus: Brewhaus Polka Kings, free, 8:30 pm.
FRI
JUN 24
DARK STAR ORCHESTRA
First Congregational United Church of Christ: Con Vivo, “Five by Seven,” chamber music, 7:30 pm. First Unitarian Society: Ancora String Quartet, works by Mozart, Schubert & Sullivan, 7:30 pm.
JUL 15
LEWIS DEL MAR
FRI
Harmony Bar: Dead Larry, 9:45 pm. Hop Haus Brewing, Verona: Lucas Cates, free, 8 pm.
JUL 29
RA RA RIOT
Ivory Room: Peter Hernet, Kevin Gale, 8 pm.
Acts to Grind
Kiki’s House of Righteous Music: Will Johnson, house concert (RSVP: undertowtickets.com), 8 pm.
FRI
Knuckle Down Saloon: The Volcanics, 9 pm.
Friday, May 20, Mary Dupont Wahlers Theatre (1480 Martin St.), 8 pm
Liliana’s: John Widdicombe & Stan Godfriaux, 6:30 pm.
A series of sly and laugh-out-loud funny vignettes about elections and life with disabilities created by Encore Studio for the Performing Arts, Wisconsin’s only professional theater company for people with disabilities. ALSO: Saturday, May 21, 8 pm.
Merchant: DJ Fuzzy Duck, free, 10:30 pm.
Ben Franklin & Baron von Steuben vs. the Paine County School Board: A conservative small town is visited by two of the founding fathers, 7:30 pm, 5/20-21, TAPIT/new works. $20. 244-2938.
Mr. Robert’s: Far From Nowhere, free, 10 pm.
COME DY
Tempest: DJ Whodie Guthrie, free, 9:30 pm.
Dave Chappelle: 7 & 10 pm, 5/20, Orpheum. $62. 250-2600. See page 38.
Tricia’s Country Corners: Country Wide Rocks, 9 pm.
B OOKS / S P O K EN WORD Mary Kubica: Discussing “Don’t You Cry,” her new novel, 7 pm, 5/20, Mystery to Me. 283-9332.
FA IR S & F EST I VA LS Fitchburg Days: Annual Irish festival, 5/20-22, McKee Farms Park, with kids’ activities, carnival, cultural tent, food, music including the Nylons (4 pm Sunday). Free admission. fitchburgdays.com.
SP ECI A L EV EN TS Strollin’ Verona: Madison Jazz Consortium music walk, 4:30-10:30 pm, 5/20, Verona locations. Free. Schedule: jazzinmadison.org. Lowell Elementary Centennial Weekend: Fundraiser events: Cocktail reception with music, 7-10 pm, 5/20, Goodman Community Center ($25); Carnival with music by Oak Street Ramblers, food carts, rummage sale & more, 9 am-3 pm, 5/21, at the school; Brunch, 10 am-noon, 5/22, at the school ($10). Tickets: gofundme.com/100yearplayground.
SP ECTATO R S P O RTS
sat may 21 MU SI C Badger Bowl: Denim ‘n Leather, rock, 9:15 pm. Bos Meadery: Philly Slim, free, 6 pm.
AUG 5
Mezze: Charlie Painter & Friends, jazz, free, 9 pm.
FRI
Mickey’s Tavern: The Flavor That Kills, Nester, Queenager, free, 10 pm.
AUG 12
Monona Terrace: Hapa, Hawaiian concert, 8 pm.
HORSESHOES & HAND GRENADES ROD TUFFCURLS & THE BENCH PRESS
Mother Fool’s Coffeehouse: Randy Wilson, 8 pm. Octopi Brewing, Waunakee: Nine Thirty Standard, rock/blues/country, free, 7 pm. Sprecher’s Restaurant: Ryan McGrath Band, 7 pm.
FRI
THE KILLS
THU
UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA
SEP 16
SPECIAL GUEST
MAY 31 BARRYMORE THEATRE
BARRYMORELIVE.COM 608824188633 TICKETMASTER
GORDON LIGHTFOOT
Tip Top Tavern: Whiskey Business, free, 10 pm. Tuvalu Coffee, Verona: Ellie & Cam, free, 7 pm. UW Memorial Union-Terrace: Darren Sterud Organ Quintet, free, 9 pm. Wisconsin Brewing, Verona: DJ Toe Knee V, 7 pm. Woof’s: DJ Paulie-D, ‘80s, 4 pm.
MAY 19
JUNE 27
C APITOL T HEATER
OVERTURECENTER.ORG 608-258-4141 OVERTURE CENTER BOX OFFICE
T HE AT E R & DANCE
In My Life
FRI
Saturday, May 21, Barrymore Theatre, 8 pm
MAY 20
This stage musical chronicles the career of the Beatles through the eyes of their manager, Brian Epstein. In My Life tells the Fab Four’s story by re-creating many of their legendary performances and key moments, brought to life by tribute act Abbey Road. Madison native Nate Bott plays John Lennon. See page 34.
FRI
MAY 27
B OOKS / S POKEN WORD Jim Leary: Discussing “Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937-1946,” his new book/CD, 11 am, 5/21, Lakeview Library. 246-4547. Urban Spoken Word: Poetry slam, music by MTrane Plus, $5, 7 pm, 5/21, Genna’s Lounge. 332-4643.
ART E XHI BITS & EV ENTS Ancient Looms, Modern Thread: Contemporary Handwoven Garments from Oaxaca, Mexico: 5/218/13, UW Nancy Nicholas Hall-Ruth Davis Design Gallery. 262-8815.
➡
THU
JUN 2
THE SADIES & WACO BROTHERS THE DEAR HUNTER AESOP ROCK
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT MAJESTICMADISON.COM
ONE OF ROCK S MOST PHYSICALLY POWERFUL AND EMOTIONALLY RESONANT VOCALISTS. - NY DAILY NEWS
H I G H E R T R U T H T O U R
ACOUSTIC - SHOWCASING SONGS FROM HIS ENTIRE CATALOG
JULY 5 OVERTURE HALL TICKETS ON SALE NOW
AT OVERTURECENTER.ORG, 608-258-4141, AND AT THE OVERTURE CENTER BOX OFFICE.
MAY 19–25, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM
Madison 56ers: Premier League of America men’s soccer vs. Cedar Rapids Rampage, 7 pm, 5/20, Breese Stevens Field. $8. 217-5453.
Mason Lounge: Major Vistas (CD release), 7 pm.
BIRD
HOME
The Frequency: Phil Gnarly & the Tough Guys, Muscle Car, rock, 7 pm. Halverson’s, Stoughton: Acoustic Alloy, 6 pm.
DARK
IS
FRI
Fountain: Thistle Pettersen, free, 8 pm.
THE TA L L E S T MAN ON BASIA BULAT EARTH
41
n ISTHMUS PICKS : MAY 21 - 26
Join Us Monday, June 27 THE 22ND ANNUAL
Friends of Sid Boyum Bike Tour: View sculptures, guided by Teri Marche, 1 pm, 5/21, from Yahara Place Park ($20; RSVP: sidbiketour.eventbrite.com); reception & live auction begins 4 pm at Next Door Brewing (free admission). RSVP: friendsofsidboyum.org. 242-1662.
Bos Meadery: Open Mic with Joe Leonard, 2 pm.
SP ECIAL EV ENTS
Java Cat: Nick Matthews, free, 9:30 am Sundays.
Wisconsin Folks: Masters of Tradition: Performances by Kripa Baskaran, Alberto Cardenas, Dylan Jennings & Vanitha Suresh, 3 pm, 5/21, Stoughton Opera House, plus visual art by Mardell Doubek, Pamela Rucinski & Sidonka Wadina. $10. 877-4400.
Maduro: DJ Nick Nice, free, 10 pm Sundays.
DIY Wrap Party: For “The Smart Studios Story,” 4-9 pm, 5/21, Burrows Park, with games, music, potluck. facebook.com/events/507336679452769. MadCity Bazaar: Artisans, vintage items, 9 am-3 pm, 5/21, Trinity Lutheran Church. madcitybazaar.com.
SP ECTATOR SP ORTS Madison Mad Dawgs: Semi-pro football vs. JC Chargers, 3 pm, 5/21, Warner Park. $6. 239-6885. Madison Blaze: vs. Detroit, 5 pm, 5/21, Middleton High School stadium. $10. madisonblazefootball.com. Madison Radicals: American Ultimate Disc League match vs Cincinnati Revolution, 6 pm, 5/21, Breese Stevens Field. $7 ($6 adv.). radicalsultimate.com.
P OLITICS & ACTIV ISM Racial Justice Tipping Point: Wisconsin Network for Peace & Justice campaign kick-off, 9 am-5 pm, 5/21, James Reeb Unitarian Universalist Congregation. $25 donation. facebook.com/events/934020613379135. Check out Voting: Dane County Voter ID Coalition registration deputies & info on current voter ID laws, 11 am-1 pm, 5/21, all Madison libraries. 729-7720.
Bishops Bay Country Club, Middleton
sun may 22
EVENING Join Madison native and former LPGA Tour champion Sherri Steinhauer. She will be on the golf course throughout the day to share tips and take photos.
• Cocktail reception • Concert by the Madison Symphony Orchestra • Gourmet picnic dinner
Register online at madisonsymphony.org/cog For information, contact the Madison Symphony Orchestra League at (608) 260-8680 x232. Proceeds support the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s nationally-recognized Community Engagement and Education Programs.
Harmony Bar: Take the King, Madison Music Foundry Student Rock Band, Apollo’s Rocket, MMF benefit, 3 pm. Liliana’s Restaurant, Fitchburg: Cliff Frederiksen, jazz, free, 10:30 am Sundays. Mickey’s Tavern: The Kool 100’s, Roboman, 10 pm. Tricia’s Country Corners, McFarland: Frank James & Bobby Briggs, country, 3 pm.
FA I RS & FEST I VA L S Isthmus Food Cart Fest: Annual event, 2-6 pm, 5/22, Central Park, with music. Sold out. 251-5627. WORT Block Party: Annual fundraiser, 11 am-7 pm, 5/22, 200 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., with craft, food & beer, kids’ activities, raffle, music: Black Marigold 11:15 am, Mal-O-Dua 12:30 pm, Tony Castaneda Latin Jazz Ensemble 1:45 pm, Primitive Culture 3 pm, Charles Walker Band 4:15 pm, Rousers 5:50 pm. wortfm.org. 256-2001.
S PEC I A L EV EN TS Spring Celebration Neighborhood Walk: Self-guided walk to participating Dane Buy Local businesses, 1-6 pm, 5/22, Atwood Avenue, State Street & Monroe Street neighborhoods, with food/drink samples, gifts, music. $30 passport. danebuylocal.com. Africa Night: UW African Students Association performances & more, 7 pm, 5/22, Overture CenterPromenade Hall. 258-4141. Black Sheep Bazaar: Local makers’ market, 10 am6 pm, 5/22, High Noon Saloon, free admission; portion of vendor profits donated to Planned Parenthood. 268-1122.
M USIC
Remodeled Homes Tour: Annual National Association of the Remodeling Industry Madison chapter showcase, 9:30 am-4:30 pm, 5/22, in Madison & Monona. $10. Locations: narimadison.org. 222-0670.
The Black Dahlia Murder
B O O KS
DAY • Golf Tournament (shot gun start, two net best balls of four)
Brocach Irish Pub-Square: An Blas, Irish, free, 5 pm.
Sunday, May 22, The Frequency, 8 pm
Fans of loud music shouldn’t miss the chance to check out this iconic band and their killer live show. Formed in 2001, the members of Black Dahlia Murder have become the elder statesmen of the modern metal scene. The Michiganbased quartet are considered the architects of melodic death metal, releasing seven full-length albums that have been a regular presence on Billboard’s rock charts. Their most recent, Abysmal, came out last year. With Fallujah, Disentomb.
Frank Bures: Discussing “The Geography of Madness,” his new book, 2 pm, 5/22, A Room of One’s Own. 257-7888. See page 21.
A RT EXH I B I TS & EV EN TS ArtWrite Collective: Reception for large scale paper sculpture project, 2:30-4:30 pm, 5/22, Central Library. 266-6300.
mon may 23 MUS I C Alchemy Cafe: DJ Samroc, free, 10 pm Mondays. American Legion Post 385, Verona: Paoli Street Pickers, country/bluegrass, free, 12:30 pm Mondays. Cold Fusion, Middleton: Bluegrass Jam, 6:30 pm. Crystal Corner Bar: Thistle Pettersen, free, 8 pm.
John DeMain, Music Director
Funk’s Pub, Fitchburg: Project M Challenge, 6 pm. Harmony Bar: David Landau, 5:30 pm Mondays.
MAJOR SPONSORS
High Noon: Clyde Stubblefield All-Star Band, 6 pm. Malt House: The Barley Brothers, free, 7:30 pm.
ISTHMUS.COM MAY 19–25, 2016
ANONYMOUS FRIENDS
42
The So So Glos Sunday, May 22, High Noon Saloon, 8 pm
The So So Glos are set to release Kamikaze, their fifth full-length of shout-along punk, on May 20. The four-piece is renowned for high-energy live performances, and (with members of Titus Andronicus) they helped found Shea Stadium, the all-ages DIY venue in Brooklyn, N.Y. With the Dirty Nil, Heavy Looks.
Overture Center-Promenade Hall: Rhapsodie Quartet, Madison Symphony Orchestra ensemble, 7 pm. Up North Pub: Pat Ferguson, free, 7 pm.
S PO K EN WO RD Watershed Reading Series: Poetry, 8 pm, 5/23, Arts & Literature Laboratory. $3 donation. 556-7415.
PO L I T I C S & AC T I V I S M 1500th Vigil for Peace: Marking 35 years of meetings, noon, 5/23, outside Madison Municipal Building; potluck picnic follows. mbspeace1@charter.net.
tue may 24 MU SI C
Matador and Jagjaguwar, the veteran four-piece self-released its newest album, Banshee, in February after crowdfunding more than $20,000 in a single month to produce it. With Blank Range. 1855 Saloon and Grill, Cottage Grove: Ken Wheaton, fingerstyle guitar, free, 6 pm Wednesdays. Arts & Literature Laboratory: Sam Moss, Jen Clare Paulson, Kerosene Healers, 7 pm. Bowl-A-Vard Lanes: Chewy, free, 6 pm. Cardinal Bar: DJ Dub Borski, 9 pm. Crystal Corner: Chuck Lorenzo & Tim Heiman, 9 pm. Frequency: Nihil, Delinquents, Pigeon & Crow, 10 pm. Ivory Room: Nicky Jordan, piano, free, 9 pm.
Future Punx + Spray Paint Tuesday, May 24, The Frequency, 8 pm
Future Punx (pictured) are a Brooklynbased five-piece who blend disco and punk to make what they dub “post-wave,” as noted on their appropriately titled 2015 debut LP, This Is Post-Wave. Spray Paint is a trio from Texas that makes punk rock for the art kids. They released two albums in 2015 and plan to release another this summer. With Samantha Glass. Capital Brewery, Middleton: Mac Dralle, free, 6 pm. Crystal Corner Bar: Bing Bong, rock, free, 8 pm. Malt House: Dollar Bill & the Bucks, free, 7:30 pm.
Liliana’s Restaurant, Fitchburg: Cliff Frederiksen & Ken Kuehl, jazz, free, 5:30 pm Wednesdays. Natt Spil: DJ Evan Woodward, free, 10 pm. Olin Park: Cris Plata with Extra Hot, free, 6 pm. Opus Lounge: Shawndell Marks, free, 9 pm. Otto’s: Gerri DiMaggio, free, 5:30 pm Wednesdays. Quaker Steak and Lube, Middleton: Charm School Rejects, free, 5:30 pm. Up North Pub: MoonHouse, free, 8 pm. VFW Post 7591-Cottage Grove Road: Jerry Stueber, free, 6 pm Wednesdays.
B OOKS Janet W. Hardy: Reading from/signing books, 5 pm, 5/25, A Woman’s Touch. 250-1928.
Mickey’s Tavern: Em Jay, free, 10 pm.
POL I T I CS & ACTIV ISM
Otto’s: Westside Andy & Glenn Davis, free, 5:30 pm Tuesdays.
Bean Feed: South Central Federation of Labor Committee on Political Education’s annual fundraiser, 6 pm, 5/25, Madison Labor Temple, with baked beans, hot dogs & salad. $5 donation. 256-5111.
B OOKS The Doll Collection: Readings from the new poetry anthology by Robin Chapman, Susan Elbe, Andrea Potos, Alison Townsend, 6:30 pm, 5/24, Mystery to Me. 283-9332.
wed may 25
thu may 26 MUS I C
701A E. Washington Ave. 268-1122 www.high-noon.com
THURSDAYS H 8:30PM H FREE
Tate’s
MU SI C
Arbor Labor Union
FRI, MAY 20 H 8PM H $9
Wednesday, May 25, The Frequency, 7 pm
Arbor Labor Union may hail from Georgia, but listening to “Mr. Birdsong,” an epic seven-minute track from I Hear You, their debut for Sub Pop, you might think they were formed on a vision quest in the California high desert. The group — called Pinecones before signing with Sub Pop — specializes in the kind of driving, funky, epic rock that Josh Homme has spent decades perfecting. With the Momotarōs.
Wednesday, May 25, High Noon Saloon, 8 pm
The Seattle-based Cave Singers blend the best of folk and classic rock to create an easy, carefree American sound. Previously signed to prominent labels
Celebrated Chicago Blues Artist
Flint Eastwood Thursday, May 26, The Frequency, 9 pm
Jax Anderson, the creative force behind Flint Eastwood, hails from Detroit. Her father’s musically talented family and her mother’s love of Motown brewed a perfect storm for Anderson’s musical career. Although her first release, Late Nights in Bolo Ties, featured bluesy distortion and emotional vocals on top of energetic electro pop, 2015’s Small Victories is more atmospheric, with carefully crafted layers. Live, Anderson strives to complement the dance-ready music with multimedia touches, so watch for projections, theatrical lighting and costumes. With Soul Low. High Noon Saloon: Oak Street Ramblers, free (patio), 6 pm; Project M Finale, Beth Kille Band, free, 9 pm. Lisa Link Peace Park: The Pine Travelers, free, 5 pm. Merchant: Featherwolf, free, 10:30 pm. Mickey’s Tavern: Pistols at Dawn, Compact Deluxe, The Gubers, Roboman, free, 10 pm.
James Armstrong SAT, MAY 21 H 9PM H $5
Madison Favorites
The
Volcanics ROCK, FUNK, & RnB
FRI. MAY 27 SAT. MAY 28 Brandon Santini Maggie & The Mighty Fines
$2 OFF COVER w/ VALID COLLEGE ID ALL SHOWS 21+
2513 Seiferth Rd., Madison
222-7800
KnuckleDownSaloon.com
MUTTS
Summer Patio Series
thu may
19
MILKHOUSE RADIO 6pm
fri may
20
FREE
22 mon maY
9pm
$8
18+
HAPPYOKE SAVAGES Rock Star Gomeroke 5pm $7
sun May
Midwest Death Rattle Wood Chickens
Head Wound City
9:30PM $18 ADV, $20 DOS 18+ THE
Black Sheep Bazaar 10am-6pm
SO SO GLOs The Dirty Nil Heavy Looks / 8pm
FREE
$10 adv, $12 dos
18+
FUNKY MONDAYS HAPPY HOUR FEAT.
The Clyde Stubblefield All-Star Band 23 6pm $7
tue may
24 wed may
25
Samba ROCKSTAR Novistas GOMEROKE THE
CAVE SINGERS Blank Range /
Summer Patio Series
thu may
26
live band karaoke 9pm FREE
6pm $5
Oak Street Ramblers 6pm
FREE
8PM
$15 18+
Project M Finale Followed by The
Beth Kille Band 7pm FREE
18+
MAY 19–25, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM
The Cave Singers
BLUES JAM
43
n EMPHASIS
Seaside at Hilldale Pier South fills the nautical clothing niche BY TAMIRA MADSEN
BETH SKOGEN PHOTOS
Pier South’s classic casual clothes and boaty decor may remind shoppers of Cape Cod, the Outer Banks or their own favorite coastal getaway.
If your upcoming vacation includes a sun-splashed rendezvous with fruity rumflavored cocktails and sand between your toes, Pier South can definitely outfit your trip. Ditto if you’re staying in Wisconsin and want a tropical-colored sheath dress or crisp men’s linen shirt for the summer. The 1,600-square-foot shop opened April 15 on Hilldale’s main thoroughfare near Macy’s (between the Home Market and Kate Spade). It’s owned by Middleton businessman Ben Scharpf, his wife, Barb, their daughter Mary, and Mary’s fiancé, Nick Atkin. The nautically themed space includes a wooden reproduction of a Chris-Craft boat stern, which serves as a front counter. The store also features hand-crafted shelves, mahogany tables and artwork by Barb, who specializes in the impasto paint technique. Mary is proud of the design detail of the shop, with its “cabin-like and cottage feeling.” The concept for Pier South was devised by Barb and Mary, inspired by annual trips
the family used to take to Destin, Fla. The family continues to vacation together and spends two weeks each year in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Ben says that Pier South fills an underserved niche in the Madison market by focusing on coastal and Southern-inspired clothes. And Mary made a conscious effort to appeal to a wide variety of ages — from toddlers to grandparents — when selecting brands for the shop. Among the shop’s 10 upscale clothing lines for men, women and children are Peter Millar, Island Company and Southern Tide. The shop also stocks Sail to Sable, a resort-oriented line founded in 2012 by Connecticut resident Jennifer Stocker; Ben characterizes the brand as resembling the classic style of Lilly Pulitzer. And Pier South has one of the largest offerings of Vineyard Vines in Wisconsin — nautically themed apparel for the entire family instantly recognizable by its quaint, preppy whale logo. Expect to find Vintage Vines polo and button-down shirts ($85$115) and Sail to Sable matching mother/ daughter dresses ($98-$248). n
PIER SOUTH n 704 N. Midvale Blvd. n 608-509-7901 n piersouthclothing.com
Jenifer Street Market’s
Jenifer Street Market’s 7th Anniversary
It’s time to drink pink!
CELEBRATION!
Get your FREE Anniversary Gift just for asking!*
Celebrate rosé season at our Pink Party
AND POTATOES! FREE MEAT with your first $50 purchase
Saturday, May 21 • 4-7PM
1 lb of our Fresh In Store made
Redskin Potato Salad
Enjoy 2 glasses of rosé for $12, try a rosé flight, or stroll through our rosé garden
($3.49 value)
First we boil the potatoes & chop them by hand; then, add Fresh celery, onions & mayonnaise, finally, we add our special seasoning! This is the best potato salad you will taste in Madison.
1 lb of our fresh
+ Ground Chuck ($4.89 value)
Ground fresh many times daily, in-store, unlike the big chain stores.
FREE STEAK!
ISTHMUS.COM MAY 19–25, 2016
with your additional $50 purchase
44
Hand-cut & Trimmed in Store USDA CHOICE
2045 Atwood Ave. #111, Madison 608.284.9732
New York Strip Steaks (value $13.99)
Sun-Mon: 12-6, Tues-Thurs: 12-8, Fri-Sat 12-9
in store. Limit one $50 celebration gift per single transaction. Spend $100 and receive both celebration *See detailsgifts. tablewinemadison.com Limited to quantities on hand. Excludes cigarette sales. Offers good thru May 17, 2016.
2038 Jenifer St., Madison • 244-6646 • Open Daily 7:30am-9pm
*
See details in store. Limit one $50 celebration gift per single transaction. Spend $100 and receive both celebration gifts. Limited to quantities on hand. Excludes cigarette sales. Offers good thru May 24, 2016.
2038 Jenifer St., Madison • 244-6646 • Open Daily 7:30am-9pm
*Se
WELCOMES
n CLASSIFIEDS
Housing MADISON - 1217 Meadow Sweet. Valley Ridge subdivision, secluded backyard on Park, 2-story, 2137 sq. ft, 4 BR, 2.5 BA, fireplace, 9’ ceiling, 6-panel doors, main level laundry, SS appliances, exposed LL for future build & BA, 2-car garage, fruit trees. MLS#1765549 REDUCED $345,000 Kathy Tanis (608) 469-5954 KTanis@BunburyRealtors.com Bunbury & Associates Realtors HouseReward.com Thinking of selling? We list homes as low as 4% total commission. Dane County full-service Realtor. Call 381-4804 Lori@HouseReward.com 2463 WEIER, RIDGEWAY/ HOLLANDALE MLS 1758676 Open House Sun May 22, 1-4 pm As a young artist, I was always envious of my artist friends (OK, Jealous, if you must know!) who had their living space and studio space under one roof and had a large lot for a veggie garden. Well, now I VICARIOUSLY enjoy the unique, artistic listings that I have on the market! Read on.... One of a kind brick School House on an acre of organic land: 2000 sq feet of fabulous space with newer addition of Master Suite and Library - also suitable for painting - plus two car attached Garage! Huge screened porch. Views of farmland. Quiet. Perfect for uninterrupted concentration! PLEASE USE YOUR GPS for directions; there are a lot of roads which you can take! WORTH THE LOVELY DRIVE! PAT WHYTE 608-513-2200 OPEN HOUSE 11:00-2:00 Sun May 22nd. Once in a Lifetime!! Lake Wisconsin / Lodi 3500 Ft. Lake Frontage, 24.74 Spectacular Wooded Acres Big water views, level frontage at building site, Easy road access, Small cabin, good water depth, 20 min. to Madison, 12 min to interstate. $795,000. Call: Bob Sprysl 608-225-9626, email: bsprysl@ureach.com
Buy-Sell-Exchange Matching people and property for over 20 years. Achieve your goals! Free consult. www.andystebnitz.com Andy Stebnitz 608-692-8866 Restaino & Associates Realtors TENNY PARK Large sunny 2 bedroom, hardwood, laundry, parking. Cats ok, $875 heated, Available 8/15/16 hurry! (608) 235-1237
All real estate advertised is subject to the Federal Fair Housing Act, which makes it illegal to advertise any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, national origin, or status as a victim of domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking; or intention to make any such preference, limitation or discrimination. Isthmus will not knowingly accept any advertising for real estate which is in violation of the law. All persons are hereby informed that all dwellings advertised are on an equal opportunity basis.
THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH
Jobs MADCAT seeks full time service rockstars. Must have retail experience, strong work ethic, love people and pets. Position requires a self-starter with a drive to provide relentless service. Learn about companion animal nutrition and behavior and use your communication skills to help clients make informed decisions concerning their pets well-being. Normal business hours include weeknights and weekends.
BARRYMORE 5.31
SAVAGES
HIGH NOON SALOON 5.20
Love cats? Awesome. Can you lift and carry at least 50lbs ? Good. Can you be friendly and attentive to multiple clients at the same time? Rock on. Detailed and personalized cover-letters and resumes accepted at all locations. No phone calls, please. General cleaners are responsible for calling in a daily basis to District Manager for dispatching to appropriate building. General cleaners maintain the cleanliness of their designated buildings/ areas by performing various cleaning duties. PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES: • Dust surfaces including desktops, cabinet tops, partitions, picture frames etc. • Empty wastebaskets and recyclables; transport to designated disposal area • Sweep with broom, dust and/or wet mop hard surfaced floors • Vacuum floors using upright vacuum and/or vac packs • Spot clean carpet • Clean glass areas • Clean and disinfect sinks, countertops, toilets, mirrors, floors, etc. • Replenish bathroom supplies • Polish metalwork, such as fixtures and fittings • Job duties may be modified at any time • Additional guidelines are listed in the Employee Handbook • Other tasks may be assigned based on customer or management discretion General Cleaner Minimum of 6 months experience Growing company. Apply now! Don’t miss this opportunity! Part time. Programmed Cleaning INC www. programmedcleaning.com Reliable. Commercial cleaning
TOKYO POLICE CLUB AND WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS MAJESTIC 6.3
CAGE THE ELEPHANT ORPHEUM 6.11
SONNY KNIGHT & THE LAKERS
W/ CLYDE STUBBLEFIELD ALL STARS
MAJESTIC 6.10
BUILT TO SPILL
HIGH NOON SALOON 6.20
Nature’s Bakery Cooperative is accepting applications for a full-time worker-owner. Not a typical 9-5 job nor just for “bakers”. Position incorporates packaging, delivery, kitchen prep and line work with some office work. Pick up applications at 1019 Williamson St.
Caring People Needed! Energetic, dependable and fun people desired to assist the elderly in Madison. Non-medical companionship and in-home care. Flexible hours. Home Instead Senior Care: (608) 663-2646. Woman in Waunakee looking for a caregiver. Pay rate is $11.66/hr. Hours vary. Call Karen at (608) 577-7884. Man in Waunakee looking for a caregiver. Pay rate $11.66/hr. Hours vary. Call Mark at (608) 849-9571.
STEVE MILLER BAND BREESE STEVENS FIELD 7.1
INDIGO GIRLS
BARRYMORE 7.23
WIN TICKETS @ ISTHMUS.COM/PROMOTIONS
MAY 19–25, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM
Vacation on beautiful Rowleys Bay, northern Door County. Two large rental cottages plus our spacious lighthouse suite. Private beach. Firepits. Boating. Swimming. Kayak/canoe rentals on-site. Stone’s throw from world famous Mink River. Quiet. Peaceful. 920-421-1257 rowleysbaycabins@gmail.com
ALL AREAS ROOMMATES.COM. Lonely? Bored? Broke? Find the perfect roommate to complement your personality and lifestyle at Roommates.com! (AAN CAN)
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JONESIN’
n CLASSIFIEDS
“Freemium” — another freestyle display of words.
#780 BY MATT JONES ©2016 JONESIN’ CROSSWORDS
ACROSS
1 Brake quickly and accurately 12 Zapp Brannigan’s timid, green assistant on “Futurama” 15 Interactive Twitter game on Comedy Central’s “@midnight” 16 Eggy prefix 17 Part of a content warning, maybe 18 Columnist Savage 19 Palindromic “War on Poverty” agcy. 20 Providing funds for 22 Body part in a lot of cow puns 25 Kind of dye containing nitrogen 26 Without a stitch 27 Bob Ross ‘dos 28 Fault finder
P.S. MUELLER
31 Physicians’ medical gp. 32 “Cast Away” costar (in a way) 33 Clearance sale container 34 Herd of whales 35 Grass bought in rolls 36 Be the author 37 Greek vowel that resembles an English consonant 38 Title for a Khan 39 “Thirteen at Dinner” detective 41 Bon ___ (cleanser brand) 42 Stuck trying to get somewhere, maybe 44 Aesopian conclusion 46 Drei squared 47 “M*A*S*H” soldier, briefly 48 Orgs. 49 Pull forcibly on 52 Hard ending? 53 Comedian Notaro
54 2014 bio subtitled “Paul McCartney in the 1970s” 59 Ending for winter or weather 60 Assimilate a different way of life, perhaps 61 French possessive meaning “your” 62 Cinematographer’s option DOWN
1 “___-La-La” (1974 Al Green hit) 2 One of Lincoln’s sons 3 Sch. for Cowboys, Buckeyes, or Beavers 4 Innermost layer of tree bark 5 Sleek, whiskered swimmers 6 Gp. with a phonetic alphabet 7 Comics outburst 8 Frank Zappa’s oldest son
9 1975 Leonard Nimoy autobiography (with an “opposite” 1995 follow-up) 10 “A horse is a horse” horse 11 Canadian (and former U.S.) fuel brand 12 Southern Alaskan omnivores (and the largest of their kind) 13 Director of “Ghostbusters” and “Ghostbusters II” 14 Bad things to use on a chalkboard 21 Pugilist’s org. 22 In a difficult situation 23 Render a credit card useless, e.g. 24 Theater consultants of sorts 25 Folk rocker with the 2014 album “Allergic to Water” 29 Jim Morrison, e.g. 30 Business off the highway 32 “Scratch me behind the ears!” 35 Place for some “me time” 40 Hilariously funny 43 “Messenger” molecule 44 Biz Markie vocals played over Metallica, say 45 Some blenders 50 Apple that debuted 18 years ago 51 It dissolves in H2O 52 Caesar’s “And you?” 55 Atlanta Braves’ MLB div. 56 “Go, old-timey baseball team!” 57 “Teach ___ Fly” (2009 single for Wiz Khalifa) 58 Make after expenses LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS
Jobs
contd. Looking For . . . Operations Specialist
WHO WE ARE In its capacity as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), Forward Community Investments’ (FCI) mission is to build stronger and healthier communities by providing loans, advising and grants to mission-based organizations that address the root causes of racial and socioeconomic disparities and support initiatives that improve equity and make positive change possible. http://www.forwardci.org/ Our Vision is an equitable and inclusive Wisconsin built on cooperative social action. Our Values: community, partnership equity and inclusion. WHAT WE DO Since 1994, FCI has supported Wisconsin-based projects and programs by providing loan capital, financial expertise and organizational capacity building for: affordable housing, community services and economic development initiatives. We have lent more than $65 million to 100+ missiondriven organizations, making a difference in the lives of more than 400,000 people. WHAT WE NEED FCI is looking for an individual who has office administration experience; a demonstrated interest for organizations and initiatives that address the root causes of disparities and inequity; is comfortable operating within FCI’s mission; has an appreciation for working in a value-based culture and has experience working for nonprofit entities. The ideal candidate is a strong communicator and relationship builder with the ability to forge deep relationships, respect the value of team work and has an eye for detail. The position is 80% time and is physically located at 2045 Atwood Avenue, Madison, WI. SPECIFIC JOB RESPONSIBILITIES In his/her capacity as Operations Specialist, s/ he will provide administrative support for the President and staff; schedule, manage and prioritize the President’s calendar; review and prioritize incoming calls and correspondence; arrange staff travel plans; nurture and maintain key relationships in a highly professional manner; schedule, coordinate and provide staffing support for meetings of FCI’s board of directors and committees; act as receptions and greeter, including phone and visitors; and analyze and organize office operations including filing systems, requisition of supplies and other clerical services.
ISTHMUS.COM MAY 19–25, 2016
WHAT YOU NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL Office administration experience; an associate’s degree or equivalent experience is required; interest in community development and/or social services, active community engagement and volunteering are a big plus; superior communication and relationship talents; excellent writing skills; ability to thrive in an entrepreneurial, team-oriented, and mission-driven environment.
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HOW TO APPLY To apply, please send your resume and a cover letter to resumes@forwardci.org. Your thoughtful cover letter should address your relevant qualifications and demonstrate your passion for community. FCI is an equal opportunity employer that aggressively seeks to expand the diversity of its staff. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Are you in BIG trouble with the IRS? Stop wage & bank levies, liens & audits, unfiled tax returns, payroll issues, & resolve tax debt FAST. Call 844-753-1317 (AAN CAN) Caregiver needed to assist with light housekeeping and personal cares. Limited term for weekends and overnights beginning 6/15/16. Please contact (608) 222-5929.
Services & Sales PREGNANT? THINKING OF ADOPTION? Talk with caring agency specializing in matching Birthmothers with Families Nationwide. LIVING EXPENSES PAID. Call 24/7 Abby’s One True Gift Adoptions. 866-413-6293. Void in Illinois/New Mexico/Indiana (AAN CAN) Viagra!! 52 Pills for Only $99.00. Your #1 trusted provider for 10 years. Insured and Guaranteed Delivery. Call today 1-877-621-7013 (AAN CAN) AFFORDABLE PSYCHIC READINGS - Career & Finance, Love Readings and More by accurate & trusted psychics! First 3 minutes - FREE! Call anytime! 888-338-5367 (AAN CAN) CHECK OUT THE FOUNDRY FOR MUSIC LESSONS & REHEARSAL STUDIOS & THE BLAST HOUSE STUDIO FOR RECORDING! 608-270-2660 www.madisonmusicfoundry.com KILL ROACHES - GUARANTEED! Buy Harris Roach Tablets with Lure. Odorless, Long Lasting. Available: Hardware Stores, The Home Depot, homedepot.com (AAN CAN) KILL BED BUGS & THEIR EGGS! Buy Harris Bed Bug Killers/KIT Complete Treatment System. Available: Hardware Stores, The Home Depot, homedepot.com (AAN CAN) CASH FOR CARS: Any Car/Truck 2000-2015, Running or Not! Top Dollar For Used/Damaged. Free Nationwide Towing! Call Now: 1-888-4203808 (AAN CAN)
Happenings AIRLINE CAREERS begin here – Get started by training as FAA certified Aviation Technician. Financial aid for qualified students. Job placement assistance. Call Aviation Institute of Maintenance 800-725-1563 (AAN CAN) AFFORDABLE SPACE AVAILABLE Neighborhood House has an art room, meeting rooms, community room and gym available for continuing programs, classes and meetings. $5-$12 per hour. Located at 29 S. Mills. Call 608-255-5337 or email info@ neighborhoodhousemadison.org.
Health & Wellness Swedish Massage For Men, providing immediate Stress, Tension and Pain Relief. Seven days a week by appt.—same day appointments available. Contact Steve, CMT at: ph/text 608.277.9789 or acupleasur@aol.com. Gift certificates available for any reason or season @ ABC Massage Studio! Viagra!! 52 Pills for Only $99.00. Your #1 trusted provider for 10 years. Insured and Guaranteed Delivery. Call today 1-888-403-9028 Penis Enlargement Medical Pump. Gain 1-3 Inches Permanently! Money Back Guarantee. FDA Licensed Since 1997. Free Brochure: Call (619) 294-7777 www.DrJoelKaplan.com ELIMINATE CELLULITE and Inches in weeks! All natural. Odor free. Works for men or women. Free month supply on select packages. Order now! 844-244-7149 (M-F 9am-8pm central) (AAN CAN)
n SAVAGE LOVE
Guilt-ridden BY DAN SAVAGE
Over the years, I have consumed what I believe to be an average amount of porn for a 44-year-old hetero guy. I have never paid for it, and I am now facing a troubled conscience for that fact. I could obviously just subscribe to some site or other now, but that would benefit only one company and/ or set of performers. Is there a Dan Savage-approved charity relating to the adult film industry to which I could donate? Seeks Penance And Needs Knowledge “Porn performers almost never get royalties for their scenes when they work for big studios,” says Conner Habib, a writer, activist and porn performer. “If you buy into the trickle-down theory of things, then more money for the studio should mean more money for the performers. If you don’t buy into that — and not everyone does—there are other options.” To get your money directly to the performers whose work you’re currently enjoying/stealing, SPANK, you can patronize smaller studios run by performers, book time with independent webcam models and purchase porn created by performers on sites like Clips4Sale.com.
To atone for your years of freeloading, SPANK, you can and should make large donations to two organizations. “The Adult Performer Advocacy Committee (APAC) (apac-usa.com) is the largest performer-based organization in the world, and its membership is made up entirely of performers,” says Habib. “Full disclosure: I’m the vice president, but no donation money goes to me or any board member. It all goes to the organization, which works to improve the working conditions, quality of life and safety of performers, as well as to fight anti-porn laws and stigma.” Habib also recommends donating money to the Sex Workers Outreach Project (swopusa.org). “This isn’t a porn-specific organization,” said Habib, “but it works to protect and fight for the rights of all sex workers. Since many performers are doing other forms of sex work, donations go a long way to help porn performers.” Habib will be hosting an online lecture/seminar about the upside of porn on Sunday, June 5. His talk is titled “Pornworld: Why Pornography Is a Healthy Part of Our Culture,” and you can find out more about it by searching “pornworld” at Eventbrite.com. You can — and you should — follow Habib on Twitter @ConnerHabib. I didn’t talk to my nearly-70-year-old dad for most of my 20s. Now that I’m back trying
creepy, but I desperately want him to stop with the inappropriate comments. He makes about one creepy comment per phone conversation. If he were a person at work, I would be able to stand up for myself and say, “That is not appropriate.” But when he says creepy stuff, Dan, I’m a deer in the headlights. I go silent, it’s awkward, and I keep hoping he’ll understand how weird he’s being. I would say something, but bringing up things that anger me causes him to act overly sorry, and that routine is annoying too. I asked my mom (they divorced a long time ago), and she had no suggestions. She was just like, yeah, he’s like that. Any suggestions on what to say? Seeking Help Regarding Unpleasant Guy CRAIG WINZER
to maintain relationships with my parents, I am struggling. My dad is the king of the overshare. He makes creepy comments about women who are about 30 to 40 years younger than him — including women who were kids when he met them but are now grown-ups. Not something I want to hear. I don’t think he is abusing anyone, just being
“Dad! It creeps me out when you make comments about women you wanna fuck. I realize you’re a sexual person, and I honor that, and blah de blah blah blah. But these are thoughts you share with friends, Dad, not with your adult children. There’s no need to go into your oh-so-sorry routine, Dad, we just need to change the subject.” n Email Dan at mail@savagelove.net or reach him on Twitter at @fakedansavage.
Stop by Uncle Gene’s today to pick up a new and improved hooded sweatshirt complete with a built-in holster.
And don’t forget, when sending your wife down the road with a gas can, it is impolite to ask her to bring back beer. 2009 FREEPORT RD. • 271-3827 • NEAR VERONA & RAYMOND ROADS
“IsthmusMadison”
MAY 19–25, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM
share and share and like ;p
47
300
$
in U.S. Cellular® Promo Cards.
ISTHMUS.COM MAY 19–25, 2016
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2 GB Bonus Data monthly for two years.
Learn more at uscellular.com/bonus. Things we want you to know: Shared Connect Plan 3GB and above, Smartphone purchase, Customer Service Agreement with a 2-yr. initial term (subject to a pro-rated $350 Early Termination Fee) or Retail Installment Contract for installment pricing required. Device Protection+, port-in, Smartphone turn-in and credit approval also required. Up to a $40 Device Activation Fee applies. A Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee (currently $1.82/line/month) applies; this is not a tax or gvmt. required charge. Additional fees (including Device Connection Charges), taxes, terms, conditions and coverage areas apply and may vary by plan, service and phone. $1,000 Bonus Package includes a 1. $300 Switcher Incentive: Limit one per line. $100 U.S. Cellular Promotional Card given at point of sale. Additional $200.02 Promotional Card will be mailed to customer within 6–8 weeks. Promotional Cards issued by MetaBank,® Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. Valid only for purchases at U.S. Cellular stores and uscellular.com. 2. 2GB of bonus data added to customer’s Shared Connect Plan each month for 24 months. Bonus data must be used in the month provided. A value of $480. 3. See uscellular.com/bonus for remaining details of the $1,000 Bonus Package. Turned-In Smartphone must have been active on former carrier’s plan and be in fully functional, working condition without any liquid damage or broken components, including, but not limited to, a cracked screen or housing. Smartphone must power on and cannot be locked or password protected. Device Protection+: Enrollment in Device Protection+ required. The monthly charge for Device Protection+ is $8.99 for Smartphones. A deductible per approved claim applies. You may cancel Device Protection+ anytime. Insurance underwritten by American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida. Service Contract Obligor is Federal Warranty Service Corporation, except in CA (Sureway, Inc.) and OK (Assurant Service Protection, Inc.). Limitations and exclusions apply. For complete details, see an associate for a Device Protection+ brochure. Offers valid at participating locations only and cannot be combined. See store or uscellular.com for details. Limited-time offer. T rademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners. ©2016 U.S. Cellular